My review of Kevin Gibson’s Ethics and Business: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 2007) is now out in the current issue of Teaching Philosophy. The review is behind the subscriber wall but will be publicly available eventually.
From my introductory section:
“Gibson’s approach is middle-of-the-road in the content of his beliefs about business and ethics, so this is a mainstream publication. As such Ethics and Business embodies the strengths of the mainstream—and a few of its weaknesses. So from the perspective of someone outside the mainstream, let me indicate what I take those weaknesses to be in the context of reviewing a textbook written for students. …”
Posted 2 weeks, 3 days ago at 9:11 am. Add a comment
Here is a nice solution to a problem. City governments are usually responsible for street signs. But they can be expensive–and this is an era of supposed budget cuts, it’s hard to impose new taxes, and so on. So why not get area businesses to sponsor the signs? Businesses will pay happily to get some marketing presence, the city gets new signs at less cost to them, and everyone benefits.
But I showed the pictures briefly to a colleague, who frowned and said Más dominación por corporaciones, which I translate loosely as More goddamn big businesses asserting their control over our lives by polluting our public places with their insidious messages. And foreign corporations to boot. Or something like that.
My colleague’s reaction was automatic, but built into it is the idea that a better solution would be to force everyone to pay for the signs through taxes. That would eliminate the advertising, and the businesses would receive no benefit from their imposed tax costs. That is to say, my colleague believes implicitly that a compulsory win/lose solution is preferable to a voluntary win/win solution.
All of which makes me wonder how some people become so invested in adversarial ideologies that they so automatically reject any suggestion of the mutually beneficial.
Posted 2 weeks, 6 days ago at 9:34 am. Add a comment
Here is a fascinating short article in the British Journal of Medicine by Robert N. Proctor, professor of the history of medicine at Penn State University:
The campaign was mounted despite the arguments that (1) taxes on tobacco were a significant source of income for the German government and (2) the tobacco industry provided thousands of jobs. Political principles were at stake.
The chief anti-smoking activist, one Adolf Hitler, stated that “Nazism might never have triumphed in Germany had he not given up smoking.”
I gave the Nazi anti-smoking campaigns a passing mention in Nietzsche and the Nazis, in the context of discussing the Nazis’ socialization of the body politic, and Proctor has developed the anti-smoking theme in much greater detail.
Israel Kirzner will be in residence at Beloit College, just up the road from Rockford College, this coming semester in October. He will be there as part of Beloit’s Upton Scholars Series.
Greater Buenos Aires has a population of around 13 million. How do they all get to work, school, and visiting grandmother in the old neighborhood? Many drive, but here’s an an interesting tidbit about its unique mix of private and public transportation:
“There are over 150 city bus lines called Colectivos, each one managed by an individual company. These compete with each other, and attract exceptionally high use with virtually no public financial support. Their frequency makes them equal to the underground systems of other cities, but buses cover a far wider area than the underground system. Colectivos in Buenos Aires do not have a fixed timetable, but run from 4 to several per hour, depending on the bus line and time of the day. With very cheap tickets and extensive routes, usually no further than four blocks from commuters’ residences, the colectivo is the most popular mode of transport around the city” (Wikipedia).
By contrast, many U.S. city governments continue to experiment with top-down, politically-enforced, and economically wasteful public transportation systems. Here is John Catoe, the general manager of the Washington, D.C., Metro system:
“One thing that it is important to understand though is that the fares only pay a portion of the operating budget. This year, about 53%. If you add the money we earn from advertising and other sources, we cover about 60% of the cost. In fact no transit agency in the country makes a profit or breaks even. The rest comes from the local governments that partner with Metro.” [Emphasis added.]
The abstract: “Philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Ayn Rand are often identified as strong critics of altruism and arch advocates of egoism. In this essay, Stephen Hicks argues that Nietzsche and Rand have much in common in their critiques of altruism but almost nothing in common in their views on egoism.”
My opening paragraph: “To what extent is Ayn Rand’s ethical theory Nietzschean? Three Friedrich Nietzsches are relevant to making that judgment. …”
The major sections of the article:
Part One: On Critiquing Altruism
Three Nietzsches and Ayn Rand
Some intellectuals on Nietzsche and Rand
Egoism, altruism, and “selfishness”
A Nietzschean sketch God is dead
Nihilism’s symptoms
Two bio-psychological types
Psychology and morality
Genealogy
Comparing Nietzsche’s and Rand’s critiques of altruism
Rand’s break with Nietzsche’s critique
Part Two: On Egoism
Rand’s egoism
Nietzsche’s rhetoric and system
The major differences between Nietzsche and Rand Are individuals real?
Do individuals have free will?
What is the source of moral values?
How does the self identify its nature and values?
Are individual selves ends in themselves?
Are fundamental values universal?
Are the relations of individuals win/win or win/lose?
Rights, liberty, equality before the law?
Slavery and freedom, war and peace
Conclusion
Here also is a copy of the brochure for the book [pdf], which includes the Table of Contents and more information about availability of the book and documentary.
My review of Kevin Gibson’s Ethics and Business: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 2007) is now out in the current issue of Teaching Philosophy. The review is behind the subscriber wall but will be publicly available eventually. 
Part One: On Critiquing Altruism 
Part Two: On Egoism
Stephen Hicks discusses the importance of the Philosophy of Education. This is from Part 15 of his 
