The Payroll Protection Plan (PPP) is a 2020 government program available to businesses and organizations, primarily in response to the economic damage done by Covid-19 slowdowns, shut-downs, and lock-downs. What are the moral arguments and principles one should consider when assessing the consequences of PPP and what is the context of decision-making with regards to PPP in a free-market liberal organization.
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Who are the most important socialist intellectuals and politicians in history? We here offer quotations from eight prominent socialists, representing a wide geographical and temporal range. The quotations illustrate the author’s motivation for advocating socialism, the actions necessary to bring about socialism, and/or the expected results of socialism. What common characteristics best define socialism?
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Where are young socialists in their thinking? What expressions of socialism are meeting their mark rhetorically? What does socialism mean to them and what values do they think socialism is advocating?
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A generation ago the slogan of campus activist was, speak truth to power. Why has there been such a dramatic change in just one generation?
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On December 30th 2019, the YouTube channel Prager University released a video narrated by bible scholar and political theorist Yoram Hazony discussing the Enlightenment. Hazony makes eight major claims about the Enlightenment and while there are some thoughtful arguments against the Enlightenment, Hazony has not made them. In this episode of Open College, Dr. Hicks points out the flaws in Hazony’s augments and shows why this video is an example of special-pleading history.
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William James was a leading American philosopher who lived at the turn of the 20th century. In his essay the Moral Equivalent of War, James describes himself as a socialist and pacifist and is very disgusted with the human history of war and is looking for a solution. This essay, while thoughtful and well argued is to my mind, highly objectionable. Here is why.
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Is Keynes to blame for everything? John Maynard Keynes was the most influential economist of the 20th century. In the 21st century his theories are institutionalized. But how close is current Keyesnian practice to original Keynesian theory?
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The standard claim is that philosophy begins with Thales. Why did philosophy come into being in a clusters of cities on the coasts of Asia minor? Ascribed to Thales by Aristotle: “The first principle and basic nature of all things is water, ”and “All things are full of gods.” Why do historians of philosophy get worked up over these lines?
To see their significance, let’s set a context by going back to the worldview of the awesomely great Homer. So brush up on The Iliad, which I want to use as our pre-philosophy-worldview contrast object.
Lord Acton said, “absolute power corrupts absolutely” but is this accurate? Abuses of social and political power are the ones we worry about the most. Social science data does seem too, on the surface, bare out Lord Acton’s claims. However, if you correlate the degrees of corruption with degrees of centralization the data suggests things are not quite so simple.
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