Como funciona a economia?

As Leis Secretas da Economia
(Gustavo H. B. Franco, Zahar, 216 páginas, 39,90 reais) O ex-presidente do Banco Central, Gustavo H. B. Franco, tenta desvendar as leis, ditas desconhecidas, que regem o sistema econômico brasileiro em As Leis Secretas da Economia - Revisitando Roberto Campos e as Leis do Kafka. Para falar sobre a implementação do Plano Real, das privatizações, política monetária, entre outros temas, o autor abusa do bom humor e faz menções a personalidades alheias do mundo das finanças. Ele cita, por exemplo, uma frase de Machado de Assis para explicar a doutrina política vigente no país. “Não se pode ir à Glória sem pagar o bonde”, a versão brasileira para a expressão em inglês “não há almoço grátis”, é  usada para explicitar a relação do mercado financeiro com o Poder Legislativo. Franco também cunha termos na publicação, como o Principio do Jus Sperniandi, sobre o comportamento de executivos em processo de falência.
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Propriedade intelectual - o debate continua

Contra a propriedade intelectual?

Conselheiro executivo do EPL debate propriedade intelectual em posição contrária ao consagrado libertário Stephan Kinsella

Por Thiago Beserra Gomes *

Stephan Kinsella é uma figura internacionalmente conhecida como inimigo da propriedade intelectual. O autor possui uma monografia com argumentos supostamente sólidos chamada Contra a Propriedade Intelectual. É um texto clássico, com um argumento que defende a visão de que PI, na realidade, não pode ser uma propriedade. Seguindo o raciocínio de Hans-Hermann Hoppe, de que a característica da propriedade é sua escassez, Kinsella argumenta que ideias não são escassas, logo, elas não podem ser propriedades. Para Hoppe, no Jardim do Éden, nós não necessitamos de propriedade, porque os bens são infinitos. O problema no raciocínio do Hoppe é que mesmo no Jardim do Éden teria que haver propriedade. Mesmo que os bens fossem infinitos, as pessoas ainda poderiam fazer uma avaliação subjetiva diferenciando os bens. Por exemplo, no Jardim do Éden, os livros seriam infinitos. Mas vamos supor que um pai tenha dado de presente um livro do Mises ao seu filho. Este último irá dar uma importância maior ao livro que ganhou do pai, mesmo os livros do Mises sendo infinitos no Jardim do Éden. Isso significa que as pessoas não poderão pegar o livro do filho que foi presenteado. Ou seja, isso implica em propriedade privada.

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Aprenda ver as coisas como um anarquista

Seeing Like an Anarchist

|Peter Boettke|
Chris Blattman in reflecting upon James Scott's latest book, Two Cheers for Anarchism, argues that viewing the puzzles of development through the eyes of an anarchist opens up the analyst to ideas that otherwise would be passed over. The anarchist thinker will see the wide scope for mutuality and cooperation, and also have a tolerance for the confusion associated with social learning. This provides an entirely different perspective to the field of development than the dominate way of thinking permits.
For those who have read Elinor Ostrom's work on common-pool resources, this scope for mutuality and cooperation, as well as the confusing process of social learning, will be evident in her studies of self-regulating systems of governance. The argument that Lin had to deal with early in her career in the context of the metropolitan reform debate that the consolidationists saw lots of governance, but little government is true of development economics as well. The consolidationists were wrong in that debate, and they are wrong when it comes to development economics in general.
As Blattman states: "Probably the biggest problem in international development is that it is not anarchist enough. The impulse of virtually every UN, World Bank, and NGO project or manager I’ve seen is to plan and order. But growing wealth and freedom is inherently messy, and the small NGOs and the bureaucrats that recognize this are the more successful (or, at least, the least disenchanted)."
This problem has been recognized by many researchers over the past decade or so. Ragu Rajan, when he was at the IMF, wrote an important note on the problem of assuming working western style institutions in addressing the problem of development. His paper, "Assume Anarchy?" was extremely important in getting economists to consider the problem of endogenous institutions in the process of development.
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Posição mundial da educação brasileira

O tamanho ótima de nações

The Size Of Nations

By Alberto Alesina and Enrico Spolaore

Overview

The authors of this timely and provocative book use the tools of economic analysis to examine the formation and change of political borders. They argue that while these issues have always been at the core of historical analysis, international economists have tended to regard the size of a country as "exogenous," or no more subject to explanation than the location of a mountain range or the course of a river. Alesina and Spolaore consider a country's borders to be subject to the same analysis as any other man-made institution. In The Size of Nations, they argue that the optimal size of a country is determined by a cost-benefit trade-off between the benefits of size and the costs of heterogeneity. In a large country, per capita costs may be low, but the heterogeneous preferences of a large population make it hard to deliver services and formulate policy. Smaller countries may find it easier to respond to citizen preferences in a democratic way.
Alesina and Spolaore substantiate their analysis with simple analytical models that show how the patterns of globalization, international conflict, and democratization of the last two hundred years can explain patterns of state formation. Their aim is not only "normative" but also "positive"—that is, not only to compute the optimal size of a state in theory but also to explain the phenomenon of country size in reality. They argue that the complexity of real world conditions does not preclude a systematic analysis, and that such an analysis, synthesizing economics, political science, and history, can help us understand real world events.

