Staff ~ Vol. VII | Issue I Editorial Board Aimee Zheng William Loughridge Manaal Saadaat Mason Zhang, Hansae Lee Benjamin Levy, Zachary Freer Maggie Jiang, Manaal Saadaat Editor-in-Chief Content Director Marketing Director Philosophy Section Director Politics Section Director Economics Section Director Content Team Philosophy Section Editors Hansae Lee Steve Nam Alexander Gerasimchuk Matthew Wong Theodore Young Gabriel Gonzalez Coco Zhu Nahye Lee Koda Li Fatima Avila Politics Section Editors Arjun Ray Faith Li Malcolm Furman Meruka Vyas Fatima Avila Emerson Rhodes Lachlan Edwards Aditi Bhattacharjya Sophie Rukin Economics Section Editors Meruka Vyas Aditi Bhattacharjya Max Robinson Vittorio Nazzi Arjun Ray Lachlan Edwards Matthew Wong Arthur Shamgunov Operations Team Marketing Associates Claire Kim-Narita Nadya Tan Designers Julian Croonenberghs Neil Xu Founders Julian D. Jacobs '19 Daniel Shemano '19

Editorial board Foreword Volume II Issue II Introducing the fourth issue of JPPE In recent years, inequality has been discussed at an increasing rate in academic and political spheres. There is a growing rate of inequality along every method of measurement. Within the United States, there is growing income and wealth inequality. On an international level, global inequality studies find that a large portion of the world’s wealth is held by a shockingly small portion of the world’s population. This problem has grabbed the attention of numerous academic and nongovernmental organizations. Inequality has come to the forefront of numerous 2020 US presidential campaigns. Within the Democratic primary, many candidates cited inequality as a central concern and offered a wide variety of solutions. Brown alum Andrew Yang introduced the concept of a Universal Basic Income plan to the global stage, while Senator Bernie Sanders has proposed a wealth tax as one part of his sweeping economic policy. This edition of the Brown Journal of Philosophy, Politics and Economics is intended to help contribute to the conversation on inequality through our feature interviews and submissions. In our conversations with Former Greek Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis and American Economist Paul Krugman, we discussed the prevalence of inequality and its potential causes. While we have some recurring themes in our issue, it is our hope that this issue holds something of interest for all its readers. The Brown Journal of Philosophy, Politics and Economics continues to discuss a wide variety of topics that are analyzed through the distinct yet complementary lenses of philosophy, politics and economics. Pieces like “John Taylor and Ben Bernanke on the Great Recession – Who Was Right About What Went Wrong?” examines historical events, while “Respect for the Smallest of Creatures: An Analysis of Human Respect for and Protection of Insects” applies the lens of PPE to the theoretical. We believe that the distinct topics examined, and the insights gleaned from them, are enhanced when combined

