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Socialdem. 21st Century

Nonsense about Science

In my opinion, the theories of Thomas Kuhn and Postmodernism have wrought a catastrophic anti-science mentality to elements of the modern left.If we were to go through the endless, hare-brained rantings of Postmodernists about the natural sciences, it would take us ages (see here and here for just two examples).But there is a more insidious assumption lying behind a lot of hatred of science.It is this: (1) science never finds objective truths, but only “paradigms,” and (2) science will...

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Marx’s Letter to Engels of 2 August, 1862 on Prices of Production

A key passage in that letter is here: “The price so regulated = the expenses of capital, + the average profit (F.I. 10 p.c.), is what Smith called the natural price, cost price, etc. It is the average price to which competition between different trades (by transfer of capital or withdrawal of capital) reduces the prices in different trades. Hence, competition reduces commodities not to their value, but to the cost price, which, depending on the organic composition of the respective capitals,...

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Top Five Feminist Myths of All Time

The feminist Christina Hoff Sommers discusses them below.[embedded content]Second wave feminism had some very good ideas indeed and was, generally, a positive development.Third wave feminism seems to be largely a betrayal of women and an outgrowth of the same rotten Postmodernism, identity politics, and cultural relativism that has poisoned the rest of the left. As Sommers documents, third wave feminism often also has the same contempt for facts that characterises Postmodernism.

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Peter Hitchens on Marxism and Open Borders

In the video below, which struck me as very interesting, especially his remarks on his brother Christopher Hitchens.[embedded content]The amusing meme that the American neoconservatives who planned the Iraq war (which Christopher Hitchens supported so vehemently) were the new liberal Trotskyists is a favourite of libertarians (see here), and there may well be an element of truth to it, given that the neoconservative foreign policy was a radical departure from the realist school of foreign...

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The Regressive Left’s Obsession with Race

Just look at this article here in the UK Independent by Edward Siddons, which concerns the recent sexual assaults in Germany.If we read it carefully we can see before our eyes an outstanding fault of the modern left: the bizarre conflation of culture with race.First, Siddons points out that some people on the far right are complaining that maybe the cultural attitudes of the attackers might have something to do with their crimes.But then Siddons immediately implies that this means that such...

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Is Schengen Dead?

It looks more and more like it.Why? Because Merkel’s irresponsible decision to throw Germany’s borders open to 1.1 million migrants has killed it.There is some interesting analysis here and here, which, despite the brave face put on Wolfgang Schäuble’s remarks in Brussels, reveals a deep, new crisis hitting the EU.Last year the major threat to the EU was the surge of democracy in Greece against austerity, but in the end the EU – and above all Germany – smashed any hope of that and the Greek...

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Keynesianism could probably have prevented World War II

Let us look at the simple facts relating to the rise of the Nazi party in the 1930s.This is the Nazi party share of the vote in federal elections in the Weimar Republic from 1924 to 1933: Date | % of Vote | Reichstag Seats May 1924 | 6.5% | 32 Dec. 1924 | 3.0% | 14 May 1928 | 2.6% | 12 Sep. 1930 | 18.3% | 107 July 1932 | 37.3% | 230 Nov. 1932 | 33.1% | 196 March 1933 | 43.9% | 288 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party#Federal_election_results By 1928, during the economic boom in Germany,...

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Extreme Multiculturalism versus Liberal Nationalism

Liberal nationalism wins every time.Liberal nationalism is an outgrowth of the French revolution and the liberalism of the 19th century: it holds that all people living in a state should have equal citizenship rights and only one system of law for everybody. Liberal nationalism supports multiracialism. It does not matter what skin colour you have: you can still be, for example, a full French citizen or American citizen. Being a citizen of a liberal national state is open to people from...

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The Debate on Marx’s View of Wages in Capitalism

It is interesting to revisit an old debate had in these articles: Baumol, William J. 1983. “Marx and the Iron Law of Wages,” The American Economic Review 73.2: 303–308.Hollander, Samuel. 1984. “Marx and Malthusianism: Marx’s Secular Path of Wages,” The American Economic Review 74.1: 139–151.Hollander, Samuel. 1986. “Marx and Malthusianism: Reply,” The American Economic Review 76.3: 548–550.Ramirez, Miguel D. 1986. “Marx and Malthusianism: Comment,” The American Economic Review 76.3:...

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