About the Authors

Alberto Alesina is Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economics at Harvard University. He is the coauthor (with Enrico Spolaore) of The Size of Nations (MIT Press, 2003).
Enrico Spolaore is is Professor of Economics at Tufts University.
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Epistemologia

Duas diferenças fundamentais entre as ciências naturais e as ciências sociais
por Jesús Huerta de Soto, quinta-feira, 29 de novembro de 2012

Quais são as diferenças essenciais, do ponto de vista metodológico, entre as ciências naturais e as ciências sociais?  A primeira e mais direta resposta pode soar estranha e difícil de acreditar, mas é mais perfeita definição da diferença entre ambas: as ciências naturais estudam fenômenos relativamente simples e fáceis.  Já as ciências da ação humana estudam fenômenos relativamente complexos.  Ou, ainda mais apropriado, fenômenos extremamente complexos.
Logo, em termos mais práticos, o que distingue um praticante das ciências naturais — como um químico, um físico, um biólogo, um médico — de um economista é o fato de que o químico, o físico, o biólogo e o médico estudam fenômenos simples e fáceis, em termos relativos, ao passo que estudiosos das ciências sociais lidam com fenômenos de extrema complexidade.
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Multiplicador fiscal

A lenda do multiplicador fiscal

Por Antony Mueller·29/11/2012·

O modelo do multiplicador fiscal diz que quando o governo gasta dinheiro emprestado (“deficit spending”) este incremento da dívida pública faz que o produto interno bruto (PIB) crescerá por mais que o aumento original dos gastos. Baseado na teoria que a atividade econômica esteja determinada pela demanda agregada, os proponentes do multiplicador fiscal reclamam que com gastos do governo podia-se estimular a economia. Se esta doutrina seja a verdade tínhamos nada menos que uma chave geral para criar prosperidade à vontade. Porém, a promessa do multiplicador fiscal é uma lenda.
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Novas distorções hollywoodianas

Oliver Stone’s Untold History:
A Twice-Told Tale

by Justin Raimondo, November 28, 2012

Print This | Share This

I wanted to like Oliver Stone’s new documentary, The Untold History of the United States, really I did. After all, here is the maker of films positing a conspiracy to assassinate John F. Kennedy and exposing the criminal history of the Vietnam war promising to unveil the suppressed truth about America’s role in the world. With the Usual Suspects attacking Stone before the first part of this Showtime series was ever released, I was eagerly looking forward to a scathing critique of the American empire’s long bloody rampage through the history of modern times.
I should have known better.
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O problema com os patentes

The Patent Problem

• By Steven Levy

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A grande fome chinesa

Educação no Brasil

O triunfo do cristianismo

The Triumph of Christianity

Filed under: Cultura,Livros,Política,Religião,Teoria — André Azevedo Alves @ 12:04
Tags: Rodney Stark, The Triumph of Christianity

The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World’s Largest Religion
Mais um oportuno e corajoso artigo de João César das Neves: A grande fraude.

No seu recente livro The Triumph of Christianity (HarperOne, 2011) o reputado sociólogo da religião Rodney Stark faz um resumo de 40 anos de carreira e de uma impressionante lista de trabalhos de outros autores. O tema explícito é o paradoxo a que dedicou grande parte da sua atenção: “como foi possível que uma obscura seita judia se tenha tornado na maior religião do mundo?” (p.1). Só que, apesar de cobrir esparsamente os dois mil anos de história, pode dizer-se que o verdadeiro assunto do volume é bem diferente: derrubar uma enorme quantidade de mitos, erros e manipulações que a historiografia dos últimos séculos acumulou sobre a Igreja.

