[These are this authors earlier archives. Archives of late articles are here.]

The Capital Punishment Imperative [03/16/06] While I thank Dr. Robert Murphy for raising intelligent and original challenges to my assertion that murderous Islamist fanatics ought to receive the death penalty, I find his arguments mistaken. Capital punishment follows from every man's inalienable right to property and is necessary to preserve that right.

Why Public Utility Monopolies Fail [03/08/06] To prevent “burdensome competition” among utilities in a given area, governments have often granted legal local monopolies to specific water, electricity, and natural gas companies—or else provided the services themselves. Competing firms have been excluded from the utility market in a given area by law, with disastrous results. Occasional blackouts and deactivations of hot water are common in the experience of many Americans—while a free market in, say, groceries, brings about no conspicuous shortages.

Mises and Hayek: Champions of Economic Liberty [02/09/06] Austrian economists Ludwig von Mises (1881-1972) and Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992) eloquently advocated free markets devoid of state intervention. Though they differed in the degree of their opposition to interventionism, both Mises and Hayek developed extensive economic arguments demonstrating why free markets succeed and regulated economies fail. Mises and Hayek understood the free market's necessity for promoting social cooperation, rational calculation, transmission of knowledge, and a market order far more complex and successful than any deliberate creation of a central planner. Their ideas also imply the free market's morality in promoting the values of life, liberty, and property. (G. Stolyarov II)

The Evil of Islamist Intolerance [02/06/06] The recent violent acts by Islamic fundamentalists against Danish embassies and citizens demonstrate the naked evil of religious intolerance. The demands of the fundamentalists to suppress all images, cartoons, and caricatures of Mohammed are not demands to respect religion. Rather, the fundamentalists seek to coercively suppress all opinions that do not endorse their religion. The activities of Islamic fundamentalists are among the greatest threats to liberty of speech and conscience today.

Wealth is Produced [01/20/06] Special interest groups often attempt to expropriate others, justifying their actions by claiming “their share of the economic pie.” They are able to get away with violating genuinely productive individuals’ property rights by exploiting a widespread fallacy.

Natural Law and the Impropriety of Self-Sacrifice: A Review of the "Chronicles of Narnia" Film [01/17/06] The Andrew Adamson film, "Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" holds a position of superiority over most films of our day due to several essential merits: it has a plot, it has an unambiguous conflict, and it has a didactic purpose—characteristics that most contemporary literature and films lack.

Kent Worthington on Certainty and Error [01/10/06] In the fifth and final chapter of How Ideas Work, “Certainty and Error,” Kent Worthington discusses the importance of conscious human judgment—“the process of making choices, a process no man can afford to evade” (122). The man who acts confidently and efficiently in his life does not evade judgment: he embraces it, along with the standard on which all proper judgment is based: certainty. The standard of certainty can demolish a whole host of fallacies claiming the inevitability of doubt in a broad range of fields from science to romance to filosofy. (G. Stolyarov II)

How Ideas Work Series: Part IV [01/06/06] In the preceding chapters of How Ideas Work, Mr. Worthington discussed the proper methods for forming accurate concepts—abstraction—and accurate propositions—grammar. In Chapter 4, “Inference and Proof,” he explains the process of inference, used to form the next and final level of idea: conclusions.

Kent Worthington on Cause and Effect [01/03/06] In the third chapter of How Ideas Work—“Cause and Effect”—Mr. Worthington develops a new theory of causality which exhaustively classifies the three causal relationships, presents the required conditions for causality, and explains the compatibility of causality with volition.

Kent Worthington on Similarity and Difference [12/28/05] Mr. Worthington opens the second chapter of How Ideas Work—“Similarity and Difference”—discussing concept formation in small children and how this process greatly broadens the children’s ability to refer to the world around them.

Kent Worthington on Consistency and Contradiction [12/22/05] Kent Worthington—an entrepreneur and intellectual innovator—has authored How Ideas Work: a concise, elegantly structured, and eminently useful book presenting the nature and foundations of correct ideas. In a rational academic environment, How Ideas Work—with its accessible style and numerous relevant examples to illustrate each idea—would have been used as a textbook for teaching the discipline of logic and its inextricable relationship to reality.

