Thomas Sowell: Tragic Optimist
In his 2000 memoir A Personal Odyssey, Sowell recounts a parable that was read to him as a young boy and which he never forgot.
Samuel Kronen
· 29 min read
Economics
A collection of 106 posts
Can Governments Stop Bitcoin?
The reality is Bitcoin is a political project that threatens to fundamentally disrupt the Davos-led economic system, with everyone from Janet Yellen to Christine Lagarde expressing fear about its rise and demanding it be regulated.
Alex Gladstein
· 16 min read
Revisiting the Simon-Ehrlich Wager 40 Years On
As the global population has grown, resources haven’t become scarcer—they’ve become more abundant.
Marian L. Tupy, Gale L Pooley
· 7 min read
Will Workers' Wages Ever Go Up Again?
With the threat of plant closures hanging over negotiations like the sword of Damocles, union priorities have shifted from bargaining for wage increases to bargaining for job and pension security.
Jeff Rubin
· 9 min read
PODCAST 113: Jeff Rubin on the Plight of Today’s Middle-Class ‘Expendables’
Listen onSpotify Quillette Editor Jonathan Kay talks to economist-turned-author Jeff Rubin about his new book, The Expendables: How the Middle Class Got Screwed By Globalization—and the devastating consequences of globalization that many progressive thinkers seem reluctant to talk about.
Quillette, Jonathan Kay, Jeff Rubin
· 1 min read
I Was Invited to Testify on Energy Policy. Then Democrats Didn't Let Me Speak
What, exactly, had I said that was so dangerous as to lead Democrats to engage in character assassination and undermine liberal democratic norms? Nothing I hadn’t already said last January when I testified before Congress about climate change and energy.
Michael Shellenberger
· 6 min read
Local Farming Can't Save the Planet
Globalization has made our food ridiculously cheap compared to previous eras. But perhaps that’s part of the problem.
Hidde Boersma and Maarten Boudry
· 9 min read
Towards a Better Urbanism
The core city will retain its appeal, but to stay safe, “social distancing” will likely curtail the once boisterous streetscape with its capacity for casual contacts, unique shops, and restaurants.
Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky
· 12 min read
The Case for Economic Hibernation during the COVID-19 Lockdowns
We are currently in the throes of a new kind of crisis where the underlying economy is healthy, but a non-economic crisis is stopping it in its tracks.
Einat Wilf and Saar Wilf
· 6 min read
COVID-19 Will Devastate the Economic Fortunes of Those Who Are Already Struggling
COVID-19 is going to send them crashing through it. And the challenge of how to help them rebuild their lives will be with us long after the pandemic itself has been tamed.
Jonathan Kay
· 5 min read
Is Democracy Compatible with Extreme Inequality?
Material benefits can always be translated into political power because the political world has always been interwoven with the cultural world.
Chang Che
· 8 min read
Why UBI Ought to Appeal to Conservatives
Republicans balk at the idea of UBI because it seems like an extreme version of your standard government handout. But it isn’t.
Cody Kommers
· 6 min read
Gates Derangement Syndrome
The suggestion that we ought to be suspicious of Gates’s work on global health—work that has saved millions of lives—because he made a slightly ambiguous comment about U.S. politics is not only absurd, it is also pernicious.
Matt Johnson
· 10 min read
The Meritocracy Trap—A Review
Workers are instead selected by their educational credentials, even when a degree is unnecessary
John Staddon
· 13 min read
Quillette Podcast 26 – Professor Tyler Cowen on libertarianism, viewpoint diversity in Washington, D.C., and his new online university
Listen onSpotify
Quillette
· 1 min read