Dwarkesh Patel interviewed the most influential thinkers and leaders in the world of AI and chronicled the history of AI up to now in his book, The Scaling Era. Listen as he talks to EconTalk’s Russ Roberts about the book, the dangers and potential of AI, and the role scale plays in AI progress. The conversation concludes […] The post The Past and Future of AI (with Dwarkesh Patel) appeared first on Econlib.

Air pollution from coal-fired power plants has negative externalities, damaging human health.  Carbon emissions from these power plants contribute to global warming.  A recent article in The Economist discusses the recent acceleration in global warming, and suggests that the twin goals of a cleaner air and a cooler planet may be in conflict: Evidence against different culprits comes from work published recently in Science. Helge Goessling and his colleagues at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven used satellite data and weather records to show that over the course of this century Earth has gradually been reflecting less sunlight back into space than it used to. 2023 was the dimmest year to date. This was apparently due to paucity of cloud cover, particularly in the northern mid latitudes. Part of this could be down to the new IMO rules [reducing ship engine emissions], but the dimming is too strong to be explained by that alone. Bjorn Samset of CICERO, a Norwegian climate research institute, points to another possibility: the lack of sulphate emissions is not a result of cleaner ships, but of cleaner Chinese coal-fired power plants. Since 2014 China has been making progress in reducing sulphur emissions by closing particularly noxious power plants and scrubbing sulphur out of the flue gases at others. New data leads Dr Samset and colleagues to think the cleanup is having a marked effect across the North Pacific, where cleaner air and fewer clouds will mean more warming. This graph shows the recent acceleration in warming: Some have proposed using “geoengineering” to address global warming.  A recent article in The Guardian lists three options: Stratospheric aerosol injection: Airplanes release tiny aerosol particles that reflect light back into space. Cirrus cloud thinning: The least understood method, seeding thin cirrus clouds in the upper troposphere with ice nuclei could reduce their lifespan and increase cooling.  Marine cloud brightening:  Boats release aerosol particles that increase the reflectivity of low clouds. There are substantial political challenges with any geoengineering project.  Some countries might gain while other lose, especially if rainfall patterns were affected.  Nonetheless, I suspect that geoengineering will be tried at some point in the future, as the world seems to be giving up on the objective preventing global warming by restricting the emission of greenhouse gases. Keep in mind that we are already doing “geoengineering” in the sense of artificially changing the world’s climate.  The debate is whether we should try to do so in a constructive fashion, rather than a destructive fashion. PS.  I’ve always been a moderate on the global warming issue, about half way between the doomsters and those who dismiss the problem as a myth. (0 COMMENTS)

  With Proposed Glue Trap Ban, San Francisco Sides With the Pests by Christian Britschgi, Reason, April 24, 2025. Excerpt: The “abundance” discourse, sparked by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s book of the same name, has directed a lot of attention to liberal America’s failure to build. Blue cities and blue states can’t deliver projects on time and on budget, which is dragging down economic growth and sending people fleeing to red states that can. As much truth as there is to that complaint, it ignores the other reason people hate progressive governance: the complete inability of politicians and bureaucrats to keep their noses out of individuals’ private business. Earlier this week, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on an in-the-works proposal from the city’s Commission of Animal Control and Welfare to ban the sale, and potentially even the use, of glue traps. Per the Chronicle‘s reporting, the commission—an advisory body that makes policy recommendations to the San Francisco government—is considering such a ban because of the allegedly cruel nature of glue traps.   The Road to Campus Serfdom by John O. McGinnis, Law & Liberty, April 24, 2025. Excerpts: It seems remarkable that seemingly antisemitic protests by undergraduates, such as those at my own university of Northwestern, could threaten the biomedical research funding of its medical school. But the structure of civil rights laws as applied to universities has long allowed the federal government to cut off funding to the entire university based on the wrongful actions of particular units or departments. Ironically, the left, now alarmed by the federal government’s intrusive reach, bears direct responsibility for crafting the very legal weapons wielded against the universities it dominates. Almost four decades ago, progressive legislators demanded sweeping amendments to civil rights law, expanding federal oversight over higher education. The sequence of events reveals a cautionary tale of political hubris: progressive confidence that state power would reliably serve their ends overlooked the reality that governmental authority, once