Praxeology and Certainty of Knowledge [12/08/05] This essay is my attempt to describe the manner in which the fundamentals of Austrian economic thought affirm man’s ability to know this world through his rational faculty. Hence, I seek to represent the Austrian view and its implications as accurately as I can—which involves using terms and concepts which I, as an Objectivist, might not necessarily endorse. Unlike Ludwig von Mises, I do not adhere to Kantian epistemology—and do not believe in the synthetic-analytic dichotomy. (G. Stolyarov II)

Monogamous Casual Intercourse: Contradiction in Terms [11/30/05] The prevalent "mainstream "claim of the possibility of safe, monogamous, "casual" intercourse finds its refutation in logic and the facts of reality. Intercourse that is both "casual" and monogamous is impossible, nor can it ever be safe.

Austrian Economics and Consumer Sovereignty [11/25/05] The great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises formulated the idea of "consumer sovereignty"-using a term originally coined by William Hutt in a critique of Keynesianism-to describe the role of consumers and producers in the market process. Mises's analogy has its limits, as his student Murray Rothbard would recognize, but it remains nonetheless an eloquent defense of the free market. When the limits of the analogy are recognized, one will find the free market to be even superior to what a full application of the analogy might suggest.

Austrian Economics and Hayek's View of the Market Process [11/18/05] The work of Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek in describing the market as a dynamic process challenges mainstream assumptions about the market as a set of imaginary static equilibria and states of "perfect competition." In three treatises-"Economics and Knowledge" (1937), "The Use of Knowledge in Society" (1945), and "Competition as a Discovery Procedure" (1968)-Hayek shows how the free market successfully addresses the dilemma of dispersed and imperfect knowledge among the participants of an economy.

Austrian Economics and Kirznerian Entrepreneurship [11/15/05] Professor Israel Kirzner's theory of entrepreneurship uses the methods of Austrian Economics to explain the function of the man who perceives and pursues economic opportunities in the face of uncertainty. The entrepreneur, in seeking his own profit, is essential to correcting mistakes in the structure of prices and remedying the sheer ignorance and error exhibited by some economic actors. His profits derive from the services he performs in detecting and eliminating arbitrage opportunities, thereby allowing supply and demand for a given good to meet.

The Austrian School View of Income Types in the Evenly Rotating Economy [11/09/05] The Austrian School of Economics analyzes four distinct economic functions: those of laborers, owners of “land” (productive natural resources), capitalists, and entrepreneurs. Though unrealistic and in part contradictory, the model of the evenly rotating economy (ERE) allows the Austrian economist to accurately analyze in isolation the sources of income derived from each economic function. Using the ERE, one can examine the root of wages for labor, rental payments to owners of factors of production, and interest payments to capitalists. One can also distinguish the nature of entrepreneurial profit from the three aforementioned types of income by understanding why the ERE lacks opportunities to earn said profit.

Austrian Economics and Models of Rest [11/04/05] In his master treatise, Human Action, renowned Austrian school economist Ludwig von Mises presents three economic models for states of rest, critical to analyzing the behavior of real-world markets. (G. Stolyarov II)

A Defense of the Right [10/24/05] n his recent response to my article, “On Old-Fashioned Progress,” Mr. Martin Kraegel III raises objections to my classification of libertarians and minarchists under the expansive umbrella of the Right. Instead, Mr. Kraegel asserts that the “Right” is comprised of advocates of the pre-Enlightenment, pre-capitalistic Ancien Regime, who have historically reacted against progress, free markets, and individual freedom. I beg to differ.

Austrian Economics and Roundabout Processes of Production [10/20/05] Among the insights of the Austrian School of Economics-first elucidated by Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk in his 1889 magnum opus, Capital and Interest-is the greater productivity of more roundabout, or capitalistic, methods of creating desired goods.

