The Year Ahead 2020

The Year Ahead magazine 2020 cover image

As 2019 draws to a close, it is unclear whether we have reached “peak disruption,” or whether a further unraveling of political systems, economic models, and international arrangements is in the offing. Between the poles of populist/authoritarian “destruction” and liberal/reformist reconstruction, what specific forces are most likely to define the next year – and the next decade?

Surveillance Capitalism
Getty Images

Surveillance Capitalism

Jan 3, 2020 Shoshana Zuboff explains why Big Tech's business model represents the advent of an unprecedented political economy.

3
How to Make the Internet Safe for Democracy
Getty Images

How to Make the Internet Safe for Democracy

Jan 3, 2020 Francis Fukuyama urges antitrust reform before delegating regulation of online speech to the Internet platforms that host it.

1
The Myth of Global Decoupling
Getty Images

The Myth of Global Decoupling

Jan 3, 2020 Stephen S. Roach argues that a bilateral US-China conflict cannot divide a multilateral trade system into two blocs.

0
Inequality in Cambridge and Chicago
seraficus/Getty Images

Inequality in Cambridge and Chicago

Jan 3, 2020 Angus Deaton welcomes the growing chorus of hard questions about the real-world effects of neoclassical economics.

13
The Other Side of Growth
Getty Images

The Other Side of Growth

Dec 26, 2019 Esther Duflo & Abhijit Banerjee urge Chinese and Indian policymakers to avoid focusing only on GDP as a means of improving people's lives.

2
Central Europe’s Republics of Fans
Getty Images

Central Europe’s Republics of Fans

Dec 26, 2019 Ivan Krastev explains why liberal appeals to democratic principles could intensify political polarization in the region.

0
Demagogic Stress and Constitutional Growth
Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Demagogic Stress and Constitutional Growth

Dec 26, 2019 Laurence Tribe thinks Donald Trump has unwittingly created an opportunity to expand the promise of America's founding document.

0
Peace Through Myriad Acts
Getty Images

Peace Through Myriad Acts

Dec 26, 2019 Moon Jae-in calls for greater international efforts to help end decades of division on the Korean Peninsula.

0
Can the World Order Catch Up with The World?
Getty Images

Can the World Order Catch Up with The World?

Dec 26, 2019 Kishore Mahbubani warns that three global contradictions, if not addressed soon, will almost certainly lead to crisis.

2
Protecting Competition in a Digital World
Getty Images

Protecting Competition in a Digital World

Dec 26, 2019 Andreas Mundt offers a glimpse of the platform economy from the perspective of Germany's national antitrust authority.

0

The Roots of American Misery

James K. Galbraith

While there is no shortage of Ivy League scholars offering ambitious explanations for everything that ails the United States today, there does seem to be a scarcity of sound, fact-based analysis. In fact, the failure of elites to see what is really afflicting the country is itself one of the biggest problems.

reviews three books by leading scholars on the roots of the country's political and socioeconomic discontent.