Self-Ownership as an absolute for freedom
Ron Allen
> It is the direct producers who turn investments into profitable risks.
> The wage workers not only produce the commodities, they are also the
> majority consumers of those commodities they produce.
Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> There would bo no jobs at all for the labourer without the capitalist
> willing to risk their capital.
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> That's one of the central flaws in class warfare rhetoric.
Ron Allen wrote:
> What is "that" to which you refer?
Michael Price wrote:
> The idea that labourers would earn the whole "value" of their labour
> without capitalists to "expropriate" it. In fact they would not have
> jobs at all and would earn no value.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Without employers, people would be self-employed.
Michael Price wrote:
> And would be making less money, with less certainty of surviving the
> year.
Ron Allen answers:
Of course, what you say assumes a pecuniary and commodity
exchange economy, with people motivated by private profit
priorities.
Michael Price wrote:
> Most people do not gain by taking on the risk that their labour will be
> non-productive and/or enduring the wait between when the labour is
> input and when the value of their production becomes available.
Ron allen answers:
You are addressing profiteering concerns which are unique to
a commodity producing and commodity exchange mode of doing
economy. You are not addressing the kind of substantive
concerns that a proper to every mode of economy -- i.e.,
whether or not people are free to labor in a way that will
allow them to fully employ their productive abilities, and
whether or not people enjoy freedom of access to the goods
and services collectively produced and individually needed.
<><><><><><><><><>
"If Heidegger rejected traditional humanism, it was because
traditional humanism does not sufficiently realize the
humanitas of humanity. But Heidegger does not say in what
way it is possible to bring about this new experience of
the human essence; he simply shows the need of that
experience and states, generically, that it is for the West
to bring it to realization. But it is for Being, and not
the human being, to open itself, and in the forms that are
appropriate to it. With respect to those forms, humanity
plays no part; humanity can only prepare itself, in silence,
for the revelation of Being."
-- Salvatore Puledda
Ron Allen
> The fact that we have large-scale production facilities/factories is
> mostly why we have an employer/proprietor class and an employee/producer
> class.
Michael Price wrote:
> No the fact that we have an employer/proprietor class is the reason why
> we have large scale production facilities/factories.
Ron Allen answers:
There is some truth to what you say, but it not the whole
truth. The employer/proprietor class organizes labor and
invests capital, but the employee/producer class is what
is organized, and without labor there would be no capital
to invest and no value produced.
Michael Price wrote:
> They are the ones who took the risks of investment, . . .
Ron Allen answers:
Investment risks are merely a distinctive facet of the
capitalist mode of economy, with its commercial concern for
private profits.
Michael Price wrote:
> . . . and made decisions that massively increased economic productivity.
Ron Allen answers:
The capitalists have been involved in the great increase in
economic productivity during the age of capitalism, but the
forces of production simply do not operate/produce at the
capacity/amplitude necessary to meet human needs fully,
because the capitalist economy produces and distributes
goods and services according to consumer demand (i.e., the
maximization of private profits) rather than according to
human need (i.e., the maximization of public utility).
<><><><><><><><><><><>
"Like Foucault, Marx understands that the subject is both
the effect and the vehicle of power."
-- Abdul JanMohamed
Ron Allen
> People would have productive work to be engaged/employed in if there
> were no private ownership of the means of production, and if there
> were public ownership of the means of production.
Michael Price wrote:
> And how would this be a benefit to people? Why do people deserve the
> benefits of investment decisions they did not make or invest in?
Ron Allen answers:
Labor is an investment. Workers make a decision to invest
value-producing labor. If wages benefit workers, then so
can receiving an equal share of collectively produced value,
and having some direct vocal input about production goals
and methods.
<><><><><><><><>
"The lesson of the collapse of communism is that only
democratic socialism can succeed to win the allegiance of
its citizens."
-- Douglas Kellner
Ron Allen
> There would be no profits for the proprietary capitalists if the
> productive workers did not take those wage jobs.
> As far as capitalists taking risks, the very risks the capitalists
> take are created by capitalism. When you talk about such risks as
> are endemic to capitalism, you are talking about what is prevalent
> within capitalism, what is peculiar to capitalism. If you happen
> to endorse capitalism, then you also must back the risks which are
> a characteristic of capitalism. And those risks favor the capitalists
> who have made it to the upper part of the socio-economic pyramid.
> Those who want to be members of the super-rich élite will also favor
> the capitalist model.
> The risks involved in capitalism will not exist in a socialist model,
> where production will be for utility and not for profit.
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> That's a lie.
Ron Allen wrote:
> I do make mistakes; but, I am not lying.
Michael Price wrote:
> I have corrected you on this mistake myself. If you are not a moron
> you would have spotted the mistake easily.
Ron Allen answers:
Call me a moron if you wish, but I do not see a mistake
where you see one. We have an honest disagreement. We
say our piece, and we entrust what we say to those who
read or listen.
Ron Allen wrote:
> If you believe, for whatever reasons, that I have made a mistake in my
> beliefs, judgments, or opinions, but you do not succeed in convincing
> me that I have made a mistake, why does that make me a moron? Perhaps
> it is you that is mistaken, rather than me.
> But, making a mistake does not make one a moron, in my personal opinion.
Michael Price wrote:
> The fact is risk is a factor in almost all production including all
> agriculture, horticultural and vinicultural investment and I believe
> all other food-production techiques.
Ron Allen wrote:
> There is risk in every kind of productive labor, but the risks that are
> wholly unique to a for-profit mode of economy are going to be, as a
> whole, different from the risks which are very typical of a not-for-
> profit model of economy.
Michael Price wrote:
> Bullshit.
Ron Allen answers:
Your reply is both uncouth and unconvincing.
Michael Price wrote:
> The risk that a socialist crop will be flooded out is exactly the
> same as the risk that a capitalist one will be.
Ron Allen answers:
That risk is indeed the same. But the risk that is unique
to a capitalist mode of economy is the risk that a bumper
crop might put a for-profit commercial agricultural business
out of business.
Michael Price wrote:
> The risk that nobody will want something that a socialist enterprise
> produced is the same as the risk that there will be insufficent demand
> for a capitalist product.
Ron Allen answers:
In a democratic socialist economy, human needs are directly
declared, and production follows the declared need. In a
profiteering capitalist economy, consumer demand is subject
to such unpredictable variables as employment, money
supply, and wage income levels.
Imagine, if you will, production answering human need. The
people say what they need, and production answers that.
In capitalism, people may need a good or service, but they
cannot afford to pay for it. Even if the people say what
they need, that's not enough, because the people must be
able and willing to pay for what they need.
<><><><><><><><><>
"Shared joys make a friend, not shared sufferings."
-- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Marsha Chapman
Or perhaps Kant...without a "master" there would not be "slaves"...
try that on for size.
Ron Allen <ral...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:3C803029...@bellsouth.net...
Ron Allen
> The risk is independent of the method of valuing inputs and outputs.
> The fact is that sometimes, through no fault of the people who input
> factors of production, the inputs are more valuable than the outputs.
Ron Allen wrote:
> And we are always being told the very same mantra, that it is the
> free market that determines input/output value.
Michael Price wrote:
> The free market allows the input/output value to be calculated.
Ron Allen answers:
In capitalism, the calculations are always and only about
the optimal maximization of private profits. Input is
determined by a profit calculus, as is output; and markets
can be manipulated by intentional/calculated input and
output shifts that have nothing to do with public utility,
and everything to do with private profits.
Michael Price wrote:
> Reality determines the input/output
Ron Allen answers:
Input and output projects are determined by human beings
who possess the power to decide such projects, and it is
private property in the means of production and of
distribution which gives to some individuals this kind of
personal power.
Ron Allen wrote:
> In my opinion, human beings are free, not markets.
Michael Price wrote:
> What exactly do you think markets are made of.
Ron Allen answers:
What do you think markets are made of? Markets have to do
with the supply and demand of commodities, and are about
private profiteering. Those with property possess power;
and the more personal property you privately command and
control, the more personal power you possess.
Ron Allen wrote:
> And human beings determine value, not markets. There are the price
> leaders, and there are the price followers, and price is consciously
> decided upon by the price leader who commands a price for what is
> marketed, . . .
Michael Price wrote:
> You have any evidence for this at all? You dont' have any idea how
> the supply/demand system works. Why should the price "chasers" accept
> the prices "set" by the leader?
Ron Allen answers:
It has a lot to do with power, and with private property
that favors some with more personal power in the marketplace
than others.
Ron Allen wrote:
> . . . and whose price decision is settled, sustained, and secured by
> the price chasers. There is price fixing, just as there is some
> collusion in price setting.
Michael Price wrote:
> That sentence made no sense at all.
<><><><><><><><><><>
"While the negative pole of Foucault's definition of power
attempts to displace the Marxian notion of commodity, the
positive pole appropriates, without acknowledging it, the
foundation of Marxian theory of value."
-- Abdul JanMohamed
Ron Allen
> In socialism, production is for neither utility nor profit. In
> socialism, production occurs in order to avoid being thrown in
> jail, tortured, or killed.
