Carl Mosk's Economics Site

E-flyer for Capitalism and Religion Book 2017

Cities and Sieges in Medieval Europe

176-7, 185-6, 187n5

If you type in the words “rights” and the word “liberty” you find the word “rights” increasing while almost in mirror image fashion the word “liberty” falls. In effect this means – consulting my previous posting – that the incidence of the word “rights” does move favorably with “democracy” but the word “liberty” does not.

176-7, 185-6, 187n5

If you go to Google N Gram Viewer, typing in the two words “liberty” and “democracy” you will see the word “liberty” falling from 1800 to 2000 while the word “democracy” rises. My own view is this tells us something fundamental about rights versus majority rule.

On Google N-Gram type in the two words “Capitalism” and “Communism” indicating that you want the appearance of the two words in the English language literature to be captured in the diagram regardless of whether they are capitalized or not capitalized. You will find an interesting pattern. Before the end of World War II the two terms mimic each other, growing pretty much in tandem. After the Cold War begins they mirror each other in a negative fashion: when one rises the other falls. It is during this period that they became opposed ideologically. This fact proves two things. The first is that the two terms are ideological not “real.” The second is that they are really not opposed in real terms. In point of fact pure Capitalism and pure Communism represent the opposite ends of a spectrum: the degree to which the state enters into the market. Pure Capitalism is zero entry; pure Communism is 100 per cent entry. In reality neither pure Capitalism nor pure Communism exist. In actual practice societies can be ranked based on the percentage of the economy in state hands. The lower the percentage, the more “capitalist” they seem. The higher the percentage the more “communist” they appear. Communism is nothing more than State Capitalism.

Carol T. Christ, an academic (an English scholar specializing in Victorian literature), became the Chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley in March. Yesterday she issued a superb statement about free speech at Berkeley, a school that’s lately been embroiled in issues of no-platforming and even violence around proposed right-wing speakers like Ann Coulter […]

via Good message on free speech from UC Berkeley’s new Chancellor — Why Evolution Is True

Source: Evangelicals, Trump and the politics of redemption | Religion News Service An American evangelical says ‘enough is enough’: ‘The evangelical Christian movement in America is being compromised and discredited by the way prominent leaders have associated themselves with, first, the Donald J. Trump campaign and now, the Trump presidency. If this is allowed to […]

via Evangelicals, Trump and the politics of redemption | Religion News Service — Persona

This morning Matthew Cobb sent me a tweet that reminded me of this story—a story I’d known about but never mentioned. It’s about Nicholas Winton—now Sir Nicholas Winton—a British stockbroker who, on a visit to Czechoslovakia in 1938, managed to launch a rescue operation that ultimately saved 669 children, most of them Jewish, from the Holocaust. […]

via Nicholas Winton: the man who saved 669 children from the Holocaust — Why Evolution Is True

Reader Michael called my attention to this 52-minute video of Richard Dawkins and Dave Rubin conversing at the famous 92nd Street YMCA in New York City. I’ve watched only 30 minutes over lunch, but it covers a lot of topics: his deplatforming by the Berkeley Radio station, censorship and deplatforming in general, Richard’s new essay […]

via Dave Rubin and Richard Dawkins at the 92nd street Y — Why Evolution Is True

Notes for Section VIII of Economics 111A

Notes on the Pendulum Swing in American Presidential Elections

Battle Hymn of the Republic & Lincoln Second Inagural ECON 327

Lincoln Gettysburg Address

Lincoln versus Jackson on Rights and Democracy