James Piereson examines the bizarre aftermath of John F. Kennedy's assassination: Why in the years after the assassination did the American Left become preoccupied with conspiratorial thinking? How and why was Kennedy transformed in death into a liberal icon and a martyr for civil rights? In what way was the assassination linked to the collapse of mid-century liberalism, a doctrine which until 1963 was the reigning philosophy of the nation?

The United States has been shaped by three sweeping political revolutions: Jefferson’s revolution of 1800,” the Civil War, and the New Deal. Each of these upheavals concluded with lasting institutional and cultural adjustments that set the stage for a new phase of political and economic development. Are we on the verge of another upheaval, a fourth revolution” that will reshape U.S. politics for decades to come? There are signs to suggest that we are.James Piereson describes the ...

The controversy over inequality has gathered steam with the publication of Thomas Piketty’s new book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, a dense work of economic history that documents the rise of income inequality in recent decades and sets forth an agenda of taxation to deal with it. Piketty’s treatise has turned into a rallying point for those favoring income redistribution and higher taxes on the rich.In this Broadside, James Piereson explains how Piketty’s book is f...

Democratic presidential candidates, including Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, along with progressive economists like Thomas Piketty and Paul Krugman, have made a case for redistributing income from the wealthy to the poor as a means of reducing inequalities in income and wealth. Meanwhile, public opinion polls show that voters reject programs of redistribution in favor of policies designed to promote overall economic growth and job creation. While voters are concerned about inequality,...

During the 1980s and 1990s, European economies went through a period of slowing economic growth and high unemployment, what some economists described as “secular decline.” On the other side of the Atlantic, the United States enjoyed a robust recovery during those years by reducing taxes, eliminating regulations on business, and tightening monetary policy.Now, after two decades of subpar growth, the question is whether or not the American economy has entered into its own era of secu...

The pace of trade reforms waned from the mid-2000s as protectionist sentiment began to increase. With the onset of the global financial crisis, reform progress not only halted but began to reverse. As we show in this note, new trade restrictions have had—in the limited products they targeted—a strong negative impact on trade. The aggregate impact of new restrictions is modest, at about 0.25 percent of global trade, as most countries have resisted a widespread resort to protectionism. Looki...

Mark Lane tried the only U.S. court case in which the jurors concluded that the CIA plotted the murder of President Kennedy, but there was always a missing piece: How did the CIA control cops and secret service agents on the ground in Dealey Plaza? How did federal authorities prevent the House Select Committee on Assassinations from discovering the truth about the complicity of the CIA?Now, New York Times best-selling author Mark Lane tells all in this explosive new book-w...

Why is the Atlantic slowly filling with crude petroleum, threatening a millions-of-years-old ecological balance? Why did traders at prominent banks take high-risk gambles with the money entrusted to them by hundreds of thousands of clients around the world, expanding and leveraging their investments to the point that failure led to a global financial crisis that left millions of people jobless and hundreds of cities economically devastated? Why would the world’s most powerful military spen...

Surveying three centuries of economic history, a Harvard professor argues for a leaner global system that puts national democracies front and center.From the mercantile monopolies of seventeenth-century empires to the modern-day authority of the WTO, IMF, and World Bank, the nations of the world have struggled to effectively harness globalization's promise. The economic narratives that underpinned these eras—the gold standard, the Bretton Woods regime, the "Washington Consensus"—br...

A brilliant new reading of the economic crisis—and a plan for dealing with the challenge of its aftermath—by one of our most trenchant and informed experts.When the nation’s economy foundered in 2008, blame was directed almost universally at Wall Street. But Robert B. Reich suggests a different reason for the meltdown, and for a perilous road ahead. He argues that the real problem is structural: it lies in the increasing concentration of income and wealth at the top, and in a middl...

The second volume of the bestselling landmark work on the history of the modern stateWriting in The Wall Street Journal, David Gress called Francis Fukuyama's Origins of Political Order "magisterial in its learning and admirably immodest in its ambition." In The New York Times Book Review, Michael Lind described the book as "a major achievement by one of the leading public intellectuals of our time." And in The Washington Post, G...

Has capitalism failed?Is it fundamentally greedy and immoral, enabling the rich to get richer? Are free markets Darwinian places where the most ruthless crush smaller competitors, where vital products and services are priced beyond the ability of many people to afford them?Capitalism is the world's greatest economic success story. It is the most effective way to provide for the needs of people and foster the democratic and moral values of a free society. Yet ...