Economics – From Smith to Keynes

History of Economics Adam Smith Adam Smith (1723-1790) was a Scottish moral philosopher and economist. An empiricist, and one of the key figures of the Scottish enlightenment; Smith is often cited as the ‘father of modern economics’. Smith’s great work, The Wealth of Nations, uses examples of real people (case studies) and thinks he has…

Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism George Orwell George Orwell (1903-1950), whose real name was Eric Blair, was a novelist, journalist, and broadcaster. Orwell was a disillusioned socialist, who became bitterly anti-communist. He is often mistaken as a Marxist but this untrue. Orwell is famous for his novels (most notably Animal Farm and 1984), which are heavily critical of Communism, and…

Social Darwinism

Social Darwinism leans towards the political right, lends itself to racist thinking: white people are more evolved than black people. Nietzsche believed humans were not well adapted, because humans are not adapted to any specific environment. But, have evolved to fit any environment, have evolved the skills to shape the environment to fit them. The…

Rousseau and the Social Contract

Rousseau and The Social Contract “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” – This is the tagline to Jean-Jaques Rousseau’s Of The Social Contract, Or Principles Of Political Right (1762) – Rousseau’s implication being that natural man is free, but is made a slave by the laws and constraints placed upon him…

Hobbes and Machiavelli – Social Contract Theory

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), a British, empiricist philosopher, described his theory of State and the social contract theory in his notable work, Leviathan (1651). At the time of writing, Hobbes was witnessing first-hand, the English Civil War, and this; as well as other key events that were ongoing at the time, such as: the execution of King…

Socrates, Plato and Aristotle – Classical Theory of State

The three key thinkers on the classical theory of the ‘State’ are Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Though most of Socrates’ ideas we only know through Plato, who was his student, as Socrates himself only wrote through dialectics. Socrates held the view that the State should always be obeyed, even if it made decisions that the…