(…)
A Idade Média europeia não foi uma “idade das trevas” de miséria e obscurantismo, mas uma época brilhante da história do mundo, pois a ausência de impérios eliminou a escravatura e monumentos grandiosos, e o génio humano pôde virar-se para descobertas pragmáticas, das esporas aos óculos e moinhos, passando pelo capitalismo (p.242-5). As cruzadas não foram uma bárbara agressão colonial cristã contra muçulmanos inocentes. Não só nasceram de séculos de tentativas islâmicas de colonizar o Ocidente, mas nelas os nobres arruinavam-se em busca da salvação eterna (cap.13). A religião não é inimiga da ciência, mas foi na Igreja que nasceu e grande parte dos maiores cientistas são e sempre foram devotos (cap.16). “A Inquisição Espanhola foi um corpo bastante moderado, responsável por poucas mortes e salvou muitas vidas por se opor à caça às bruxas que varreu o resto da Europa” (p.418). “A afirmação de que a religião vai em breve desaparecer à medida que o mundo se torna mais moderno é apenas ilusão optimista de académicos ateus” (idem). Estas afirmações, e muitas outras, são demonstradas com apelo a números, factos e investigações sérias e comprovadas.
O livro não é uma obra de apologética, e estão bem presentes as misérias da Igreja na história (cap.15, 17, 20, 21). O propósito é antes demolir mistificações acumuladas ao longo de décadas, que se tornaram avassaladoras na opinião pública. Aliás, mais que para a história do cristianismo, o valor do livro está no que revela da nossa história intelectual.

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Genética e inteligenência

Thomas Sowell: "... Years later, Professor James R. Flynn created the biggest challenge to the hereditary theory of intelligence, when he showed that whole nations had risen to much higher results on IQ tests in just one or two generations. Genes don't change that fast...."
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Lincoln - mentiras hollywoodianas

‘History Is Written by the Victors’ in War . . .
 Posted by Thomas DiLorenzo on November 28, 2012 12:15 AM
. . . and Spielberg's "Lincoln" portrays "the politically-correct, Northern view of Lincoln" while ignoring "the dark side of Lincoln" the "ambitious, secretive tyrant," says the family-oriented Movieguide Web site.  Movies "are never a good substitute for serious study of the actual historical record," Movieguide reminds us. And they are often designed to deceive, propagandize, and mis-educate.
Fonte

Roberto Campos (1917-2001)

O programa presta homenagem a um dos mais importantes personagens da História recente do Brasil, o economista, diplomata, ministro, deputado e ex-senador Roberto Campos. Ele morreu há exatos dez anos, vítima de infarte, dois anos após ter sido eleito a Academia Brasileira de Letras.
Assista

Café da tarde

Café da Tarde: Programação

O primeiro encontro do Café da Tarde será na quarta-feira da semana que vem. Abaixo segue a programação. O evento é gratuito e não é necessário se cadastrar antes. Basta aparecer e entrar no auditório da Livraria Cultura do Casa Park.

Local: Livraria Cultura do Casa Park – Brasília
Data: 05/12/2012 (quarta-feira)
Horário: 19:30 horas

19:30 horas – Registro de autoridades*
20:00 horas – Abertura (Dr. Adolfo Sachsida)
20:05 horas – Lançamento do Livro “Economia e Ideologia” (Dr. André Nunes)
20:10 horas – Palestra “A Evolução do Conceito de Igualdade na Constituição”
Palestrante: Dr. Fabricio J. Mendes Medeiros (Professor de Direito Constitucional)
20:40 horas – Abertura para perguntas
21:05 horas – Compromisso das autoridades (máximo de 5 minutos por deputado/senador)
21:30 horas – Encerramento

O Café da Tarde é um grupo de pressão política dedicado a defesa incondicional de três pontos:

 

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Webinar gratuito

Freedom Through Technology: Making an End-Run around the State

---

Tuesday, November 27, 2012 8:00 PM - 9:00 PM EST

- Show in my Time Zone

Webinar Registration

Tuesday, November 27th, 8PM-9PM Eastern/Standard Time

Where? On your Computer!

Speaker: Jeffrey Tucker

Topic: Freedom Through Technology: Making an End-Run around the State

If the government had known what would happen, would the Internet have been privatized in 1995? Maybe not. It has been a zone of freedom in a world of despotism, and it has been the font of a dazzling display of human creativity. Its contribution to economic prosperity and human freedom has been mighty. And it's not just about hardware and software. It's about those crucial market institutions of communication, learning, and creativity. The digital world has allowed humanity to loosen the chains just enough to give us a glimpse of the wonders of liberty itself.
Register

Divide et impera

O individuu e o tribu

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is hard business. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.": Rudyard Kipling (1865--1936)

O "decálogo" segundo Lênin 1913

O “DECÁLOGO”, escrito por LÊNIN, em 1913.