*Feature* JPPE INTERVIEWS, PAUL KRUGMAN: Inequality, Artificial Intelligence, Technological Disruption, and Assortative Mating Paul Krugman is an economist and writer, who currently serves as professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University, Centenary Professor at the London School of Economics, and as an op-ed columnist for The New York Times. Prior to his appointment at Princeton, Krugman served on the faculty of MIT; his last post was Ford International Professor of Economics. He has also taught at Yale and Stanford Universities, and prior to that he was the senior international economist for the President's Council of Economic Advisers, under Ronald Reagan. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a member of the Group of Thirty. He has served as a consultant to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations, as well as to a number of countries including Portugal and the Philippines. In December 2008, Mr. Krugman received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for 2008, honoring his work in international trade patterns. Fall 2019 JPPE : With US income and wealth inequality at a historical high, economists like Daron Acemoglu and David Autor have discussed the issue of job polarization and the idea that artificial intelligence and other modern labor-saving innovations might contribute to the widening of that skills gap and the further privileging of high skill work. Are you concerned that modern technology will make inequality worse? Krugman : I’m concerned but I’m not convinced. The belief that we’re living in an era of radical technological change has a problem, which is, if we were in such a period, we should see rapidly rising productivity. What we’re actually seeing is rather sluggish productivity. Rising productivity is just not being shown in the data. And then once you adopt that attitude you can ask yourself how—thinking about the kind of tangible technological innovations of our time—are we really seeing radical progress? The rise of the original smartphone or the iPhone was a really big deal. How excited are people about this year’s latest smartphone? You really can convince yourself that we’re starting to plateau. And that may not last, but it’s not clear that this is a time of very radical technological change. Aside from the fact that rapid technological change isn’t so obvious, the argument that technology is driving income polarization runs up against several problems. I think Autor does great stuff, and that “U shape” he finds is really interesting. But there is a problem if wage developments don’t seem to be following the kinds of labor that he says are being devalued—i.e. if middle-skill work isn’t experiencing worse wage gains than lower-skill work, which is the part that's growing. So if we’re seeing an economy that is polarizing with a greater number of low skill jobs, why are home health aids not getting better paid? Those are service sector jobs, so that makes you question whether there is some statistical artifact about the whole thing. It’s not for sure, but I’m unconvinced. And then there’s the general point that if we have technology that’s biased against labor, it needs to be biased towards something, which would be capital. This means returns to investments would be high, but the corporate sector is behaving as if returns on investment are low. They are not investing heavily despite extremely low interest rates. So I just think the whole thing is a story you can tell, and it might be true in the future but there really is no slam dunk evidence that it’s what is happening now. JPPE : Research by Robert Allen on the “Engels’ Pause” shows that because technological disruption tends to improve productivity, it also temporarily increases inequality as wages stagnate and returns to capital rise. Then eventually some leveling force brings it down. Do you think that that’s a fair way of looking at how theoretical technological disruption causes inequality? Krugman : It can happen. To the extent that we have a theoretical analysis of what technology does, that analysis says that it depends on the technology and it depends on the bias of the technology. Technology that replaces a worker with lots of extra capital should have a negative impact on wages and increase inequality. That’s not a particularly new insight. David Ricardo had it in 1821, and the reason he had it is because there’s a pretty good case that that’s what happened during the early phases of the Industrial Revolution in Britain. There’s an endless debate about what happened to real wages between 1800 and 1840, but the fact that we’re even having that debate tells you that there isn’t sufficiently convincing evidence of rising real wages to override the counterarguments. So stagnating wages due to technology is possible. It’s not clear that it has happened again since the Industrial Revolution. There is an argument that there was a kind of technological bias towards highly educated workers, which was driving the rise in income inequality in the 1980s and 1990s. That’s more debatable, but it’s also a story that doesn’t help much in developments since 2000. So technology can have an effect, and it’s very easy to write down a model in which technological change is, for some period—and maybe even an extended period—, bad for substantial groups of workers. But it depends on the story you tell. JPPE : There was economic research that found assortative mating was responsible for twenty percent of the rise in inequality since the 1980s. Is there anything college students can do about this, or are they just the vehicles of widening inequality? Krugman : It's not just assortative mating; it’s assortative lots-of-stuff. At the highest levels, everyone was roommates at Harvard. But I think a lot of those assortative mating things are mostly relying on inequality as measured by survey data, which doesn’t capture the really huge incomes at the top. Those incomes are measured by other things, and that’s a large part of the inequality. But, look, if we can restore adequate funding for high-quality public education so that we can have more great students at a wider variety of places, then maybe the mating won’t be so assortative. I’m not big on the notion that any intervention in people’s lives is evil socialism, but telling people who fall in love with is beyond even what I would consider. JPPE : Fair enough. Walter Scheidel came out with The Great Leveler where he wrote a history of inequality. His thesis was that periods of high inequality only ever get remedied by mass military mobilization, plague, civil war, or government collapse. In a time of historically high inequality, are you worried about that? Or do you think that effective policy and effective politics can actually play a role in reducing inequality? Krugman : The middle-class society that I grew up in—now gone— was the creation of policy. It was not the result of the invisible hand of the market, but a dramatic increase in unionization, the squeezing of wages, wage differentials, the establishment of norms, and changes in taxation, all of which were associated with World War II. So massive total war was the background for the Great Compression. Do we know that this is the only way that reducing inequality can happen? No. It’s the only way we’ve seen it happen in the past, but we don’t have a whole lot of samples, and you have to hope that we can do it differently. And I would say that there were significant equalizing reforms during the Progressive Era, and it’s true that some of the stuff took place after World War I, but some of it took place before. So I don't think history should give you total pessimism about our ability to enact change. And I'd like to see more equality and not total war.

