 Another Attempt to Bluff Us All
by Tibor R. Machan
Those aspiring to manage our lives, to take it over and run it according to their vision, never tire of trying to bluff us into letting down our guards. Now come Robert and Edward Skidelsky, in a book titled How Much is Enough? (Allen Lane, 2012), claiming that there’s just too much capitalism afoot and this must be contained. I assume by them and their pals. They urge us to re-examine economic growth “as an end in itself,” without any connection to “what a good life might look like.” (Read more...)
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 Another Plea For More Statism!
by Tibor R. Machan
I recently read Zanie Smith’s essay, “North West London Blues,” in The New York Review of Books, and found it an insulting, devious, and roundabout way of trying to justify statism (Read more...)
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What’s the Fuss About those Uniforms?
by Tibor R. Machan
Senator Reid was sounding like the United States of America is at war with any nation in which there are firms that produce commodities that fulfill the needs of companies producing goods and services for American consumers. Next Senator Reid will call for declaring war on any country that doesn’t fall in line with his standards of acceptable trading partnership. (Read more...)
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Anticipated the Reasoning by the Court
by Tibor R. Machan
So here is a wonderful opportunity for the current crop of Republicans, with Mitt Romney leading them in the next few months, to mount a bona fide, no holds barred revolution that will complete the first one. Ron Paul might have been counted upon to lead it but one may doubt that Mitt Romney is going to go there. Too many leaders of and people within the Republican Party remain statists who believe that the government rules the people instead of serving them. (Read more...)
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Did Rubio’s Parents Do Right?
by Tibor R. Machan
Let me tell you right away that when you live in a hopelessly defunct country, it makes little difference whether you are oppressed or impoverished. Both can kill you good, and both are mostly the result of how the country is being run by the politicians who have taken it over. (Read more...)
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Jobs From Forced Charity--the Socialist way.
by Tibor R. Machan
It appears, based on the economic philosophy he has been outlining in recent weeks, that President Obama believes that jobs based on economic transactions, exchanges, trade, and so forth, do not matter, have no significance. This has a very serious foundation, to which I will turn later in this short discussion. (Read more...)
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Machan's Archives: Genuine Military Defense Anyone? (updated)
by Tibor R. Machan
As much as one may object to Iran's government’s efforts to build atomic weapons, the American government isn’t supposed to be some kind of meta-police that embarks upon restraining such governments! Certainly spending American taxpayers’ funds on conducting military actions against Iran would be going way beyond the proper military role of the American government, which is to protect its citizen’s freedom from domestic and foreign criminals. (Read more...)
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Seattle, America’s Europe?
by Tibor R. Machan
On a recent trip to Seattle, which I visit on and off quite a lot, I found the place to have just the kind of feel I have experienced in Stockholm and Oslo and in cities, big and small, throughout Austria and Switzerland. (Read more...)
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The Face of Egalitarianism
by Tibor R. Machan
A few weeks ago they ran the famous Oxford v. Cambridge rowing race on the Thames but a fanatical egalitarian, Mr. Trenton Oldfield from Australia, ruined it for everyone by jumping in the river and blocking the race in the name of resisting the elitism of rowing! He was dubbed in the UK the “anarchist swimmer” and has mounted some other guerrilla strikes to make his point. Among other things he is urging cabbies to take well to do passengers on long detours and cleaners not to place toilet paper where they are expected to serve rich folks. (Read more...)
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What about those Hoodies?
by Tibor R. Machan
Over the last couple of weeks I have been waiting for something to be mentioned about hoodies, something that I thought was staring us all in the face. This is that during the recent London riots, nearly everyone depicted by the TV cameras was wearing hoodies as they were caught vandalizing the stores in the neighborhood under siege. (Read more...)
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Ideological Thinking Revisited
by Tibor R. Machan
Following the December 15th Republican “debate,” New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote once again about the evils of ideological thinking. (Read more...)
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Machan's Archives: Essay on Libertarianism in One Lesson
by Tibor R. Machan
This essay should come in handy these days when "libertarianism" has become almost a household word. Here is a summary discussion of its central tenets, at least as seen by some prominent libertarians. (Read more...)
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Why not Pessimism?
by Tibor R. Machan
By most accounts there is little good news about any progress toward a freer society, quite the contrary. Around the globe, of course, there are some regions that are making small moves away from tyranny but even in those few, human freedom doesn’t appear to be a priority. Instead tribal and religious conflicts are the rule, even as the more vicious rulers are losing their grip on their populations. In Syria the tyrant is hanging on by a very thin thread yet elsewhere it’s mob rule that has replaced dictatorships. (Read more...)
