Author: OwenPitts

In my school, I have been required to read How to ARGUE with a LIBERAL… AND WIN!, and this book has been very interesting. My teacher has told me to pick any chapter of this book, and write the topic, “How could voluntary arrangements solve this problem if the state did not impose the politics of plunder?” on it. So, I have chosen to write on the chapter “Government should control prices, but not people.”

First of all, is it at all possible that the government can control prices without controlling the people? The answer is no. Let me tell you why. “If you look at it extremely closely, you will see that the government is actually controlling the people. The government is using price controls to make the people produce products at a specific amount, sell them at a specific price, and it also makes people buy a limited amount of the product that the people need.” (You can read more on this topic in my essay titled “Price controls are people controls“). So the government uses price controls to set prices, controls the amount of products being produced, controls what price the companies should sell the products for, and controls how much the people can buy.

So how could voluntary arrangements solve this problem if the state did not impose the politics of plunder? One thing that you could do is you could budget. If you budget, you will have a plan on how much money you spend on a service, or item. That way, you will know if you can afford to spend money on a specific thing.

Don Quixote is the main character of a novel written in 1605 by Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes. According to Wikipedia, “Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world’s pre-eminent novelists. He is best known for his novel Don Quixote, a work often cited as both the first modern novel and “the first great novel of world literature”.” Don Quixote was a widely read literary classic. Don Quixote was very popular novel for a long time, but it is not really read today, many people probably would not even read the whole thing unless instructed to.

Here is my short summary of the book:

So basically, this old man named Don Quixote loves to read and he reads a whole lot about knights, and the knighthood, and castles, pretty much a lot about what I like to call the “medieval age”, you may have heard of it or not. Anyway, this man eventually loses his mind and declares that he wants to be a knight just like the ones in his books. So he grabs some old armor that has been in his family for a long time, polishes it up, cleans up a sword, he takes an oath of knighthood, and declares that he is a knight. Throughout most of the rest of the book, he travels the land, looking for trouble that he can fix in a “knightly” way, and since knights and the knighthood are “dead”, people laugh at him, they make fun of him. In many cases, Don Quixote gets himself into trouble. In this one case, he is on his old horse, walking along the road when he comes across these people that he mistakes for magicians. So he charges them, his horse falls trapping him under his horse, and he gets beat up and his sword gets smashed. So this goes on for a long time, until he decides to return home and become a shepherd for a year. People encourage him thinking that he will return to his senses. A little while after he gets home when he wakes up in bed, he says he does not feel good, so a doctor is brought in and tells people that Don Quixote is dying. While on his deathbed, he comes to his senses and takes another oath, an oath of repentance. He dies a few days later.

The two oaths that Don Quixote takes completely contradict each other. In his oath of knighthood, he swears to protect the weak and uphold justice, but he does a lot of questionable things because he lost his sanity. In many cases, he does the opposite of what he swore to do, and becomes, in many cases, dangerous and violent.

In Don Quixote’s oath of repentance, he is on his deathbed, and he comes to his senses. In his oath, he realizes his sins, he repents of his sins, and he dies a very happy, new man.

The French materialists were a group of French 18th-century philosophers during the Enlightenment. According to Wikipedia, “French materialism is the name given to a handful of French 18th-century philosophers during the Age of Enlightenment, many of them clustered around the salon of Baron d’Holbach. Although there are important differences between them, all of them were materialists who believed that the world was made up of a single substance, matter, the motions and properties of which could be used to explain all phenomena.”

Adam Smith and the “invisible hand”. Adam Smith was a key figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. He was a Scottish philosopher and economist. He was also a pioneer in the thinking of political economy. His metaphor the “invisible hand” referrers to the “unseen forces that move the free market economy”, according to Investopedia. This metaphor first appeared in Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations.

The War of the Austrian Succession, according to Britannica, was a “group of related wars that took place after the death (1740) of Emperor Charles VI. At issue was the right of Charles’s daughter Maria Theresa to inherit the Habsburg lands. The war began when Frederick II of Prussia invaded Silesia in 1740.” According to Wikipedia, “The War of the Austrian Succession was a European conflict that took place between 1740 and 1748. Fought primarily in Central Europe, the Austrian Netherlands, Italy, the Atlantic and Mediterranean, related conflicts included King George’s War in North America, the the War of Jenkin’s Ear, the First Carnatic War and the First and Second Silesian Wars.”

