Hoover Institution (Stanford, CA) - In 2020, the Hoover Institution launched the Human Prosperity Project, an initiative directed toward educating Americans about the world’s dominant, conflicting, and most fiercely debated economic systems: socialism and free-market capitalism. Chaired by senior fellows Scott W. Atlas and Edward P. Lazear, the project features essays, panel discussions, and digital media hosted on Hoover’s educational platform, PolicyEd.
All essays, events, and PolicyEd videos produced by the Human Prosperity Project in 2020 are hosted on hoover.org here. Below are highlights from the past year.
Events
Impacts of Government-Sponsored Programs | December 3, 2020
Senior fellows John Cogan and Josh Rauh analyze the economic consequences of government-sponsored programs, with a focus on universal basic income and taxation of income and wealth.Democracy and Authoritarianism | November 12, 2020
Senior fellows Larry Diamond and Elizabeth Economy compare free-market capitalism and socialism on the basis of which economic system best delivers individual liberty and economic prosperity. The program also focuses on the transferability of Chinese-style socialism and Taiwan’s experience with democracy.The History of Socialism and Capitalism | October 1, 2020
Senior fellows Niall Ferguson and Victor Davis Hanson analyze the historical performance and future prospects of socialism and free-market capitalism.Opportunity and Income Inequality | August 20, 2020
Senior fellows Edward P. Lazear and Lee Ohanian explain how countries that embrace free markets have higher income and living standards than those based on income and resource equity.
Essays
Political Freedom and Human Prosperity
by Larry Diamond on November 18, 2020One of the oldest and most important questions in the comparative study of nations is the impact of different economic and political systems on human prosperity. What is the secret to developmental success? Is it capitalism or socialism? Or what degree of market orientation? Democracy or dictatorship? What kind of democracy? And to complete the triangular relationship, what is the relationship between economic system and political system? Does democracy require capitalism?
Leaving Socialism Behind: A Lesson from German History
by Russell Berman on September 29, 2020The well-known images of East Germans eagerly pouring into West Berlin on the night of November 9, 1989, have become symbols of the beginning of the end of the Cold War and, more specifically, evidence of the failure of Communist rule in the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) and its socialist economic system. Yet that historic moment was only the final dramatic high point in the long history of dissatisfaction with living conditions in the eastern territory of Germany, first occupied by the Red Army during the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 and, four years later, established as the GDR when, in Winston Churchill’s words, the Iron Curtain fell across the continent.
Innovation, Not Manna from Heaven
by Stephen Haber on September 15, 2020The United States is an outlier in the distribution of prosperity. As figure 1 shows, there is a small group of countries with per capita incomes above $40,000 that stand out from all the others—and the United States, with a per capita income of nearly $66,000, stands out even within this small group. How can it be that the United States has a per capita income roughly 50 percent higher than that of Britain, its former colonizer?
Environmental Markets vs. Environmental Socialism: Capturing Prosperity and Environmental Quality
by Terry Anderson on September 1, 2020It is hard to date the beginning of environmentalism. It might have started when the Reverend Thomas Malthus in 1798 penned An Essay on the Principle of Population. Therein he postulated that humans would continue to reproduce until the population demands exceed their ability to produce food, after which famine, disease, and pestilence would check population growth in a “Malthusian trap.” His postulate continues to permeate environmental thinking. For example, in the 1970s, the Club of Rome, armed with data and computers, predicted precise years when we would reach the limits of the world’s resources.
Socialism vs. the American Constitutional Structure: The Advantages of Decentralization
by John Yoo on July 16, 2020Socialism is finally getting the American honeymoon it never got in the last century. But American federalism’s division of power between a national government and fifty sovereign states makes difficult, if not impossible, the unified economic planning necessary to supplant capitalism. Decentralization of power, the Constitution’s Framers hoped, would not just promote government effectiveness but would also protect individual liberty by encouraging Washington and the states to check each other.
Socialism, Capitalism, and Income
by Edward P. Lazear on May 12, 2020Proponents of free-market capitalism extol its high economic growth and freedom of choice. Advocates of socialism protest that capitalism is harsh and leaves too many behind. They argue that socialism is more benevolent. Most important is that if socialism is better for the poor, then low-income groups should fare better under socialism than under capitalism.
Capitalism, Socialism, and Nationalism: Lessons from History
by Niall Ferguson on February 24, 2020Schumpeter warned that socialism might ultimately prevail over capitalism, for four reasons. Creative disruption is rarely popular. Capitalism itself tends towards oligopoly. Intellectuals are susceptible to socialism. So are many bureaucrats and politicians. Socialism had manifestly failed everywhere it had been tried by the 1980s, apparently proving Schumpeter wrong.
PolicyEd
Constitutional Safeguards Against Socialism
featuring the work of Michael McConnell
The US Constitution creates a balanced system of government that is uniquely equipped to resist socialism.Laboring in Vain: How Regulation Affects Unemployment
featuring the work of Lee Ohanian
Government regulations that increase the cost of working lead to higher unemployment and decreased prosperity.An Untold Economic Miracle
featuring the work of Edward P. Lazear
Focusing exclusively on income inequality obscures the benefits of market reforms that have lifted billions of people out of poverty.
