Blog #20 - Which "new" philosophy is your favorite / least favorite and why?

We have been studying 18th and 19th Century changes in philosophy in Europe and how the Industrial Revolution is sweeping away the old and rushing in some new radical ideas about how people view themselves, history and how they should treat each other.  You can check your notes from Ch. 19, Sec. 4. 

First, there are the economists like Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith and David Ricardo. 
1. Malthus was the one who examined the ideas of population and plants and felt that as long as the population grew faster than the food supply, the world would run out of resources to adequately feed and clothe and warm that population at the comfort level they had come to expect.  If things didn't change, people would die off, and countries might go to war over existing supplies of resources. 

2. Adam Smith wrote his amazingly popular book, The Wealth of Nations, the same year that the Declaration of Independence was signed.  In the book, he discussed the concept of The Invisible Hand (the self-regulating force of the marketplace) in which a growing economy lifts all boats, using the metaphor whether you're in a yacht, a canoe, a life raft, or a speed boat.  He also is a big proponent of the concept of laissez-faire where the gov't leaves the economy alone, b/c otherwise it would artificially and negatively influence the economy. 

3. With Ricardo, he also believed in laissez-faire too and opposed any help for the poor.  The free market should help the poor and that they need to learn how to save, work hard and limit their family size.  Ricardo's big idea was the Iron Law of Wages: the working class could not escape poverty b/c the wage increases won't cover enough of the necessities (food, shelter, clothes) to escape poverty since the prices will go up too. 

Then there are the utilitarians. 
4. Jeremy Bentham.

5. John Stuart Mill


How about socialism? 
6. Main ideas of socialism -


7. Karl Marx -



Please answer these two questions:
1. Which of these philosophers' ideas appeals the most to you?  Why? 

2. Which of these ideas doesn't appeal to you?  Why not? 

Blog due Tuesday 5/4 200 words