Letter from the Editor

Abstract

In this important piece, Income Inequality, Cause and Cure, by B.N. Kausik, the author argues that the recent growth in income inequality is driven by disparate growth in investment income rather that disparate growth in wages. Specifically, they present evidence that real wages are flat across a range of professions, doctors, software engineers, auto mechanics, and cashiers, while stock ownership favors higher education and income levels. Artificial intelligence and automation allocate an increased share of job tasks toward capital and away from labor. The rewards of automation accrue to capital and are reflected in the growth of the stock market, with several companies now valued in the trillions. The author proposes an investment payroll plan to enable all workers to participate in the rewards of automation and they analyze the performance of such a plan. In A Constitution of Many Minds (Sunstein 2009), Cass Sunstein, Harvard University scholar, argues that taxonomic references to constitutional literalism and purposive constitutionalism are unhelpful because they say much less about whether such philosophies espouse traditionalism, populism, or cosmopolitanism. In this piece, The Purpose of Constitutional Political Economy, Franklin Obeng-Odoom argue that constitutional interpretation is an art of juggling many ways of reasoning. Odoom analyzes these contentions using two recent books by Stephen Breyer and Samuel Kofi Date-Bah, two leading supreme court scholars. They demonstrate the intriguing purpose of constitutional political economy as a challenge to orthodoxy. Chile is the Global South’s “exceptional nation” in terms of wealth and historical development patterns, but most recently it has been aligning with some of the geopolitical area’s traits. In Chile’s New Start, Roland Benedikter and Miguel Zlosilio, the resounding victory of the left under the lead of Gabriel Boric Font (born 1986) in Chile’s December 2021 presidential elections has opened up a new socio-political landscape for the country. At the center of the nation’s potential restart remains once again social policy which traditionally touches upon the core of Chile’s political culture and basic understanding of the institutions. The expectations for a “progressive renewal” are hopeful yet mixed. This article analyzes Chile’s presidential election of 2021 and what the winning of the Social Convergence Party (Convergencia Social) means for the country‘s future. The reasons of the left‘s triumph, the national and the international implications of president Boric’s government, and the cultural and institutional challenges facing the new government in terms of economic reforms could become examples for other areas in the Global South—both in the positive and in the negative sense. Due to its exceptional geographic, socio-cultural and institutional situation Chile may deserve the status of one of those rare “small states” in international affairs that infuse some case study teachings to their peers and the greater global community. Although the nation is relatively unique in its geopolitical environment, its potential as a model of a more balanced future in the Global South can be bigger than its actual regional size and influence. Matıas Vernengo and Esteban Perez Caldentey respond to what they claim are inaccuracies in the discussion of our views on Modern Money Theory (MMT), as discussed earlier by Agustin Mario. We believe that it is correct in noting that autonomous spending generates taxes, and fiscal balances are a result, but MMT authors overlook the difficulties in