David Ramsay Steele
720 South Dearborn Street, Apt 201, Chicago, Illinois 60605
Phone 630-506-9257
Writer, Public Speaker, Debater, Editor
Classical liberal, pro-technology, pro-growth, Darwinist, critical rationalist.
ON JULY 14TH THE WORLD CHANGES. ORWELL YOUR ORWELL RELEASES ON AMAZON. AND YOU'LL SEE WHY 2024 WON'T BE LIKE NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR.
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A Few of My Recent Talks (Most of these can be seen on YouTube)
Everyone's Rational!
Occupy David Graeber! (critique of the guru of Occupy Wall Street)
Good and Bad in Psychotherapy (for cognitive-behavioral therapy, against psychodynamic therapy)
What Has Happened to American Religion?
The End of the Global Warming Delusion
Why Socialism Won't Work (Ludwig von Mises on Economic Calculation)
George Orwell and Totalitarianism
The Case for Atheism
Good and Bad in Ayn Rand
Good and Bad in Karl Marx
The Pope and Global Warming
Why There Can Never Be a Marxist Revolution
Good and Bad in Karl Popper
Do You Believe in Progress?
How Belief Systems Work
Good and Bad in Thomas Szasz
Good and Bad in Scott Adams
Good and Bad in Jordan Peterson
Blog
I contribute occasionally to the London Libertarian, blog of the Libertarian Alliance, http://blog.la-articles.org.uk.
My Books
Author. From Marx to Mises: Post-Capitalist Society and the Challenge of Economic Calculation. Chicago: Open Court, 1992.
Co-author with Michael R. Edelstein. Three Minute Therapy: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life. Aurora: Glenbridge, 1997.
Editor. Genius: In Their Own Words. Chicago: Open Court, 2002.
Author. Atheism Explained: From Folly to Philosophy. Chicago: Open Court, 2008.
Co-author with Michael R. Edelstein and Richard K. Kujoth. Therapy Breakthrough: Why Some Psychotherapies Work Better than Others. Chicago: Open Court, 2013.
Author. Orwell Your Orwell: A Worldview on the Slab. South Bend: St. Augustine's Press, 2017.
A Few of My Articles (some popular, some scholarly; most of these are available online, some at www.la-articles.org.uk)
The Irrationality of Planning. Critical Review (Spring 1987).
Hayek's Theory of Cultural Group Selection. Journal of Libertarian Studies (Summer 1987).
Alice in Wonderland (review essay on Barbara Branden, The Passion of Ayn Rand). Liberty (May 1988).
How We Got Here. Critical Review (Winter 1988).
Partial Recall (on the recovered memory movement). Liberty (March 1994).
Ended Quest (obituary for Sir Karl Popper). Liberty (December 1994).
Flowers for the Underclass (review of Herrnstein and Murray, The Bell Curve). Liberty (May 1995).
A Tale of Two Terrorists (compares Timothy McVeigh and Gerry Adams). Liberty (July 1995).
Why Stop at Term Limits? (advocates selection of political officeholders by lot) National Review (September 11th 1995).
Nozick on Sunk Costs. Ethics (April 1996).
Between Immorality and Unfeasibility: The Market Socialist Predicament. Critical Review (Summer 1996).
Yes, Gambling Is Productive and Rational. Liberty (September 1997).
The Mystery of Fascism (on the socialist roots of Mussolini's ideas). Liberty (November 2001).
Ayn Rand and the Curse of Kant. Liberty (August 2002).
The Sacred Element (carbon, of course). Liberty (March 2003).
My Orwell Right or Wrong (review of Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters). Liberty (May 2003).
Wasn't It a Little Crowded on That Grassy Knoll? (Silly title, not mine; analysis of Kennedy assassination theories.) Liberty (November 2003).
Why and When Should We Rely on Scientific Experts? The Atkins Diet as an Alternative Theory. In Lisa Heldke, Kerri Mommer, and Cynthia Pineo, eds., The Atkins Diet and Philosophy: Chewing the Fat with Kant and Nietzsche. Chicago: Open Court, 2005.
Marxism. In Tom Flynn, ed., The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief. Amherst: Prometheus, 2007.
Marx, Karl Heinrich. In Tom Flynn, ed., The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief. Amherst: Prometheus, 2007.
Orwell, George. In Ronald Hamowy, ed., The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2008.
Is God Coming or Going? Philosophy Now (April-May, 2010).
Dexter the Busy Bee. In Richard Greene, George A. Reisch, and Rachel Robison-Greene, eds., Dexter and Philosophy: Mind over Spatter. Chicago: Open Court, 2011.
Safe Dex. In Richard Greene, George A. Reisch, and Rachel Robison-Greene, eds., Dexter and Philosophy: Mind over Spatter. Chicago: Open Court, 2011.
Will Emerging Media Create a Collective Mind? In Juliet Floyd and James Katz, eds., Philosophy of Emerging Media. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
What Follows from the Non-Existence of Mental Illness? In Jeffrey A. Schaler, Henry Zvi Lothane, and Richard E. Vatz, eds., Thomas S. Szasz: The Man and His Ideas. New York: Routledge, 2017.
How I Could Have Made Hillary President. In Daniel Yim, Galen Foresman, and Robert Arp, eds., Scott Adams and Philosophy: A Hole in the Fabric of Reality. Chicago: Open Court, 2018.
Is It a Fact that Facts Don't Matter? In Daniel Yim, Galen Foresman, and Robert Arp, eds., Scott Adams and Philosophy: A Hole in the Fabric of Reality. Chicago: Open Court, 2018.
Scott Adams and the Pinocchio Fallacy. (Refutation of the claim that "We May Be Living in a Simulation".) In Daniel Yim, Galen Foresman, and Robert Arp, eds., Scott Adams and Philosophy: A Hole in the Fabric of Reality. Chicago: Open Court, 2018.
My Schooling
1970. B.A. II(i) (Hons.) Sociology and American Studies. University of Hull (England).
1995. Ph.D. Sociology. University of Hull (England).
My Employment
1985 to present. Editorial Director, Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago.
Other Achievements
Wrote the script for the audiotape, Karl Marx--Das Kapital, from Capitalist Exploitation to Communist Revolution (1988), in the Knowledge Products Great Economic Thinkers series.
Conceived and launched the Chicago Libertarian Seminar, a monthly soirée since 1999.
In 2000, conceived and launched the successful and much imitated series of books, Popular Culture and Philosophy, now at over 100 volumes!
2017 Recipient of the Thomas S. Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties.
My Personal Life
I am married to Lisa Zimmerman; we have four children: Emma, Allan, Ursula, Duncan.
Part of my life story is told in 'An Unexpected Discovery', Liberty (July 2002).
Interests: music, literature, philosophy, science, economics, poker, chess. My chess is mediocre, but I have twice defeated a grandmaster in a simultaneous exhibition.
