James Sweeney explains the differences between crises present and past, and suggests ways California can better balance population and environmental concerns. 

As Shelby Steele has famously pointed out, there are two basic approaches that black American public figures take when addressing whites. There are “challengers,” such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who “say you are racist until you prove otherwise.” Then there are “bargainers,” who send white Americans a message to the effect that “I won’t rub America’s racism in your face if you won’t hold my race against me.”

Most economists go through their lives wondering if any of their work has had an effect on the world beyond academe. The seven economists that Alan Bollard writes about in Economists at War probably never had to wonder. Bollard, an economics professor at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, traces the effects seven economists had on their governments’ policies before, during, and after wartime. 

Dan Walters talks about why a Biden-Harris victory would trigger a competition among California Democrats to replace her in Washington.