From Boston Review, a forum on Losing and Gaining Public Goods: The debate about public goods is at heart a debate about what it means to be an American. America is not a “center-right nation”: In fact, on economic policy, America is a center-left nation. Thread: “You can’t think productively about economic policy in America today without thinking about identity, race, and the divisions that afflict us. It’s not what economists were trained to think about, but here we are”. This American town was left to die, and suddenly economists care. “Buy American” campaigns have historically done more to intensify xenophobia than improve workers’ conditions: Chris Brooks interviews Dana Frank, author of Buy American: The Untold Story of Economic Nationalism.
