Why are some countries successful while others aren’t? Is it down to natural resources, colonialism, or can it be better explained by something else?
In partly free societies, more intergenerational mobility isn’t always a good thing.
Whenever we have raised taxes on the rich, we have seen horrible offenses against inequality and economic growth.
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 […]
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.
Beneath the surface there’s a lot of progress occurring that should make us all feel a little more optimistic about the future.
Rather than invent new human rights, people who are concerned about poverty should first ask what kind of barriers government creates that prevent social mobility. Those barriers should all be removed before any thought is given to taxing some people in order to give money or resources to others.
Local communities have a better understanding of their communities’ needs than far off centralized government anti-poverty directives.
A small group of workers walked out at Walmart on Black Friday 2012, and the company has been for a few decades now a leading emblem of what is supposedly wrong with the modern global economy. Shouldn’t Walmart just be more generous? Not necessarily. First, the managers of corporations are answerable to their shareholders. This […]
You’ve probably heard about racial disparity in the U.S. criminal justice system. With the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in New York in the last few years, national attention has been brought to racial injustice in policing. But it’s not just the police who are responsible for racial discrimination in the […]
The gap in wages between men and women has been a topic of debate for years. With candidate Hillary Clinton shining light on the issue with promises for a Paycheck Fairness Act, Diana Furchtgott-Roth has addressed what’s not being addressed in conversations about the wage gap: choice. Furchtgott-Roth notes that the differences in wages for […]
If you want to get the full picture of the topic of income equality check out this Learn Liberty On Demand program. We’ve pulled together a list of mind-blowing videos, featuring professors like Sean Mulholland, Steve Horwitz and others who explore the subject from many perspectives. We’ve made sure that each video builds on what […]
At tonight’s presidential primary debate, the topic of income inequality is almost guaranteed to come up. The widening gap between the rich and the poor is shaping up to be one of the defining themes of this election cycle. A recent, high-profile documentary called “Inequality for All” makes the case that this is a foremost […]