 Em 1913, Lênin escreveu o “Decálogo” que apresentava ações táticas para a tomada do Poder.

         a) Qualquer semelhança com os dias de hoje, não é mera coincidência.

         b) Tendo a História se encarregado de pôr fim à questão ideológica, a meditação dos ideais, então preconizada, poderá revelar assombrosas semelhanças nos dias de hoje, senão vejamos:

        1.. Corrompa a juventude e dê-lhe liberdade sexual;

        2.. Infiltre e, depois, controle todos os veículos de comunicação de massa;

        3.. Divida a população em grupos antagônicos, incitando-os a discussões sobre assuntos sociais;

        4.. Destrua a confiança do povo em seus líderes;

        5.. Fale sempre sobre Democracia e em Estado de Direito, mas, tão logo haja oportunidade, assuma o Poder sem nenhum escrúpulo;

        6.. Colabore para o esbanjamento do dinheiro público; coloque em descrédito a imagem do País, especialmente no exterior e provoque o pânico e o desassossego na população por meio da inflação;

        7.. Promova greves, mesmo ilegais, nas indústrias vitais do País;

        8.. Promova distúrbios e contribua para que as autoridades constituídas não as coíbam;

        9.. Contribua para a derrocada dos valores morais, da honestidade e da crença nas promessas dos governantes. Nossos parlamentares infiltrados nos partidos democráticos devem acusar os não-comunistas, obrigando-os, sem pena de expô-los ao ridículo, a votar somente no que for de interesse da causa socialista;

        10.. Procure catalogar todos aqueles que possuam armas de fogo, para que elas sejam confiscadas no momento oportuno, tornando impossível qualquer resistência à causa…

==

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Ele está falando sobre o Brasil?

História

"A história só ensina àqueles que sabem como interpretá-la com base em teorias corretas" - Ludwig von Mises

Onde estudar "economia austríaca" (Austrian economics)?

Where to study Austrian Economics

From Mises Wiki

Jump to: navigation, search

The Austrian School of Economics is becoming more and more popular all over the world. This page lists schools and institutions where those interested can get (higher) education in this tradition. Please note that not all of these places can offer a program fully devoted to Austrian Economics, some have only sympathetic faculty members or are free-market-oriented. Programs that officially feature Austrian Economics are marked with an (AE).
There is no guarantee this data is up-to-date or complete - research before joining any of these! (Also, please note that some programs may feature unexpected amount of mathematics - check the requirements beforehand.)

University / Institution	Location	Programs	Contacts/Notes
North America
University of Missouri	Columbia, Missouri	PhD	Peter Klein
George Mason University	Fairfax, Virginia	courses (AE)	Peter Boettke
New York University	New York, New York	courses and fellowships (AE)	Mario Rizzo
University of Chicago	Chicago, Illinois	PhD
Clemson University	Clemson, South Carolina		Bob Tollison, Bruce Yandle, Daniel Benjamin, Bob McCormick
The University of Connecticut	Connecticut		Steve Cunningham, Francis Ahking, Dick Langlois
Florida State University	Tallahassee, Florida		Bruce Benson, Randy Holcombe James Gwartney
University of Georgia	Athens, Georgia		Dwight Lee, George Selgin
University of Guelph	Guelph, Ontario, Canada	PhD	Glenn C. Fox
Suffolk University	Boston, Massachusetts	see syllabus
Harvard University	Cambridge, Massachusetts
University of Mississippi	Oxford, Mississippi		William Shughart, Robert Tollison
North Carolina State	Raleigh, North Carolina	PhD	Roy Cordato
University of Oklahoma	Norman, Oklahoma	PhD, graduate class	Dan Sutter, Graduate Director
University of Rochester	Rochester, New York
Washington University, St. Louis	St. Louis, Missouri	undergraduate courses	Art Carden
Charles Koch Institute	Arlington, Virginia	paid internships and educational opportunities	Stephen Sweet
Wofford College	Spartanburg, South Carolina	liberal arts undergraduate education	Timothy Terrell
Institute for Humane Studies	Arlington, Virginia	fellowships	Adam Martin (see also this)
Europe
Rey Juan Carlos University (Spanish/English)	Madrid, Spain	classes, PhD (AE)	Huerta de Soto
Université Paul Cézanne Aix-Marseille III	Aix-en-Provence, France	PhD (AE)	Elisabeth Krecké
Université d'Angers	Angers, France	PhD (AE)	Jörg Guido Hülsmann
Cevro Institute	Prague, Czech Republic	classes (AE)	Josef Šíma, Ph.D.
University of Economics, Prague	Prague, Czech Republic	(AE)	Josef Šíma, Ph.D.
Swiss Management Center	Zug, Switzerland
Department of International Business and Economics (Academy of Economic Studies Bucharest) (Romanian)	Bucharest, Romania	classes (AE)	Radu Musetescu, Mihai Vladimir Topan, Cristian Paun, Octavian Jora, Andreas Stamate
Department of Economics (Academy of Economic Studies Bucharest) (Romanian)	Bucharest, Romania	classes (AE)	Cosmin Marinescu, Marius-Cristian Pana and Gabriel Staicu
University of Liechtenstein	Vaduz, Liechtenstein	classes (AE)	Rahim Taghizadegan
Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (German)	Vienna, Austria	classes (AE)	Rahim Taghizadegan
Institut für Wertewirtschaft	Vienna, Austrian	courses (AE)	contact
Central and South America
Universidad Francisco Marroquín (Spanish)	Guatemala City, Guatemala	Master and PhD (AE)	Wenceslao Giménez-Bonet (dean, School of Economic Sciences at UFM)
ESEADE (Spanish)	Buenos Aires, Argentina	PhD (AE)	Martin Krause
Australia and Oceania
University of Canterbury	Christchurch, New Zealand	Master and PhD	Eric Crampton

