Returns to Like-Mindedness and Diversity

I’m spending this week at a seminar put on by the Institute for Humane Studies, which involves people listening to lectures on lots of topics from a libertarian perspective and drinking free beer.  It is odd being in a place where most people around me also love to talk about economics and libertarianism, since the [...]

Mini Biographies

1) The Great Zucchini: How to make six figures while working two days a week with a high-school education. Plus: the dark side. Great reporting/writing.
2) A Profile of Andrew Sullivan: I knew from his blog that his life, both personally and intellectually, was interesting and a bit contradictory; but this story truly makes [...]

Epistemological Modesty and the Stimulus

David Brooks’ NYT column introduces a useful framework for evaluating the stimulus and economic policy.  In the short term this a welcome exhortation for less grandiose plans.  In the medium term, the stimulus and bailout packages will provide an excellent test for the potential of government planning.  I hope people will look back two and [...]

Self-Defeating Political Regimes: The Case of Inequality

We can all think of specific times when a political party has shot themselves and their base in the foot.  In fact, the last eight years may have been one of these times.
If we believe what most say, that power corrupts, then any party long in power will get old and corrupt.  There is no [...]

The Strange Death of American Liberalism

The Strange Death of American Liberalism by H.W. Brands purports to explain why LBJ-style liberalism no longer has any real influence on American governace.
He is right to note that its influence has faded away.  No matter how many times Bill Clinton is labelled a tax-and-spend liberal, the facts remain that he balanced the budget, reformed [...]

Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom

This has been, I think, the most popular book written about economics in the 20th century. Having read many thicker and more obscure tomes on the subject, I figured it was time to give Friedman a try.
As the title might suggest, the book is full of both economics and political philosophy. Its overriding [...]

Would Edmund Burke have opposed the war in Iraq?

Edmund Burke, the 19th century British statesman and writer, is something of a patron saint to conservative intellectuals- the same people who spent countless hours arguing about whether the war was a good idea, the same people who largely decided that it was. So I was quite surprised to realize that I’ve never heard [...]

The War to End All Wars

The memory of the Great European War, of millions of young men fighting and dying to win a few yards of shell-pocked mud, was enough to convince many that war was an ugly, irrational, pointless endeavor which civilized nations should have the good sense to avoid in perpetuity.  They hoped that something good could emerge [...]

Immigration Reform

Most of you who know me probably know that I’ve spent a lot of time in the conservative movement. Growing up watching American television and going to Bangor schools left me with a general wash of liberal assumptions; once I learned to consider these dispassionately, I found that the consistent conservative principles I read [...]