unleashed, recognizes no ideological master. Today’s circumstances starkly illustrate how expansive federal control over civil society, originally celebrated by progressives, returns to haunt its architects. The left’s outrage ought to focus not on this particular administration but on its own reckless empowerment of the state. And: And Democratic administrations made aggressive use of this leverage to change practices at college campuses in heavy-handed ways. The Obama administration’s “Dear Colleague” letter in 2011 effectively mandated that universities overhaul their procedures for sexual abuse and harassment cases or face total loss of federal funding. For instance, the letter asked that guilt be determined by a bare preponderance of the evidence standard, despite the heavy costs to a student from a guilty verdict and expulsion. It also undermined due process by discouraging cross-examination and mandating training in which investigators were encouraged to believe the accusers. The government was deploying its enormous power to dictate processes to universities and regulate their relations with their students and, by extension, students with each other. The Obama administration did not limit itself to regulating conduct; it aggressively extended its authority to police campus speech. It argued that speech that listeners thought was of a sexual nature could lead to a finding of a hostile environment actionable under Title VI, even if that conclusion were not based on objective facts, but on subjective feelings. Such interventions encouraged speech codes and chilled debate. In 2016, the Obama administration issued guidance interpreting Title IX to cover gender identity, advising schools that transgender students must be allowed to use facilities and participate in programs consistent with their gender identity or else be in violation of federal law.​ This requirement included access to bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams corresponding to their identity. Again, this interpretation represented an aggressive and expansive reinterpretation of Title IX. It seems plainly inconsistent with this language, which prevents discrimination based on sex—a concept that at the time of Title IX was passed—referred to biological sex. But colleges did not want to risk their federal funding by flouting such government ukases.   Will the ‘Abundance’ Agenda Make California Great Again? by Steven Greenhut, Reason, April 25, 2025. Excerpt: Up until the 1970s, California was a state known for its commitment to boundless opportunities, with the Edmund G. “Pat” Brown governorship reflective of the can-do spirit that drew people here from across the world. Given the degree to which modern California is noted for its ineffectiveness, wastefulness, and regulatory sclerosis, it’s difficult to imagine a California that took its Golden State moniker seriously. Brown “envisioned a future in which economic growth would be driven by a network of state-of-the-art freeways to move people, reservoirs, and canals to capture and transport water and intellectual capital from low-cost institutions of higher education. He sold that vision to the public and, in doing so, as the late historian Kevin Starr wrote, putting California on “the cutting edge of the American experiment,” per a Hoover Institution retrospective. The state grew dramatically as a result. The Brown administration built most of the State Water Project in less time than it would take to complete an Environmental Impact Report these days. California officials still have big dreams, of course, but they are more of the social-engineering variety than the civil-engineering type. Brown built freeways that people actually use, whereas today’s big project is a pointless high-speed rail line that’s way over budget and unlikely to serve any serious need.   Sweet Melodies of the Catacombs by Richard Gunderman, Law & Liberty, April 25, 2025. Excerpts: In 1953, subscribers to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia received a replacement page, one of many examples of Soviet attempts to rewrite history to suit the ruling Communist party’s interests. The page in question extended the article on idealist philosopher George Berkeley, after whom Berkeley, California, is named. The page it replaced contained an article on Lavrentiy Beria, one of Stalin’s longest-serving secret police chiefs. After a successful coup led by rival Nikita Krushchev that same year, Beria was arrested, tried as a “traitor and capitalist agent,” and executed, the historical record of his existence having become a matter of embarrassment to those in power. It is hard for the inhabitants of a free nation such as the United States, with its First Amendment protections for free speech, to appreciate the pervasiveness of state censorship within the Soviet Union. Accounts of such varying events as the starvation of Moscow’s population during the October Revolution, defeats of the Red Army, the civility and generosity of Westerners, and the advanced state of technology and high Western living standards were all rigorously repressed. Likewise, photos were doctored to remove repressed persons, films were edited to promote Soviet ideals, and newspapers and broadcast media were all subject to strict state control. And: One of the most intriguing means of thwarting the censors was known as roentgenizdat, sometimes referred to as “bone music.” “Roentgen” was Wilhelm Röntgen, the German physicist who received the first Nobel Prize in Physics for the 1895 discovery of x-rays. Medical x-ray film represented a relatively inexpensive and widely available medium onto which such audio recordings could be etched, enabling the production of homemade phonograph records. Three basic ingredients were required: the original audio of a live performance, a recording lathe, and a piece of x-ray film, onto which a circle could be traced using a compass, with a hole cut in the middle. Running at 78 rpm, most such discs could hold three to four minutes of material, enough to capture many of the most popular songs of the day.   