Ron Allen wrote:
> That may be what the word "socialism" means to you, but that is not
> what the word "socialism" means to me. And, of course, I am [one of
> those] advocating socialism. If you wish to critique the socialism
> which I am advocating [as one of many libertarian socialist democrats],
> then I should think it incumbent upon you to take into some
> consideration how I/we define, and do not define, what I am/we are
> advocating.
Michael Price wrote:
> But how you define it changes.
Ron Allen answers:
What does that mean? How do the libertarian and democratic
socialists change their definitions of socialism? Are you
simply saying that socialism, as envisioned by many distinct
individuals, exhibits the characteristic signature features
of each individual advocate of socialism? If this is what
you're saying, then it is very true that there are not only
common ideas of what socialism is, but there are also some
creative and uncommon ideas of what socialism is. I am a
pluralist, and I think if we are to experiment with some
possible models of democratic and libertarian socialism,
then it is good that there are various proposals which are
being offered as socialist solutions to existing political
economic problems.
Michael Price wrote:
> If you define socialism in such a way that production is for "utility"
> then tell us how utility is defined and measured.
Ron Allen answers:
Production for utility means production for use, which is
simply another way of saying production (and distribution)
according to human need, rather than according to consumer
demand, or the demands of capital (i.e., profit).
Production for utility is measured by whether or not poverty
has been totally eliminated.
Michael Price wrote:
> If you can't then we must assume your definition is meaningless.
Ron Allen answers:
I'm quite certain that whatever I might say that is positive
and praiseworthy about socialism will come across to you as
being utterly meaningless.
According to Paul Ricoeur, "From a semantic point of view,
only statements as the bearers of meaning and of a truth-
claim -- whatever the connection between them may be --
have to be taken into account." And as long as you can
keep convincing yourself that statements advocating an
anarcho-libertarian, democratic and voluntarist, model of
commonwealth and confederalist socialism are meaningless
and truthless, then you will feel very comfortable in not
taking pro-socialist statements into account.
Michael Price wrote:
> If you did define it.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Michael, I do define socialism.
Michael Price wrote:
> Many times, many ways.
Ron Allen answers:
I suppose there a many ways of seeing the very same idea.
And I've no problem with that.
Michael Price wrote:
> None of them coherent however.
Ron Allen answers:
The coherency of an idea will depend upon both the speaker/
writer and the listener/reader. If what I say is more or
less incoherent, it may be my fault, or the fault may be in
you. I do not know. But I do struggle long and hard to
explain, as best I can, what I am advocating as an advocate
of libertarian and democratic socialism. Are you trying as
best you can to understand a political philosophy you have
been taught to misunderstand, to hate and to fear?
<><><><><><><><><>
"Rigid authoritarianism and literalism have the effect of
killing the spirit and obliterating criticism."
-- Edward W. Said
Ron Allen
> I do not assume that every newsgroup reader/participant has your
> problem when it comes to being able to read with mental competence
> and with studious comprehension.
Michael Price wrote:
> How are people motivated to produce in your system for instance.
Ron Allen wrote:
> When the amount of work is reduced to socially necessary production,
> then people will work less and will enjoy work more . . .
Michael Price wrote:
> Yeah, people always enjoy it when their work is not valued higher than
> minimum wage.
Ron Allen answers:
Michael, what are you talking about here? Socialism has
nothing whatsoever to do with a minimum wage régime.
Ron Allen wrote:
> . . . -- especially when everyone is free to be engaged in enjoyable
> work, . . .
Michael Price wrote:
> Even the people who really suck at the job?
Ron Allen answers:
Does a person enjoy doing a job s/he sucks at? I don't
think so. "From each according to ability" means that every
individual person ought to be free to fully engage his or
her many productive abilities and creative powers. If you
have ever really done productive work, then you will know
that such valuable work is quite enjoyable, if labor and
leisure are balanced so as to accord with human need.
Wage workers are overworked and underpaid, and that means
they are working more than they need to work, and they are
receiving less than they need to live.
Ron Allen wrote:
> . . . according to personal ability, as well as everyone being
> responsible for doing the unpleasant work.
Michael Price wrote:
> Even the people who are crap at doing it?
Ron Allen answers:
I assume that every able-bodied and able-minded person can
do a fair share of the unpleasant, but necessary, work.
The more every person does a fair and minimal share of the
unpleasant work, the less each person will have to do such
work.
<><><><><><><><><>
"National feeling is basically a European invention."
-- Edward W. Said
Ron Allen
> No work will be attached/correlated to a socio-economic class. There
> will be no division of labor according to class, race, gender, etc.
> There will be some division of labor according to ability and
> qualification, but all will have a duty to do their part in keeping
> their community clean and in keeping public places washed and sanitary.
Michael Price wrote:
> A duty, in other words something that you are morally obliged to do.
Ron Allen answers:
Socialism does assume a social morality -- an ethic of
liberty, equality, and community. And every ethic has a
belief in responsibility and duty.
Michael Price wrote:
> What if I don't respect this "duty" and do not regard myself as
> obligated?
Ron Allen answers:
What duty are you trying to tell us you do not respect?
Michael Price wrote:
> Will the "people's" thugs make me do it anyway?
Ron Allen answers:
Where does this come from? I have said it over and over and
over again that I believe the only truly proper socialist
democracy will be both a majority rights and a minority
rights polity. As concerns public choices, the preference
of a majority ought to rule as a right, and every minority
ought to be free to withhold participation in whatever
undertaking s/he disfavors, as a minority right.
Michael Price wrote:
> If the answer is no, then your system depends on people being
> irrationally self-sacrificing.
Ron Allen answers:
I believe the wage system is irrationally self-sacrificing,
and that a lot of propaganda has to be shelled out in order
to make the people believe that the wage system is rational.
Michael Price wrote:
> If the answer is yes, then so much for your insistance that you don't
> need a police state for it to work.
Ron Allen answers:
Look around you, Michael. There is a police state hic et
ubique (here, there, and everywhere). Anarcho-libertarian
socialist democrats believe that the authoritarian state
is a superfluous and dispensable entity, that a mature and
rational society can function without a political state.
Ron Allen wrote:
> If you can help make it dirty, then you can also help to make it clean.
> When people have productive and creative abilities, they enjoy employing/
> engaging their abilities. People take pride in doing good work. People
> are self-motivated to do the best work they can do, to be the best they
> can be at what they like to do.
Michael Price wrote:
> That is not sufficent to replace the profit motive.
Ron Allen answers:
You have not given the matter sufficient reflective thought
-- in my opinion. There is a lot of work being done with
no thought of pecuniary profit. Most of the work done is
done by wage workers, and a wage income in earned income,
unlike profit, which is unearned income. Volunteer work
is often done with no calculation of profit. Before women
entered into the wage labor force, they did important
educational and nurturing work, without pecuniary profit.
People tend to do what must be done.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Human need motivates human beings to do the minimal work necessary to
> produce/provide what they need. Need has always motivated us to produce.
> There is an existential need to be fully and freely engaged in purposeful
> labor, and there is an economic need to be fully and freely employed in
> productive labor.
Michael Price wrote:
> No, there is a need to BELIEVE that your work is worthwhile. People
> are quite happy doing work that DESTROYS value e.g. subsidised rice
> production in Japan, the Australian car industry in the 70's.
<><><><><><><><><><>
"Threats do not impose an obligation, they extort."
-- Immanuel Kant
Jeffrey C. Dege
>
>Ron Allen answers:
>In capitalism, the calculations are always and only about
>the optimal maximization of private profits. Input is
>determined by a profit calculus, as is output; and markets
>can be manipulated by intentional/calculated input and
>output shifts that have nothing to do with public utility,
>and everything to do with private profits.
Which is, of course, exactly as it should be.
--
For every problem there is one solution which is simple, neat, and wrong.
-- H. L. Mencken
Jeffrey C. Dege
>
>Ron Allen answers:
>Socialism does assume a social morality -- an ethic of
>liberty, equality, and community. And every ethic has a
>belief in responsibility and duty.
Which explains, of course, the death camps.
--
As I understand it, deconstructionism is a form of literary criticism that
is intended to demonstrate the fundamental meaninglessness of literature.
IMO, what it demonstrates is the fundamental meaninglessness of literary
criticism.
Christopher Basken
news:slrna81utv...@jdege.visi.com...
> On Sat, 02 Mar 2002 04:42:43 -0500, Ron Allen <ral...@bellsouth.net>
wrote:
> >
> >Ron Allen answers:
> >In capitalism, the calculations are always and only about
> >the optimal maximization of private profits. Input is
> >determined by a profit calculus, as is output; and markets
> >can be manipulated by intentional/calculated input and
> >output shifts that have nothing to do with public utility,
> >and everything to do with private profits.
>
> Which is, of course, exactly as it should be.
Is it entirely accurate to say that price shifts have nothing at all to do
with public utility? Demand is the measure of public utility, in a sense,
isn't it? Demand is half the equation.
