Ayn Rand produced strident, if often pedantic works on individual freedom and rights, the pursuit of happiness, and the moral superiority of laissez-faire capitalism as a social system. She proposed a moral system based on rational self interest and developed her own philosophy of Objectivism, which she communicated through her novels, most famously The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Her ideas remain popular today with libertarians and the Tea Party movement. In popular culture, Betram Cooper of Mad Men advises the lead character, Dan
Draper, to read Atlas Shrugged. Most commentary on Rand’s work has focused on the social sphere, but one author recently described her own experiences with Ayn Rand’s philosophy as applied to the more fundamental institution of the family. This is an interesting test of morality, by exploring its application across social spheres and relationships. Assuming that Rand considered the principles of Objectivism to be universal rather than particular then, arguably, such a moral system should not be conditional. Of course, every moral system allows for violations – take for example the concept of ‘just war’. But these violations represent rare and unusual circumstances. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Starship Troopers is a Hugo Award winning science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein. The book was published in 1959, but the
story is set in the future, when earth is united under one government and fighting for survival against an alien species. Everyone in this fictional society has some rights, but only citizens can fully participate in the government. That’s the catch. The right to vote, full citizenship, can only be earned by two years of public service. Public service can take many forms, but the novel devotes almost all its attention to the military. Against this backdrop, Starship Troopers follows the martial career of Juan “Johnnie” Rico, as he moves from being a high school student in the Philippines to a Mobile Infantry officer in outer space. The novel deals favorably with military themes, such as patriotism, loyalty, responsibly to the collective, and the legitimate basis of authority.
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Gallup recently published results of polls in nations across the globe on perceptions of government corruption. Of 129 countries, corruption is considered a problem in 108. In the United States, 73% of respondents saw corruption as a problem, a score that puts the US squarely in between Armenia, Botswana, Croatia, and India with 74% and Tunisia at 72%. The two other North American Countries, Canada and Mexico, come in at 46% and 63%, respectively. In the Eurozone, perceptions of government corruption as a problem run from 88% in Portugal and 77% in Cyprus to 44% in the UK, 30% in Finland, and 15% in Denmark.
Overall Gallup concludes that although it appears that little headway has been made on corruption over the last few years, some of the results may be due to transparency initiatives that have made corruption more apparent.
The report, with further data and links, can be read here.
In the mid-1990s, I attended a talk by Professor Tom Tyler. Among justice researchers, Dr. Tyler is something of a legend, having done much of the seminal work on procedural fairness. He’s also an engaging speaker, and this talk was no exception. On this particular day, Professor Tyler was discussing one of his recent studies. His results showed strong procedural justice effects in actual legal cases, even when the outcomes were important. Near the end of the talk, Dr. Tyler summarized the importance of his study by observing that skeptics tended to question the efficacy of procedural justice in the “real world” when the stakes were high. His findings, of course, spoke directly to this concern. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
In a release timed no doubt to coincide with Russell Cropanzano’s blog entry ‘Why Does Unethical Leadership Exist’, the Institute for Policy Studies issued a report in which they find that nearly 40% of highest paid US CEOs of the last 20 years were bailed out or went bankrupt (22%), fired (8%) or charged with fraud (8%). The average golden parachute? $48 million USD. You can download their full report from the IPS site here (clicking link will download the pdf from the IPS site). The article in the IPS site also has an excel with the compensation data for the 25 highest paid CEOS over the last 20 years (downloads an excel file from the IPS site), and Executive Excess Reports from earlier years. Or you can just watch the youtube video below (with apologies to our readers in China readers – no youku video!).
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