prior probability

Of the 116 judges who have served on the Supreme Court of the United States, Clarence Thomas, the only true originalist on the high court today (see here, for example), is the second longest-serving justice in our nation’s history. Below is a lecture he gave at the University of Texas in Austin earlier this year:

Last week, Cuba’s corrupt Prime Minister Manuel Marrero (see here) proposed a package of free market reforms, including the legalization of private businesses in agriculture and tourism. According to one report, these proposed economic reforms “significantly expand the private sector six decades after Cuba’s communist leaders forbade all private business—even frita stands—and adopted a centrally planned economy model that ended up ruining the country ….” Source: Nora Gámez Torres, Miami Herald (19 June 2026), “Cuba to privatize state companies; opens banking and energy to foreign and private capital.” See also Carlos S. Maldonado, El País (19 June 2026): “Cuba se abre al capitalismo y aprueba su mayor reforma en décadas: banca privada, mercado de cambios y fin de los subsidios.” It’s unclear, however, when these reforms will take effect, and Cuba’s corrupt communist government remains a one-party military dictatorship.

According to Wikipedia, Michael Jackson’s “Off the wall” album was released 47 summers ago (on 10 August 1979) by Epic Records and features songwriting contributions from music legends David Foster, Paul McCartney, Rod Temperton, and Stevie Wonder (among others), as well as three tracks penned by MJ himself:

• “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” (track #1)
• “Workin’ Day and Night” (track #3)
• “Get on the Floor” (track #4; co-written by MJ & Louis Johnson)

One of my favorite papers at this year’s Adam Smith conference in Glasgow was Erik W. Matson’s “Minding the Gaps: Reality, Theory, and Policy in Adam Smith”, which will be published in Volume 30 of The Independent Review. In summary, Professor Matson’s thesis is that the The Wealth of Nations exemplifies two eternal gaps in the world of ideas. One is the practical gap between Smith’s economic and political theory (e.g. people should be free to pursue any trade) and public policy (e.g. occupational licensure), which as Matson explains inevitably arises from considerations of political feasibility and the existence of entrenched interest groups. The other is the epistemological gap between reality or the facts we seek to explain and our theories or efforts to explain them. Here is a link to an ungated version Professor Matson’s thoughtful paper.

After a full day of panels at this year’s Adam Smith conference in Glasgow, I will be watching the Group C stage match between Scotland and Morocco at Boteco do Brasil in the Merchant City tonight.

This time around, the weather in Glasgow is cold (by Florida standards) and rainy, so I am reblogging some pictures from my 2023 visit to Glesga, Scotland’s friendliest city.

I will be attending a joint meeting of British Academy and the International Adam Smith Society (IASS) on Erik W. Matson’s “The World in 1776/2026: The Wealth of Nations at 250” at the University of Glasgow (pictured below) for the remainder of this week. Among other things, I will be presenting my work-in-progress (with Alain Alcouffe) on Adam Smith’s intellectual encounters in Geneva in late 1765-early 1766 as well as my forthcoming book (with Salim Rashid) Beyond the Adam Smith Problem: Ethics, Economics, and Society. The full program of this week’s Adam Smith conference is available here.

During my brief stint in London this week (I am now en route to Glasgow by train), I was able to visit the Wallace Collection to see a special exhibition featuring more than 50 original works of art painted by Sir Winston Churchill, the first major retrospective of Churchill’s paintings since his death. More details are available here and here. Update (11:00 pm GMT): I did some digging and discovered that the future prime minister wrote an essay “Painting as pastime” in the early 1920s. What began as a mere hobby, however, became a pursuit of passion over the course of Churchill’s momentous life. Bonus link: the Wallace Collection’s Winston Churchill: The Painter exhibition catalogue (pictured below) is available here.

To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the publication of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, I have been featuring each of the sections of Smith’s magnum opus on my blog. Below, for example, is a compilation of my previous blog posts on Book IV of The Wealth of Nations:

1. Adam Smith calls bullshit!
2. Adam Smith on the economics of war
3. Some final thoughts on Book IV, Chapter 1 of The Wealth of Nations
4. Adam Smith’s finest chapter
5. Whose hand?
6. Adam Smith, anti-racist
7. Adam Smith, the Bank of Amsterdam, and the fetish of trade balances
8. Some final thoughts on Book IV, Chapter 3 of The Wealth of Nations: of absolute advantage
9. Adam Smith the pragmatist
10. Adam Smith’s critique of crony capitalism
11. Adam Smith’s paradoxes
12. Adam Smith’s subtle critique of bilateral trade treaties in Book IV, Chapter 6
13. Adam Smith’s detour on seignorage
14. Adam Smith’s scathing critique of Spanish colonialism
15. Adam Smith’s scathing critique of European colonialism more generally
16. Top Ten Plays in Part 3 of Chapter 7 of Book IV of The Wealth of Nations
17. Das Adam Smith Koloneiproblem
18. Adam Smith’s scathing critique of the East India Company’s double monopoly
19. The true villains in The Wealth of Nations
20. Doctor Quesnay’s fallacy
21. In praise of natural liberty: some closing thoughts on Book IV of The Wealth of Nations

In all, I wrote up 21 separate blog posts on this part of Smith’s treatise between 9 February and 5 March of this year. (See also here, here, and here for compilations of my previous posts on Books I to III of The Wealth of Nations.) Bonus link: You can order an “Adam Smith Wealth of Nations Great Books Graphic T-Shirt” (see below) here, via Liberty Maniacs.

That is the title of this beautiful novella by Mark Richard Robinson, who I had the honor of befriending in Broxbourne, England, these past few days. Update (3:00 pm GMT): I have now finished reading the good Reverend Robinson’s poignant and pensive work of autobiographical fiction. He not only addresses an important philosophical question — the relationship between faith and belief — his work is also a modern-day sequel to two of Seneca’s most timeless essays: “On the Shortness of Life” and “On Providence”. (As a literary aside, I would also have loved to read Robinson’s story from the perspective of his adulterous colleague!)