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1. Freedom and equality for women and minorities—the real history you may not know

   Progressive economists sought to exclude “unfit” workers—mostly women and minorities—from the labour market. ...

2. Rulers and bankers—Reflections on Game of Thrones

   [Warning: Contains spoilers for the finale of Game of Thrones] Like all the really good pieces of popular culture, the recently-concluded HBO series Game of Thrones offers food for thought on a variety of issues. Since I write about the ...

3. The Avengers—Infinity Stones, finite resources and populations

   WARNING: Contains spoilers for the film Avengers: Infinity War Our story thus far: In many of the Marvel Studios films over the past decade, stories have brought characters into contact with, or in some case been driven by, objects known ...

4. The dangers of nudging—the use of state coercion to affect behaviour

   Richard Thaler was awarded the 2017 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to the field of behavioural economics. He’s most famous outside the academy for his collaborations with Cass Sunstein on what they call ...

5. In Rogue One, bureaucratic infighting plagues the Empire and the rebellion

   The main plot device of the original 1977 film Star Wars is that the rebels have stolen the blueprints for the Empire’s new secret weapon, and have to find a way to capitalize on it before the Empire’s agents catch them. The newest film ...

6. Harry Potter prequel features disturbing draconian laws

   Spoiler alert: This post contains details of the film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them In the original books and movies about Harry Potter, we see that the wizards of Great Britain have a government that parallels the muggle (non ...

7. Trump victory checked by constraints of modern constitutional republics

   Norman Rockwell’s 1943 painting “ Freedom of Speech ” is a visual encomium to the wonders of the democratic process. At the town meeting, everyone gets a chance to speak his or her mind. The blue-collar worker who has risen to say what ...

8. Netflix superhero show spotlights issues of race and policing

   "A black man in a hoodie with bullet-proof skin”—this is the description given by amazed bystanders of Luke Cage, the latest Marvel superhero to get a show on Netflix. The subject of illicit prison experimentation, Cage (played by ...

9. Star Trek, Plato and the misreading of things

   Imagine I wrote a book in which I advanced a philosophical argument showing that state authority is not well-justified, but that nevertheless, it’s a bad idea to go around killing and bombing. Now imagine that someone blew up a ...

10. Realistic politics on TV eschews romantic approach, spotlights self-interest

    Sir Antony Jay was in the obituaries a few weeks ago, which unfortunately prompted me to reflect not on how much I enjoyed his work, but on how underappreciated that work was. Jay was co-creator of the BBC comedy Yes, Minister, which ...