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611. From the Editor

Author:
Craig Biddle
Publication Date:
10-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
Welcome to the Fall 2010 issue of TOS—and a special welcome to our new Canadian readers who, with this issue, are discovering the Standard via newsstands in Canada's largest bookstore chain, Chapters/Indigo. We are excited to add our northern neighbors to the list of countries we infiltrate with principled discussion of the moral and philosophical foundations of freedom.
Topic:
Economics and Islam
Political Geography:
America and Canada

612. An Interview with John Allison about Pro-Capitalism Programs in American Universities

Publication Date:
10-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
I recently spoke with Professor John Allison about his efforts and successes in creating pro-capitalist programs in American universities. Professor Allison was the CEO of BB for twenty years, during which time the company's assets grew from $4.5 billion to $152 billion. He now teaches at Wake Forest University. —Craig Biddle Craig Biddle: Hello, John, and thank you for joining me. John Allison: It is a pleasure to be with you. Photo courtesy Wake Forest University CB: Let me begin with a couple of questions about your work at Wake Forest. I understand that you joined the faculty in March 2009 as a Distinguished Professor of Practice—a fitting title given your decades of applying philosophy to business. What has your work at the university entailed so far? And how have your ideas been received? JA: I've primarily been involved in teaching leadership both to students and to some of the administrators in the university. I taught a course on leadership last fall, and I've been participating in various courses taught by other professors on finance, mergers and acquisitions, and organizational development. But my focus is on leadership. My ideas have been well received. The students take great interest in talking to someone who has been in the real world and been successful in business. I think they appreciate that perspective. CB: Through the BB Charitable Foundation, you've established programs for the study of capitalism at a number of American universities. How many of these programs are there now? What unifies them? And what generally do they entail? JA: BB has sponsored sixty-five programs to date, and they're all focused on the moral foundations of capitalism. While many people recognize that capitalism produces a higher standard of living, most people also believe that capitalism is either amoral or immoral. Our academic question is: How can an immoral system produce a better outcome? We believe that capitalism is moral and that this is why it is so successful. We think it is critically important that we not only win the battle over economic efficiency, but that we engage in and win the debate over ethics as well.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
America

613. How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes

Author:
Daniel Wahl
Publication Date:
10-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
Very few economists predicted an economic catastrophe in 2007. Even following the crash, many continued to claim that our present economic course was fine. As for today? “Three years into the mess, economists now offer remedies that strike most people as frankly ridiculous. We are told that we must go deeper into debt to fix our debt crisis, and that we must spend in order [to] prosper” (pp. xi–xii). The source of such seeming obliviousness, according to Peter and Andrew Schiff, is the early-20th-century economist John Maynard Keynes. According to the Schiffs, Keynes taught that governments could smooth market volatility, increase employment, boost growth, and raise living standards simply by going into more debt and printing more money. Although they grant that Keynes was smart, the Schiffs say he developed some very stupid economic ideas—ideas that are false, dangerous, and causing the collapse of America's economy. The Schiffs set out to counter these harmful ideas in How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes. The book is an extended allegory of U.S. economic history, with supplementary discussions and illustrations. It begins with three men living on a tropical island, each subsisting on one fish per day, which he catches with his bare hands. One of the men, Able, devises a better way to catch fish: a net. Thus equipped, he hopes to catch more fish, and faster, leaving himself spare time to make new clothes.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
United States

614. Hishaam D. Aidi, Redeploying the State: Corporatism, Neoliberalism, and Coalition Politics

Author:
Ahmet T. Kuru
Publication Date:
07-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
Redeploying the State is a book about statehood, which can also be called state strength, capacity, or effectiveness. In order to address this topic, it takes as its subject a comparative study of Egypt and Mexico, particularly in the arenas of privatization and labor disputes. Hishaam Aidi asks why the Egyptian state was much less effective than the Mexican state in economic reforms, especially in regard to Mexico's ability to overcome the labor movement's opposition, despite the fact that Egypt was much more authoritarian and therefore had a more repressed labor movement than Mexico. While explaining this puzzle, Aidi implicitly refutes essentialism, which refers to certain “essences” of Islam, while explaining Muslim socio-political life
Topic:
Economics, Politics, and Reform
Political Geography:
Egypt and Mexico

