I wrote about the recent blog battle concerning workplace coercion and libertarianism in a prior post. My take is that all discussions of procedural liberty devolve into meaninglessness up against the reality of scarcity. So long as scarcity is real — and it is — liberty-infringing coercion is literally impossible to avoid. Therefore, those who… Continue reading Workplace coercion and the capability approach
Author: Matt Bruenig
The explosive LIBOR scandal
Of all the bank malfeasance that surfaced in the last decade, the LIBOR scandal developing in the UK right now dwarfs them all. In essence, a number of banks conspired to manipulate interest rates in order to make certain financial positions pay off. I worry that the level of abstraction involved here is so great… Continue reading The explosive LIBOR scandal
On libertarianism, workplace coercion, and scarcity
A three-author piece on libertarianism and workplace coercion has been ripping through the popular political blogs in the last few days. The piece is long, and its points are varied, but the biggest one is that laissez-faire capitalism — the favored economic form of libertarianism — generates conditions of coercion that violate the very liberty… Continue reading On libertarianism, workplace coercion, and scarcity
Liberal equality of opportunity according to Rawls
When it comes to political debates, one can either argue on the framework level or the empirical level. On the framework level, discussions revolve around the basic principles that motivate just political systems. For instance, we might ask whether equal opportunity is all that is necessary for an economic system to be just. The empirical… Continue reading Liberal equality of opportunity according to Rawls
Government’s already existing hand in US health insurance
The Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate today. As such, I thought I would break my hiatus briefly. One of the talking points among detractors of the health care law was that it constituted a government takeover of healthcare. That is understandably a form of political rhetoric aimed at firing up a base, but it… Continue reading Government’s already existing hand in US health insurance