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The concept of intellectual property poses potentially difficult questions for those sympathetic to the Austrian economic viewpoint. Austrians are staunch proponents of the free market and this leads them to strongly defend private property rights. It also leads to a strong condemnation of government granted monopolies. If both of these positions are taken, then how should an Austrian view intellectual property? This paper attempts to develop a market oriented public policy position concerning copyright protection. It concludes that markets are much more efficient, and desirable, for protecting intellectual property than is the government.

This article critically reconstructs how Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer outlined the new scientific discipline of sociology in the nineteenth century. It aims to demonstrate how their ideas for founding sociology creatively responded to the challenges of creating a new science from scratch. Finally, a different view of the so-called “founding fathers” will enable a new self-conception of sociology today. Analyzing classical sociological works usually entails focusing on authors' ideas and concepts. This paper, on the other hand, takes into account the self-descriptions of these authors and examines how they present themselves as founders of sociology. It conducts a close reading of the sociological concepts and autobiographical texts written by both Comte and Spencer. This allows us to highlight the conceptual tension between the sociological subject matter, society as an ordered object, and the self-descriptions of the authors as exceptional scientists. It also demonstrates how important the figurative elements are in this analysis. This new approach contributes to the history of ideas in general and the history of sociology in particular by offering an exploration of narrative and figurative elements in the sociological “classics.” It thus creates a deeper understanding and clearer image of the foundations of what later became sociology. Founding a new discipline is a creative act that not only consists in theoretical conceptualizations but also implies figurative aspects. These can be found primarily in the way the authors describe themselves. Furthermore, their textual and diagrammatical articulations can be understood as “founding figures” on which the idea of a figurative sociology is based.

AT the Exeter Conference, Dr. Kenyon, in his presidential address, touched upon an aspect of library work in such a manner as found a ready agreement in my mind as to its importance and far‐reaching effects. His address was based upon the solid ground of the public utility of libraries, and he proved, right to the hilt, the necessity of the advancement of the library movement on wide lines.

The aim of this article is two-fold. First, it offers a unique account of San Min, the prototype of the current Chinese educational principle proposed by Yan Fu (1854–1921) that aimed at improving people’s physical, intellectual and moral capacities. This system of educational thinking has received only marginal attention in Anglophone research literature. Second, given the influence of Yan Fu’s interpretation and promulgation of Herbert Spencer’s educational philosophy during that period, it investigates the extent to which San Min is derived from Spencer’s educational thought (the “Spencerian Triad”). This article focusses on how Yan Fu adapted the ideas of San Min from Spencer’s account.

This article considers Yan Fu’s principle of San Min in relation to Spencer’s educational triad through a close reading and comparison of key primary texts (including Yan Fu’s original writing). It explores the similarities and differences between each account of education’s goals and its proposed means of attainment.

Yan Fu’s principle of San Min is shown to have been adapted from the Spencerian Triad. However, using the theory of Social Organism, Yan Fu re-interpreted Spencer’s individual liberty as liberty for the nation. While Spencer’s goal was to empower individuals, Yan Fu aimed to serve collective independence, wealth and power.

This article addresses oversights concerning San Min’s Western origins in the Spencerian Triad and its influence on Chinese education under Yan Fu’s sway. It is significant because San Min is still at the core of the current Chinese educational policy.

One explanation for why people wear masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 focuses on political party affiliation. This study explores the role of values in attempts by five South Dakota cities to pass local mask mandates.

A nonrandom convenience sample used search engines to find documents on mask mandates in South Dakota. The working hypotheses are: (1) the debate over mask mandates is a form of value conflict over freedom of choice and the role of government that reflect those held by Emerson, Thoreau, and Spencer and (2) the mandates themselves prescribe Value-Rational rather than Instrumental-Rational action to control the pandemic.

Antimaskers valued freedom of choice, and were willing to defy authority while promasker health professionals valued science and were willing to sacrifice themselves for the health of their patients. South Dakota cities encouraged mask wearing but did not include penalties for noncompliance. The vociferous opposition to the mask mandates resembles the opposition cities encountered when deciding to fluoridate drinking water in the 1950s and 1960s.

A case study cannot be generalized and may reflect sampling and researcher bias. Future research could include a content analysis of documents and videos presenting both sides of the debate.

This case study may provide the first in-depth analysis of values in the masking debate.

A synthesis of the various strands of macro-sociology that is commensurate with a more robust theory of evolutionary institutionalism.

Drawing from what may be conceived of as classical institutionalism and from neo-evolutionary sociology and other related traditions, this chapter endeavors to provide a general theory of evolutionary institutionalism as an overview of institutions and institutional autonomy (along with the underlying forces driving the process of autonomy), to present a theory of institutional evolution that delineates the relevant units of selection and evolution, the types of mechanisms that facilitate institutional evolution, and a typology of the sources of variation.

The chapter constitutes the attempt to provide a theoretical framework intended to engender an improved historical-comparative institutionalism inspired by the works of Max Weber and Herbert Spencer.

The purpose of the theoretical framework presented should not be misconstrued as a general, “grand” theory for the discipline of the sociology as a whole, but rather understood as the model of a common vocabulary for sociologists interested in macro-sociology, institutions, and socio-cultural evolution designed to complement other available models.

As a synthesis, the originality of the theoretical framework presented lies in (1) elucidation of the idea that institutional autonomy as the “master” process of institutional evolution, (2) more precise delineation of the link between meso-level institutional entrepreneurs and institutional evolution, and (3) combination of a body of complementary – yet often loosely linked – bodies of scholarship.

This study aims to observe and discuss an emerging disintermediation in transportation, finance and health care, and explain how these three key areas depend on intermediary institutions that are the fruit of modern corporate governance conditions that find their roots in classical sociological theory.

The authors review and incorporate a diversity of research literature to explain the likelihood for the development and continuation of disintermediation.

The authors map two sociological perspectives (Emile Durkheim’s theory of interdependence and Herbert Spencer’s theory of contracts) to two modern corporate governance theories (resource dependence theory and agency theory). The authors then discuss the challenging social situation resulting from modern corporate governance and show how these conditions create the potential for a continuum of disintermediation across the specific and crucial economic sectors of transportation, finance and health care.

The implications of this theoretical integration can help organizational leaders navigate complex social and strategic issues and prepare for the consequences that may result from the emerging disintermediation.

He was a serious‐minded lad when he got his first appointment as an assistant in his local public library, and coming from a bookish family he revelled in the opportunity that stretched out before him on the seemingly endless shelves. Duly he was fortunate in finding seniors who were prepared to give him bookish guidance, and soon he was browsing in literature embodying the fascinating speculations of contemporary writers of enlightened thought such as Thomas Henry Huxley, Alfred Russel Wallace, and Herbert Spencer; and he was encouraged to make excursions into Swinburne, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ernest Dowson and others of the then popular poets. The scientists kept him serious and thoughtful, the poets made him a romantic. He had little time for the reading of fiction, the best of which would have served to widen his rather limited social horizon. He attended lectures, and duly he lectured others. He was qualifying for a Grammarian's Funeral.