Josh Gilliam's List: Markets & Economies

• his focus changed from the perfection of private nature to the improvement of public systems.

• Because our teaching is so mathematical and formal, it’s easy to miss that we start by making a huge leap, that is basically moral, not mathematical.

   
• We typically prove that someone’s welfare has increased when the person has an increased set of choices.

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• It is, alas, not a revolt against Western culture but a fruit — bitter and poisonous — of that culture.
• he regime includes a group of social and economic ingredients without which the dictatorships could never have been established and without which they could not have lasted so long.

• Only through a regenerated mind and dedicated spiritual alignment can we understand that complete submission to Him is the ultimate profitable move.

   
• The message of Christ is both self-sacrificial and self-interested all in one. The Beatitudes don’t read “cursed are the poor,” yet they also don’t read “blessed are the rich.” Likewise, Jesus constantly qualifies his demands for sacrifice with promises of reward, whether in this life or the next. For anyone who reads the Gospels in full, Jesus is consistent and intentional in the way he elevates the ideal of self-sacrifice alongside the ideal of rational self-interest.

• he good news is that for atheists like Rand, the profits promised in Jesus’ message are indeed observable in physical terms. Certainly these benefits are of no comparison with the enormous spiritual wealth involved, but the natural component is still important for us to understand.

   

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