Bryan Caplan is out today with a weird piece about social contract theory. I remember Princeton’s Honor Code whenever I hear someone defend social contract theory. Admittedly, there are many version of social contract theory; maybe yours is reasonable. But lots social contractarians – especially Hobbes and his numerous heirs – unreasonably try to ground… Continue reading Why does everyone misunderstand social contract theory?
Author: Matt Bruenig
Student borrowing increase largely driven by for-profit schools
Education Sector, a DC think tank, released a report last month detailing the dropout rates among student borrowers. The flashing headline was that nearly 30 percent of freshmen who borrow for school drop out prior to achieving a degree. The report also includes information about the increase in student borrowing from 2001 to 2009. The… Continue reading Student borrowing increase largely driven by for-profit schools
New student debt data from Federal Reserve
The Federal Reserve released a new Survey of Consumer Finances that details consumer financial changes from 2007 to 2010. The big story of the report is the extremely painful impact of the Great Recession. From 2007 to 2010, real median family income fell 7.7 percent, and real mean family income fell 11.1 percent. During the… Continue reading New student debt data from Federal Reserve
A direct action success for DREAM activists
In past couple of weeks, activists from the National Immigrant Youth Alliance staged sit-ins at Obama campaign offices, demanding an executive order halting the deportation of youth eligible for the DREAM Act. Obama caved to the demands, issuing a Department of Homeland Security directive stopping certain kinds of deportations. An estimated 1 million young people… Continue reading A direct action success for DREAM activists
Income taxes are voluntary
One of the fundamental splits between libertarians and left-liberals is the two groups’ understanding of voluntariness. For libertarians, voluntariness is a purely procedural notion. Any agreement made without active force or fraud counts as voluntary, regardless of what else obtains about the agreement. If you are on the verge of starvation and you sign an… Continue reading Income taxes are voluntary