What are price controls? According to the dictionary, price controls are “a government regulation establishing a maximum price to be charged for specified goods and services, especially during periods of war or inflation.” So basically, price controls are a government regulation that tells companies at what price they need to sell their products at. They also tell people how much things they can buy in a specific period of time. This commonly happens during a war, or during inflation. According to Wikipedia, “Price controls are restrictions set in place and enforced by governments, on the prices that can be charged for goods and services in a market.” So the government enforces this, I mean, why wouldn’t they? If they did not, then nobody would follow them. According to Investopedia, “The term “price controls” refers to the legal minimum or maximum prices set for specified goods. Price controls are normally mandated by the government in the free market. They are usually implemented as a means of direct economic intervention to manage the affordability of certain goods and services, including rent, gasoline, and food. Although it may make certain goods and services more affordable, price controls can often lead to disruptions in the market, losses for producers, and a noticeable change in quality.”

What are people controls? I do not think that you need to look it up to find out what this means. Basically what it means, is that when there is people control, someone is controlling another person by way of force, threat, temptation, etc. Sometimes the people want to be controlled, sometimes they do not want to be controlled (but most of the time they do not want to be controlled, the people want to do what they want to do). People control is used by the government too. For example, the state of Illinois, U.S.A. just got out of corona-19, and while we were still in it, the government made laws that said that you cannot go to the hospital, or grocery store, or church, or anywhere, unless you wore a mask. Thanks to the government, everyone wore masks inside a building, and outside a building. That is people control.

Are price controls and people controls the same thing? I totally think so, and this is why:

Remember how I said price controls are a government regulation that tells companies at what price they need to sell their products at? And that the government also tells people how much things they can buy in a specific period of time? The government is controlling the amount of products being produced, what price the companies should sell the products for, and how much the people can buy. So if you look at it extremely closely, you will see that the government is actually controlling the people. The government is using price controls to make the people produce products at a specific amount, sell them at a specific price, and it also makes people buy a limited amount of the product that the people need. The government enforces this, so there is technically nothing we can do about it.

So basically, yes, they are the same thing.

The main ideas we associate with the Enlightenment. It was believed that during the Enlightenment, human reasoning could be used to discover truths about the world, religion, and politics and could be used to make the lives of people better. Another important idea was skepticism about received wisdom. Everything had to be tested and proven correct. Other Enlightenment ideas were religious tolerance and the idea that people should be free from coercion in their personal lives and consciences.

Leonhard Euler was a Swiss physicist, astronomer, logician, engineer, geographer, and mathematician. According to Wikipedia, he also “founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made pioneering and influential discoveries in many other branches of mathematics such as analytic number theory, complex analysis, and infinitesimal calculus.” He was alive from 1707 to 1783, so he was alive during the Scientific Revolution. According to csmonitor.com, “Euler was the first to introduce the notation for a function f(x). He also popularized the use of the Greek letter π to denote the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. Euler also made contributions in the fields of number theory, graph theory, logic, and applied mathematics.” Also, he was extremely good at math. He could do calculations in his head that does not seem possible to some people.

The Ptolemaic-Aristotelian view of the universe. According to Vassar College, “In this cosmology, the earth does not revolve around anything else or rotate around its own axis. It is surrounded by ten concentric spheres made of a perfectly transparent substance known as “quintessence.” These spheres revolve around the earth, carrying the other celestial bodies.” So, this is not what we associate with the universe today. In today’s world, we associate our universe (galaxy) as the sun in the center with eight planets and their moons revolving on their axis’s around the sun.

Was Lady Macbeth correct? ‘What’s done is done.’ This phrase was taken from the tragic play titled Macbeth written by William Shakespeare. According to Wikipedia, “William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England’s national poet and the “Bard of Avon”.” He was a very famous playwright and he wrote several plays, including Macbeth. According to Google books, “Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s finest plays, and presents a man’s conscience and the effect of guilt on his mind. A dark and bloody play, Macbeth explores reality and illusion; witchcraft and the supernatural; ambition and kingship; the natural order; light and life, darkness and death; blood and dead babies.” This play featured Macbeth being entranced by three witches. They prophesied to Macbeth that he will be king of Scotland, but only if he kills the current king. Macbeth is then encouraged by his wife to kill the king, and Macbeth does so, and kills the king. Then Macbeth becomes the new king. After becoming king, Macbeth then kills even more people out of paranoia. Civil war then ensues in hope to overthrow Macbeth, but this just leads to more death. Eventually, Macbeth was defeated in battle and killed by Malcolm (son of the king of Scotland) at the Battle of Lumphanan with the assistance of the English. This play is one of Shakespeare’s best works, but what makes it so famous? According to Study.com, “Macbeth is still very relevant today as it tells us about the role of jealousy, greed and overarching ambition in the downfall of men and women. Many students read this drama to realize how self-defeating it is to be led by these emotions.” So, people read this play to figure out how to avoid the “emotions” that brought about the downfall of the characters in this play.

