“A common misconception often quoted by media, politicians, activists is that violence is on the rise and has historically been much lower. Similarly, the trend in post-colonial anthropology has been to regard historically indigenous and tribal societies as more peaceful than contemporary Western society. However, archaeological evidence shows that previous societies had very high level […]
Modernity’s declining violence Read More »
A good journalistic piece in The New York Times: “The Perverse Effects of Rent Regulation.” (Thanks to R.M. for the link.) Rent control is a classic case of bad economics and bad ethics. The bad economics is ignorance of unintended consequences — in this case a price control that makes the initial problem worse. The
Davidson on rent control as “perverse” Read More »
The Portuguese translation, published by Callis in São Paulo, Brazil is now also available in e-book via Barnes and Noble. More information about other editions and translations of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault.
Portuguese translation of Explaining Postmodernism in e-book Read More »
Walking to the train station, I photographed this street sign in Chicago: I was reminded of Rand’s caustic remarks exactly 50 years ago about Minow and government censorship: “And then there is Newton N. Minow [then chairman of the Federal Communications Commission] who declares: ‘There is censorship by ratings, by advertisers, by networks, by affiliates
Newton N. Minow Way in Chicago Read More »
According to numbers released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics late in 2012, workplace injuries continue to decline: * The injury rate for workers in the private sector has fallen to “3.5 cases per 100 equivalent full-time workers.”[1] That is a 31% drop over the last decade. * The injury rate for public sector workers
Safety in the workplace — encouraging statistics Read More »
The 1984 disaster in Bhopal, India, is one of the major business ethics cases of the past generation. A hazardous chemical was spilled and, tragically, many people died. Awful. But I am weary of reading the standard journalistic accounts that run like this: In the name of profit, a large American multinational corporation neglected safety;
Lessons from the Bhopal chemical-spill disaster Read More »
Professor Paul Kidder published a short article entitled “The Simplistic Flaw in Ayn Rand’s Philosophy: A philosophy professor dissects the faulty logic in the libertarians’ favorite deep-thinker.” Kidder’s argument is that Rand’s position amounts to asserting that only entirely self-sufficient entrepreneurs have worth; consequently her philosophy is flawed in overlooking or ignoring the value that
Philosopher Paul Kidder on Rand Read More »