The Brown University Journal of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (JPPE) is a peer reviewed academic journal for undergraduate and graduate students that is sponsored by the Political Theory Project and the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Society Program at Brown University. The Brown Journal of Philosophy, Politics & Economics Volume IV, Issue II scroll to view articles current issue Philosophy From Sex to Science: The Challenges and Complexity of Consent Matthew Grady Shoring Against Our Ruin An Investigation of Profound Boredom in our Return to Normal Life Virginia Moscetti Unwitting Wrongdoing The Case of Moral Ignorance Madeline Monge Read More Politics Refuting the myth of progressive secularism An Analysis of the Legal Frameworks Surrounding Religious Practice in France and Bahrain Bridget McDonald Ronald Reagan and the role of humor in American movement conservatism Abie Rohrig Read More Economics The relationship between education and welfare dependency Aiden Cliff Against the Mainstream How Modern Monetary Theory and the Myth of Millionaire Tax Flight Challenge Conventional Wisdom Justin Lee Read More Applications for JPPE will resume in the fall! See Available Positions

Politics The European Union Trust Fund for Africa: Understanding the EU’s Securitization of Development Aid and its Implications Migena Satyal A Death Sentence Beyond Death Row: Helling v. McKinney and the Constitutionality of Solitary Confinement Hallie Sternblitz Featured Section Vol. VII | Issue I The Burden of Innocence: Arendt’s Understanding of Totalitarianism through its Victims Elena Muglia Rewriting the Antitrust Setlist: Examining the Live Nation-Ticketmaster Lawsuit and its Implications for Modern Antitrust Law Katya Tolunsky Vol. VI | Issue II Schedule F And The Future Of Civil Service Protections Sasha Bonkowsky Does Social Media Strategy Help Politicians Stay in Power? Comparing the Cases of Modi and Bolsonaro Wendy Wang How Political Instability Unravels Religious Commitment in the Face of Uncertainty Navigating Uncertainty in Political Instability and Religiosity in Post-Arab Spring Egypt and Tunisia Abanti Ahmed Politics Archives Vol. IV | Issue II Refuting the myth of progressive secularism An Analysis of the Legal Frameworks Surrounding Religious Practice in France and Bahrain Bridget McDonald Ronald Reagan and the Role of Humor in American movement conservatism Abie Rohrig Vol. IV | Issue I Predictive Algorithms in the Criminal Justice System Evaluating the Racial Bias Objection Rebecca Berman From Bowers to Obergefell The US Supreme Court’s Erratic, Yet Correct, Jurisprudence on Gay Rights Sydney White The Unchurching of Black Lives Matter The Evolving Role of Faith in The Fight for Racial Justice Anna Savo-Matthews Vol. III | Issue II Rural Despair and decline How Trump Won Michigan in 2016 Bess Markel Vol. III | Issue I We The Prisoners Considering the Anti Drug Act of 1986, the War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration in the United States Sophia Scaglion Vol. II | Issue II All Power to the Imagination Radical Student Groups and Coalition Building in France During May 1968 and the United States during the Vietnam War Calder McHugh The Life Cycle of the Responsibility to Protect The Ongoing Emergence of R2P as a Norm in the International Community Maxine Dehavenon PeaceFul Animals A Look into Black Pacifism and the Pedagogy of Civil Rights in American Public Education Jade Fabello Vol. II | Issue I Two Forms of Environmental-Political Imagination Germany, the United States, and the Clean Energy Transition Nathan S. Chael Oedipus and Ion as outsiders The Implications and Limitations of Genealogical Citizenship Claire Holland Partisan Gerrymandering Re-Establishing the Political Question Doctrine in Gill v. Whitford Connor Maag Vol. I | Issue II Transparency and compliance The Strength of EU Lobbying Regulations Abigail Borges Georgian-South Ossetian Conflict Is Secession a Viable Solution? Tathyana Mello Amaral Imagined Isle Irish Catholic Identity in the Restoration Era Nathan Mainster Vol. I | Issue I American Jews The Political Behavior of American Jews A Public Choice Approach to Israel-influenced Voting Jake Goodman Racial Capitalism Racial Capitalism in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Challenging the Fallacy of Black Entitlement under Service Delivery Protests. Olerato Mogomotsi A.S.e.a.n The Long Game: ASEAN, China’s Charm Offensive and the South China Sea Dispute Hisyam Takiudin

