Modern economics focuses on the short-term and largely ignores long-term developments. This may be good and bad, because short-term effects may diverge from long-term effects. This book focuses on long-term developments and especially on attitudes vis-a-vis equity and distributional changes. The book covers three periods. The first covers the years from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the decade of the 1920s. The second covers the 1920s to 1970s period. The third covers the period after the 1970s. The three periods show different harmony between the role of the market and the economic role of the state. What economic role did governments play in each of these periods? Divergent economists’ views are given on what role governments should play, along with the importance of changing income distribution and potential conflicts between efficiency and equity.