Updated July 13, 2013: on reflection I changed what I originally called “productive” envy to “competitive” envy for Aquinas’s fourth sense.  I think this better captures the interpersonal sense of true envy. At the Acton University a couple of weeks … Read More

See also my longer paper: A Fairness and Incentives Analysis of H.R.1330 U.S. House Representative Karen Bass recently introduced H.R. 1330, the “Student Loan Fairness Act,” as an “equitable system” to “alleviate the financial burden of student loan debt on college … Read More

In “Psychology and Markets,” (Rationality in Economics,) Vernon Smith summarized variations in experiments with upside and downside risk from standard economic theory, which is based on the hypothesis that agents have a “self-aware, calculating process of maximization” (157.)  While the … Read More

Discussing private defense in Chaos Theory, Robert Murphy argued that the market is capable of providing superior and cheaper defense that a State. I agree that a private defense firm would not pay $600 for a toilet seat. However, I … Read More

Discussing private law in Chaos Theory, Robert Murphy argued that the market is capable of defining and protecting property rights without a State. Individuals have natural rights, on which all (his emphasis, 13) social relations would be managed by contract. … Read More

Discussing private law in Chaos Theory, Robert Murphy argued that the market is capable of defining and protecting property rights without a State. Individuals have natural rights, on which all (his emphasis, 13) social relations would be managed by contract. … Read More

In “Cross-Purposes: The Liberal-Communitarian Debate,” Charles Taylor proposed an analysis of the debates over these two political theories to sort out confusion between what he termed ontological issues, or “the terms you accept as ultimate in the order of explanation” … Read More

Charles Taylor, in an essay “Irreducibly Social Goods,” argued for the existence of social goods that cannot be reduced to individual utility or welfare. His argument is that certain goods—e.g., frank and open relationships, self-giving heroism, friendship—cannot exist except in … Read More

Ch. 5 of Michael Sandel’s What Money Can’t Buy discussed the markets pushed into public spaces. With the increasing social stratification of skyboxes and purchasable privileges in sports arenas, Sandel regrets the loss of a flatter, more egalitarian sense in … Read More