Everyone Says They’ll Pay More for “Made in the USA.” So We Ran an A/B Test. Afina, April 23, 2025. Excerpts: Our bestselling model—manufactured in Asia (China and Vietnam)—sells for $129. But this year, as tariffs jumped from 25% to 170%, we wondered: Could we reshore manufacturing to the U.S. while maintaining margins to keep our lights on? An important part to mention is that our most filter materials (KDF-55) is sourced from the US. So technically we partly source from Asia.  We found a U.S.-based supplier. The new unit cost us nearly 3x more to produce. To maintain our margins, we’d have to sell it for $239. So we ran an experiment. We created a secret landing page. The product and design were identical. The only difference? One was labeled “Made in Asia” and priced at $129. The other, “Made in the USA,” at $239. And: Add-to-carts for the U.S. version were only 24! Conversion? 0.0% (zero). Not a single customer purchased the Made-in-USA version. DRH note: This is zero for U.S. version vs. 584 for the Asia version. The vast majority of economists would not be surprised, and probably a majority of Americans would not be surprised. HT2 Ross Levatter.   (0 COMMENTS)

  Let’s consider the argument step by step. First, is a trade deficit with a particular country bad? No. One of the easiest ways to see that is to look at your own spending on other producers’ goods. Consider mine. Our household spends over $5,000 a year on groceries from Safeway. But those scoundrels at Safeway spend nothing on my output. If you’re employed, your employer has a trade surplus with you. He or she spends much more on your services than you spend on his products. But that’s not a problem. The same reasoning applies to a specific country. Our trade deficit with Canada in 2024 was about $36 billion, not the $100 billion that President Trump seems to have pulled out of thin air. And contrary to Trump’s belief, the fact that we spend more on imports from Canada than Canadians spend on our exports does not mean that we’re subsidizing Canadians, any more than I’m subsidizing Safeway. There’s no reason that we should have a zero trade deficit with a particular country. In 2024, the United States had trade surpluses with the Netherlands ($56 billion), Hong Kong ($22 billion), Australia ($18 billion), and the United Kingdom ($12 billion). Was that a problem for those countries? The heads of those countries and, apparently, many of their citizens, don’t seem to think so. It’s very much like you having a trade surplus with your employer. How about the fact that the United States has an overall trade deficit with the rest of the world in general? In 2024, we exported $3.19 trillion in goods and services and imported $4.11 trillion in goods and services, for an overall trade deficit of $0.92 trillion. What happened to that $0.92 trillion? Did people in other countries keep those dollars? It would have been great if they had. Our government spends less than 10 cents printing a Benjamin. And in return for each $100 we got $100 in goods and services. I’ll take that deal any day. Actually, though, the vast majority of the money came back to the United States in the form of investment. Foreigners used it to buy US government bonds, to buy land and plant and equipment, and to invest directly. The United States, for all its problems, is still seen by much of the world as a haven for investors. Note the irony. On the one hand, Trump is happy that many foreigners are investing in the United States. On the other hand, he’s upset that we have such a large trade deficit. Mathematics is not optional: the trade deficit and the capital surplus are the mirror images of each other. The above is from my latest Hoover article, “Clearing The Air On Tariffs And Trade Deficits,” Defining Ideas, April 24, 2025. And: On April 2, in a Rose Garden speech, President Trump finally unveiled his plan to impose “reciprocal tariffs” on imports from other countries. The chart he presented, though, was not based on the tariffs those countries were charging. Instead, it was based on an equation that nowhere included the tariff rates charged by governments of other countries. While Trump listed all the countries he wanted to impose higher tariffs on, he neglected to mention that the tariff rates charged by forty-four countries are lower than the average that the United States imposed before Trump’s increases. Most of these countries, admittedly, are small, but they include Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan. Trump did not announce a cut in tariff rates to these countries, thus putting the lie to his claim that he wanted reciprocal tariffs. But put all that