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Before I go mix a drink, here are a few of my favorite pieces of personal output from 2020...
Top of the list has to be Faster Growth, Fairer Growth, the book-length agenda paper I wrote with Brink Lindsey.
Besides being fun to write, I also did the layout and graphic design and taught myself just enough CSS to build a website to host it: https://www.niskanencenter.org/faster_fairer/agenda.html
Besides being fun to write, I also did the layout and graphic design and taught myself just enough CSS to build a website to host it: https://www.niskanencenter.org/faster_fairer/agenda.html
Flashing back to January, I wrote a reaction to Tyler Cowen's post on "state capacity libertarianism" that I think has held up quite well through the pandemic. https://www.niskanencenter.org/three-motivations-for-state-capacity-libertarianism/
In February, I was in NR with a review of Michael Lind's The New Class War. I've only become more persuaded of Lind's framework since. Glad he's having a real political influence and not on some street corner ranting about the Jordan Commission. https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2020/02/24/the-return-of-class-conflict/
Had a lot of fun writing this for American Mind early in the year, too, before they went all coup-happy. No hard feelings, though. Everyone copes in their own way. https://americanmind.org/features/rubio-takes-the-lead/the-central-planning-strawman/
By early March, it became clear Covid was the real deal, so like a lot of people I dropped what I was doing and made a list of policy responses. Stuff like "take Congress remote" and "waive absurd CDC and FDA regulations". https://medium.com/@hamandcheese/five-national-policy-responses-for-covid-19-coronavirus-7bb2d840f1c
I wrote The China Shock Doctrine in Fall 2019, but did a series of podcasts related to it in early 2020. Here's the official one with National Affairs: https://www.aei.org/multimedia/the-china-trade-shock-with-samuel-hammond/
Here's my nearly 3 hour long conversation with Jack Murphy, a genuinely great guy I can best described as an intellectually curious version of Michael Cernovich minus the brain damage: https://jackmurphylive.com/samuel-hammond-the-china-shock-doctrine-and-how-globalization-was-non-consensual/
This podcast was with Erik Torenberg for a special series he did early last year. We mostly focused on Hegel and state capacity. https://twitter.com/hamandcheese/status/1227998509867130887
In late 2019, I did a 2-3 hour podcast with John Lettieri for AEI on some the same topics, though it didn't come out until mid 2020. Here's part one: https://www.aei.org/multimedia/the-deep-dive-with-john-lettieri-sam-hammonds-vision-for-a-dynamic-free-market-welfare-state-part-1/
March was all CARES Act all the time. Against the calamitous backdrop of the pandemic, it was honestly pretty exciting to watch such a historic relief package come together in real time. I'm proudest to have worked with the CBPP in the process. https://www.cbpp.org/research/economy/cbpp-and-niskanen-center-joint-recommendations-to-strengthen-senate-republican
Once CARES passed and ppl understood what was in it, it became clear the $600 FPUC was going to be a major fault line.
So I wrote up some thoughts for NR, focused on the unknowns about how PPP and UI would interact. We now know the answer was poorly.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/will-pandemic-jobless-benefits-make-recovery-harder/?itm_campaign=headline-testing-will-pandemic-jobless-benefits-make-recovery-harder&
So I wrote up some thoughts for NR, focused on the unknowns about how PPP and UI would interact. We now know the answer was poorly.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/will-pandemic-jobless-benefits-make-recovery-harder/?itm_campaign=headline-testing-will-pandemic-jobless-benefits-make-recovery-harder&
On the + side, concerns about UI's work disincentive spiked conservative interest in active labor market policy.
Rubio, for one, turned the SBA into a makeshift Kurzarbeit program overnight.
Was also cool to work on Romney's underrated Patriot Pay idea: https://www.niskanencenter.org/workers-at-risk-deserve-patriot-pay-markets-alone-wont-do-it/
Rubio, for one, turned the SBA into a makeshift Kurzarbeit program overnight.
Was also cool to work on Romney's underrated Patriot Pay idea: https://www.niskanencenter.org/workers-at-risk-deserve-patriot-pay-markets-alone-wont-do-it/
In May I was invited to join American Compass as a contributor. My inaugural post re-appropriated Herbert Croly's famous line to explain in broad strokes where I think US conservativism should go next (note the echoes of state capacity libertarianism). https://americancompass.org/the-commons/hamiltonian-means-jeffersonian-ends/
This tells the story of when I went to a family policy event hosted by the Hungarian Embassy and heard a well known American conservative argue that family was the only thing keeping civilization from collapsing but alas not important enough to spend $ on. https://americancompass.org/the-commons/social-conservatism-and-the-small-government-straightjacket/
One of my longer essays in 2020 was this retrospective on the supposed Trump "realignment."
There's some kind of a realignment afoot but Trump ain't it. https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/whose-realignment-on-oren-casss-vision-of-post-trump-conservatism/
There's some kind of a realignment afoot but Trump ain't it. https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/whose-realignment-on-oren-casss-vision-of-post-trump-conservatism/
This year I had the honor to debate Richard Epstein on the value of labor unions. Needless to say, his rebuttal was unconvincing. https://lawliberty.org/forum/adversarial-unions-are-not-the-full-story/
As we exited the summer, I felt compelled to defend the New Deal from the accusation that Social Security's occupational exclusions were racist. Not true. The congressional record exists for this very reason... https://americancompass.org/the-commons/no-the-new-deal-wasnt-racist/
Also for American Compass, I argued that social media's power to delegitimize any and all authority, while synchronizing our moment-by-moment outrage, was a disaster waiting to happen. https://americancompass.org/the-commons/social-media-is-an-engineering-disaster-waiting-to-happen/
