Cato Institute
The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D. C, it was founded as the Charles Koch Foundation in 1974 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries. In July 1976, the name was changed to the Cato Institute. Cato was established to have a focus on public advocacy, media societal influence. According to the 2017 Global Go To Think Tank Index Report, Cato is number 15 in the "Top Think Tanks Worldwide" and number 10 in the "Top Think Tanks in the United States"; the Cato Institute is libertarian in its political philosophy, advocates a limited role for government in domestic and foreign affairs. This includes support for abolishing minimum wage laws; the institute was founded in December 1974 in Wichita, Kansas as the Charles Koch Foundation and funded by Charles Koch. The other members of the first board of directors included co-founder Murray Rothbard, libertarian scholar Earl Ravenal, businessmen Sam H. Husbands Jr. and David H. Padden.
At the suggestion of Rothbard, the institute changed its name in 1976 to Cato Institute after Cato's Letters, a series of British essays penned in the early 18th century by John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon. Cato relocated first to San Francisco, California in 1977 to Washington, D. C. in 1981, settling in a historic house on Capitol Hill. The Institute moved to its current location on Massachusetts Avenue in 1993. Cato Institute was named the fifth-ranked think tank in the world for 2009 in a study of think tanks by James G. McGann, PhD of the University of Pennsylvania, based on a criterion of excellence in "producing rigorous and relevant research and programs in one or more substantive areas of research". Various Cato programs were favorably ranked in a survey published by the University of Pennsylvania in 2012; the Cato Institute publishes numerous policy studies, briefing papers and books. Peer-reviewed academic journals include the Cato Regulation. Other periodicals include Cato's Letter, Cato Supreme Court Review, Cato Policy Report.
Cato published Inquiry Magazine from 1977 to 1982 and Literature of Liberty from 1978 to 1979. Notable books from Cato and Cato scholars include: Human Freedom Index In Defense of Global Capitalism The Improving State of the World Restoring the Lost Constitution In addition to maintaining its own website in English and Spanish, Cato maintains websites focused on particular topics: "Downsizing the Federal Government" contains essays on the size of the U. S. federal government and recommendations for decreasing various programs. Libertarianism.org is a website focused on the practice of libertarianism. Cato Unbound, a web-only publication that features a monthly open debate among four people; the conversation begins with one lead essay, followed by three response essays by separate people. After that, all four participants can write as many responses and counter-responses as they want for the duration of that month. PoliceMisconduct.net contains reports and stories from Cato's National Police Misconduct Reporting Project and the National Police Misconduct News Feed.
Overlawyered is a law blog on the subject of tort reform run by author Walter Olson. HumanProgress.org is an interactive data web project that catalogs increases in prosperity driven by the free market. "Public Schooling Battle Map" illustrates different moral conflicts that result from public schooling. Social media sponsored by Cato includes "Daily Podcasts", plus pages on Facebook, Google+, YouTube. Speakers at Cato have included Federal Reserve Chairmen Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Rodrigo de Rato. In 2009 Czech Republic President Václav Klaus spoke at a conference. Many Cato scholars advocate support for civil liberties, liberal immigration policies, drug liberalization, the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell and laws restricting consensual sexual activity; the Cato Institute resists being labeled as part of the conservative movement because "'conservative' smacks of an unwillingness to change, of a desire to preserve the status quo". In 2006, Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos proposed the term "Libertarian Democrat" to describe his particular liberal position, suggesting that libertarians should be allies of the Democratic Party.
