I will be giving a series of three lectures this coming week in Washington, D.C. at the “Liberty and Current Issues” seminar sponsored jointly by the Cato Institute and the Institute for Humane Studies.
The titles of my three talks are:
* Classical Liberal Thought & Political Economy
* Entrepreneurship, Markets & Morality
* Philosophy, Public Choice & The Meaning of Life.
The seminar runs the week of July 2–8 at the Catholic University in Washington, D.C. The seminar’s other faculty members are Tom Palmer, Randy Barnett, David Boaz, Howie Baetjer, Adam Martin, Chris Preble, Neal McCluskey, and Dan Griswold.
So it should be fun, and I hope to learn a lot.
Posted 7 months, 2 weeks ago at 10:39 am. 4 comments
11/30 Why were Enron’s Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling convicted? Professor Larry Ribstein argues that no one seems to know for sure.
11/29 Eyal Mozes investigates: Is there a rational basis for determinism? And in Spiked, Stuart Derbyshire surveys the state of brain science and free will and argues that we’re no slaves of our senses.
11/28 The New York Times reports on further progress for women in India. (Thanks to Virginia for the link.)
Prospect magazine has this fascinating overview (statist assumptions aside) of India’s under-achieving middle class. Philosopher Stone has a post with links about India and Ayn Rand. And thanks to my friend Bill, I’ve been watching Bollywood movies this year—let me recommend Guru (“a villager, Gurukant Desai, arrives in Bombay 1958, and rises from its streets to become the GURU, the biggest tycoon in Indian history”), Lagaan (“the people of a small village in Victorian India stake their future on a game of cricket against their ruthless British rulers”), and Veer-Zaara (“the story of the love between Veer Pratap Singh, an Indian, and Zaara Hayaat Khan, a Pakistani”).
11/27 A sad case study in far-left educational culture: Charlotte Allen explains Who killed Antioch College. (Thanks to Charles for the link.) On financial accountability in higher education: Ward Connerly looks at the factors. And Yale professor Anthony Kronman reminds those of us in higher education Why We Are Here.
11/26 A brief look at the social skills of the new generation of entrepreneurs. Here is an overview of Dietrich Doerner’s work on failure. The BusinessPundit on the one book every executive should read. And some useful advice to young entrepreneurs from a young entrepreneur.
11/20 Three interesting conferences coming up next April: Objectivity in the Law at the University of Texas, Liberty Studies at the College of New Jersey, and the annual conference of the Association of Private Enterprise Education in Las Vegas. Update: And in February a Students for Liberty conference at Columbia University, featuring speakers David Boaz of Cato, Alan Kors of the University of Pennsylvania, and Will Thomas of The Atlas Society.
11/19 It’s getting better all the time. Graphically-presented data on average income in the USA along with several other progress-related charts and graphs. Here is a website devoted to improvement indicators. (Thanks to Anja for the link.) And why even the optimistic Star Trek series underestimates future potential.
11/17 Professor Tara Smith investigates: Why Originalism Won’t Die—Common Mistakes in Competing Theories of Judicial Interpretation. (Thanks to Richard for the link.)
11/16 “In 1993, over a million saiga antelopes roamed the steppes of Russia and Kazakhstan. Today, fewer than 30,000 remain, most of them females.” Unintended consequences meet the tragedy of the commons, as Tyler Cowen explains.
11/12 Sawse has twenty-five photographs taken at precisely the right time.
11/11 Reflecting on Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, Lester Hunt makes some shrewd observations about the moral psychology of cynicism, socialism, and nihilism. And John Palmer, the EclectEcon, has a datum on the European left’s deep crisis.
11/10 The bedbugs are back. Yet another thing to thank Rachel Carson for. Or not.
11/8 This Friday’s Free Kareem rallies. And while a relatively liberal young man languishes in jail, here is a classic piece explaining the attraction of intellectual-lightweight entertainment superstars to heavyweight-murderous political thugs: Humberto Fontova considers the case of Che.
