Mostly thanks to my colleagues Shawn Klein and Anja Hartleb-Parson, I have moved into the new world of social networking. The Department of Philosophy, the Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship, and I not only have websites but Facebook and Twitter.
Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship: Website: http://www.ethicsandentrepreneurship.org/ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=logo#/pages/Rockford-IL/Center-for-Ethics-and-Entrepreneurship/33385773294 Twitter: RC_CEE
Department of Philosophy, Rockford College: Website: http://www.rockford.edu/?page=Philosophy Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rockford-IL/Rockford-College-Philosophy-Department/120214339280 Twitter: RCPhil
We’re considering possible mottos: Thinking deep thoughts about tweets. I tweet, therefore … Find the meaning of life (and explain it in 140 characters or less). Where the eternal and the impersonal meet the ephemeral and the personal .
It’s, like, we’re from the future or something.
Posted 7 months, 2 weeks ago at 2:05 pm. 2 comments
Amity Shlaes’s recent piece in Bloomberg is well worth reading: Atlas Is Shrugging With a Growing Load. Shlaes is the author of a recent history of the Great Depression and so is well positioned to offer commentary on our times. A pair of key quotations from Shlaes’s piece:
On punitive taxation: “In 1986, a year when Atlas Shrugged sold between 60,000 and 80,000 copies, the top 1 percent of earners paid 26 percent of the income tax. By 2000, that 1 percent was paying 37 percent, and Atlas Shrugged sales were at 120,000. By 2006, the top 1 percent carried 40 percent of the burden.”
On government fiat money and deficit financing, quoting Rand: “Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, ‘Account overdrawn.’”
Today’s events are a consequence of political, economic, and, more importantly, philosophical principles adopted by the most influential thinkers and doers of the last several generations. The antidote, accordingly, requires that this and the next generation’s most influential thinkers and doers change their philosophical course.
For follow-up material on Rand’s philosophical analysis of the roots of the crisis and the antidote, I recommend the following.
For general readers, here is my introductory overview of Ayn Rand’s biography and ethics at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
For all readers, here are two recent anthologies of essays on Atlas Shrugged, one edited by Professor Edward Younkins and the other edited by Professor Robert Mayhew.
For a philosophically-informed analysis of the crisis by a top-level financial professional, I recommend John Allison’s analysis. Allison is Chairman of BB&T and one of the great businessmen of our generation. Evidence: BB&T is one of the major banks that is still very healthy. Like Todd Zywicki, I recently heard Allison speak on the origins of the financial crisis and how BB&T avoided being sucked into the mess, and I recommend his analysis highly.
As we are suffering through yet another hard experiential lesson about collectivism and enforced altruism, let’s resolve to learn the lesson clearly and in principle so that the next generation will see more encouraging signs like these.
Posted 8 months, 2 weeks ago at 7:14 am. 7 comments
Congratulations to Virginia Murr (Rockford College class of 2006) for her First-Prize-winning essay in the FreedomWorks entrepreneur essay contest. Virginia was in the college’s rigorous honors program and a philosophy major, and since graduating she is developing her own writing career. Even better, especially for me, is the theme of her winning essay: Dr. Stephen Hicks: Cultivator of the Entrepreneurial Spirit [pdf]. Thank you, Virginia.
“Read the news today? It’s like ‘Atlas Shrugged’ is happening in real life,” as this 
For general readers, here is my introductory overview of 
For a philosophically-informed analysis of the crisis by a top-level financial professional, I recommend John Allison’s analysis. Allison is Chairman of BB&T and one of the great businessmen of our generation. Evidence: BB&T is one of the major banks that is still very healthy. Like 
As we are suffering through yet another hard experiential lesson about collectivism and enforced altruism, let’s resolve to learn the lesson clearly and in principle so that the next generation will see more 
Nietzsche and the Nazis, A Personal View by Stephen Hicks, Ph.D.