Author: Matt Bruenig

Policy Shop: Making Equality Local

New post at Policy Shop. Excerpt: In America Beyond Capitalism (2005) and What Then Must We Do? (2013), Alperovitz details a strategy for moving beyond our present slate of economic institutions by democratizing wealth at the local level. Or to put it more bluntly: Alperovitz’s strategy is to shift the ownership of productive assets, bit… Continue reading Policy Shop: Making Equality Local

Socialize Big Pharma Research

I ran across this post at Jacobin called “Socialize Big Pharma.” The basic argument is simple. We need more antibiotic drugs, and pharmaceutical companies aren’t trying to produce them. Therefore we need to eliminate the private pharmaceutical sector altogether, putting a socialized system in its place. I found the post odd for a number of… Continue reading Socialize Big Pharma Research

Intro to distributive justice

The commentary is still running on Greg Mankiw’s joke of a paper “Defending the One Percent.” Due to Mankiw’s nominal endorsement of a Just Deserts economic justice philosophy, a number of the posts have engaged Mankiw on the philosophical level (most recently Noah Smith). I wrote two myself. (I, II). Seeing as the bulk of… Continue reading Intro to distributive justice