Blindspot

A BLOG ABOUT LAW, POLITICS, AND CULTURE

Max Stearns

Oct 19, 2019
8 min

The Elizabeth Warren Fantasy

“I have a plan for that.” Elizabeth Warren There’s little doubt that Elizabeth Warren, the woman with a plan, is a force. She’s witty, sharp, and, most often, direct. She commands our attention. And she now holds the considerable prospect of securing the Democratic nomination. I do not question the sincerity of Warren's supporters, yet I am convinced that nominating her will be a profound mistake. That is not because as between Elizabeth Warren and Donald Trump I personally w

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Max Stearns

Apr 7, 2019
5 min

The AOC Wars

Rarely has a political figure, especially one so young, so new, and a woman, provoked such visceral division within our polity as Alexandria Ocasio-Ortez. The freshman congresswoman, who began as a political organizer for Bernie Sanders, and who unexpectedly unseated longstanding Congressman Joseph Crowley (D. N.Y.) in a Democratic primary, has emerged a phenom. Both in print media, and on my social media feed, one fact is strikingly clear: people either revere or revile her,

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Max Stearns

Feb 20, 2019
4 min

A Narrative Theory of Voting

Economists struggle to explain why people vote. Conventional accounts have been variously described as circular or paradoxical. The paradox: It is a near certainty that a single vote will not change the outcome of a large-numbers election, and although those who are well-educated and well-off are most likely to understand this, they are also the most likely to vote. The circularity: The various economic models used to explain voting— group mobilization, cat-and-mouse, minimax

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Max Stearns

Jan 6, 2019
6 min

A Coasian View of a Trumpian Wall

In 1991, the year before I started teaching, Ronald Coase received the Nobel Prize in Economics. In setting out his now eponymous theorem, a centerpiece of Chicago Law and Economics, Coase illustrated with fences and walls. As we enter the third week of the government shutdown, Trump’s border wall is morphing into a (perhaps invisible) fence. Coase maintained that by focusing on the fairness of outcomes, welfare economists tended to emphasize questions of pure distribution ov

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Max Stearns

Sep 14, 2018
10 min

The Newest Viral Media Graphic

In November 2017, I stumbled upon Vanessa Otero’s viral media graphic, which, at the time, was in its third iteration. In my first blogpost on this subject, I explained why I found the graphic intuitive and appealing; I distilled her more detailed set of seventeen of evaluative criteria into my own broader set of five, sometimes overlapping, categories; and I offered a theoretical explanation of the curve’s apparent Gaussian shape, resembling a standard probability distributi

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Max Stearns

Sep 1, 2018
9 min

Why I am not a Socialist

Our politics increasingly runs toward extremes. We no longer join together in cheering on competing teams of players selected for their talent. Instead, we retreat into increasingly remote ideological camps. We take distant shots aimed at vilifying our opponents, yet somehow imagine that others will treat our ideas with the respect to which we insist they are entitled. The result is not merely dysfunction. It conveys the misimpression that meaningful political discourse is di

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Max Stearns

Aug 12, 2018
6 min

Disequilibrium

Equilibrium is a foundational concept in the study of both private and political markets. Professors convey the concept with two curves, supply, which slopes upward as a function of price, and demand, which slopes downward as a function of price. Along a two-dimensional graphic depicting price and quantity, the market clears where the curves intersect. At that equilibrium price, the quantity of a good supplied and demanded is equal. As with most economic concepts, equilibria

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Max Stearns

Jan 10, 2018
5 min

Oprah Ambivalence

I watched the inspiring Golden Globes speech. I listened to those ready to anoint a new Democratic hopeful. I reflected on those who urged caution, even deep reluctance, to respond to the supposedly populist entertainer-in-chief with a more congenial, liberal, enlightened, and thoughtful entertainer-in-chief, one who’s “personal Vietnam” was not womanizing without catching an STD, but rather was surviving brutal beatings as a young girl, along with having been victimized by r

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Max Stearns

Nov 28, 2017
8 min

Why I am not a Libertarian

Prelude I have spent approximately half my career at each of two very different law schools: George Mason Law School (now named for Antonin Scalia), which tends to track right or libertarian, and Maryland Carey Law, which tends to track left or progressive. Along the way, I have made friends who are ideologically liberal and conservative, who are Democratic and Republican, and who decline such affiliations, identifying instead as Libertarian or Independent. I strongly believe

1,136 views0 comments

Max Stearns

Jul 22, 2017
3 min

My Reflections on Trump's Republican Nomination: One Year Later

One year ago today, after watching Trump accept the Republican nomination, I posted an analysis on FB. I reproduce that post below, with two comments: first, it demonstrates that there's nothing about Trump's conduct that wasn't predictable, and second, his subsequent conduct proves that Trump was never interested in surrounding himself with people who compensate for his personal deficits. I am not surprised, despite all that has happened since, that Trump remains incapable o

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Max Stearns

Jun 25, 2017
6 min

Trump isn’t the Problem (with language alert)

The number 1 trending NYT article is a list of Trump’s lies since he was sworn in as President. See here. Before the election, the NYT compiled a similar list, which it has since updated, of his insulting tweets. See here. Since his election, Donald Trump has compromised international relationships with NATO Allies, with Mexico, with China, even with Australia. He continues to try to put up that wall, yet tear down Obamacare. He seeks to block Muslim entry, just without calli

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Maxwell Stearns

I have been teaching law for twenty-nine years, and I am the Venable, Baetjer & Howard Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law. My core areas of interest are Constitutional Law and Law & Economics, which I view as critically interwoven. My most recent book is titled Law and Economics: Private and Public (West Academic 2018, with Todd Zywicki and Tom Miceli). In this poster, recently created by the Maryland Carey Law Thurgood Marshall Law Library, I am pictured with several wonderful books that I've recommended to friends, family, and students.