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BENJAMIN STUDEBAKER
The Biden administration has come out with a $2 trillion infrastructure plan. The United States is very behind on infrastructure spending–according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the US faces a $2.59 trillion infrastructure shortfall over the next 10 years. Biden’s bill isn’t large enough to fill that gap, and a significant ABOUT | BENJAMIN STUDEBAKER About. My name is Benjamin Studebaker. I am an American doing a PhD in Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge. My research focuses on economic inequality and democratic theory. I got my BA in Politics from the University of Warwick in 2013 and my MA from the University of Chicago in 2014. A SERIOUS DISCUSSION OF THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF KWAME Kwame Brown is a retired NBA player, and he’s been advancing a critique of the culture industry. Brown never went to college and he doesn’t work for anybody, so he isn’t bound by the usual rules of contemporary discourse. This means his critique has rough edges, butit
UTILITARIANISM AND EQUALITY One of the key topics in moral philosophy is utilitarian ethics--the notion that some principle or concept, usually happiness or pleasure or some variant, should be maximised across society. Famously created by Jeremy Bentham, the system of ethics has attracted many famous supporters over the years, most notably John Stuart Mill. However,many writers and
STAGFLATION: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN THE 70’S The stagflation argument claims that the big state and stimulus caused high inflation, high unemployment, and poor growth during the seventies. Usually this argument is not fully argued by those who believe in it–it is merely asserted, and the rest of us are expected to accept that it is simply the case that the seventies happened thatway.
HOW TO END THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT As Israel proves that twitter can be a tool of the state just as easily as it can be a tool of rebels and revolutionaries, the question once again rises as to how on earth a permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might come about. The attitudes to this conflict are too partisan and too subjectively involved. What is required is emotional detachment and rational analysis, and I A CRITIQUE OF EXISTENTIALISM There's a problem with existentialism, specifically Jean Paul Sartre's concept of "existence precedes essence". Today I'd like to talk about that concept, why it is flawed, and what implications all of this has for our wider society and political structure. First "existence precedes essence" needs to be explained. Existence is consciousness, while essence is genetic A CRITIQUE OF PETER SINGER I had an interesting lecture today in which Peter Singer came up. Singer is an interesting philosopher in so far as he is, like me, a utilitarian and a consequentialist, but I nonetheless find myself from time to time in conflict with him. Today I seek to identify where precisely Singer and I differ, and REMEMBER WHEN OBAMA AND BIDEN TRIED TO CUT SOCIAL SECURITY The Obama administration tried to incorporate Chained-CPI into its ‘Grand Bargain’ with Republicans over the budget. They proposed for a small buff in benefits for older retirees to partially offset the move to Chained-CPI, but this still left a benefit cut of 1% to 2%. The proposal was estimated to cut a total of $230 billion fromSocial
MISCONCEPTIONS: RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE DOES NOT In recent weeks, I have had the very same conversation with a number of my friends. Each time I'm told that they were participating in a discussion about the minimum wage when someone claimed that there was no point in raising wages because firms would just raise their prices to cover the increase. This isBENJAMIN STUDEBAKER
The Biden administration has come out with a $2 trillion infrastructure plan. The United States is very behind on infrastructure spending–according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the US faces a $2.59 trillion infrastructure shortfall over the next 10 years. Biden’s bill isn’t large enough to fill that gap, and a significant ABOUT | BENJAMIN STUDEBAKER About. My name is Benjamin Studebaker. I am an American doing a PhD in Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge. My research focuses on economic inequality and democratic theory. I got my BA in Politics from the University of Warwick in 2013 and my MA from the University of Chicago in 2014. A SERIOUS DISCUSSION OF THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF KWAME Kwame Brown is a retired NBA player, and he’s been advancing a critique of the culture industry. Brown never went to college and he doesn’t work for anybody, so he isn’t bound by the usual rules of contemporary discourse. This means his critique has rough edges, butit
UTILITARIANISM AND EQUALITY One of the key topics in moral philosophy is utilitarian ethics--the notion that some principle or concept, usually happiness or pleasure or some variant, should be maximised across society. Famously created by Jeremy Bentham, the system of ethics has attracted many famous supporters over the years, most notably John Stuart Mill. However,many writers and
STAGFLATION: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN THE 70’S The stagflation argument claims that the big state and stimulus caused high inflation, high unemployment, and poor growth during the seventies. Usually this argument is not fully argued by those who believe in it–it is merely asserted, and the rest of us are expected to accept that it is simply the case that the seventies happened thatway.
