Two recent sad results: 1. Freelancers want to work for companies, but government says No. 2. Women want a women-only club, but government says No. The right to free association has both a positive and a negative application. The positive right is to associate with whom you choose. The negative is not to associate with whom you […]
Free association rejected — two variations Read More »
Let me see if I understand the reasoning: 1. Argentina’s and Brazil’s governments have screwed up their economies over the years. 2. So they devalued their government-controlled currencies. 3. That means American farmers earn less on their exports to Argentinean and Brazilian customers. 4. So the US government will retaliate by taxing steel imports from Argentina and Brazil. 5. Therefore, steel-makers in Argentina and Brazil will earn
Trumpian trade wars, Argentina and Brazil edition Read More »
The quotation posted yesterday: “Nothing is easier than to give Christian asceticism a Socialist tinge. Has not Christianity declaimed against private property, against marriage, against the state? Has it not preached in the place of these, charity and poverty, celibacy and mortification of the flesh, monastic life and Mother Church? Christian Socialism is but the
Christian Socialism — source for quotation Read More »
Young Americans for Liberty is a dynamic student group with chapters all over the country, so I’m happy to be participating in this regional conference. The title and description of my talk: “Why Young Socialists Don’t Love Us — But They Should” Description: “The historical record of socialist poverty and brutality is clear, and we
YAL Silicon Valley talk today on how younger socialists think Read More »
From 2014, a heartfelt one-minute statement by musician Bono:
The idea of America — Bono re-affirms it Read More »
George Orwell, in contrast to those who want to distance National Socialism from their own preferred version of socialism: “National Socialism is a form of socialism, is emphatically revolutionary, does crush the property owner as surely as it crushes the worker.” [1] Also, and in fuller detail: “Internally, Germany [under the Nazis] has a good
Orwell on Nazism as socialism Read More »
As part of my Neither right nor left mantra, another datum. Most people use “right” and “left” journalistically: to designate shifting bundles of social-political beliefs and attitudes. The bundles are usually not internally coherent. So more analytic thinkers try to bring order out of mush by identifying multiple dimensions of contrast: individual versus collective, liberty
Against the new post-2016-Trump right too Read More »
Hong Kong’s economic transformation: 1960: Average per capita income in Hong Kong was 28 percent of Great Britain’s. 1996: Average per capita income in Hong Kong was 137 percent of Great Britain’s. Most of us want to know the magic formula that takes people from poverty to wealth. So a one-question quiz: Guess what happened
Ignoring Hong Kong Read More »