Does AI lead to Socialism?

There’s an argument running through the commentariat that goes something like this: AI (artificial intelligence) has already rendered some jobs obsolete and will continue this trend until the human race is unemployed. Even now it surpasses the ability of most people to write an effective opinion essay because it can create logic-driven, elegant compositions in seconds. Since government schools turn out illiterates, people will depend on AI commentaries for intellectual expression.

The Impossible Two Percent: Why Central Banks Cannot Afford Price Stability

The Two percent inflation target—monetary policy’s sacred commandment for three decades—has become structurally impossible to achieve. Not because central bankers lack skill, but because every attempt to hit the target destroys the financial architecture that previous monetary expansion built. This is the endgame of central planning: a system that cannot tolerate its own success criteria without collapsing.

Hofstadter on Lincoln

The historian Richard Hofstadter was one of the most influential historians of his time, and The American Political Tradition—which first appeared in 1948—is still read today. He was early in his life sympathetic to Marxism and a “Progressive,” but he was disillusioned by the utopian mindset of these two ideologies after the Second World War, and he became a sharp critic of the “heroes” of this tradition.

The Economics of Santa Claus

When I was a junior at a high school in the suburbs of Los Angeles in late 1978, rather uncharacteristically, I took a big risk. The teacher of my American Government class, Mr. Knapp, gave us an assignment to write a serious paper about government economic policy. Instead of doing that, I decided to submit a paper with a satirical theme, estimating what it would cost to become Santa Claus. Not only was I not following instructions, I had no idea how Mr. Knapp would react to my brand of humor.

Thanksgiving: A Celebration of Domestic Life

If recent years are any indication, this year we’ll be treated, yet again, to a smattering of articles about the supposed politics behind Thanksgiving, and how the bad guys (whether on the left or right) are opposing all things decent by refusing to celebrate the holiday in a way that promotes the correct political agenda. On one side are the leftists who feel compelled to use Thanksgiving as an extension of Col