The book offers four case studies, looking at land-use restrictions, professional-licensing requirements, intellectual-property law, and the regulation of big finance. Local zoning rules stifle the construction of affordable housing and pad the pockets of existing homeowners. Regulations prevent well-trained foreign doctors and nurses from meeting the country’s extraordinary demand for health care, and plump the salaries of existing workers. Patent protection, some of which can more fairly be described as patent trolling, raises new companies’ cost of doing business, with questionable and perhaps even nonexistent benefits for innovation overall. And federal subsidies for those taking on debt, along with the concomitant growth of Wall Street, have helped to blow bubbles that have caused widespread devastation when they pop.

Of course, wealthy families and big firms often make convincing arguments for such regulations as benefiting not just them but the public more generally. Homeowners argue that big, new apartment buildings would destroy the historic character of their neighborhoods. Companies argue that strong patents are necessary to protect their incentive to invest in risky new ventures. Trade groups argue that strict licensing requirements are necessary to keep consumers safe. All of these things might be true in some cases, of course. But taken together and projected economy-wide, regressive regulations kill new businesses and exacerbate wealth disparities. Removing land-use restrictions alone would boost American GDP by an estimated 9.5 percent, according to the economists Chang-Tai Hsieh and Enrico Moretti, translating to roughly $1.7 trillion more output as of this year—equivalent to the economic activity of the state of Texas.

Recognizing regressive regulation as part of the reason the economy has slowed and inequality has increased also suggests reforming regulation as a way to bolster competitiveness and aid the middle class—and a potentially bipartisan one, too. Indeed, both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump agree the system is rigged. “It’s not just the political system that’s rigged, it’s the whole economy,” President Trump told voters while campaigning last year. “It’s rigged by big donors who want to keep down wages. It’s rigged by big businesses who want to leave our country, fire our workers, and sell their products back into the U.S. with absolutely no consequences for them. It’s rigged by bureaucrats who are trapping kids in failing schools.” Similarly, Sanders argued during his campaign: “For the past 40 years, Wall Street and the billionaire class has rigged the rules to redistribute wealth and income to the wealthiest and most powerful people,” adding, “We must send a message to the billionaire class: You can’t have it all.” But the two and the two major parties could not be more diametrically opposed when it comes to how to deal that rigging or capture. Trump and the Republicans have been slashing regulations and pushing a tax plan that would bolster corporate profits, arguing against evidence that the benefits would trickle down to ordinary workers. Sanders has promoted a series of universal-benefit programs, to be paid for with hefty levies on millionaires and billionaires.