Holcombe mixes the theory of economic and political elites as it has been developed by political scientists and sociologists with Public Choice Theory to help us understand what Ayn Rand called “the aristocracy of pull” in Atlas Shrugged.
CULTURE
A nation’s culture is the sum of the intellectual achievements of individual men, which their fellow-citizens have accepted in whole or in part, and which have influenced the nation’s way of life. Since a culture is a complex battleground of different ideas and influences, to speak of a ‘culture’ is to speak only of the dominant ideas, always allowing for the existence of dissenters and exceptions. — AYN RAND
Lockdown Flagellation as Penance For Our Capitalist Sins
Let those who desire to suffer be free to do so. As for the rest of us, let us get back to having good lives, including partaking in actual fun.
What College Students “Learn” From Left-Wing Professors Will Shock You
Two websites, College Reform and College Fix, report on the despicable teachings on college campuses across the nation. Let us look at some of it.
Fatherless Households: A National Crisis
If protesters are truly concerned about the condition of Black and Hispanic urban Americans in particular, why the pathetic silence over the fatherless households, the principal reason for the very conditions they complain about?
Leftist Supremacy, Not White Supremacy, is the Gravest Threat to Black Lives
Is traditional racism, anti-black hatred, a major threat to black lives, as Black Lives Matter claims? Is there a far greater threat to black lives than traditional racism, that is widely overlooked? If so, what can we do about it? What must be done to protect black lives?
Biased Media
Last election, 96% of journalists’ political donations went to Hillary Clinton.
Liberty or Lockdown
The people with everything to gain from the lockdowns had nothing to lose; the people who had nothing to gain lost everything.
Slavery vs. Capitalism: The 1619 Project Not Only Ignores Actual History, But Basic Economics
People who believe that slavery is an efficient system of production are people who are ready to impose 100% marginal rates of taxation in the belief that doing so is economically harmless.
Motion Picture Academy “Diversity” Guidelines are Based on The Wrong Premise
Actors should be judged on their acting, and movies should be judged on their overall quality.
The Sloppy Use of Language Permits Nonsense To Be Passed Off as Critical Thinking
Sloppy language permits people to get away with speaking and doing all manner of destructive nonsense without being challenged.
How We Know: Epistemology on an Objectivist Foundation By Harry Binswanger
How We Know: Epistemology on an Objectivist Foundation, by Harry Binswanger, is both an in-depth presentation of Ayn Rand’s “Objectivist” theory of knowledge and Binswanger’s own answers to issues that Rand did not write on, such as, propositions and validation.
Riots vs Reason
As Ayn Rand pointed out, “when men abandon reason, physical force becomes their only means of dealing with one another and of settling disagreements.”
The Devil and Karl Marx
Kengor does a yeoman’s job of highlighting the evils of Marxism.
Neil Peart: Enlightenment in Verse and Romanticism in Rock
Enlightenment themes like secularism without skepticism; the basic decency, nobility, and perfectibility of man; the efficacy of reason; the power of science; and the value of philosophy for the regular educated person saturate the work of Peart and Rush.
Should American K-12 Schools Teach The 1619 Project?
The 1619 Project is still ill-suited for K-12 education. That is a judgement we may make on its scholarly shortcomings alone.
Spiritual Poverty of Black Americans and The Welfare State
Chief among the policies that reward inferiority and irresponsibility is the welfare state.
Slavery as the Cause of General Loss
While slavery enriched slave owners, it impoverished not only the slaves but also the United States as a whole.
Three Books on Solving The Climate Crisis: False Alarm, Apocalypse Never and Green Market Revolution
Joakim Book contrasts and compares Bjorn Lomborg’s “False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet”, Michael Shellenberger’s “Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All”, and Christopher Barnard and Kai Weiss’ edited book “Green Market Revolution: How Market Environmentalism Can Protect Nature and Save the World.”
What Students Learn in Today’s U.S. Colleges
Americans need to pay attention to the miseducation of our youth and that miseducation is not limited to higher education.
Capitalism vs. Slavery
Similarities between slavery and socialism, and indeed the aggressive anti-capitalist rhetoric of proslavery ideology, are seldom examined in the “New History of Capitalism” literature.
A Dearth of Eagles – Chapter One: The Writer
A excerpt from Andrew Bernstein’s novel — A Dearth of Eagles — a fictional work tells the story of freedom fighters during Communism’s final years,
Economic Inequality, Culture and Capitalism
There is no economic determinism. People choose what to spend their money on, and what to spend their time on. Cultures differ.
Leftist Effort to Revise American History
Most of the effort to rewrite American history has its roots among the intellectual elite on our college campuses whose message has been sold to predominantly white college students who have little understanding of how they are being used.
Black Education Matters
Ordinarily, it is not a good idea to base how you vote on just one issue. But if black lives really matter, as they should matter like all other lives, then it is hard to see any racial issue that matters as much as education.
Despicable Behavior of College Intellectuals
“Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.”
What is “Cancel Culture”?
What exactly is the culture in America that is to be cancelled?
The Rich in Public Opinion: What We Think When We Think About Wealth
Zitelmann offers a convincing and engaging prescription of how we can contend with the Jacobin and Guardian journalists who seem to derive damaging and dangerous conclusions from prejudices supported by nothing but empty air.
The American Spirit of Liberty Against Slavery and Racism
Contrary to, the ideological propaganda and rhetoric of the Race Marxists and Identity Politics Warriors, America is not and has not been an irredeemable captive of racism as asserted to have begun with the country’s first arrival of slaves in 1619.
Confederate Monuments: The Problem With Politically Correct History
Where does this viewing of history through the prism of modern-day feelings end?
Thomas Sowell’s New Book: Charter Schools and Their Enemies
The education establishment, having the nation’s most powerful labor union, has the ears of political leaders. They see a huge loss potential if more parents are able to opt out of poorly achieving public schools.
Reason, Freedom & Science: July Fourth Celebrates America’s and the West’s Core Values
There are three fundamental respects in which Western culture is objectively the best.
Thomas Sowell: An Underappreciated American Scholar
Thomas Sowell is one of the greatest economist-philosophers of our age, and I am proud to say that he is one of my best friends.