TEACHER FAILS ENTIRE CLASS: An economics professor said that she had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich. Socialism is a great equalizer. The professor then said, “Okay, we […]
Anecdote: Socialism’s incentive problem Read More »
Excellent essay by Professor C. Bradley Thompson diagnosing prominent strains of the weird left and the sometimes-weirder right, both deeply anti-liberal, anti-Enlightenment, and anti-American-founding. Link. the principles and institutions of the American Founding are now under assault from the nattering nabobs of both the progressive Left and the reactionary Right. These two ideological antipodes share
Pajama-boy Nietzscheans — Thompson essay Read More »
Three attempts to sort out the new-style socialisms of this generation: * Nathan Pinkowski’s “The Strange Rise of Bourgeois Bolshevism” (May 2020): “The task American socialists have set themselves is to achieve and sustain a culture of free self-creation. But this culture, the culture of individual autonomy, grows out of the bourgeois.” * My “Young
The New Socialisms Read More »
From my podcast series, produced by Possibly Correct out of Toronto. This generation’s young people express more positive attitudes toward socialism. But what does socialism mean to them? For most it does not seem to mean believing the Soviet Union or Mao’s Communist China is an ideal So does socialism mean free stuff? Ending crony
Young People’s Socialism [Open College] Read More »
Marx, Saint-Simon, Lenin, Harrington, Heilbroner, Attlee, Mao, Nehru. The eight socialists’ definitions that I discuss in the podcast are posted here in text form.
Eight Socialists Define Socialism Read More »
From 1884: “Time is a great logician, and succeeding generations will either press steadily on to the system that is the perfection of force, Socialism, or to the perfection of liberty, complete Individualism. If men believe that they may rightly use force to gain any of their objects, they will claim in their supposed interest
Polarization — insight from Auberon Herbert Read More »
Two recent sad results: 1. Freelancers want to work for companies, but government says No. 2. Women want a women-only club, but government says No. The right to free association has both a positive and a negative application. The positive right is to associate with whom you choose. The negative is not to associate with whom you
Free association rejected — two variations Read More »
Let me see if I understand the reasoning: 1. Argentina’s and Brazil’s governments have screwed up their economies over the years. 2. So they devalued their government-controlled currencies. 3. That means American farmers earn less on their exports to Argentinean and Brazilian customers. 4. So the US government will retaliate by taxing steel imports from Argentina and Brazil. 5. Therefore, steel-makers in Argentina and Brazil will earn
Trumpian trade wars, Argentina and Brazil edition Read More »