Capitalism Makes Us More Humane
Why is it that starving Venezuelans are eating dogs while Americans are rescuing dogs from hurricanes?
This is an audio version of the article “Capitalism Makes Us More Humane“.
Introduction
The writings collected in this book are mostly addresses given in Bodrum to the Property and Freedom Society, of which Professor Hoppe is both Founder and President. I was fortunate to hear them read out to the gathering, and I am deeply honoured to have been asked to provide an Introduction to the published versions.
Chapter 10: A Better Life — A Better World
What is important in life is life, and not the result of life. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832)
Be yourself; everyone else is already taken! — Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
Index
1 percenters, 50
99 percenters, 42
adaptive, 17, 28, 31–33, 35, 64, 84, 95, 96
Alien and Sedition Acts, 102
Allison, Julia, 57
Andersen, Hans Christian, 13
antidiscrimination laws, 59, 61
Aquinas, Saint Thomas, 19
Arendt, Hannah, 77
assumptive close, 44
Axelrod, Robert, 32, 84
Chapter 9: Political Democracy
The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832)
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule. — H. L. Mencken (1880–1956)
Goodness in man can only grow in a climate of liberty. — F.A. Harper (1905–1973)
Chapter 6: Tragedy of the Commons and Human Behavior
What is common to the greatest number has the lease care bestowed upon it. Everyone thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the commone interest. — Aristotle (Politics, Book II, ch.3)
Chapter 7: Obedience to Authority
The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority. — Stanley Milgram (1933–84)
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. — Voltaire (1694–1778)
Chapter 8: Complexity, Adaption, and Order: Visualizing the Invisible Hand
Yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. — Henry David Thoreau (1817–62)
Do not think of what you see but see what it took to produce what you see. — Benoit Mandelbrot (1924–2010)
Life is not only stranger than we imagine; life is stranger than we can imagine. — John Haldane (1954–)
Few Dare Call it Socialism: Social Security and Medicare
Whatever one might say about liberals (i.e., leftists or progressives), one thing is certain: When it comes to socialism, they get it. They understand that welfare-state programs like Social Security and Medicare are socialist programs. That’s fine by them because they love socialism.
Leave it to a leftist to highlight and try to straighten out the confused minds of conservatives, including that of the leader of the conservative movement, Donald Trump.
Chapter 5: Discrimination, Beliefs, and Expressions
The more prohibitions you have, the less virtuous people will be. — Lao Tzu (604–531 BC)
