All Posts Tagged With: "egalitarianism"
Wealth and Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes
When the father of the world’s richest individual and the cofounder of an outfit called United for a Fair Economy get together to write a defense of the estate tax, the result is one of the worst books ever written in American history about a public-policy issue. Although Gates and Collins have written a tract [...]
8Jul2010 | Murray Sabrin | 0 comments | ContinuedAre the Rich Necessary? Great Economic Arguments and How They Reflect Our Personal Values
George Leef is book review editor of The Freeman. In my high school days I had a friend who had been thoroughly imbued with the socialist mindset. He was willing to concede there might be some adverse consequences if the government went too far toward equality and economic control, but was adamantly in favor of [...]
2Mar2009 | George C. Leef | 0 comments | ContinuedFalling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class
Robert Frank, a professor of economics at Cornell, has long argued that affluent Americans spend too much on conspicuous consumption, which he relabels “positional” goods. His favorite examples include big houses, expensive watches, barbecue grills, and wine. If Smith has more positional goods than Jones, then Jones is said to suffer “relative deprivation” because “what [...]
22Jan2009 | Alan Reynolds | 3 comments | ContinuedA Man Who Knew the Value of Liberty
[This column was adapted from one published first by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy on its website in February 2007.] A television audience in the millions will feast on the glitz and glamor of Hollywood when the 81st Annual Academy Awards are bestowed February 22. My thoughts will be elsewhere that Sunday night—on a [...]
20Jan2009 | Lawrence W. Reed | 7 comments | ContinuedThe Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality
By Walter Benn Michaels Reviewed by George C. Leef
1Apr2007 | George C. Leef | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Vanity of the Philosopher: From Equality to Hierarchy in Post-Classical Economics
By Sandra J. Peart and David M. Levy Reviewed by Gene Callahan
1Apr2007 | Gene Callahan | 1 comment | ContinuedBook Reviews – September 2004
The Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life by Paul Seabright Princeton University Press • 2004 • 304 pages • $29.95 Reviewed by Richard M. Ebeling One of the most profound insights of economics is that the activities of billions of people can be coordinated without central direction and without most of these [...]
1Sep2004 | FEE Admin | 0 comments | ContinuedBook Reviews – April 2004
America the Virtuous: The Crisis of Democracy and the Quest for Empire by Claes G. Ryn Transaction Publishers • 2003 • 221 pages • $34.95 Reviewed by Richard Ebeling In 1988 Robert Nisbet, one of America’s most prominent sociologists and conservative social philosophers, published The Present Age: Progress and Anarchy in Modern America. He critically [...]
1Apr2004 | FEE Admin | 0 comments | ContinuedHow’s the Third World Doing?
The Third World is in trouble. Standards of living are plummeting, while the West is getting richer. Nearly everyone seems to believe it. The left wants to believe it as a justification for global socialism. Racists want to believe it because it “proves” the superiority of the white race. The media think it’s a good [...]
1Sep2002 | James Peron | 0 comments | ContinuedUnfree Speech: The Folly of Campaign Finance Reform by Bradley A. Smith
Princeton University Press • 2001 • 304 pages • $26.95 Reviewed by John Samples Responding to Watergate, Congress a generation ago passed draconian restrictions on campaign spending and fundraising. The Supreme Court eventually struck down the spending limits, but affirmed contribution ceilings and the legality of the new agency empowered to oversee the regulatory regime, [...]
1Jun2002 | Bradley A. Smith | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Fourth Great Awakening and the Future of Egalitarianism
Robert Fogel argues that “egalitarianism” is a national ethic that has manifested itself in American history in three successive forms. During the eighteenth, and most of the nineteenth, century it took the form of desiring for everyone an “equality of opportunity” for material success. Toward the end of the nineteenth, and throughout most of the [...]
1Jan2002 | Sam Bostaph | 0 comments | ContinuedAmerica and the World’s Resources
At the heart of almost all economics is the idea of mutually beneficial exchange. When two people voluntarily engage in an activity, economists assume that both parties are better off. Otherwise, one of them would have refused the deal. It doesn’t mean people don’t make mistakes—sure they do.
1Dec2001 | Russell Roberts | 5 comments | ContinuedWinners and Losers in the Transfer Game
I like lists, be they David Letterman’s Top Ten lists, the mainstream historians’ best-presidents lists, or my wife’s honey-do lists. They tell us much about the kind of society in which we live. Frequently, these lists reveal more about whoever compiled them than about whatever data is actually included on them. One list in particular [...]
1Sep2001 | Christopher Westley | 0 comments | ContinuedEgalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays by Murray Rothbard, edited by David Gordon
Ludwig von Mises Institute • 2000 • 321 pages • $15.00 paperback Young students of music, if they are at all serious about the subject, must sooner or later be introduced to Bach. Whatever else one might play or study, music without Bach would be terribly incomplete. Older musicians understand that they must introduce the [...]
1Jul2001 | George C. Leef | 1 comment | ContinuedWhat Is Seen and What Is Not Seen
This excerpt is from the first chapter of Selected Essays on Political Economy, translated by Seymour Cain and edited by George B. de Huszar, published by the Foundation for Economic Education. In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these [...]
1Jun2001 | Frederic Bastiat | 93 comments | ContinuedThe Ideals of Tyranny
Socialism, along with other movements founded on egalitarianism, has often been held up as a moral ideal. Many people consider the drive for “equality” to be laudable. It is frequently claimed, however, that socialism, although based on a moral principle, failed because it used immoral means to obtain its ends.
1Mar2001 | James Peron | 1 comment | ContinuedHospital Food and Socialized Medicine
Last September, a colleague of mine visited Manitoba, a province in central Canada. Electioneering was at a fever pitch, with just a few days left before voting for a variety of public offices. My friend was astonished to observe that the dominant issue was indeed hospital food. It had become a political hot potato, the candidates outdoing one another to express concern and promise action.
1Mar2000 | Lawrence W. Reed | 1 comment | Continued-
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