Utopia, you are standing in it!

Nice profile of Prof Goldin in IMF’s Finance & Development:

Born in 1946 in the Bronx, a borough of New York City, Goldin recalls an early fascination with investigation and intellectual discovery, immersing herself in the wonders of Manhattan’s museums as she fell in love first with archeology, then bacteriology. She went to Cornell University initially to study microbiology but came to embrace the humanities and social sciences, especially history and economics, which became her undergraduate major. She completed her doctorate in industrial organization and labor economics in 1972 at the University of Chicago.

Goldin explains why history is important to economics, citing the book The Race between Education and Technology (2008), which she wrote with fellow Harvard labor economist Lawrence Katz, who is also her husband.

“Larry Katz and I looked at changes in income inequality post-1980 versus pre-1980 and investigated the theory that inequality has risen more post-1980 because of…

Before you call me an “alt-righter” because I criticize Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, let me point out that both the Washington Post and PolitiFact—hardly right-wing sites—have called out the new Congressperson for her repeated misstatements and/or lies. I prefer to think that she’s just ignorant rather than mendacious, but her combination of persistent uninformed claims and overweening love of the limelight reminds me of a combination of Sarah Palin and Bill Nye.  Ocasio-Cortez is also beloved by Linda Sarsour and HuffPo, which should make us at least a bit wary.

Truly, I don’t understand why Ocasio-Cortez has become a hero of progressives, unless it be that she’s a “woman of color” (she’s Hispanic) and does have a progressive agenda, though she advances it with claims that are palpably false. If we’re to have a Democratic Leader of the Future, let it be one who learns rather than spouts nonsense. I…

Evolutionary biology gets squeezed from both the Right (many of whose adherents simply deny evolution) and now from the Left as well.  A moiety of the Left, as I’ve written here frequently, has ideological reasons for attacking parts of evolutionary biology, especially those parts that involve genetics and behavior.  So, for example, we see these kinds of views:

1.) Psychological and behavioral differences between men and women are culturally based without evolutionary underpinnings. This view, of course, comes form the mistaken notion that if you admit genetic and evolutionary differences between the sexes, it could buttress sexism. But that needn’t be the case, especially because morality and “rights” shouldn’t rest heavily on biology. The view of equal psychology and behavior in men and women is palpably foolish in view of the physical differences between them that surely reflect evolution in our ancestors. Why would bodies evolve but not brains?

Yet…

While capitalism is the only system to produce mass prosperity, I actually support free enterprise more because it is a moral system based on voluntary exchange. The various forms of statism, by contrast, are based on government coercion.

But non-coercion not the only moral reason to support capitalism. I also applaud that free markets penalize racism and sexism. Simply stated, narrow-minded people are going to lose business to ethical competitors and forego income if they make choices based on animus rather than what makes economic sense.

This doesn’t mean an end to racism and sexism, but it certainly suggests that systemic and pervasive discrimination is very unlikely without government intervention (such as the Jim Crow laws that created government-enforced racism).

This is why I’m naturally suspicious of the claim that there’s a gender pay gap.

Mark Perry and Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute summarize the issue, pointing…