Joseph Stiglitz was already known as the Nobel Prize-winning economist who authored books on inequality, occupied Wall Street and popularized the term the “1 percent.” So it was right in character when he appeared with Senator Elizabeth Warren and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, the Democratic left’s standard-bearers, to announce the release of a new economic manifesto in May. But the report, a project of the left-leaning Roosevelt Institute called “Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy,” is more than just an ode to the little guy. Looking back at 35 years of American economic policy—deregulation, tax cuts, social welfare and more—Stiglitz decries “deliberate ideological, institutional and legal” initiatives that he believes paved the way for the rich to profit at the expense of the poor, and led to the economic downturn.
