Download or read book A Spontaneous Order written by Christopher Chase Rachels and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2015-06-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case for a Stateless Society is an astonishingly concise, rigorous, and accessible presentation of anarcho-capitalist ideals. It covers a wide range of topics including: Money and Banking, Monopolies and Cartels, Insurance, Health Care, Law, Security, Poverty, Education, Environmentalism, and more! To enjoy this compelling read requires no previous political, philosophical, or economic knowledge as all uncommon concepts are defined and explained in a simple yet uncompromising manner. Take heed, this work is liable to cause radical paradigm shifts in your understanding of both the State and Free Market.

Download or read book Politics and the Theory of Spontaneous Order written by Piotr Szafruga and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-04-26 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The theory of spontaneous order conceptualises and explains a number of institutional and social phenomena that are not an intended effect of either individual decisions or a collective consensus but an unplanned outcome of interactions between people pursuing their own aims. Drawing on these insights, this book demonstrates the utility of the theory of spontaneous order in explaining many phenomena in political economy and political science. The book opens with a discussion of the history and development of the theory of spontaneous order, particularly in economics and the Austrian School. The epistemological premises of the theory are then explored including the formulation of the central idea of social individualism. Demonstrating the potential applications of the theory of spontaneous order to politics, core ideas are examined including democracy, fragile states and the concept of the veil of ignorance. Finally, the limitations and constraints of the theory of spontaneous order are also reviewed and discussed. This book marks a valuable contribution to the literature on political economy, political science, public choice and political philosophy.

Download or read book Adam Smith s Political Philosophy written by Craig Smith and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-01-16 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Adam Smith published his celebrated writings on economics and moral philosophy he famously referred to the operation of an 'invisible hand'. Adam Smith’s Political Philosophy makes visible this hand by examining its significance in Smith’s political philosophy and relating it to similar concepts used by other philosophers, thus revealing a distinctive approach to social theory that stresses the importance of the unintended consequences of human action. The first book to examine the history of Smith’s political philosophy from this perspective, this work introduces greater conceptual clarity to the discussion of the invisible hand and the related notion of unintended order in the work of Smith, as well as in political theory more generally. By examining the application of spontaneous order ideas in the work of Smith, Hume, Hayek and Popper, this important volume traces similarities in approach, and from these constructs a conceptual, composite model of an invisible hand argument. While setting out a clear framework of the idea of spontaneous order, the book also builds the case for using this as an explanatory social theory, with chapters on its application in the fields of science, moral philosophy, law and government.

Download or read book Natural Images in Economic Thought written by Philip Mirowski and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1994-07-29 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 1994 book was the first collection devoted to impact of natural sciences on content and form of economics in history.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Austrian Economics written by Peter J. Boettke and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 833 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Austrian School of Economics is an intellectual tradition in economics and political economy dating back to Carl Menger in the late-19th century. Menger stressed the subjective nature of value in the individual decision calculus. Individual choices are indeed made on the margin, but the evaluations of rank ordering of ends sought in the act of choice are subjective to individual chooser. For Menger, the economic calculus was about scarce means being deployed to pursue an individual's highest valued ends. The act of choice is guided by subjective assessments of the individual, and is open ended as the individual is constantly discovering what ends to pursue, and learning the most effective way to use the means available to satisfy those ends. This school of economic thinking spread outside of Austria to the rest of Europe and the United States in the early-20th century and continued to develop and gain followers, establishing itself as a major stream of heterodox economics. The Oxford Handbook of Austrian Economics provides an overview of this school and its theories. The various contributions discussed in this book all reflect a tension between the Austrian School's orthodox argumentative structure (rational choice and invisible hand) and its addressing of a heterodox problem situations (uncertainty, differential knowledge, ceaseless change). The Austrian economists from the founders to today seek to derive the invisible hand theorem from the rational choice postulate via institutional analysis in a persistent and consistent manner. Scholars and students working in the field of History of Economic Thought, those following heterodox approaches, and those both familiar with the Austrian School or looking to learn more will find much to learn in this comprehensive volume.