Ron Allen
> Just like the word "earn", the word "use" is prejudiced in favor of the
> capitalist class.
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> We don't have a "capitalist" class. This is a classless society.
Ron Allen wrote:
> There is a saying: "None are so blind as he who will not see."
Michael Price wrote:
> Which class were you born into then, Ron?
Ron Allen wrote:
> I was born in the southern state of Georgia, to a family of dirt-poor
> sharecroppers. But, when I was born, my mother died 2 hours later, and
> all 8 of us were taken away from our bootlegging father, with his
> Pentecostal beliefs, and raised in a Presbyterian orphanage in the
> state of South Carolina. I was born into a very poor family, but I was
> raised by very strict middle-class Calvinists.
Michael Price wrote:
> Capitalists or worker?
Ron Allen wrote:
> My father was not so much proletarian, but rather, he was more lumpen-
> proletarian.
Michael Price wrote:
> You can change, unlike most societies in history.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Yes, some few individuals do manage to change from their original
> class.
Michael Price wrote:
> A large percentage of the population change their class under
> capitalism than under any other system. Can you name a commoner who
> became a pier of the realm under feudalism? No, but you can name
> people who became multi-millionaires after being born poor under
> capitalism.
Ron Allen answers:
In these United States, the New Deal policies of FDR are
credited with bringing a large portion of the American
population out of relative poverty into a middle class
station. Does capitalism get all the credit for our
collective prosperity, especially when many who champion
capitalism also drag welfare statism through the mud of
enmity and acrimony?
Ron Allen wrote:
> But, that some are born dirt-poor is utterly reprehensible and wholly
> detrimental.
Michael Price wrote:
> What standard of living do you think most people lived at for most of
> history, Ron?
Ron Allen answers:
I am not informed enough to be able to answer that question
with any familiarity or judgement.
Ron Allen wrote:
> What is the cause of so much persistent poverty? Why do we tolerate
> poverty? When will we get rid of poverty, once and for all?
Michael Price wrote:
> By investing and thinking.
Ron Allen answers:
An anarcho-communist can give that very same skeletal and
meager answer. There's not enough meat on those bones to
differentiate your pro-capitalist answer from a pro-
socialist answer.
Socialism is not against investment or thinking. Socialism
is all about, and all for, social investment for the purpose
of public utility. Socialism is all about, and all for,
people thinking about public matters. After all, what good
is it for people to think about public policy if they have
no direct and effective say in public policy. A democratic
polity assumes the importance of thoughtful citizens.
Ron Allen wrote:
> How can we better the human condition?
Michael Price wrote:
> See above.
Ron Allen answers:
I assume you mean to say that your answer is "By investing
and thinking". The problem is that your answer is just too
minimal, too paltry, to differentiate it from a socialist
answer.
Ron Allen wrote:
> If, for example, I am holding on to land property, in order to sell it
> at a considerable profit in the future, then I am using the land even
> when it sits idle.
Michael Price wrote:
> If you can't find someone to rent it economically until you sell then
> obviously the fact that it sits idle is not a big problem.
Ron Allen answers:
OK?
<><><><><><><><>
"What is a form of alienated life? How does it differ from
a form of life that is not alienated?"
-- John Plamenatz
Ron Allen
> The primary purpose of capitalism is the production of profits, and so
> whatever action or inaction produces private profits is a uniquely
> capitalist use of land, and also a uniquely capitalist method of earning
> income.
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> There'd be a lot less unused land if it weren't for zoning, environmental
> impact statements, easements, and other legal loopholes that allow the
> government to own land that a private citizen holds title to.
Ron Allen wrote:
> The government you berate is a creation of the very same people who
> created capitalism, and is a capitalist state.
Michael Price wrote:
> Bullshit.
Ron Allen answers:
Michael, this stock answer simply translates as your way of
saying you disagree. And that is just fine. I do not own
absolute truth. I own only my opinions. And I give my
opinions. I can respect you even if I disagree with you.
Michael Price wrote:
> It is the State, which serves itself, not capitalism. You do not even
> know what capitalism is, do you?
Ron Allen answers:
I think I know what capitalism is. I may be wrong, but I
don't think so.
Michael Price wrote:
> How does zoning etc. make it easier to trade value for value?
Ron Allen answers:
I never said, and I do not believe, that zoning makes it
easy/easier to trade value for value. Of course, I regard
capitalism as more than value exchange. Capitalism is also
the capitalist state. There are some advocates of anarcho-
capitalism, and I have no problem with their anti-statist
opinion. And I am even willing to go along fully with an
anarcho-capitalism that has democratic support -- although
I have no idea if any advocate of anarcho-capitalism also
advocates democracy. The capitalist state is an important
and integral aspect of existing capitalism. When I fuss
about capitalism, I'm also and always fussing about the
capitalist state.
Michael Price wrote:
> It makes it harder which means it is not a "capitalist" feature.
Ron Allen answers:
Zoning actually does help the private owners both of
manufacturing and merchant capital.
Ron Allen wrote:
> The investor does risk his or her capital, but it is precisely the
> commodity market which makes the risk intrinsic to a for-profit mode
> of economy.
Michael Price wrote:
> Bullshit, that risk is inherent to any investment that requires time
> since the future is unknown.
Ron Allen wrote:
> What I said does not disagree with what you said.
Michael Price wrote:
> Yes it does.
Ron Allen answers:
No it doesn't, Michael. Your statement may be loaded with
a lot of unexpressed baggage, but I do not disagree with the
meager statement you made, taken by itself.
Michael Price wrote:
> You claim that risk is only intrinsic to the "for-profit mode" of
> economy because of the commodity market.
Ron Allen answers:
No I do not. What I maintain is that the risk most people
talk about has to do with the very specific aspect of risk
in a for-profit mode of economy. I have never said or
believed that there is no element of risk in a non-commodity
and non-commercial -- i.e., not for profit -- economy. In
a capitalist economy, risk has everything to do with the
future exchange value of a commodity. But a not-for-profit
economy has more to do with producing use-value, and less
to do with producing exchange-value. In other words, a
commodity producing and for-profit economy carries its own
special risks.
Michael Price wrote:
> I insisted that risk in any economy was the result of uncertainty as
> to the future and therefore intrinsic to them all regardless of
> commodity markets or lack thereof.
Ron Allen wrote:
> The future is unknown in a very special sense when you're talking about
> investment decisions. Supply and demand can fluctuate more than the
> capacity for production . . .
Michael Price wrote:
> Sigh... the capacity for production IS supply.
Ron Allen answers:
Production capacity is material capital supply; but the
supply of consumer goods is very often singled out, and
set apart, from capital goods.
Ron Allen wrote:
> . . . and human needs.
Michael Price wrote:
> Sigh... human needs ARE demand.
Ron Allen answers:
The most elementary of economic texts differentiate between
human needs and consumer demand. This distinction is so
rudimentary as to require no discussion. Just look at any
dictionary definition of demand as an economic category.
<><><><><><><><><>
"While the isomorphism between the theories of power [i.e.,
the Foucauldian theory of power] and value [i.e., the
Marxian theory of value] suggests that a synthesis between
them would result in a formulation that can be more
productive than either theory functioning alone."
-- Abdul JanMohamed
Ron Allen
> Commodity supply can be artificially reduced so as to increase consumer
> demand, . . .
Michael Price wrote:
> Actually it can't. Commodity supply might be artificially reduced to
> CONTRACT demand but that is different from an change in the demand
> curve.
Ron Allen answers:
I suppose there are two ways to see the effects of reduced
commodity output/circulation. If a commodity's production
and circulation is reduced, that will reduce availability,
and that will reduce demand as the actual buying of that
commodity. But there is another way of seeing the effect
of a reduced commodity stock, and that is the effect on
price, which increase is also called increase demand.
Ron Allen wrote:
> . . . and thereby increase the market price, and so enlarge the
> profitability of a commodity.
Michael Price wrote:
> This is very hard to do since if one producer reduces supply to increase
> prices the increased prices will cause others to increase supply.
Ron Allen answers:
But it happens all the same, and all the time. Besides it
takes time for an effective competitor to enter the market
as a dynamic challenge to an artificial reduction of a
commodity supply, and the larger, established commercial
enterprise can always distress a newcomer into the market
by a temporary tactic of underselling, or by eliminating
the competitive challenge by a hostile takeover of the
successful newcomer.
Michael Price wrote:
> The collusion neccesary to produce the price fixing you think is common
> is
Ron Allen answers:
This statement needs to be repeated/corrected.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Pecuniary demand can be reduced by massive reductions in the employment
> of labor. Unemployment can be artificial, as a means of decreasing wages,
> and as a means of increasing job demand.
Michael Price wrote:
> So your theory is that capitalists deliberately reduce employment and
> therefore the productive capacity of their own factories so that OTHER
> capitalists can hire people cheaply? Get a clue.
Ron Allen answers:
I suppose that it is all a combination both of deliberate
calculation, and serendipitous windfalls.
