I usually think of Slavoj Žižek as a performance-artist-of-philosophy-sometimes-shading-into-clownishness, but he can be perceptive, especially when diagnosing the internal dynamics of his fellow leftists. Here is his taxonomy of left thinkers in terms of where they stand on the issue of enjoyment: “Leftist libertarians see enjoyment as an emancipatory power: every oppressive power has to […]
Žižek on pleasure and three types of leftists Read More »
Hardin is one of the most widely-read twentieth-century intellectuals, most known for his two pieces “The Tragedy of the Commons” and “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor.” The two are intimately related, as one diagnoses a fundamental problem with resources and the other draws policy conclusions. A key quotation, in which Hardin states
Garrett Hardin bemoaning India’s 600 million population in 1974 Read More »
In his essay “To Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch,” Kant wrote that “the spirit of commerce, which is incompatible with war, sooner or later gains the upper hand in every state.” Kant was not a friend of the spirit of commerce, which he associated with the Jews, whom he despised as “immoral and vile” and
Is commerce rendering war obsolete? Read More »
A quotation from Jane Addams, Nobel Peace Prize winner and Rockford University student on progressivism’s meaning of democracy. “In this effort toward a higher morality in our social relations, we must demand that the individual shall be willing to lose the sense of personal achievement, and shall be content to realize his activity only in
Jane Addams and the progressive mindset Read More »
The US government’s debt: “102,984 for every person living in the U.S.”* How’s that for secular Original Sin? Suppose you’re an infant just born into this world. You haven’t done anything yet — but you’ve inherited the financial misdeeds of earlier generations and will spend the rest of your life paying for them. * Source:
Government debt as secular original sin Read More »
I’m a fan of Arnold Kling and Nick Schulz’s From Poverty to Prosperity: Intangible Assets, Hidden Liabilities and the Lasting Triumph over Scarcity. I wrote about it here. It’s about Economics 2.0, as they call it, one key feature of which is putting the entrepreneur front and center — in contrast to much of traditional
Entrepreneur and Un-entrepreneur characteristics Read More »
One regularly reads or hears condemnations of the power of business corporations in the modern world. So let’s think about the nature of power. Witness Warren Buffett. Buffett is currently the sixth richest man in the world and head of the powerhouse Berkshire Hathaway corporation. I’m not a fan of his political or economic views,
Anecdote: Warren Buffett and the power of corporations Read More »
Reposting this question: In this post-colonial era, what explains the dramatically different levels of prosperity in nations after they become independent of their colonizing powers? Why, for example, has the prosperity of North America been consistently higher than that of Central and South America? Both are rich in natural resources, both involve nations started from scratch,
Empires of conquest and empires of commerce Read More »