Stephen Hicks, Ph.D.

In 1926, there were about 20,000 millionaires in the USA (measured in 1926 dollars). Currently, the USA has about 500,000 people with a net worth of $18 million or more (measured in 2026 dollars).Due to inflation, $1 million in 1926 dollars is about the same as $18 million in 2026 dollars. Hence, the USA has […]

“That was Stephen Hicks’s warning to students at Galt’s Gulch 2026, our annual student conference held this summer in San Diego. A Senior Scholar at The Atlas Society, Hicks has spent decades studying how political language gets weaponized—most notably in his book Nietzsche and the Nazis. At the conference, he walked students through the actual […]

​My talk on rhetoric and intellectual self-defense, at the 2026 Galt’s Gulch conference in San Diego: Related: The full audiobook of my Nietzsche and the Nazis:

We will know that the reparations debate is morally serious when this question is a part of the mix: How much does Ghana owe the USA? Why? “The Ashanti Empire (1701–1901) in modern-day Ghana was a prominent participant in the slave trade. Enslavement was primarily fueled by warfare, where the empire acquired captives from rival […]

If one wants a democracy, then citizens must have a right to petition and attempt to influence the government that is making laws for them. This includes individuals, unions (which also spend hundreds of millions on lobbying), religious groups (ditto), and business corporations. Excluding some individuals or groups of individuals makes them second- or third-class […]