There is a difference between the private and social cost of preserving the past. While it may be privately rational to forget the past, the social cost is significant: we fail to see that Classical political economy is a polemic against racism. The past is a rich source of surprises and...

Why did the classical economists' doctrine of innate human sociability and the problem of factions disappear? The social Darwinists who clustered around The Economist regarded sympathy, the social glue of small groups, as an impediment to racial perfection that allowed the "unfit" to survive....

There is a difference between the private and social cost of preserving the past. Although it may be privately rational to forget the past, the social cost is significant: We fail to see that classical political economy is analytically egalitarian. The past is a rich source of surprises and...

Between 1960 and 1980 American economics textbooks overestimated Soviet growth. They held that the Soviet economy was growing faster than the US economy and yet they kept the ratio of Soviet–US output constant over two decades. The textbooks downplayed any uncertainty associated with such...

In this note, we highlight an important consideration of Larry Moss's life's work, the continual struggle within economics against racism. Larry initiated and supported the symposium on eugenics published by the "American Journal of Economics and Sociology" in July 2005. He edited the volume...