Austrian Economics and Time Preference [10/17/05] Many Austrian School economists—especially Ludwig von Mises—have espoused a universal insight into human action: the existence of positive time preference—the desire, other things equal, for a given satisfaction sooner rather than later. Every acting human being has positive time preference and, as a corollary, will value a present good more highly than the same good in the future.

Austrian Economics and Marginal Utility [10/10/05] To understand a set of universal truths concerning diverse individuals’ valuations of economic goods and how these valuations are reflected in practice, one needs to turn to the Austrian of Economics and its analysis of marginal utility.

Austrian School Arguments on the Free Market Origin of Money [10/06/05] The Austrian School of Economics offers an innovative and vital perspective on how money came to be, a perspective that firmly establishes money as a free market creation and validates the efficacy of market exchange.

The Nature and Purpose of Literary Analysis [09/05/05] For the millennia during which literature has existed, scholars, intellectuals, and lay people have unceasingly engaged in the act of analyzing it. Whatever the variety of analytical approaches to literature might be, literary analysis is in itself a universal necessity when approaching a text, and cannot be escaped on some level.

On Old-Fashioned Progress [08/01/05] A fashionable-and wrong-cliché holds that "liberals," i.e., the social and political Left, are inherent advocates of change, rejuvenation, and progress, whereas "conservatives," i.e., the broad spectrum of the Right, including principled republicans, Christians, minarchists, libertarians, and Objectivists, are characteristically old-fashioned, reactionary, and seek above all a maintenance of a prior status quo instead of innovation, creativity, and improvement. In fact, however, neither is the Left progressive, nor does the Right advocate stagnation. If anything, the prevalent adherence to "old-fashioned" notions among the Right is the surest source of substantive future progress.

The Fundamental Cultural Antagonism: Old or True Western Culture versus New or Post-Western Culture [08/24/05] Today’s cultural battle is between two primary paradigms, a fact which most people loosely sense, but are unable to precisely identify, since the two sides of this conflict are often obscured, diluted, or misrepresented. The primary battle is not between “conservatives” and “liberals,” nor between “traditionalists” and “progressives,” nor even necessarily between reason and emotion (though reason and irrational emotion are certainly irreconcilable antagonists).

Extremism versus Fanaticism [08/18/05] The War on Our Own Citizens continues. More precisely, Britain’s war on its own citizens has just been initiated. In an earlier treatise, I described the devastating effect that the Western governments’ reactions to the July 7, 2005, London terror attacks had on the liberty and privacy of air travelers. But the misdirected, detrimental effects of domestic government “security” policies can be far more insidious, aiming at the very intellectual core of what it means to live in a free, Western nation historically based on individualist premises.

The War on Our Own Citizens: Airport Security [08/15/05] I loathe terrorists. ... What has harmed me directly, however, was the alleged “response” to terrorism from the governments of the United States and Great Britain, a response which has nothing to do with hunting down terrorists, which will not achieve a single blow in the war against them, and which will only win the terrorists’ campaign for them, by annihilating those very basic liberties the militants seek to wipe out.

Rational Argumentation in Text [08/10/05] As a writer of argumentative treatises, frequenter of Internet discussion forums, and Editor-in-Chief of The Rational Argumentator, a magazine devoted to thoroughly logical examination of any topic with intellectual value, I seek to explicate here precisely what rational argumentation entails.

Premises and Practices of an Effective Rational Orator [07/28/05] I have had the opportunity, on multiple occasions, to deliver speeches of an intellectual, persuasive nature to audiences, large and small, public and private, with the direct and unconcealed intention of communicating to them my most firmly held and controversial ideological positions. Several years of work in this field of endeavor have convinced me that both the crafting and the delivery of an effective speech are skills whose adequate execution depends on a mastery of certain fundamental principles. These principles address both the premises a competent speaker ought to hold in order to rationally and effectively communicate his views, and the practices whereby he might put such premises into practice.

