The Post-Partisan Emporium

  Ecology Matters More Than Economy An evolutionary perspective on modern economics. Written by Martin Štěpán. My interest as of late has been in the dubious assumptions of mainstream economics. As far as I can tell, the entire job of economists is to figure out ways to maximise some measure that is supposedly good in itself, while ignoring more fundamental human needs. It’s not that I see nothing valid in the field; it’s that practically all economists carry some ideological premises with them—almost invariably liberal, universalist and utilitarian. Even Marxism is basically just a liberal heresy that never disagreed with those premises. Here I want to address specifically how economics runs afoul of evolutionary biology. The first issue is: what is the economy actually for? Most economists believe it’s ultimately for satisfying people’s preferences. But they often treat preferences in a naïve or frankly bizarre way. Gary Becker and Kevin Murphy devised a theory of “rational add...

  ‘Expresso Vaccines’ and Lessons from the American Chestnut Tree Why a vaccine designed in two days faced less regulatory scrutiny than a venerable nut tree that sustained life for centuries Dr. Mathew Maavak A tree that once fed multitudes now faces a decade of federal red tape before a single seed can touch wild soil, while a brand-new genetic vaccine, cooked up in 48 hours and injected into billions, sailed through approval in under a year. One restores a vanished forest, the other rewrote human cells on a planetary scale. Both are genetic modifications, yet one is treated as a potential ecological threat while the other is hailed as a modern miracle. Welcome to the “expresso lane” of modern biotechnology, where speed, risk, and scrutiny depend entirely on whose veins are on the line. Reign of the Chestnut King In the ancient forests of Appalachia, the American Chestnut (Castanea dentata) once towered as the unmatched monarch. Stretching from the southern ridges to southern Can...