Last week, we wrote about Frederic Bastiat, the king of communicating economic and philosophical ideas in simple, direct (and often funny) ways. Of course, in the 19th century, Bastiat’s medium was the printed word. But if you had to find an heir to his throne in the social media era, Thomas Sowell would be a […]
Ahead of his panel on Corruption and Poverty in Latin America at LibertyCon Europe, Juan Carlos Hidalgo, former policy analyst at the Cato Institute talks about why Latin America has so many cases of corruption, the recent protests in Chile and other countries around the world.
Is it fair that CEOs get paid millions—even billions—while there are so many people still in poverty? Well, it depends! Watch the second entry in our question and answer series with Prof. Howie Baetjer.
What’s the evidence that economic freedom is beneficial for society? Prof. Antony Davies shows charts of the free market’s effects on unemployment, inequality, poverty, and even child labor.
Why did poverty decrease so much over the past 200 years, and especially over the past 30 years? Let’s look at one key example; then we’ll zoom out to the broader research.
Today’s welfare system discourages aspiring for the American dream. What if we tried a universal basic income instead? Watch the full interview with Prof. Munger
Why do people keep saying the ‘50s were more “equal” than today? Perhaps they forget how many people were in poverty — or what the major unions did to African-Americans.
A combination of drought, political instability and poor policies is threatening the lives of thousands. Fortunately, for some herders, insurance products are helping to make a desperate situation a little bit better.
The rich get richer, and the poor get … cell phones, cars, and nice TVs? Prof. Mike Munger says we’re actually more equal than ever. Click to watch the full interview.
Should the federal government provide a universal basic income for the states?
I am furious. I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and learned that my friend Steve Horwitz had written almost 3,000 words in a single day in his new book chapter on inequality.
If the problem is that the poor have too few options, it’s a bad “solution” to remove one of those options.
The rapid decline of poverty over the past forty years shows that there has never been more hope for rising incomes among the poor. We can help them best by promoting mobility through economic freedom.
Here’s my opening statement for my Students for Liberty debate with Will Wilkinson. Enjoy. Libertarians have a standard set of fundamental criticisms of the welfare state. Forced charity is unjust. Individuals have a moral right to decide if and when they want to help others. Forced charity is unnecessary. In a free market, voluntary donations […]
What should we do about the fact that some people are able to earn more money than others? Should government redress the resulting disparities in income? The answer is often believed to hinge upon our conclusion about the role of luck in affecting income-earning abilities. Those on the political left emphasize factors beyond the individual’s […]
Last night, millions of movie buffs, entertainment fiends, and celebrity gawkers from across the globe tuned in for the Oscars. While a few of us aficionados waited with bated breath for the announcement of Best Live-Action Short (Timecode was robbed!), for many viewers the awards ceremony isn’t the main event: The red carpet is what […]
Recently, at a Center for Global Development conference, attendees criticized a wide swath of development programs that, these experts say, provide no evidence they are achieving their objectives.
Isn’t a Universal Basic Income just another name for a negative income tax, such as Tax = -$10,000 + .3*Income? If so, isn’t a Universal Basic Income means-tested by definition?
I was initially excited to see that progressive Dean Baker has written a piece on “Eight Market-Oriented Proposals That Reduce Income Inequality” for AEI. It begins promisingly by criticizing overly strict occupational licensing for high-skilled workers. But it then studiously avoids the really big wins. Namely: 1. Immigration. High-skilled immigration reduces conventionally measured inequality by […]
Minimum wage laws were invented to protect the “Anglo-Saxon” race from competition. Prof. Deirdre McCloskey explains the authoritarian roots of Progressivism.
The top or bottom 1/5/10% by income, just like the top or bottom income quintiles, are never the same people from year to year, because there is constant, dynamic turnover as we move up and down the income categories.
Indeed, classical liberals are usually much more concerned with the alleviation of poverty, rather than hand-wringing about who might have a larger slice of an ever-widening pie.
A personal story about Vance’s climb from poor, white Appalachia to a Yale law degree and a white-collar career, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis will make you laugh, cry, and think carefully about the importance of culture for economic wellbeing.
A truly caring society depends on building relationships and community norms.