Liberalism, Judge explains, disavows the problem of distributive conflict. When the postwar growth engine began to slow, finance—which appears to extend distributive shares without requiring taxation or redistribution—promised a way out of the resulting political impasse. Elected officials were not captured or co-opted: they willingly embraced financial solutions to their political problems. Finance, naturally, exacts a price, however: subjecting government to the financial imperative t...
