IN 1971, A THEORY OF JUSTICE, by John Rawls, became an immediate bestseller, with more than four-hundred-thousand copies sold—a phenomenal feat for a book dealing with economics, morality, and philosophy. As a result of this book and his other writings, Rawls, an egalitarian, is considered to be the most influential moral theorist of the twentieth century. While his writings have garnered much criticism, especially among libertarians, many agree that he rekindled what had become a fading interest in political and moral philosophy.

“NO ONE SHOULD BE allowed to inherit wealth,” was another idea proposed at my dinner.

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

-H.L. Mencken (1880–1956)

WHAT EXACTLY LED TO THE collapse of the Soviet Empire? Was it communism or totalitarianism? Is there, in fact, a difference between the two?

THE REGULARITIES OBSERVED IN nature guide our judgments. We infer from experience that there are causal relationships from which we can presuppose an outcome to be pursued or avoided by our actions.1 We learn that actions and inactions have consequences, and we also favor certain consequences to others.

Yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way.

-Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

Good order results spontaneously when things are let alone.

-Chuang-tzu (369–286 B.C.)

THOSE WHO TRY TO engineer society in a direction contrary to human nature will only become frustrated in their attempts. Forty years and $5 trillion later, the U.S.

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE hold for today’s nation-states? Reality will continue to take its toll on central planning and strain the State’s ability to control exploding, complex world markets. Innovative entrepreneurs, exploiting communication networks, coupled with human mobility, will play havoc on the continued potency of States.

The highest manifestation of life consists of this: that a being governs its own actions. A thing which is always subject to the direction of another is somewhat of a dead thing.

-Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274)

Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. For enlightenment of this kind, all that is needed is freedom. And the freedom in question is the most innocuous form of all: freedom to make public use of one’s reason in all matters.

-Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)

[T]here is another and greater distinction for which no truly natural or religious reason can be assigned, and that is, the distinction of men into KINGS and SUBJECTS.

-Thomas Paine (1737–1809)