Thursday, January 28, 2021

Thoughts for the Day: Thursday 28 January 2021

 


Madison pleaded that it was “indispensable that some provision should be made for defending the Community [against] the incapacity, negligence or perfidy of the chief Magistrate. The limitation of the period of his service, was not a sufficient safeguard.” (There’s a lot there: incapacity, negligence, or perfidy.) He feared that the president “might lose his capacity after his appointment.” Madison was especially concerned that the president “might pervert his administration into a scheme of peculation or oppression. He might betray his trust to foreign powers.” And if the president were either corrupt or incapacitated, the situation might be “fatal to the republic” unless impeachment were available.

For Keynes, the soft underbelly of the classical theory was Say’s Law, which he summarized as the maxim that “supply creates its own demand.” Postulated by Jean-Baptiste Say, a French contemporary of Adam Smith, it linked together three problems Keynes saw in the classical story: the outdated focus on scarcity, the notion that markets self-correct, and the idea that involuntary unemployment is impossible.
Cf. The quoted reference to von Mises in yesterday's post.

“Imagine only that these occurrences would become known to the other side and exploited by them. Most likely such propaganda would have no effect only because people who hear and read about it simply would not be ready to believe it.”

[Colin] Wilson argues that Pamela and the other novels that emerged in its wake were like a new kind of drug, but one without the horrific side effects of gin. The story kept readers interested—like all good novelists, Richardson instilled that itch to “see what happens.” But aside from the mild titillation of sex, what really attracted Richardson's readers was the sense of having stepped out of the confines of their lives.

Conservatives took society to be harmonious. They respected power and accepted customary authority. They did not believe in progress or in equality. Respect in their eyes was due not to everyone regardless but to merit and excellence.

Collingwood argues that most theories of knowledge – knowledge as acquisition, description or correspondence – make history impossible because they neglect the work of the imagination in the way the world comes to be known.






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