In Defense of the Corporation by Robert Hessen shows how corporations are not government-created “fictional entities” and “creatures of the state”, but how the rights of a corporation derive from the principle of individual rights and are formed through voluntary contracts under the principles of freedom of association.
“What’s really worried me over the years is not our stock price, but that we might someday fail to take care of our customers, or that our managers might fail to motivate and take care of our associates. I also was worried that we might lose the team concept, or fail to keep the family concept viable and realistic and meaningful to our folks as we grow. Those challenges are more real than somebody’s theory that we’re headed down the wrong path. As business leaders, we absolutely cannot afford to get all caught up in trying to meet the goals that some retail analyst or financial institution in New York sets for us on a ten-year plan spit out of a computer that somebody set to compound at such-and-such a rate. If we do that, we take our eye off the ball. But if we demonstrate in our sales and our earnings every day, every week, every quarter, that we’re doing our job in a sound way, we will get the growth we are entitled to, and the market will respect us in a way that we deserve.”
― Sam Walton: Made In America
Sam Walton typifies what it means to be an American. In one of my favorite biographies, Sam Walton candidly tells his story of how turned a single dime store in a small town into Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world.
“We have only a little time to please the living. But all eternity to love the dead.” ― Antigone
When Polynices—a military leader in Thebes’s civil war—dies on the battlefield, Thebes’s ruler, Creon, decrees that Polynices’s body will lie unburied and left as prey for the vultures. Antigone, the late warrior’s sister, answering to a higher authority than the state, follows her conscience and breaks the law to bury her brother with the proper rites. “Antigone’s act of civil disobedience urges great upheaval in this timeless play that explores the conflicts that can arise between worldly and divine law, and the questions raised by the idea of individual freedom.”
“Choose a few stocks that are likely to produce above-average returns over the long haul, concentrate the bulk of your investments in those stocks, and have the fortitude to hold steady during any short-term market gyrations.”
The Warren Buffett Portfolio: Mastering the Power of the Focus Investment Strategy is recommended by Buffet’s partner Charlie Munger.
“Marxism provides a theoretical and institutional framework through which they can project their own limitations and weaknesses onto ‘the system’ and their ‘oppressors’ rather than take responsibility for their own real or perceived plight.” […]
“Obviously, this theory rejects, among other things, all evidence of economic and social mobility that exists in capitalist societies, and especially the United States. The “rags to riches” and “riches to rags” stories are infinite. Indeed, the extent to which individuals by the millions seek refuge in America, risking their lives and the lives of their families, particularly those fleeing so-called communist paradises throughout the world, for a better life are also limitless.” […]
“Where are the concomitant examples of the opposite—that is, individuals “escaping” the “inequalities of America capitalism” for a better life in communist regimes?” […]
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
American Marxism shows how a post-modern variation on the Marxist framework (much of modern Marxism has little to do with the Marx in detail) pervades American schools, the press, corporations, Hollywood, the Democratic Party, and the Biden presidency – and how it is cloaked in labels like “progressivism”, “democratic socialism”, “social activism, “critical race theory,” and the “Green New Deal.”
“Humanity is experiencing an extraordinary burst of evolutionary change, driven by good old-fashioned Darwinian natural selection. But it is selection among ideas, not among genes. The habitat in which these ideas reside consists of human brains.” ― The Rational Optimist
“Life is getting better—and at an accelerating rate. Food availability, income, and life span are up; disease, child mortality, and violence are down — all across the globe. Though the world is far from perfect, necessities and luxuries alike are getting cheaper; population growth is slowing; Africa is following Asia out of poverty; the Internet, the mobile phone, and container shipping are enriching people’s lives as never before. The pessimists who dominate public discourse insist that we will soon reach a turning point and things will start to get worse. But they have been saying this for two hundred years.
“Yet Matt Ridley does more than describe how things are getting better. He explains why. Prosperity comes from everybody working for everybody else. The habit of exchange and specialization—which started more than 100,000 years ago—has created a collective brain that sets human living standards on a rising trend. The mutual dependence, trust, and sharing that result are causes for hope, not despair.
“This bold book covers the entire sweep of human history, from the Stone Age to the Internet, from the stagnation of the Ming empire to the invention of the steam engine, from the population explosion to the likely consequences of climate change. It ends with a confident assertion that thanks to the ceaseless capacity of the human race for innovative change, and despite inevitable disasters along the way, the twenty-first century will see both human prosperity and natural biodiversity enhanced. Acute, refreshing, and revelatory, The Rational Optimist will change your way of thinking about the world for the better.”
Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design
I want to persuade the reader, not just that the Darwinian world-view happens to be true, but that it is the only known theory that could, in principle, solve the mystery of our existence. – Richard Dawkins
The title of this 1986 work, Dawkins’s second book, refers to the Rev. William Paley’s 1802 work, Natural Theology, which argued that just as finding a watch would lead you to conclude that a watchmaker must exist, the complexity of living organisms proves that a Creator exists. Not so, says Dawkins: “All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very special way… it is the blind watchmaker.”
“The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the evolution of organized complexity.”
The importance of doing what matters most.
“Essentialism is more than a time-management strategy or a productivity technique. It is a systematic discipline for discerning what is absolutely essential, then eliminating everything that is not, so we can make the highest possible contribution toward the things that really matter. By forcing us to apply more selective criteria for what is Essential, the disciplined pursuit of less empowers us to reclaim control of our own choices about where to spend our precious time and energy—instead of giving others the implicit permission to choose for us.”
First published in 1936, How to Win Friends and Influence People, is still relevant today.
Techniques in Handling People:
Don’t criticize, condemn, or complain.
Give honest and sincere appreciation.
Arouse in the other person an eager want.
Six Ways to Make People Like You:
Become genuinely interested in other people.
Smile.
Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.
Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.
Win People to Your Way of Thinking:
The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “you’re wrong”.
If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
Begin in a friendly way.
Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately.
Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.
Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.
Appeal to the nobler motives.
Dramatize your ideas.
Throw down a challenge.
Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment:
Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly.
Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
Let the other person save face.
Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.”
Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.
Ayn Rand makes the case for why capitalism is not just the most productive economic system but is in fact the moral one. The late economist Walter E. Williams said Capitalism: The Unkown Ideal was “one of the best defenses and explanations of capitalism one is likely to read.” I agree.