Join JPPE! The Brown University Journal of Philosophy, Politics & Economics (JPPE) is not accepting applications for Editors at this time. We will resume in Fall 2025. Position Application Editor Apply Now

The Brown University Journal of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (JPPE) is a peer reviewed academic journal for undergraduate and graduate students that is sponsored by the Political Theory Project and the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Society Program at Brown University. The Brown Journal of Philosophy, Politics & Economics Volume IV, Issue II scroll to view articles current issue Philosophy Interpersonal Remembrance and Mnemonic Wronging Andrej Gregus Shoring Against Our Ruin An Investigation of Profound Boredom in our Return to Normal Life Virginia Moscetti Unwitting Wrongdoing The Case of Moral Ignorance Madeline Monge Read More Politics Refuting the myth of progressive secularism An Analysis of the Legal Frameworks Surrounding Religious Practice in France and Bahrain Bridget McDonald Ronald Reagan and the role of humor in American movement conservatism Abie Rohrig Read More Economics The relationship between education and welfare dependency Aiden Cliff Against the Mainstream How Modern Monetary Theory and the Myth of Millionaire Tax Flight Challenge Conventional Wisdom Justin Lee Read More Applications for JPPE will resume in the fall! See Available Positions

The Brown University Journal of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (JPPE) is a peer reviewed academic journal for undergraduate and graduate students that is sponsored by the Political Theory Project and the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Society Program at Brown University. The Brown Journal of Philosophy, Politics & Economics Volume IV, Issue I scroll to view articles Volume IV Issue I Philosophy Authenticating Authenticity Authenticity as Commitment, Temporally Extended Agency, and Practical Identity Kimberly Ramos Can Pascal Convert the Libertine? An Analysis of the Evaluative Commitment Entailed by Pascal’s Wager Neti Linzer The Growing Incoherence of Our Higher Values Aash Mukerji The Necessity of Perspective A Nietzschean Critique of Historical Materialism and Political Meta-Narratives Oliver Hicks Read More Politics The Unchurching of Black Lives Matter The Evolving Role of Faith in The Fight for Racial Justice Anna Savo-Matthews From Bowers to Obergefell The US Supreme Court’s Erratic, Yet Correct, Jurisprudence on Gay Rights Sydney White Predictive Algorithms in the Criminal Justice System Evaluating the Racial Bias Objection Rebecca Berman Read More Economics God Save the Fish The Abyss of Electoral Politics in Trade Talks––a Brexit Case Study Eleanor Ruscitti The Black Bourgeoisie The Chief Propagators of “Buy Black” and Black Capitalism Noah Tesfaye Breaking Big Ag Examining the Non-Consolidation of China’s Farms Noah Cohen Read More Applications for JPPE Now open! See Available Positions