Download or read book Spontaneous Ordering in Semiconductor Alloys written by Angelo Mascarenhas and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 483 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The phenomenonofspontaneous ordering in semiconductoralloys, which can be categorized as a self-organized process, is observed to occur sponta neously during epitaxial growth of certain ternary alloy semiconductors and results in a modification of their structural, electronic, and optical properties. There has been a great dealofinterest in learning how to control this phenome non so that it may be used for tailoring desirable electronic and optical properties. There has been even greater interest in exploiting the phenomenon for its unique ability in providing an experimental environment of controlled alloy statistical fluctuations. As such, itimpacts areasofsemiconductorscience and technology related to the materials science ofepitaxial growth, statistical mechanics, and electronic structure of alloys and electronic and photonic devices. During the past two decades, significant progress has been made toward understanding the mechanisms that drive this phenomenon and the changes in physical properties that result from it. A variety of experimental techniques have been used to probe the phenomenon and several attempts made atproviding theoretical models both for the ordering mechanisms as well as electronic structure changes. The various chapters of this book provide a detailed account of these efforts during the past decade. The first chapter provides an elaborate account of the phenomenon, with an excellent perspective of the structural and elec tronic modifications itinduces.

Download or read book Sync written by Steven H. Strogatz and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2012-02-14 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the heart of the universe is a steady, insistent beat, the sound of cycles in sync. Along the tidal rivers of Malaysia, thousands of fireflies congregate and flash in unison; the moon spins in perfect resonance with its orbit around the earth; our hearts depend on the synchronous firing of ten thousand pacemaker cells. While the forces that synchronize the flashing of fireflies may seem to have nothing to do with our heart cells, there is in fact a deep connection. Synchrony is a science in its infancy, and Strogatz is a pioneer in this new frontier in which mathematicians and physicists attempt to pinpoint just how spontaneous order emerges from chaos. From underground caves in Texas where a French scientist spent six months alone tracking his sleep-wake cycle, to the home of a Dutch physicist who in 1665 discovered two of his pendulum clocks swinging in perfect time, this fascinating book spans disciplines, continents, and centuries. Engagingly written for readers of books such as Chaos and The Elegant Universe, Sync is a tour-de-force of nonfiction writing.

Download or read book Spontaneous Order and the Origin of Life written by Steven Bratman and published by . This book was released on 2021-10-23 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is a serious, excellent piece of science writing ... Bratman's prose captures the core idea and gives a faithful rendering for a non-specialist audience" - Eric Smith, PhD. Coauthor of The Origin and Nature of Life: The Emergence of the Fourth Geosphere. Metabolism-First is a theory that claims life arose out of energy-driven organic chemistry in ancient hydrothermal vents. From this perspective, life is not a lucky accident but a logical consequence of early Earth conditions. Like many other processes driven by a flow of energy, the origin of life exemplifies the phenomena of spontaneous order. Metabolism-First views the biosphere as a feature of Earth as a whole, a companion to the hydrosphere, lithosphere and atmosphere. Just as ordinary phase transitions change the properties of a liquid or gas, the biosphere can be viewed as emerging through a series of phase transitions operating on chemical reaction networks. A key concept of the theory is autocatalysis, the property of some chemicals to amplify their own rate of formation. Autocatalysis plays the same role in "chemical evolution" as Darwinian selection does in the standard theory of evolution. Additional key concepts include phase transformations, modularity and dissipative adaptation. The text includes a glossary and an annotated bibliography.

Download or read book Hayek s Liberalism and Its Origins written by Christina Petsoulas and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By exploring the writings of Mandeville, Hume and Smith, this book offers a critique of Hayek's theory of cultural evolution and explores the roots of his powerful defence of liberalism. This book is an original contribution to the debate, and vital reading for researchers in politics, political theory, and economics.

Download or read book Individualism and Economic Order written by F. A. Hayek and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2012-12-01 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “These essays . . . bring great learning and . . . intelligence to bear upon economic and social issues of central importance to our era.” —Henry Hazlitt, Newsweek In this collection of writings, Nobel laureate Friedrich A. Hayek discusses topics from moral philosophy and the methods of the social sciences to economic theory as different aspects of the same central issue: free markets versus socialist planned economies. First published in the 1930s and 40s, these essays continue to illuminate the problems faced by developing and formerly socialist countries. F. A. Hayek, recipient of the Medal of Freedom in 1991 and winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1974, taught at the University of Chicago, the University of London, and the University of Freiburg. Among his other works published by the University of Chicago Press is The Road to Serfdom, now available in a special fiftieth anniversary edition. “There is much interesting and valuable material in this meaty . . . book which must ultimately help the world make up its mind on a vital issue: to plan or not to plan?” —S. E. Harris, The New York Times “Those who disagree with him cannot afford to ignore him . . . This is especially true of a book like the present one.” —George Soule, Nation