HOW TO END THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT As Israel proves that twitter can be a tool of the state just as easily as it can be a tool of rebels and revolutionaries, the question once again rises as to how on earth a permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might come about. The attitudes to this conflict are too partisan and too subjectively involved. What is required is emotional detachment and rational analysis, and I A CRITIQUE OF EXISTENTIALISM There's a problem with existentialism, specifically Jean Paul Sartre's concept of "existence precedes essence". Today I'd like to talk about that concept, why it is flawed, and what implications all of this has for our wider society and political structure. First "existence precedes essence" needs to be explained. Existence is consciousness, while essence is genetic A CRITIQUE OF PETER SINGER I had an interesting lecture today in which Peter Singer came up. Singer is an interesting philosopher in so far as he is, like me, a utilitarian and a consequentialist, but I nonetheless find myself from time to time in conflict with him. Today I seek to identify where precisely Singer and I differ, and REMEMBER WHEN OBAMA AND BIDEN TRIED TO CUT SOCIAL SECURITY The Obama administration tried to incorporate Chained-CPI into its ‘Grand Bargain’ with Republicans over the budget. They proposed for a small buff in benefits for older retirees to partially offset the move to Chained-CPI, but this still left a benefit cut of 1% to 2%. The proposal was estimated to cut a total of $230 billion fromSocial
MISCONCEPTIONS: RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE DOES NOT In recent weeks, I have had the very same conversation with a number of my friends. Each time I'm told that they were participating in a discussion about the minimum wage when someone claimed that there was no point in raising wages because firms would just raise their prices to cover the increase. This is ABOUT | BENJAMIN STUDEBAKER About. My name is Benjamin Studebaker. I am an American doing a PhD in Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge. My research focuses on economic inequality and democratic theory. I got my BA in Politics from the University of Warwick in 2013 and my MA from the University of Chicago in 2014. STAGFLATION: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN THE 70’S The stagflation argument claims that the big state and stimulus caused high inflation, high unemployment, and poor growth during the seventies. Usually this argument is not fully argued by those who believe in it–it is merely asserted, and the rest of us are expected to accept that it is simply the case that the seventies happened thatway.
CONSERVATISM LEADS TO FASCISM Wealth Inequality Leads to Fascism. Political scientist Carles Boix took some data on the number and percentage of the world’s countries that have been democracies from 1800-2000: The line shows the percentage of the countries that were democratic, the bars show the raw number. The data shows that democracy really starts to take off asa
A CRITIQUE OF JUST WAR THEORY The doctrine of jus ad bellum, when it is just to go to war, contains six stipulations each of which is a necessary condition for a war to be just. These are: The existence of a just cause. Possession of legitimate authority to wage war. The war is fought with good intent.The war has a
THE 3 WAYS GOVERNMENTS RAISE MONEY PART I: TAXATION One of the things I've noticed lately is that there is a lot of confusion about how governments finance themselves. Many people try to make sense of the state's finances by extrapolating from their own experiences with household budgets or running businesses. This leads to a lot of misconceptions, the most prominent of which is HOW SIMILAR ARE TRUMP AND CAESAR? Many of President Trump's supporters are aggrieved about a New York production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar which features a Caesar that looks rather Trump-like. This has produced some discussion of how far this comparison should really go, and whether having a Trump-like Caesar encourages political violence. Much of the arguments surrounding this are a bit muddled MORAL ABSOLUTISM: THE DETRIMENTS OF DEONTOLOGY The classical example of deontological ethics is the Kantian deontology and its categorical imperative. Immanuel Kant believed that moral behaviour necessarily stemmed from duty, or adherence to rules. The categorical imperative is Kant’s core rule as to how people should behave ethically, and he felt it applied universally. 4 ARGUMENTS AGAINST ACCEPTING SYRIAN REFUGEES AND WHY THEY Over the past few days, the public debate has turned toward the question of Syrian refugees. I've been wandering around the internet, reading the different arguments people have for refusing to accept refugees, and I have found all of them wanting. So today I'd like to run through the most common and pervasive anti-refugee arguments WHY THE MEDIA PAYS MORE ATTENTION TO SOME TRAGEDIES THAN But while systemic racism certainly is a significant problem in our society, their argument mischaracterizes the social forces that cause the media to pay more attention to some tragedies rather than others. This poem does not get everything wrong–it is right to stand up for refugees, right to recognize the horrors of global war and poverty. DEVELOPING COUNTRIES SHOULDN’T HOST THE OLYMPICS The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia got started yesterday. In the run-up, we’ve heard a variety of zany stories, from booked hotel rooms that for whatever reason were not ready to a road so expensive it could have been paved with foie gras. The Sochi games may go off without a hitch from here on out, and I wish the Russians the best of luck, but developing countries are not goodBENJAMIN STUDEBAKER
The Biden administration has come out with a $2 trillion infrastructure plan. The United States is very behind on infrastructure spending–according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the US faces a $2.59 trillion infrastructure shortfall over the next 10 years. Biden’s bill isn’t large enough to fill that gap, and a significant ABOUT | BENJAMIN STUDEBAKER About. My name is Benjamin Studebaker. I am an American doing a PhD in Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge. My research focuses on economic inequality and democratic theory. I got my BA in Politics from the University of Warwick in 2013 and my MA from the University of Chicago in 2014. A SERIOUS DISCUSSION OF THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF KWAME Kwame Brown is a retired NBA player, and he’s been advancing a critique of the culture industry. Brown never went to college and he doesn’t work for anybody, so he isn’t bound by the usual rules of contemporary discourse. This means his critique has rough edges, butit
UTILITARIANISM AND EQUALITY One of the key topics in moral philosophy is utilitarian ethics--the notion that some principle or concept, usually happiness or pleasure or some variant, should be maximised across society. Famously created by Jeremy Bentham, the system of ethics has attracted many famous supporters over the years, most notably John Stuart Mill. However,many writers and
STAGFLATION: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN THE 70’S The stagflation argument claims that the big state and stimulus caused high inflation, high unemployment, and poor growth during the seventies. Usually this argument is not fully argued by those who believe in it–it is merely asserted, and the rest of us are expected to accept that it is simply the case that the seventies happened thatway.
