Last week was pretty busy at work and I did not have time to listen to all the podcasts I try to follow, so here is a two week list of them.
Philosophy in Action Rapid Fire Extravaganza – Dr. Diana Hsieh and Greg Perkins answer some 20 questions on topics ranging from Buddhism, Kant, negative income tax and superpowers.
Peikoff.com: Episode 327 – Leonard Peikoff in a special half hour edition of his podcast
In reading Ayn Rand’s essay “The New Fascism: Rule by Consensus,” she has what I found to be a perfect and succinct description of the current state of our government and economy.
A mixed economy is rule by pressure groups. It is an amoral, institutionalized civil war of special interests and lobbies, all fighting to seize a momentary control of the legislative machinery, to extort some special privilege at one another’s expense by an act of government–i.e.
In her essay “The Pull Peddlers” which is part of “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal,” Ayn Rand discusses the phenomena of lobbying. This is a very interesting essay and as applicable today as when it was written more than 50 years ago.
The first quote I want to share is her definition of lobbying:
“Lobbying” is the activity of attempting to influence legislation by privately influencing the legislators. It is the result and creation of a mixed economy–of