I'm an Objectivist. Debate me.

Why is there at least 50 shades of gray?

 

It doesn't matter if the coercion is coming from a person or from nature. The choice isn't free. Which means it also isn't voluntary.

 

It does matter. If a mugger takes your $20, is it now moral for you to demand someone else compensate you by threatening them with violence? That's your argument, only the mugger is nature.

 

I’m not sure what you’re asking..

 

If we are going to appeal to authority, I might as well point out that Ayn Rand hated libertarianism and Murray Rothbard in particular. Objectivism has much in common with the outcomes desired by libertarians and, yet, is not libertarian. The principles are significantly different. Ayn's philosophy was one that encompassed more than the political, whereas libertarianism is strictly a political philosophy and says nothing about the values and morals of the individual beyond what he believes ought to be done through the state. As the Randian here points out, Objectivism views charity as immoral. Libertarianism makes no case for charity one way or another, since that is a personal view. Charity only intersects libertarianism when someone demands that their charity be paid for by strangers under threat of institutionalized violence.


All of these theories of society and government discussed view the individual as an isolated economic unit of activity driven by self-interest, competition, distrust, and greed. The view of the individual driven by utilitarian and hedonistic principles is a gross oversimplification of human motivation and ethical behavior. William Kingdon Clifford (1845-1879) professor of mathematics at University College, London, was critical of this scientific conception of the individual. Historian of philosophy, Frederick Copleston, wrote in summary of Clifford’s views,

BHK wrote...

After 9/11 Congress full of Free Market Libertarians passed the Patriot Act that further militarized the police and literally nullified many prisoner rights under the general excuse of terrorism.

Find me a libertarian who is crazy about that idea. Just one. Jeb Bush is an authoritarian, like you.

Somalia is a failed socialist state. It should be no wonder that it's such a mess. yet they don't seem to want a centralized government.

So, you haven't answered the question. An appeal to (perceived, assumed, and unsubstantiated) consequences is a logical fallacy. It is not an objective argument for the legitimacy of the state. As far as I know, there is none. People obey the state because they believe it must be obeyed and/or they fear reprisal. So I'm asking, other than fear of reprisal (might is right), why must government be obeyed? Your answer, so far, is entirely subjective. You think it's better than the alternative, thus believing that your end (a certain kind of order) justifies the means (violence against strangers who would not conform.)

 

If you look at history of all the 1st world countries, they all had a really strong dose of capitalism. So history supports me when I say that capitalism leads to a prosperous society.

During the 19th century, America went through the industrial revolution and had a major increase in economic opportunity and wealth. That happened under a free market. That didn’t happen under socialism or communism.

 

Here is a little hint of what life was like as capitalism developed from 1550s to the 1800s

Anyone refusing to work or could not find work were tortured and imprisoned. Often the unemployed had their tongues cut out or tortured. Capitalism was a real party!

 

Capitalism may be one aspect of these societies but there are others as well. Having a well organized system of land ownership and justice system also played a role.

 

In a free market, people are not tortured and imprisoned. That's not a free society. In the 1500s, capitalism never existed. I don't know what makes you think you can blame capitalism for everything that happened before it.

"Capitalism is bad because everything that happened before it that it wasn't responsible for was bad." What kind of argument is that? Like are you kidding me?

Are you seriously refusing to observe all the good things that happened during the capitalistic period?

If you're going to quote Karl Marx, who created a philosophy that was responsible for the deaths of millions of people, then I'm going to quote Ludwig Von Mises.

https://mises.org/wire/history-capitalism

Here's a good quote:

"And all the talk about the so-called unspeakable horror of early capitalism can be refuted by a single statistic: precisely in these years in which British capitalism developed, precisely in the age called the Industrial Revolution in England, in the years from 1760 to 1830, precisely in those years the population of England doubled, which means that hundreds or thousands of children—who would have died in preceding times—survived and grew to become men and women."

 

Capitalists did that, or the state? When you shove your morals down the throats of others through the police powers of the state, you should expect that those who disagree are going to be punished harshly. Since you have no objective principle by which government authority is limited, you can't really say that it's objectively wrong to do so. Might is right.