HOW TO END THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT As Israel proves that twitter can be a tool of the state just as easily as it can be a tool of rebels and revolutionaries, the question once again rises as to how on earth a permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might come about. The attitudes to this conflict are too partisan and too subjectively involved. What is required is emotional detachment and rational analysis, and I A CRITIQUE OF EXISTENTIALISM There's a problem with existentialism, specifically Jean Paul Sartre's concept of "existence precedes essence". Today I'd like to talk about that concept, why it is flawed, and what implications all of this has for our wider society and political structure. First "existence precedes essence" needs to be explained. Existence is consciousness, while essence is genetic A CRITIQUE OF PETER SINGER I had an interesting lecture today in which Peter Singer came up. Singer is an interesting philosopher in so far as he is, like me, a utilitarian and a consequentialist, but I nonetheless find myself from time to time in conflict with him. Today I seek to identify where precisely Singer and I differ, and REMEMBER WHEN OBAMA AND BIDEN TRIED TO CUT SOCIAL SECURITY The Obama administration tried to incorporate Chained-CPI into its ‘Grand Bargain’ with Republicans over the budget. They proposed for a small buff in benefits for older retirees to partially offset the move to Chained-CPI, but this still left a benefit cut of 1% to 2%. The proposal was estimated to cut a total of $230 billion fromSocial
MISCONCEPTIONS: RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE DOES NOT In recent weeks, I have had the very same conversation with a number of my friends. Each time I'm told that they were participating in a discussion about the minimum wage when someone claimed that there was no point in raising wages because firms would just raise their prices to cover the increase. This isBENJAMIN STUDEBAKER
The Biden administration has come out with a $2 trillion infrastructure plan. The United States is very behind on infrastructure spending–according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the US faces a $2.59 trillion infrastructure shortfall over the next 10 years. Biden’s bill isn’t large enough to fill that gap, and a significant ABOUT | BENJAMIN STUDEBAKER About. My name is Benjamin Studebaker. I am an American doing a PhD in Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge. My research focuses on economic inequality and democratic theory. I got my BA in Politics from the University of Warwick in 2013 and my MA from the University of Chicago in 2014. A SERIOUS DISCUSSION OF THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF KWAME Kwame Brown is a retired NBA player, and he’s been advancing a critique of the culture industry. Brown never went to college and he doesn’t work for anybody, so he isn’t bound by the usual rules of contemporary discourse. This means his critique has rough edges, butit
UTILITARIANISM AND EQUALITY One of the key topics in moral philosophy is utilitarian ethics--the notion that some principle or concept, usually happiness or pleasure or some variant, should be maximised across society. Famously created by Jeremy Bentham, the system of ethics has attracted many famous supporters over the years, most notably John Stuart Mill. However,many writers and
STAGFLATION: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN THE 70’S The stagflation argument claims that the big state and stimulus caused high inflation, high unemployment, and poor growth during the seventies. Usually this argument is not fully argued by those who believe in it–it is merely asserted, and the rest of us are expected to accept that it is simply the case that the seventies happened thatway.
HOW TO END THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT As Israel proves that twitter can be a tool of the state just as easily as it can be a tool of rebels and revolutionaries, the question once again rises as to how on earth a permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might come about. The attitudes to this conflict are too partisan and too subjectively involved. What is required is emotional detachment and rational analysis, and I A CRITIQUE OF EXISTENTIALISM There's a problem with existentialism, specifically Jean Paul Sartre's concept of "existence precedes essence". Today I'd like to talk about that concept, why it is flawed, and what implications all of this has for our wider society and political structure. First "existence precedes essence" needs to be explained. Existence is consciousness, while essence is genetic A CRITIQUE OF PETER SINGER I had an interesting lecture today in which Peter Singer came up. Singer is an interesting philosopher in so far as he is, like me, a utilitarian and a consequentialist, but I nonetheless find myself from time to time in conflict with him. Today I seek to identify where precisely Singer and I differ, and REMEMBER WHEN OBAMA AND BIDEN TRIED TO CUT SOCIAL SECURITY The Obama administration tried to incorporate Chained-CPI into its ‘Grand Bargain’ with Republicans over the budget. They proposed for a small buff in benefits for older retirees to partially offset the move to Chained-CPI, but this still left a benefit cut of 1% to 2%. The proposal was estimated to cut a total of $230 billion fromSocial
MISCONCEPTIONS: RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE DOES NOT In recent weeks, I have had the very same conversation with a number of my friends. Each time I'm told that they were participating in a discussion about the minimum wage when someone claimed that there was no point in raising wages because firms would just raise their prices to cover the increase. This is ABOUT | BENJAMIN STUDEBAKER About. My name is Benjamin Studebaker. I am an American doing a PhD in Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge. My research focuses on economic inequality and democratic theory. I got my BA in Politics from the University of Warwick in 2013 and my MA from the University of Chicago in 2014. STAGFLATION: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN THE 70’S The stagflation argument claims that the big state and stimulus caused high inflation, high unemployment, and poor growth during the seventies. Usually this argument is not fully argued by those who believe in it–it is merely asserted, and the rest of us are expected to accept that it is simply the case that the seventies happened thatway.
