(No peeking at the answer below.) “I want everyone to keep the property that he has acquired for himself according to the principle: benefit to the community precedes benefit to the individual. But the state should retain supervision and each property owner should consider himself appointed by the state. It is his duty not to […]
Which important leftist said this? Read More »
A good example of how political philosophy is driven by ethics. Here is Engels, Karl Marx’s collaborator in writing The Communist Manifesto and other works, criticizing liberals — despite nineteenth-century liberalism’s great accomplishment in reducing war and promoting peace between nations: You have brought about the fraternisation of the peoples – but the fraternity is
Friedrich Engels against liberal peace Read More »
John Stuart Mill uses his crystal ball to predict our circumstance — and/or he learned from history: “When nobody, or only some small fraction, feels the degree of interest in the general affairs of the State necessary to the formation of public opinion, the electors seldom make any use of the right of suffrage but
John Stuart Mill on government capture Read More »
The Laws is Plato’s last book. Its dialogue is set in Crete and led by an Athenian who is never identified. He converses with a citizen from Sparta and a politician from Crete. The politician has been given the authority to create laws for a new colony, so he asks the Athenian for advice, and
Plato on games and educating for rule-following Read More »
In my Ethics course, we cover the arguments for and against banning pornography. One of our readings is from Wendy McElroy’s Sexual Correctness: The Gender-Feminist Attack on Women. McElroy takes up the gender-feminist arguments against porn and contrasts them with liberal individualist forms of feminism. The following updated* chart of contrasts is a work in
Liberal versus gender feminism: McElroy’s *Sexual Correctness* Read More »
A strong observation from Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges’s The Ancient City: “It is a general fact, and almost without exception in the history of Greece and of Italy, that the tyrants sprang from the popular party, and had the aristocracy as enemies. ‘The mission of the tyrant,’ says Aristotle, ‘is to protect the people
How Populists become Tyrants — classic examples Read More »
Poem by Anonymous*: Here, richly, with ridiculous display,The Politician’s corpse was laid away.While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged,I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged. * * * [Update: A reader informs me (thanks!) that Hilaire Belloc is the author of the poem.]
The Politician’s Funeral [Humor] Read More »
[Reposting from July, 2012, and with this update on the controversy over Hochschild’s book: Gilley critiques and Hochschild responds.] One of the most outrageous evils of the 19th and early 20th centuries was Leopold II of Belgium’s rape of the Congo. The story is well told by Adam Hochschild in King Leopold’s Ghost. King Leopold
*King Leopold’s Ghost* — slavery in the Congo Read More »