Can Markets Make Us Equal?

Proposed solutions for inequality are depressingly familiar. Liberals want to raise taxes; conservatives want to cut them; populists in the Trump mold want to exclude immigrants and restrict foreign trade. The centrist business community triangulates between stale agendas. Doesn’t anybody have anything new to offer?

Actually, yes: One big new idea is to unleash the awesome power of markets and push them into parts of life where they have never operated before. And at the same time, to design mechanisms that harness markets’ power to uplift the poor. The agenda is conservative in its means, because conservatives like markets, but liberal in its ends. It’s like letting a tiger out of its cage and throwing a saddle on its back. And it just might be what the world needs now.