Feb 10, 2016 | Culture
Progress in the global war on poverty – CSMonitor.com
Global poverty has fallen faster during the past 20 years than at any time in history. Around the world hunger, child death, and disease rates have all plummeted. More girls are getting into school. In fact, never before have so many people, in so many poor countries, made so much progress in reducing poverty, increasing incomes, improving health, reducing conflict and war, and spreading democracy.Some of these gains – especially the declines in poverty and child mortality – rank among the greatest achievements in history. Yet few people are aware that they are even happening. Most people believe that, apart from a few special cases such as China and India, developing countries by and large remain hopelessly mired in poverty, stagnation, and dictatorship. Yet the reality is quite different: A major transformation is quietly under way, affecting the lives of hundreds of millions of people in nearly every corner of the world.[…]
What sparked these changes? […] First, the end of the cold war, the demise of communism, and the collapse of the Soviet Union dramatically improved the global environment for sustained and peaceful development. The United States and the Soviet Union stopped propping up some of the world’s nastiest dictators. Proxy wars and political violence associated with the cold war came to an end in Central America, Southeast Asia, Southern Africa, and elsewhere. Countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia gained their freedom. Perhaps most powerfully, economic and political ideologies shifted substantially. Communism and strong state control lost credibility. A new consensus began to form around more market-based economic systems and – at least in many countries – more accountable and democratic governance, along with greater respect for basic freedoms and rights. Developing countries around the world introduced major economic and political reforms and began to build institutions more conducive to growth and social progress.Second, globalization and international access to new technologies brought more trade and finance and a far greater exchange of ideas and information. Exports from developing countries are five times as large today as they were just 20 years ago, and financial flows are 12 times as large, creating many more economic opportunities. With deeper global integration came technologies that spurred progress: vaccines, medicines, new seed varieties, mobile phones, the Internet, and faster and cheaper air travel. To be sure, globalization has brought challenges, risks, and volatility, not least the 2007 food and 2008 financial crises. [These in fact were caused by government policy.–Ed.] But it has also brought investment, jobs, ideas, and markets, all of which stimulated progress. Third, while global changes mattered, the countries that began to move forward did so primarily because of strong leadership and courageous actions by the people in those countries themselves. Where new leaders at all levels of society stepped forward to forge change, progress ensued; where old dictators stayed in place, or new tyrants stepped in to replace the old, political and economic systems remained rigged. ….
Dec 4, 2015 | Culture
On November 30, 2015, the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property released a new issue paper, The Gene Revolution, by Amanda Maxham, a research associate and writer at the Ayn Rand Institute.Dr. Maxham explores how innovations in biotechnology, enabled by the intellectual property rights that protect them, have led to the “Gene Revolution,” where scientists use genetic engineering to dramatically improve human life. In order to combat widespread misinformation about genetically modified organisms (GMOs), she traces mankind’s long history of improving plants, animals, and microorganisms to better serve our needs.In particular, Dr. Maxham looks at twenty-nine different GMOs, including insulin, flu vaccines, cheese-making enzymes, apples, cotton seeds, and pet fish, as examples of the endless possibilities the “Gene Revolution” holds for the betterment of humanity–if we can overcome the groundless mistrust and strive to protect the future of scientific innovation.
Dec 2, 2015 | Culture
Brilliant analysis by ARI’s Don Watkins on Thomas Piketty’s The Economics of Inequality. Here are some notable gems:
Why should we care about inequality in the first place? Economic inequality, after all, can result from the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer…but also from everyone getting richer, some more rapidly and others less. Indeed, the story of capitalism is of steady and, over time, dramatic improvements in living standards. Economic inequality in capitalistic societies refers not to absolute deprivation, of which there is less than ever in human history, but to relative deprivation, whose odiousness is not self-evident.[…]To earn something, however, doesn’t mean that factors outside your control played absolutely no role in the outcome. When we say that someone has earned something, we aren’t distinguishing people who chose their parents or place of birth from those who didn’t. Rather, we’re acknowledging that the knowledge, skills, or expertise that makes one person’s work more economically valuable required effort, ambition, and initiative, whatever one’s natural talents or social background. If you attained your wealth as a result of non-fraudulent, non-coercive exchanges with employers or customers, then you earned it—and it’s wrong for the government to seize it on the theory that it would be nicer if someone else had it rather than you.[…][Piketty’s] egalitarian project rests on the premise that the actual possession of wealth and the moral right to it are inversely related. This dogmatic indifference to the processes whereby wealth is created and acquired, and the habits and dispositions that have proven conducive to individual prosperity, as opposed to the habits and dispositions that reliably result in poverty, means that advocates of “social justice” like Piketty are devoted to perpetrating a profound injustice. [Piketty’s Unaswered Question]
Nov 28, 2015 | Culture
pinion: What’s in a flag– reflections on race in South Carolina – HS Insider quotes Professor C. Bradley Thompson, Executive Director of the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism:
“I think it’s entirely appropriate for the state government to take down the Confederate Flag from government buildings,” Thompson said. “I don’t see what relevance it has to be flown on any government building, and given its history, I think there’s very good reason to not want to fly it. That said, I do know that a lot of South Carolinians, white and black, have a great affection for the Confederate Flag and, for them, it has nothing to do with what it’s often portrayed as representing. So there’s a culture clash, I think, between those who still want to be able to fly it either privately or on war memorials and those don’t.” “I think the very best thing that has come out of this controversy is a conversation about the meaning of that flag. I think that’s an important conversation to have and I don’t think it’s one that people have had for a very long time.”
May 13, 2015 | Culture
I am giving 2 lectures at Objectivist Summer Conference 2015 this summer in Charlotte, North Carolina! The conference runs from July 4 through July 9.One is on “Black Innovators and Entrepreneurs Under Capitalism,” describing the achievements of such producers and great minds as Madame CJ Walker, George Washington Carver, Elijah McCoy, and numerous others. That innovative black American thinkers and entrepreneurs flourished during the freest part of America’s economic history is a little known aspect of our heritage. This talk is a step toward remediating that failing.My other talk is on “Objectivism Versus Kantianism in The Fountainhead,” showing that the philosophy of Kant permeates and motivates, in differing forms, every villain and foil in the story–Ellsworth Toohey, Peter Keating, Lois Cook, et. al.–while the story’s hero, Howard Roark, is an embodiment of every principle of Rand’s philosophy. Rand versus Kant is not merely the essence of “The Fountainhead”–the 2nd greatest novel ever written–but is the essence of the contemporary struggle for reason and individual rights.These will be outstanding lectures at a great conference.Do not miss it. http://www.objectivistconferences.com/
Movies should cast the best actor for the part — whatever their race or gender. Sadly many viewers are race-conscious rather than race-blind.Quoting