Mill: Socialism Could Work for More Advanced People
Though he was generally a Ricardian, John Stuart Mill thought that the main obstacle to socialism is that people might not yet be civilized enough to put it into practice.
Though he was generally a Ricardian, John Stuart Mill thought that the main obstacle to socialism is that people might not yet be civilized enough to put it into practice.
The idea of ordinary people enjoying luxuries and "unnecessary" items has long troubled intellectuals and aristocrats. But thanks to capitalism, ordinary people can now enjoy the basic pleasures the ruling classes have long seized for their own.
“The General Theory was published in 1936 and Hayek decided not to respond directly. In making this decision, Hayek committed what many defenders of the free market system consider to be one of the major tactical errors of this century.”
Ideally, political elites would like nothing more than state-sponsored ethnic conflict. Having multiple groups pitted against each other in petty political squabbles makes effective opposition against the managerial class virtually impossible.
There are ominous signs on the horizon that governments want to move toward mandating "socially responsible investing" for pensions and fund managers. This is a terrible idea, to say the least.
Yes, capitalism is more efficient than socialism, but to build a compelling argument for free market capitalism, defenders of liberty must also articulate that it is a superior moral system.
Deficits still matter, largely because they require monetary policies that lead to bubbles, inequality, and the slow Japanization of the US economy.
Market progress through entrepreneurship and innovation means increased production. In a world of scarcity, that benefits all of us in society. That makes it a positive-sum game.
Millennial Sam Jacobs went off to college a wealthy but normal young man and came back a socialist. Suddenly his family’s “extreme, plutocratic wealth” became too much of a burden for him.
What does "the consent of the governed" mean? In 2020, 53 percent of US residents either voted for someone other than Trump or Biden, or didn’t vote at all. It also means about 75 percent of the population did not vote for Biden.