Some economists equate [economic rationality] with what they call ‘consumer sovereignty,’ a state of affairs they believe to exist in Western countries. This belief seems odd when, as in Great Britain, about 36 percent of the national income is expended by the state, but in any event there is no necessary connection between consumers’ sovereignty and rationality. All that is meant here by ‘rationality,’ is the following relatively simple proposition: that the economic purposes of society, whatever these may be and whoever decides them, are achieved with maximum economic efficiency--or alternatively, that maximum results are achieved at a minimum real cost.
We are here confronted, then, with a very curious phenomenon. We have before us a group of men all of whom are endowed with the highest possible intellectual gifts, and yet all mentally deranged, all in the throes of undeniable and cruel mental disease. Types like that have existed at all times, but the interesting fact here is that a number of people with very different hereditary endowments, with very different kinds of upbringing and domestic environments, and with very different life histories too, went the same way, the same unfortunate way, toward final alienation.
My intention in this paper is not to survey either the historical or the structural relationships between philosophy and the social sciences, but rather to focus on a basic systematic problem in methodology: the philosophical character and implications of the methods of social-scientific inquiry.
The present paper attempts to suggest certain obstacles to the application of scientific method in the domain of criminal law--with special reference to a narrower realm, the determination of guilt or innocence in the criminal trial. It is not within the scope of this analysis to indicate whether the considerations that follow apply equally well to other branches of the law, though this question, to be sure, opens up many interesting and challenging avenues of inquiry.
"There were three major spheres of action in which the Founding Fathers participated. First, there was the American Revolution and the events preceding and following it. This involved participation in the Continental Congresses, which, particularly under the Articles of Confederation, wages the War of the Revolution and gave the thirteen colonies the only cohesion they had at the time.
During the Nigerian Constitutional Conference held in London, May-June 1957, the British Colonial Secretary is reported to have said that he could not commit the British government to a definite date for Nigerian independence "because it would like to see more unity among Nigerian leaders." This statement reflects the state of affairs that exists in Nigeria today, and indicates the tremendous problems that must be overcome if the nation is to attain its autonomy within the near future.
Karl Marx was the originator of Soviet ideas on the farmer and agriculture. Marx abominated the peasant. History was peppered with peasants' revolts, but these revolts were always reactionary, not revolutionary. The peasant dreamed of restoring the primeval status, when Adam delved and Eve span, and the gentleman landlord was nowhere. Kill the landlord, the lawyer who shows him how to fetter the peasant, the usurer who robs the peasant, the trader who cheats him. Then all will be well with the world, according to historic peasant philosophy.
Review of book by Seymour Melman.New York: John Wiley. 1956. xiii & 238 pp.
Review of book by Philip W. Bell. New York: Oxford University Press. 1956. 478 pp.
Review of book by Paul A. Baran. New York Monthly review Press. 1957. 308 pp.
Review of book by Gary S. Becker.Economics Research Center of the University of Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1957. 137 pp.
Review of book by E. Franklin Frazier. Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press and Falcon's Wing Press. 1957. 264 pp.
Review of book by C. A. Macartney. New York: Frederick A. Praeger. 1957. 2 vols.: vol. 1, 493 pp.; vol. 2, 519 pp.
Review of a book by Leonard Krieger.New York: Macmillan. 1957. 524 pp.