For this year’s conference of the Association of Private Enterprise Education, I am organizing and chairing a session on two giants of the twentieth century — Friedrich Hayek and Ayn Rand — with four scholars comparing their views on values and political economy. Topic: Hayek and Rand on Values Chair: Stephen Hicks, Ph.D., Rockford College, […]
Hayek and Rand on values — APEE 2011 conference Read More »
I attended a two-day conference at Wake Forest University on the Federal Reserve. The Fed is the U.S. central banking system and was founded in 1913 to replace the earlier National Banking System experiments that had been in place since the eighteenth century. I enjoyed a paper presented by George Selgin (University of Georgia) and
Has the Federal Reserve been a failure? Read More »
One measure of a nation’s success is its economic health: how free are a nation’s citizens to pursue their own economic goals, and how wealthy on average are its citizens? Almost always the wealthy countries are those that enjoy a significant degree of the economic freedom. (See the chart in the image; click to enlarge.)
Successful nations and the British empire Read More »
I’ll be giving a talk at the 2011 APEE conference in April. My title is “Cameron Hawley, Henry Kitchell Webster, and Populist Capitalism in Literature.” Here is the abstract: In the early and middle part of the twentieth-century, Hawley and Webster were strong-selling authors of novels that dramatized themes of business ethics and political economy.
Populist capitalism in literature Read More »
For my Introduction to Philosophy course, an optional question on the final exam was: In your judgment, what is the most dangerous book we read this semester? First give a clear and sympathetic presentation of the book’s most important themes, and then explain why you think the book is dangerous. We read six major works
The most dangerous philosophy book (Fall 2010 edition) Read More »
Jack Stack is the CEO of Springfield Remanufacturing Corporation, one of the great turnaround success stories of this generation. Stack is also the author of The Great Game of Business and A Stake in the Outcome. I recently interviewed Stack in Springfield, Missouri for a forthcoming issue (February 2011) of Kaizen. “Open-book Management” is addressed
Jack Stack and open-book management Read More »
Those who questioned his theology he called “pigs,” “asses,” “riffraff,” “dogs,” “idiots,” and “stinking beasts.”
John Calvin’s Geneva Read More »
Bulletin: Sex and Economics — A Modest Proposal Fellow citizens: Our nation’s sex life is in peril. Surveys show widespread sexual discontent. Market failure is everywhere. Many males complain of not getting enough sex and many females object to constant male looks and advances. Other males are dissatisfied with the options available in their local
From the Office of the Reproducer-General Read More »
Two student groups at Rockford College are producing a discussing of a perennially important topic: Morality without God? * Is life purposeless or meaningless without belief in a particular God or religion? * Without God, does that mean “anything goes”? * Does belief in a particular God or religion incline one to morality? Does it
“Morality without God?” discussion Read More »
The Department of Philosophy at Rockford College announces a new minor track in Ethics [pdf]. Our department’s faculty members have strength in a wide range of philosophical areas, but all of us have special expertise in ethics, so we have put together an option for students wishing to concentrate in that area. Introduction to Ethics,
Our new minor in Ethics Read More »