A Stable Macroeconomy, and the Agglomeration Benefits of Cities, Allow Redundant Labor Markets to Flourish

In my “Innovative Entrepreneurs Replace Despair with Hope” paper (currently undergoing a second round of revision in response to referee requests), I argue that the worst off will benefit if we strengthen a redundant labor market by unbinding innovative entrepreneurs.

Besides unbinding innovative entrepreneurs, two other conditions can strengthen redundant labor markets: a stable macroeconomy and the agglomeration benefits of urban areas.

Many believe that inevitable recessions must periodically undermine the first of these conditions, a stable macroeconomy, and thus threaten an otherwise redundant labor market. But a plausible contrarian view argues that recessions are not inevitable, since they usually are caused by policy mistakes that can be avoided (Furchtgott-Roth 2026; Glynn 2018; Goodspeed 2026; Irwin 2016, 2019a, 2019b; Rudebusch 2016).

For example, Australia achieved 29 years without a recession, allowing a flourishing redundant labor market to attract energetic, smart, young French citizens who could not find jobs in a sclerotic labor market in France (Rubin and Breeden 2015). Australian workers could often move seamlessly between entrepreneurship and jobs (Bradsher 2016). Australian lockdown policies during the Covid-19 pandemic may have contributed to Australia’s first recession in 29 years (Kwai 2020).

In the couple of years before the pandemic, the U.S. economy, though far from a perfect exemplar of a redundant labor market, was strong enough to allow more workers to quit their jobs to seek better jobs (Cutter 2018; Harrison and Morath 2018). The strong economy also allowed more low-skilled workers to find jobs (Ip 2019; Modestino et al. 2016, 2020).

A second condition that contributes to the flourishing of redundant labor markets consists of the agglomeration benefits of urban areas, where firms and workers are both numerous and diverse. The positive effects of this density and diversity are called “agglomeration forces” (Moretti 2013, 124). Unfortunately, these positive forces are weakened by regulations, including zoning and regulations that restrict the construction and development of housing, and thereby limit the extent to which low-skilled workers can move to, and benefit from, redundant labor markets (Herkenhoff et al. 2018; Hsieh and Moretti 2019).

For example, in New York City regulations limit the height of skyscrapers (Glaeser 2011) and require apartments to exceed a minimum size (Bertaud 2018, 11, 47, 231-234, and 258-259). When Alain Bertaud and his wife were young and poor, they were only able to move from Paris to Manhattan because they found a tiny apartment that they could afford. They were delighted because they valued all that Manhattan could offer. But today a Manhattan developer who built such tiny apartments would be violating the law (Bertaud 2019, about an hour into interview).

Some of those who are among the worst off might improve some of their circumstances by moving to one of the few cities (most notably Houston) that have better jobs and do not have zoning laws and other regulations that discourage newcomers (Gray 2022; Siegan 1972). But the increase in hope from a distant job is sometimes countered by the need to commute back to the home community where a spouse, children, or parents have deep roots. When the GM plant closed in Janesville, Wisconsin many of the workers could only find comparable jobs at GM plants hundreds of miles away. Many of them became “GM gypsies” commuting back and forth to Janesville on a weekend, when they could, to see their family (Goldstein 2017, 105). As Amy Goldstein describes them, they persevere less from any hope for a better life, than from a sense of pride, a work ethic.

Here are the sources cited above:

Bertaud, Alain. 2018. Order without Design: How Markets Shape Cities. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Bertaud, Alain. 2019. Alain Bertaud on Cities, Planning, and Order Without Design. EconTalk, interviewed by Russ Roberts, June 3. https://www.econtalk.org/alain-bertaud-on-cities-planning-and-order-without-design/.

Bradsher, Keith. 2016. Money from the Dust. New York Times (Sept. 25): 1 & 4–5.

Bregman, Rutger. 2017. Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World. New York: Little, Brown and Company.

Cutter, Chip. 2018. For Job Recruiters, These Are Trying Times. Wall Street Journal (Dec. 20): B6.

Furchtgott-Roth, Diana. 2026. The Events That Cause Recessions. Wall Street Journal (Sat., June 6): C7–C8.

