Category: essays

That was not the year I’d planned. The planned 2021 was simple: finish a few house projects, submit three journal articles, get fit, and arrange my imminent return to doctoral studies so as to claim my rightful status as the savior of liberal democracy. That’s no exaggeration. You can guess what happened instead. The real…

At long last, a stateless wanderer can immigrate. But they must choose between unknown lands, told only that one is a healthy democracy, while the other has a thriving free market. Which should they prefer? Our settler is no theorist: “I just want the freer of the two,” they say. But how will this be…

I spent the final quarter of 2021 unable to eat much of anything; it seems my small intestine has all but shut down. And this has offered time—far too much time, alas—to reflect in anguished repose on the place of food in my life. I will summarize those observations someday soon. For now, I wanted…

Nearly all of Rousseau’s politics should be rejected. He adored Sparta. He misunderstood markets and the value of commerce. He gave the “general will” enough shine to seduce generations of revolutionaries, but failed to define it clearly. We can thus forgive Isaiah Berlin for thinking Rousseau “one of the most sinister and most formidable enemies…

Citizens of Nordic countries lead better public lives than us because—paradoxically—they better understand private freedom. I’ve spent the past few weeks traveling the region to study what Henrik Berggren and Lars Trägårdh have called “statist individualism,” a distinctly Nordic approach by which the state guarantees personal autonomy. On this view, we shouldn’t be forced to…