Select oral history

Alvin Anthony was in the thick of South Africa’s liberation struggle. This is his story. 7th Street Podcasts are a joint oral history project between Tristen Taylor and Delme Cupido. Sound producer: Leslie Javan.
Michael Schmidt is a South African journalist, historian and anarchist. This is his story. 7th Street Podcasts are a joint oral history project between Tristen Taylor and Delme Cupido. Sound producer: Leslie Javan.

Select research papers

Russian Nuclear Power in South Africa

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Fracking in South Africa

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Select philosophical works

Eradicating Poverty, Resource Allocation, and the Environment

International Journal of Applied Philosophy, 2016

Abstract: Hennie Lötter, in his book Poverty, Ethics, and Justice, contends that we have a moral obligation to eradicate global poverty, but does so under the assumption that eradicating poverty is possible under current political and economic policy. Roughly 1.8 billion people (the consuming class) currently consume the majority of the world’s economic production. About 5.2 billion poor people (the non-consuming class) would like to consume at similar levels. Is it possible for the non-consuming class to approach levels of material welfare similar to that of the consuming class? What would be the impact on the global environment if the billions of the non-consuming class started to consume at a reasonable standard?

The answers to these questions are rather bleak for the cause of eradicating poverty: discussions on global poverty like Lötter’s fail to cohere with data on the environment and regarding resources constraints. Without radical transformation of current economic and political philosophy, the assumption that the eradication of poverty is possible is a false assumption.

Taylor Poverty Resources EnvironmentDownload

Aristotle’s Ethics, Politics and Economics

University of Johannesburg, 2014

This thesis is about Aristotle’s philosophy of human affairs and argues for a future society in which Aristotle’s conception of human affairs—in other words, his philosophy of society—can be realised. Fundamentally, this thesis holds not only to the notion that the Nicomachean Ethics and The Politics provide a unified approach to Aristotle’s ethics, politics and economics, but also that Aristotle’s intention was for his readers to view the two books as one argument for his philosophy of society. Put another way, this thesis attempts to read Aristotle in the manner he intended.

Taylor Phd Thesis Aristotle’s EconomicsDownload