615. Prospects for Democratization in Iran: Policy Implications

Author:
Dariush Zahedi
Publication Date:
04-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
The breakdown or modification of the Islamic Republic, though not imminent, is increasingly conceivable. However, in the event that the regime were to fall, Iran is bereft of many of the social and economic requisites for a stable democracy to emerge. About 80% of the Iranian economy is in the hands of the state, the private sector is dependent and feeble, and the 70% of the Iranians that are under the age of 30 are neither propertied nor middle class. This has implications for US policy, made all the more urgent by the timeline imposed by the looming nuclear issue. Rather than experiment with ineffectual and counter-productive attempts at democracy promotion, this study suggests that a policy of long-term international diplomatic and economic engagement is the best available tool for transforming Iranian society and politics in such a way that a transition to a sustained and stable democracy and, by implication, a resolution of Iran's nuclear issue, becomes more likely.
Topic:
Economics and Islam
Political Geography:
Iran

616. The Union for the Mediterranean: Views from the Southern Shores

Author:
Kamleh Khatib
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
Through a series of open-question interviews carried out with those responsible for the UfM file between late 2008 and early 2009, some undeniable and unanimously accepted merits were voiced. However, views from the southern shores of the Mediterranean appear to be multifaceted and not uniform with only one dominant common trait echoing in all interviews and shaping negative perceptions, namely, the weight the Arab-Israeli conflict exerts in hampering the initiative. While a Union of projects could "address the architectural deficit that has prevented the Mediterranean from becoming a coherently functional economic regional space", high politics emerge, yet again, as an inescapable reality that demands prioritisation.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Israel and Arabia

617. The Impact of the Economic Crisis on Euro-Mediterranean Relations

Author:
Maria Cristina Paciello
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
The ongoing global financial and economic crisis, which initially emerged in North America and Europe, has increasingly spread to emerging and developing countries, including the Southern Mediterranean. The global economic crisis could pose, and is posing, a number of challenges to Euro-Mediterranean relations. On the political front, it has contributed to further undermining the political reform agenda included in the Barcelona Process and the European Neighbourhood Policy. On the economic front, the crisis is jeopardising trade integration in the Euro-Mediterranean area and could slow down the pace of economic reforms supported by the European Union in Southern Mediterranean countries.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Europe and North America

618. Italy and Libya: Renewing a Special Relationship

Author:
Arturo Varvelli
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
Italy and Libya have always enjoyed a special relationship based on reciprocal economic interests. The 2008 Friendship Treaty and the formal apologies for the colonial past have paved the road for more stable cooperation between the two countries in other sectors as well. Libya has started a gradual and prudent reform that, minimising the risks of destabilisation, is meant to attract foreign investments outside of the hydrocarbon sector in an attempt to diversify the economy. As its major political and economic partner, Italy is playing an important role in the Libyan transformation process.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Libya and Italy

619. To Protect Cure

Publication Date:
06-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
World Policy Journal
Institution:
World Policy Institute
Abstract:
For more than two millennia, physicians have been healing patients—pledging to protect and cure under the terms set forth by the oath Hippocrates crafted nearly 500 years before Christ.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Saudi Arabia

620. Making Choices: Prospects for a Canada-EU Free Trade Agreement.

Author:
Joseph Blomeley
Publication Date:
05-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Public and International Affairs (JPIA)
Institution:
School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), Princeton University
Abstract:
With a population of over 500 million, the European Union (EU) is Canada's second-largest trading partner. In 2006, two-way merchandise trade between Canada and the EU was approximately $78 billion and two-way investment reached $263 billion. While these figures are far from marginal, they pale in comparison to the $626 billion in two-way merchandise trade and $497 billion in two-way investment with the United States. In light of these numbers, analysts have argued that there is room for improvement in the economic relationship between Canada and the EU. They believe that the relationship has been significantly under-traded and under-valued. In an attempt to bolster this claim, a Canada-EU Joint Trade Study commissioned by the European Commission and the Government of Canada (GoC) recently noted that Canada is the EU's 11th-largest merchandise trading partner, with only 1.8 percent of external EU trade in this category (GoC, 2008). In light of the financial crisis in the United States, discussions to revive talks of a Canada-EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA) have begun to garner attention.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Canada