Are there dumb laws of nature? This reasonable question occurred to me some years back after I heard an eminent economist explain why automakers ought not to be compelled to install seat belts. Yes, it is safer to wear them, …
Katha Pollitt’s Learning to Drive.
Years later, I would tell my friends never to shirk their jury summonses. This is the most democratic experience you’ll ever have, I’d insist. But when I first arrived at the Alameda County Superior Courthouse, located in what was the …
Music was an essential—probably the essential—art form of the 1960s. In a way that’s hard for anyone who didn’t live through the decade to grasp, music once reached deep into every facet of existence, from politics to fashion. It seemed …
One of the great joys of the movies is their ability to convince us that we know the people on screen. Even the varied performances of the most versatile stars are often not strong enough to prevail against the overarching …
Tocqueville is a writer of immense emotional power, and the secret of that power lies in the poetic rhythms of his prose; and, in the whole of Democracy in America, no chapter offers a clearer or more vivid demonstration of …
I had been called for jury duty before, and the results were always the same: everyone in the room where the lawyers questioned prospective jurors would laugh when I said that I worked for the Democratic Socialists of America or …
Israeli politics is an excellent example of why term limits can be a good thing. In a country where losing consecutive elections for decades doesn’t cost politicians their party leadership, let alone their ability to serve as government ministers or …
Some years ago in New York I went to hear the Taiwanese health minister describe the country’s new National Health Service. He had just been to visit George W. Bush’s first secretary of health, Tommy Thompson. I could not resist …
I am grateful for Sin-Yee Chan’s powerful comment on my paper. I agree with much of what she says but I will focus here on points of clarification and disagreement. I do not mean to argue that domestic workers should …
In current debates about the world economy, “growth is good” often appears as a truism. Growth leads to wealth, it is said, and greater wealth is surely desirable, especially for the poorer developing countries. Closer inspection, however, leads to a …
Ed. Note: Dissent does not review books by members of its editorial board, but we are happy to list books written by our colleagues. Bernard Avishai, The Hebrew Republic: How Secular Democracy and Global Enterprise Will Bring Israel Peace At …
At 8:45 in the morning on a hot August Thursday, I reported for jury duty in New York last summer. A week earlier Mayor Michael Bloomberg had made headlines by reporting for jury duty flanked by his aides. The mayor …
An anecdote from business circles in Latin America tells of a textile manufacturer in El Salvador, who, reeling from Chinese competition, travels to China and visits the sprawling plant of one of his competitors. He knows that Chinese labor costs …
I appreciate today that a jury summons is serious business, but I didn’t two decades ago, when I was twenty-three years old and living in Savannah, Georgia. I received a jury summons and promptly ignored it. After ignoring the first …
