What if Winston Churchill had been killed in a traffic accident, as he almost was in New York in 1931? Would World War II have turned out significantly differently? What if Alexander the Great had decided to expand westward instead of eastward in the 300s BCE? Would the early Romans have developed their vigorous republic? […]
More “What if?” history Read More »
Let us dwell upon this year’s ranking of Illinois as among the worst states for business: 48th out of 50.[1] That is unchanged from last year. So people are leaving: “Illinois had the second-highest net domestic migration loss, sending 79,000 of its residents to other states. Illinois had ranked 49th in net domestic migration in
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At the Hoover Institution’s site, an anecdote about contemporary mores: “Hanson was in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart one day when he saw a young woman struggling to move a big screen television into her Honda. When he went over to help her, he noticed that she was holding an EBT card, a government-issued
Food stamps and big screen televisions Read More »
From a book within a book:
“He said that architecture was truly the greatest of the arts, because it was anonymous, as all greatness. …
Did you build that? Read More »
Here are Acton’s famous words: “I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make
Power does not corrupt Read More »
An instructive trio of essays by economists at Cato Unbound about Austrian economics’ reputation — especially Mises’s praxeological version — for being strongly a priori rationalist: Is Austrian economics anti-empiricist? Steve Horwitz says no. Bryan Caplan says yes. George Selgin also says yes. To Selgin’s series of quotations from Mises, I’d add this one from
Are Austrian economists anti-empirical? Read More »
In the history of ethics, the debate over the meaning of life has generated four broad positions: 1. The meaning of life is to flourish by creating value both materially and psychologically through one’s career, friendships, loves, and avocations. Examples here include Aristotelian eudaimonism, some sub-types of utilitarianism, and Objectivism.The good life should be a
Genghis Khan on joy and the meaning of life Read More »
I was struck by this philosophical economist’s connecting the Aristotelian solution to the so-called naturalistic fallacy to the question of the value of money. “This approach hints at the fact that a key element in this work is the treatment given to questions surrounding the ‘naturalistic fallacy.’ The basic reasoning here is that in regard
Zelmanovitz on philosophy of money Read More »