Open Thread #338

 Open Thread
Apr 152012
 

Lonely Monkey Ape at Zoo

For anyone wishing to ask a question, make a observation, or share a link with other NoodleFood readers, I hereby open up the comments on this post to any respectable topic. As always, please refrain from posting inappropriate comments such as personal attacks, pornographic material, copyrighted material, and commercial solicitations.

NoodleFood’s Open Threads feature creative commons photographs from Flickr that I find interesting. I hope that you enjoy them!

 Posted by on 15 April 2012 at 12:00 pm  Add comments
  • Jim May

    So Noodlefood is becoming Philosophy in Action?  I guess that takes care of the non-Paleo friendly name issue

  • William Beaumont

    I was pondering recently the leftist belief that capitalism is inherently self-destructive and leads to crony capitalism. The argument is that no matter how free the market starts out, eventually some unscrupulous companies will bribe lawmakers to pass legislation that gives them unfair advantages, and this will continue until the market is less and less free.

    Of course, the problem with this argument is that it assumes that A) the public would never vote out legislators who pass such laws, and B) that there could never be any constitutional protection against such laws existing. In other words, it assumes that the culture as a whole would never embrace a moral philosophy that upholds laissez-faire, that the public would never install constitutional protections against cronyism nor would they be on guard for legislators who tried to violate the principles of a free market. What works in the liberals’ favor is that these premises have been historically mostly true: the constitution does not completely guard against cronyism, and the public has for a long time either embraced anti-capitalist legislation or done little to rebel against it.I’ve come to the conclusion then that the liberals’ argument is a half-truth: capitalism IS self-destructive WITHOUT a moral philosophy to support it.

    • John P

       You know, I’ve never actually heard that one, a leftist blaming the buildup of government for the problems in the market. That’s a completely new one for me.

      Does irony just never strike these people?

      • William Beaumont

        Actually, they blame the buildup of government ON the problems in the market. (Or is that what you meant to write?)

  • https://philosophyinaction.com/ Diana Hsieh

    “NoodleFood” is here to stay! I need to add it into the title, among other things. (A bunch of stuff is broken right now.)

  Open Thread #337
Home | Live Webcast | Archives | Blog | Question Queue | Connect | Support Us | About Us
Copyright 2012 Diana Hsieh | Email | Twitter | Facebook | Blog
Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha