George Hawley on Ranked Choice Voting: “One benefit of RCV is that it resolves the problem of third-party votes seeming “wasted.” Under an RCV system, if you genuinely feel closest to the Libertarian Party, the Green Party, the Constitution Party, or some as-yet-non-existent populist MAGA party, you could list that party as your first choice. If that party comes in third or fourth place, your vote will go to your second choice, rather than simply becoming irrelevant…Under RCV, voters would no longer have to choose between voting their true preference and strategically voting for the candidate most likely to defeat the person they fear or dislike the most. RCV has an additional purported benefit: it disincentivizes uncivil political campaigns. Under current rules, there is no benefit to being anyone’s second choice. There is no reason not to offend an opponent’s base of voters. Under RCV, candidates still want to reach out to voters they are confident will never list them as their first choice—earning the second slot on their ranking of preferred candidates may mean the difference between defeat and victory. RCV may simultaneously encourage candidates and parties to cast a wider net when campaigning and discourage the kinds of ugly, scorched-earth tactics that we have become accustomed to.”
Economist: “India has immense energy needs. It is forecast to be one of the fastest-growing big economies this decade and will need to add capacity equivalent to the size of the European Union’s power system by 2040. After a flirtation with hydro in the 1950s and 1960s it came to rely heavily on coal, which met 58% of its primary-energy needs in 2021. Like many governments, India’s has committed to reaching net-zero emissions (by 2070). The big surprise is that major changes are happening on the ground. In the past decade India has seen a 50-fold increase in installed solar power. In 2021 its renewables accounted for 5% of its primary-energy consumption, and 5% of global renewable primary-energy consumption. Private firms have plans to invest perhaps $200bn in the coming years in everything from generation facilities to green hydrogen plants (by comparison, global investment in wind and solar last year was about $300bn, and India’s was roughly $15bn). The government wants to triple non-fossil-fuel capacity by 2030.”
Peter Boettke: “Let me start with my summary judgement of “The Next American Economy: Nation, State, and Markets in an Uncertain World”: Samuel Gregg has written an outstanding contribution to the theory and practice of political economy for our times. Gregg’s book will appeal more to those on the center-right than to the center-left, but he nevertheless has identified the fatal flaws in the rhetoric and practice of those on the populist right (Trump) and the populist left (Sanders), as well as those who consider themselves more sophisticated representatives of economic nationalism on the right (Rubio) and left (Warren). I say the book will appeal to the center-right and pull them away from the pitfalls of economic nationalism because of the intellectual inspiration that Gregg proudly relies on—the Founding Fathers and the desire to create a commercial republic. The center-left, on the other hand, has grown tired of appeals to constitutional principles and the aspirations of the American promise. In fact, that is the problem that Gregg’s book is motivated to address.”
Hayek: “Thus, though the consistent application of liberal principles leads to democracy, democracy will preserve liberalism only if, and so long as, the majority refrains from using its powers to confer on its supporters special advantages which cannot be similarly offered to all citizens.” [via CafeHayek]
