All posts tagged: economics

What If Ayn Rand Was Right About Entrepreneurs and Inequality?

Published by Cameron Hendy

Few public figures have managed to consistently attract both sheer adoration and abject disgust quite like Russian-American author Ayn Rand. Fewer still have created an intellectual legacy with as much endurance as her radically individualistic philosophy of Objectivism. Atlas Shrugged remains a cherished favorite of venture capitalists and libertarian-leaning politicians all over the planet, with a notable stronghold in Washington D.C., perhaps even within the Oval Office itself. Rand’s literary influence is often derided as a mere reflection of the tractability and moral certitude afforded by her novels, her economic principles disregarded as patently ridiculous. Galt’s Gulch has attracted so much scorn as to become something of a joke, a way to easily scoff at the naive utopianism of laissez-faire capitalism. Rand and her largely philosophical economic views have been consigned to history as an interesting relic of sorts—a compelling, well-articulated fantasy that has no basis in reality. How then should we interpret new research from the Nation Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) that suggests her controversial description of the income inequality dynamic might have …

We Can Put an End to State Bidding Wars

Published by Christopher Sabaitis

In a crashing finale to its corporate headquarters search saga, Amazon announced that it is withdrawing from its commitment to New York. Politicians have responded with mixed reactions, with some hailing the decision as a victory for the middle-class locals who came out in droves against the deal proposed by Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo. The deal, which was comprised of more than $3 billion in tax incentives for the company, reignited the debate over whether immediate incentives for large corporates were justified by projected taxes down the road. Amazon promised to bring over 25,000 news jobs to the city, as well as additional investment in local infrastructure and school programs. However, the agreement quickly became a political hot-button issue. Many on the left saw it as a giveaway to a multi-billion-dollar corporation when subways lines break down on what feels like a daily basis. Those on the right chided the government for falling prey to crony capitalism. It seemed to be one of the few times that both sides could agree …

Video Games and the (Male) Meaning of Life

Published by Andrew Yang

Virtual worlds give back what has been scooped out of modern life . . . it gives us back community, a feeling of competence, and a sense of being an important person whom people depend on. —Jonathan Gottschall When I was seven, my parents bought me and my brother an Atari 2600, the first mass game console. The game it came with was “Asteroids.” We played that game an awful lot. One night, we snuck down in the middle of the night only to discover my Dad already playing. My brother and I loved going to local arcades and try to make a few quarters last as long as possible. It was the perfect set of incentives—you win, you keep playing. You lose, you’re forced to stand there and watch others play, hoping that someone is forced to leave their game in the middle so you can jump in. We became very good at video games. My favorite was “Street Fighter II.” I memorized the Mortal Kombat fatalities to inflict graphic harm on defeated enemies. …

What We Talk About When We Talk About Immigration

Published by Neema Parvini

My father moved to the UK from Iran in the 1970s to study engineering when he met and married my mother, who is from a small town in the Welsh valleys. Many people from that town would not have met a non-white person before they met my father. After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, my parents made the eminently sensible decision that they would build their life together in Wales and not Iran. To this day my father remains the hardest working person I know. He always worked two jobs, became a successful engineer and I recall watching him take part in publicity photos in the 1990s as the first non-white retained fireman in Wales, which he went on to do for 25 years. He is by any measure a credit to his community and can easily be held up as a model for “integration.” However, he is just one person. I sometimes wonder how different things might have been if there had been even one or two other Iranian families living on our street. …

Why Assumptions About ‘Rising Inequality’ Are Wrong

Published by Neema Parvini

The past year has seen a spate of books worrying about the decline of Western liberal democracy. One of the lazy and unexamined assumptions in these books is the idea that “rising inequality” is a causal factor for the current wave of so-called populism witnessed in Europe and America. This cliché is trotted out by writers across the political spectrum. For example, in Why Liberalism Failed, the conservative Patrick J. Deneen points to “a growing gap … between wealthy haves and left-behind have-nots.” In How Democracy Ends, the centre-leftish David Runicman writes, “a driver of populism [is] rising inequality.” Similarly, Edward Luce in The Retreat of Western Liberalism reports in glib and journalistic prose that we live in “times of stark and growing inequality.” The problem with these platitudes is that they bear virtually no relationship to the lived reality of millions of people in the West. I will explain why. Recent Inequality In Great Britain, with changes in the type of work people do, and as capital has been reallocated from manufacturing to services, …