Why It’s Every Citizen’s Job to Interpret the Constitution

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What ‘The Profit’ teaches us about ethics and enterprise

I’ve written before on how television can be a powerful tool for illuminating the deeper significance of daily work and the beauties of basic trade and enterprise. Shows like Dirty Jobs, Shark Tank, Undercover Boss, and Restaurant Impossible have used the medium to this end, and today at The Federalist, I review a new contender in the mix. Continue Reading...

The Moral Limits of Psychology

“Indifference to the moral dimension distorts the study of human action in economics,” says Rev. Gregory Jensen in this week’s Acton Commentary, “so too does it deform the discipline that reaches behind that action to the human mind: psychology.” Continue Reading...

How Free Trade Helps the Poor

Several years ago economist Bryan Caplan provided the most succinct and helpful statement about how we should think about free trade: “We’d be better off if other countries gave us stuff for free. Continue Reading...

Dear Grads: Welcome To Work

If you’re a college grad, what was your first job out of college? Mine was working at a day-care center. It was not my dream job. I’m not sure I even knew then what my dream job was, but I knew that wasn’t it. Continue Reading...

The Myth of Homo Economicus

“As a social psychologist, I have long been amused by economists and their curiously delusional notion of the ‘rational man.’” writes Carol Tavris. “Rational? Where do these folks live?” In a review of behavioral economist Richard Thaler’s new book, Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics, Tavris notes how economists are slowly beginning to see — or, one could argue, finally returning to the notion — that the discipline ought treat man as more than a mere robot or calculator. Continue Reading...