Kimberly Clausing
120 μ¢¤³£ ¬μμ¬
the estate tax, it can raise rates and reduce exceptions. And it can
bee up enforcement o both. Congress should also enact a long-
overdue carbon tax. Coupled with the other policies, a carbon tax
could raise substantial revenue without harming poor and middle-
class Americans, and it would Äght climate change.
Finally, policymakers need to reckon with corporations’ growing
market power. They should modernize antitrust laws to put more
emphasis on labor and modernize labor laws to suit the nature o
work today, making sure that they adequately protect those in the
service sector and those in the gig economy. Although large compa-
nies are often good for consumers, their market power narrows the
share o the economy that ends up in the hands o workers. So the
balance o power between companies and their workers needs to be
recalibrated from both ends: policies should empower labor move-
ments and combat companies’ abuses o market power.
In the end, global markets have many wonderful beneÄts, but they
need to be accompanied by strong domestic policies to ensure that
the beneÄts o international trade (as well as technological change
and other forces) are felt by all. Otherwise, economic discontent fes-
ters, empowering nationalist politicians who oer easy answers and
peddle wrong-headed policies.
American workers have every reason to expect more from the
economy, but restrictions on trade and immigration ultimately
damage their interests. What those who care about reducing inequal-
ity and helping workers must realize, then, is that protectionism
and nativism set back their cause. Not only do these policies have
direct negative eects; they also distract from more eective poli-
cies that go straight to the problem at hand. On both sides o the
aisle, it’s time for politicians to stop vilifying outsiders and focus
instead on policies that actually solve the very real problems aÔicting
so many Americans.∂