Replying, Cato vice president for research Brink Lindsey agreed that libertarians and liberals should view each other as natural ideological allies, noted continuing differences between mainstream liberal views on economic policy and Cato's "Jeffersonian philosophy". Cato has stated on its "About Cato" page: "The Jeffersonian philosophy that animates Cato's work has come to be called'libertarianism' or'market liberalism.' It combines an appreciation for entrepreneurship, the market process, lower taxes with strict respect for civil liberties and skepticism about the benefits of both the welfare state and foreign military adventurism."Some Cato scholars disagree with conservatives on neo-conservative foreign policy, albeit that this has not always been uniform. The relationship between Cato and the Ayn Rand Institute improved with the nomination of Cato's new president John A. Allison IV in 2012, he is a former ARI board member and is
Microeconomics
Microeconomics is a branch of economics that studies the behaviour of individuals and firms in making decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources and the interactions among these individuals and firms. One goal of microeconomics is to analyze the market mechanisms that establish relative prices among goods and services and allocate limited resources among alternative uses. Microeconomics shows conditions, it analyzes market failure, where markets fail to produce efficient results. Microeconomics stands in contrast to macroeconomics, which involves "the sum total of economic activity, dealing with the issues of growth and unemployment and with national policies relating to these issues". Microeconomics deals with the effects of economic policies on microeconomic behavior and thus on the aforementioned aspects of the economy. In the wake of the Lucas critique, much of modern macroeconomic theories has been built upon microfoundations—i.e. Based upon basic assumptions about micro-level behavior.
Microeconomic theory begins with the study of a single rational and utility maximizing individual. To economists, rationality means an individual possesses stable preferences that are both complete and transitive; the technical assumption that preference relations are continuous is needed to ensure the existence of a utility function. Although microeconomic theory can continue without this assumption, it would make comparative statics impossible since there is no guarantee that the resulting utility function would be differentiable. Microeconomic theory progresses by defining a competitive budget set, a subset of the consumption set, it is at this point that economists make the technical assumption that preferences are locally non-satiated. Without the assumption of LNS there is no 100% guarantee but there would be a rational rise in individual utility. With the necessary tools and assumptions in place the utility maximization problem is developed; the utility maximization problem is the heart of consumer theory.
The utility maximization problem attempts to explain the action axiom by imposing rationality axioms on consumer preferences and mathematically modeling and analyzing the consequences. The utility maximization problem serves not only as the mathematical foundation of consumer theory but as a metaphysical explanation of it as well; that is, the utility maximization problem is used by economists to not only explain what or how individuals make choices but why individuals make choices as well. The utility maximization problem is a constrained optimization problem in which an individual seeks to maximize utility subject to a budget constraint. Economists use the extreme value theorem to guarantee that a solution to the utility maximization problem exists; that is, since the budget constraint is both bounded and closed, a solution to the utility maximization problem exists. Economists call the solution to the utility maximization problem a Walrasian demand function or correspondence; the utility maximization problem has so far been developed by taking consumer tastes as the primitive.
However, an alternative way to develop microeconomic theory is by taking consumer choice as the primitive. This model of microeconomic theory is referred to as revealed preference theory; the theory of supply and demand assumes that markets are competitive. This implies that there are many buyers and sellers in the market and none of them have the capacity to influence prices of goods and services. In many real-life transactions, the assumption fails because some individual buyers or sellers have the ability to influence prices. Quite a sophisticated analysis is required to understand the demand-supply equation of a good model. However, the theory works well in situations meeting these assumptions. Mainstream economics does not assume a priori that markets are preferable to other forms of social organization. In fact, much analysis is devoted to cases where market failures lead to resource allocation, suboptimal and creates deadweight loss. A classic example of suboptimal resource allocation is that of a public good.
In such cases, economists may attempt to find policies that avoid waste, either directly by government control, indirectly by regulation that induces market participants to act in a manner consistent with optimal welfare, or by creating "missing markets" to enable efficient trading where none had existed. This is studied in the field of public choice theory. "Optimal welfare" takes on a Paretian norm, a mathematical application of the Kaldor–Hicks method. This can diverge from the Utilitarian goal of maximizing utility because it does not consider the distribution of goods between people. Market failure in positive economics is limited in implications without mixing the belief of the economist and their theory; the demand for various commodities by individuals is thought of as the outcome of a utility-maximizing process, with each individual trying to maximize their own utility under a budget constraint and a given consumption set. The study of microeconomics involves several "key" areas: Supply and demand is an economic model of price determination in a competitive market.