[edit] Online education

• Liberty Classroom (AE), online courses headed by Thomas Woods
• PhD program (AE) at the Swiss Management Center (also in Spanish)
• Mises Academy (AE) at the Mises Institute

[edit] Links

• Top Schools to Study Austrian Economics by Peter Boettke
• Where Are the Best Schools in Austrian Economics? by Mark Skousen, July 2001
• Advice to Undergraduates by Peter Boettke, April 2011
• Graduate Schools (pdf) by Walter Block
• Professional Strategies and New Directions for Austrians (audio) by Peter G. Klein, July 2010
• Future Directions of Austrian Economics (audio) by Peter Bettke, August 2011
• The Syllabus Project of the Mises Institute
• Symposium on Teaching Austrian Economics (pdf), 2011

See also: Mises University

See also: MisesWiki:Meetups

See also: Mises global

Vídeo palestra sobre a histórica dos século XX

O horror sem sentido na perspectiva de Stefan Molyneux
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6Auax5rpJPI

Além de "esquerda" e "direita"

Nem esquerda, nem direita

por Leonard Read,

 "... A maioria das pessoas sempre parece estar à procura de termos simplistas e simplificadores, de generalizações cômodas e convenientes, pois ajudam em seus discursos e definições. Estes termos servem para substituir definições longas e tediosamente complexas. No entanto, é essencial ter cuidado ao escolher estes termos, pois é comum que tais simplificações gerem truques semânticos e produzam um desserviço para aqueles que as utilizam. Receio ser esse o caso dos termos "esquerda" e "direita" quando utilizados por libertários que, como espero demonstrar, não estão nem à esquerda e nem à direita no que concerne ao espectro ideológico aceitável de nossa era...."
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Educação 3.0

Leia mais

Apple 1

Sociopatologia

10 signs for spotting a sociopath

#1) Sociopaths are charming. Sociopaths have high charisma and tend to attract a following just because people want to be around them. They have a "glow" about them that attracts people who typically seek guidance or direction. They often appear to be sexy or have a strong sexual attraction. Not all sexy people are sociopaths, obviously, but watch out for over-the-top sexual appetites and weird fetishes. #2) Sociopaths are more spontaneous and intense than other people. They tend to do bizarre, sometimes erratic things that most regular people wouldn't do. They are unbound by normal social contracts. Their behavior often seems irrational or extremely risky.
#3) Sociopaths are incapable of feeling shame, guilt or remorse. Their brains simply lack the circuitry to process such emotions. This allows them to betray people, threaten people or harm people without giving it a second thought. They pursue any action that serves their own self interest even if it seriously harms others.
#4) Sociopaths invent outrageous lies about their experiences. They wildly exaggerate things to the point of absurdity, but when they describe it to you in a storytelling format, for some reason it sounds believable at the time.
#5) Sociopaths seek to dominate others and "win" at all costs. They hate to lose any argument or fight and will viciously defend their web of lies, even to the point of logical absurdity.
#6) Sociopaths tend to be highly intelligent, but they use their brainpower to deceive others rather than empower them. Their high IQs often makes them dangerous. This is why many of the best-known serial killers who successfully evaded law enforcement were sociopaths.
#7) Sociopaths are incapable of love and are entirely self-serving. They may feign love or compassion in order to get what they want, but they don't actually FEEL love in the way that you or I do.
#8) Sociopaths speak poetically. They are master wordsmiths, able to deliver a running "stream of consciousness" monologue that is both intriguing and hypnotic. They are expert storytellers and even poets. 
#9) Sociopaths never apologize. They are never wrong. They never feel guilt. They can never apologize. Even if shown proof that they were wrong, they will refuse to apologize and instead go on the attack.
#10) Sociopaths are delusional and literally believe that what they say becomes truth merely because they say it! Charles Manson, the sociopathic murderer, is famous for saying, "I've never killed anyone! I don't need to kill anyone! I THINK it! I have it HERE! (Pointing to his temple.) I don't need to live in this physical realm..."
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Fim da educaçao como sabemos

 Can schools survive in the age of the web?

