The Broken Constitution: Lincoln, Slavery, and the Refounding of America
Noah Feldman
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021, 368 pp.

After a dead period for much of the twenty-first century, a particular tool at the hands of the state has been dominating recent news cycles: antitrust law. This legal ability to fine, prevent, and “break up” different profit-maximizing tactics of economic actors is once more being favored by its wielder, the Federal Trade Commission.

János Kornai was born in 1928, in a century of bloody and tragic twists and turns. His homeland, Hungary, was especially a dangerous place during the 20th century. Among other things, it fell under both totalitarian regimes: Nazism and Communism.