Archive for Tibor R. Machan

Individual Liberty and the Media

The task in this issue of The Freeman has been to bring together some good discussions of the relationship between individual liberty and the nature and conduct of the media. It was tempting to go beyond this rather narrow focus because of the media’s many dimensions. Poor reporting vis-a-vis science, religion, and politics is legion [...]

1Sep1996 | | 5 comments | Continued

Two Cases of Press Malpractice

Dr. Machan, this month’s guest editor, is a professor of philosophy at Auburn University, Alabama. His next book, A Primer on Ethics, will be published later this year by the University of Oklahoma Press. 1. The Wells Fargo Affair In late January, Wells Fargo Bank acquired First Interstate Bank of California in what the press [...]

1Sep1996 | | 0 comments | Continued

Fallacies of Uncritical Multiculturalism

Dr. Machan teaches Philosophy at Auburn University, Alabama. Some of the trends in our country are new only if you have very little knowledge of human history. Such is the case with the current multiculturalism craze on our college and university campuses. The idea is that no culture is better than any other, so it [...]

1Mar1996 | | 2 comments | Continued

Once Again, Freedom Is at Fault

“The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance,” was how John Philpot Curran put it. Sure enough, but there are different kinds of vigilance. My experience suggests that one of the most important forms in a relatively free society such as ours is to unfailingly meet arguments promoting the violation [...]

1Feb1996 | | 0 comments | Continued

The Proper Scope of Democracy

Dr. Machan teaches philosophy at Auburn University, Alabama. Whenever public programs are cut, those who have their benefits reduced protest loudly and those who feel for them offer compassionate support. Yet whenever public programs are enacted, little sympathy is extended to those whose incomes are reduced by higher taxes. It is contended that it’s all [...]

1Jan1996 | | 0 comments | Continued

Why Is It Nature versus People?

Dr. Machan teaches philosophy at Auburn University, Alabama. The environmentalist lobby in Washington is working overtime these days moaning over the prospect of reduced-budgets and rolled-back regulation. Don’t get me wrong. I do not dismiss everything scary coming from ecologists. Human beings can be reckless and destructive, although I doubt our worry should be about [...]

1Oct1995 | | 0 comments | Continued

Property Rights

Most of us turn to philosophy only when problems arise with using our common sense. For instance, we are seldom troubled about determining what belongs to whom as we go through a normal day in our lives, but there are those occasions when just trusting our customary beliefs won’t suffice. I know pretty well that [...]

1Aug1995 | | 0 comments | Continued

Meaning Well Versus Doing Well

Dr. Machan teaches philosophy at Auburn University, Alabama. His book Private Rights and Public Illusions was published by Transaction Books this year. Current politics is a source not only of much frustration, but also of some good lessons in morality. The central problem in morality is: What counts as doing the right thing, of acting [...]

1Aug1995 | | 0 comments | Continued

Rights versus "Rights"

Dr. Machan is Professor of Philosophy at Auburn University, Alabama. His latest book is Private Rights and Public Illusions, from Transaction Books. He is a contributing editor of The Freeman. For the past 200 years or so a debate has ensued in political philosophy, on the issue of what sorts of rights human beings have. [...]

1May1995 | | 0 comments | Continued

Score One for Tribalism

Throughout its brief history, the idea of individualism has animated much good that has come about in society. It has also generated volumes of nasty criticism. Among the critics Marx was perhaps the most fervent. He claimed there is nothing more to the belief in the value of the individual human being than a ploy [...]

1Jan1995 | | 0 comments | Continued

Perspective: Introduction

When I learned of the chance to edit a special issue of The Freeman,I did not hesitate with the topic I wanted to have explored, namely, how business is faring in our culture. I am slowly writing a book, Business-Bashing, Why Commerce Is Maligned,so my attention was already focused on the topic. For years I [...]

1Jul1994 | | 0 comments | Continued

Now for Some Serious Educational Reform

When the late Allan Bloom wrote his best-selling The Closing of the American Mind a few years ago, a debate ensued about just what might be wrong with American higher education. Bloom took what he considered to be a very serious approach to his subject matter and concluded, essentially, that American colleges and universities have [...]

1Jun1994 | | 0 comments | Continued

Post-communist Traumas East and West

Tibor Machan, of the philosophy faculty at Auburn University, escaped at age 14 from Communist Hungary in 1953. His experiences and reflections appear in his book Liberty and Culture, Essays on the Idea of a Free Society (Prometheus, 1989). [We] cannot say that democratic institutions reflect a moral reality and that tyrannical regimes do not [...]

1May1994 | | 0 comments | Continued

All of Us Are Equal?

Tibor R. Machan is Professor of Philosophy at Auburn University, Alabama. His book The Virtue of Liberty is being published this month by The Foundation for Economic Education. When the founders of the American republic declared that “We hold these truths to be self- evident, that all men are created equal,” they were not naive, [...]

1Apr1994 | | 0 comments | Continued

Human Rights Around the Globe

Dr. Machan, a contributing editor of The Freeman, teaches philosophy at Auburn University, Alabama. It is interesting that so many people find the humanities, especially philosophy, irrelevant. People have always resisted philosophy. In our time it is often the so-called practical professionals who regard thinking about the great questions a waste of time and would [...]

1Feb1994 | | 0 comments | Continued

The Fear of Individualism

Tibor Machan is a philosophy professor. He was smuggled out of Communist Hungary in 1953 and has lived in the United States since 1956. One of America’s most important girls to the world was the political philosophy of individualism. The central tenet of this idea is that every human being is important, especially from the [...]

1Jul1993 | | 1 comment | Continued

In Defense of Property Rights and Capitalism

The concept of freedom, in its socially relevant sense, means the condition of individuals free from aggression by others.1 This is the political freedom of the unique American political tradition. It rests on the recognition of every individual’s equal moral nature as a self-determined and self-responsible agent, regardless of admittedly enormous circumstantial differences. By political [...]

1Jun1993 | | 0 comments | Continued
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