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2161. Piketty's Rickety Assault on Capital

Author:
Richard M. Salsman
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century makes an important contribution to the economic history of industrialization since the early 18th century. His collection of data on the distribution of income and wealth around the globe, drawn mainly from tax records, surveys, and national reports, is rigorous and comprehensive; no one before has collected such credible material in this important sub-field of economics. Piketty is also to be credited for presenting the data in scores of easy-to-interpret graphs and for making it available online for those wishing to verify the presentation and/or investigate alternative empirical patterns.
Topic:
Economics

2162. Circumcision in America

Author:
Joseph England
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
Every year throughout sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, between four and five million girls suffer gruesome genital mutilation at the hands of tribal “cutters” or circumcisers. Far from being regarded as barbaric criminals from whom children should be hidden, these wielders of sharpened rocks, broken glass, rusty metal, and (only sometimes) scalpels occupy a special position of power and influence in their communities. Parents voluntarily, sometimes enthusiastically, bring their young and infant daughters to be mutilated. Though methods vary in severity, in as many as 10 percent of cases, a cutter shears a girl's labia for “beauty,” excises her clitoris to deprive her of sexual pleasure later in life, and sews closed her vagina to ensure virginity until marriage.
Political Geography:
Africa, America, and Middle East

2163. The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels

Author:
Alex Epstein
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
Who would argue that producing and using fossil fuels is not only not shameful, but also positively virtuous? Alex Epstein would. And he has done so eloquently and thoroughly in his book, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
Germany

2164. The Frackers

Author:
Gregory Zuckerman
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters, the second book by Wall Street Journal reporter Gregory Zuckerman, tells the story of the development, over the past several decades, of the amazing technology by which oil and gas have been made to flow from previously unyielding stone, in quantities tallied in the hundreds of billions of barrels and trillions of cubic feet. Zuckerman's complex narrative crisscrosses the country to Texas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and the badlands of Montana and the Dakotas. The book is the result of (among other things) more than a hundred hours of interviews with those whose story it tells; Zuckerman often uses the perspective gained from these firsthand accounts to give the story a fly-on-the-boardroom-wall feel.
Topic:
Development

2165. Stuff Matters

Author:
Mark Miodownik
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
In May 1985, a young Mark Miodownik sat on a train, with a fresh thirteen-centimeter stab wound in his back, and thought about what had just happened. Moments earlier, a man had approached him saying he had a knife and asking for money. Miodownik had decided to keep his assailant talking until the train doors were closing, and then push quickly past him to safety. That didn't work out so well. Although his assailant did not have a knife, he had a razor blade. And it had sliced through Miodownik's thick leather coat and multiple layers of clothing, severely lacerating his back.

2166. From the Editor, Spring 2015

Author:
Craig Biddle
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
This, the spring 2015 issue of The Objective Standard, begins our tenth year of publication; so let me start by extending a hearty thank-you to all of our subscribers and donors who have supported our vital work over the years. In a culture largely hostile to the ideas we elucidate and apply, the success of a publication such as TOS requires financial and spiritual support from the relative few who see the value of what we do. You are that few. You have made possible everything we have done—every article, every blog post, every video, every word. Without your support, TOS would have folded long ago, as most Objectivist periodicals have. Because of your support, however, TOS has not only survived, it has established and maintained a level of quality and clarity that has made and is making a difference. Here's an indication of the kind of correspondence we receive from people who discover TOS.
Political Geography:
America

