At Upshot, Nate Cohn has settled on a very specific line about Bernie Sander (I, II) that I don’t think he argues very well for. The argument in a nutshell is this: Bernie Sanders is very liberal and so he appeals to others who are very liberal, but not to those who are less liberal,… Continue reading How “Consistent Liberal” Deceives
Why Have Property At All?
So I’ve been reading this paper from libertarian philosopher Matt Zwolinski about why a basic income is both consistent with, and even required by, libertarian precepts. What’s interesting about Zwolinski basic income advocacy is that the way it works is by first establishing that property is anti-libertarian, in the sense that it clearly relies upon… Continue reading Why Have Property At All?
An Actually Meaningful Homogeneity Argument
When you point out that other countries grow as fast (or faster) than the US does and innovate as much (or more) than the US does, all while having higher tax levels, lower poverty, and lower inequality, eventually partisans of laissez-faire capitalism come around to say those countries are all one-off exceptions owing to their… Continue reading An Actually Meaningful Homogeneity Argument
A Basic Welfare Framework
Often, it’s said that welfare states are dizzyingly complicated. So many programs! Impossible to rationalize! But this isn’t necessarily true. You can make welfare systems that are bizarrely complicated, but laying out a basic welfare framework doesn’t have to be a byzantine affair. Consider the following four-part framework that captures the vast majority of what… Continue reading A Basic Welfare Framework
Institutions Matter Except When They Are Socialist
Robert Solow once remarked: Every discussion among economists of the relatively slow growth of the British economy compared with the Continental economies ends up in a blaze of amateur sociology. This is the final move of right-wing economists whenever the assumptions of their ideologically-infused policy prescriptions end up contradicted by observed reality. After a few… Continue reading Institutions Matter Except When They Are Socialist