Winter 2017, No. 43

This journal started in 2006, with the Iraq war still blazing, the financial crisis still to come, and progressives in a similarly dour place. And authors back then still tried to see ahead, see what was possible, see how the broad left could fill in the holes being created daily by a robust and headstrong conservative movement.

After the election, a common sentiment among folks like us, and we suspect like you, was some version of “Why bother?” If this can happen, what’s the use in advocacy work or releasing a white paper or even in high-minded political thinking itself? And while there was plenty of that in this office, and many other offices and homes around the country, we got back to it.

Because, hard as it may seem, essays on tax policy, like those of Lily Batchelder and Kim Clausing, still matter. Reviews on whether technological growth is a thing of the past, like Stephen Rose’s, still matter. Coverage of other countries, like Sophia Pandya’s rundown of the escalating situation in Turkey, still matter. Because government policy, economic trends, and societal change will continue apace, even with a new, very different President.

With that in mind, read a symposium unlike the usual horserace coverage, on the future of liberalism, conservatism, and even language and truth themselves, in the era of Trump. In a new partnership with the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, we have the first in a series of articles on some parts of government policy that could make our economy fairer. The first two articles are on how taxation of wealth and inheritances, and how it’s gone badly astray. Also in the feature well, essays on protecting workers from “big data,” an urgent topic that’s often missing in technology coverage. Finally, Yascha Mounk tells us what’s wrong with the politics of “personal responsibility,” but also what should be saved from it, Henry Farrell diagnoses the ills in British politics.

Back Issues Archive

Symposium

America After Trump

An introduction to our Issue #43 symposium.

By The Editors

1 MIN READ

Trump, Brexit—The West in Crisis

By Ed Miliband

8 MIN READ

What Next for Liberalism?

By Daniel T. Rodgers

11 MIN READ

Reform Conservatives, Time to Step Up

By Sam Tanenhaus

12 MIN READ

What Did the Press Just Do?

By Alex S. Jones

11 MIN READ

Where Is Feminism Now?

By Susan Faludi

11 MIN READ

Rallying Cries, Locker-Room Talk, and Tweets

By Virginia Heffernan

7 MIN READ

Race in Trump's America

By John McWhorter

7 MIN READ

Humility Time

By Susie Linfield

9 MIN READ

Can Truth Survive Trump?

By Arthur Goldhammer

8 MIN READ

Features

Disunited Kingdom

Brexit and the rise of far-right parties are only the conclusion of a decades-long weakening of British and European political parties.

By Henry Farrell

25 MIN READ

Labor and Capital in the Global Economy

How three decades of technological change, globalization, and government policy made workers more at the mercy of concentrated capital.

By Kimberly Clausing

17 MIN READ

Data Dilemma

Big Data is used to determine everything from job offers to prison sentences. And it’s a lot less objective than it seems.

By Chelsea Barabas

16 MIN READ

The Roots of the Turkish Crisis

Attempted coups aren’t new in Turkey. What’s brought it to this point—and where it may head from here.

By Sophia Pandya

31 MIN READ

Fixing the Estate Tax

Income from inheritances is taxed at a lower rate than income from work, and only the wealthiest of the wealthy pay. How to create a fairer system.

By Lily L. Batchelder

17 MIN READ

Responsibility Redefined

Trying to have government measure and reward “personal responsibility” is a bad idea, but agency does have a role in a just and equal society.

By Yascha Mounk

26 MIN READ

Book Reviews

A Hillbilly Left?

The left’s “white working class” problem has become a touchstone of post-election debate. But progressives can only offer so much.

By Monica Potts

21 MIN READ

Is Growth Over?

Our phones get more powerful and our TVs bigger, but those improvements aren’t showing up economically. Is this permanent?

By Stephen Rose

17 MIN READ

From Eleanor to Hillary

How two first ladies, nearly a century apart, faced so many of the same obstacles.

By Irin Carmon

13 MIN READ

Responses

It’s Still Not the Supply Side

Yes, workers should be able to move and work freely. But economics remains fundamentally about power. A response to the “What’s Holding Us Back” symposium.

By Mike Konczal Marshall Steinbaum

12 MIN READ

Recounting

It’s an Outrage

Outrage can be useful, but our media and our attention is drenched in it. That’s a problem.

By Jack Meserve

7 MIN READ

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