“As an idealistic man in my twenties, I became passionate about the urgency of finding freedom-fueled solutions to human problems, even if the solutions were radical.” (p. 11)
“My readings covered the entire philosophical spectrum…. I discovered my own political orientation was much more nuanced than simply ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal,’ in the contemporary use of those words.” (p. 13)
– Charles Koch, Good Profit (New York: Crown Business, 2015)
Charles Koch’s Good Profit: How Creating Profit for Others Built One of the World’s Most Successful Companies defends the free and prosperous commonwealth against cronyism (aka ‘bad profit’). But more than that, the author presents insights about economic freedom to set up his business management ideal, Principled Entrepreneurship.
A baker’s dozen of quotations from Koch’s new book, and one more for good measure, follow.…
Another Halloween has come and gone. But the Malthusian virus of doom-and-gloom toward self-interested, voluntary choice rages on. The neo-Malthusians may now concede that we are not running out of resources, but the new line is that we cannot mine and burn what we know we have because we are running out of climate.
More can be added to this list, but the ‘big three’ of today’s alarmism are climate scientist James Hansen, Obama’s science advisor John Holdren, and deep ecologist and founder of 350.org, Bill McKibben. Some quotations follow:
“We have at most ten years—not ten years to decide upon action, but ten years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse emissions.”
-James Hansen, 2006. “The Threat to the Planet.” New York Times Review of Books
…“We cannot afford to put off [climate policy] change any longer.
Editor Note: Back in 1992, the founder and president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), Fred Smith, reviewed Al Gore’s new book, Earth in the Balance. More than two decades later, Smith’s review is still on target and good reading. (One cannot say the same of Malthusian-school writing of the same period.) The review follows:
Al Gore has written, “When giving us dominion over the earth, did God choose an appropriate technology?” And then: “One is tempted to answer, the jury is still out.” Much the same can be said about Governor Bill Clinton’s wisdom in selecting Sen. Gore to be his running mate.
While Mr. Clinton has spent months (if not years) attempting to fashion himself as a moderate Democrat unwedded to the Big Government programs that have dominated his party for so long, the selection of Al Gore signals a return to yesteryear’s agenda.