America Needs a Return to First Principles

"The authors credit the 'micro-foundations of the economy' for having driven living standards “to heights unimaginable at the nation’s founding. Those foundations—Mr. Cogan’s first principles—are private property rights, the rule of law, free and competitive markets, and limited government. The last includes “subsidiarity,” meaning that no central authority should do what can be done by a more local body, and no public institution should do what can be left to private enterprise. 

'When you think about what drives America’s GDP,' Mr. Cogan says, 'it’s millions of individuals working, investing, saving and making allocative decisions with these microfoundations in place.'

"The authors identify as the 'sine qua non' of American prosperity the 'three I’s”—ideas, individuals and institutions ...  'a sound economic governance framework liberates the individual, encourages the promulgation of new ideas, and ensures the proper functioning of institutions.' A policy that offends any of these elements—by restricting the individual, stifling ideas or letting institutions stray beyond their proper limits—is likely to harm the economy." (Tunku Varadarajan, WSJ, April 2022).

For more, visit Reinvigorating Economic Governance.