What a Load of Economic Crap
I can't believe the head of the Economic Policy Institute wrote this!
Monopoly,
Externalities,
Oligopoly,
Public Goods,
Information asymmetries,
Taxes,
Boundedly Rational agents.
This guy has managed to get only 2 out of the 7. Further, he is highly misleading with his comment "The underlying assumption is that unfettered markets produce the best outcomes, except in a few very specified situations:". This is completley false. Why does he have to present such a misleading case? I'm quite pro-market, and yet I'll tell you that in most cases the idea that the market is not going to fail is laughable.
I'd say the vast majority of economists would agree that the assumptions that allow for the outcome Mishel is talking about are extremely restrictive. That is, the unfettered markets = good outcome relies on the First Fundamental Welfare theorem in economics.
Mishel continues,
The U.S. economic-policy debate is in fact dominated by the assumption that unfettered markets work best, a view that's applied to our domestic economy and to that of other countries through international financial institutions that the United States controls. John Kerry's recent statement that he is "not a redistributionist" indicates how dominant this view has become.
This is almost delusional. If the dominant view is that unfettered markets is the way to go, why is there so much government inferference? I have to wonder if this crud is due to ignorance or a deliberate attempt to mislead the readers.