Download or read book The Spontaneous Brain written by Georg Northoff and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2024-08-06 with total page 533 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An argument for a Copernican revolution in our consideration of mental features—a shift in which the world-brain problem supersedes the mind-body problem. Philosophers have long debated the mind-body problem—whether to attribute such mental features as consciousness to mind or to body. Meanwhile, neuroscientists search for empirical answers, seeking neural correlates for consciousness, self, and free will. In this book, Georg Northoff does not propose new solutions to the mind-body problem; instead, he questions the problem itself, arguing that it is an empirically, ontologically, and conceptually implausible way to address the existence and reality of mental features. We are better off, he contends, by addressing consciousness and other mental features in terms of the relationship between world and brain; philosophers should consider the world-brain problem rather than the mind-body problem. This calls for a Copernican shift in vantage point—from within the mind or brain to beyond the brain—in our consideration of mental features. Northoff, a neuroscientist, psychiatrist, and philosopher, explains that empirical evidence suggests that the brain's spontaneous activity and its spatiotemporal structure are central to aligning and integrating the brain within the world. This spatiotemporal structure allows the brain to extend beyond itself into body and world, creating the “world-brain relation” that is central to mental features. Northoff makes his argument in empirical, ontological, and epistemic-methodological terms. He discusses current models of the brain and applies these models to recent data on neuronal features underlying consciousness and proposes the world-brain relation as the ontological predisposition for consciousness.

Download or read book Property Rights Planning and Markets written by Christopher J. Webster and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ''This is an important book. The authors in effect offer a positive theory of planning and urbanisation. As such, Webster and Lai''s model, based on institutional economics, is a vast improvement on some equally ambitious predecessors. The book''s insights and clarity make it a must reading for anyone seeking better understanding of how cities evolve as they do, and why planning is an integral part of their evolution.'' - Ernest Alexander, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, US ''A truly remarkable achievement.'' - Mark Pennington, University of London, UK ''Chris Webster and Lawrence Lai have created a coherent and insightful integration of concepts such as property rights, organizations, competition, incentives, transaction costs, public goods, and externalities, which will help theorists and urban practitioners analyze and manage city goods and services. An important insight of the authors is the recognition of the interdependencies of people in a neighborhood, which can be efficiently handled with shares in the property value of the neighborhood. There is a constant question of how much markets and how much government should be involved in urban matters, and the authors provide a reasoned, balanced approach which recognizes the vital role of government while appreciating the effectiveness of markets and decentralized decision making, including private institutions or" clubs" such as homeowners'' associations. Their position that governments and markets co-evolve and complement one another is sound, and their conclusions regarding the need to provide clear property rights and efficient rules provide us with theoretical tools to better understand how cities can be improved while being wary of the "allure of utopia".'' - Fred Foldvary, Santa Clara University, California, US ''This is a really important contribution to the planning literature. Beautifully written and clearly structured, it explains the complex relationship between" planning" and "markets" using the economic perspective of transaction cost theory and the" new-institutionalism". This provides a robust way of addressing the old "economic and planning" agenda, which the authors illustrate with references to cases and situations from across the world. Informative and stimulating, this should be included in every planning theory course, and will be helpful to all trying to re-think old debates about planning and markets.'' - Patsy Healey, Newcastle University, UK ''Professors Webster and Lai have written a masterly work that applies the principles of Hayek and of institutional economics to understanding cities. This is a refreshing and more convincing alternative to the standard politically correct views.'' - Harry W. Richardson, University of Southern California, US ''Property Rights, Planning and Markets covers an original and intriguing issue, viz. the existence and development of cities at the interface of market forces and planned or controlled policies ...the book offers new horizons and contains refreshing reading material.'' - Peter Nijkamp, Free University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands This book represents a major innovation in the institutional analysis of cities and their planning, management and governance. Using concepts of transaction costs and property rights, the work shows systematically how urban order evolves as individuals co-operate in cities for mutual gain. Five kinds of urban order are examined, arising as co-operating individuals seek to reduce the costs of transacting with each other. These are organisational order (combinations of property rights), institutional order (rules and sanctions), proprietary order (fragmentation of property rights), spatial order and public domain order. Property Rights, Planning and Markets also offers an institutional interpretation of urban planning and management that challenges both the view that planning inevitably conflicts with freedom of contract and the view that its function is a means of correcting market failures. Real life examples from countries and regions around the world are used to illustrate the universal relevance of theoretical generalisations, which will be welcomed by a new generation of policymakers and students who take on a world view that goes beyond national boundaries.

