Reviews

The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive by Dean Baker

kmcquage's review

4.0

It's scattered and a little sloppy, but brave and groundbreaking.

miocyon's review against another edition

4.0

An interesting, if a bit dated now, book about how liberals should be using economic tools to fight for their causes. His big point is that the classic liberal strategy of "tax the rich to give to the poor" doesn't resonate enough and is unrealistic politics. He advocates that liberals educate themselves about the economic levers of power, which is something I agree on, and is one of the reasons I've been reading books like this. Some of his big strategies that liberals should advocate for are a weaker dollar (to lower trade deficits and make American goods cheaper, shoring up our manufacturing sector) allowing for free trade not just in low-paying areas (like manufacturing) but in professional areas, like doctoring (making those services, like health care cheaper), and reducing intellection property and copyright protections (making things like drugs and textbooks cheaper). I can get behind most of his strategies, especially the reining in of finance, both directly and through the reduction in their power via the mechanisms above, although I'm not sure we need to keep shoring up manufacturing. I would rather have a stronger social safety net for those workers displaced by the movement of manufacturing to other areas.
He lives by his word about copyright - the book is available as a free download online.