How would a mixed economy help us to do any better?
It would help us to temper inequalities, to develop civic virtues, to preserve a national belief that we’re all, somehow, in this together rather than a nation mostly of people who think only the fittest, or wealthiest, should dominate access to everything the best education, the best job opportunities, best health care and so forth and let the rest fend somehow for themselves. Harvard economist Richard Freeman, in a Harvard Business Review article in September, referred to our “apartheid economy.” Labor Secretary Robert Reich said last month in his farewell speech: “It used to be in America, a rising economic tide caused all ships to rise. But recently, the rising tide is elevating only the yachts. The rowboats in between have barely avoided taking on water and the little rafts and dinghies are sinking.” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney is out there trying to reinvigorate the labor movement as a voice for new balance in society. Maybe you’re not so isolated. Maybe we’re seeing the stirr