The phrase ‘What’s done is done’ said by Lady Macbeth, is located in the second scene of the third act. What happened, was Macbeth was feeling guilty about killing both the king and his friend, and Lady Macbeth was feeling a little guilty herself because of her role in the king’s death. She says ‘What’s done is done’ in act three, scene two, but still her guilt torments her, finally leading up to her suicidal death.

‘What’s done is done.’ Was Lady Macbeth correct in saying this? Well, I think she was correct in saying ‘What’s done is done.’ In other words, ‘What’s done cannot be undone.’ Basically she is saying, you cannot change the past, so deal with the present. She was correct in saying this, but wrong in conspiring to kill the king. She helped conspire to kill the king, and later regretted it. In fact, she felt so much guilt in conspiring to kill the king, that she eventually committed suicide. She felt so much guilt in conspiring to kill the king, that she killed herself. So basically, do not do anything now that you will later regret.

Who should have the authority to set prices, the free market or the state? According to the Dictionary, the free market is “an economic system in which prices are determined by unrestricted competition between privately owned businesses”, and the state is “a nation or territory considered as an organized political community under one government.” Right now, the United States economy is run by the free market (an economic market run by supply and demand) with some government regulation. Politicians and economists are debating over how much government regulation is needed for the United States economy. 

The prices of a product is determined by supply and demand, sellers against sellers, buyers against buyers. The scarcity of one product compared to another product determines the measurement of the price of that product. Also, the person who owns the product that is being sold gets to determine how much of the product to make, how much of it to sell, and the price of the product.

Who should have the authority to set prices, the free market or the state? Why? In my opinion, I think that the free market should have the authority to set prices. Here are my reasons for why I chose the free market to have the authority to set prices. In the free market the prices are set by the business men who own the product that people are buying. These men get to chose the prices of their products according to there scarcity, and how many of  the product that they can make at a time. Plus, the economy is already run by a free market, and I think it is doing quite well. The only thing about this that I disapprove of is the government regulation that most free markets have. Some free markets do not have government regulation, but most do. If the state was in charge of pricing things, I bet that they would try to make everything similar to the same price and try to give everyone an equal share in selling it and buying it, which is not good. Basically that gets rid of competition, which makes companies try to improve in order to get the most customers. If competition goes away, then the companies have no need to improve, and nothing ever gets better. The free market is where the businessmen of different companies price their products according to the scarcity of the product, and how much of the product that they can make at a time. Basically, if people pick the prices of their own products, then that creates competition between companies which forces them to get better. Without competition, then the economy stays the same and never gets better. Therefore, the free market is better at controlling the prices of products than the state is. So, let’s just say that the economy is better off if the free market is in charge of controlling the prices of products, because if the state was in charge, I bet the economy would fall apart eventually.

(1) Mannerism and the Baroque: According to Wikipedia, “Mannerism, which may also be known as Late Renaissance, is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, when the Baroque style largely replaced it.” Mannerism was taken from the Italian word maniera, which means “style”. The Baroque was, according to Wikipedia, “a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s.” Spectacle, illusion, movement, and biblical genre painting are the four main characteristics of the Baroque.

(2) Peter the Great: According to Wikipedia, “Peter I, most commonly known as Peter the Great, was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from 7 May [O.S. 27 April] 1682 to 1721 and subsequently the Russian Empire until his death in 1725, jointly ruling with his elder half-brother, Ivan V until 1696.” When he was young, Peter traveled the world looking for ideas to take back to Russia to help improve it, and when he became “king”, he flipped the country on its back. He completely changed the rules. For example, all men wore beards and long hair, and when Peter took over, he made it illegal to wear a beard unless you pay a fine. A lot of other rules got changed like this one. According to Library of Congress, “His major achievements include the founding of St. Petersburg in 1703, the victory against Sweden at the Battle of Poltava in 1709, and the birth of the Russian navy, Peter’s lifelong passion.“

(3) Frederick William: According to Wikipedia, “Frederick William was Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia, thus ruler of Brandenburg-Prussia, from 1640 until his death in 1688. A member of the House of Hohenzollern, he is popularly known as “the Great Elector” because of his military and political achievements.” Along with other accomplishments, William completely freed the surfs, abolished hereditary leases, and settled several peasant colonists and worked to stabilize the circumstances of peasant subjects on state domains and noble estates.

