We can rehabilitate a Social Contract that connects us. With a restored self-image, we can reverse Citizens United, rebalance our political process, and find trade policies that serve society as a whole.

Lately, the public mood has gone the opposite way. Simply put, we are told that we will all do better when most of us do worse.

We have strong historical and constitutional values about one-person one-vote and a government responsive to local communities. Right? Well, no. That's not right. Quite the opposite.

We are told we can't afford social investments. Sure we can. To me, social investment often out-performs what I could do as an individual.

To get into balance, we need to restore the social contract -- the deal that public resources are rightly used to promote business, and in exchange, businesses recognize a duty to shared prosperity.

When I was young, the purpose of public policy was to raise our standard of living. Not so much, anymore. Now, public policy is designed to make busin...