Category: Philosophy

Paul Krugman has generated quite a bit of buzz with two recent blog posts (I, II). In the posts, Krugman notes that labor’s share of income has recently been falling, and that this throws cold water on the usual education story. If the gains of productivity increasingly go to capital, then what matters is not… Continue reading Inequality, education, and predistribution

I know it is low-hanging fruit, but I found myself really tickled at a recent post from Bryan Caplan. So Bryan Caplan doesn’t care about poor people and doesn’t think people should have to “give” to them. He also thinks that we should allow immigration because not doing so would hurt poor people. This seems… Continue reading Bryan Caplan argues against property ownership

Mike Konczal has a new white paper out theorizing on when public provision of some good is superior to handing out coupons that people can use to buy the good privately. What follows are two fairly unstructured thoughts about it. First, technically it is the case that coupons and public provision are very different from… Continue reading Mike Konczal on the coupon state

For my money, P.J. Proudhon is still history’s greatest critic of property theories. His writing is also wildly entertaining because it is extremely angry and vitriolic. In his magnum opus —

Martin O’Neill and Thad Williamson had an article in the Boston Review outlining some of the radical components of Rawls’ philosophy. The short thesis is: “to treat Rawls simply as a defender of Democratic Party liberalism and the welfare state—as he is widely regarded—is to misread him.” The authors then go on to explain Rawls… Continue reading The radical Rawls