The predator state : how conservatives abandoned the free market and why liberals should too / James K. Galbraith.

Includes index.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Whatever happened to the conservatives? -- The freedom to shop -- Tax cuts and the marvelous market of the mind -- Uncle Milton's war -- The impossible dream of budget balance -- There is no such thing as free trade -- What the rise of inequality is really about -- The enduring new deal -- The corporate crisis -- The rise of the predator state -- The inadequacy of making markets work -- The need for planning -- The case for standards -- Paying for it.

The cult of the free market has dominated economic policy-talk since the Reagan revolution. Tax cuts and small government, monetarism, balanced budgets, deregulation, and free trade are the core elements of a dogma so successful that even many liberals accept it. Meanwhile, conservatives like George W. Bush have abandoned it, and the Reagan true believers have abandoned Bush. Here, James K. Galbraith, the iconoclastic economist, dissects the remains of Reaganism and shows how Bush and company had no choice except to dump them. He then explores the true nature of the Bush regime: a "corporate republic," bringing the mentality of big business to public life, and a predator state, intent not on reducing government but rather on diverting public cash into private hands. The real problems and challenges--inequality, climate change, the infrastructure deficit, the subprime crisis--cannot be solved by free markets. They will be solved only with planning, standards and other policies that transcend and even transform markets.--From publisher description.