Tom Chatfield

'.. This November, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation invested a million dollars in edX, the world’s largest online learning initiative. Founded by Harvard and MIT, edX boasts a growing number of “massively open online courses” (MOOCs) aimed at bringing virtual versions of world-class higher education to hundreds of thousands of participants. By 2013, it will offer a selection of entirely free online classes from Harvard, MIT, Berkeley and the University of Texas.
A not-for-profit platform, edX is billed as “the future of online education: for anyone, anywhere, anytime”. The future, though, is already starting to look crowded. One notable rival is Udacity, another free provider of digital higher education whose existence was inspired by the enrolment of 160,000 students in its founders’ online Introduction to Higher Education Course at Stanford. Or you could plump for Coursera, which was launched shortly after Udacity and today boasts close to two million enrolments on courses from 33 leading universities. Other exemplars such as the Khan Academy, meanwhile, have delivered online instruction to tens of millions of willing autodidacts; not to mention the billion views recently chalked up by TED talks.
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Persistência

"Nada no mundo consegue tomar o lugar da persistência. O talento não consegue; nada é mais comum que homens fracassados com talento. A genialidade não consegue; gênios não recompensados é quase um provérbio. A educação não consegue; o mundo é cheio de errantes educados. A persistência e determinação sozinhas são onipotentes." (Calvin Coolidge)

Os erros de Solow

De "Marginal Revolution"

Robert Solow on Hayek and Friedman and MPS

by Tyler Cowen on November 24, 2012 at 11:22 am in Uncategorized | Permalink

The TNR essay is here, prompted by the publication of Angus Burgin’s The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free Markets Since the Great Depression. Excerpt:

The MPS was no more influential inside the economics profession. There were no publications to be discussed. The American membership was apparently limited to economists of the Chicago School and its scattered university outposts, plus a few transplanted Europeans. “Some of my best friends” belonged. There was, of course, continuing research and debate among economists on the good and bad properties of competitive and noncompetitive markets, and the capacities and limitations of corrective regulation. But these would have gone on in the same way had the MPS not existed. It has to be remembered that academic economists were never optimistic about central planning. Even discussion about the economics of some conceivable socialism usually took the form of devising institutions and rules of behavior that would make a socialist economy function like a competitive market economy (perhaps more like one than any real-world market economy does). Maybe the main function of the MPS was to maintain the morale of the free-market fellowship.

Solow neglects to mention that Milton Friedman turned out to be right on most of the issues he discussed (though targeting money doesn’t work), that MPS economists shaped at least two decades of major and indeed beneficial economic reforms across the world, or that some number of the economists at MIT envied the growth performance of the Soviet Union and that such remarks were found in the most popular economics textbook in the profession. You can consider this essay a highly selective, error-laden, and disappointing account of a topic which could in fact use more serious scrutiny.
By the way, if you read Solow’s own 1962 review of Maurice Dobb on economic planning (JSTOR gate), it shows very little understanding of Hayek’s central points on these topics, which by then were decades old. Arguably it shows “negative understanding” of Hayek.
Or to see how important Friedman’s work on money and also expectations was, try comparing it with…um…the Solow and Samuelson 1960 piece on the Phillips Curve (JSTOR), which Friedman pretty much refuted point by point. Here is the closing two sentences of that piece:

We have not here entered upon the important question of what feasible institutional reforms might be introduced to lessen the degree of disharmony between full employment and price stability.These could of course involve such wide-ranging issues as direct price and wage controls, antiunion and antitrust legislation, and a host of other measures hopefully designed to move the American Phillips’ curves downward and to the left.

