The Wisconsin Progressives on Moral Failure, Market Failure, and Inequality

Marianne Johnson

International Journal of Political Economy, 2025, vol. 54, issue 2, 182-197

Abstract: This article considers the intellectual legacy of Richard T. Ely and Wisconsin progressive economic thought on inequality and weighs its continuing relevance. The result of a research program that simultaneously embraced theory, statistical measurement, and institutional analysis, the Wisconsin progressives concluded the solution to growing inequality lay in state action. Recommendations included a range of pre-distributive social and labor policies, tax reforms, and constraints on corporate and monopoly actions, particularly those that obstructed efforts to improve the social welfare. It is because the Wisconsin progressives located the solution to inequality not in redistribution but in an interconnected set of laws and policies designed to remedy moral, market, and institutional failures that their approach remains apposite.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/08911916.2025.2525032

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