Ron Allen wrote:
> All of these factors are artificial considerations that have everything
> to do with a for-profit capitalist mode of economy.
> Socialism and communism simplify economy by getting rid of the supply-
> and-demand equation, and replacing it with a for-utility non-profit
> model of doing economy.
Michael Price wrote:
> Define "utility".
Ron Allen answers:
I don't need to. That work has been done already. Consult
any good dictionary.
Michael Price wrote:
> Explain the new equation or inequation that indicates what should be
> produced and how.
Ron allen answers:
What should be produced is what can be used, what people
need, no more and no less; this will both eliminate human
poverty, and minimize environmental pollution.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Supplies will be produced and provided according to the predictable
> needs of people, . . .
Michael Price wrote:
> Since when are the needs of people predictable?
Ron Allen answers:
Tell me a human need that you believe in unpredictable.
How is consumer demand predictable?
Michael Price wrote:
> How do you determine what is needed or wanted and how to produce it?
Ron Allen answers:
In a democratic social economy, such determinations and
decisions will be democratically derived.
Michael Price wrote:
> You have never answered this question because without a price mechanism
> there is no answer.
Ron Allen answers:
The price mechanism is all about how the productive people
are daily fleeced of the surplus value created by their
everyday wage labor, and of the value of their wage incomes.
The price mechanism has nothing to do with supply flawlessly
and fully answering demand. The price mechanism is how
supply and demand are manipulated in order to maximize the
private profits both of the big manufacturers and of the big
merchants.
Ron Allen wrote:
> . . . according to actual and anticipated need, rather than according
> to mercurial commodity markets and job markets, and uncertain consumer
> demand and competitive conditions.
Michael Price wrote:
> Consumer demand will not stop being unpredictable just because you call
> it something else.
Ron Allen answers:
What does this statement mean? Demand is a function of
commodity production for private profits, and this function
simply has no operative place in a more utilitarian mode of
economy.
Michael Price wrote:
> People will change their mind about what they want.
Ron Allen answers:
Wants change because of commercial advertising the purpose
of which is to increase consumer demand. In a commodity and
consumerist economy, the changing of wants is itself a
productive phase of economy, because changing wants produce
profits.
Michael Price wrote:
> Products that planners (communist or capitalist) believe are desirable
> will not be desired.
Ron Allen answers:
I do not advocate a central-plan authoritarian state. I
advocate confederalism -- i.e., each community and each
cooperative produces what it needs, and any surplus can be
exchanged for other goods produced by other communities and
other cooperatives, not for profit, but for mutual aid and
reciprocal assistance. This is not about free markets,
but about free sharing and free access.
Michael Price wrote:
> It's how the world is. How will your system take this into account?
Ron Allen answers:
How the real world is now has everything to do with the
fact that we now live in a commercial and capitalist mode
of economy -- dominated by commodity production and
distribution, and by the private profit incentive.
Michael Price wrote:
> How will you know what people want, how much they want it relative
> to other things and how to value resources used in making it?
Ron Allen answers:
In a democratic social economy, the people can say what they
need. It's that simply. Communication will mediate human
needs, rather than money or price, which do not effectively
or substantially mediate human needs.
<><><><><><><><><><>
"You know more than you think you do."
-- Benjamin Spock
Ron Allen
> Building a bridge is a risk since it may be destroyed before significant
> use can be made of it.
Ron Allen wrote:
> The risks involved in building a bridge are nothing like the special and
> unique risks which are characteristic of a for-profit commercial economy.
Michael Price wrote:
> What risks are those? So far you have not indentified one risk that
> would not exist in your communist system.
Ron Allen answers:
In a commodity production and exchange economy, the risk has
to do with exchange value (profitability). The capitalist,
for example, invests value in the construction of a bridge
because the capitalist anticipates a return on assets (more
value) than the initial value invested. This is all about
exchange value. A bridge has utility value, even if it has
less than expected profit value -- i.e., earnings value,
or exchange value.
Ron Allen wrote:
> The risks involved in building a bridge will exist in both a capitalist
> and communist economy, but the peculiar and distinguishing risks endemic
> to capitalism will not exist in a production for use model of doing
> economy, namely a communist model of economy.
Michael Price wrote:
> A foundry could be superseded by better designs before the benefits
> of it's production exceed the value of the resources used in it's
> production. In a non-profit system the feedback mechanism would be
> different from capitalism's but it would have to exist.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Not only is the feedback mechanism different, but the feedback message
> is also different.
Michael Price wrote:
> That's what I'm afraid of.
Ron Allen answers:
It is natural to fear what we don't understand. Get some
understanding, and you'll get rid of the fear.
Ron Allen wrote:
> The mechanism and the message are different when the purpose of
> production and distribution are different, and the purpose is
> different when one economy is all about private profit and the other
> economy is all about public utility.
Michael Price wrote:
> Obviously I need to make this simpler. In a capitalist economy there
> is a mechanism that says "Stop doing this way, it's a waste of resources
> better used elsewhere.".
Ron Allen answers:
And yet, there is so much waste of resources.
Besides, allocation of resources is privately decided, and
always with private profits in view, in a capitalist mode of
economy. How can this be less wasteful than a truly
democratic economy which produces and circulates goods
according to human need -- i.e., according to the human
ability to consume and utilize goods? If we produce what
we need, what we can use, what we can consume, no more and
no less, then we eliminate waste. This is both a people-
and planet-friendly mode of production and distribution.
Michael Price wrote:
> If you don't have one of these in your system then people will keep
> doing things that produce less with the same resources than they
> otherwise would. If this happens people will be worse off materially
> and less able to produce the capital to produce what they need in the
> future. Eventually they will starve. What is it in your system that
> does this job?
<><><><><><><><><><>
"Boris Kagarlitsky, a Russian democratic socialist critic
of the Soviet system, argued that 'the cultural level of
the masses became on average somewhat higher during the
1970s than the cultural level of the ruling elite' (1990).
On this account, rising levels of education and consumption
produced rising expectations that the system could not
fulfill. Herbert Marcuse had earlier argued that the need
to incorporate technological rationality in the system would
help produce critical consciousness (1958), and Rudolf Bahro
(1978) contributed the concept of surplus consciousness to
describe the growing subjective need for a better life that
could fuel social dissent. Although both Left and Right
critics of communism pessimistically argued that decades of
Stalinism in the former Soviet Union and its East European
empire had blunted the potential for social change, this
diagnosis turned out to be incorrect and to signal the
continuing validity of the classical Marxian concept of mass
politics and the importance of the activity of the masses
in promoting social change."
-- Douglas Kellner
Ron Allen
> Is it entirely accurate to say that price shifts have nothing at all
> to do with public utility? Demand is the measure of public utility,
> in a sense, isn't it? Demand is half the equation.
Ron Allen answers:
Both sides of the supply-and-demand equation have to do
with private profit maximization calculations, and only
incidentally/accidentally to do with public utility.
The prosperity in capitalist economies is a function of
private profits, and not of public utility. Or rather,
public utility is secondary to private profits, and so
we witness the very curious co-existence of poverty and
prosperity, of extreme want with extreme wealth.
<><><><><><><><><>
"I once said cynically of a politician, 'He'll doublecross
that bridge when he comes to it.'"
-- Oscar Levant
Christopher Basken
> Christopher Basken wrote:
> > Is it entirely accurate to say that price shifts have nothing at all
> > to do with public utility? Demand is the measure of public utility,
> > in a sense, isn't it? Demand is half the equation.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Both sides of the supply-and-demand equation have to do
> with private profit maximization calculations, and only
> incidentally/accidentally to do with public utility.
Ok, understood. Makes sense.
> The prosperity in capitalist economies is a function of
> private profits, and not of public utility. Or rather,
> public utility is secondary to private profits, and so
> we witness the very curious co-existence of poverty and
> prosperity, of extreme want with extreme wealth.
Why "very curious"? Most of western history can be described like that.
One of the key characteristics of capitalism is that it allows individuals
to cross that line (as opposed to something like a bloodline-monarchy).
Jeffrey C. Dege
>Christopher Basken wrote:
>> Is it entirely accurate to say that price shifts have nothing at all
>> to do with public utility? Demand is the measure of public utility,
>> in a sense, isn't it? Demand is half the equation.
>
>Ron Allen answers:
>Both sides of the supply-and-demand equation have to do
>with private profit maximization calculations, and only
>incidentally/accidentally to do with public utility.
There's no "public" utility, only individual utility, and the free market
is the only way to measure it.
--
While it may be that a society in which crime is so rare that no one
ever needs to carry a weapon is "civilized," a society that stigmatizes
the carrying of weapons by the law-abiding -- because it distrusts its
citizens more than it fears rapists, robbers, and murderers -- certainly
cannot claim this distinction.
- Jeffrey Snyder, "Nation of Cowards"
Jeffrey C. Dege
>
>Ron Allen answers:
>In these United States, the New Deal policies of FDR are
>credited with bringing a large portion of the American
>population out of relative poverty into a middle class
>station.
