Governing the Economy: Markets, Experts, and Citizens

Abstract

The 2008 financial crisis provoked a debate over how we as a democratic society ought to govern the modern market economy. Our prevailing response to this problem of economic governance has been to appeal either to free markets as self-regulating, self-optimizing systems, or to technocratic rule by neutral experts. Both these systems are appealing because of they claim to promote the public good free of the corruption, irrationality, conflict, and vagaries of democratic politics. This project aims to overcome this skepticism to sketch an account of a democratic approach to economic governance, inspired by the thought and reforms of the Progressive Era.