Tyler Cowen, Columnist

In Defense of Extremism

Not only are a lot of radical ideas useful, but they are more common than most people realize.

May 6, 2022 at 12:30 PM UTC

Tyler Cowen is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, a professor of economics at George Mason University and host of the Marginal Revolution blog.

An extremely good idea.
Photographer: Oli Scarff/Getty Images Europe

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Asked this week about a Republican economic plan that would raise taxes for 75 million Americans, President Joseph Biden called it “extreme — as most MAGA things are.” He elaborated: “This MAGA crowd is really the most extreme political organization that’s existed in American history, in recent American history.”

I have never been a supporter of former President Donald Trump or his Make America Great Again movement. Still, the current president is missing an important point: Extreme ideas do not have to be bad. In fact, extreme ideas are more common than most people realize.