The IEA blog on Marx and on the gender gap

The IEA now has a blog, which is good. Good that it has one, and good in that it looks to be good.

Here are two characteristic quotes, from the two most recent posting at this blog. First, here is a recycled little something that John Meadowcroft contrived to get published by the Times yesterday, about Marx:

Sir – Marx’s theory of the crises of capitalism is little more than a melodramatic description of the business cycle – standard fare in economic analysis. Every original contribution that Marx made to our understanding of capitalism is demonstrably false: the working class does not become increasingly immiserated; the class structure does not become increasingly polarised; no society has evolved from feudalism through capitalism to communism; the iron law of wages is fallacious; the State does not wither away when capitalism is abolished. Marx will continue to be neglected by serious scholars because he was wrong in every important respect.

And here is a the final paragraph of a summary of this publication:

Given the complex causes of the gender pay gap, it is clear that complete equality of pay is unlikely to be achieved without draconian measures that would restrict freedom of choice and damage the economic prospects of both men and women. Calls for new legislation on equal pay should therefore be resisted.

The IEA has always seemed to me to be the kind of organisation which should have a blog, but also as the kind of organisation which has been mindlessly prejudiced against having a blog on account of having nothing to say about kittens and sunsets and the personal dietary habits of its inmates, and on account of not liking the bark-at-the-moon style of current affairs commentary, as if that were all you were allowed to do, blogwise. This is like denouncing the whole idea of telephones merely because other people often chatter pointlessly to each other with them. Why should that bother you? Happily, the IEA has now overcome any such prejudices.