CONSERVATISM LEADS TO FASCISM Wealth Inequality Leads to Fascism. Political scientist Carles Boix took some data on the number and percentage of the world’s countries that have been democracies from 1800-2000: The line shows the percentage of the countries that were democratic, the bars show the raw number. The data shows that democracy really starts to take off asa
A CRITIQUE OF JUST WAR THEORY The doctrine of jus ad bellum, when it is just to go to war, contains six stipulations each of which is a necessary condition for a war to be just. These are: The existence of a just cause. Possession of legitimate authority to wage war. The war is fought with good intent.The war has a
THE 3 WAYS GOVERNMENTS RAISE MONEY PART I: TAXATION One of the things I've noticed lately is that there is a lot of confusion about how governments finance themselves. Many people try to make sense of the state's finances by extrapolating from their own experiences with household budgets or running businesses. This leads to a lot of misconceptions, the most prominent of which is HOW SIMILAR ARE TRUMP AND CAESAR? Many of President Trump's supporters are aggrieved about a New York production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar which features a Caesar that looks rather Trump-like. This has produced some discussion of how far this comparison should really go, and whether having a Trump-like Caesar encourages political violence. Much of the arguments surrounding this are a bit muddled MORAL ABSOLUTISM: THE DETRIMENTS OF DEONTOLOGY The classical example of deontological ethics is the Kantian deontology and its categorical imperative. Immanuel Kant believed that moral behaviour necessarily stemmed from duty, or adherence to rules. The categorical imperative is Kant’s core rule as to how people should behave ethically, and he felt it applied universally. 4 ARGUMENTS AGAINST ACCEPTING SYRIAN REFUGEES AND WHY THEY Over the past few days, the public debate has turned toward the question of Syrian refugees. I've been wandering around the internet, reading the different arguments people have for refusing to accept refugees, and I have found all of them wanting. So today I'd like to run through the most common and pervasive anti-refugee arguments WHY THE MEDIA PAYS MORE ATTENTION TO SOME TRAGEDIES THAN But while systemic racism certainly is a significant problem in our society, their argument mischaracterizes the social forces that cause the media to pay more attention to some tragedies rather than others. This poem does not get everything wrong–it is right to stand up for refugees, right to recognize the horrors of global war and poverty. DEVELOPING COUNTRIES SHOULDN’T HOST THE OLYMPICS The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia got started yesterday. In the run-up, we’ve heard a variety of zany stories, from booked hotel rooms that for whatever reason were not ready to a road so expensive it could have been paved with foie gras. The Sochi games may go off without a hitch from here on out, and I wish the Russians the best of luck, but developing countries are not goodBENJAMIN STUDEBAKER
The Biden administration has come out with a $2 trillion infrastructure plan. The United States is very behind on infrastructure spending–according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the US faces a $2.59 trillion infrastructure shortfall over the next 10 years. Biden’s bill isn’t large enough to fill that gap, and a significant ABOUT | BENJAMIN STUDEBAKER About. My name is Benjamin Studebaker. I am an American doing a PhD in Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge. My research focuses on economic inequality and democratic theory. I got my BA in Politics from the University of Warwick in 2013 and my MA from the University of Chicago in 2014. A SERIOUS DISCUSSION OF THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF KWAME Kwame Brown is a retired NBA player, and he’s been advancing a critique of the culture industry. Brown never went to college and he doesn’t work for anybody, so he isn’t bound by the usual rules of contemporary discourse. This means his critique has rough edges, butit
UTILITARIANISM AND EQUALITY One of the key topics in moral philosophy is utilitarian ethics--the notion that some principle or concept, usually happiness or pleasure or some variant, should be maximised across society. Famously created by Jeremy Bentham, the system of ethics has attracted many famous supporters over the years, most notably John Stuart Mill. However,many writers and
STAGFLATION: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN THE 70’S The stagflation argument claims that the big state and stimulus caused high inflation, high unemployment, and poor growth during the seventies. Usually this argument is not fully argued by those who believe in it–it is merely asserted, and the rest of us are expected to accept that it is simply the case that the seventies happened thatway.