It concludes that in a competitive market with no externalities, per unit taxes, or price controls, the unit price for a particular good is the price at which the quantity demanded by consumers equals the quantity supplied by producers. This price results in a stable economic equilibrium. Elasticity is the measurement of how resp
Pennsic War
The Pennsic War is an annual American medieval camping event held by the Society for Creative Anachronism—a "war" between two large regional SCA groups: the Kingdom of the East and the Middle Kingdom. It is the single largest annual SCA event, with more than 10,000 people attending each year, from as far as Sweden, France, Italy and Australia. Pennsic lasts for 17 days; the event centers on pre-17th century history and culture with all campers dressing in medieval clothing. The winners of the battles and other activities receive war points, the Kingdom with the most war points wins that Pennsic; the Pennsic War uses numbers to identify each war rather than the year it was held, so the 2017 event was known as "Pennsic War 46", there having been 45 previous events. The Pennsic War takes place in late July/early August. Prior to 2007, Pennsic took place during the first two weeks of August, some of the earliest Pennsics were held during September; the first Pennsic was held at Newton's Campground in Waterford, Pennsylvania.
The second was held at St. Clair Beach Campground near Pittsburgh; the third was held on a private farm in Pennsylvania. The fourth called "Pennsic Pour" or "Pennsic Puddle", was held at Spencer Farm on Aquilla Road near Chardon and was marred by massive flooding and mudslides; this is celebrated in song by performer Duke Moonwulf Starkadderson in "Pennsic War IV". The fifth was held at the Berlin Reservoir outside Alliance, after a site in West Virginia was rejected; the sixth and all subsequent Pennsics have been held at Coopers Lake Campground in Worth Township near Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania near the intersection of Interstate 79 and US 422. The site is visible from the I-79 southbound lanes. According to the HERSTAĐR-SAGA: An Incomplete History of Pennsic, One day 30 years ago, Cariadoc of the Bow, the King of the Middle, got bored with peace and declared war upon the East, loser to take Pittsburgh; the King of the East filed it away and forgot about it. Time passed. Cariadoc moved to New York and subsequently became King of the East, whereupon he retrieved the declaration from the file cabinet and said, "Let’s fight."
The Middle won, Cariadoc has the distinction of being the only king who declared war upon himself and lost. Since Pennsic XXV in 1996, the event has gathered over 10,000 participants most years; these include not only SCA members from across the globe, but members of various other historical re-enactment groups such as Markland. Pennsic is, however, an SCA event. According to the official Pennsic website, the final count for 2015 was 10,556. Archery SCA Heavy Combat Rapier Combat Thrown Weapons Youth Combat Pennsic University: a framework of classes where attendees learn period skills and performing arts. Arts and Sciences Exhibition. Youth Arts and Sciences Exhibition. Performing Arts: which include acrobatics, comedy, magic, music and theatre. Period Games: where one can play board games such as Go, Chess and Tafl games, card games such as Tarot card games and dice games. Pennsic Choir. Dancing: including Renaissance dances, Middle Eastern Dance, South Asian Dance, East Asian Dance. Shopping With over 10,000 people, Pennsic becomes the fourth largest populated place in Butler County, PA.
