Category: Economics

Competition and Inequality

In my last post, Labour and the American Middle Class, I expressed my scepticism of the ability of unions to improve the incomes of the disadvantaged.  However, this still leaves the question of how...

Immigration, Inequality and Pie

Tim Lee has an excellent response up to this post by NRO’s Daniel Foster, who writes: Punishing a minor by removing him from the culture he’s adopted as his own, for the crimes of...

On Free Markets

So look, I believe that free markets are absolutely the way to go. Don’t go with the central planners – who wants wage controls dictated from the top down? Things didn’t work out so...

Progressives vs. Libertarians

I really think the two sides in this argument – the libertarians on the one hand and progressives on the other – simply have a very hard time understanding truly where the other is...

Carson’s Rejoinder to Kuznicki

by Kevin Carson I read, with appreciation, Jason Kuznicki’s thoughtful review of my book Studies in Mutual Political Economy. He begins my noting that the book is, as the title suggests, a series of studies rather...

Neoliberalism & Culture

Will is absolutely correct to note that the success of the Anglophone and Northern European governance models (and their Asian counterparts who have emulated and innovated with these models successfully) rest a great deal...

Immigration and the economy

This data from the Pew Research Center illustrates just how connected the influx of illegal immigration into the United States is tied to the soundness of the American and global economy: The annual inflow...

The Economics of Enlightenment

I have a short piece [here is the pdf download link] in the current issue of Econ Journal Watch, commenting on the recent ‘economic enlightenment’ survey Daniel Klein and Zeljka Buturovic published there a...

We’re already at war

James Poulos thinks I’m wrong to advocate against Arthur Brooks’ culture war: Alas, the cultural conflict is already blazing. Some people think a federal tax on tanning is a legitimate tool of economic policy....

Economics 101

[updated] Nate Silver puts several bullet-holes through this Wall Street Journal op-ed by Daniel Klein, which is a good thing since both Klein’s piece and the poll he conducted and then based the piece...

A farewell to supply-side economics

Writing in National Review, Kevin Williamson lays waste the ‘magical thinking’ of supply-siders and the notion that somehow tax cuts will completely pay for themselves. There’s a great deal of really excellent stuff in...

The economics of magic

I am perhaps four fifths of the way through the fourth of the Malazan books – House of Chains – and there is a moment in this book in which a character muses about...

Auserity Measures

Via National Review, here’s an interesting article on Lithuania’s belt-tightening response to the financial crisis: Faced with rising deficits that threatened to bankrupt the country, Lithuania cut public spending by 30 percent — including slashing...