Against Politics

Two Reviews of Anthony de Jasay’s The State

Aschwin de Wolf — Thu, 10 May 2012 10:40:32 PDT

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‘Democracy can’t be fixed. It’s inherently broken’

Aschwin de Wolf — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 11:02:57 PDT

An Interview with ‘Beyond Democracy’ Co-Author Frank Karsten 1. What specifically motivated you to write this book? As far as Karel, my co-author, and I knew there was no easy to read, structured, and concise book showing the inherent weaknesses … Continue reading →

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Beyond Democracy

Aschwin de Wolf — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 11:01:54 PDT

One of the remarkable features of democracy is that no major political ideology is comfortable with it. Modern liberals insist upon a long list of “rights” that limit the scope of democratic decision making. Conservatives have traditionally been wary about … Continue reading →

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A presumption of equality?

Aschwin de Wolf — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 10:21:43 PDT

In his recent 2011 interview for the Independent Review, Anthony de Jasay writes that he would have liked to write a short book on equalities but he has given up on the idea due to the challenges that his declining … Continue reading →

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Against Politics: 15 book recommendations

Aschwin de Wolf — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:15:15 PST

One of the best ways to communicate the general outlook of a website is to recommend a set of books that embody its perspectives on a variety of topics. Since its inception in 2000 the outlook of Against Politics has … Continue reading →

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Voting anarchists

Aschwin de Wolf — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 11:35:47 PST

One of the longest ongoing debates in anarchism concerns the morality of voting. Thomas Woods has weighed in and not only believes that it is not immoral to vote, but that there are good reasons to vote for a candidate … Continue reading →

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Humans are still evolving

Aschwin de Wolf — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 10:15:50 PST

A defining characteristic of ideologies is an implicit or explicit theory of human nature. For example, modern libertarians like Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard derived bold normative conclusions from the fact that humans are endowed with reason. In such attempts, … Continue reading →

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The Psychology of Liberalism

Aschwin de Wolf — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 09:09:32 PDT

Modern liberalism is characterized by a set of beliefs that stand in such strong contradiction to what we know about human nature and society that some authors believe that a psychological assessment of this movement will give insights that cannot … Continue reading →

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Richard von Mises: Positivism – A Study in Human Understanding

Aschwin de Wolf — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 09:21:42 PDT

Unlike his rationalist brother Ludwig von Mises, Richard von Mises had strong empiricist leanings, which found expression in his frequency interpretation of probability and his qualified endorsement of logical positivism (or logical empiricism). His Kleines Lehrbuch des Positivismus was published … Continue reading →

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Survival of the unfittest

Aschwin de Wolf — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 09:20:29 PDT

Reading the book today, Survival of the Unfittest (1927) by Charles Wicksteed Armstrong, it has all the elements that ensured its descent into completely obscurity: concerns about human degeneration, advocacy of eugenics, and classical liberal views on state and political … Continue reading →

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