My latest book has finally been accepted and has disappeared into the publication process – next stop copyediting. It has been more than two years in the works, and I really do see it as the most important publication of my career.

The Inclusive Economy: Bringing Wealth to America’s Poor looks at the reasons for poverty in America and offers a detailed agenda for increasing wealth, incomes, and opportunity for the neediest Americans. Notably, I challenge the conventional wisdom of both the Right and Left that underlies much of our current debate over poverty and welfare policy. I suggest that conservative critiques of a “culture of poverty” fail to account for the structural circumstances in which the poor live, especially racism, gender discrimination, and economic dislocation. However, I also criticizes liberal calls for fighting poverty through greater redistribution of wealth or new government programs.

Ultimately, I conclude that too much of contemporary anti-poverty policy focuses on making poverty less miserable, and not enough on helping people get out of poverty and becoming self-sufficient. Instead of another sterile debate over whether this program should be increased by $X billion or that program should be cut by $Y billion, I call for an end to government policies that push people into poverty. In doing so, I offer a detailed roadmap to a new anti-poverty agenda that includes criminal justice reform; greater educational freedom, including school choice; making housing more affordable through the elimination of zoning and land use regulations, banking reform, and more inclusive economic growth. These policies reject the paternalism of both Left and Right, instead empowering poor people and allowing them to take greater control of their own lives.

In attempting to marry social justice with limited government, I offer something guaranteed to displease pretty much everybody. However, I also believe that this book provides an agenda for individual empowerment that should draw support across ideological and partisan lines. We’ll see.

The Inclusive Economy has a Dec 4 catalogue date, but copies should be available well before that.