HOW TO END THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT As Israel proves that twitter can be a tool of the state just as easily as it can be a tool of rebels and revolutionaries, the question once again rises as to how on earth a permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might come about. The attitudes to this conflict are too partisan and too subjectively involved. What is required is emotional detachment and rational analysis, and I A CRITIQUE OF EXISTENTIALISM There's a problem with existentialism, specifically Jean Paul Sartre's concept of "existence precedes essence". Today I'd like to talk about that concept, why it is flawed, and what implications all of this has for our wider society and political structure. First "existence precedes essence" needs to be explained. Existence is consciousness, while essence is genetic A CRITIQUE OF PETER SINGER I had an interesting lecture today in which Peter Singer came up. Singer is an interesting philosopher in so far as he is, like me, a utilitarian and a consequentialist, but I nonetheless find myself from time to time in conflict with him. Today I seek to identify where precisely Singer and I differ, and REMEMBER WHEN OBAMA AND BIDEN TRIED TO CUT SOCIAL SECURITY The Obama administration tried to incorporate Chained-CPI into its ‘Grand Bargain’ with Republicans over the budget. They proposed for a small buff in benefits for older retirees to partially offset the move to Chained-CPI, but this still left a benefit cut of 1% to 2%. The proposal was estimated to cut a total of $230 billion fromSocial
MISCONCEPTIONS: RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE DOES NOT In recent weeks, I have had the very same conversation with a number of my friends. Each time I'm told that they were participating in a discussion about the minimum wage when someone claimed that there was no point in raising wages because firms would just raise their prices to cover the increase. This isBENJAMIN STUDEBAKER
The Biden administration has come out with a $2 trillion infrastructure plan. The United States is very behind on infrastructure spending–according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the US faces a $2.59 trillion infrastructure shortfall over the next 10 years. Biden’s bill isn’t large enough to fill that gap, and a significant ABOUT | BENJAMIN STUDEBAKER About. My name is Benjamin Studebaker. I am an American doing a PhD in Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge. My research focuses on economic inequality and democratic theory. I got my BA in Politics from the University of Warwick in 2013 and my MA from the University of Chicago in 2014. A SERIOUS DISCUSSION OF THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF KWAME Kwame Brown is a retired NBA player, and he’s been advancing a critique of the culture industry. Brown never went to college and he doesn’t work for anybody, so he isn’t bound by the usual rules of contemporary discourse. This means his critique has rough edges, butit
UTILITARIANISM AND EQUALITY One of the key topics in moral philosophy is utilitarian ethics--the notion that some principle or concept, usually happiness or pleasure or some variant, should be maximised across society. Famously created by Jeremy Bentham, the system of ethics has attracted many famous supporters over the years, most notably John Stuart Mill. However,many writers and
STAGFLATION: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN THE 70’S The stagflation argument claims that the big state and stimulus caused high inflation, high unemployment, and poor growth during the seventies. Usually this argument is not fully argued by those who believe in it–it is merely asserted, and the rest of us are expected to accept that it is simply the case that the seventies happened thatway.
HOW TO END THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT As Israel proves that twitter can be a tool of the state just as easily as it can be a tool of rebels and revolutionaries, the question once again rises as to how on earth a permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might come about. The attitudes to this conflict are too partisan and too subjectively involved. What is required is emotional detachment and rational analysis, and I A CRITIQUE OF EXISTENTIALISM There's a problem with existentialism, specifically Jean Paul Sartre's concept of "existence precedes essence". Today I'd like to talk about that concept, why it is flawed, and what implications all of this has for our wider society and political structure. First "existence precedes essence" needs to be explained. Existence is consciousness, while essence is genetic A CRITIQUE OF PETER SINGER I had an interesting lecture today in which Peter Singer came up. Singer is an interesting philosopher in so far as he is, like me, a utilitarian and a consequentialist, but I nonetheless find myself from time to time in conflict with him. Today I seek to identify where precisely Singer and I differ, and REMEMBER WHEN OBAMA AND BIDEN TRIED TO CUT SOCIAL SECURITY The Obama administration tried to incorporate Chained-CPI into its ‘Grand Bargain’ with Republicans over the budget. They proposed for a small buff in benefits for older retirees to partially offset the move to Chained-CPI, but this still left a benefit cut of 1% to 2%. The proposal was estimated to cut a total of $230 billion fromSocial
MISCONCEPTIONS: RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE DOES NOT In recent weeks, I have had the very same conversation with a number of my friends. Each time I'm told that they were participating in a discussion about the minimum wage when someone claimed that there was no point in raising wages because firms would just raise their prices to cover the increase. This is ABOUT | BENJAMIN STUDEBAKER About. My name is Benjamin Studebaker. I am an American doing a PhD in Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge. My research focuses on economic inequality and democratic theory. I got my BA in Politics from the University of Warwick in 2013 and my MA from the University of Chicago in 2014. STAGFLATION: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN THE 70’S The stagflation argument claims that the big state and stimulus caused high inflation, high unemployment, and poor growth during the seventies. Usually this argument is not fully argued by those who believe in it–it is merely asserted, and the rest of us are expected to accept that it is simply the case that the seventies happened thatway.