Glynn, James. 2018. The Outlook; Keeping an Economic Boom Going. Wall Street Journal (July 16): A2.

Goodspeed, Tyler Beck. Recession: The Real Reasons Economies Shrink and What to Do About It. New York: Basic Venture, 2026.

Gray, M. Nolan. 2022. Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.

Harrison, David, and Eric Morath. 2018. Economy Spurs Job Hopping. Wall Street Journal (July 5): A1-A2.

Herkenhoff, Kyle F., Lee E. Ohanian, and Edward C. Prescott. 2018. Tarnishing the Golden and Empire States: Land-Use Restrictions and the U.S. Economic Slowdown. Journal of Monetary Economics 93 (Jan.): 89-109.

Hsieh, Chang-Tai, and Enrico Moretti. 2019. Housing Constraints and Spatial Misallocation. American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 11, no. 2 (April): 1-39.

Ip, Greg. 2019. Capital Account; Long Expansion Lifts Low-Skilled Workers Too. Wall Street Journal (July 11): A2.

Irwin, Neil. 2016. Expansion Is Old, Not at Death’s Door. New York Times (Oct. 28): B1 & B2.

Irwin, Neil. 2019a. An Economic Boom That Might Be Changing the Rules. New York Times (May 4): A13.

Irwin, Neil. 2019b. What America Can Learn from Australia’s Economic Miracle. New York Times, SundayBusiness Section (April 7): 1 & 6.

Kwai, Isabella. 2020. Covid-19 Knocks Australia into First Recession in Decades. New York Times (Sept. 3): B4.

Modestino, Alicia Sasser, Daniel Shoag, and Joshua Ballance. 2016. Downskilling: Changes in Employer Skill Requirements over the Business Cycle. Labour Economics 41 (Aug.): 333-47.

Modestino, Alicia Sasser, Daniel Shoag, and Joshua Ballance. 2020. Upskilling: Do Employers Demand Greater Skill When Workers Are Plentiful? Review of Economics and Statistics 102, no. 4 (Oct.): 793-805.

Moretti, Enrico. 2013. The New Geography of Jobs. pb ed. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co.

Rubin, Alissa J., and Aurelien Breeden. 2015. Song for French Charity Strikes Discordant Note. New York Times (March 4): A6.

Rudebusch, Glenn D. 2016. Will the Economic Recovery Die of Old Age? FRBSF Economic Letter, # 2016-03 (Feb. 4): 1-4.

Siegan, Bernard. 1972. Land Use Without Zoning. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.

An earlier draft of my “Innovative Entrepreneurs Replace Despair with Hope” paper can be found at:

Diamond, Arthur M., Innovative Entrepreneurs Replace Despair with Hope (March 13, 2026). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=6412238 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.6412238

Innovative New Goods Can Radically Improve Lives

In my Openness book I argue that the kind of economic growth that matters most is not the greater accumulation of old goods like shoes, but the creation of innovative new goods. The story quoted below gives a case-in-point, documenting how driverless cars radically improve the lives of blind passengers.

(p. A20) Mr. Brunt, 28, was born with a rare eye disorder. He can’t drive himself, and had never experienced the feeling of being alone in a car — until Waymo’s self-driving vehicles started navigating San Francisco’s hilly streets two years ago.

Now Mr. Brunt will occasionally make the hourlong journey across the bay from his home in Solano County, Calif., just to ride in one. “It’s that feeling of independence and actually having the control,” he said. “Being able to play whatever music you want, feeling like you’re in your own car.”

. . .

Claire Stanley, who is legally blind and uses a guide dog, said she had also had to “battle” for Uber and Lyft drivers to pick her up at home in Washington, D.C. When she travels to a city with autonomous ride shares, she and her dog, a yellow Labrador named Tulane, jump into them without a struggle.

“When you don’t have a driver, there’s no driver to say no,” she said.

. . .

On a drizzly day last month, Mr. Brunt was heading to the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. He had some trouble finding his Waymo’s precise location, so he pressed a button on the app to play a melody from the car and followed the noise.

He hopped into the passenger seat, and his Spotify account immediately connected to the car’s stereo system, blasting his electronic music.