Not by anybody who actually pays any attention to the actual facts,
their not.
Christopher Basken
> On Sat, 02 Mar 2002 15:05:30 -0500, Ron Allen <ral...@bellsouth.net>
wrote:
> >
> >Ron Allen answers:
> >In these United States, the New Deal policies of FDR are
> >credited with bringing a large portion of the American
> >population out of relative poverty into a middle class
> >station.
>
> Not by anybody who actually pays any attention to the actual facts,
> their not.
I have to agree. Imagine a mountain climber who makes it almost all the way
to the top of Everest, only at 20 feet from the top he slips and twists his
ankle. The climber then rips a strip of cloth from his coat and uses it to
bind his ankle so he can make it to the peak. Crediting FDR and the New
Deal with bringing people out of poverty in the 1930s is like crediting the
strip of cloth for "bringing" the climber to the top of Everest.
Woodard R. Springstube
> Ron Allen wrote:
>> Commodity supply can be artificially reduced so as to increase
>> consumer demand, . . .
>
>
> Michael Price wrote:
>> Actually it can't. Commodity supply might be artificially reduced to
>> CONTRACT demand but that is different from an change in the demand
>> curve.
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> I suppose there are two ways to see the effects of reduced
> commodity output/circulation. If a commodity's production
> and circulation is reduced, that will reduce availability,
> and that will reduce demand as the actual buying of that
> commodity. But there is another way of seeing the effect
> of a reduced commodity stock, and that is the effect on
> price, which increase is also called increase demand.
>
>
Ron,
Before you pontificate about economic matters, please learn some
economics! Demand is not a point or a specific quantity. Demand is a
function, a curve that relates QUANTITIES DEMANDED to prices. Price
will never change the DEMAND; it will only change the quantity demanded.
Again, demand is a relationship between price and the quantity that
people are willing to buy at various prices--it is a downward sloping
curve. Change the price and you will only move from one point on the
demand curve to another. That will change the quantity demanded, but
the curve will remain fixed in its original location. To change the
demand, which means moving the whole demand curve to a different
location, you must change one of five things: 1. Consumers' income and
wealth, 2. the price of substitute or complementary goods, 3.
consumers' expectations of future prices, 4. consumer population and
demographics, or 5. consumers' tastes and preferences.
Be aware that I have given you the watered-down explanation, since you
don't seem to be ready for the more rigorous approach, and usenet
postings are lousey places to try to post the calculus equations.
--
Woodard
"Everybody, his brother, and their dog thinks themselves to be expert in
three areas: Politics, religion, and economics. And, the less they
know, or the drunker they are, the more that they think they know."
Tom Snyder
me. You forget that laziness, sloth and lust for power will still exist
under any socialist or communist system you care to establish. Even more
so, since there is no religion to put a restraint on human evil.
Furthermore, big government in any form is the real culprit since it
resulted in millions of deaths. For example, not counting the murderous
regimes of Mao, Stalin and the National Socialists under Hitler, there was
the debacle known as the Vietnam War, where one Socialist government, the
U.S. under Lyndon Johnson, engaged another Socialist government, North
Vietnam, which was supported by the Big Governments of Russia and China. The
result slaughter of millions! Another example would be the poor education
we get from Big Government in the public schools and in the universities,
which are run by a bunch of crypto-fascist, communist tyrants.
Faced with this, I will take Big Business any day, especially since Big
Business can be balanced, in theory, by Big Labor.
You might want to read "Religion and the Rise of Western Culture" by
Christopher Dawson, to get a feeling for the theological and spiritual
aspects to Social Theory.
Tom Snyder
"Ron Allen" <ral...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:3C8130F0...@bellsouth.net...
Ron Allen
> There's no "public" utility, only individual utility, and the free
> market is the only way to measure it.
Ron Allen answers:
The problem with markets is that they do not measure need,
only supply-and-demand, only property meeting property,
only one commodity following another commodity.
Another problem with markets is that they do not measure
disutilities -- i.e., externalities.
<><><><><><><><><>
"One of the things which makes me happier today is that I
will never be a Nobel Prize candidate again."
-- Gabriel García Márquez
Ron Allen
> My assertion is that even the newly rich, even the first generation
> super-rich, did not earn their enormous wealth by their own labor.
> Bill Gates, for example, did not earn his immense wealth by his own
> [solo] labor.
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> Sure he did. How else do you think a person becomes a billionaire?
Ron Allen wrote:
> By the legal expropriation of surplus value produced by the surplus
> labor of other people.
Michael Price wrote:
> How is this value "expropriated"?
Ron Allen wrote:
> Surplus value is expropriated by means of the wage system. What is
> produced by the direct producers is the direct property of the employer/
> proprietor.
Michael Price wrote:
> Only if the direct producers agree to sell their labour.
Ron Allen answers:
Wage workers agree with the wage system about as much as
they agree with the tax system. Wage workers simply accept
the facts, and that's about as voluntary as you wish to see
it.
Surplus value is withheld from the direct producers in the
very same way that taxes are withheld from these direct
producers of value -- i.e., the value is simply withheld
from their wages. Most wage earners simply write off the
taxes, and those who know what profits are all about write
off the surplus value. They see only what they net as
being their real wages.
Ron Allen wrote:
> And yet, what is produced by the direct producers ought to be the
> direct property of the producers.
Michael Price wrote:
> Only if they do not sell their labour.
Ron Allen answers:
Our opinions are different concerning this.
Ron Allen wrote:
> That what is produced by the direct producers is not their immediate
> property is the first step/stage in the expropriation of value from
> the direct producers of value.
Michael Price wrote:
> When did Bill Gates put a gun to his worker's heads and demand wealth?
Ron Allen wrote:
> The exploitation of labor is more ingenious than that, more subtle and
> artful than direct and visible violence. Legal exploitation is
> systematic and methodical, very tidy and very businesslike, both well-
> regulated and well-organized.
> Bill Gates does not need to put a gun to his employees; he has the
> monopoly power of the police state to do that for him.
Michael Price wrote:
> Bullshit. When did the state ever say anyone had to work for Bill?
Ron Allen answers:
The capitalist state does not choose who will be the masters
and who will be the menials. The capitalist state simply
enforces the rights of the masters and the slaves, and also
preserves the rule of the wealthy and powerful élites over
the rest of us.
Bill Gates is no better than me. He's no better than you.
He simply does not do enough value producing labor to
justify all that wealth he has personal and private
possession of.
Ron Allen wrote:
> His hands can stay clean, while the capitalist state gets all the
> accusations from both the political left and the political right.
Michael Price wrote:
> The fact is that this "surplus" value is the result of BG's investment
> decisions not the work of the labourers.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Profitable investments do not come from hocus-pocus magic.
Michael Price wrote:
> Never said it did.
Ron allen answers:
To simply talk about investment decisions as value-creating
with no due notice being given to investment in labor is a
kind of voodoo vagary when it comes to conversants trying
to engage themselves in an intelligent and conscientious
discussion of how value is created, and who produces what
value, and who deserves what value.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Labor produces the profits which an investor nets.
Michael Price wrote:
> By itself? Without land, capital and the assumption of risk? That's
> bullshit and you know it.
Ron Allen answers:
Land and capital do not produce value; labor produces value.
Land has value; but the value of land is in its actual or
potential utility for human purposes. And land development
increases the exchange value, as well as the utility value,
of land. Developed land embodies human labor. Capital has
value; and the value of capital is in its having been
produced by labor, and in its being able to extend the
productive powers of human labor.
Michael Price wrote:
> The value of the labourer's labour to the labourer is less than the
> wage. The value of the labourer's labour to the capitalist is
> (hopefully) larger than this and depends largely on the capitalists
> decision[s]. The "surplus" is earned not stolen.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Utterly ludicrous premise resulting in an absolutely ridiculous
> inference.
Michael Price wrote:
> Which premise is ridiculous?
Ron Allen answers:
The premise implied by, and inferred from, your conclusion.
Michael Price wrote:
> If it is ludicruous why can't you refute it?
Ron Allen answers:
Somehow you conclude that proprietors earn value that has
been created by producers.
Michael Price wrote:
> There were 3 premises in the above paragraph. If the value of the
> workers labour to the employer was worth less than the wage there
> would be no "surplus value" for you to complain about.
Ron Allen answers:
But the value of a wage worker's labor is in the surplus
value an employer can appropriate from that labor. In
other words, wage labor has value to an employer precisely
as such labor produces value the employer can appropriate.
Michael Price wrote:
> If the value of the workers labour to the labourer was less than the
> wage why did he sell the labour?
Ron Allen answers:
This question seems to assume that the value of a wage
worker's labor can be less than the value of the wage paid
to the worker, which is utterly absurd from the profiteering
viewpoint.
Michael Price wrote:
> The decisions made by the employer result in the economic activity
> involving the employee to occur. Any value produced surplus to value
> of labour and other resources used by the employer is due to their
> decision to pay for those resources and combine them.