Download or read book Private Governance written by Edward Peter Stringham and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-06-01 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the first stock markets of Amsterdam,London, and New York to the billions of electronic commerce transactions today, privately produced and enforced economic regulations are more common, more effective, and more promising than commonly considered. In Private Governance, prominent economist Edward Stringham presents case studies of the various forms of private enforcement, self-governance, or self-regulation among private groups or individuals that fill a void that government enforcement cannot. Through analytical narratives the book provides a close examination of the world's first stock markets, key elements of which were unenforceable by law; the community of Celebration, Florida, and other private communities that show how public goods can be bundled with land and provided more effectively; and the millions of credit-card transactions that occur daily and are regulated by private governance. Private Governance ultimately argues that while potential problems of private governance, such as fraud, are pervasive, so are the solutions it presents, and that much of what is orderly in the economy can be attributed to private groups and individuals. With meticulous research, Stringham demonstrates that private governance is a far more common source of order than most people realize, and that private parties have incentives to devise different mechanisms for eliminating unwanted behavior. Private Governance documents numerous examples of private order throughout history to illustrate how private governance is more resilient to internal and external pressure than is commonly believed. Stringham discusses why private governance has economic and social advantages over relying on government regulations and laws, and explores the different mechanisms that enable private governance, including sorting, reputation, assurance, and other bonding mechanisms. Challenging and rigorously-written, Private Governance will make a compelling read for those with an interest in economics, political philosophy, and the history of current Wall Street regulations.

Download or read book At Home in the Universe written by Stuart Kauffman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1996-11-21 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major scientific revolution has begun, a new paradigm that rivals Darwin's theory in importance. At its heart is the discovery of the order that lies deep within the most complex of systems, from the origin of life, to the workings of giant corporations, to the rise and fall of great civilizations. And more than anyone else, this revolution is the work of one man, Stuart Kauffman, a MacArthur Fellow and visionary pioneer of the new science of complexity. Now, in At Home in the Universe, Kauffman brilliantly weaves together the excitement of intellectual discovery and a fertile mix of insights to give the general reader a fascinating look at this new science--and at the forces for order that lie at the edge of chaos. We all know of instances of spontaneous order in nature--an oil droplet in water forms a sphere, snowflakes have a six-fold symmetry. What we are only now discovering, Kauffman says, is that the range of spontaneous order is enormously greater than we had supposed. Indeed, self-organization is a great undiscovered principle of nature. But how does this spontaneous order arise? Kauffman contends that complexity itself triggers self-organization, or what he calls "order for free," that if enough different molecules pass a certain threshold of complexity, they begin to self-organize into a new entity--a living cell. Kauffman uses the analogy of a thousand buttons on a rug--join two buttons randomly with thread, then another two, and so on. At first, you have isolated pairs; later, small clusters; but suddenly at around the 500th repetition, a remarkable transformation occurs--much like the phase transition when water abruptly turns to ice--and the buttons link up in one giant network. Likewise, life may have originated when the mix of different molecules in the primordial soup passed a certain level of complexity and self-organized into living entities (if so, then life is not a highly improbable chance event, but almost inevitable). Kauffman uses the basic insight of "order for free" to illuminate a staggering range of phenomena. We see how a single-celled embryo can grow to a highly complex organism with over two hundred different cell types. We learn how the science of complexity extends Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection: that self-organization, selection, and chance are the engines of the biosphere. And we gain insights into biotechnology, the stunning magic of the new frontier of genetic engineering--generating trillions of novel molecules to find new drugs, vaccines, enzymes, biosensors, and more. Indeed, Kauffman shows that ecosystems, economic systems, and even cultural systems may all evolve according to similar general laws, that tissues and terra cotta evolve in similar ways. And finally, there is a profoundly spiritual element to Kauffman's thought. If, as he argues, life were bound to arise, not as an incalculably improbable accident, but as an expected fulfillment of the natural order, then we truly are at home in the universe. Kauffman's earlier volume, The Origins of Order, written for specialists, received lavish praise. Stephen Jay Gould called it "a landmark and a classic." And Nobel Laureate Philip Anderson wrote that "there are few people in this world who ever ask the right questions of science, and they are the ones who affect its future most profoundly. Stuart Kauffman is one of these." In At Home in the Universe, this visionary thinker takes you along as he explores new insights into the nature of life.

