In 1974, the great Polish intellectual Leszek Kolakowski (1927-2009) published “My Correct Views on Everything, A Rejoinder to Edward Thompson’s ‘Open Letter to Leszek Kolakowski’”. Kolakowski is best known for Main Currents of Marxism, his huge survey of Marxism from its neo-Platonic and Hegelian roots through Marx and his immediate followers to the post-Russian-Revolution Marxist […]
Kolakowski on Leftist responsibility Read More »
This unit of the self-paced course on Socialism focuses on a theorist, revolutionary, and a leading figure in the October Revolution and the foundation of the Soviet Union. See our Executive Summary of Vladimir Lenin’s “How to Organize Competition”: ‘to achieve competitive socialism, Lenin urges that all the “vermin” be eradicated in Russia. War must
Vladimir Lenin, “How to Organize Competition” [Atlas Intellectuals] Read More »
My four-minute response to interviewer Ignasi Boltó’s question about why National Socialism and Communism are often evaluated so differently. My full interview with Ignasi Boltó of Instituto Juan de Mariana: “Stephen Hicks on Postmodernism, Western Values and Jordan Peterson.”
Nazism is Bad, but Communism is “Cool”? Read More »
Yet another reason to despise the Russian experiment in socialism. After the communist revolution, the great composer Sergei Rachmaninoff went into exile, losing his home and other property to the Soviets — along with his publisher and his status in Russia as leading musician of his generation. Starting over in the West was a challenge,
How Rachmaninoff’s composing was hurt by the Soviet Union Read More »
In “Philosophy and a Century of War,” I left the Soviet Union out of my discussion of World War II, for reasons not clear or convincing to everyone. So let me lay out my thought process. I started with a semi-complete list of the belligerents on both sides. It looks like this: From outside perspective,
More on philosophy and war: the Soviets in WW II Read More »
A quotation about this academic, who lived a long, comfortable life in England justifying the theory and practice of communism.
Eric Hobsbawm is dead Read More »
In a recent Huffington Post piece entitled “Teaching Capitalism in the Last Days of the USSR,” Steve Mariotti discusses his experience teaching business and capitalism to young people during the final days of the Soviet Union. Fascinating. I interviewed Mariotti for Kaizen on his excellent Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE). Before founding NFTE, Mariotti was
Steve Mariotti on teaching capitalism in the Soviet Union Read More »
I’ve been browsing Anne Heller’s biography of Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand and the World She Made came out last year, and I am late to the discussion. I was stuck by this line about the New York City that Rand lived in while she was writing Atlas Shrugged. Heller writes: “New York was such a
America’s weird political lexicon Read More »