Matthew Arnold On Inequality

In his 1879 essay ‘Equality,’ Matthew Arnold wrote about inequality too: What the middle class sees is that splendid piece of materialism, the aristocratic class, with a wealth and luxury utterly out of their reach, with a standard of social life and manners, the offspring of that wealth and luxury , seeming out utterly outContinue reading “Matthew Arnold On Inequality”

Nicholas Kristof is Gullible, Very Gullible

Nicholas Kristof thinks conservatives are–like a broken clock–right at least some of the time. Kristof, unfortunately, is just wrong throughout his latest limp Op-Ed. To borrow a line from Steven Soderbergh‘s plainspoken Limey they are right precisely the ‘square root of sweet FA‘ number of times – a vanishingly small number. What are the conservatives rightContinue reading “Nicholas Kristof is Gullible, Very Gullible”

Winners and Losers, All Together

On Thursday night, after a brief foray into New Jersey, I returned to New York City by train, arriving a little after midnight at Penn Station. I walked upstairs into the arrival hall, turned toward the Seventh Avenue exit, and emerged  in front of Madison Square Garden before walking east on 33rd Street toward theContinue reading “Winners and Losers, All Together”

Oscar Wilde on Kidney Markets

Reader Austin Donisan has a long comment worth reading in response to my post on why kidney markets might offend me. I’m not going to engage with every single point Donisan makes, because in doing so I would be repeating myself (please read the post which started this discussion). But let me make a fewContinue reading “Oscar Wilde on Kidney Markets”

Why Kidney Markets Might Offend Me

Over at the Daily Dish, Andrew Sullivan notes my response to Alexander Berger’s NYT Op-Ed advocating the creation of organ markets, and provides a counter-response from Roger McShane: [D]onors…see only the slightest increase in their risk of dying from kidney disease…their altruism is likely to lead to more than a decade of improved and prolongedContinue reading “Why Kidney Markets Might Offend Me”