The United States does not have to become Turkey or China to feel the economic impacts of a diminished rule of law. The economist John Maynard Keynes famously wrote of the “animal spirits” that encourage people to engage in market activity. Americans’ animal spirits have long been bolstered by the knowledge that their country is the best place on earth to start or invest in a business. A contested or overturned election could call that into question.

 

In Six Decades of Public Life, I Never Thought I Would Write This Piece

By Robert E. Rubin

Mr. Rubin is a senior counselor to Centerview Partners and was the U.S. Treasury secretary from 1995 to 1999.