As the steering wheel began to turn, moving the car onto the road, Mr. Brunt, ready to enjoy the ride, leaned his seat back and fiddled with the temperature until it was set to 70 degrees.

“That feeling of independence is amazing,” he said. “It’s something I never thought I would have growing up.”

For the full story see:

Sonia A. Rao and Rachel Bujalski. “Blind Waymo Users Revel in the Joy of Riding Alone.” The New York Times (Mon., May 25, 2026): A20.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date May 24, 2026, and has the title “Blind Waymo Riders Savor the Solitude of Independence.”)

My Openness book, mentioned in my opening comments, is:

Diamond, Arthur M., Jr. Openness to Creative Destruction: Sustaining Innovative Dynamism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.

Entrepreneurial Apple Finds Uses for “Defective” Chips “That Might Otherwise Be Thrown Out”

I am currently revising my “Innovative Entrepreneurs Replace Despair with Hope” paper in which I argue that if we unbind entrepreneurs from regulations they will be free to find new uses for labor that is currently unemployed or underemployed. In the paper I present as proof-of-concept, examples where entrepreneurs found uses for the previously useless, such as the startup that uses milkweed floss as insulation in parkas. I just ran across another example, in the passages quoted below, in which Apple has found uses for defective processor chips that previously would have been thrown out.

(p. A1) Apple, long revered for its premium-priced products, has managed to develop a booming business selling cheaper devices when most gadget makers are being hammered by rising costs.

One of its secrets: using chips with slight defects that might otherwise be thrown out.

The strategy is apparent in the technical minutiae of the newly released $599 MacBook Neo, which early data suggest is a hit with customers.

The chip powering the Neo is Apple’s A18 Pro, the same chip first used inside the iPhone 16 Pro two years ago, but with one key difference. The Neo version of the chip has a “5-core” graphics processor, one less than the version inside the 2024 iPhones, indicating that Apple was able to save some of the A18 Pro chips with a defective core for future use.

Defective cores can be disabled, leaving a chip that still functions perfectly well to power different, often cheaper devices—in this case an entry-level laptop instead of a top-of-the-line iPhone.

. . .

(p. A5) “If you can take the stuff that doesn’t meet highest level specs and still use it, you can save money, scrap and time,” says Tim Culpan, a supply-chain analyst who has written about Apple’s Neo chip orders. “Also you can reach a lot more customers you might not otherwise be able to sell to.”

Apple has used its flexibility with its own silicon to develop lower-priced iPhones and computers, many of which have sold well. The Neo is so popular that Apple is running low on leftover chips and has been forced to order new ones, according to people familiar with its supply chain.

. . .

Using chips in the Neo that might otherwise be tossed is one way Apple was able to deliver its first entry-level laptop.

For the full story, see:

Rolfe Winkler and Yang Jie. “Imperfect Chips Power Apple Products, Profits.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., May 19, 2026): A1 & A5.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date May 17, 2026, and has the title “Apple Is Making Hit Products and High Profits From Imperfect Chips.”)

A working draft of the paper I refer to in my opening comments is:

Diamond, Arthur M., “Innovative Entrepreneurs Replace Despair with Hope” (March 13, 2026). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=6412238 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.6412238

Seven 2023-2025 Books That Suggest Cutting Regulations

In my “Innovative Entrepreneurs Replace Despair with Hope” paper, I claim to have identified seven books (in addition to the Klein and Thompson book) published from 2023-2025 “that either explicitly advocate, or implicitly imply, that regulations should be cut back.” In revising my paper for possible publication, I need to cut about 5,000 words due to the journal’s article word-limit, so I wrote that I would post the list of seven books here on my blog.

Here is that list (including the Klein and Thompson book).

Caplan, Bryan, and Ady Branzei. 2024. Build, Baby, Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing Regulation. Washington, DC: Cato Institute.

Dunkelman, Marc J. 2025. Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress―and How to Bring It Back. New York: PublicAffairs.

Hamel, Gary, and Michele Zanini. 2025. Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them. Revised & Updated ed: Harvard Business School Press.

Howard, Philip K. 2024. Everyday Freedom: Designing the Framework for a Flourishing Society. Garden City, NY: Rodin Books.

