Month: August 2010

From The Left’s Unlikely Alliance with Islam By Robert Eugene Simmons Jr. [callout]First we encounter Marxism, which is a religion masquerading as a political movement. When we finally defeat Marxism the void is almost immediately filled by Islam, which is a political movement masquerading as a religion.[/callout] Most fair-minded Americans have no problem with people…

A Little History For Context The term ‘Freedom’, and its near relation ‘Liberty’, have a long heritage.   The babylonian words “ama-gi”, meaning “Return To The Mother”, written in cuneiform, are often cited by Libertarians as the first written use of ‘freedom’. That usage literally refers to giving a slave back to his mother —…

Every day I read around twenty academic papers, a book, and something on the order of 300 blog postings on economics and politics, and a little philosophy. I have my own aggregator on www.roundtable.capitalismv3.com, various news readers, and I use the site Rtable.net for everything related to economics. I have a high tolerance for information,…

I lost the source of this quote, but thought it captured the sentiment correctly: The government has been playing “extend-and-pretend” based entirely on the idea that pent up demand in consumers would grow until it busted out and the recovery would be on – fueled by consumers. What has happened is the exact opposite. This…

“Why Aid Is Not Working And How There Is A Better Way For Africa.” We know: Aid is bad. It creates corruption. It harms the economy. It makes nice happy Christians, and nice happy DSH’s (( Democratic Secular Humanists )) feel good about themselves. But it is terribly harmful for Africans and their civilization. Because…

I try to keep track of the ‘Grand Theories’. And I came across this one last week. I can’t find the book anywhere except online. I read what I could. And found this page by the author that summarizes his theory. Which is, quite simply, “stability and wealth provide the foundation for technological progress.” There…

Whenever something is scarce,  some concept of property (the exclusive use of a resource)  is necessary for the development of incentives, coordination, and production — even if the difference between ‘several property’ and ‘shareholder property’, is defined differently by different groups — therefore all societies include and sanction some form of coercion.  No society can…

In William Easterly’s post “Why can’t leading conservative magazine understand freedom?” he refers to a National Review article “China Teaches US Lessons About Economic Freedom“. I replied in the comments: William, I’ve read this post four times, and it’s still not very clear what you’re arguing for and against. I think you’re reading far too…

In response to The Tea Party is a Marxist movement on Half Sigma, I created this diagram. The BiPolarity Of Social Class, And The Status Competition Between Them. I”ve posted a diagram that is in progress. It’s at: http://www.capitalismv3.com//opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress/htdocs/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/BiPolarityOfClass-2010-08-29.png What I want to illustrate is the difference between people who exist in the market economy…

From Arnold Kling, By way of the WSJ, By Peter Boettke: Mr. Hayek rightly warned of the dangers of central planning, Mr. Boettke says, but “he didn’t give a prescription for how to move from ‘serfdom’ back.” – Austrian Resurgence by Arnold Kling (Taken and expanded from my comments on EconLib.) Back From Serfdom? Hayek…

Paul writes: Predictions I Wish Had Been Wrong Looking for some other stuff, I found this post from October 2008 in which I predicted a level of right-wing craziness about Obama similar to that facing Bill Clinton, but worse. I really, really wish I had been wrong about that. But this is followed by interesting…

From Education And Its Discontents About three years ago, a scientific study was undertaken to examine some of the differences between the conservative and the liberal mind. One of the conclusions emerging from the study was that liberal people tend to be able to handle ambiguity and nuance better than conservative people, processing new information…

Egalitarianism is an attempt to either: a) obtain status by redistributing status to others b) obtain status at a discount, largely so that we have access to and opportunity for better mates and other opportunities for either status, stimulation (learning, experiences), or material gain. c) As a sentiment, its function is to maintain group strength…

Would I Please Respond? I get a lot of comments along the lines of “Would you please respond to the criticism of your work in ______?” Um, no. Do you have any idea how many articles there are out there attacking me? I literally don’t have the time to respond to them all, or even…

Secret Assault on Terrorism Widens on Two Continents By SCOTT SHANE, MARK MAZZETTI and ROBERT F. WORTH The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/world/15shadowwar.html In roughly a dozen countries — from the deserts of North Africa, to the mountains of Pakistan, to former Soviet republics crippled by ethnic and religious strife — the United States has significantly…

A long day of reading. A long day of studying college course curricula from a dozen large universities. A long day of discovering that far too many feign scientific methods, and deliver theology. (No, really.) The university has become a vehicle for tradesmen. It is almost impossible to obtain a meaningful education. And worse, that…

Let me say this in public. Openly. With conviction. “Over…. My…. Dead…. Body….” Let me promise any and all that I mean that statement. I’ll die to prevent it. Period.

[table id=2 /] NOTES Forms Of Argument a) Our Republican political system is a trade of violence for argument. Argument, consent, and majority-voting are proxies for violence. These proxies for violence were the result of the need for expensively equipped warriors to resolve disputes among a military class of necessarily meritocratic warriors, and to enfranchise…

The Curious Capitalist at Time Magazine posts: “Is economics ideological by nature?” by Barbara Kiviat It’s easy to rag on economics as not being a “real” science, and I try not to do things that are too easy. But in recent weeks I’ve really started to wonder. It is fascinating, and frightening, to me that…

MEGAN MCARDLE at the Atlantic, posted an essay question by Pascal Emmanuel-Gobry. Complex societies collapse because, when some stress comes, those societies have become too inflexible to respond. In retrospect, this can seem mystifying. Why didn’t these societies just re-tool in less complex ways? The answer Tainter gives is the simplest one: When societies fail…