CONSERVATISM LEADS TO FASCISM Wealth Inequality Leads to Fascism. Political scientist Carles Boix took some data on the number and percentage of the world’s countries that have been democracies from 1800-2000: The line shows the percentage of the countries that were democratic, the bars show the raw number. The data shows that democracy really starts to take off asa
A CRITIQUE OF JUST WAR THEORY The doctrine of jus ad bellum, when it is just to go to war, contains six stipulations each of which is a necessary condition for a war to be just. These are: The existence of a just cause. Possession of legitimate authority to wage war. The war is fought with good intent.The war has a
THE 3 WAYS GOVERNMENTS RAISE MONEY PART I: TAXATION One of the things I've noticed lately is that there is a lot of confusion about how governments finance themselves. Many people try to make sense of the state's finances by extrapolating from their own experiences with household budgets or running businesses. This leads to a lot of misconceptions, the most prominent of which is HOW SIMILAR ARE TRUMP AND CAESAR? Many of President Trump's supporters are aggrieved about a New York production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar which features a Caesar that looks rather Trump-like. This has produced some discussion of how far this comparison should really go, and whether having a Trump-like Caesar encourages political violence. Much of the arguments surrounding this are a bit muddled MORAL ABSOLUTISM: THE DETRIMENTS OF DEONTOLOGY The classical example of deontological ethics is the Kantian deontology and its categorical imperative. Immanuel Kant believed that moral behaviour necessarily stemmed from duty, or adherence to rules. The categorical imperative is Kant’s core rule as to how people should behave ethically, and he felt it applied universally. 4 ARGUMENTS AGAINST ACCEPTING SYRIAN REFUGEES AND WHY THEY Over the past few days, the public debate has turned toward the question of Syrian refugees. I've been wandering around the internet, reading the different arguments people have for refusing to accept refugees, and I have found all of them wanting. So today I'd like to run through the most common and pervasive anti-refugee arguments WHY THE MEDIA PAYS MORE ATTENTION TO SOME TRAGEDIES THAN But while systemic racism certainly is a significant problem in our society, their argument mischaracterizes the social forces that cause the media to pay more attention to some tragedies rather than others. This poem does not get everything wrong–it is right to stand up for refugees, right to recognize the horrors of global war and poverty. DEVELOPING COUNTRIES SHOULDN’T HOST THE OLYMPICS The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia got started yesterday. In the run-up, we’ve heard a variety of zany stories, from booked hotel rooms that for whatever reason were not ready to a road so expensive it could have been paved with foie gras. The Sochi games may go off without a hitch from here on out, and I wish the Russians the best of luck, but developing countries are not goodBENJAMIN STUDEBAKER
The Biden administration has come out with a $2 trillion infrastructure plan. The United States is very behind on infrastructure spending–according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the US faces a $2.59 trillion infrastructure shortfall over the next 10 years. Biden’s bill isn’t large enough to fill that gap, and a significant A SERIOUS DISCUSSION OF THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF KWAME Kwame Brown is a retired NBA player, and he’s been advancing a critique of the culture industry. Brown never went to college and he doesn’t work for anybody, so he isn’t bound by the usual rules of contemporary discourse. This means his critique has rough edges, butit
A CRITIQUE OF RADICAL DEMOCRACY A lot of smart people recognize that there are serious structural problems with the current political system, but there is much disagreement on how those problems should be dealt with. While I have often argued for sophiarchism, in many corners radical democratic theory remains more popular. I'd like to offer an argument forrejecting, at
THE PROBLEM WITH THE LABOUR PARTY On the 12th, the British Labour Party suffered a devastating electoral defeat at the hands of Boris Johnson's Conservative Party. There have been lots of pieces about why Labour lost. Having taken the better part of a week to think about it, I've come to a view about where the trouble lies. Let me share THE TRUE BELIEVER, ERIC HOFFER, AND THE CONTEMPORARY LEFT The main difference between small-c conservatism and Marxism is the level of optimism. Both conservatives and Marxists despise capitalism and the individualism it produces. But socialists believe there is light at the end of the tunnel, and that by going through the upheaval we can come to a better place. Old-fashioned conservatives think weare
STAGFLATION: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN THE 70’S The stagflation argument claims that the big state and stimulus caused high inflation, high unemployment, and poor growth during the seventies. Usually this argument is not fully argued by those who believe in it–it is merely asserted, and the rest of us are expected to accept that it is simply the case that the seventies happened thatway.