Howard, Philip K. 2025. Saving Can-Do: How to Revive the Spirit of America. Garden City, NY: Rodin Books.

Klein, Ezra, and Derek Thompson. 2025. Abundance. New York: Avid Reader Press.

Lam, Barry. 2025. Fewer Rules, Better People: The Case for Discretion. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Potter, Brian. 2025. The Origins of Efficiency. South San Francisco, CA: Stripe Press.

An earlier draft of my “Innovative Entrepreneurs Replace Despair with Hope” paper can be found at:

Diamond, Arthur M., Innovative Entrepreneurs Replace Despair with Hope (March 13, 2026). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=6412238 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.6412238

Entrepreneurial Innovation Celebrated on Good Morning America!

Sunday morning, June 6, I was shocked to be impressed by a replay of a June 3 report on ABC’s Good Morning America, celebrating entrepreneurial perseverance and optimism. It appears that electric planes will receive regulatory approval to start operations in early fall. Maybe Trump’s deregulation push is allowing faster innovation; innovation that is starting to payoff?

The GMA report is:

“On board the 1st electric plane” https://goodmorningamerica.com/video/133545986 via @GMA

Chicago City Council Ends Increases in Restaurant Worker Minimum Wage

The members of the Chicago city council Democrat “machine” might have ended their support for minimum wage increases because they had enrolled en masse in price theory classes at the University of Chicago. But they did not–they likely still are not able to distinguish a supply curve from a demand curve. But apparently a sufficient number of them are able to open their eyes and admit their mistake when their constituents suffer the negative job consequences of an increasing minimum wage.

(p. A15) Chicago’s distressed dining scene—recently described as “on the brink of collapse”—was bolstered by good news last week, as the City Council voted to halt future increases in the minimum wage for servers and bartenders.

. . .

In the first year after the mayor’s minimum wage hike, new restaurant and tavern licenses—a key indicator of industry health—dropped by more than 8%. The Illinois Restaurant Association reported that nearly 500 restaurants closed in the first half of 2025, and 70% of the restaurants that responded to the association’s poll reported cutting staff or reducing employee hours since the wage hike took effect.

. . . Alderwoman Samantha Nugent, who introduced a proposal to stop further increases in the wage, said her constituents were suffering from the mayor’s good intentions: “I’ve had several restaurants close down,” she said. “I’ve heard from servers, when the tip credit changed in Chicago, their hours were cut.”

For the full commentary, see:

Michael Saltsman. “Chicago’s Minimum-Wage Retreat.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., March 23, 2026): A15.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date March 22, 2026, and has the same title as the print title.)

Elders Can Catalyze Progress

Max Planck is oft-quoted as saying that new theories do not triumph by convincing their opponents but by their opponents dying off and a new generation taking over. The claim is plausible but some evidence suggests it is false (Hull et al. 1978; Diamond 1980).

Our elders may sometimes be obstacles to progress, but they also may sometimes instead be catalysts of progress.

Those who deviate from mainstream views often suffer in terms of job security and career advancement. So most tone down their deviations and swim with the current.

But when you retire, your money and your time are your own. The penalties of deviation are fewer. And some, when they retire, want to take advantage of a last chance to make the world better. So to pursue their ikigai they swim toward progress, not toward prudence.

Take Ira Long who died recently. She had been an organic chemist. When she retired she wanted to take more direct action to do good. The AIDs epidemic was in full swing, so she contributed her expertise to the AIDs activists who stood up against the FDA to save lives by making new therapies available sooner.

Those involved with both sides of the conflict, say that Iris Long made a difference:

(p. 30) Iris Long, a chemist whose knowledge of the intricacies of pharmaceutical clinical trials and the Food and Drug Administration’s approval process made her a transformational figure in ACT UP, the militant political action group dedicated to ending the AIDS crisis, died on April 4 [2026] in Astoria, Queens.

. . .

By 1987, when Dr. Long first attended a meeting of ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, she had retired from her work as an organic chemist. She was looking to help people directly, rather than in a laboratory. She was not politically active, didn’t know anyone with AIDS and wasn’t even sure she had ever met anyone who was gay.