aside. Imagine, contrary to the data, that every country’s government in the world imposes higher tariffs on our exports than the US government imposes on our imports. What would be the best strategy for our government? The answer may shock you, but I assure you that my answer is based on decades, nay centuries, of economic reasoning and evidence. The answer is: cut our tariffs to zero. Why? It’s true that when a foreign government imposes tariffs on our exports, it hurts our producers. It also hurts the foreign government’s consumers. If our government responds by imposing tariffs on imports from that country, it helps our producers who compete with those products but hurts our buyers of those items. Those buyers include not just ultimate consumers, but also producers who use the tariffed items as inputs. It’s relatively easy to show, although you need a graph of supply and demand, that the losses to our consumers exceed the gains to our producers. The bottom line, therefore, is that whatever the other country’s government does, our government’s best option, if it puts the same weight on losses to consumers as it puts on gains to producers, is to have zero tariffs. And finally: Two major figures in the last century used metaphors to make the point. One was President Reagan. In the early 1980s, he argued that if you’re in a lifeboat and someone shoots a hole in the boat, it’s not a good idea to shoot another hole in the boat. Yes, you’ll hurt the first shooter; but you’ll also hurt yourself. The other was famous British economist Joan Robinson. If someone in another country to which you ship goods puts rocks in the harbor to make shipping more difficult, she asked, does it make sense for you to put rocks in your harbor? At the end I give two plausible arguments for tariffs. The second one is one that I haven’t seen anyone using and I suggest why. Read the whole thing. (0 COMMENTS)

Janet Bufton has an excellent recent post on Adam Smith on tariffs.  I wish to add my own thoughts to her post. Bufton rightfully points out that Smith would staunchly oppose these tariffs because they focus on the trade deficit, something he calls “absurd.”  Smith was a free trader, through and through: All systems of preference or of restraint, therefore, being thus completely taken away, the obvious and simple system of natural liberty establishes itself of its own accord.  Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man, order of man.  The sovereign is completely discharged from…the duty of superintending the industry of private people, and of directing it towards he employments most suitable to the interest of the society” (Wealth of Nations pg 687, Book IV, Chapter ix, Paragraph 51). Smith would oppose the “retaliatory” tariffs because they are not retaliatory in any reasonable sense of the word.  He would also oppose these supposed negotiations taking place for the same reason (I say “supposed” because, as of this writing, the White House has refused to provide a list of countries currently negotiating).  Trump is not negotiating for free trade, or even for “fair trade” (however defined).  He is obsessed with trade deficits.  Assuming Trump is good to his word, the negotiations would be about reducing the trade deficit, not about allowing the “simple system of natural liberty” to come about.   Don’t get me wrong, I am glad Trump blinked in this very dangerous game of Chicken.  While a 90-day pause and the blanket tariffs are still quite bad, it’s not as bad as things looked on April 3.  But I am not optimistic about any negotiations insofar as they generate any true moves toward free markets.  I suspect that, if negotiations are taking place, they are an attempt by Trump to “direct the industry of private people.”   Adam Smith was a classical liberal.  For him, government had three roles: Protecting the society from violence and invasion from other countries Administering justice Creating certain public works and institutions that may not be viably provided by individuals (i.e. collective-consumption goods) In none of those three would Smith approve what is going on with tariffs right now.  If he were alive right now, I think he’d be yelling at Trump: “WE ALREADY MADE THIS MISTAKE!” (0 COMMENTS)

Artificial food dyes have been garnering a surprising amount of attention over the last few months. The FDA recently banned Red No. 3 due to concerns about the product’s safety.  Now a number of states are making a push to prohibit even more artificial food dyes. These bans are defended on the grounds that artificial dyes pose health risks, add nothing of nutritional value, and serve only to make food and drinks more visually appealing. So why not prohibit them? It seems like a ban would be all benefit and no cost. Let’s assume, at least for the sake of argument, that the above concerns are justified; even so, we shouldn’t ban artificial food dyes. The reason is simple: people have the right to decide for themselves whether they have good reason to accept risks to their own health. Suppose, as some claim, that the bans on artificial dyes would make the relevant products more expensive. For instance, the National Confectioners Association suggests that they “will make food significantly more expensive for, and significantly less accessible to, people in the states that pass them.”  