I started this blog because I wanted to get to the bottom of things. At the Niskanen Center, I’ve worked on policies to address the problems of slow growth, high inequality, and declining state capacity, and I’ve been involved in various initiatives to shore up our legal and political system in the face of Trump’s assaults. In all this work, I repeatedly got the sense that I was addressing the acute symptoms of deeper maladies and problems — and that responding effectively to our contemporary predicament would ultimately require engagement at that deeper level. So that’s why I’m here: to try to get a better handle on the underlying causes of our present-day challenges, in the hope that improved understanding will shed light on how best to move forward.