Sarah Kendzior is a liar. But this is old news, with the Jacobinghazi affair perhaps the most high-profile example thus far. I toyed with a piece going through a history of her unhinged deception, but instead I think it’d be more interesting to keep things simple. So here is a fun question: what would it… Continue reading What would it take to make Sarah Kendzior admit this is not true?
Author: Matt Bruenig
Last Place Avoidance and Poor White Racism
In a review on The New Jim Crow, Ta-Nehisi Coates writes: Perhaps more importantly, I am less than convinced by Alexander’s rendition of white supremacy as a means of cleaving poor whites away from blacks. My view on this is that white supremacy is an interest in and of itself. It’s not clear to me… Continue reading Last Place Avoidance and Poor White Racism
Capitalism does not reward risk
I have been pointing out recently that defenders of laissez-faire capitalism shift between philosophical frameworks when they are arguing, something I call capitalism whack-a-mole. They do this because there are no normative frameworks that justify laissez-faire capitalism and so there is no other way to actually muster an argument in its favor other than opportunistically… Continue reading Capitalism does not reward risk
“Force” arguments continue to be the rhetorical backwater of idiots
Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig has a post about Erick Erickson saying what conservatives in general believe about low-income workers. Here is Erickson, version one: “What’s going on here — by the way, more than 90% of Americans make more than minimum wage. The minimum wage is mostly people who have failed at life, and high school… Continue reading “Force” arguments continue to be the rhetorical backwater of idiots
Desert-Sacrifice-Utility Whack-a-Mole
Earlier, I explained the common argumentative strategy I call Capitalism Whack-a-Mole. People who utilize this strategy claim that they support capitalism for a specific normative reason (e.g. that it gives to each what they produce), but then, when you show that normative reason is actually inconsistent with capitalism, they shift to a totally new normative… Continue reading Desert-Sacrifice-Utility Whack-a-Mole