Today is book release day, meaning The Inclusive Economy is finally available on Amazon, B&N, and in bookstores near you. This book is the result of more than four years of work, and I truly believe it is the most important thing I have written. It is available in digital, audio, and hard copy formats. You can order it here:

The Inclusive Economy 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” too often amount to “victim blaming” and fail to account for the structural circumstances in which the poor live, especially racism, gender-based discrimination, and economic dislocation. However, I also criticize liberal calls for fighting poverty primarily through greater redistribution of wealth and 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, housing deregulation, 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.

At the risk of self-promotion, I urge you to buy The Inclusive Economy today, and read it.