According to Wikipedia, “Mercantilism is an economic policy that is designed to maximize the exports and minimize the imports for an economy. It promotes imperialism, colonialism, tariffs and subsidies on traded goods to achieve that goal.” Mercantilism is pretty much just an economic practice used to augment state power at the expense of other countries. A historic example of this would be the Sugar Act of 1764. This was a time where the colonists were made to pay higher tariffs and duties on the imports of foreign-made sugar brought to them by  other countries.

The War of the Spanish Succession lasted from 1701 to 1750. The death of childless King Charles II of Spain triggered the war. In Charles’ will, he left the throne to Philip, Duke of Anjou, grandson of King Louis XIV of France. However, England, Holland, Prussia and Austria saw this as jeopardizing the balance of power in Europe. They formed a group called the Grand Alliance and tried to put Habsburg Archduke Charles of Austria on the throne instead of Philip. Eventually war broke out, but it eventually stopped with a negotiated end with Philip on the throne.

According to Wikipedia, “The Edict of Nantes was signed in April 1598 by King Henry IV and granted the Calvinist Protestants of France, also known as Huguenots, substantial rights in the nation, which was in essence completely Catholic. In the edict, Henry aimed primarily to promote civil unity.” The Edict of Nantes put a temporary stop to the religious wars between Roman Catholics and Protestants which had torn France apart ever since the 1560s.

The theme that is in the title is basically selling your soul to the devil, featured in the play Dr. Faustus. This play features an accomplished scholar who sells his soul to the devil, and in return he gets ‘magical powers’. According to Wikipedia, “Doctor Faustus (play) The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, commonly referred to simply as Doctor Faustus, is an Elizabethan tragedy by Christopher Marlowe, based on German stories about the title character Faust. It was probably written in 1592 or 1593, shortly before Marlowe’s death.”

In this play, Lucifer (Satan), using a demon named Mephistophilis as a messenger, Lucifer and Faustus strike a deal. Faustus says that if Lucifer grants him twenty-four years on earth and Mephistophilis as Faustus’ servant, then Faustus, at the end of the twenty-four years, will give his soul to Lucifer and become one of those trapped in hell. This will explain it better: “Using Mephistophilis as a messenger, Faustus strikes a deal with Lucifer: that he is to be allotted twenty-four years of life on Earth, during which time he will have Mephistophilis as his personal servant, and, at the end of which, he will give his soul over to Lucifer as payment and spend the rest of time as one of the damned in hell. This deal is supposed to be cemented in the form of Faustus’ own blood. Interestingly, at first his blood congeals, leading to second thoughts by Faustus. Mephistophilis brings coals to break the wound open again, and thus Mephistophilis begins his servitude and Faustus his oath.”, taken from Faust.com. After he took this oath, he did crazy stuff for years. He became a rich dude, and lived in a big house. He lived off of whatever the demon stole, food, clothes, whatever the demon could get. When the twenty-four years was almost over, he had a big party with his friends. Then, when he went into his room to sleep, he never came out. Some people investigated, and they found blood and body parts scattered across the room. Faustus had a very tragic death.

This play also has a moral to it. This is to tell people not to go down the wrong path that Dr. Faustus took. It will only lead to death and destruction. I for one, agree completely with this.

According to Enotes.com, “The primary themes of Doctor Faustus are the relationship between knowledge and power and the consequences of attempting to attain knowledge beyond a certain extent.” Why has this theme remained popular since 1587? Well, we as humans are attracted by interest and curiosity to these kinds of things. The sound of selling your soul to the devil makes people feel scared, frightened, thrilled, and we as humans are attracted by this kind of thing. Therefore, this theme has remained popular all the way through the sixteenth century (well, maybe not popular all the way through the sixteenth century, but it was well-known). It is probably still even well-known today.