HOW TO END THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT As Israel proves that twitter can be a tool of the state just as easily as it can be a tool of rebels and revolutionaries, the question once again rises as to how on earth a permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might come about. The attitudes to this conflict are too partisan and too subjectively involved. What is required is emotional detachment and rational analysis, and I REMEMBER WHEN OBAMA AND BIDEN TRIED TO CUT SOCIAL SECURITY The Obama administration tried to incorporate Chained-CPI into its ‘Grand Bargain’ with Republicans over the budget. They proposed for a small buff in benefits for older retirees to partially offset the move to Chained-CPI, but this still left a benefit cut of 1% to 2%. The proposal was estimated to cut a total of $230 billion fromSocial
A CRITIQUE OF HABERMAS Today I’d like to put on my democratic theory hat and offer a critique of Jürgen Habermas‘ theory of deliberative democracy. Habermas gives his answer to the question of what kind of government we ought to have by appealing not to any specific goal or end that he thinks government ought to have, but by instead offering standards by which we can judge a procedure through which one would HOW SIMILAR ARE TRUMP AND CAESAR? Many of President Trump's supporters are aggrieved about a New York production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar which features a Caesar that looks rather Trump-like. This has produced some discussion of how far this comparison should really go, and whether having a Trump-like Caesar encourages political violence. Much of the arguments surrounding this are a bit muddledBENJAMIN STUDEBAKER
The Biden administration has come out with a $2 trillion infrastructure plan. The United States is very behind on infrastructure spending–according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the US faces a $2.59 trillion infrastructure shortfall over the next 10 years. Biden’s bill isn’t large enough to fill that gap, and a significant A SERIOUS DISCUSSION OF THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF KWAME Kwame Brown is a retired NBA player, and he’s been advancing a critique of the culture industry. Brown never went to college and he doesn’t work for anybody, so he isn’t bound by the usual rules of contemporary discourse. This means his critique has rough edges, butit
A CRITIQUE OF RADICAL DEMOCRACY A lot of smart people recognize that there are serious structural problems with the current political system, but there is much disagreement on how those problems should be dealt with. While I have often argued for sophiarchism, in many corners radical democratic theory remains more popular. I'd like to offer an argument forrejecting, at
THE PROBLEM WITH THE LABOUR PARTY On the 12th, the British Labour Party suffered a devastating electoral defeat at the hands of Boris Johnson's Conservative Party. There have been lots of pieces about why Labour lost. Having taken the better part of a week to think about it, I've come to a view about where the trouble lies. Let me share THE TRUE BELIEVER, ERIC HOFFER, AND THE CONTEMPORARY LEFT The main difference between small-c conservatism and Marxism is the level of optimism. Both conservatives and Marxists despise capitalism and the individualism it produces. But socialists believe there is light at the end of the tunnel, and that by going through the upheaval we can come to a better place. Old-fashioned conservatives think weare
STAGFLATION: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN THE 70’S The stagflation argument claims that the big state and stimulus caused high inflation, high unemployment, and poor growth during the seventies. Usually this argument is not fully argued by those who believe in it–it is merely asserted, and the rest of us are expected to accept that it is simply the case that the seventies happened thatway.
HOW TO END THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT As Israel proves that twitter can be a tool of the state just as easily as it can be a tool of rebels and revolutionaries, the question once again rises as to how on earth a permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might come about. The attitudes to this conflict are too partisan and too subjectively involved. What is required is emotional detachment and rational analysis, and I REMEMBER WHEN OBAMA AND BIDEN TRIED TO CUT SOCIAL SECURITY The Obama administration tried to incorporate Chained-CPI into its ‘Grand Bargain’ with Republicans over the budget. They proposed for a small buff in benefits for older retirees to partially offset the move to Chained-CPI, but this still left a benefit cut of 1% to 2%. The proposal was estimated to cut a total of $230 billion fromSocial
A CRITIQUE OF HABERMAS Today I’d like to put on my democratic theory hat and offer a critique of Jürgen Habermas‘ theory of deliberative democracy. Habermas gives his answer to the question of what kind of government we ought to have by appealing not to any specific goal or end that he thinks government ought to have, but by instead offering standards by which we can judge a procedure through which one would HOW SIMILAR ARE TRUMP AND CAESAR? Many of President Trump's supporters are aggrieved about a New York production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar which features a Caesar that looks rather Trump-like. This has produced some discussion of how far this comparison should really go, and whether having a Trump-like Caesar encourages political violence. Much of the arguments surrounding this are a bit muddled THE PROBLEM WITH THE LABOUR PARTY On the 12th, the British Labour Party suffered a devastating electoral defeat at the hands of Boris Johnson's Conservative Party. There have been lots of pieces about why Labour lost. Having taken the better part of a week to think about it, I've come to a view about where the trouble lies. Let me share A CRITIQUE OF EXISTENTIALISM There's a problem with existentialism, specifically Jean Paul Sartre's concept of "existence precedes essence". Today I'd like to talk about that concept, why it is flawed, and what implications all of this has for our wider society and political structure. First "existence precedes essence" needs to be explained. Existence is consciousness, while essence is genetic A CRITIQUE OF VIRTUE ETHICS We have moral duties to plants. Virtue ethics is true. There are a variety of reasons why the first option might be problematic. Only one of these need be true for it to fail: It’s too demanding–it would make every man, woman, child, and animal a murderer. It violates reciprocity–plants are not willing and capable of reciprocity. THE RUMP PROFESSIONAL CLASS AND ITS FALLEN COUNTERPART I've been thinking about the professional class--the class which sits between the wealthy billionaires and the ordinary workers. The professionals are college-educated and they are traditionally paid more than ordinary workers. But as economic inequality grows and the position of workers becomes more precarious, the professionals are less secure than they used to be. A CRITIQUE OF PETER SINGER I had an interesting lecture today in which Peter Singer came up. Singer is an interesting philosopher in so far as he is, like me, a utilitarian and a consequentialist, but I nonetheless find myself from time to time in conflict with him. Today I seek to identify where precisely Singer and I differ, and THE 3 WAYS GOVERNMENTS RAISE MONEY PART II: BORROWING Today I'm continuing my three-part series on how governments finance themselves. The aim is to clear up the popular misconception that the state's budget is similar to that of a corporation or a household, that government borrowing is always necessarily a bad thing. Previously we talked about taxation--today is all about borrowing. Torefresh, there are
