Friday Philosophy

I want to use an argument someone directed against Rawls to illustrate a basic principle of how we should read texts.

The Marxist concept of exploitation arises from a deep question Marx asked: Why do capitalists earn interest?

Without the labor theory of value's assumption of a natural price that explains what is “really” going on beneath the veil of supply and demand, there is no mystification involved in capitalist production.

Not only could the state use the UBI as an instrument of social control; we have every reason to think those in charge of the state would exercise their power for bad motives.

Hayek began as a socialist, but he came to believe that the ends of socialism could not be realized by socialist means, and he deemed it his duty to convey this view to a wide public.

A right to exclude others from one's property does not mean one is also motivated to repeatedly do so.

Quinn Slobodian really dislikes Ludwig von Mises. So it's not shocking that Slobodian has repeatedly misstated and distorted Mises's consistent opposition to imperialism and wars of conquest.

The problem with Strauss is that while favoring what he considers to be the classical and Christian concepts of natural law, he is also bitterly opposed to natural rights such as liberty and property.

At what point does a "trivial" violation of property rights become a major problem? There is not an easy answer.

Opponents of natural rights often claim that natural rights aren't real because these rights have no clear boundaries. They claim we need a state to set these limits. Rothbard demonstrated that this claim is weak at best.