“God, the epidemic was getting so bad, and she thought she could help,” Jim Eigo, a writer and leading ACT UP member who worked closely with Dr. Long, said in an interview.

. . .

“She was their scientific North Star,” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview. “She told them that if you’re going to interact with the scientific community, you’re going to have to understand the science.”

. . .

Her guidance, Mr. Eigo said, empowered key ACT UP members, including Mark Harrington, to communicate with researchers and officials at the F.D.A. and other government agencies on a more equal, and therefore less confrontational, footing.

“They became so expert,” said Peter Staley, a prominent member of ACT UP, “that I witnessed some shocking conversations between Mark Harrington and Fauci talking about his lab work, and Fauci would just look stunned by Mark’s questions.”

. . .

Dr. Long, Mr. Eigo and Garry Kleinman, another ACT UP member, made a presentation to New York University doctors who were conducting clinical trials for AIDS drugs. The meeting soon led the F.D.A. to adopt parallel drug trials — with the result that patients who had exhausted azidothymidine, or AZT, the first drug approved to treat AIDS, could now take another drug (initially ganciclovir) that had passed the agency’s safety trials even while it was still being tested for effectiveness.

. . .

. . . Dr. Long knew that her background could be useful to the group. Her research had focused on a class of antiretroviral drugs called nucleoside analogues — altered sugar molecules trained to lure diseased cells away from healthy cells — of which AZT was one.

“She fully recognized that this would be one of the biggest epidemics in the history of mankind, and that not enough people were stepping up,” Mr. Staley said.

At an early meeting, Dr. Long was speaking to a large group that was growing restless with her presentation. She was not a gifted speaker — although she was better in small groups — but the activist Vito Russo rose to her defense.

“Shut up and listen!” he shouted, according to Mr. France’s book. “Listen! I don’t think any of you paid Iris Long the respect you should. There is no one doing any work in ACT UP that has a greater chance of doing real good for people with AIDS.”

. . .

“I was always a laboratory person, and now, interacting with people, it was completely different and something I had never done before,” she told the ACT UP Oral History Project in 2003. “I was not a joiner before, at all. But I was a fighter-type person that would fight for somebody’s rights.”

The AIDs activist rebellion is an important proof-of-concept. The concept is that the FDA should allow patients more choice of what medicines they consume. (Or another way to say it is that the power of the FDA to restrict free choice should be limited.) This is one of the rare cases where those with urgent ‘skin-in-the-game’ succeeded in speeding up or unbinding the regulatory process, in order to save lives (see Bhidé 2017).

While waiting for more libertarian policies, those with limited longevity may infer from the AIDs example that guerilla activist tactics can be justified and effective (see Thierer 2020, Tusk 2018).

Other cases where those who quit their jobs, or retired from them, swam toward progress can be found in in Richard Harris’s Rigor Mortis exposé. Contaminated cell lines are apparently endemic in medical research, undermining the reproducibility and clinical usefulness of much research. Scientists using the cell lines do not have the time or incentive to investigate this. If they discovered that their cell lines were contaminated, their past research and future careers could be jeopardized.

So to identify the contamination it takes the rare mission-oriented persons who are free of (or who have freed themselves from) perverse incentives.

Roland Nardone, at the age of 77, “was asked what he intended to do with the rest of his life” (Harris 2017, p. 96). He embarked on a “ten-year quest to straighten out . . . [the] glaring problem” of “bogus cell lines” (Harris 2017, pp. 96-97).

Amanda Capes-Davis “quit her job” at an institute in Sydney, Australia “to devote her full attention” to identifying contaminated cell lines (Harris 2017, pp. 97-98).

Christopher Korch “retired from academic, spends his energy, . . . , trying to untangle decades of bungled science surrounding cell cultures” (Harris 2017, p. 102).

Those with their own resources are less constrained to conform, and so pay a lower price when they choose to catalyze progress. This group includes the retired, as well as self-made entrepreneurs, the inheritors of wealth, or the occupiers of sinecures. PalmPilot founder and neuroscientist Jeff Hawkins (2021) is an example, as are some of the Victorian gentlemen scientists (see Champlin 1994; Harris 2017, pp. 169-170; Knell 2000; Maddox 2017; Repcheck 2004; Rudwick 1985).