Download or read book Spontaneous Venturing written by Dean A. Shepherd and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Identifying a new approach to disaster response: spontaneous, compassionate, and impromptu actions to alleviate suffering. In Spontaneous Venturing, Dean Shepherd and Trenton Williams identify and describe a new approach for responding to disaster and suffering: the local organizing of spontaneous, compassionate, and impromptu actions—the rapid emergence of a compassionate venture. This approach, termed by the authors “spontaneous venturing,” can be more effective than the traditional “command-and-control” methods of large disaster relief organizations. It can customize and target resources and deliver them quickly, helping victims almost immediately. For example, during the catastrophic 2009 bushfires in Victoria, Australia—the focal disaster for the book—residents organized an impromptu relief center that collected and distributed urgently needed goods without red tape. Special bonds and friendships formed among the volunteers and victims; some were both volunteer and victim. Many victims were able to mobilize resources despite considerable personal losses. Shepherd and Williams describe the lasting impact of disaster and tell the stories of Victoria residents who organized in the aftermath of the bushfires. They consider the limitations of traditional disaster relief efforts and explain that when victims take action to help others, they develop behavioral, emotional, and assumptive resilience; venturing leads to social interaction, community connections, and other positive outcomes. Finally, they explore spontaneous venturing in a less-developed country, investigating the activities of Haitians after the devastating 2010 earthquake. The lesson for communities hit by disaster: find opportunities for compassionate action.

Download or read book Premonitions in Daily Life written by Jeanne Van Bronkhorst and published by Llewellyn Worldwide. This book was released on 2013-03-08 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Go inside your premonitions and find personal meaning from daily intuitive experiences Despite the common idea that premonitions involve dark visions and warnings of future disasters, the truth is they often give us glimpses of the small and personal details of daily life. This in-depth, three-part guide shows how to identify your premonitions, demystifies the assumptions and fears about them, and thoroughly demonstrates how to respond with common sense and without challenging your beliefs. Discover the answers to your most important concerns: What do premonitions say about me? How do I respond? How do I make sense of premonitions when my culture doesn’t believe in them? Premonitions in Daily Life is the only book that investigates the deeper meanings behind premonitions and helps you integrate them into everyday life. Learn how to trust your premonitions, how to influence the very nature of your future premonitions, and how to find a community where you can openly share your experiences. Praise: “Premonitions in Daily Life is a superb look at a very common experience—the sense of knowing a future event . . . Van Bronkhorst takes the mystery and confusion out of premonitions with this fascinating, reader-friendly book.” —Larry Dossey, M.D., author of The Power of Premonitions “[Van Bronkhorst] has compiled an in-depth series of guidelines for how to identify premonitions, how to normalize them, and how to integrate them in a sensible and useful way into your life.” —Sally Rhine Feather Ph.D., author of The Gift

Download or read book Promoting Spontaneous Use of Learning and Reasoning Strategies written by Emmanuel Manalo and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, scholars from around the world develop viable answers to the question of how it may be possible to promote students’ spontaneity in the use of learning and reasoning strategies. They combine their expertise to put forward new theories and models for understanding the underlying mechanisms; provide details of new research to address pertinent questions and problems; and describe classroom practices that have proven successful in promoting spontaneous strategy use. This book is a must for educators and researchers who truly care that schooling should cultivate learning and reasoning strategies in students that would prepare and serve them for life. A seminal resource, this book will address the basic problem that many educators are well acquainted with: that students can learn how to effectively use learning and reasoning strategies but not use them of their own volition or in settings other than the one in which they learned the strategies.