In Defense of Herbert Spencer

by Mario Rizzo

This my letter as it appears in today’s Financial Times (July 10, 2013):

Sir, John Kay (“Darwin’s  humbling lesson for business”, July 3) makes good points about evolutionary  theory and the social sciences. But he is wrong about Herbert Spencer, the noted  English philosopher and evolutionist. Spencer was not a Darwinist of any kind  nor an advocate of eugenics. He had his own theory of evolution that predates  Charles Darwin’s publication of Origin of Species by a few years.  Spencer was broadly speaking a Lamarckian.

In other words, he believed in the heritability of acquired characteristics.  He further believed that a free market would produce a discipline on individual  actions that would, at once, make them more efficient and more moral. Since  these traits could be passed on to future generations, there was no need for  eugenics.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dfd7b330-e33d-11e2-bd87-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz2Ye9CZ9PH

Interests are More Powerful than Ideas?

THE BIG STORY OF SPENDING

by Mario Rizzo

There is an interesting interview with Ed Feulner, the outgoing president of the Heritage Foundation, in the weekend (Dec. 8-9) Wall Street Journal. The interview got me thinking about the progress made in the pro-economic-liberty cause, not only over the years of Heritage, but since, say, 1960.

Welcoming the Bankruptcy of the Welfare State

by Mario Rizzo   

There are at least two kinds of opponents of the welfare state. There are those who think it has gone too far because, for example, it is very expensive, counterproductive, reduces incentives for economic initiative, depresses general economic growth, and may cause an unsustainable debt burden. You can count many economists in this group.  

Then there are those who believe that these consequences will follow but also believe that the welfare state is a profoundly immoral institution. It is true that these economic consequences are one of the things that make the welfare state immoral. But that is not all that makes it immoral.  

The root of the problem is the welfare state’s bogus liberality.