The Third Pillar

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Rajan offers up a big-picture framework for understanding how three forces-- the state, markets, and our communities-- interact, why things begin to break down, and how we can find our way back to a more secure and stable plane. The "third pillar" of the title is the community we live in. Economists all too often understand their field as the relationship between markets and the state, and they leave squishy social issues for other people. That's not just myopic, Rajan argues; it's dangerous. All markets are embedded in a web of human relations, values and norms. Throughout history technological phase shifts have ripped the market out of those old webs and led to violent backlashes, and to what we now call populism. Rajan argues for a return to strengthening and empowering local communities as an antidote to growing despair and unrest