The Return of the State: And Why It Is Essential for Our Health, Wealth, and Happiness

Summary

A vigorous and timely defense of the state as a force for good

For decades now wealth and power have been shifting from states to markets. This experiment has been a failure for all but a privileged few. But this trend is beginning to reverse, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has seen the state play the most direct and positive role in citizens’ everyday lives in living memory.

Graeme Garrard makes a powerful case for the state as our only realistic hope of countering the rising power of multinational corporations, organized crime, and international organizations that will always put their own interests first. Today, the state is essential to the health and welfare of everyone except the rich and powerful. Yet it is being rolled back and whittled away, leaving the well-being of most of us at the mercy of unaccountable private powers that are increasingly free from external control. As Garrard shows, the state is the only realistic way of promoting the public good in our time.