Pennsic's annual economic impact on the immediate area amounts to $1.8 million dropped into the Butler County economy, with many local businesses citing the period during Pennsic being among their busiest of the year. Estrella War—another war held by the SCA The Official Pennsic War web site A site with collected images and stories of the Pennsic War The Pennsic War: A Video Documentary "The Largest Medieval Battle in Modern Times." Atlas Obscura
Atheism
Atheism is, in the broadest sense, the absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is the rejection of belief. In an narrower sense, atheism is the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which, in its most general form, is the belief that at least one deity exists; the etymological root for the word atheism originated before the 5th century BCE from the ancient Greek ἄθεος, meaning "without god". In antiquity it had multiple uses as a pejorative term applied to those thought to reject the gods worshiped by the larger society, those who were forsaken by the gods, or those who had no commitment to belief in the gods; the term denoted a social category created by orthodox religionists into which those who did not share their religious beliefs were placed. The actual term atheism emerged first in the 16th century. With the spread of freethought, skeptical inquiry, subsequent increase in criticism of religion, application of the term narrowed in scope.
The first individuals to identify themselves using the word atheist lived in the 18th century during the Age of Enlightenment. The French Revolution, noted for its "unprecedented atheism," witnessed the first major political movement in history to advocate for the supremacy of human reason; the French Revolution can be described as the first period where atheism became implemented politically. Arguments for atheism range from the philosophical to historical approaches. Rationales for not believing in deities include arguments that there is a lack of empirical evidence, the problem of evil, the argument from inconsistent revelations, the rejection of concepts that cannot be falsified, the argument from nonbelief. Nonbelievers contend that atheism is a more parsimonious position than theism and that everyone is born without beliefs in deities. Although some atheists have adopted secular philosophies, there is no one ideology or set of behaviors to which all atheists adhere. Since conceptions of atheism vary, accurate estimations of current numbers of atheists are difficult.
According to global Win-Gallup International studies, 13% of respondents were "convinced atheists" in 2012, 11% were "convinced atheists" in 2015, in 2017, 9% were "convinced atheists". However, other researchers have advised caution with WIN/Gallup figures since other surveys which have used the same wording for decades and have a bigger sample size have reached lower figures. An older survey by the British Broadcasting Corporation in 2004 recorded atheists as comprising 8% of the world's population. Other older estimates have indicated that atheists comprise 2% of the world's population, while the irreligious add a further 12%. According to these polls and East Asia are the regions with the highest rates of atheism. In 2015, 61 % of people in China reported; the figures for a 2010 Eurobarometer survey in the European Union reported that 20% of the EU population claimed not to believe in "any sort of spirit, God or life force". Writers disagree on how best to define and classify atheism, contesting what supernatural entities are considered gods, whether it is a philosophic position in its own right or the absence of one, whether it requires a conscious, explicit rejection.
Atheism has been regarded as compatible with agnosticism, has been contrasted with it. A variety of categories have been used to distinguish the different forms of atheism; some of the ambiguity and controversy involved in defining atheism arises from difficulty in reaching a consensus for the definitions of words like deity and god. The plurality of wildly different conceptions of God and deities leads to differing ideas regarding atheism's applicability; the ancient Romans accused Christians of being atheists for not worshiping the pagan deities. This view fell into disfavor as theism came to be understood as encompassing belief in any divinity. With respect to the range of phenomena being rejected, atheism may counter anything from the existence of a deity, to the existence of any spiritual, supernatural, or transcendental concepts, such as those of Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism. Definitions of atheism vary in the degree of consideration a person must put to the idea of gods to be considered an atheist.
Atheism has sometimes been defined to include the simple absence of belief. This broad definition would include newborns and other people who have not been exposed to theistic ideas; as far back as 1772, Baron d'Holbach said. George H. Smith suggested that: "The man, unacquainted with theism is an atheist because he does not believe in a god; this category would include the child with the conceptual capacity to grasp the issues involved, but, still unaware of those issues. The fact that this child does not believe in god qualifies him as an atheist." Implicit atheism is "the absence of theistic belief without a conscious rejection of it" and explicit atheism is the conscious rejection of belief. For the purposes of his paper on "philosophical atheism", Ernest Nagel contested including mere absence of theistic belief as a type of atheism. Graham Oppy classifies as innocents those who never considered the question because they lack any understanding of what a god is. According to Oppy, these could be one-month-old babies, humans with severe traumatic brain injuries, or patients with advanced dementia.