Also, it was mercantilism that was the economic flavor of the times until the early 1800's. If you are going to get all pedantic about socialism, you ought to at least be consistent about not referring to capitalism as something that it wasn't. Then again, expecting intellectual honesty from you is not something I'd bet on.

 

That's capitalism because it did wrong, but anything you claim to be socialism is not real socialism!!!!

 

Guess what? You are wrong yet again. It's amazing! If you could just reverse your positions then you may actually be right on something.

Appleo wrote...

So am I.

Frederick von Hayek is an idiot and the easiest to defeat of all the Austrian Economists. The "von" should tell you something about him: it is a nobiliary particle, used “to signal the nobility of a family.”

1. Free Market economist Milton Friedman explained, “Mises was a person of very strong views and rather intolerant about any differences of opinion.”30 (Keynes Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics (Nicholas Wapshott)- Page 213 | Loc. 4058-59.)
2. As Milton Friedman,28 a disciple of Hayekian thinking, put it, “I am an enormous admirer of Hayek, but not for his economics. I think Prices and Production was a very flawed book. I think his capital theory book is unreadable.”29 (Keynes Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics (Nicholas Wapshott)- Highlight on Page 183 | Loc. 3468-71.)

That's right, Milton Friedman (Chili's economist and Neoliberal) said he could not understand Hayek's writing--Cuz it's gibberish. Friedman isn't the only one. Hayek won the Nobel Prize in Economics 1974.... sort of. It is the Nobel Prize that a Central Bank created and awarded to economist Milton Friedman in 1976. Hayek was never allowed to be associated with economists at the University of Chicago, but instead was hired as a professor of social and moral science in the Committee on Social Thought funded in part by the wealthy Conservative Libertarian William Volcker which in 1963 was ran by Neo-Nazi David Leslie Hoggan for a short period.

So why did Hayek get the Sveriges Riksbank Central Bank counterfeit Nobel Prize in Economics even though the University of Chicago would not hire Hayek as a professor of Economics?

Hayek has so much sh*t on him that it's amazing.

And for all you family values Republicans:
Defenders of capitalism have always argued that selfish Hobbesian possessive individualism is a virtue in a capitalist market economy. Would selfishness be a virtue if Friedrich von Hayek exhibited this character trait in his sexual relations? What if the heterosexual, as far as we know, Hayek selfishly abandoned his wife and two children for another woman? Would that have any theoretical consequences to his economic theory? Well, that is exactly what Hayek did leaving his colleagues at the London School of Economics stunned including the children’s godfather Professor Lionel Robbins, the director of the London School of Economics (LSE). Here is the documentation.

I will save the best for last about a letter between Koch Sr. (father of the Koch sons alive today) and Hayek. Yes, it's one big happy family!

 

I'm done with this debate.

 

Yes, that is perfectly understandable.

However, you also said in you very first post of this thread...

Is that the truth, or is it an act?

 

True, we have access to some truth (even that's dodgy, but that's not where I'm going with this). However, we do not have access to all truth, and in particular, we don't have access to the truth of which truth we have access to. Communism seemed truthful to communists.

Well, I disagree with the idea that you defend your idea by attacking mine. If I am faced with a philosophical decision, I run it past a number of lines of thought to assess it, including ones which I do not agree with.

 

Yeah.

 

No. You clearly aren’t following the chain of the debate.

We are talking about the OP’s claims that poor people “voluntarily” enter into agreements to work for whatever their pay is. I’m pointing out that when their choices are “or starve to death in the streets”, that choice isn’t really voluntary.

 

I think you missed the empirical point - that Objectivism and by default laissez faire, results in states like Somalia.

I find it amusing so many right wing ideologicals, like Objectivists or Libertarians, continuously deflect every failed state into the Socialism bucket, yet they themselves cannot actually explain the difference between communism and socialism.

Government is obeyed because the social contract that exists to prevent feudalistic warlordism, as is exposed in Somalia, requires a conglomerate of individuals to enforce the social contract that prevents the rights of some being usurped by others.

At the end of the day, the tyranny of warlordism, which is precisely what Objectivism would result in (despite the nonsense assertion Objectivists don't believe in violence) is far more brutal and wicked then the "tyranny" of the social contract.