Someone should be free to buy and consume riskier food to save money given that people generally have the right to take health risks for financial reasons. Jane is free to quit her desk job to start work on a commercial fishing vessel for a trivial increase in salary even though commercial fishing is a lot riskier than working from an office. Similarly, someone should be free to consume products with artificial dyes to save money if they prioritize savings over safety. Now, the claim that the artificial dye bans will make food more expensive is contested. So let’s suppose it’s false and prices won’t change at all. Maybe the only reason why these dyes are used is to make food and drinks more aesthetically appealing. Still, people have the right to take risks for purely aesthetic reasons. Imagine you’re at a car dealership choosing between a gray car and a red car. They’re the same price, but the red car has fewer safety features than the gray one. However, you simply prefer red and so you buy the red car. Maybe that’s an unwise choice, but it’s yours to make. Or suppose you’ve got a headache and you’re choosing between two pain relievers. The red pill carries greater risks than the gray pill. But here again, you simply prefer red to gray, and so you opt for the riskier pill. Few would dispute that you should be free to make this choice. The right to make decisions regarding your own health is grounded in the right of bodily autonomy, which is sometimes summarized as “your body, your choice.” Since it’s your body, you have the right to take risks with it. You can undergo risky surgeries, climb Mount Everest, or simply refuse to take needed medication. Think of it this way: if the Picasso painting is yours, you have the right to play Frisbee with it. This risks harming the painting, but it would be wrong for others to forcibly stop you. Similarly, maybe consuming artificial food dyes is risky and unwise, but you’re taking the risk with your own body. So, it would be wrong for others to forcibly prevent you from consuming them. Lastly, consider that the state doesn’t ban substances that are far more harmful than artificial food dyes, such as cigarettes. This is strange—it’s analogous to the state making it illegal to stub your toe to ensure that you’re taking care of your health, while at the same time legalizing dueling. If we’re unwilling to ban products that are more harmful than artificial food dyes, we shouldn’t be willing to ban artificial food dyes either.   Christopher Freiman is a Professor of General Business in the John Chambers College of Business and Economics at West Virginia University. (0 COMMENTS)

In 2014, Vladimir Putin seized the Crimea, even though Russia had previously recognized Ukrainian sovereignty over the peninsula.  The US government is now pressuring Ukraine to accept Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea. Xi Jinping suggests that Mainland China will take back Taiwan.  He hopes the reunification will be peaceful, but refuses to rule out the use of force: Chinese leader Xi Jinping said on Saturday that a “peaceful” reunification of Taiwan with China’s mainland was in Beijing’s interests, despite ratcheted up military threats against the self-governing island. . . . “Reunification of the nation must be realized, and will definitely be realized,” Xi vowed before an audience of politicians, military personnel and others gathered in the hulking chamber that serves as the seat of China’s ceremonial legislature. “Reunification through a peaceful manner is the most in line with the overall interest of the Chinese nation, including Taiwan compatriots,” the leader added. President Trump suggests that the US will acquire the Danish island of Greenland.  He hopes the acquisition will be peaceful, but refuses to rule out the use of force: The Danish foreign minister on Saturday scolded the Trump administration for its “tone” in criticizing Denmark and Greenland, saying his country is already investing more into Arctic security and remains open to more cooperation with the U.S. Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen made the remarks in a video posted to social media after U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s visit to the strategic island. Later Saturday, though, U.S. President Donald Trump maintained an aggressive tone, telling NBC News that “I never take military force off the table” in regards to acquiring Greenland. The Panama Canal is another target of the Trump administration. After WWII, there was a period of many decades when the use of force to acquire additional territory was widely discredited.  Argentina tried in 1982, and failed.  Iraq tried in 1980 and 1990, and failed both times. Now, as the legacy of WWII fades ever further into the past, the doctrine of might makes right is seeing a resurgence.  The strong bully the weak in both military and trade wars. If the US intends to abandon Nato, the best hope of smaller nations is to strengthen their mutual defense alliances, perhaps even creating a unified European defense force.  Even then, it would be considerably weaker than the US military.  But deterrence doesn’t need military superiority to be successful, it merely needs to be strong enough to inflict considerable pain on its adversaries.  Switzerland’s military wasn’t strong enough to defeat Germany in WWII, but they were strong enough so that Germany did not consider it worthwhile to attack.  Europe needs a military force that is strong enough that the American public would have no stomach for an invasion of Denmark. Consider the porcupine. PS.  Here’s the NYT: Relative to the size of its economy, Denmark has donated more to the [Ukraine] war effort than any other country. Military historian Edward Luttwak suggests that the Danes are among the world’s most formidable soldiers, willing to fight while peacekeepers from other nations cower in fear. (0 COMMENTS)