Relativism Is Racist [07/22/05] Amid a hailstorm of cries emerging from the academic left, urging people not to “be bigots” and “appreciate the value of other cultures”, ethnic and racial prejudice continue to plague businesses, educational facilities, and cultural relations. (G. Stolyarov II)

The Orwellian Dystopia of Business Regulation [07/15/05] The principle of capitalism poses a severe threat to the Party in 1984 as the vehicle moving toward a meritocratic society and a technological paradise, both key to the improvement of living standards. The pseudo-histories of Oceania include thoughtless slander against financial giants of the past and lies concerning the "improvements" brought about by the regulations of the bureaucrats, which had amounted to the theft (or "confiscation") of property earned through the effort and innovation of superlative individuals.

Machiavelli and Erasmus Compared [07/07/05] Two scholars who lived simultaneously during the Renaissance could be considered the principal representatives of two colossally different schools of thought, humanism and pragmatism, which may be termed diametrical opposites in many respects. In their theories regarding government, war, toleration, and the perception of the individual, Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) and Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) differed dramatically, though with a few curious convergences on certain particular issues.

A Review of Gen LaGreca's Noble Vision [06/20/05] Noble Vision by Gen LaGreca is a contemporary novel in the Randian tradition, whose substance and style are perhaps the greatest reflection of the ideal of the founder of Objectivism since the latter's death in 1982. The characters are designed to carefully reflect their chosen value premises, while the plot is at the same time comprehensible and complex, logical and multifaceted, as LaGreca impeccably weaves numerous threads of the storyline throughout the book.

A Review of Vilfredo Pareto's The Rise and Fall of Elites [06/09/05] Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) was an Italian sociologist, who, in his 1901 treatise, The Rise and Fall of Elites, foretold the ascent of socialism as a ruling doctrine in the decades to come. Pareto, to his credit, does not even remotely consider socialism capable of achieving the existential and moral utopia that its advocates espoused. Moreover, he extensively attributed socialism's rise to "the sanction of the victim," a concept that Ayn Rand would discover explicitly a half-century later.

Homosexuality: A Chosen Harm [05/31/05] My aim here is neither to coerce nor to persecute. I have no personal hostilities toward homosexuals, any more than I have personal hostilities toward casual marijuana users. I believe that both practices ought to be legal and free from state intervention, but that both are colossally deleterious to the health and moral integrity of the individuals practicing them.

To Liberalize or to Perish: Europe’s Political and Economic Future [05/01/05] As globalization dramatically reforms the world’s political and economic landscape, the people of Europe stand at a vital crossroads. They possess the opportunity, and the capacity, to reap the benefits of a world that is continually becoming more open, dynamic, and economically interactive across borders and oceans. However, tremendous institutional obstacles from inefficient and intrusive government structures remain in their way. Politically and economically, big government threatens the endurance and very survival of the standard of living Europeans had earlier enjoyed. In order to progress, Europe must experience a dramatic relaxation of government political homogenization and economic regulation, thus enabling entrepreneurial individuals to freely tap into the benefits of the global marketplace.

1984-Style Surveillance, Today [05/20/05] Mr. Orwell had pinpointed an essential cause of the Party's survival: its capacity to monitor every aspect of its subjects' lives. The previous despotisms had crumbled due to their inability to detect and suffocate divergent thoughts; while they received compliance in deed, dissent brewed in secrecy, eventually expanding to bring about the overthrow of the dominant elite and the institution of a less oppressive regime.

Illinois Tool Works: The Essence of Innovative Business [05/17/05] Recently I have had the privilege of embarking upon a guided tour of one of Illinois Tool Works' 600 mini-companies, a strap manufacturing plant near the company's headquarters in Glenview, Illinois. Signode Strap, a product invented within a firm owned by ITW, is the most prevalent of its sort in the market.

The Mutability of Past [05/06/05] What precisely is this transformation, what are its motives, and what permits it to maintain a grasp on the minds of citizens? Discovering the answers to these three questions will permit us to recognize a deadly weapon of Mr. Dewey's educational paradigm.