I believe more than 90% of people in this country would prefer a single federal government over roving bands of Mad Max Style dictators. Anyone who wants to live in an objectivist, might makes right, slaves shall serve society can of course move to Somalia and try their little social experiment there.

 

The question you must ask yourself if you believe Ayn Rand is "am I John Galt?". If you are honest, you will say no. The only person who wins is Galt, everyone else is a loser. When I read that tripe back in the 70s I understood about half way through it's tortuous prose that this was the only question being asked of the reader. Even though I considered myself to be far above average in intellect and drive, I was honest enough to admit that I was not nor could ever be John Galt. At that point, I realized that her philosophy could never scale nor provide any guidance or reward for anyone but John Galt. If a philosophy has any contribution to mankind, it must be a source of wisdom, guidance and hope for every person regardless of ability or achievement. I threw the book into the ocean near Venice Beach. I did watch the movie though, Helen Mirren was far sexier and attractive than the original harpy. When I see someone reading it I always ask them the question. Are you John Galt?

 

Galt is the ideological Pope for this ideology and no one can assume the identity.

Rand's prose, is, as you state, completely torturous.

Objectivist ideology would lead to somalian warlordism and her laissez faire would result in famine and death.

 

The novel does contribute to mankind. Why do you think it sells thousands of copies every year? Why do you think there are still people who say: "The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged changed my life." I don't think you understood the book at all. Ayn Rand provided answers to a world that desperately needed them.

Throwing away a masterpiece like Atlas Shrugged into the ocean based on what you said. Unbelievable.

 

I only consider things as authoritarian or libertarian. The particular moral slant or motivations for violent interference is not a concern to me. Using epithets like "right-wing" is just weak argumentation and completely sidesteps my challenge to you. That's ok, I didn't expect you to rise to the challenge. There really is no answer to it.

You are still appealing to consequences.

The irony is that according to your attempts at reason, the warlords do nothing wrong. They are simply attempting to exert the social contract of their particular tribe or group against competing contracts. The ultimate winner in any territory is the de facto government and therefore the rightful ruler.

You jump to a lot of conclusions and still can barely rise to the challenge.

And there's the appeal to the bandwagon and a false dilemna.

For someone who claims to be demanding logic and reason from the OP, you never resort to it for your own arguments.

 

So are you saying we should just give everyone the choice to not work? Some people can get food for doing nothing, while others have to produce the wealth for you to eat? How is that fair, and how can you justify that?

People paint capitalism as this dire state where people will starve to death. In capitalism, stores are filled completely with shelves of food at extremely cheap prices with just about anything you want to eat.

If you take Venezuela, which is a socialist country, for example. Stores there have hardly any food and what little food is left is super expensive. People actually starve to death there and they seriously don't have a choice. If they wanted to work for money, they couldn't cuz there's nothing there. Because the government has taken control over so much of the economy, that people cannot freely trade value with one another. There government hasn't really done anything to feed its citizens because the government really doesn't care.

In free market capitalism, wealth will always be present. If someone really doesn't want to just get a job and work, they can always apply for charity. Ayn Rand said in her own words that she doesn't have a problem with charity as long as it's not a duty and you don't place another person's happiness above your own.

 

Good job! And long with it "Atlas Shrugged" I would of throw Hayek's book also since it is gibberish according to economist Milton Friedman. Rand didn't like anyone except a serial killer. However, it might because Hayek couldn't stand Rand either. Here is Hayek's book review of Rands' "Atlas Shrugged."

LOL!!!

 

Sorry, but Rand should have stuck to non-fiction. The overall idea is interesting . . . but 50+ page uninterrupted monologues? Yeah, that should have just been an essay. There are few hard-and-fast rules in fiction writing, but "Show, don't tell" is pretty much the key one. If you are going to tell, just write an essay or a work of non-fiction. And Rand is absolutely terrible at writing antagonists. They are all cookie-cutter straw men who just parrot the parody of what she thinks everyone who disagrees with her believes (and she is, of course, even wrong about that). The protagonists are not much better in that respect; there is hardly any telling the men apart. Anthem was decent, though.