Lars P. Syll

Inequality within countries — getting worse or better? In a recent Twitter post, Max Roser of Our World In Data claimed that the narrative about rising inequality within countries is incorrect. Inequality has been falling in as many countries as it has been rising, he said, “which should be really embarrassing for many news stories that suggest the opposite with great certainty” … What Roser doesn’t mention in his tweet is that the Gini index used here is...

Zum 50. Todestag von Theodor W. Adorno DW: 20 Jahre nach dem Untergang des sogenannten Dritten Reichs zogen Rechtsradikale wieder in die Parlamente ein, in Deutschland die NPD. Wie erklärte Adorno den Erfolg rechtsextremistischer Philosophie? Volker Weiß: Bemerkens-werterweise sieht Adorno als Ursachen mehr die Defizite der westlichen Demokratien und weniger das Treiben der alten Nazis, die in den sechziger Jahren noch sehr präsent waren. Er wusste, dass...

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August 6, 1945 — a date which will live in infamy  [embedded content]

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Karl Polanyi — Wirtschaft als Teil des menschlichen Kulturschaffens  [embedded content]

What properties do societies possess that might make them possible objects of knowledge for us? My strategy in developing an answer to this question will be effectively based on a pincer movement. But in deploying the pincer I shall concentrate first on the ontological question of the properties that societies possess, before shifting to the epistemological question of how these properties make them possible objects of knowledge for us. This is not an arbitrary order of...

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Because I was there when the economics department of my university got an IBM 360, I was very much caught up in the excitement of combining powerful computers with economic research. Unfortunately, I lost interest in econometrics almost as soon as I understood how it was done. My thinking went through four stages: 1.Holy shit! Do you see what you can do with a computer’s help. 2.Learning computer modeling puts you in a small class where only other members of the caste can...