And Solow wonders why the Mont Pelerin Society and monetarism were needed. Solow should have started his piece with a sentence like “Milton Friedman was not right about everything, but most of his criticisms of my earlier views have been upheld by subsequent economic theory and practice….”
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Biblioteca dos clássicos online

The Harvard Classics: A Free, Digital Collection

in Harvard, History, Literature, Philosophy | July 5th, 2011 8 Comments

During his days as Harvard’s influential president, Charles W. Eliot made a frequent assertion: If you were to spend just 15 minutes a day reading the right books, a quantity that could fit on a five foot shelf, you could give yourself a proper liberal education. The publisher P. F. Collier and Son loved the idea and asked Eliot to assemble the right collection of works. The result was a 51-volume series published in 1909 called Dr. Eliot’s Five Foot Shelf. Later it would simply be called The Harvard Classics.
You can still buy an old set off of eBay for $399. But, just as easily, you can head to the Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg, which have centralized links to every text included in The Harvard Classics (Wealth of Nations, Origin of Species, Plutarch’s Lives, the list goes on). Please note that the previous two links won’t give you access to the actual annotated Harvard Classics texts edited by Eliot himself. But if you want just that, you can always click here and get digital scans of the true Harvard Classics. Please note that the first two volumes appear at the bottom of the page. And, in case you want to deepen your liberal education yet further, don’t forget to check out our collection Free Online Courses — 425 in total, all from top universities. Also spend some time with our Free eBooks and Free Audio Books collections.
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Nassim Taleb sobre previsões e riscos

Nassim Nicholas Taleb - The Predictability of Unpredictability 
Renowned academic and author Nassim Nicholas Taleb discusses his groundbreaking ideas and their relevance to the current economic crisis, national policy making and other topics with Rohan Silva, senior policy advisor to the Prime Minister.
Assista

Concurso UFAL

Saiu ontem Edital para 2 vagas de professor efetivo da Universidade Federal de Alagoas - Campus A. C. Simões (Maceió).

1 VAGA PARA CIÊNCIA POLÍTICA

1 VAGA PARA SOCIOLOGIA

INSCRIÇÕES: 22 de novembro a 17 de dezembro.

ATENÇÃO: a inscrição para este concurso tem 2 chamadas, ou seja, a princípio, as vagas são para professor adjunto (doutor), mas caso não haja inscritos, o Edital está automaticamente aberto para inscrição de mestres.

Os mestres interessados, devem estar atentos à homologação ou não de doutores inscritos.

MAIORES INFORMAÇÕES CONFERIR SITE: http://www.copeve.ufal.br/index.php?opcao=concurso&idConcurso=153

O Edital segue no anexo!

Atenciosamente

Emerson Oliveira do Nascimento

Vice-Diretor do Instituto de Ciências Sociais - UFAL 

A causa do declínio de Atenas

Como o estado destruiou o matrimônio

The Church Lost the Marriage Debate Decades Ago: It's Time To Get Out of the Game

Posted by Ryan W. McMaken on November 23, 2012 02:48 PM

George Weigel, who is almost always wrong on foreign policy matters, and who was one of the despicable Catholic neocons who lectured John Paul II for being against the Iraq War, is nevertheless right when he suggests in a recent column that the Church remove itself from the "civil marriage business." As I've explained in detail here and here, all Christians should recoil from the thought of allowing a civil government to define what is and what is not a "marriage." As I've noted to some fellow Christians recently, I hope the government starts "marrying" people to dogs and dogs to walruses and men to 9 women and women to 15 men. It will all just illustrate how utterly ridiculous is the whole concept of government marriage. Weigel recognizes that the Church should sever itself from the nonsense ASAP:

If the Church were to take this dramatic step [refusing to act as agents of state marriage] now, it would be acting prophetically: it would be challenging the state (and the culture) by underscoring that what the state means by “marriage” and what Catholics mean by “marriage” are radically different, and that what the state means by “marriage” is wrong.

Civil law shouldn't even touch upon the idea of marriage at all, and simply allow people to engage in contracts with each other (or not do so) all they like. Marriage laws do little more than simply discriminate against single people anyway by doling out certain legal privileges to spouses that are denied to unmarried people.
Another reason to give up on the civil marriage game is to recognize that the Church actually threw in the towel on this decades ago when it made peace with no-fault divorce. According to Catholic theology, unless the marriage started out as unlawful (i.e., is incestuous or invalid for another reason) marriage does not end until one of the parties dies. Case closed. No exceptions. It says this in numerous places in the New Testament. Yet, the American bishops recognize the state's alleged prerogative to define a "marriage" as a union between divorced people. This violates what the Church has always taught. So, why is a fake and adulterous marriage (as defined by Catholic theology) acceptable as long as it's between a man and a woman? Yet, a fake and adulterous marriage is not acceptable if between a man and a man? Apparently, the state can recognize that a man who has been divorced 5 times is "married" if the state says so. And the bishops have no problem with this.
None of these situations is morally acceptable for Catholics of course, but the American bishops abandoned their consistency on this in the 60s when no-fault divorce was accepted because the bishops were either too eager to compromise or too asleep at the switch to take a stand back then. So, you'll forgive the public for not noticing when the American bishops recently decided that "oh, this time, we're going to stick to our guns."
It's time to cut the cord. Let's swallow our pride and say that we've been wrong about marriage ever since that day centuries ago when we started allowing civil authorities to decide who was married and who was not. It's time to say that all civil law about marriage is null and void, and that we don't care what the government has to say about it. Divorced people aren't "married" any more than gay people are. If other private individuals wish to define matters differently, they can have marriages in their own churches or living rooms or where ever, and the state should be removed from it just as the state should be removed from the activities all consenting adults.
Some Catholic theorists will never give up on this quest to grant the state free license to meddle in Catholic sacraments, however. Br. Thomas More Garrett opposes Weigel's position as "irresponsible and claims the following:

