Category Archives: Society

Common features of the Covistance

Posted on April 21, 2021 by Paul Frijters

I am co-writing a book on the Great Panic to explain what happened and what can be done to avoid a repeat. In the course of our research for that book, me and co-authors are scouring websites in the rest … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Cultural Critique, Health, History, Humour, Social, Society, Terror | 61 Comments

Some favourite anti-lockdown art

Posted on March 31, 2021 by Paul Frijters

I here want to salute the brave artists who used their talents to capture the inhumanity and essential insanity of lockdowns. My favourite is the “guerilla mask force”, an artistic idea that apparently started in Switzerland but spread all over … Continue reading →

Posted in Art and Architecture, Coronavirus crisis, Cultural Critique, Dance, Health, Society | Leave a comment

A World Anti-Hysteria Organisation?

Posted on March 17, 2021 by Paul Frijters

The essential governance problem in March 2020 in Western countries was the overwhelming demand of the vast majority of the population to do something dramatic in response to their fear. There was a clamour to be ‘led to safety’ by … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Democracy, Health, Information, Innovation, IT and Internet, Metablogging, Politics - international, Science, Society, Terror | 27 Comments

What experiments on cult behaviour tell us about lockdown beliefs

Posted on March 10, 2021 by Paul Frijters

With a recent publication in Nature that reported lockdowns have no effect on covid-cases or covid-deaths, there are now over 30 studies that fail to find any covid-reducing benefits of lockdowns. Worse, across countries and time, more severe lockdowns are … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Death and taxes, Health, Medical, Politics - international, Politics - national, Religion, Science, Society, Terror | 62 Comments

Your new barons. When and how did the super-rich escaped taxation?

Posted on March 3, 2021 by Paul Frijters

Together with Benno Torgler and Katharina Gangl, I published a piece recently on how to tax the powerful and sophisticated. Our substantive argument on what one should do becomes relatively simple once you understand what happened in the world of Western … Continue reading →

Posted in Democracy, History, Law, Politics - international, Politics - national, regulation, Society | 31 Comments

What to expect during a cold war with China?

Posted on February 17, 2021 by Paul Frijters

In 2005 I did my first economic projections of the major powers (published in a textbook) and concluded from the trends then that China would have a larger economy in purchasing power terms than the US in 2017, which is … Continue reading →

Posted in Democracy, History, Philosophy, Politics - international, Society | 15 Comments

Covid-congestion effects: why are lockdowns so deadly?

Posted on February 3, 2021 by Paul Frijters

Consider the picture below of two hypothetical Accident and Emergency departments (A&E), one that has no covid-regulations and simply has the available nurses trying to help all comers as fast as possible. In the other one the nurses try to … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Death and taxes, Education, Health, Science, Society | 33 Comments