WHEN IS CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE ETHICAL? When civil disobedience comes up, we often think of Gandhi, King, Mandela, men who are heroes to many and who fought great injustices. However, it must be recognised that civil disobedience is a tool and not an end in itself--it can be used for bad as well as good. So how does one determine when MISCONCEPTIONS: RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE DOES NOT In recent weeks, I have had the very same conversation with a number of my friends. Each time I'm told that they were participating in a discussion about the minimum wage when someone claimed that there was no point in raising wages because firms would just raise their prices to cover the increase. This is 4 ARGUMENTS AGAINST ACCEPTING SYRIAN REFUGEES AND WHY THEY Over the past few days, the public debate has turned toward the question of Syrian refugees. I've been wandering around the internet, reading the different arguments people have for refusing to accept refugees, and I have found all of them wanting. So today I'd like to run through the most common and pervasive anti-refugee arguments NATIVE AMERICAN SOVEREIGNTY IS AN OBSTACLE TO EQUALITY Many left wing commentators writing about the tragedy unfolding in Standing Rock believe that the government erred by failing to respect Native American sovereignty. This argument claims that Native Americans are nations that have sovereign rights over the territory reserved to them and consequently the US government is wrong to take action that impacts them andBENJAMIN STUDEBAKER
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APRIL 7, 2020
WHAT I THINK IN 2020 Now that the Bernie Sanders movement is comprehensively failing, it is time for those of us who supported it to take a step back and reflect. We can only learn from defeat if we are willing to be honest with ourselves and recognise it as such. This post is more autobiographical than most of what I run here. The aim is to do some hard introspection about how I came to support the Sanders movement and where its downfall leaves me, politically. Read the rest of this entry »APRIL 6, 2020
NEOLIBERALISM ISN’T DEAD YET As the coronavirus crisis drags on, it has become popular to declare this to be the death of neoliberalism. If neoliberalism were simply noninterference in the economy, the large stimulus packages passed around the world would seem to signify its end. But neoliberalism was never simply about noninterference. Neoliberalism is characterised by economic integration without political integration. Low trade barriers make states compete with each other for investment and jobs, and that pushes states to lower taxes, cut spending, deregulate, deunionise, and push down wages. By globalising the economy, neoliberalism creates a race to the bottom. It subjects states to a global market without creating a global polity to govern that market. We end up governed by an impersonal market logic which frequently conflicts with our needsand interests.
Read the rest of this entry »APRIL 1, 2020
THE TRUE BELIEVER, ERIC HOFFER, AND THE CONTEMPORARY LEFT The main difference between small-c conservatism and Marxism is the level of optimism. Both conservatives and Marxists despise capitalism and the individualism it produces. But socialists believe there is light at the end of the tunnel, and that by going through the upheaval we can come to a better place. Old-fashioned conservatives think we are only going to fall ever further away from ancient virtue, and they fight to obstruct or delay that process in whatever ways they can. They defend the status quo not because they like capitalism, but because they think the future can only produce ever worse iterations of it. For this reason, I have always enjoyed reading old-fashioned conservatives and greatly prefer them to the libertarians who straightforwardly champion capitalism and relish in its intensification. In this vein, I find myself reading Eric Hoffer’s _The True Believer_.
Read the rest of this entry »MARCH 28, 2020
CORONAVIRUS AND THE FABLE OF THE BEES Coronavirus puts elected governments in a sticky situation. If they appear to fail to solve the public health crisis, they will lose the next election. If, in the process of solving the public health crisis, they create an economic crisis, they will also lose the next election. They’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. It all reminds me of Bernard Mandeville’s “Fable of the Bees”. Mandeville’s bees live luxurious, decadent lives, and their drive for ever greater pleasures pushes them to build an extraordinarily elaborate economy to keep up with their excesses. One day, a divine intervention rids the bees of their vices, leaving them full of modesty and virtue. But this collapses demand and destroys the bees’ economy, annihilating their living standards. The fable serves to highlight one of the paradoxes of capitalism–the welfare of the poor becomes dependent on the vices of the rich. If the rich stop spending money on frivolous nonsense, the poor lose their jobs and go hungry. Read the rest of this entry »FEBRUARY 24, 2020
IN NEVADA, SANDERS’ IMPROVEMENT IN VEGAS DELIVERS ADECISIVE VICTORY
Bernie Sanders has crushed the competition in Nevada. With 96% of precincts reporting, Sanders commands nearly 47% of the vote. He’s almost 27 points ahead of Joe Biden’s 20%. Pete Buttigieg is below 14% and Elizabeth Warren has slipped under 10%. In the last two states, I’ve drawn attention to shifts in Sanders’ popularity in cities, college towns, and the countryside. Sanders has delivered stronger performances in big cities, but has paid a price in the countryside. In college towns, the situation has varied, depending on the competitiveness of Warren. Does Nevada affect this narrative? Read the rest of this entry »Older
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* What I Think in 2020 * Neoliberalism isn’t Dead Yet * The True Believer, Eric Hoffer, and the Contemporary Left * Coronavirus and the Fable of the Bees * In Nevada, Sanders’ Improvement in Vegas Delivers aDecisive Victory
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