In effect, the Church would become responsible for introducing in this country a practice mirroring that found in certain others—compulsory civil marriage—in which couples contract marriage in a purely civil ceremony and, if they so choose, separately solemnize the marriage in a religious rite.

In this, Garrett is simply wrong. Certain groups of Orthodox Jews, for example, have long held their marriage rites to be separate from state marriage, and conduct themselves accordingly. Do the Amish seek official government approval of their marriages? It's possible, but I doubt it. Thus, Garrett is wrong, and his claim that this is an important reason to keep marriage a simultaneously civil and religiously matter fails. Indeed, the very opposite is the case: the true nature of marriage must be made clear by separating it from a civil law which recognizes remarriage of divorced people and a generally faulty view of marriage as some kind of contract.
Will these Catholics ever figure out that the state is not their friend, or will they be impervious to facts until that day finally comes when priests are arrested en masse for "hate crimes?" Time will tell.

Skyfall - assista com cuidado

Skyfall

Posted by Peter Klein on November 24, 2012 12:51 AM

Watched Skyfall tonight. A well-made and entertaining film. Old fogies like me will appreciate the retro Bond touches. But it's hard to be a libertarian and fully enjoy these sorts of movies, especially in today's political climate. The surveillance / national security state is glorified every day in the mainstream press; do we need it from Hollywood as well? Of course, in the film, Bond's MI6 uses its cameras and supercomputers and technical genius to spy on bad guys, unlike the real MI5, MI6, FBI, NSA, and CIA which use this stuff to spy on you and me. (I much prefer the way the CIA is portrayed in the Bourne films, as a lawless predator using shadowy "assets" to carry out its extrajudicial executions.)
The film opens with an exciting car, motorcycle, and train chase set in and around Istanbul. But I couldn't help noticing the wanton destruction of person and property carried about by Bond and his agent-partner, smashing cars, shops, and market stalls belonging to innocent bystanders, even using a piece of construction equipment to crush cars and rip a train car in half, all to recover a stolen computer hard drive containing the identities of NATO spies. Hey, what's the life and property of a few random Turks compared to protecting Western spooks?
And, as is usual in Hollywood portrayals, MI6 is coordinating this melee from its headquarters in London, with nary a Turkish official in sight. (We see this too in the Bourne films, where the CIA can apparently control all the CCTV cameras in London with a few mouse clicks.) Perhaps the most egregious example I can remember appears in Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer, where US special forces are seen operating at will in Germany, using tanks and helicopters and futuristic weaponry to capture the titular bad guy in a Bavarian forest before taking him to their secret, onsite base. You'd think that some German military or civilian officials would be at the scene, granting permission for Americans to blow stuff up on German soil, but I suppose this would have gone over the heads of the American audience.

Como governos transformarom a escola num lugar de horror, estresse e frustração

The Parenting Trap

Forget all the advice. Forget the special tutors, camps, coaches, and therapists. A father of four argues that the biggest problem kids face is the byzantine education-industrial complex known as school, which ruins the most carefree and memorable years of their lives.

By A. A. Gill

"... In the 100 years since we really got serious about education as a universally good idea, we’ve managed to take the 15 years of children’s lives that should be the most carefree, inquisitive, and memorable and fill them with a motley collection of stress and a neurotic fear of failure. Education is a dress-up box of good intentions, swivel-eyed utopianism, cruel competition, guilt, snobbery, wish fulfillment, special pleading, government intervention, bu­reauc­racy, and social engineering. And no one is smart enough now to understand how we can stop it. Parents have no ra­tion­al defense against the byzantine demands of the education-industrial complex. But this multi-national business says that they’re acting in the children’s best interests. And we can only react emotionally to the next Big Idea or the Cure or the Shortcut to Happiness.
No, scrap happiness—we’ll settle for success. We gave up on happiness at about the age of six. Childhood is a war of attrition, like some grisly TV game show where the weak and the kind and the quixotic and the dreamers and the gentle get dumped at the end of each year. Only the gimlet-eyed and the obsessively competitive and the driven make it to the finish line..."
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Resultado do "experimento Milgram"