11/7 In The New York Times, Harvard economist Greg Mankiw has a closer look at health care comparison numbers. Johan Norberg is also looking at the number of uninsured Americans. Philosopher Stone has a good round-up of links on the economics and politics of healthcare. Meanwhile, John Enright wonders what life-saving information we should suppress next. And Tom Kirkendell reminds us of an important anniversary: 30 years of angioplasty.
11/6 Overcoming the destructive eras in our history. An important history lesson by Shelby Steele on the legacy of Little Rock. Some pictorial evidence relevant to the question: to what extent were the Nazis Christian? And here’s an essay on the Regressives—or rather, the so-called Progressives in American history. Professor David Mayer has also written wisely on the reactionary progressives.
11/5 
Art historian Lynn Catterson speculates on the Laocoön scuplture: Hellenistic masterpiece or Michelangelo’s brilliant ploy? More on the hypothesis here—though would “forgery” be the right word? Meanwhile, classicist Mary Beard plays hooky to visit the Laocoön exhibition in Rome.
11/4 Cato’s David Boaz argues that on balance we are freer than at many points in our past (PDF format). Here is a stellar line-up of back issues of Cato’s Letter. By contrast, it’s election year in Saskatchewan, the resource-rich and socialism-poor Canadian province. The contrast to its neighbor Alberta is instructive. And even worse: Meghan Cox Gurdon puts some of our domestic rhetoric in perspective.
11/3 Where is Voltaire when you need him? John Leo wonders who will stand up for free speech on campus. Here is one university committed to brainwashing students with false and destructive messages. (Thanks to Johann for the link.) And David Thompson comments on the right not to be offended. Update: The FIRE reports that the University of Delaware has dropped its obnoxious indoctrination plans.
11/2 Ayn Rand in Latin America, with these follow-up interviews with Alex Chafuen, Giancarlo Ibargüen, and Juan Fernando Carpio. Harry Binswanger’s useful The Ayn Rand Lexicon is now free online. (Thanks to Anja for the link.) And YouTube user DJ Lorenzen has Ayn Rand on audio.
11/1 Trends of the times: A short interview in The Globe and Mail with the always-observant Grant McCracken, a summary look at IRS tax data, more data on badly misplaced priorities in the drug war and the fight against crime (thanks to Virginia for the link), and evidence that being a cop just keeps getting more difficult.
Posted 4 years, 2 months ago at 12:00 am. Add a comment
8/31 Is Wal-Mart the world’s biggest poverty eliminator? And Don Boudreaux explains to the negativists at The New York Times why we’re much, much wealthier than in 1967.
8/30 James Lileks explains how to get your postmodern 15 minutes (and a government grant): cuddle and stab a pig. (Thanks to Joe for the link.)
8/29 A mini-tutorial by artist Michael Newberry on the integration of light in painting.
8/28 Keeping up with some influential philosophers: Simon Blackburn on the appeal across 2.5 millenia of Plato’s Republic; a new book on Spinoza’s vision of reason; and 2006 being the 200th anniversary of his birth, a tribute to John Stuart Mill’s enduring liberalism.
8/26 Two interesting items from Johan Norberg: the rise of free market think tanks in Europe, and an example from Bolivia right out of the pages of Atlas Shrugged.
8/25 Shawn Klein with an excellent comment on consumerism in education. (Via Philosopher Stone.) And Glen Whitman explains why college cafeteria food is, ummm, not always the best.
8/24 Why does history matter? Peter Cresswell summarizes fourteen life-or-death lessons from modern history. And: The Dark Ages were Dark: Tyler Cowen quotes from Bryan Ward-Perkins’s new book. Update: With reference to those cultures still stuck in the Dark Ages, Rossputin posts a history test with a public policy edge to it.
8/23 Admirable: Farrah Gray, Entrepreneur.
8/22 Anastasia Krutulis has a clear, short post on the importance of integrating playing and learning. Her post reminded me of a section from the great John Locke’s 1692 Some Thoughts concerning Education: “[G]reat care is to be taken, that [learning] be never made as a business to him, nor he look on it as a task. We naturally, as I said, even from our cradles, love liberty, and have therefore an aversion to many things for no other reason but because they are enjoin’d us. I have always had a fancy that learning might be made a play and recreation to children: and that they might be brought to desire to be taught, if it were proposed to them as a thing of honour, credit, delight, and recreation, or as a reward for doing something else.”
