Tag Archives: political theory

In the same way that Capital in the Twenty-First Century transformed the way economists look at inequality, Piketty’s new book Capital and Ideology will transform the way political scientists look at their own field. ProMarket — The blog of the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of BusinessThomas Piketty’s New Book Brings Political Economy Back to Its Sources Branko Milanovic | Visiting Presidential Professor at City University of New York Graduate Center and senior...

So, here's my hypothesis. The road to serfdom thesis was if not inspired by Lippmann, at least prompted, in part, by him. But Lippmann did not hold the thesis; it is articulated by Knight in his review of Lippmann and (mistakenly) ascribed to Lippmann. Knight, however, thinks there is nothing inevitable about the thesis because he thinks the future is still very much open. I cannot prove that Hayek read Knight's review of Lippmann. (Knight was later a somewhat ambivalent referee for The...

Big! We really need to be talking about this and examining assumptions and presuppositions that act as hidden assumptions. Yanis is a systems thinker. The Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, Oxford University, kindly invited me to deliver the 2019 Taylor Lecture on 12th February 2019. I chose the topic of Realistic Utopias versus Dystopic Realities – my aim being to highlight the manner in which really-existing capitalism is marketed as a utopian science fiction that has nothing to...

Barkley Rosser either makes a bad mistake in starting with Marx's definition of "socialism" as state-ownership of the means of production as exclusive, or he is carrying water for the ownership class that uses this arbitrary definition to demonize the opposition to its rent-seeking and parasitic rent extraction, e.g., by socializing negative externality, the result of which is now climate change. I suspect that he was shooting from the hip and shot himself in the foot instead of hitting his...

On Alexander Hamilton's argument for dictatorship in a republic.Digressions&ImpressionsOn PresidentsEric Schliesser | Professor of Political Science, University of Amsterdam’s (UvA) Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences

Young people are turning to socialism, and Democratic Party politicians are adopting the term. But what is socialism? My own summary answer is that socialism is the socio-economic system that favors people and the environment as a whole over other factors and and political theory that prioritizes human rights.  This is in contrast to capitalism, which favors capital over other factors and accords highest priority to property rights. Doug Greene presents his view of a Marxist-Leninist...

Peter Turchin equates fascism with tyranny, but I don't think that is correct. Fascism is a modern political theory, while tyranny is a political category proposed by Plato, as Professor Turchin notes. The "tyrants" of history were what now call "dictators," although the Latin term "dictator" had a somewhat different meaning classically from the Greek "tyrannos." Thus, equating fascism with tyranny as usurpation of absolute power as sole ruler involves a category error, on one hand, and it...

Setting the record straight.AeonThe real Adam Smith Paul Sagar | lecturer in political theory in the Department of Political Economy, King’s College London

This is a summary distinction between liberalism and traditionalism, although Weiner doesn't use the term traditionalism specifically. The distinction in the Western intellectual tradition begins with Plato and Aristotle's different political theories, with Plato's theory developing into traditionalism and Aristotle's into liberalism. In modern times, this would be reflected in the dichotomy between Hegel and Locke, and Continental versus Anglo-American thought.  The main protagonists...

Comparison and contrast of  Ferdinand Lassalle, Mikhail Bakunin, and Karl Marx stated simply. The Real MovementRethinking Marx’s Grand StrategyJehu