Economics

Don’t Get Too Comfortable

Eula Biss’s Having and Being Had is a collection of brief essays about how a person navigates the moral dilemmas of ownership and privilege.

May 27, 2021 issue

Dividends of a Just Economy

What is keeping the government from acting on behalf of its citizens?

April 29, 2021 issue

The Dark History of School Choice

How an argument for segregated schools became a rallying cry for privatizing public education.

January 14, 2021 issue

David Graeber, 1961–2020

David Graeber, the anthropologist and activist, died aged fifty-nine on September 2, 2020. The New York Review, to which he began contributing last year, is collecting tributes from his friends and colleagues.

September 5, 2020

Remembering David Graeber

“He always said anarchism isn’t an identity, it’s a way of being, something you do—and he was true to that formulation.”

September 5, 2020

Can We Fix Capitalism?

September 24, 2020 issue

How to Fix Child Poverty

The National Academies estimate that child poverty costs the country $800 billion to $1.1 trillion a year—including lower adult earnings, worse health, and higher crime.

July 23, 2020 issue

A Shuttered Garage, a Devastated Trade

The taxi industry has been brutally crunched on two sides—from skyrocketing operating costs, on the one hand, and a sharp decline in business, on the other.

June 29, 2020

Big Oil Runs Out of Gas

People used to worry that the fossil-fuel industry would hit “peak oil” and we’d run out of crude. It now seems far more likely that it’s going to run out of money instead.

May 12, 2020

The Pandemic Jobless Youthquake

Even for those with college education, the graduating class of 2020 from universities is going to have a tough time. But minority youngsters with less education are going to be especially hard-hit.

May 8, 2020