Machiavelli wasn’t a traditional philosopher; he was, in fact, a senior diplomat in the service of the Florentine Republic. During his life he produced a series of popular but forgettable poems, plays and essays,(1) but he also produced – while working fulltime – two masterpieces: The Prince and Discourses on Livy.(2) The Prince circulated privately during Machiavelli’s lifetime, but was only published in 1532, five years after his death. Discourses was also published posthumously, in 1531. In other words, Machiavelli died having no idea that he would rank among the immortals. read more »

Not that anyone seems to notice or care, but ethical behavior has taken a big hit since the Financial Crisis of 2008-09. True, ethically suspect behavior was running riot before the crisis and was among its proximate causes. But that was behavior on the part of private citizens behaving greedily (i.e., taking huge risks to enrich themselves and their institutions) in part because they knew they were acting in a world of moral hazard created by their governments and central bankers. read more »

As my loyal readers know, I’ve been a bear on China for many years. Maybe I’m starting to believe my own books,(1) but poor China seems to be unraveling almost exactly according to plan. read more »

As noted in the last post, this is a stub end on my series on Greece and Europe. read more »