Today, Chester Finn calls for a balanced approach to the future of civics education; John Cochrane explains why policies like food stamps should be evaluated by the incentives they create; and Friedrich Asschenfeldt draws on a speech held in Hoover’s Library & Archives to help explain the rise of Vladimir Putin’s brand of Russian nationalism.
Freedom Frequency
In a post for Freedom Frequency, Senior Fellow Chester E. Finn Jr. reminds readers of the struggles the American founders had as they sought careful compromises while shaping their nation 250 years ago. In that same vein, he says, educators and communities need to build strong, unifying civics curricula while respecting the great diversity of our country. Civil principles, the shared underpinnings of the United States, must be taught “warts and all” but also as a story of near-constant improvement, he argues. This calls for a shared framework, such as that developed by the Educating for American Democracy project, with allowance for how individual states and their citizens will carry it out. “We need both pluribus and unum,” he writes. “We may never get the balance exactly right, but I can’t imagine a more important project to undertake and persevere.” Read more here.
In this week’s Grumpy Economist rant, John H. Cochrane looks at food stamps, health subsidies, and the wider network of government programs meant to pay for “specific” necessities. With tens of millions of Americans receiving food assistance and many more getting help through the Affordable Care Act, debates often rely on emotional claims about hunger and access. Cochrane argues that this framing ignores a basic economic fact: Money is fungible. When government covers one expense, households can reallocate their own dollars, so earmarked benefits often act much like extra income. That insight doesn’t settle whether these programs are good or bad—but it clarifies where the real problem lies: When earning an extra dollar triggers the loss of a dollar or more in combined benefits, the incentive to work weakens. Cochrane maintains that policies should be evaluated on how they shape incentives, not by the comforting labels attached to them. Read more here.
Revitalizing History
Writing for Defining Ideas, Hoover Fellow Friedrich Asschenfeldt unearths a speech from a newly opened collection in the Hoover Library & Archives and explains how its ideas helped the rebirth of the aggressive Russian nationalism pursued by Vladimir Putin. The speech, by Gleb Rahr, an exiled Russian journalist who yearned for a “strong authority” that would ignore democracy when it suited, shows the intellectual undercurrents of Putin’s crusade to reclaim Crimea and Ukraine for the motherland, writes Asschenfeldt. That quest to bring about what Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin called a “vitally creative and flexible dictatorship”—replacing both communism and what Rahr saw as Russia’s post-communist decline—is in play today on the battlefields of Ukraine and potentially elsewhere in Europe. Read more here.
Confronting and Competing with China
At The Globe and Mail, Research Fellow Rowena He writes that citizens of Hong Kong “who have tried to preserve the memories of atrocities perpetrated by the Chinese Communist Party have been silenced, imprisoned or forced into exile.” He explains that “three of the [Hong Kong democracy movement’s] leaders—former Hong Kong legislators Albert Ho and Lee Cheuk-yan, and barrister Chow Hang-tung, who had been arrested in 2021—will go on trial on Thursday, and they face up to 10 years’ imprisonment on charges of ‘inciting subversion of state power.’” She argues that “history will one day return a verdict” that these leaders are “not guilty,” even if a Hong Kong court does not, and concludes, “Commemorating Tiananmen is not a crime; the massacre is.” Read more here. [Subscription required.]
Answering Challenges to Advanced Economies
Visiting Fellow Markos Kounalakis writes in Washington Monthly about “a corrosive injustice that hides in plain sight on Americans’ pay stubs,” especially in the hospitality industry: a “lousy wage” subsidized by tips. “For less than the price of a cup of coffee,” Kounalakis writes, “an employer in dozens of states can legally purchase an hour of labor. This is not a historical artifact; it is the federal standard,” and one that Kounalakis says often leads to tipped employees making less than the “federal minimum wage of $7.25” per hour. Kounalakis contrasts this with California, where employers must “pay tipped workers the state minimum wage before tips.” Kounalakis calls on Congress to mandate “that every worker earn the full minimum wage in their state before tips.” He concludes, “Paying a living wage is not radical; it is the fundamental compact of a functioning capitalist democracy.” Read more here.
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