The Caste Impeding India’s Social Mobility [05/03/05] In 1947, upon India’s independence, the secularist government of Jawaharlal Nehru avowedly renounced the hierarchical rigidity of the caste system and embarked upon erasing its impositions off the face of India. However, instead of eliminating the power structures, the Indian government has half-inverted them, fueling mutually escalating antagonisms among members of upper and lower castes.

The Bridge to the Scientific Revolution [04/27/05] Before the world could bask in the light of the Scientific Revolution a revision of the medical contributions of ancient physicians such as Aristotle and Galen needed to separate fact from unsubstantiated theory from worthwhile theory. A synthesis of empirical observation with mathematical extrapolation needed to take place which simultaneously rejected the Dogmatist school’s literal adherence to age-old texts and the absolute discarding of principles elucidated therein. This bridge between old and new, a pivotal figure in the progress of medicine, was William Harvey (1578-1657).

Rhazes: The Thinking Western Physician [04/22/05] The Dark Ages in Europe were a dismal atmosphere for methodical thought and its technological products. The barbarian hordes having overrun the Western Roman Empire, they destructed not merely the governmental and military structure of Classical civilization, but its cultural achievements as well. Few people in that dreary age would have exhibited basic literacy, not even to mention knowledge of ingenious Greek philosophers such as Aristotle or medical pioneers such as Hippocrates.

Regulation in Medicine Kills [04/14/05] He was an apt mathematician, fluent in language, and possessing a sound faculty for logic and deduction. I recall once having handed him an Award of Excellence, the highest honor within our middle school, for his commendable academic accomplishments. ... I was dismayed to have heard upon a typical June day the striking, seemingly otherworldly news: John had been diagnosed with leukemia. Neither his athletic prowess nor his intellectual finesse could prevent the emergence of such a dreadful ailment.

The Morality of Cloning [04/11/05] It is a common error in the customary pro-life position to equate practices which may well be considered diametrical opposites, abortion, which is meant solely to deprive a developing child of life, and cloning, which is undertaken to produce new life via radically new avenues.

Thirty-Three Challenges to Robert Murphy’s Theory of Market Anarchy in Law and Defense [04/05/05] A brief book by Economics Professor Robert Murphy of Hillsdale College, titled, Chaos Theory: Two Essays on Market Anarchy, offers an original and innovative glimpse into possible mechanisms whereby a society in the complete absence of government could furnish the essential and universally needed services of law (including enforcement) and defense against foreign aggression. As a minarchist Objectivist, I would, of course, consider precisely these two areas as the legitimate province of a government, defined as an agency claiming monopoly on the ultimate direction of retaliatory force within a given territory.

Against Humility [03/16/05] A poem in praise of the pride of human integrity, dignity, and achievement.

What Free Speech is Not [03/14/05] In attending a February 8, 2005, conference at the Gleacher Center in Chicago, I had hoped to hear a thorough philosophical defense of free speech and its true implications for a society that valued individual rights. I had good reason to expect this, given the title of the conference: "Creative and Artistic Subversions of Free Speech Limitations." I instead learned that America violates free speech to a greater extent than does Fidel Castro's dictatorship in Cuba.

A Call for the Urgent Abolition of Social Security [03/10/05] The Nobel laureate economist Friedrich Hayek once wrote, "A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his own which he is entitled to follow can have no respect for the dignity of the individual and cannot really know freedom." In our society, however, a behemoth of a system, mistakenly called "Social Security," is based entirely on the premise that individuals do not know where their values lie or how to pursue them.

The Evil of Forced Volunteerism [03/04/05] The schools of the Dewey system and leftist bureaucrats in Washington have recently allied for the promotion of mandatory youth groups similar to the Pioneers of the former Soviet Union and the Spies of George Orwell's dystopia.

Argumentum ad Experientiam [02/28/05] Recently, in a response to my satirical commentary, "Michael Moore's Mystery Message," I was told by a man who visits Iraq "every month" that my arguments against Mr. Moore's portrayal of the situation there in his recent documentary were off target. He did not tell me how my arguments were off target, or what he had observed during his travels in Iraq that would discredit my case. Nevertheless, he did venture to express his suggestion that I visit Iraq before I write about it. Rather than offering concrete evidence or abstract reasoning of any sort, this man merely seemed to state: "I know more than you because I have been in Iraq. Thus, you are automatically wrong."

