Once upon a time, John Stuart Mill could write these words truthfully (“Of the Influence of Consumption on Production,” 1844):
It is no longer supposed that you benefit the producer by taking his money, provided you give it to him again in exchange for his goods.
He was talking, of course, about government tax-transfer programs intended to stimulate employment by subsidizing consumption. We cannot say this today.
Recent
Preemptive pardons used to sound like a fringe fear. Now they’re getting floated like standard operating procedure, and we dig into what that says about the health of the American system. We talk through why “blanket” or “preemptive” pardons feel like an admission of...
Raul had been a police man for most of his life, since the age of nineteen. He was now fifty-six. His first arrest was a thief, an old man who had stolen a neighbours cow. He had since thrown trade unionist into prison, had beaten starving wives as they begged for...
The national Republican Party has settled on a campaign against the Democrats, painting the opposition party as a bunch of economic socialists. “Across the nation, socialist policies are increasingly dominating Democratic politics,” Rep. Brian Steil (R-WI) complained...
