by Glory M. Liu* People like to fight over Adam Smith. To some, the Scottish philosopher is the patron saint of capitalism who wrote that great bible of economics, The Wealth of Nations (1776). Its doctrine, his followers claim, is that unfettered markets lead to economic growth, making everyone better off. In Smith’s now-iconic phrase, […]
History of Economic Thought
Each time money is used, an epistemology, a metaphysics, a politics, an ethics, and even a theology is evoked. Money condenses the spirit of capitalism. Money did not create capitalism—the early factories and mills were rarely funded by bank loans—yet money transmits, propagates, and vivifies it. This thought-provoking quotation (p. 20) is from Theology of […]
I’ve written a report for the Institute for Research on Public Policy about social assistance—specifically, about social assistance for employable single adults without dependants. A ‘top 10’ overview of the report can be found here.