Adam Smith

Latest Posts in Adam Smith

Shareholder Capitalism vs. Stakeholder Capitalism

Peter Corning

September 18, 2019

Shareholder Capitalism vs. Stakeholder Capitalism: two radically different models of capitalism are locked in an historic debate over the future course – and the soul – of liberal societies. We all have a stake in the outcome.

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World Views

Donald Trump and the Law of Unintended Consequences

Peter Corning

March 11, 2019

Donald Trump and the Law of Unintended Consequences --This president provides a notable example of what seems to be a law of nature.

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World Views

Capitalism and Democracy: Can This Marriage Be Saved?

Peter Corning

January 04, 2019

Capitalism and Democracy: Can This Marriage Be Saved? It’s an odd-couple, with deeply conflicting social values. Though they have been living together for many centuries, the strains are increasing; their relationship may now be in jeopardy.

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World Views

Capitalism and the Collective Survival Enterprise

Peter Corning

June 30, 2018

In his famous book, The Great Transformation(1944), the political economist/ anthropologist/sociologist Karl Polanyi produced a classic critique of the classic liberal (conservative) ideal of free market capitalism that still resonates today.

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World Views

The “Right to Life”: It’s Much More Than You Think

Peter Corning

February 08, 2018

The “right to life” is a venerable moral and legal principle that is regularly invoked in debates about abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia, and more. The philosopher John Locke in his Two Treatises of Government (1690) was the first “modern” theorist to assert the idea of self-evident human rights, including “life, liberty and estate” [i.e., property], while the first public/political assertion of a right to life was in the American Declaration of Independence (1776).