Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Economics

  • Ocasionalist Economics

    Should we call the followers of the twenty-something know-nothing ocasionalists? ( A philosophy insider joke.)

  • On Relative Poverty and Status

    I have a little disagreement going with the Dark Ostrich. He asserts, "Relative poverty is all about status."  In an earlier entry, I quoted him as maintaining that  We are born with a natural inequality which soon turns into economic inequality. The reason it turns into economic inequality, I believe, is that humans have a natural desire…

  • Is Economic Inequality Morally Acceptable?

    This from a reader: We are born with a natural inequality with soon turns into economic inequality. The reason it turns into economic inequality, I believe, is that humans have a natural desire for status. It is an essential part of the human condition, and I believe impossible to eradicate, indeed it is impossible to conceive human…

  • Ten Political-Economic Theses

    Here are ten theses to which I subscribe in the critical way of the philosopher, not the dogmatic way of the ideologue. 1.  There is nothing wrong with money.  It is absolutely not the root of all evil.  The most we can say is that the inordinate desire for money is at the root of some evils.  I develop this theme in Radix…

  • Bozo de Blasio versus Walmart

    Why should Gotham's mayor be against it? Because it helps the poor? Walmart’s benefits are obvious to shoppers and to economists like Jason Furman, who served in the Clinton administration and was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Obama. In a paper, “Walmart: A Progressive Success Story,” Furman cited estimates that Walmart,…

  • Political Legitimacy and Rent Seeking

    David P. Goldman: This is not an election fought over competing policies but a struggle for legitimacy. A very large portion of the electorate (how large a portion we will discover next month) believes that its government is no longer legitimate, and that it has become the instrument of an entrenched rent-seeking oligarchy. By and…

  • Price Changes 1996-2016

    Graph from the American Enterprise Institute.  Commentary mine. One irony here is that the more worthless college education becomes (in the non-STEM areas at least), the more outrageously expensive it becomes, while with electronics, the use value of the gear skyrockets while  prices plunge.   In the 'higher education' sector, a trifecta of corruption and…

  • U. S. Poor Richer than Middle Class in Much of Europe

    If Sanders the superannuated socialist smokes, here is something for him to put in his pipe. One good thing I will say about Bernie Sanders, though, is that he is not a stealth socialist like Obama and Hillary.  He flies the flag.  

  • Mona Charen on the Left-Leaning Pope Francis

    Here (emphasis added): According to "The Black Book of Communism," between 1959 and the late 1990s, more than 100,000 (out of about 10 million) Cubans spent time in the island's gulag. Between 15,000 and 19,000 were shot. One of the first was a young boy in Che Guevara's unit who had stolen a little food.…

  • Memo to Pope Francis: Capitalism is the Solution, not the Problem

    I mean if he is serious about reducing poverty.  Stephanie Slade in a very good Reason article: He has been called the "slum pope" and "a pope for the poor." And indeed, it's true that Pope Francis, leader to 1.3 billion Roman Catholics, speaks often of those in need. He's described the amount of poverty…

  • Empty Rhetoric, Disregard for Reality

    Thomas Sowell versus Barack Obama.

  • The Poor are not Poor Because the Rich are Rich

    As Robert Samuelson points out. The two conditions are generally unrelated. [. . .] It's also not true, as widely asserted, that the wealthiest Americans (the notorious top 1 percent) have captured all the gains in productivity and living standards of recent decades. The Congressional Budget Office examined income trends for the past three decades.…

  • The Pope is Just Wrong about Economics

    Pope Francis' Erroneous Economic Pontifications  Once Again, Pope Francis. Excerpt: It is interesting that the Pope refers to compassion in the way he does, given that the contradiction that is the “welfare state” has not only ruined the most needy and has led to growing exclusion, but has degraded the notion of charity which refers…

  • The Pope is a Buffoon When it Comes to Economics

    There is too much buffoonery in high places. It would be nice to be able to expect from popes and presidents a bit of gravitas, a modicum of seriousness, when they are instantiating their institutional roles.  What they do after hours is not our business.  So Pope Francis' clowning around does not inspire respect, any…

  • What the Pope Gets Wrong About Capitalism

    Here