If one believes that ideas matter, then the person who has surely done the most harm to humanity is Karl Marx, as his writings led to Communism, with its repression and tens of millions of deaths (as well the rise of Nazi Germany).
But today in the United States, Marx’s most damaging legacy is his assertion that the economy is irrevocably divided into hostile classes: capitalist and proletariat, whose interests are hostile.
As Rob Atkinson writes in American Compass, the overarching goal of U.S. economic policy should not be to help either investors or the middle class, it should be to ensure strong enterprises in the United States. If enterprises are strong, especially large ones, real investors (as opposed to GameStop speculators) do well. If enterprises are strong, the middle class does well.
It is time to put what Atkinson and Mike Lind have termed national developmentalism at the center of Washington economic policy making.
