The World Unpacked How Economists Failed America
Feb 6, 2026
Oren Kass, conservative policy thinker and founder of American Compass, reflects on how trade and industrial strategy reshaped his views. He discusses trade with China, tariffs as leverage to rebuild domestic supply, why consumption metrics hide deeper decline, and how AI and industrial policy can steer long-term economic resilience.
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Romney Briefing Sparked A Shift
- Working for Mitt Romney on trade pushed Oren Kass to ask "what are we going to do about China?".
- That task revealed thin economic thinking and shifted his intellectual path toward trade skepticism.
Markets Are For More Than Consumption
- Economists reduced markets to maximizing consumption and minimizing work, which narrows policy goals.
- Oren Kass argues markets must also sustain family, community, vocation and national resilience.
America Once Embraced Active Economic Policy
- Kass traces a long American tradition of active national economic policy from Hamilton through mid-20th century.
- He argues the post-Cold War faith in unfettered markets created policy laziness and structural decline.
