Two Brookings scholars have a great piece in Boston Review making the case that the safety net helps promote economic dynamism. And they make the case that the conventional wisdom is changing, even among some conservatives. And, sure enough, a few days later The New York Times ran an opinion piece by an entrepreneur advancing a similar argument, tied to the Trump tax proposals. (Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are actually quite open to redistribution.)
The Boston Review piece in particular is worth a read, and I’m grateful that they cite my writing on this subject. In light of their piece, I figured it’d be good to put a few things I’ve written on the subject in one place. Here’s the most extensive piece I’ve written on this, for The Atlantic. I have done a series of pieces for HBR: on health insurance, unemployment benefits, and college tuition. And I’ve posted a couple times here on the blog about others making similar arguments. Here’s one about Will Wilkinson, here’s one on Zuckerberg and a piece by Neil Irwin.
Between the Boston Review piece and my Atlantic piece, there are links to most of the relevant papers, and references to many of the key people making the argument.
UPDATE: A new paper from Niskanen and a corresponding Washington Post interview both cover the complementarity of entrepreneurship and generous welfare states. And I have more on this here and here. And here.
beyond the times 