In the face of overwhelming evidence of the prosperity of capitalism, Marxists were forced to rephrase their arguments from material provisions to quality of life. Robert Nozick, a brilliant philosopher of liberty, became a libertarian. Anarchy, State, and Utopia, his main book, dominates debate in political philosophy.
Intellectuals are pro-power and anti-market. Great presidents are war presidents who glorify power. The Costs of War and Reassessing the Presidency are recommended books on this topic. The First World War was a turning point which vastly extended state power, and vastly destroyed social power.
Gustave de Molinari became the grand old man of classical liberalism, crediting Pareto. Molinari understood that the main issue in the Civil War was the tariff, not slavery. In Italy economists founded free market economics, crediting Bastiat.
Humans are prone to envy, writes Helmut Schoeck in Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior. Humans try to set up a society in which none is envious of another. George Stigler of the Chicago School saw man as always a utility maximizer.
So long as we get liberty, the name doesn't matter, writes Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. But it does matter that the Bush campaign would take unto itself a term like "ownership" in an attempt to dupe people.
There was a natural law tradition from antiquity and the middle ages. Natural law is the oldest and most frequently used concept of political theory. Natural law is the principles that are to be established if justice were to prevail. Or, it is the scientific laws of man and his environment.
Katy Delay writes of a group of Democrats who are working to revive the "third way" fashion from the 1990s.
Roderick Long leads The Mises Circle: An Informal Discussion of Anarchy at Mises University 2004.
In Lawson’s view, mainstream economics is not a successful discipline. He does not, in analogy to Bhaskar, ask how is existing economics possible? To do so in his view would not generate results of interest.
Even if markets can somehow better anticipate the outcome, writes B.K. Marcus, prediction markets will not achieve their full potential until they incorporate the power of profit-seeking self-interest.
