In an earlier post on Marx and Engels’s The Communist Manifesto, I offered two explanations for why the 1848 Marx held that communism could only come about by violent revolution. In response to that post, Tibor Machan pointed me to this passage from an 1872 speech Marx gave in Amsterdam: “We are aware of the […]
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How free are individuals in all 50 states? Political scientists Jason Sorens and Will Ruger have crunched the numbers in over 30 areas — civil liberties, travel freedom, drug enforcement, business regulation, tax policy, and so on — as well as computing overall rankings for each state. And the winner is … North Dakota, followed
Freedom in the 50 states, and Illinois in particular Read More »
I’ve started reading Guillermo M. Yeatts’s 2010 Plunder in Latin America. Yeatts lists thirteen American countries’ per capita GDP in 2008 US dollars, first alphabetically by country: Argentina 8,281 Bolivia 1,948 Brazil 8,379 Canada 46,826 Chile 10,933 Colombia 5,478 Cuba 4,840 Ecuador 3,770 Mexico 10,278 Peru 4,454 Uruguay 8,942 USA 46,647 Venezuela 4,315 I re-arranged
The two Americas: 13 countries’ GDP Read More »
On February 26, Professor Marta Podemska-Mikluch will be speaking on the topic of “Succession, Elections, and Self-Governance.” Professor Podemska-Mikluch, a native of Poland and a graduate of George Mason University in Virginia, is currently teaching in the Department of Economics at Beloit College, Wisconsin.
Professor Marta Podemska-Mikluch to speak at Rockford College Read More »
In 1998, President Bill Clinton announced: “We have moved past the sterile debate between those who say Government is the problem and those who say Government is the solution. My fellow Americans, we have found a Third Way.”[1] Third Way politics became popular in the 1990s after the final collapse of the Soviet Union. Socialists
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Aspiring philosopher-queen Sarah O. Conly is an assistant professor of philosophy at Bowdoin College. A description of her Against Autonomy: Justifying Coercive Paternalism, published by Cambridge University Press in 2012: “Against Autonomy is a defense of paternalistic laws; that is, laws that make you do things, or prevent you from doing things, for your own
You should be forced to buy this book Read More »
I was interviewed for Cosmoetica by Dan Schneider, mostly on themes from my Nietzsche and the Nazis documentary and book, but also on the nature of values, art, religion, corporations, and the meaning of life. Other interviews in the series include those with Daniel Dennett, Larry Sanger, and Steven Pinker.
Interviewed by Dan Schneider for Cosmoetica Read More »
In my lifetime, here are the changes in life expectancy at birth for three countries: * USA: up from 70 to 78 years. * Brazil: up from 54 to 73 years. * Zimbabwe: from 51 up to 61, then down to 51 years. (Click the image for full size.) Source: Google Public Data via the
Life expectancy: USA, Brazil, Zimbabwe Read More »