Why People Don’t Rebel: Status by Association
One might assume that [luxury hotel] workers’ admired guests’ wealth because they identified with guests or aspired to be rich themselves. In my twelve months in both hotels, however, I spoke with...
View ArticleThe Submerged State and the Production of Inequality
Well beyond its impact on individuals and families, the submerged state exacerbates economic inequality by promoting some entire sectors of the economy over others, at government expense. In...
View Article…How some people are made to do the harshest work for the least reward
One disclaimer ought to be entered at the outset. We have already suggest that relief giving is partly designed to enforce work. Our argument, however, is not against work. We take it for granted...
View ArticleNo, Jeb Bush, Schools are not Like Milk
At the GOP convention, Jeb Bush argued in favor of voucher and school choice using the frame of civil rights. Bush, brother of failed president and education reformer George W. Bush, went further,...
View ArticleYou Can’t Decry Conflict and Seek Justice
[Updated below] Melissa Harris Perry has a new piece reflecting on the recently concluded successful Chicago Teachers Union strike. Her point – the battle between “reformers” and “teachers” was...
View ArticleThe Economics-Politics Distinction: The Shift from the Welfare to the...
If “economics” is isolated from other aspects of social life, then the criterion for policymakers becomes the simple one of efficiency. Expenditure, and government policy generally, is to be viewed in...
View ArticleCatch 22 and the Death Penalty: Shredding Due Process to Punish the Abused
Via Sentencing Law and Policy, Justice Sotomayor dissented (pdf) from a denial of review for a death penalty case, and her opinion illustrated two important points. Petitioner Benny Lee Hodge was...
View ArticleHow Means Testing Exploits Well Intentioned Liberals
Means testing of Social Security or Medicare is a bad idea. It doesn’t generally save that much money and it undermines the very logic of social insurance–universal coverage paid for by dedicated...
View ArticleDirty Hippies, Inequality, and the Minnesota Model
The great Mark Price has a piece in the Guardian today, Wealth inequality will keep growing unless workers demand better, that gets to the heart of the problem with our broken economy’s failure to...
View ArticlePredistribution, Public Opinion and Unilateral Executive Action
A market, which exists, unlike “the market” which does not. (St Quinton Saturday Market by M Hobbs)Matt Bruenig has a good post on predistribution, “measures governments take to reduce or eliminate...
View ArticleWhy Does the Market Not Serve the Interests of Human Beings?
So people are casting about for the means to protect themselves against that insecurity. They are looking for a way to not only afford decent housing but to buy the house in the neighborhood that feeds...
View ArticleGender, Class and Economic Fairness: Blaming Voters is a Cop Out
Laura Bassett and Dave Jamieson have a piece on Democratic strategy, Minimum Wage, Sick Leave Rebranded As Women’s Issues To Pressure GOP that I find troubling (the strategy, not the piece). Pelosi and...
View ArticleIndependence Day
My hope for Independence Day is that we can start with the small step of calling this day Independence Day, not Fourth of July. It strikes me how odd it is to refer to the day by its date. I suspect...
View ArticleWhy Won’t You Rubes Get Excited About Cory Booker
By David Shankbone (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons [Update below. 8-28-13] LEAVE CORY BOOKER ALOOOOOOOONE!!!! Molly Ball is not impressed with “liberal” critics of Cory Booker. (And Paul...
View ArticleAnderson on Democratic Equality
There must be a better way [than luck egalitarianism] to conceive of the point of equality. To do so it is helpful to recall how egalitarian political movements have historically conceived of their...
View ArticleWho knew the reason libertarianism was so noxious was plagiarism?
For reasons that are somewhat baffling, the coverage of Senator Rand Paul’s plagiarism in speeches and writings got wall-to-wall coverage for some time, although it has now died down. I’m not a fan of...
View ArticleA society that worships money is a society in peril
The Birmingham superintendent puts it this way. “The Detroit schools need more money. The solution is not to take it from Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills.” And, again, one wonders where else one would...
View ArticleInequality is a Problem: There is Too Little
Talk about inequality is in the air. Everyone seems to agree it’s a problem, although a lot of people seem to offering the same old policy proposals to address it. It’s almost as if they are simply...
View ArticleTop Posts for 2013
Here they are–the top posts, based on views, for 2013. 1. Blaming Consumers is a Cop Out This is the no contest the most read piece this year, also the most comments for a post. It included a shout...
View ArticleI am outraged at David Brooks’ continuing execution of the War on Drugs
[Updated below] [If you read my piece entitled I’m so outraged at Kim Kardashian for maintaining the 5th Fleet in a human rights violating autocracy, some of this may be familiar.] Someone who doesn’t...
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