display all the ideas for this combination of texts
4 ideas
| 20842 | Rational animals begin uncorrupted, but externals and companions are bad influences [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: The rational animal is corrupted, sometimes because of the persuasiveness of external activities and sometimes because of the influence of companions. For the starting points provided by nature are uncorrupted. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.89 | |
| A reaction: If companions corrupt us, what corrupted the companions? Aren't we all in this together? And where do the 'external activities' originate? |
| 20097 | The welfare state aims at freedom from want, and equality of opportunity [Micklethwait/Wooldridge] |
| Full Idea: In the classical liberal tradition freedom meant freedom from external control, and equality meant equality before the law. In the welfare state (of Beatrice Webb) freedom was reinterpreted as freedom from want, and equality as equality of opportunity. | |
| From: Micklethwait,J/Wooldridge,A (The Fourth Revolution [2014], 3) | |
| A reaction: The authors call this the 'third revolution' in government, after 17th century centralisation and early 19th century accountability. Tawney 1931 is the key text. |
| 20099 | For communists history is driven by the proletariat [Micklethwait/Wooldridge] |
| Full Idea: For the communists the proletariat rather than the state was the locomotive of history. | |
| From: Micklethwait,J/Wooldridge,A (The Fourth Revolution [2014], 3) | |
| A reaction: I feel increasingly reluctant to support any party which appears to mainly represent the interests of a single social class, no matter how large that class may be. An attraction of liberalism is that it makes no reference to class. |
| 20098 | Fans of economic freedom claim that capitalism is self-correcting [Micklethwait/Wooldridge] |
| Full Idea: The central laissez-faire conceit is that capitalism is a self-correcting mechanism. | |
| From: Micklethwait,J/Wooldridge,A (The Fourth Revolution [2014], 3) | |
| A reaction: This was Keynes's rather left-wing criticism of standard capitalist views. These resurfaced in the 1980s with mantras about the virtues of 'market forces'. |