The Captured Economy: How the Powerful Enrich Themselves, Slow Down Growth, and Increase Inequality
Brink Lindsey · Steven M. Teles
Aug 2018 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Shawn Compton
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6 hr 26 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook
For years, America has been plagued by slow economic growth and increasing inequality. Yet economists have long taught that there is a tradeoff between equity and efficiency-that is, between making a bigger pie and dividing it more fairly. That is why our current predicament is so puzzling: today, we are faced with both a stagnating economy and sky-high inequality. In The Captured Economy, Brink Lindsey and Steven M. Teles identify a common factor behind these twin ills: breakdowns in democratic governance that allow wealthy special interests to capture the policymaking process for their own benefit. They document the proliferation of regressive regulations that redistribute wealth and income up the economic scale while stifling entrepreneurship and innovation. When the state entrenches privilege by subverting market competition, the tradeoff between equity and efficiency no longer holds. Over the past four decades, new regulatory barriers have worked to shield the powerful from the rigors of competition, thereby inflating their incomes-sometimes to an extravagant degree. Lindsey and Teles detail four of the most important cases: subsidies for the financial sector's excessive risk taking, overprotection of copyrights and patents, favoritism toward incumbent businesses through occupational licensing schemes, and the NIMBY-led escalation of land use controls that drive up rents for everyone else. Freeing the economy from regressive regulatory capture will be difficult. Lindsey and Teles are realistic about the chances for reform, but they offer a set of promising strategies to improve democratic deliberation and open pathways for meaningful policy change. An original and counterintuitive interpretation of the forces driving inequality and stagnation, The Captured Economy is a "must-listen" for anyone concerned about America's mounting economic problems and the social tensions they are sparking.
About the author
Brink Lindsey is Vice President and Director of the Open Society Project at the Niskanen Center. He is the author of, most recently, The Age of Abundance and Human Capitalism.
Steven M. Teles is professor of political science at the Johns Hopkins University and a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center. His books include The Captured Economy, Prison Break, The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement, and Whose Welfare: AFDC and Elite Politics.
Shawn Compton is a professional voice actor and audiobook narrator. He is also a seventeen-year veteran of the Air Force, and has a strong creative background from which to draw inspiration for his narration.
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