Samuel Scheffler is one of the most prominent contemporary moral and political philosophers. He is especially well known for his ability to come up with arguments and counterarguments to any position. He is also a committed egalitarian. In a recent column that appeared in the New York Times, Scheffler responds to an argument against equality of wealth, income, and other desirable social goods.
Some fair-weather friends of free trade have been rethinking their positions in the face of supposed Chinese economic weaponization of pharmaceuticals. They are now embracing managed trade instead. Why?
The intense pressure to politicize every aspect of academia will not spare economics, and why would it? A society willing to topple statues is hardly one to worry about pulling down a body of knowledge, especially one skillfully characterized by the Left as a political program rather than an actual social science.
The peculiar consequences that result from government intervention are similar in all areas of economic and social life. Problems such as indifference, evaporating solidarity, irresponsibility, and short-term thinking are more than often caused or exacerbated by—sometimes well-intentioned—government interventions. This holds true for interventions in the financial world and in business, and it is no different with family policy.
At the turn of the nineteenth century, classical economics—as represented by Adam Smith in Britain and Jean-Baptiste Say in France—seemed unassailable. The American Revolution, to many people, demonstrated the failures of the old economic order of mercantilism and colonialism.
Princeton University’s board of trustees has voted to remove Woodrow Wilson’s name from its public policy school and one of its residential colleges. Wilson is not only a former US president but also served as Princeton’s president from 1902–1910.
Owen Holzbach recently wrote in Power and Market ”How Public Schools Teach Economics.” I had a similar experience in my high school macroeconomics class. As taught, Keynesian economics provides a “toolkit” for wannabe central planners.