Philosophers such as Antony Flew and Michael Martin have contrasted positive (st
Anarcho-capitalism
Anarcho-capitalism is a political philosophy and school of anarchist thought that advocates the elimination of centralized state dictum in favor of self-ownership, private property and free markets. Anarcho-capitalists hold that in the absence of statute, society tends to contractually self-regulate and civilize through the spontaneous and organic discipline of the free market. In an anarcho-capitalist society, law enforcement and all other security services would be operated by funded competitors selected by consumers rather than centrally through confiscatory taxation. Money, along with all other goods and services, would be and competitively provided in an open market. Personal and economic activities under anarcho-capitalism would therefore be regulated by victim-based dispute resolution organizations under tort and contract law, rather than by statute through centrally determined punishment under political monopolies, which tend to become corrupt in proportion to their monopolization.
Business regulations, such as corporate standards, public relations, product labels, rules for consumer protection and labor relations would be regulated voluntarily via the use of competitive trade associations, professional societies, standards bodies. Various theorists have espoused legal philosophies similar to anarcho-capitalism. However, the first person to use the term was Murray Rothbard who, in the mid-20th century, synthesized elements from the Austrian School of economics, classical liberalism and 19th-century American individualist anarchists Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker. A Rothbardian anarcho-capitalist society would operate under a mutually agreed-upon libertarian "legal code which would be accepted, which the courts would pledge themselves to follow"; this pact would recognize self-ownership, property and tort law, in keeping with the universal non-aggression principle. Anarcho-capitalists are distinguished from minarchists, who advocate a small Jeffersonian night-watchman state limited to protecting individuals and their properties from foreign and domestic aggression.
Anarcho-capitalists argue for a society based on the voluntary trade of private property and services in order to minimize conflict while maximizing individual liberty and prosperity. However, they recognize charity and communal arrangements as part of the same voluntary ethic. Although anarcho-capitalists are known for asserting a right to private property, some propose that non-state public or community property can exist in an anarcho-capitalist society. For them, what is important is that it is acquired and transferred without help or hindrance from the compulsory state. Anarcho-capitalist libertarians believe that the only just and most economically beneficial way to acquire property is through voluntary trade, gift, or labor-based original appropriation, rather than through aggression or fraud. Anarcho-capitalists see free market capitalism as the basis for a prosperous society. Murray Rothbard said that the difference between free market capitalism and "state capitalism" is the difference between "peaceful, voluntary exchange" and a collusive partnership between business and government that uses coercion to subvert the free market.
"Capitalism", as anarcho-capitalists employ the term, is not to be confused with state monopoly capitalism, crony capitalism, corporatism, or contemporary mixed economies, wherein market incentives and disincentives may be altered by state action. They therefore reject the state, seeing it as an entity which steals property, initiates aggression, has a compulsory monopoly on the use of force, uses its coercive powers to benefit some businesses and individuals at the expense of others, creates artificial monopolies, restricts trade and restricts personal freedoms via drug laws, compulsory education, laws on food and morality and the like. Many anarchists view capitalism as an inherently authoritarian and hierarchical system and seek the expropriation of private property. There is disagreement between these left anarchists and laissez-faire anarcho-capitalists as the former rejects anarcho-capitalism as a form of anarchism and considers anarcho-capitalism an oxymoron, while the latter holds that such expropriation is counterproductive to order and would require a state.