Economics Not paying income tax timely leads to significant financial losses for the governments. What design changes could be made to tax collection policy to minimize these delays? Aryan Midha One Planet, One Oklahoma: Exploring a Framework for Assessing the Feasibility of Localized Energy Transitions in the United States Anna Hyslop The Pay Gap Among Academic Faculty for Higher Education in the U.S. Yucheng Wang Economics Archives Vol. IV | Issue II Against the Mainstream How Modern Monetary Theory and the Myth of Millionaire Tax Flight Challenge Conventional Wisdom Justin Lee The relationship between education and welfare dependency Aiden Cliff Vol. IV | Issue I The Black Bourgeoisie The Chief Propagators of “Buy Black” and Black Capitalism Noah Tesfaye God Save the Fish The Abyss of Electoral Politics in Trade Talks––a Brexit Case Study Eleanor Ruscitti Breaking Big Ag Examining the Non-Consolidation of China’s Farms Noah Cohen Vol. III | Issue II Federal 5g innovation policy Technological Competition between the US and China Will Matheson A "Shot" Heard around the WOrld The Fed made a deliberate choice to let Lehman fail Sydney Bowen UK Government Commitment to Sustainable Development Goals Good for the economy and business in general? Brooklyn Han, Patrick Leitloff, Sally Yang, Eddy Zou "Victorian Holocausts" The Long-Term Consequences of Famine in British India Adithya V. Raajkumar Vol. III | Issue I State-Owned Banks and the Promise of an Equitable Financial Sector Elias van Emmerick No Place like Home Extending the Equity Home Bias Theory to Foreign Portfolio Investment in Emerging Markets Qiyuan Zheng Vol. II | Issue II John Taylor and Ben Bernanke on the Great Recession Who Was Right About What Went Wrong? Mikael Hemlin Financial Literacy, Credit Access and Financial Stress of Micro-Firms Evidence from Chile Lucas Rosso Fones Vol. II | Issue I A Fair Free Lunch? Reconciling Freedom and Reciprocity in the Context of Universal Basic Income Olivia Martin Enhancing Value or Stifling Innovation Examining the Effects of Shareholder Activism and Its Impact on American Capitalism Andrew Kutscher and Doug Saper The Individual Unfreedom of the Proletarian Cal Fawell Vol. I | Issue II Public Funds, Private Interest The Role of Private Companies in Shaping US Cybersecurity Policy Justin Katz Vermont Act 46 Implications for School Choice Quinn Bornstein Vol. I | Issue I Cannabis Latent Effects of Cannabis Legalization: Racial Disproportionality and Disparity in Washington State Drug Convictions, 2000-2015 Kaid Ray-Tipton Energy Embracing Renewable Energy for Sustainable Job Growth in West Virginia Jingpeng Shao

Mission Statement Julian D. Jacobs '19 Daniel Shemano '19 Advisory Board Frequently Asked Questions CENTER FOR PHILOSOPHY, POLITICS, AND ECONOMICS Join jppe! The Brown University Journal of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (JPPE) is a peer reviewed academic journal for undergraduate and graduate students that is sponsored by the Center for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Brown University. The JPPE aims to promote intellectual rigor, free thinking, original scholarship, interdisciplinary understanding, and global leadership. By publishing student works of philosophy, politics, and economics, the JPPE attempts to unite academic fields that are too often partitioned into a single academic discourse. In doing so, the JPPE aims to produce a scholarly product greater than the sum of any of its individual parts. By adopting this model, the JPPE attempts to provide new answers to today’s most pressing questions. Five Pillars of the JPPE 1.) Interdisciplinary Intellectualism: The JPPE is committed to engaging with an interdisciplinary approach to academics. By publishing scholarly work within the disciplines of philosophy, politics, and economics, we believe we are producing work that transcends the barriers of any given one field, producing a sum greater than its individual parts. 2.) Diversity: The JPPE emphasizes the importance of diversity in the articles we publish, authors we work with, and questions we consider. The JPPE is committed to equal opportunities and creating an inclusive environment for all our employees. We welcome submissions and job applicants regardless of ethnic origin, gender, religious beliefs, disability, sexual orientation, or age. 3.) Academic Rigor: In order to ensure that the JPPE is producing quality student scholarship, we are committed to a peer review process, whereby globally renowned scholars review all essays prior to publication. We expect our submissions to be well written, well argued, well researched, and innovative. 4.) Free Thinking and Original Arguments: The JPPE values free thinking and the contribution of original ideas. We seek excellent arguments and unique methods of problem solving when looking to publish an essay. This is one way in which JPPE is hoping to contribute to the important debates of our time. 5.) Global Leadership: By publishing work in philosophy, politics, and economics, we hope the JPPE will serve as a useful tool for future world leaders who would like to consider pressing questions in new ways, using three powerful lenses.