Hattip: Brink Lindsey Let us, for the sake of argument, suppose that a hundred years hence we are all of us, on the average, eight… Read More »Technology (24): Keynes on The Permanent Problem; or, The Dread of Abundance
… the capitalist engine is first and last an engine of mass production which unavoidably means also production for the masses, whereas, climbing upward in… Read More »Schumpeter on who gains from mass production
Aristocracy originally meant “the rule of the best”, with connotations of virtue and competence. It sounds like a good way to run a society, depending… Read More »Aristocracy / Meritocracy; or, Beda Kumis*
About the test. The test will measure whether you are an informed, engaged and productive citizen of the world, and it will take place in… Read More »John Green: “Will this be on the test?”
via MR Can efforts to eradicate inequality in wealth and education eliminate intergenerational persistence of socioeconomic status? Or would the rich and powerful be able… Read More »Remember the name: Persistence of wealth through China’s revolutions
Recommended. Abstract We show that any cross-national measure of human material wellbeing that is (i) basics (not luxuries),(ii) general (uses indicators from multiple domains), and(iii)… Read More »“Empirically sufficient and empirically necessary” – Lant Pritchett on economic growth as the (only) key to poverty reduction
Here’s Joseph Schumpeter laying out some key features of the importance of (capitalist?) economic growth in 1942. [This Lant Pritchett on broad based economic growth… Read More »Joseph Schumpeter on qualitative gains from capitalist growth
Joseph Schumpeter’s Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy is (apparently) “the third most cited book in the social sciences published before 1950, behind Marx’s Capital and The… Read More »Schumpeter on primitive accumulation and Marx’s guffaw
Two recommendations today, one via Marginal Revolution, the other from Hacker News, both worth the time. Manvir Singh on the Myth of Primitive Communism In… Read More »Primitive Communism and Armadillo Legs; Jangle, Fuzz and Transcendence
Highlights from Cowen and Roberts’ recent conversation on Econtalk. On reading for love Cowen: …don’t read stuff you don’t love reading. That’s the simplest point… Read More »Love and Clusters: (more from) Tyler Cowen and Russ Roberts on Reading and How to Read