All Posts Tagged With: "human nature"
Dusting Off a Man and His Classic
In 1870 the sultan of Turkey gave a book by a Scotsman to his entire entourage of top-ranking officials. The Khedive of Egypt had the same work inscribed and painted on the wall of the Royal harem. Two years later the Meiji dynasty ordered the book to be issued throughout Tokyo’s school system. Eventually every prefecture [...]
21Sep2011 | Lawrence W. Reed | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Shame of Medicine: Celebrating Coercion
“Coercion is a subjective response to a particular intervention and has been considered an unfortunate but necessary part of the care of people with psychiatric illness.” That definition of the State-sanctioned forcible control of innocent persons labeled mentally ill by persons labeled psychiatrists was offered by Giles Newton-Howes—honorary senior lecturer in the department of psychological medicine, [...]
24Feb2011 | Thomas Szasz | 7 comments | ContinuedTeddy Roosevelt and the Progressive Vision of History
Over a hundred years ago, on August 31, 1910, Teddy Roosevelt gave his famous “New Nationalism” speech in Osawatomie, Kansas. In that speech the former president projected his vision for how the federal government could regulate the American economy. He defended the government’s expansion during his presidency and suggested new ways that it could promote [...]
22Sep2010 | Burton W. Folsom Jr. | 8 comments | ContinuedThe Economic Way of Thinking Makes a Comeback
As readers of this magazine know, its main goal, and that of FEE as a whole, is economic education—that is, to explain and spread essential economic insights so more people become familiar with the “economic way of thinking,” as Israel Kirzner called it. This brings insight to politics, society, and history. Above all, it gives [...]
25Aug2010 | Stephen Davies | 2 comments | ContinuedCan We Be Free If Reason Is the Slave of the Passions?
The writings of David Hume (1711–1776) are a treasure trove for those eager to find pithy, polished memorable quotes to bolster their arguments in favor of freedom, justice, and against the arrogance and follies of governments. It is difficult to resist the youthful élan of his major philosophical work, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–1740), [...]
1Oct2007 | Frank van Dun | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Economic Fantasy of “Star Trek”
Gardner Goldsmith (ELGGRANDE@msn.com) is an independent journalist and screenwriter in New Hampshire. A friend of mine is an award-winning science-fiction novelist. When we first met, I happened to mention to him that I was working on a science-fantasy novel, just as he was. He bristled. “I write science-fiction, not fantasy,” he said. “Those two genres [...]
1Dec2004 | P. Gardner Goldsmith | 19 comments | ContinuedWatering the Tree
Though my father is approaching 80 and is no longer able to do as much outdoors, a legacy of his retirement years is the orchard behind my childhood home. After my dad ended his trucking career, he took to heart an activity I would not previously have supposed to be of interest to him. His [...]
1Mar2004 | Russell Madden | 0 comments | ContinuedIs Socialism Good in Theory?
Socialism has been mortally discredited on economic grounds, thanks to Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Hayek, and history. But for many people it has not been discredited on moral grounds. You can tell this by how often people say that while socialism doesn’t work in practice, it is good in theory. Strange notion—that a theory [...]
1Oct2003 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedAtomistic Individualism: Anatomy of a Smear
Contributing Editor Tibor Machan is a professor at the Argyros School of Business and Economics at Chapman University. For more than two centuries classical liberalism has irked thinkers both right and left. Hegel, Rousseau, Comte, and of course Karl Marx did a great deal of pen-wielding to combat it, and one of their most potent [...]
1Oct2003 | Tibor R. Machan | 1 comment | ContinuedUtopia Versus Eutopia
Utopianism has a long-running history that includes turning the 1900s into the bloodiest century in human experience. Typically utopian schemes are founded on the premise that individual self-interest must be subjugated for the purported greater public good. As such, utopianism is fit for only a utopia: the term derives from the Greek words ou (“not”) [...]
1Mar2003 | Daniel Hager | 1 comment | ContinuedA Painless Way to Triple Your Savings
“The human mind is charming in its unreasonableness, its inveterate prejudices, and its waywardness and unpredictability.” —LIN YUTANG1 “Behavioral” finance is the hot new field in the rapidly growing “imperial” science of economics. Consider the titles of recent books on the subject: Irrational Exuberance by Robert Shiller of Yale University, who correctly warned investors that [...]
1Jun2002 | Mark Skousen | 0 comments | ContinuedReady or Not: What Happens When We Treat Children As Small Adults by Kay S. Hymowitz
Encounter Books • 2000 • 290 pages • $16.95 paperback Libertarianism is sometimes summarized as the right to do any nonaggressive act. Anything That’s Peaceful is the title of one of Leonard Read’s finest books. We might suppose that the cause of a free society is well served by extending that freedom of choice to [...]
1May2001 | Jennifer Roback Morse | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Perils of Positive Rights
Tibor Machan is a professor at the Argyros School of Business and Economics, Chapman University. One of the most powerful ideas opposed to the free society is a notion political philosophers call “positive rights.” Sounds good, doesn’t it? What could be wrong with being positive? Sounds like something out of Anthony Robbins or Norman Vincent [...]
1Apr2001 | Tibor R. Machan | 5 comments | ContinuedAdam Smith: Moral Philosopher
James Otteson is a professor of philosophy at the University of Alabama. Adam Smith was not solely an economist, though that is almost exclusively how he is known today. His Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (WN) is one of the most important books in the Western tradition. Aside from [...]
1Nov2000 | James R. Otteson | 0 comments | ContinuedNothing Left to Buy?
America is now in the middle of an unparalleled economic expansion. In the fourth quarter of 1999, the economy grew at the frenetic rate of 6.9 percent. The Dow climbs upward. Even some so-called serious people have started to wonder if the business cycle has been abolished. I think we’ll manage to have a recession [...]
1Jun2000 | Russell Roberts | 0 comments | ContinuedEconomic Illiteracy
Paul Cleveland is an associate professor of economics at Birmingham Southern College in Birmingham, Alabama. Outing the fall semester, the first examination given to my principles-of-economics students included this: Discuss the following statement: When an economic function is turned over to the government, social cooperation invariably replaces self-interest as the motivation for human action. The [...]
1Apr2000 | Paul A. Cleveland | 1 comment | ContinuedGermany and the Third Way
Norman Barry is professor of social and political theory at the University of Buckingham in the United Kingdom. He is the author of Business Ethics (Macmillan, 1998). At least two things exercise political and economic commentators on Europe: the meaning and policy significance of the “third way” and the current malaise in the German economy. [...]
1Nov1999 | Norman Barry | 0 comments | Continued-
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