On Fridays, we bring you the best of our blog and the best of the web. This week’s roundup includes thoughts on the morality of inequality, entrepreneurs in the developing world, and the need for a healthy competition of ideas.
1. Six Bad Arguments About Income Inequality: At the Acton Institute PowerBlog, Joe Carter dissects recent responses to this question: “Is income inequality morally wrong?”
Earlier this week I claimed you rarely hear progressives argue that income inequality is a problem since for them it just is an injustice. But there’s another reason you rarely hear them make arguments about why income inequality is morally wrong: their actual arguments are terrible.2. It’s Possible to Graduate Debt-Free. Here’s How: A recent Biola University graduate, Rebekah Bell, writes in the Wall Street Journal about how she managed to graduate without debt from a top Christian college.
In 2009, when I was applying to my dream college, my parents had one stipulation: graduate without debt. I burst out laughing. There was no feasible way that a middle-class 19-year-old with average grades could attend a college with a price tag of nearly $40,000 a year without taking out loans. But now that I’ve graduated loan-free, I realize how lucky I am that my parents made this seemingly ridiculous demand.3. Stumbling Powers: Lessons from Fallen Empires: Authors Glenn Hubbard and Tim Kane discuss what we can learn from empires throughout history that have fallen due to economic imbalance and political dysfunction. 4. Can entrepreneurs change the way we do charity?: At the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics blog, Dr. Brian Baugus writes on the need for entrepreneurship over aid in the developing world. 5. Why the competition of ideas matters: In a free society the competition of ideas is a true moral good. Threatening that competition, writes AEI president Arthur Brooks, was the real scandal at the IRS.
