José Azel 165 posts 0 comments

Philosopher Karl Popper (1902-1994), castigated obfuscating writers as those "who have nothing to say, and say it very badly." Popper, a forceful defender of liberal democracy, was particularly critical of highbrows…
Read More...

When I studied international economics in the 1960s, one of the explanations offered for the wealth of a nation was its endowment of natural resources. Then, countries were perceived to be rich or poor based on their natural…
Read More...

The Corruption Perceptions Index, published yearly by Transparency International, measures the perceived levels of public sector corruption in 180 countries. The 2018 report shows that, the vast majority of countries assessed…
Read More...

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), who devised the essay as a literary genre, was one of the most erudite and sceptic humanist philosophers of the XVI century. He personified the French Renaissance’s spirit of freely embracing doubts.…
Read More...

In a now classic experiment, political scientist Philip E. Tetlock showed that the predictions made by political experts are only slightly better than a random guess, and worse than the predictions made by a statistical model. The…
Read More...

Social justice looks at how a society chooses to distribute the things that we value, among them income, wealth, powers, and more. Social justice asks: What is the right thing to do? Nearly 2,500 years ago, Plato got…
Read More...

Waging war is a very serious matter. Commendably, U. S. Presidents and Congress are very reluctant to authorize the use of the Armed Forces of the United States. And yet, the U.S. has enemies, and often the national interest requires the…
Read More...

As individuals, we know little about the world and its people. Yet, we hold strong opinions about what should be done to solve most problems. We "know" what should be done in Iraq, without being able to locate Iraq on a map. Also, many…
Read More...

Cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker has coined the term “Left Pole” to describe a mythical place where the political Left resides intellectually. Whereas, from the North Pole all directions are south, from the Left Pole, all opinion that…
Read More...

Liberal democracy is a political system distinguished not only by free and fair elections, but also by the rule of law, separation of powers, and the safeguard of our fundamental liberties of speech, assembly, religion, and property.…
Read More...

Do we have a right to think whatever we want, or do we have an intellectual duty to follow the evidence? Philosophers have long struggled with this question, particularly in dealing with the existence of God. In American jurisprudence the…
Read More...

What the French then wanted was the stability that Napoleon offered. France would not know republican government for another 72 years. This vote for a “strongman” took place after only ten years of the French Revolution. As of this writing,…
Read More...