8/21 Corporate accountability for poor performance: Cato’s David Boaz compares the private sector with government. And Andrew Chamberlain compares compensation rates in the two sectors.
8/17 Bring on the witch doctors: Four postmodernists—three nurses and an English professor—object to “fascistic” Evidence-Based Medicine. Update: Roy Poses has this response.
8/16 I’m with Robert Bidinotto on this one: Let’s ban this dangerous nuclear reactor. Via Not PC: BioNuclearBunny on three anti-life environmentalist causes that have killed and maimed hundreds of millions of humans. Finally: Near-Record Corn Yield for 2006 Expected, Global Warming Blamed. (Just trying to get into the spirit of contemporary journalism.)
8/15 Angry Astronomer Jon Voisey on four misconceptions about the Big Bang Theory.
8/14 Excellent: Now available online are the episodes from Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose PBS television series. And Johan Norberg has another datum on globalization’s benefits.
8/13 Unintended consequences and environmental law: how endangered species acts can harm the animals they’re supposed to protect. And an untoward consequence: wise government officials in a Connecticut town shut down a 13-year old’s worm-selling business for violating zoning regulations.
8/12 Professor Peter Boettke argues that “Atlas Shrugged is arguably the most economically literate work by a major novelist in the history of literature.” And reservations about the concept of self-“ownership” aside—human beings are not objects to be owned—here is an interesting online graphical tutorial on Life, Liberty, and Property.
8/11 Another fine post from Rob May: How to Be an Effective Entrepreneur. And: Is European culture becoming more hospitable to entrepreneurship?
8/10 I can relate: Old Testament Parenting. (Via The Volokh Conspiracy.)
8/9 History and philosophy in practice: Victor Davis Hanson on how 2006 looks a lot like 1938. Key quotation: “It is now a cliché to rant about the spread of postmodernism, cultural relativism, utopian pacifism, and moral equivalence among the affluent and leisured societies of the West. But we are seeing the insidious wages of such pernicious theories as they filter down from our media, universities, and government — and never more so than in the general public’s nonchalance since Hezbollah attacked Israel.” (Via EclectEcon.)
8/8 Fruits of the Enlightenment: A Seattle Times review of 999 ideas that changed our lives. And CNN reports that Americans’ houses keep getting more spacious.
8/7 The Foundation for Individual Rights’ college speech code of the month: Don’t call anyone a “dumbass” at Colorado State.
8/5 Will Wilkinson reports that we may very well be the happiest zombies in the world. Here are some suggestive hypotheses about
willpower and success. And at Tech Central Station, Nathan Smith has more excellent world economic news.
8/4 Science and the individualism-versus-collectivism debate: ants are more war-like in collectives and team-sport players are less ethical.
8/3 Edited by Professor Edward W. Younkins and published by Ashgate: a strong-looking collection of essays entitled: Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged: A Philosophical and Literary Companion.
8/2 In The Independent Review, Roy C. Smith and Ingo Walter have a close look “Four Years After Enron: Assessing the Financial-Market Regulatory Cleanup.”
8/1 Margaret Soltan with an interesting observation about what Americans at the beach teach us about American culture. And publishing tycoon Felix Dennis has no-nonsense advice about how to become rich.
Posted 5 years, 5 months ago at 12:42 pm. Add a comment
I will be giving a series of three lectures this coming week in Washington, D.C. at the “Liberty and Current Issues” seminar sponsored jointly by the Cato Institute and the Institute for Humane Studies. 
The seminar runs the week of July 2–8 at the Catholic University in Washington, D.C. The seminar’s other faculty members are Tom Palmer, Randy Barnett, David Boaz, Howie Baetjer, Adam Martin, Chris Preble, Neal McCluskey, and Dan Griswold. 
