Today, Hoover celebrates its recent live GoodFellows episode with a handy conversation guide. Michael McFaul counts the growing number of cracks and question marks appearing around Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia. And Ross Levine, channeling Adam Smith, demonstrates why granting special exemptions and privileges undermines the marketplace.
GoodFellows
As a companion to the recent live episode of GoodFellows, Hoover put together a conversation guide for the episode, pointing viewers to key moments and themes where senior fellows H.R. McMaster, Niall Ferguson, and John Cochrane speak about the enduring value and impact of the US Constitution. Released on Freedom Frequency, the guide features key quotes from Cochrane, McMaster, and Ferguson, specific takeaways where they opine on issues ranging from the constitutionality of the Iran war to the Second Amendment—and why there aren’t more amendments in modern America—as well as the example for today set by the Founding Fathers.
See what the GoodFellows had to say about why the Constitution set the US up for greatness.
Russia
Over at his Substack, Senior Fellow Michael McFaul says signs of stress in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s grip on his country are slowly trickling out for all to see. The war is not going well, the internet is practically unusable because of restrictions, and the economy is teetering. Even low estimates suggest Russia has suffered about 1.2 million casualties in its war against Ukraine. Citing Russia’s highly dubious, state-owned polling firms, McFaul says Putin’s approval fell to 66 percent in April, a surprisingly low number in a nation where expressing displeasure with him publicly or even criticizing the “special military operation” can result in a penal sentence. On the economic front, high oil prices are not enough to stem the collapse of the private sector and the overgrowth of military industry to feed the Russian war machine. “The signs of strain visible in Russia today are limited and fragmented, and on their own, they are unlikely to produce change,” McFaul writes. “Yet taken together, they hint at a system that is no longer as stable as it once seemed.”
Read how Russia’s economy and demography are buckling under the weight of war.
The Economy
Hoover Senior Fellow Ross Levine, writing in the voice of Adam Smith at Freedom Frequency, shows how open, competitive markets can be undermined by exceptions—each of which may sound prudent, fair, even necessary when proposed. But “once the law bends for one interest, every other interest learns how to make its case for an exception,” he warns. Exceptions are sometimes justified, he concedes, as in the case of defense. But the expansion of that particular exception, as political philosopher Smith observed in England at the time, led to privileged positions for British merchants and shipping, and eventually to monopoly. Levine points out that politicians are prone to believing they can manage exceptions without distorting the economy, but that this is a dangerous delusion. Departures from an open market lead to a society governed not by law but by favoritism, he concludes.
Learn why granting exceptions in the marketplace causes headaches.
In a new video, Gaurav Khanna of UC-San Diego tells how high-skilled immigrants from India supported America's 2000s tech boom and sparked India’s transformation into the world's largest IT exporter. He tells Senior Fellow Paola Sapienza that in the 1990s, a surge of Indian workers began acquiring computer science skills in hopes of migrating to the United States, creating a massive skilled workforce. However, the cap on US visas blocked many of these workers from obtaining jobs in America, while others who did find work ultimately returned to India after working in the American tech sector, a phenomenon known as “brain circulation.” The result was a remarkable win-win.
See how high-skilled migration from India to the US ultimately increased innovation in both countries.
California
Hoover Kleinheinz Fellow Valentin Bolotnyy will now serve as vice chair of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Council of Economic Advisers, the governor’s office said May 8. Bolotnyy’s recent work for Hoover involves looking into the impact of mandatory hospitalization programs on personal wellbeing, whether residents of adverse-weather-prone states are migrating to more stable climates, and the impact of the Dobbs decision on gynecologists’ practice locations. He joined the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisers in August 2024.
Find out how the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisers affects economic policy in California.
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