The Iris Long obituary quoted above is:

Richard Sandomir. “Iris Long, 92, Chemist, Virus Expert And Science Mentor to AIDS Activists.” The New York Times, First Section (Sun., April 19, 2026): 30.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed word, added.)

(Note: the online version of the article has the date April 17, 2026, and has the title “Iris Long, Scientific Mentor to AIDS Activists, Dies at 92.”)

Bibliography of Other Articles and Books Mentioned above:

Bhidé, Amar. “Constraining Knowledge: Traditions and Rules That Limit Medical Innovation.” Critical Review 29, no. 1 (Jan. 2017): 1–33.

Champlin, Peggy. Raphael Pumpelly: Gentleman Geologist of the Gilded Age. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1994.

Diamond, Arthur M., Jr. “Age and the Acceptance of Cliometrics.” Journal of Economic History 40, no. 4 (Dec. 1980): 838–41.

France, David. How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed Aids. New York: Knopf, 2016.

Harris, Richard. Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions. New York: Basic Books, 2017.

Hawkins, Jeff. A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence. New York: Basic Books, 2021.

Hull, David L., Peter D. Tessner, and Arthur M. Diamond, Jr. “Planck’s Principle: Do Younger Scientists Accept New Scientific Ideas with Greater Alacrity Than Older Scientists?” Science 202 (Nov. 17, 1978): 717–23.

Knell, Simon J. The Culture of English Geology, 1815-1851. Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2000.

Maddox, Brenda. Reading the Rocks: How Victorian Geologists Discovered the Secret of Life. New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2017.

Repcheck, Jack. The Man Who Found Time: James Hutton and the Discovery of Earth’s Antiquity. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books Group, 2003.

Rudwick, Martin J. S. The Great Devonian Controversy: The Shaping of Scientific Knowledge among Gentlemanly Specialists. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

Thierer, Adam. Evasive Entrepreneurs and the Future of Governance: How Innovation Improves Economies and Governments. Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 2020.

Tusk, Bradley. The Fixer: My Adventures Saving Startups from Death by Politics. New York: Portfolio, 2018.

Grokipedia Competes with Wikipedia and Has Decent Page on “Arthur M. Diamond Jr.”

I have started to use a few of the major AI platforms, mostly for literature searches. So far I like Grok best, which is Elon Musk’s platform. I learned recently that Grok has decided to compete with Wikipedia by creating Grokipedia. I learned about it by reading a Substack entry from David Henderson saying that Grokipedia’s page on David Henderson was better than Wikipedia’s page on David Henderson. Curious, I logged onto Grokipedia, looked for a page on me, didn’t find one, and then requested that they create one. They did and I (like David Henderson) came away impressed with what they created. (My opinion is as of 3/18/26.) If you feel like checking it out, the link is: https://grokipedia.com/page/Arthur_M_Diamond_Jr

Capitalism Needs Journalists Who Are Alert to the New Milton Friedmans

I will admit it. The op-ed by Matthew Hennessey that I quote below, annoyed me and hurt my feelings. I set it aside, thinking I should respond, but not sure of the best response. Some of us, me for instance, have spent a lot of our lives trying to be worthy champions of innovative dynamism (“capitalism” if you prefer). If we have failed to be as effective as Milton Friedman, it is not from lack of trying.

See, for example, Openness to Creative Destruction: Sustaining Innovative Dynamism. I kept waiting and hoping for The Wall Street Journal to review my book. They never did.

Maybe the problem is partly that journalists such as Matthew Hennessey are not sufficiently alert to those academics who defend innovative dynamism; journalists who also are not sufficiently energetic at informing the broader public of our work?

We need new Henry Hazlitts.

(p. A13) Let Zohran Mamdani’s victory in last week’s Democratic mayoral primary in New York serve as your periodic reminder that capitalism is in dire need of able defenders. Socialism has more cheerleaders than it deserves, considering its record of consistent failure. Markets need champions too. This is always true, especially now.

. . .

