Part 3 of a Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 8 “Do-It-Yourself Economics” Last blog, I covered how Foster delved into many of the cognitive biases that interfere with our ability to understand modern economics. Now, I want to focus on one cognitive bias I…
Why We Bite the Invisible Hand
The Need to Unlearn What We “Know” about Economics
Part 2 of a Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 8 “Do-It-Yourself Economics” Foster continues in this chapter exploring some of the apparently inborn assumptions we apply to the economy that lead to incorrect conclusions. Much like the do-it-yourself-economics (DIYE) brought up in the previous…
Why We Bite the Invisible Hand
Are We Born to Not Understand Economics?
Part 1 of a Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 8 “Do-It-Yourself Economics” Foster dives deep into the assumptions he says we carry around unknowingly that cause us to make erroneous judgements about business and economics. He cites work by Steven Pinker in the field of conceptual…
Why We Bite the Invisible Hand
Are We Anti-Capitalist by Design or by Evolution?
A Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 7 “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” As Foster continues to explore reasons people tend to dislike capitalism despite the wealth it has generated the past couple of hundred years, he turns to the ideas of Charles Darwin and natural selection….
Why We Bite the Invisible Hand
Bernard Mandeville’s Dark Take on Commerce and the Persistence of Flawed Ideas
Part 2 of a Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 6 “Tuesdays with Mandeville” As introduced in the last blog, Bernard Mandeville pioneered writing about the hypocrisy he thought was endemic to commerce that was a conversation happily continued by many to follow. Foster dives…
Why We Bite the Invisible Hand
Penning Hypocrisy: Writers Making Money Criticizing Capitalism
Part 1 of a Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 6 “Tuesdays with Mandeville” Foster is tracing anti-capitalist thought across many writers of the West, and in this chapter he hits one I had not heard of: Bernard Mandeville who was born in 1670 in…
Why We Bite the Invisible Hand
Rand’s Front Row Seat to the Russian Revolution Created her Commitment to Individualism
Part 2 of a Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 5 “The Passion of Ayn Rand” I am not sure how I ended up reading, We the Living, but I am really glad I did. It was the first novel Ayn Rand wrote but it was not…
Why We Bite the Invisible Hand
Unveiling the Exasperating Contradictions in Ayn Rand’s Philosophy
Part 1 of a Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 5 “The Passion of Ayn Rand” I was very young when I first read Ayn Rand. First, I read The Fountainhead and then Atlas Shrugged. I did not know much about anything, but I was intrigued by the idea…
Why We Bite the Invisible Hand
When Privilege met Narcissism, Marxism was Born
Part 2 of a Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 4 “Dark Satanic Minds” Last blog, we learned about one of the Utopians, Robert Owen, that rose up to challenge capitalism because of all the social upheaval wrought by industrialization. A more famous challenge, and one that persists…
Why We Bite the Invisible Hand
The Authoritarianism Inherent to Owen’s Utopia
Part 1 of a Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 4 “Dark Satanic Minds” Soon after capitalism was born a couple of hundred years ago, the anti-capitalist movement begins. Specifically, Foster discusses in this chapter Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ call for communism and lesser-known Robert Owen’s call for a…