Of course, my primary worry about Trump is that he would engineer the adoption of even stricter immigration legislation than we already have. But I too breathe easy today.
Author: Bryan Caplan
Bryan Caplan is Professor of Economics at George Mason University and Senior Scholar at the Mercatus Center. He is the author of The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies, named “the best political book of the year” by the New York Times, and Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent Is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think. He has published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the American Economic Review, the Economic Journal, the Journal of Law and Economics, and Intelligence, and has appeared on 20/20, FoxNews, and C-SPAN.
Election Boilerplate
What do I think about today’s election? Basically the same thing I think about every election. For starters: I hate politics, both popular ideologies are insipid, the main parties’ differences are primarily rhetorical, politicians are evil, voters are irrational, and democracy is rule by demagogues.
“Sanction”: The Triumph of Ayn Rand’s Worst Idea
Ayn Rand is widely hated. Indeed, if you made a list of thinkers that people “love to hate,” she’d be near the top of the list. Liberals hate her. Conservatives hate her. Socialists hate her. Indeed, plenty of libertarians hate her. It’s hardly surprising, then, that she has not been broadly influential. While she has…
Education Is a Passport to the Real Training
What’s bizarre about our society is that kids have to spend a decade-plus in the Land of School to get the credentials they need to gain entry to the Land of Work.
Socialists Without a Plan
The socialists of today aren’t experienced logisticians who fail to see the disanalogies between running an organization and running a whole society. They’re dreamers who want to lead before they learn to follow.
Inside the Moderate Mind
A progressive immigration activist recently told me that every election year, moderate Democrats urge him to shut up. Moderate Democrats clearly consider immigration a losing issue. But according to my source, they’re also quite self-righteous about their shushing. Which makes me wonder: What’s going on inside the mind of the moderate Democrat?
Optimality versus Fire
Public choice economists have long argued that conventional economists hold markets to far higher standards than they hold government. Markets “fail” unless they’re optimal. Governments “succeed” unless they’re on fire.
Stubborn Detachments
I’ve known Tyler Cowen for 25 years. Straussian misreadings notwithstanding, I assure you that he has little patience for open borders and even less for my brand of pacifism. But given the general moral theory that he embraces in his new Stubborn Attachments, it’s hard to see why Tyler doesn’t already agree with me.
Meritocracy Without Borders: Sowell Edition
In recent years, Thomas Sowell has been a staunch advocate of stricter immigration policies. Which is ironic, because this passage from his Compassion Versus Guilt has stuck with me for thirty years: When I travel through California’s vast agricultural areas, the people I see working in the fields under the hot sun are usually Mexicans. …
Does Immigration Shrink the Welfare State?
People normally assume that immigration will expand the welfare state. The lazy version says (a) immigrants are net beneficiaries of the welfare state, and (b) people vote their self-interest. The better version says that immigrants’ countries of origins favor more redistribution than natives – and immigrants’ bring their political culture with them.