Who is making a sustained and coherent public case for American-style capitalism? The field is wide open. We need new Milton Friedmans and Thomas Sowells.

For the full commentary see:

Hennessey, Matthew. “Capitalism Needs Champions.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., July 1, 2025): A13.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date June 30, 2025, and has the same title as the print version.)

My defense of capitalism (what I think should be called “innovative dynamism”) is:

Diamond, Arthur M., Jr. Openness to Creative Destruction: Sustaining Innovative Dynamism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.

Let Parents Decide if Child Has Cell Phone

In the media and the academy I sense growing agreement that children and adolescents should have their cell phones restricted or even taken away. I disagree. Parents within a very wide range should be free to parent. I wanted our child to have a cell phone when she was in school, partly to co-ordinate logistics, but mostly to be able to contact her in emergencies. Many girls died in the flooding at Camp Mystic last summer. Camp Mystic, apparently like many camps, did not allow the girls to have cell phones. With cell phones some of the girls might have received timely warnings from their parents, and still be alive today.

(p. A3) In the wake of revelations by Kerr County officials that they didn’t have a flood warning system, an online petition has been started to get one set up for any such future disasters. “This is not just a wish—it is a necessary investment in public safety,” said the Change.org petition signed by more than 100 people since going up Friday [July 4, 2025]. “Early warning sirens have saved thousands of lives in other communities by giving clear, unmistakable alerts day or night, even when cell phone service or electricity fails.”

Nicole Wilson, a resident of nearby San Antonio who started the petition, said she was moved into action after seeing friends nearly lose their children to the floods while at Mystic and other camps along the river and knowing that most, like one her daughters go to near New Braunfels, Texas, don’t allow cellphones or other electronic devices. She said outdoor warning sirens, such as the one she grew up with in Kentucky to seek shelter from tornadoes, could give lifesaving advance notice.

“You are going to hear the sirens, and you are going to know what the sirens mean,” said Wilson, 42, an Army veteran. “I have no doubt if they had five minutes warning they would have had opportunity to get uphill, and they would have had a chance.”

“They had no chance,” she added, her voice breaking. “They had no warning.”

For the full story, see:

Jennifer Hiller, Eric Niiler, and Jim Carlton. “Flooding Alerts Escalated as People Slept.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., July 7, 2025): A3.

(Note: bracketed date added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated July 6, 2025, and has the title “Escalating Alerts of Dangerous Flooding Arrived When People Were Sleeping.”)

Deregulation Is “The Third Pillar” of Trump’s “Plan to Unleash the Nation’s Economic Potential”

In an earlier entry I agreed with David Henderson that libertarians and classical liberals should give Trump credit where credit is due. We should occasionally take a break from criticizing his tariffs, to spend a few minutes to praise his deregulation. The New York Times article quoted below says that deregulation is “the third pillar” of his program to bring us economic prosperity, and that the “deregulatory push” is accelerating.

(p. B3) The Trump administration accelerated its deregulatory push on Thursday [Dec. 11, 2025] by asking the Financial Stability Oversight Council, a financial crisis-era government panel that monitors threats to the financial system, to take steps to ease regulations that they claim are strangling economic growth.

The focus on deregulation comes as President Trump looks to jump-start economic output ahead of midterm elections next year. Republicans are hopeful that Americans will see benefits from the tax legislation that they passed earlier this year and the fruits of new foreign investments that have been pledged as part of trade agreements.

The loosening of regulations has been described by Mr. Trump’s advisers as the third pillar of his plan to unleash the nation’s economic potential.

Mr. Bessent argued in a letter accompanying the annual FSOC report that financial stability is best achieved through faster economic growth, which is constrained by unnecessary regulations. He is directing the FSOC to create working groups that will focus on Treasury market resilience, the resilience of household finances, opportunities for artificial intelligence to help safeguard the financial system and preparation for cyberattacks.

For the full story see:

Alan Rappeport and Colby Smith. “Bessent Is Accelerating A Regulation Overhaul To Jumpstart Growth.” The New York Times (Weds., December 13, 2025): B3.

(Note: bracketed date added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Dec. 11, 2025, and has the title “Bessent Accelerates Regulation Overhaul to Jumpstart Growth.”)