Politeness and Objective Ethics [02/23/05] I had established the foundations of philosophically verifiable etiquette in the Public-Private Ethical Distinction, which is explicated in an essay of the same name. Etiquette is thoroughly grounded in rational egoism; it is a scientific classification of the instances and categories of action which are best for an individual to keep solely to himself or within a self-defined delimited circle of pertinent associates and which it is to his advantage to seek the cooperation and contribution of others toward.

The Public-Private Ethical Distinction [02/17/05] "Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men." Thus declared Howard Roark in Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. In the context of this statement, the private-public distinction is employed not in politicoeconomic terms (which are, however, derivative), but in an individual, ethical sense, pertaining to the objectively correct atmosphere which one should experience in and away from the company of other men.

Professor Hoppe against Political Correctness [02/09/05] All too often, in the environment of modern academic institutions, the abilities of honest, intelligent, and meritorious individuals to express their original insights and advance the progress of the search for truth become stifled by the paradigm of "political correctness."

Goddess of the Mind: A Tribute to Ayn Rand [02/25/05] A poem by G. Stolyarov II commemorating the 100th anniversary of birth of Ayn Rand, celebrating her wisdom, achievement, and example.

Somebody Else [01/25/05] G. Stolyarov II has provided this thought provoking poem and commentary on the harms of political correctness, presenting the insight that any exposition of the truth is bound to offend somebody.

The Province of the Liberal Arts [01/20/05] True learning does not consist solely of systematizing highly specialized observations, though this task features significantly in the natural sciences. Rather, an integrated individual learns on two levels, which can be termed the specific and the foundational. To the former province belong the natural sciences and to the latter—the liberal arts.

The Human Personality, Just Laws, and Laissez Faire [01/12/05] All too often, definitions of justice have been slippery, ambiguous, and disrespectful of individual ability and initiative. However, in a new era of individualism and self-responsibility, the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., provide guidance for future government policy. Dr. King's words, "Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust," can only be affirmed in a government practice of absolute laissez-faire, except in the punishment of criminals and foreign invaders.

The Immorality of Government Tsunami Relief [01/03/05] While the attention of the world is occupied with distress at the calamity of the recent tsunami devastating Southeast Asia, my attention is aimed at a critical issue overlooked by most in addressing this tragedy.

Christmas Demystified [12/24/04] A Christmas Poem by G. Stolyarov II celebrating the highest achievement of man and that which can be celebrated by all good men.

Lukashenko: The Antithesis of Freedom [12/17/04] Mr. Stolyarov wrote this article on September 1, 2003, under the pseudonym "Victor Svobodin," in order to avoid retribution by Lukashenko's regime against family members that remained in Belarus. The article was published on Portal of Reason S1, a website hitherto deliberately concealed from public access. Presently, these family members have safely emigrated, and Mr. Stolyarov is free to publicly decry the reign of this dictator with impunity.

John Kerry against Our Sacred Liberties [10/28/04] I see a clear moral imperative to defeat the power grab of a man who would endanger the sacred liberties of every man dwelling in America, but especially of the most autonomous and industrious among us. I shall enumerate, in brief, a horrid threefold menace that a would-be Kerry administration poses to our freedoms across the board. (G. Stolyarov II)

Two Poems [10/16/04] Mr. Stolyarov provides us with two more poems, this time one about his own poetry, and another about the abandonment of liberty.

Two Poems [9/27/04] Mr. Stolyarov gives us two poems on life, one about choosing to live, one about choosing to die, both about the meaning freedom.

The Necessity of Road Privatization [8/03/04] Mr. Stolyarov makes the case for the privatization of the roadways, and demonstrates why the bureaucratic government control of transportation systems is the expensive disastrous boondoggle it is.