With this issue we present the new, improved IC, itself to be improved in future numbers. The reduced number of pages contains rather more than the former amount of material. The (A-)SPGB have been squeezed out of this issue, but it is an omission we shall try hard not to repeat: “My fires are banked,… read more »
The following ideas represent our own current views on anarcho-capitalism. Other anarcho-capitalist libertarians would disagree with some of what follows, and minimal-statist libertarians would disagree with much more. Anyone interested in finding out more can write to the Libertarian Alliance at [address]. Anarcho-capitalism (or market-anarchism) is the view is that a self-regulating market is possible… read more »
IC seeks to encourage responsible discussion. It does not make statements it knows to be false, misleading or inaccurate, and it does its best to avoid printing such statements by other people, even (perhaps especially) when they are about things said in IC. If you are sending a letter intended for publication, please be careful… read more »
‘The individual is the only real thing in nature and in life. Neither the species, the genus nor the race actually exists; they are abstractions, terminologies, scientific devices, useful as syntheses but not entirely exact.’ (Quoted, with approval, from Pio Baroja, in issue No. 10 of THE EGOIST, published irregularly by S. E. Parker, [address],… read more »
I read with interest the exchange with George Hay in IC32. Perhaps I may offer a third position? (i) As I understand the relationship between specific ideation and ideological category, general public disinterest in the overall theory need not have much to do with whether or not a specific idea or term propagates through society –… read more »
We are constantly being told that society as a whole progresses towards ever higher levels of rationality, but some of the revelations occuring in the wake of the American TV-religion scandals go to support a different view. One of the movements involved is ‘PTL’ – variously interpreted as ‘Praise the Lord’ or ‘Pass the Loot’… read more »
I am basing these remarks on your “Charity Perpetuates Poverty” essay on page 6 of IC32, about kindness that prolongs suffering, food shipments that prolong starvation by perpetuating an evil establishment, where you comment: There is nothing wrong in making gifts that leave us feeling happier, provided the recipient also benefits, but if there is… read more »
Thomas S. Kuhn’s book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (2nd Edition, University of Chicago Press, 1975) does a lot to destroy the image of scientists as coldly rational creatures free of prejudice. Before an experimental result can carry any meaning it has to be set against a picture of the world (or that part of… read more »
IC26 carried an abridged version of a talk, delivered to the South Place Ethical Society, entitled THE LOGIC OF RELIGION. It set out to show that religion is not, as many humanists maintain, a wholly irrational activity. Classification is the beginning of reasoning and Durkheim has shown, in Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, that… read more »
Simon Jenkins writes in the Sunday Times (13 Dec 87) of the efforts to save the famine-stricken people of Ethiopia by charity. In 1984 £85m was given, and this winter Bob Geldof and the BBC are putting Ethiopia forward again. Jenkins asks whether the effort already made has helped the starving Ethiopians; doubtless it saved… read more »