We’re bringing back price theory with our series on Price Theory problems with Professor Bryan Cutsinger. You can see all of Cutsinger’s problems and solutions by subscribing to his EconLog RSS feed. Share your proposed solutions in the Comments. Professor Cutsinger will be present in the comments for the next couple of weeks, and we’ll post his proposed solution shortly thereafter. May the graphs be ever in your favor, and long live price theory!   Question: Suppose the market price of gasoline is $5.00 per gallon. Politicians, responding to their constituents who believe that such a price is outrageous, impose a price control of $2.00 per gallon. At this price, you want to buy 9 gallons of gasoline per week but gas stations are now only willing to sell you 5 gallons per week. There is a shortage. Assume that to buy gas, you must wait in line. Doing so gives you the right to purchase gasoline at the controlled price of $2.00 per gallon. Assume also that you would be willing to pay up to $6 per gallon. Finally, assume that your wage is $10 per hour. How long will you wait in line to buy gasoline? What will be your total expenditure on gasoline each week? What price will you pay per gallon? Did the price control reduce the price of gasoline? (0 COMMENTS)

  I watch CBS Sunday morning every week. One segment on April 20 was Ted Koppel’s look at the cuts in USAID spending. There were three main things wrong with his reporting, all of which showed laziness or indifference or something else. Koppel interviewed a British politician named David Miliband. Koppel stated: For the past 12 years he’s [Miliband] been president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee. The IRC delivers humanitarian aid to some of the most vulnerable people in the world. So far, says Miliband, the cuts have affected about 40% of their international programs. Then he showed heart-wrenching scenes about poor people in poor countries who will no longer get treatments for disease. I wondered three things and Koppel didn’t try to answer them. First, what percentage of the many billions of USAID spending went to this program? I’m guessing it’s a small percentage, but I’d like to know. Maybe we could cut the really bad stuff out of USAID and leave some of these programs that seem worthwhile. The above is what I wonder as a numerate American independent of my political views. Earlier in the segment was this: And White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt provides the harmony, telling reporters on February 3, “I don’t know about you, but as an American taxpayer, I don’t want my dollars going towards this crap.” Leavitt and Trump have a legitimate concern. That brings me to the second question I would have liked Koppel to ask. The second question: How much corruption and waste is there in USAID? My third question is one I would want answered because I think it’s wrong to forcibly take people’s money to help people in other countries, even if the money goes to good things, as some of it seems to do. The question is this: Are there private organizations that take voluntary donations and use it for such programs? I would be shocked if there weren’t. I turned to my wife and said, “If there were such programs, and if they did a good job, I would donate a few hundred dollars.” That way, we could get the benefits of USAID without the corruption, without the waste, and without forcibly taking money from people. If Koppel’s main concern had been those poor kids in Africa, he would have looked into this. Instead, it came off as another attempt to bash Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Of course, I’m assuming that Koppel had agency. Maybe he didn’t. If so, then my criticism is of the producer(s) of the segment.   PS: One plausible candidate to give money to is the earlier mentioned International Rescue Committee. It looks promising. I’ll look into it. Why wouldn’t Koppel mention to that viewers as an option? It would have taken about 5 seconds. PPS: I checked IRC’s Form 990 for 2021. It gives the compensation of some of the main people. David Miliband made a little over $1 million from IRC that year. He could be worth it. But it makes me nervous.   (0 COMMENTS)

Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic, met Pope Francis on April 20, the day before the latter’s death. The meeting with the enfeebled pope was brief and did not touch upon their disagreement about President Donald Trump’s treatment of immigrants. Early this year, Francis had declared that the mass deportation plan “damages the dignity of many men and women” (“JD Vance Was Among Last to Meet Pope Francis,” Wall Street Journal, April 21, 2025). I think it is difficult not to share the late pope’s concern on this point, but the larger picture is more interesting. While the pope is known as a man of the left advocating “social justice,” JD Vance supports “the right” wherever he sees it. It is not immediately obvious how these two individuals can belong to the same Church. Is that an irreconcilable disagreement? Casuistry could no doubt pull a few rabbits from the pope’s tiara or the vice-president’s MAGA cap. Moreover, and interestingly, the two protagonists could reconcile their differences by invoking what they both disagree with in classical liberal political economy—if only they knew anything about that. As classical liberal (and libertarian) theorists have explained, the concept of social justice makes unambiguous sense only in an authoritarian social system where the political rulers assign rewards and punishments to individuals in society. In a spontaneous order, no authority can do that: rewards and punishments are determined according to largely impersonal factors such as who better satisfies the demand of unknown persons on extended markets; other impersonal factors, such as luck, accidents, and the laws of physics, also play a role. To see this, we may consult what I believe are the three major classical liberal or libertarian strands of thought in our time. (1) Friedrich Hayek has offered an argument against social justice similar to what I just described: see his The Mirage of Social Justice, originally the third volume of his Law, Legislation, and Liberty. (2) The anarcho-liberal or anarcho-conservative economist and political philosopher Anthony de Jasay arrives at a similar conclusion, also based on spontaneous rules of conduct (which, in the manner of David Hume, he calls “conventions”) but without the state: see, among his works, Justice and Its Surroundings. (3) James Buchanan and the school of Constitutional Political Economy rehabilitate the state through unanimous consent (that is, individual veto). In this contractarian theory, justice lies in rules that are unanimously accepted and certainly not in a conception of justice imposed by political authority: a summary can be found in Geoffrey Brennan and James Buchanan, The Reason of Rules. (Note that, for Buchanan as for Hayek, being opposed to arbitrary “social justice” does not imply that the state cannot offer some sort of income insurance.) If that is correct, we can say that both the pope and JD Vance believe in “social justice,” that is, in political authority assigning rewards and punishments throughout society, although Vance uses other words than “social justice.” The pope believes that political authorities should favor the poor at the expense of the rich all over the world. JD Vance believes that the favored groups should be whoever the holders of political power in America think are deserving—and who are likely the obedient supporters of such rulers. Many of his tirades would have been approved by Francis if he did not add “American” to his favored groups (“JD Vance Proclaims ‘America First’ as Republicans Embrace Economic Populism,” Financial Times, July 18, 2014): “We are done, ladies and gentlemen, catering to Wall Street. We’ll commit to the working man,” he said. “We’re done importing foreign labour, we are going to fight for American citizens and their good jobs and their good wages.” He added: “We need a leader who is not in the pocket of big business, but answers to the working man, union and non-union alike, a leader who won’t sell out to multinational corporations, but will stand up for American corporations and American industry.” In Argentina, the pope was known by many as “the Peronist pope,” after Juan Domingo Perón, a populist of the left whose presidency contributed to the Argentine decline. The Financial Times notes (Michael Stott, “Was Francis the first Peronist pope?” April 23, 2025): “Perón used to say that the doctrine of Peronism was the social doctrine of the church,” said Ignácio Zuleta, author of a study of Francis entitled The Peronist Pope. Both church and Peronists emphasised social justice and the fight against poverty, while advocating conservative social mores. Whether Francis-style or à la Vance, “social justice” is an instance of a larger ideology. The two men are both collectivists, that is, they both favor collective and political choices over individual and private choices. They simply favor different collective choices made by different people in metering rewards and punishments over the whole society. It is quite sure that Vance does not disagree with Francis when the latter expressed his opposition to what he ignorantly described as “the neoliberal dogma [which] pursues easy profits as its main goal [and] continues to cause serious damage” (“Les 10 phrases marquantes du pape François : ‘Saint Pierre n’avait pas de compte en banque,’” Le Monde, April 20, 2025). ****************************** The featured image of this post imagines Pope Francis and JD Vance arriving together at the Pearly Gates (the lag being due to a dent in the space-time continuum). Before St. Peter, who assigns the contemplation seats in heaven, the pope is smiling and naïve while Vance is naïve and angry. After all, they both believe in “social justice,” but their criteria for assigning rewards and punishments differ. Of course, as there is (by definition) no scarcity in heaven, the reader of this blog should understand that place assignments must be a mere ritual with no practical consequence. JD Vance and the Pope Meet Again, by ChatGPT and Pierre Lemieux at EconLog (0 COMMENTS)