Ron Allen answers:
The first sentence makes no sense, and the second sentence
combines fuzzy thinking with hazy assumptions, such as the
assumption that we need proprietors to help us decide how
best to employ limited resources, rather than taking a
democratic path to political and economic decision-making.
Henry Louis Mencken said:
"My guess is that well over 80 percent of the human race
goes through life without having a single original thought."
Michael Price wrote:
> And you Ron are no exception.
Ron Allen answers:
I'm sure I deserve that remark, Michael.
<><><><><><><><><><>
"But many others, unable to find a better outlet for their
frustration, take it out on their less influential
neighbors, in the mood of a man who, being afraid to stand
up to his wife in a domestic argument, relieves his
feelings by kicking the cat. (As anybody who knows me will
tell you, I have the most profound detestation for people
who kick cats.) It is people like that who make up much
of the mass support for McCarthyism."
-- Elmer Davis
Scott Higdon
Ron Allen <ral...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
Ron Allen wrote:
Wage workers agree with the wage system about as much as
they agree with the tax system. Wage workers simply accept
the facts, and that's about as voluntary as you wish to see
it.
Surplus value is withheld from the direct producers in the
very same way that taxes are withheld from these direct
producers of value -- i.e., the value is simply withheld
from their wages. Most wage earners simply write off the
taxes, and those who know what profits are all about write
off the surplus value. They see only what they net as
being their real wages.
I answer:
I have a very small but important point to make.
Ron, the bottom line is that every criticism you and others have of
capitalism COULD be correct. COULD. You may have some good points, and
you may be right about some things.
BUT! That does not mean that socialism will be any better. It does not
mean that socialism is even a workable system.
Is it possible that there's a better system out there than capitalism?
Sure. Is it socialsm? I don't think so.
--
Scott Higdon
The moon laughs knowingly
Christopher Basken
>
> Wage workers agree with the wage system about as much as
> they agree with the tax system. Wage workers simply accept
> the facts, and that's about as voluntary as you wish to see
> it.
Employers are under the same constraints when hiring people. When I accept
a salary, it's always higher than what my employer would like to pay me. My
employer knows, though, that if he stonewalls me, then I can simply go
somewhere else. You're assuming all employers are in a collusion in a way
that all employees are not.
> Surplus value is withheld from the direct producers in the
> very same way that taxes are withheld from these direct
> producers of value -- i.e., the value is simply withheld
> from their wages. Most wage earners simply write off the
> taxes, and those who know what profits are all about write
> off the surplus value. They see only what they net as
> being their real wages.
Your pay does not have to equal the amount of money the employer makes off
of you. If it did, then there would be no gain in employing you -- your
potential employer would be dishing out X just to get back X. In order for
it to be worth it to an employer, you have to be paid less than what you
make for him. If that bothers you, start your own company.
Jeffrey C. Dege
>Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
>> There's no "public" utility, only individual utility, and the free
>> market is the only way to measure it.
>
>Ron Allen answers:
>The problem with markets is that they do not measure need,
>only supply-and-demand, only property meeting property,
>only one commodity following another commodity.
There is no objective standard of need other than that expressed in
demand.
--
But underlying the gun control struggle is a fundamental division in
our nation. The intensity of passion on this issue suggests to me
that we are experiencing a sort of low-grade war going on between two
alternative views of what America is and ought to be. On the one side
are those who take bourgeois Europe as a model of a civilized society:
a society just, equitable, and democratic; but well ordered, with the
lines of responsibility and authority clearly drawn, and with decisions
made rationally and correctly by intelligent men for the entire nation.
To such people, hunting is atavistic, personal violence is shameful,
and uncontrolled gun ownership is a blot upon civilization.
On the other side is a group of people who do not tend to be especially
articulate or literate, and whose world view is rarely expressed in print.
Their model is that of the independent frontiersman who takes care of
himself and his family with no interference from the state. They are
conservative in the sense that they cling to Americas unique pre-modern
tradition- a non-feudal society with a sort of medieval liberty writ
large for every man. To these people, sociological is an epithet.
Life is tough and competitive. Manhood means responsibility and caring
for your own.
- B. Bruce Briggs, "The Great American Gun War"
G*rd*n
| >> There's no "public" utility, only individual utility, and the free
| >> market is the only way to measure it.
Ron Allen <ral...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
| >Ron Allen answers:
| >The problem with markets is that they do not measure need,
| >only supply-and-demand, only property meeting property,
| >only one commodity following another commodity.
jd...@jdege.visi.com (Jeffrey C. Dege):
| There is no objective standard of need other than that expressed in
| demand.
That may be so, but the need -- let us be more generic and
say desire -- of individuals is always multiplied by their
power, wealth and knowledge. So markets do not actually
measure desire either. They could do so only if everyone
started out with about the same power, wealth and knowledge.
--
(<><>) /*/
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
{ http://www.etaoin.com | latest new material 11/22/01 <-adv't
Jeffrey C. Dege
>Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
>| >> There's no "public" utility, only individual utility, and the free
>| >> market is the only way to measure it.
>
>Ron Allen <ral...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>| >Ron Allen answers:
>| >The problem with markets is that they do not measure need,
>| >only supply-and-demand, only property meeting property,
>| >only one commodity following another commodity.
>
>jd...@jdege.visi.com (Jeffrey C. Dege):
>| There is no objective standard of need other than that expressed in
>| demand.
>
>That may be so, but the need -- let us be more generic and
>say desire -- of individuals is always multiplied by their
>power, wealth and knowledge. So markets do not actually
>measure desire either. They could do so only if everyone
>started out with about the same power, wealth and knowledge.
You're back to assuming that there is some meaingful definition of need.
There ain't.
--
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor
do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger in
the end is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is a
daring adventure or nothing.
- Helen Keller
G*rd*n
| >| >> There's no "public" utility, only individual utility, and the free
| >| >> market is the only way to measure it.
Ron Allen <ral...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
| >| >Ron Allen answers:
| >| >The problem with markets is that they do not measure need,
| >| >only supply-and-demand, only property meeting property,
| >| >only one commodity following another commodity.
jd...@jdege.visi.com (Jeffrey C. Dege):
| >| There is no objective standard of need other than that expressed in
| >| demand.
G*rd*n <g...@panix.com> wrote:
| >That may be so, but the need -- let us be more generic and
| >say desire -- of individuals is always multiplied by their
| >power, wealth and knowledge. So markets do not actually
| >measure desire either. They could do so only if everyone
| >started out with about the same power, wealth and knowledge.
jd...@jdege.visi.com (Jeffrey C. Dege):
| You're back to assuming that there is some meaingful definition of need.
|
| There ain't.
That's why I substituted _desire_ for it. Actually, there
are plenty of meaningful definitions of _need_, but the
difference between need and desire is ambiguous and by the
time it/they become socialized, for example, appear in a
market, there's no effective difference: I need to eat,
desire to eat, have a whim to eat, have been ordered by
the Pharaoh to eat, regardless, I shall hunt, grow, beg,
buy or steal food. Now, maybe, we can get back to those
markets and see _how_ they socialize desire.
Joshua Holmes
: "Jeffrey C. Dege" <jd...@jdege.visi.com> wrote in message
Wrong analogy. Once the climber slips and twists his ankle, the
New Deal comes along and cuts the remaining 20 feet off the mountain and
says, "Look! The top!"
--
Joshua Holmes
jdho...@force.stwing.upenn.edu
"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."
- Henry David Thoreau
Constantinople
> Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
>| >> There's no "public" utility, only individual utility, and the free
>| >> market is the only way to measure it.
>
> Ron Allen <ral...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>| >Ron Allen answers:
>| >The problem with markets is that they do not measure need, only
>| >supply-and-demand, only property meeting property, only one commodity
>| >following another commodity.
>
> jd...@jdege.visi.com (Jeffrey C. Dege):
>| There is no objective standard of need other than that expressed in
>| demand.
>
> That may be so, but the need -- let us be more generic and
> say desire -- of individuals is always multiplied by their
> power, wealth and knowledge. So markets do not actually
> measure desire either. They could do so only if everyone
> started out with about the same power, wealth and knowledge.
You're trying to measure things which can't be measured, and meanwhile
ignoring the things which actually can be measured, like demand.
If everyone at all times had the same stuff as everyone else, then exchange
would be impossible by definition. If everyone merely *starts* with the same
stuff as everyone else, then that condition changes immediately. So at best
we could measure this aggregate "desire" which you seem to believe in only
for one infinitesimal moment (and even then problems arise).
Why do you invent supposed quantities which can't be measured, and then point
out that demand does not measure those alleged quantities, which is no
surprise to anyone but you? It seems a pointless exercise.
G*rd*n
| :> >In these United States, the New Deal policies of FDR are
| :> >credited with bringing a large portion of the American
| :> >population out of relative poverty into a middle class
| :> >station.
"Jeffrey C. Dege" <jd...@jdege.visi.com>:
| :> Not by anybody who actually pays any attention to the actual facts,
| :> their not.
