Location Leipzig, Saxony, Germany. Designer Bruno Schmitz Material Granite-faced concrete. Length 80 metres (260 ft) Width 70 metres (230 ft) Height 91 metres (299 ft). Beginning date 1898-10-18. Opening date 1913-10-18. Dedicated to Battle of Leipzig. Coordinates 51°18′44″N 12°24′47″E
The Battle of the Nations was fought during 16-19 October, 1813 and the commemoration of such an important battle in Leipzig kept me busy during this weekend. Yesterday, the Reenactment of the Battle was fantastic and today I went to the GIGANTIC monument that celebrates the victory of the allied nations against Napoleon.
What is the importance of this building?
Architecturally; the structure is amazing. It is 91 meters tall and its base is 124 metres (407 ft) large and 124 metres (407 ft) wide.
Aesthetically; the sculptures of the four legendary historic qualities ascribed to the German people: bravery, faith, sacrifice and fertility are simply exquisite if understood in the context in which they were made.1 It was bravery for defending what is yours; faith (courage) to fight against the vicissitudes; sacrifice (fighting until the last moment in order to protect Life); and fertility (to overcome the mass murder caused by this war). IThe statues of the monument were sculpted by Christian Behrens and his apprentice Franz Metzner with a fantastic technique.
Historically; it commemorates the establishment of a German community that united different nations into a common goal.1
For further images; I invite you to check this Flickr album with the snapshots I took.
Economic Depressions: Their Cause and Cure
Need a short monograph on Austrian business cycle theory? This is the one to get.Murray Rothbard was the master of reducing complicated theories to their very essence while retaining theoretical rigor, and this essay is a case in point. It was written in 1969 and published in the form of a tiny book that achieved a huge circulation. It has not been in print since that time, but it is now back in this new release.
This time, the AmericanSensationalist Director Michael Moore was right. He explained in one sentence what thousands of men are right now protesting against in the streets and we support them. Why?
Capitalism is a social system that is based upon the foundations of individual freedom, respect for individual rights and property rights, and reason as man’s only mean to achieve their goals. However, the current economic, political and economic system in which large parts of the world are now living is not really a Capitalist economy.
The correct name for this system is “crony capitalism” and its foundations are privileges, irrational greed, expropriation, and violation of human rights (individual rights and the rights to property). It is this system that we need to fight against and fight a moral revolution against to. In the following video, you’ll hear a wonderful explanation of what that Irrational Greed is all about. The second video, is very interesting and portrays an interesting image of how TNCs (Transnational Corporations) have established Billion Worth Business all over the world without caring for what should matter most to them: Their Consumers.
I hope you enjoy them and understand that we are together in this fight,
Video: Milton Friedman On what is commonly understood as greed and on what is the result of ethical profit (via: Casey Hendrickson)
Before defining what is Capitalism I have decided to provide you with five videos that explain the philosophical foundations of Capitalism as a social system. By listening to these videos, you’ll get a wonderfully elaborated explanation of What Capitalism is and of what it consists of.
“Capitalism is the only social system based on the recognition of individual rights and, therefore, the only system that bans force from social relationships.”1
Published in 1966 this abstract from Ayn Rand‘s work on Capitalism explains in a clear and unequivocal way the true concept and definition of a system based on reason and in the recognition of the rights of free and responsible men.
Capitalism in the previous quote means a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated social system known as “Capitalism Laissez-faire“. It is a system that works as a set of interacting or interdependent moral, political and economical principles that are incorporated into legal systems, institutions and governments. This moral, economical and political principles are contingent to the identification that the members of the system do in order to understand the nature of man and are applied to the rational understanding of man’s psycho-epistemology (man’s mode of functioning in acquiring knowledge).
In human history there hasn’t yet existed a capitalist laissez-faire social system that fulfills the previous requirements; and only glimpses of its potentiality have been achieved through history. However, since the 15th Century “economies organizing themselves on capitalist lines have experienced greater economic dynamism: increasing productivity, increasing employment, and generating more rapid advances in economic wealth, living standards, and improved health of the population.”2 It is because of many of the principles of Capitalism Laissez-faire that Globalization and all the different forms of Capitalism have managed to benefit humanity and achieved our current conditions. Unfortunately, it has been because of the philosophical contradictions and irrational actions of man that also many adverse results have come into being from these mixed forms of capitalism and economic crisis, inequalities in the distribution of wealth and environmental degradation are still existing.
The Board of the Center for the Study of Capitalism at Wake Forest University explains what are some of these forms of Capitalism that currently exist and also explain which are some of its capitalist characteristics,
In the 21st century capitalism exists in several forms. These include 1) free market or market-led capitalism such as we are accustomed to in the U.S.; 2) corporatist or state-led capitalism where the government exerts significant guidance, leadership, and influence over the deployment of private capital (e.g. France, Japan in the 1980s); and 3) managed capitalism, in which worker groups and broad social welfare issues exert significant influence on private corporate behavior (e.g. Sweden, Germany).3 Whereas some evidence suggests that market-led capitalist economies experience greater economic dynamism and higher rates of per capita income growth than economies with other forms of capitalism,4 other evidence points to less volatility and fewer inequities in other forms of capitalism than in market-led economies.5
This blog was created to study how and when Capitalism and its philosophical principles played a role in Global History. It is my goal to demonstrate with a narration of past events how the roots of Wealth enabled for the interconnection of the World and how we could learn from the past to build more rational and objective societies.
4 R. L. Heilbroner & W. Milberg, 2006, The Making of Economic Society, Prentice-Hall: Upper Saddle River NJ; E. Phelps, 1999, “Lessons from the Corporatist Crisis in Some Asian Nations”, Journal of Policy Modeling, 21 (3), 331-339. E. Phelps, 2007, “The Economic Performance of Nations: Prosperity Depends on Dynamism, Dynamism on Institutions”, in E. Sheshinski, et al, ed., Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and the Growth Mechanism of Free Enterprise Economies, 342-356, Princeton University Press: Princeton NJ.
Globalization & Capitalism 