Capitalism may have a public relations problem, but it doesn’t have an inequality problem

Feb. 5, Robert Lawson, Jerome M. Fullinwider chair in Economic Freedom, SMU Cox School of Business, for an op-ed challenging the perrception that capitalism inevitably leads to inequality. Published in the Orange County Register and the Southern California News Group under the heading Capitalism may have a public relations problem, but it doesn’t haves an inequality problem: http://tinyurl.com/yc2cmtsp 

Capitalism has a public relations problem. While many will grudgingly admit that capitalism, the economic system based on private property and free trading, yields faster rates of economic growth, higher income levels, and even reduces poverty, they will complain  capitalism’s big problem is inequality.

French economist Thomas Piketty has made his professional career by arguing precisely that capitalism engenders more economic inequality. His argument, in a nutshell, is that profits and rents will grow faster than wages and that over time there will be a growing gap between the owners of capital and wage earners. Piketty’s concerns have animated a growing academic debate about capitalism and inequality. Much of this conversation gets deep into the statistical weeds about how we measure inequality and will likely go on for a long time without a resolution.

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Socialism makes for bad beer

July 10, Robert Lawson, SMU Cox Business, O’Neil Center,  on a new co-authored book, “Socialism Sucks” in Orange County Register and several other Southern Cal titles: https://www.ocregister.com/2019/07/10/socialism-makes-for-bad-beer/

https://www.sbsun.com/2019/07/10/socialism-makes-for-bad-beer/

Socialism is a hot topic these days. Democratic presidential wannabes, including Bernie Sanders, say they’re for it, and recent polls indicate about 40% of American young people are, too.

Over the last few years, my buddy Ben Powell, who is a professor of economics at Texas Tech, and I toured the world, drank a lot of beer, and saw for ourselves how things are going in former and current socialist nations. It turns out the quality and availability of beer in each of these countries is an accurate, at-a-glance way to assess their political systems.

 

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Boomer socialism versus millennial neoliberalism

AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File

May 13, Ryan Murphy, research assistant professor at the O’Neil Center for Global Markets and Freedom at SMU Cox School of Business for a piece about free markets and socialism and their appeal to the generations, in the Orange County Register and 10 other newspapers in the Southern California News Group: https://www.ocregister.com/2019/05/13/boomer-socialism-versus-millennial-neoliberalism/

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