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Cuba Awakes?
by Tibor R. Machan
Cuba’s fate over the last half a century has been disastrous, although before that the island wasn’t a Caribbean paradise either. US government policies haven’t made it easier for Cubans to escape their misery since instead of opening up the routes of free trade, the US has mostly chosen to issue penalties against the country, never mind that Cuba has done little against the USA per se to deserve most of it. (Read more...)
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Saturday
December 24, 2011 |
Capitalism & Socialism Rightly Understood
by Tibor R. Machan
Nozick pointed out that in the libertarian system he presented in his book there is every chance to experiment with a great variety of human associations--he called the “utopias”--provided these do not sanction the coercion of some people by others. And since the kind of associations that “worker owned companies” are by no stretch of the imagination involve any kind of coercion, they are entirely compatible with capitalism wherein the major element is freedom of association, not the pursuit of any particular goal (including profit). (Read more...)
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Machan’s Archives: In Defense of the Right to Assisted Suicide
by Tibor R. Machan
Should aiding suicide be illegal? That is the question which faces legislators who are being urged to repeal statutes which state, basically, “Every person who deliberately aids, or advises, or encourages another to commit suicide is guilty of a felony.” I will argue, ever so briefly, that not all cases should aiding suicide be illegal, although the severest onus of proof of justification would be required in such cases.
(Read more...)
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Wednesday
November 23, 2011 |
The Keynesian Non-Answer
by Tibor R. Machan
I have never managed to appreciate why these people keep assuming that the judgments and actions of government officials are superior to those of the citizenry throughout the world where these Keynesian proposals are being made and followed routinely. I keep asking, “Who are these people whom we can trust with such tasks as running a country’s economic affairs?” Somehow thousands of intellectuals who would never entrust government with tasks such as censoring literature and newspapers nevertheless have no compunction about entrusting them with the very delicate and idiosyncratic tasks of directing people’s economic affairs. (Read more...)
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Moral Responsibility and the Poor
by Tibor R. Machan
The liberal attitude about morality stems, in part, from widespread scientism, the view that science has invalidated morality, made it something bogus like astronomy has made astrology bogus. Extrapolating the empirical scientific method to everything else of interest to human beings achieves this distortion. (Read more...)
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Ron Paul’s Foreign Policy Troubles
by Tibor R. Machan
Is it a good idea to explain 9/11and other terrorist attacks on Western and especially American populations by reference to the fact that the West has inserted itself into many regions of the Muslim world without much popular support from those who live there? The idea is that because governments such as that of the US have indeed done this, there can be no complaint when those who live there carry out attacks on Westerners including hundreds of innocent people who had nothing at all to do with the foreign policy that perpetrated the insertions. (Read more...)
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Who Builds Obstacles to Real Stimulus?
by Tibor R. Machan
It is odd that at this time, when Washington is desperate for some genuine, bona fide economic stimulus, real funds that make it possible for citizens to go to market and generate commerce, including, of course, employment, that very same Washington is prohibiting the use of funds for just that purpose. (Read more...)
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 Contra Krugman on Compassion
by Tibor R. Machan
Real versus phony compassion! (Read more...)
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Another Criticism of Animal Rights
by Tibor R. Machan
Though this is a topic that I have visited on several occasions, having recently become an avid fan of the Discovery Channel’s series on life in the deep oceans and other seas, I am motivated to observe just how absurd the notion of animal rights really is.
(Read more...)
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Getting Serious About Recovery
by Tibor R. Machan
This is how economic recovery can be encouraged by all levels of governments in the U. S.: (Read more...)
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Cleaver’s Bad Theology
by Tibor R. Machan
Representative Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri produced a sound bite following the recent passage in Congress of the compromise bill on the debt ceiling and spending cuts. Even as this bill didn’t by any means manage to demonstrate Congress’s serious understanding of economic reality, Cleaver said that the bill amounts to a devil’s sandwich, by which he meant that it amounts to the defiance of centuries of teachings of the world’s greatest religions about how one must look out for the poor and needy as one lives one’s life. (Read more...)
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Morality, the Professions and Politicians
by Tibor R. Machan
While I see strong merits to an ultraminimal government idea, whereby the state has no other function than to protect the rights of the citizens from criminals and foreign aggressors, I do not share the view that politicians are necessarily corrupt. (Read more...)
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