Is it possible that we have more capacity for change than we are currently expressing? This chapter begins by assessing the historical importance of the Covid pandemic, arguing that it helped revise how we look at the economy. If the way the economy works can be recreated to eliminate the risk of a viral infection, then it can presumably be recreated for the sake of other, equally desirable social goals. At first, one might think these changes signal the return of industrial policy, but I argue that world building differs from industrial policy because it operates at the level of the background conditions under which economic life takes place. These background conditions include the fight against climate change, the provision of skills and political stability and the creation of comparative advantage for national industries. In the end, however, the most general background conditions are formed at the global level. They are the framework conditions of global economic integration, and the need to shape the framework conditions for economic activity is not unrelated to the fact that other states are also trying to shape them. Indeed, both the United States and China believe in the idea of a world system articulating the relations of economic power and dependence at the heart of the global economy.