Christopher Basken <ch...@basken.com> wrote:
| : I have to agree. Imagine a mountain climber who makes it almost all the way
| : to the top of Everest, only at 20 feet from the top he slips and twists his
| : ankle. The climber then rips a strip of cloth from his coat and uses it to
| : bind his ankle so he can make it to the peak. Crediting FDR and the New
| : Deal with bringing people out of poverty in the 1930s is like crediting the
| : strip of cloth for "bringing" the climber to the top of Everest.
Joshua Holmes <jdho...@force.stwing.upenn.edu>:
| Wrong analogy. Once the climber slips and twists his ankle, the
| New Deal comes along and cuts the remaining 20 feet off the mountain and
| says, "Look! The top!"
Assertions and analogies do not constitute rational arguments.
Constantinople
> That's why I substituted _desire_ for it. Actually, there
> are plenty of meaningful definitions of _need_, but the
> difference between need and desire is ambiguous and by the
> time it/they become socialized, for example, appear in a
> market, there's no effective difference: I need to eat,
> desire to eat, have a whim to eat, have been ordered by
> the Pharaoh to eat, regardless, I shall hunt, grow, beg,
> buy or steal food. Now, maybe, we can get back to those
> markets and see _how_ they socialize desire.
But knowing what demand is and how it relates to desire, i.e. preference, is
a straightforward recollection of what one learned in microeconomics 1.
First, though, you need to have taken microeconomics 1.
James A. Donald
Jeffrey C. Dege:
> > There is no objective standard of need other than that expressed in
> > demand.
G*rd*n:
> That may be so, but the need -- let us be more generic and
> say desire -- of individuals is always multiplied by their
> power, wealth and knowledge. So markets do not actually
> measure desire either. They could do so only if everyone
> started out with about the same power, wealth and knowledge.
So we should replace the markets with Gordon's judgment of what I
need. :-)
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
bU87m75qok0dqWBNDKta5ARkJhc/KAWHJixy/i3f
4MtNLZ90zMF3sgurzK4NG+/mYjFLFcJUuxtqvz5r3
G*rd*n
| > That's why I substituted _desire_ for it. Actually, there
| > are plenty of meaningful definitions of _need_, but the
| > difference between need and desire is ambiguous and by the
| > time it/they become socialized, for example, appear in a
| > market, there's no effective difference: I need to eat,
| > desire to eat, have a whim to eat, have been ordered by
| > the Pharaoh to eat, regardless, I shall hunt, grow, beg,
| > buy or steal food. Now, maybe, we can get back to those
| > markets and see _how_ they socialize desire.
Constantinople <constan...@yahoo.com>:
| But knowing what demand is and how it relates to desire, i.e. preference, is
| a straightforward recollection of what one learned in microeconomics 1.
| First, though, you need to have taken microeconomics 1.
Believe it or not, knowledge can come by other means than
authorized exposition in an institutional setting. Instead
of taking a course, you can read a book, have it revealed
to you by the gods in a dream, or think it up by yourself.
Regardless, do you want to speak to the issue I attempted
to raise? Here goes again:
"That may be so, but the need -- let us be more generic and
say desire -- of individuals is always multiplied by their
power, wealth and knowledge. So markets do not actually
measure desire either. They could do so only if everyone
started out with about the same power, wealth and knowledge."
While this might be an economic point, it seems more like a
political point to me. That is, markets do not generally deal
with desire (or "need") directly, nor do they respect that
sacred fellow, The Individual.
Here I am, waiting for a file transfer to complete so I can
do some testing, and I'm trying to amuse myself by advancing
this discussion a little; but it's like wading in molasses in
January.
Constantinople
The best brief treatment of the Great Depression I found (some years ago) is
http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/lopez.html
As briefly as possible: Hoover and Roosevelt, with their antimarket policies,
turned a recession into a depression. The recession seems itself to have been
a result of antimarket policies, i.e. state funny business with the money
supply.
I would benefit greatly if Caplan fleshed out his outline, but I'm not paying
him so I am happy with this.
Constantinople
> g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote in news:a600r9$8oi$1...@panix3.panix.com:
>| > That's why I substituted _desire_ for it. Actually, there
>| > are plenty of meaningful definitions of _need_, but the
>| > difference between need and desire is ambiguous and by the
>| > time it/they become socialized, for example, appear in a
>| > market, there's no effective difference: I need to eat, desire to
>| > eat, have a whim to eat, have been ordered by the Pharaoh to eat,
>| > regardless, I shall hunt, grow, beg, buy or steal food. Now,
>| > maybe, we can get back to those markets and see _how_ they socialize
>| > desire.
>
> Constantinople <constan...@yahoo.com>:
>| But knowing what demand is and how it relates to desire, i.e.
>| preference, is a straightforward recollection of what one learned in
>| microeconomics 1. First, though, you need to have taken microeconomics
>| 1.
>
> Believe it or not, knowledge can come by other means than
> authorized exposition in an institutional setting. Instead
> of taking a course, you can read a book, have it revealed
> to you by the gods in a dream, or think it up by yourself.
Sure. But you have to have the knowledge somehow. And you have not
demonstrated that you do. From which it follows that you did not get the
knowledge by any means at all. Or else you got it then lost it.
> Regardless, do you want to speak to the issue I attempted
> to raise? Here goes again:
>
> "That may be so, but the need -- let us be more generic and
> say desire -- of individuals is always multiplied by their
> power, wealth and knowledge. So markets do not actually
> measure desire either. They could do so only if everyone
> started out with about the same power, wealth and knowledge."
>
> While this might be an economic point, it seems more like a
> political point to me. That is, markets do not generally deal
> with desire (or "need") directly, nor do they respect that
> sacred fellow, The Individual.
Right, the relation between an individual's preferences and the ultimate
prices that one sees on the market is not straightforward. And? Your
point?
Similarly, the relationship between DNA and your body's physiology is not
straightforward. But that is not an especially illuminating observation
either.
> Here I am, waiting for a file transfer to complete so I can
> do some testing, and I'm trying to amuse myself by advancing
> this discussion a little; but it's like wading in molasses in
> January.
Yes it is like that, but I have already answered the text you quote, so
you are actually taking this in circles.
Christopher Basken
news:Xns91C77CAAA52...@140.99.99.130...
> > Christopher Basken <ch...@basken.com> wrote:
> >| : I have to agree. Imagine a mountain climber who makes it almost all
> >| : the way to the top of Everest, only at 20 feet from the top he slips
> >| : and twists his ankle. The climber then rips a strip of cloth from
his
> >| : coat and uses it to bind his ankle so he can make it to the peak.
> >| : Crediting FDR and the New Deal with bringing people out of poverty in
> >| : the 1930s is like crediting the strip of cloth for "bringing" the
> >| : climber to the top of Everest.
> >
> > Joshua Holmes <jdho...@force.stwing.upenn.edu>:
> >| Wrong analogy. Once the climber slips and twists his ankle, the
> >| New Deal comes along and cuts the remaining 20 feet off the mountain
and
> >| says, "Look! The top!"
> >
> > Assertions and analogies do not constitute rational arguments.
But they do add a little flavor to them...
> The best brief treatment of the Great Depression I found (some years ago)
is
>
> http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/lopez.html
>
> As briefly as possible: Hoover and Roosevelt, with their antimarket
policies,
> turned a recession into a depression. The recession seems itself to have
been
> a result of antimarket policies, i.e. state funny business with the money
> supply.
From what I understand of it (and I'm currently reading up on the period, so
I reserve the right to refine my opinion later), there were a lot of hands
in a lot of pockets during the teens and 20s. A lot of businesses had
politicians on the payroll. The Great Depression did not come about through
any natural capitalist action, but only because corrupt capitalists married
themselves to the State. That and a lot of general panic.
Scott Higdon
Constantinople <constan...@yahoo.com> wrote:
What is even the point of being so concerned with what people "need"? If
all you ever had is just what you needed, you'd never have very much.
I think a better goal to shoot for is maximum prosperity for the maximum
number of people. I can *survive* as a hermit, but I'd rather *live*
like a king.
Jeffrey C. Dege
>
>From what I understand of it (and I'm currently reading up on the period, so
>I reserve the right to refine my opinion later), there were a lot of hands
>in a lot of pockets during the teens and 20s. A lot of businesses had
>politicians on the payroll. The Great Depression did not come about through
>any natural capitalist action, but only because corrupt capitalists married
>themselves to the State. That and a lot of general panic.
The American Progressive movement had decided that the traditional
US economic structure was disorganized and sloppy, and thought that
a properly planned economy, run by experts, as was seen in Germany,
would be ever so much more rational.
--
I have noticed also myself, gentlemen, that when men seek for nothing in
warfare but only life at all costs, they are generally the ones to die,
and that with disgrace and ignominy; but when they recognize that all
men must die, for this is their common lot, and strive only to die with
honor, these I generally see growing to old age, and while they live,
much happier.
Learn this lesson yourselves, for now is the time we need it: be men
yourselves, and encourage others to do the same.
