Thank you!

In contrast, I emphasized what I believe are unique types of distributional instabilities that can arise in growing societies, specifically as technical change occurs. And I questioned whether the selection mechanisms Sam described well capture history.

Sam's remarks were optimistic. He emphasized capacities of societies to act to reduce inequality and goes so far as to suggest that, in the spirit of Talcott Parson's evolutionary universals, more egalitarian societies are selected for over time.

Sam's thinking has also evolved in deep ways over time. His incredible interest in all domains of social science and his complete comfort in adapting his thinking are another type of courage.

Sam's dedication to understanding inequality and his particular modes of analysis were deeply controversial in the early parts of his career. This courage in challenging conventional paradigms regardless of professional cost are well known.

In my opinion, there is no economist who has contributed more to understanding inequality in the last 60 years than Sam Bowles.

9/To be clear, I do not dogmatically oppose price controls. FTR, I support higher minimum wages. But the failed price control policies described by the authors require that one make serious arguments about mechanisms producing welfare improvements treating implementation as more than details.

8/ The Public Choice and Chicago Regulation Schools (I am a member of neither) critiques cannot simply be dismissed; they need to be addressed. Little is explained here. The time inconsistency problem cannot be wished away by sunset clauses.

7/ What confidence should one have that a regulatory authority has the information to do this, let alone what confidence should one have that the political pressures associated with the regulatory agency will not cause the careful setting of controls to go awry?

6/One answer is that such argumentation is unneeded, which we are told should be set “carefully, temporarily and alongside measures that expand supply.” (Note the putative economists who are "terrified" of price controls are unanimous in supporting efforts to expand supply.)

5/Other potential justifications are possible, which involve thinking about the role of prices outside the Walrasian framework. Implicit contract theory and efficiency wage theories are classic examples in labor markets. Not obvious to me these would apply here.

4/ I suspect that the authors are invoking this view in the narrow sense that short run housing supply is sufficiently inelastic to constitute a pure transfer from owners to renters.

3/ A second possibility is that the reductions in supply induced by price controls are justified on social welfare grounds. This requires specifying the social welfare function and the price/quantity tradeoffs involved in the controls. Likely agree with authors’ social welfare functions, fwiw.

2/ Such arguments can be made. One possibility is the presence of monopsony or monopoly power so that controls may be efficiency-enhancing in the usual sense. No evidence is provided here that the markets where they recommend intervention have this feature.

3/ One other point. The book is good on the failings of the Decembrists in terms of the aspirations of the non-Russian peoples of the empire as well as their retrograde (even for the times) attitudes concerning women.