Political Theory

Re: quote

Alex Habighorst — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 04:24:28 GMT

Not particularly related, but I thought I would post it.

"As I've said, the problem with organized knowledge is that there is an occasional divergance of interests between academic guilds and knowledge itself. So I cannot for the life of me understand why today's libertarians do not go after tenured faculty(except perhaps because many libertarians are academics). We saw that companies can go bust, while governments remain. But while governments remain, civil servants can be demoted and congressman and senators can eventually be voted out of office. In academia a tenured faculty is permanent-the business of knowledge has permanent 'owners.' Simply, the charlatan is more the product of control than the result of freedom and the lack of structure."

-Nassim Taleb

Re: quote

BrianAnderson — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 04:11:21 GMT

“The real Oxford is a close corporation of jolly, untidy, lazy, good-for-nothing humorous old men, who have been electing their own successors ever since the world began and who intend to go on with it. They'll squeeze under the Revolution or leap over it when the time comes, don't you worry.” C.S. Lewis

quote

ravochol — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 03:56:13 GMT

No system of education, which a freeman can accept, has yet been established, for the poor; whilst thousands of dollars of the public money have been appropriated for building colleges and academies for the rich.

No law has been passed, calculated to raise the price of the poor man's labor; but yet, the whole community has been taxed, by heavy Tarrif duties upon foreign importations, in order that rich men may build up manufactories.

Banks and other privileged corporations are increasing without number through the land, all tending by their power to monopolize business and control the circulating medium, to strengthen the aristocracy, and reduce the power of the farmer, mechanic and laborer.

Resolutions at a Working Men's Meeting, September 26, 1829

quoted from; Mechanics Free Press, (Philadelphia, October 24, 1829)

found in: Eugene L. Schwaab. 1952. “The Faith of Our Fathers – an anthology expressing the aspirations of the American common man 1790-1860. Edited by Irving Mark. New York, Alfred A. Knopf