 Marketing A Free Society: Education, Persuasion, and Conversion
by Edward W. Younkins
Ideas are the most powerful forces in the world and the motive power of human progress. There already exists a body of well-articulated, theoretically consistent, systematic, and intellectually sound defenses of capitalism which expound the principles of traditional liberalism, voluntary cooperation, and individual fre... (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (32 messages)
Funding Government Without Taxation
by Edward W. Younkins
Are there any feasible alternatives to taxation? Perhaps it is possible for government to act like any other service provider through the offering of services and allowing individuals to decide for themselves which services they want to use and pay for.
(Read more...)
Discuss this Article (27 messages)
The Reality and Morality of Business
by Edward W. Younkins
Business is based on the idea that self-interest and the desire for profit are moral and good and that there are appropriate and inappropriate ways to profit. One’s survival and flourishing as a human being involves the creation, preservation, and use of wealth in self-fulfilling ways. Business is concerned with what i... (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (0 messages)
"Atlas Shrugged" in the Business School
by Edward W. Younkins
Rand’s 1957 masterpiece dramatizes the positive qualities of the businessman by showing the triumph of individualism over collectivism, depicting business heroes as noble, appealing, and larger than life, and by characterizing business careers as at least, if not more, honorable as careers in medicine, law, or education. (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (16 messages)
 Aristotle: Ayn Rand's Acknowledged Teacher
by Edward W. Younkins
Aristotle heralds the role of reason in a proper human life. He examines the nature of man and his functions and sees that man survives through purposeful conduct which results from the active exercise of his capacity for rational thought. The ability to reason separates man from all other living organisms and supplies him with his unique means of survival and flourishing. It is through purposive, rational conduct that a person can achieve happiness. (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (8 messages)
Immanuel Kant: Ayn Rand’s Intellectual Enemy
by Edward W. Younkins
Ayn Rand considers Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and his philosophy to be evil and condemns what she perceives as the intended goal, methods, and conclusions of his philosophical arguments. She accused Kant of hating life, man, and reason. Rand observed that, since Kant, the dominant trend in philosophy has been aimed at t... (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (152 messages)
Toward a Paradigm of Human Nature, Human Action, and Human Flourishing
by Edward W. Younkins
I have written several recent essays in Le Québécois Libre and SOLO in which I have suggested the potential feasibility and desirability of combining and extending doctrines from Austrian Economics and Objectivism in our efforts to develop the strongest possible conceptual and moral case for a free market society. In t... (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (12 messages)
 Contributions of Post-Randian Philosophers of Human Flourishing
by Edward W. Younkins
A post-Randian or neo-Aristotelian self-perfectionist approach to ethics can be shown to support the natural right to liberty which itself provides a solid foundation for a minimal state. This approach gives liberty moral significance by illustrating how the natural right to liberty is a social and political condition ... (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (8 messages)
Wednesday
February 25, 2004 |
Murray Rothbard's Randian Austrianism
by Edward W. Younkins
Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995) was a grand system builder. In his monumental Man, Economy, and State (1962), Rothbard continued, embodied, and extended Ludwig von Mises' methodological approach of praxeology to economics. His magnum opus was modeled after Mises' Human Action and, for the most part, was a massive restatement, defense, and development of the Misesian praxeological tradition. Rothbard followed up and complemented Man, Economy, and State with his brilliant The Ethics of Liberty (1982) in which he provided the foundation for his metanormative ethical theory. Exhibiting an architectonic character, these two works form an integrated system of philosophy. (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (34 messages)
Can the Ideas of Mises and Rand Be Reconciled?
by Edward W. Younkins
Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973), the Austrian philosophical economist and social thinker is one of our most passionate, consistent, and intransigent defenders of capitalism. (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (24 messages)
Carl Menger's Economics of Well-Being: Almost Objectivism
by Edward W. Younkins
Carl Menger (1840-1921) began the modern period of economic thought and provided the foundation for the Austrian School of Economics. In his two books, Principles of Economics (1871) and Investigations into the Method of the Social Science with Special Reference to Economics (1883), Menger destroyed the existing structure of economic science, including both its theory and methodology, and put it on totally new foundations. (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (16 messages)
|
