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Government And Business

Ayn Rand For Social Justice?

In Free Market Fairness, Brown University political science professor John Tomasi seeks to defend free markets on a Rawlsian “social justice” foundation. In laying the groundwork for his argument, Tomasi thinks it is notable that even most free-market thinkers appeal to “social justice” concerns, i.e., that they almost all — from Adam Smith to Herbert Spencer to Milton Friedman — stress that free markets are good for “the poor.”
Government And Business

I Need Your Support

I’ve entered Think Freely Media’s 2014 Great Communicators Tournament, which asks entrants to make moral argument for freedom. I hope you’ll take a moment to vote for my entry, and to share it with your friends. You can vote once a day, every day, until September 2.
Government And Business

Let’s Have an Honest Debate About Social Security

This month marks the 79th anniversary of Social Security and the program’s finances are in disarray. The numbers are jarring. Social Security faces $23.1 trillion in unfunded liabilities, according to the program’s trustees, and if nothing changes, by 2033, payments will have to be cut by almost a quarter. The longer we wait to act, the more circumscribed our options will be.
Government And Business

Is It Immoral to Buy Nice Shoes?

The moral foundation of the welfare state is altruism: the doctrine that we have a duty to sacrifice for the needs of others. (See my interviews with Onkar Ghate and Peter Schwartz.) If you want to get a real sense of the meaning of this doctrine and its implications for human life, the best source is Ayn Rand. But Rand is often accused of caricaturing altruism.
Government And Business

Policy Digest: Welfare State Edition

The S&P recently came out with a report on how inequality is allegedly dampening economic growth. If you’re following the debate over Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, don’t miss this analysis from the Tax Foundation or this article from Don Boudreaux.

Further Reading

Ayn Rand | 1957
For the New Intellectual

The Moral Meaning of Capitalism

An industrialist who works for nothing but his own profit guiltlessly proclaims his refusal to be sacrificed for the “public good.”
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Ayn Rand | 1961
The Virtue of Selfishness

The Objectivist Ethics

What is morality? Why does man need it? — and how the answers to these questions give rise to an ethics of rational self-interest.
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