The Niskanen Center’s Brink Lindsey and Steven Teles have been making the rounds of late, promoting their new book The Captured Economy. In it, Teles, who teaches political science at Johns Hopkins University, and Lindsey, a long-time think-tanker whose previous experience includes several years at the Cato Institute, argue “the powerful have rigged the economic game in their favor.” This “folk theory of inequality,” they write, is not “the ranting of ignorant rubes,” but is rather closer to the mark than many sophisticates on both the left and the right would like to admit. Even if grassroots populism has it wrong about the “specific mechanisms” through which elites enrich themselves, its account is “at least aiming in the right direction.” The authors’ acknowledgment that government is actively tipping the scales in favor of the rich and their economic interests is refreshing. Pundits on the political left...(Read Full Article)