On the Nolan chart, anarcho-capitalists are located at the extreme edge of the libertarian quadrant since they reject state involvement in both economic and personal affairs. Anarcho-capitalists argue that the state relies on initiating force because force can be used against those who have not stolen private property, vandalized private property, assaulted anyone, or committed fraud. Many argue that subsidized monopolies tend to be corrupt and inefficient. Murray Rothbard argued that all government services, including
OCLC
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Incorporated d/b/a OCLC is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world's information and reducing information costs". It was founded in 1967 as the Ohio College Library Center. OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the largest online public access catalog in the world. OCLC is funded by the fees that libraries have to pay for its services. OCLC maintains the Dewey Decimal Classification system. OCLC began in 1967, as the Ohio College Library Center, through a collaboration of university presidents, vice presidents, library directors who wanted to create a cooperative computerized network for libraries in the state of Ohio; the group first met on July 5, 1967 on the campus of the Ohio State University to sign the articles of incorporation for the nonprofit organization, hired Frederick G. Kilgour, a former Yale University medical school librarian, to design the shared cataloging system.
Kilgour wished to merge the latest information storage and retrieval system of the time, the computer, with the oldest, the library. The plan was to merge the catalogs of Ohio libraries electronically through a computer network and database to streamline operations, control costs, increase efficiency in library management, bringing libraries together to cooperatively keep track of the world's information in order to best serve researchers and scholars; the first library to do online cataloging through OCLC was the Alden Library at Ohio University on August 26, 1971. This was the first online cataloging by any library worldwide. Membership in OCLC is based on use of services and contribution of data. Between 1967 and 1977, OCLC membership was limited to institutions in Ohio, but in 1978, a new governance structure was established that allowed institutions from other states to join. In 2002, the governance structure was again modified to accommodate participation from outside the United States.
As OCLC expanded services in the United States outside Ohio, it relied on establishing strategic partnerships with "networks", organizations that provided training and marketing services. By 2008, there were 15 independent United States regional service providers. OCLC networks played a key role in OCLC governance, with networks electing delegates to serve on the OCLC Members Council. During 2008, OCLC commissioned two studies to look at distribution channels. In early 2009, OCLC negotiated new contracts with the former networks and opened a centralized support center. OCLC provides bibliographic and full-text information to anyone. OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat—the OCLC Online Union Catalog, the largest online public access catalog in the world. WorldCat has holding records from private libraries worldwide; the Open WorldCat program, launched in late 2003, exposed a subset of WorldCat records to Web users via popular Internet search and bookselling sites.
In October 2005, the OCLC technical staff began a wiki project, WikiD, allowing readers to add commentary and structured-field information associated with any WorldCat record. WikiD was phased out; the Online Computer Library Center acquired the trademark and copyrights associated with the Dewey Decimal Classification System when it bought Forest Press in 1988. A browser for books with their Dewey Decimal Classifications was available until July 2013; until August 2009, when it was sold to Backstage Library Works, OCLC owned a preservation microfilm and digitization operation called the OCLC Preservation Service Center, with its principal office in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The reference management service QuestionPoint provides libraries with tools to communicate with users; this around-the-clock reference service is provided by a cooperative of participating global libraries. Starting in 1971, OCLC produced catalog cards for members alongside its shared online catalog. OCLC commercially sells software, such as CONTENTdm for managing digital collections.
It offers the bibliographic discovery system WorldCat Discovery, which allows for library patrons to use a single search interface to access an institution's catalog, database subscriptions and more. OCLC has been conducting research for the library community for more than 30 years. In accordance with its mission, OCLC makes its research outcomes known through various publications; these publications, including journal articles, reports and presentations, are available through the organization's website. OCLC Publications – Research articles from various journals including Code4Lib Journal, OCLC Research, Reference & User Services Quarterly, College & Research Libraries News, Art Libraries Journal, National Education Association Newsletter; the most recent publications are displayed first, all archived resources, starting in 1970, are available. Membership Reports – A number of significant reports on topics ranging from virtual reference in libraries to perceptions about library funding. Newsletters – Current and archived newsletters for the library and archive community.
Presentations – Presentations from both guest speakers and OCLC research from conferences and other events. The presentations are organized into five categories: Conference presentations, Dewey presentations, Distinguished Seminar Series, Guest presentations, Research staff
