American conservatism rose hand-in-hand with the growth of mass incarceration. For decades, conservatives deployed "tough on crime" rhetoric to attack liberals as out-of-touch elitists who coddled criminals while the nation spiraled toward disorder. As a result, conservatives have been the motive force in building our vast prison system. Indeed, expanding the number of Americans under lock and key was long a point of pride for politicians on the right - even as the U.S. prison population eclipsed international records.

Over the last few years, conservatives in Washington, D.C. and in...

Economists have long taught that there is a tradeoff between efficiency and equity -- that is, between making a bigger pie and dividing it more fairly. This idea is what makes our current predicament so puzzling: today we are faced with both a stagnating economy and sky-high inequality. Both problems have many causes, but Brink Lindsey and Steven M. Teles argue that one cause-state action to entrench privilege by subverting market competition - is common to both. When the state assumes this role, the tradeoff between equity and efficiency no longer holds.
Over the past 40 years or so,...