Posts on Political Science and Economics
Tony Judt's Ill Fares the Land
Tony Judt's Ill Fares the Land was discussed in a five-part series of posts. It explains what social democracy has to offer the modern world and offers a vigorous defense of the role of government in improving the lives of its people.
Too much government? - Nov. 5, 2010
...This excellent book describes how we got to where we are now (income inequality, the growing gap between the rich and the rest), the effects of inequality (it can be correlated against social immobility, health problems, crime, and mental illness) and what can be done about it....
How It All Unraveled - Nov. 9, 2010
Inequality is damaging to a democracy and to the well-being of its citizens....Unfortunately, the moral imperative to correct the injustices resulting from this inequality has been successfully drummed out of the public conversation. It was not always like this. “As recently as the 1970’s, the idea that the point of life was to get rich and that governments existed to facilitate this would have been ridiculed.” (Judt)
Retaking the High Ground - Nov. 11, 2010
Recapturing the high ground in this debate about the value of government will require four actions:
- Creating a new moral narrative that appeals to our best, rather than our worst, instincts
- Addressing the fears and insecurities caused by a rapidly changing world
- Striking at the myths about the success of unregulated markets
- Demonstrating the role government can successfully play in the world that will be our future
Retaking the High Ground: Overcoming Fear - Nov. 16, 2010
In this post, we will present some ideas on addressing the fears caused by a rapidly changing world and why the Left is best positioned to do so....
The Unerring Market, Socialism and Other Myths - Nov. 26, 2010
This post will discuss the last two of the necessary actions if progressives are to recapture the high ground in this debate about the role of government:
- Striking at the myths about the success of unregulated markets
- Demonstrating the role government can successfully play in the world that will be our future
The Price of Inequality - Sep. 21, 2012
The Price of Inequality by Nobel Economist Joseph Stiglitz is ...filled with insight into the workings (or non-workings) of the markets and on the roles of government and of central banks in the economy. A major theme of the book is that “inequality is as much the result of political forces as of economic ones.” He explodes prevailing myths about the “free” market place, globalization, the effectiveness of austerity programs, GDP as an indicator of economic performance, and government vs. private efficiency. He also exposes the policies enacted since the 1980’s that brought about the Great Recession...
Sunday Roundup Jun 8, 2014 (US Wealth Inequality)
Referencing the master economic work and (unlikely as it is) best seller by French economist Thomas Piketty, Capitalism in the Twenty First Century , Peter van Buren in his TomDispatch post of June 3 asks and answers nine questions on unemployment and inequality. 3.5 million people in the US are considered "the long-term unemployed," whose benefits were cut off at the end of last year by the Republican-held House. The striking trend lines of social and economic disparity that have developed over the last 50 years are clearly no accident...
Capital in the Twenty-First Century - Oct 1, 2014
Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century spent 20 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list this year - quite a feat for a 600-plus page work from a French economics professor. Analyzing international economic data from 1700 to the present, Piketty determines the reasons for the growing wealth and income inequality that the world has been seeing for the past several decades and suggests solutions....