2167. African Union as a Platform of African Conflict Management

Author:
Zdeněk Kříž and Tomáš Černohous
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Obrana a strategie (Defence & Strategy)
Institution:
University of Defence
Abstract:
The article focuses on assessing the ability of the African Union to perform the policy, peacekeeping and peacemaking roles within its conflict management doctrine and it also discusses whether African security problems may be more easily solved by the AU as an organization with a continental profile or by some other African organization on lower level. According to authors, the AU suffers from similar deficits as local regional organizations, which considerably restrict its efficiency and make the gap between AU's security mandate and the sources for its achievement, but it manages to perform the conflict management activities to a far greater degree than any other African organization at a much lower level has ever managed. With regard to that, the authors suggest an ideal profile of an actor capable of solving Africa's security problems in the form of the AU and its African Peace and Security Architecture representing a platform of equal cooperation of the Union with regional organizations and combining the advantages of both of these actors' approach towards conflict management.
Political Geography:
Africa

2168. The Case of Northern Mali (Azawad) 2012-13

Author:
Zdeněk Ludvík
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Obrana a strategie (Defence & Strategy)
Institution:
University of Defence
Abstract:
Northern Mali (Azawad) is an area where the state is unable to fulfill its basic functions. A characteristic feature of the area is the fragmentation of power-political control and authority. This process culminated in 2012-2013 in the complete disintegration of the sovereign architecture of the Malian state. So, rather than the just the state itself, non-state entities have acquired control and authority that, in the Westphalian concept of statehood, they are not entitled to execute. This has not only involved the interference of other state actors, but also TNCs, INGOs and, in particular, violent non-state actors. Thus, various types of governance have emerged in the territory. With the aid of interpretive paths I will introduce typologies of actors who were involved in governance and typologies of territories where such governance took place. The synthesis of these two categories shows that the methods of governance and their consequences have gained highly different forms among the different types of actors.
Political Geography:
Northern Mali

2169. The V4 Countries and the Impacts of the Austerity Cuts on their Defence Spending and Armed Forces

Author:
Jakub Kufčák
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Obrana a strategie (Defence & Strategy)
Institution:
University of Defence
Abstract:
This article analyses the impacts of the austerity cuts on the defence spending and armed forces of the V4 countries. This is achieved through combination of three analytical approaches - firstly by looking at defence expenditure in constant $ from SIPRI data, secondly by comparing the respective structures of these defence budgets from the NATO data, and thirdly by analysing how these developments and economic realities translated into the level of the respective national armies and if/how were the political ambitions for foreign deployments for these armies modified, if/how was the force structure reformed, if/which capabilities were slashed and if/which modernisation plans were postponed. This research design yielded several results even though the utility of the V4 analytical framework proved to be, thanks to vast discrepancies between the sample countries, limited. The conditions of small states armies did not allow the V4 countries to make significant cuts in the number of military personnel as bigger countries in Europe were able to execute in order to protect their equipment expenditures that are vital for modernisation. Consequently, the V4 countries were left with soaring personnel expenditures and gradually diminishing funds for investments. Curiously, Slovakia proved to be the only country where the decline in defence expenditure can be at least partially tied to austerity cuts and the economic crisis.
Political Geography:
Europe and Slovakia

2170. Visegrad Four EU Battlegroup: Meaning and Progress

Author:
Jana Urbanovská and Michal Paulech
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Obrana a strategie (Defence & Strategy)
Institution:
University of Defence
Abstract:
In 2011, the states of the so-called Visegrad Four (V4), i.e. the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, decided to form a joint European Union battlegroup by 2016, available for rapid deployment within ten days and within a radius of six thousand kilometres from Brussels. The intention to establish this military formation had become the first initiative of its kind within the V4 ever. The present article therefore aims to examine the content of the mutual military cooperation among the CR, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia in the form of the V4 battlegroup and make readers acquainted with relevant and up-to-date information about the process of the formation of the V4 battlegroup and its importance for the military cooperation of the V4 countries. In order to achieve that, the authors introduce the previous experience of the individual V4 countries with the formation of EU battlegroups, explain the motives of the V4 countries to form a joint battlegroup, describe the path leading to the creation of the V4 BG as well as the possibilities of its deployment and the question of financing, and finally they deal with the perspectives of the V4 BG from the point of view of its importance for further development of military cooperation between the V4 countries.
Political Geography:
Poland and Slovakia