- Xenophon, "Anabasis"
Jeffrey C. Dege
The point of the free enterprise system is that people can choose their
goals for themselves.
--
We can found no scientific discipline, nor a healthy profession on the
technical mistakes of the Department of Defense and IBM.
-- Edsger Dijkstra
G*rd*n
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n):
| > Regardless, do you want to speak to the issue I attempted
| > to raise? Here goes again:
| >
| > "That may be so, but the need -- let us be more generic and
| > say desire -- of individuals is always multiplied by their
| > power, wealth and knowledge. So markets do not actually
| > measure desire either. They could do so only if everyone
| > started out with about the same power, wealth and knowledge."
| >
| > While this might be an economic point, it seems more like a
| > political point to me. That is, markets do not generally deal
| > with desire (or "need") directly, nor do they respect that
| > sacred fellow, The Individual.
Constantinople <constan...@yahoo.com>:
| Right, the relation between an individual's preferences and the ultimate
| prices that one sees on the market is not straightforward. And? Your
| point? ...
I was responding to the following exchange:
| Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
| >> There's no "public" utility, only individual utility, and the free
| >> market is the only way to measure it.
|
| Ron Allen answers:
| >The problem with markets is that they do not measure need,
| >only supply-and-demand, only property meeting property,
| >only one commodity following another commodity.
|
| Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
| There is no objective standard of need other than that expressed in
| demand.
I showed that the market is not an objective standard of need
(desire) -- Ron's view is correct. You seem to agree, or at
least you say that the relation is not straightforward. Now
that we have gone around the barn a few times and clarified
everything, or at least beaten it into the ground, maybe
Jeffrey will either change his mind or refute the refutation.
That is, if he knows what we're talking about.
Jeffrey C. Dege
>|
>| Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
>| There is no objective standard of need other than that expressed in
>| demand.
>
>I showed that the market is not an objective standard of need
>(desire) -- Ron's view is correct.
You didn't show anything, you asserted it.
--
The major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the
societies in which they occur.
-- A.N. Whitehead
G*rd*n
| >| There is no objective standard of need other than that expressed in
| >| demand.
G*rd*n <g...@panix.com> wrote:
| >I showed that the market is not an objective standard of need
| >(desire) -- Ron's view is correct.
jd...@jdege.visi.com (Jeffrey C. Dege):
| You didn't show anything, you asserted it.
Well, I'll let Constantinople work it out with you. I've
been around the mulberry bush enough on this one.
Constantinople
> Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
> | >| There is no objective standard of need other than that expressed in
> | >| demand.
>
> G*rd*n <g...@panix.com> wrote:
> | >I showed that the market is not an objective standard of need
> | >(desire) -- Ron's view is correct.
>
> jd...@jdege.visi.com (Jeffrey C. Dege):
> | You didn't show anything, you asserted it.
>
> Well, I'll let Constantinople work it out with you. I've
> been around the mulberry bush enough on this one.
The claim is vague enough that it could mean a lot of things, but
coming from you more likely it means nothing and is just self-
gratifying rhetoric.
G*rd*n
|>|>| There is no objective standard of need other than that expressed in
|>|>| demand.
G*rd*n <g...@panix.com> wrote:
|>| >I showed that the market is not an objective standard of need
|>| >(desire) -- Ron's view is correct.
jd...@jdege.visi.com (Jeffrey C. Dege):
|>| You didn't show anything, you asserted it.
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n):
| > Well, I'll let Constantinople work it out with you. I've
| > been around the mulberry bush enough on this one.
constan...@yahoo.com (Constantinople):
| The claim is vague enough that it could mean a lot of things, but
| coming from you more likely it means nothing and is just self-
| gratifying rhetoric.
There are two claims: "There is no objective standard of need
other than that expressed in demand" and "the market is not
an objective standard of need." Which is vague? Why? They
seem pretty plain to me.
Constantinople
> Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
>|>|>| There is no objective standard of need other than that expressed in
>|>|>| demand.
>
> G*rd*n <g...@panix.com> wrote:
>|>| >I showed that the market is not an objective standard of need
>|>| >(desire) -- Ron's view is correct.
>
> jd...@jdege.visi.com (Jeffrey C. Dege):
>|>| You didn't show anything, you asserted it.
>
> g...@panix.com (G*rd*n):
>| > Well, I'll let Constantinople work it out with you. I've been
>| > around the mulberry bush enough on this one.
>
> constan...@yahoo.com (Constantinople):
>| The claim is vague enough that it could mean a lot of things, but
>| coming from you more likely it means nothing and is just self-
>| gratifying rhetoric.
>
> There are two claims: "There is no objective standard of need
> other than that expressed in demand" and "the market is not
> an objective standard of need." Which is vague? Why? They
> seem pretty plain to me.
Plain maybe, but not sufficiently meaningful to have truth conditions. I
could interpret it one way making it true, or another making it false.
You make a lot of that sort of statement. Your posts are heavy on the
rhetoric, and rhetoric tends to be that way.
BitGeek
Ron Allen (and anyone else)--
I'm new to alt.politics.libertarian. I find your postings interesting.
While I don't think you're going to change my mind, I'd like to invite you
to try.
I've recently read Atlas Shrugged, and after reading it, I moved from being
basically a liberal to being a libertarian. I am open to the possibility
that this book is not a logical, rational proof of a philosophy, but is a
meme based on emotionalism, cleverly hiding as logic.
This is what I thought the book was prior to reading it, as I saw the
changes it brought to people who read it.
Have you read it? Would you be willing to provide your opinion of the
logical errors in the argument the book makes? I cannot find fault with its
assumptions, logic, or conclusions. And, more importantly, I've had trouble
finding anyone to provide good criticism of the book, as what I've gotten
has seemed to come from misreading/misunderstanding or not really get to the
core of the matter.
An example is one person said her argument didn't really make sense because
she didn't take Heisenberg's theory into account. But I can't see how
that's relevant, and wasn't able to get further clarification.
Given that it takes your position and expresses it very well, and then shows
its errors, I think in reading, it will be immediately obvious to you the
errors that Rand makes (if any.)
Thanks in advance.
BitGeek
BitGeek
> In capitalism, the calculations are always and only about
> the optimal maximization of private profits.
I know you know this isn't true, but the error is significant. The bottom
line is always the bottom line, but maximizing profits usually means
providing a lavish, yet responsible, working environment and compensation
package for your workers. Business history has shown that money well spent
there will return more than its costs in increased profits. The employees
win and the employer wins.
Hell, on the larger scale, letting companies run free results in far more
available jobs than any programs that try to force job creation.
> Ron Allen wrote:
>> In my opinion, human beings are free, not markets.
Yes- markets are made of up humans who choose their value propositions on a
day-to-day basis. Free Markets is the only way to have Free Humans.
Otherwise, you are enslaving them.
Sometimes markets are innefficient, but you can only tell this in
retrospect. At the time, what seems undervalued may be overvalued in
reality. Or vice -versa. Only by allowing people to place their bets as
suits them and their comfort level, can you allow people to maximize their
happiness and at the same time, maximize the human spirit.
> Ron Allen answers:
> It has a lot to do with power, and with private property
> that favors some with more personal power in the marketplace
> than others.
I think the error is your thinking that this takes power away from others.
I have less private property than Bill Gates. So, no, I can't hang out on
his yacht or island. I don't have that power-- but we both have more
freedom because we both have the power and opportunity to grow our personal
wealth.
One of the false fundamental assumptions a lot of people make is that for
Bill Gates to be rich, a lot of people have to suffer or be poor. Life is
NOT a zero sum game, on scales less than a million years.
BitGeek
G*rd*n
| I know you know this isn't true, but the error is significant. The bottom
| line is always the bottom line, but maximizing profits usually means
| providing a lavish, yet responsible, working environment and compensation
| package for your workers. Business history has shown that money well spent
| there will return more than its costs in increased profits. The employees
| win and the employer wins.
This must explain why the workplace is always such a
paradise and everyone is so happy.
Woodard R. Springstube
news:a6537g$rqd$1...@panix2.panix.com:
> BitGeek <Bit.no.pigp...@mac.com>:
>| I know you know this isn't true, but the error is
>| significant. The bottom line is always the bottom line,
>| but maximizing profits usually means providing a lavish,
>| yet responsible, working environment and compensation
>| package for your workers. Business history has shown that
>| money well spent there will return more than its costs in
>| increased profits. The employees win and the employer
>| wins. ...
>
> This must explain why the workplace is always such a
> paradise and everyone is so happy.
>
>
Straw man argumentation won't win any points. No, workplaces
are not perfect, neither are governments--even democratically
elected governments. Anytime you have to deal with human
beings, you will have errors, and, at times, bad behaviors.
That's life. Get over it. The problem with socialism is
that the bad behaviors are harder to correct. If some
axxhole harasses a female employee, she can sue the socks off
of him and the company. If, however, we have a socialistic
state, then the axxhole, if he is a party member, can use the
power of government to shut the female up.
The problem with a socialistic system is not that there may
not be elected officials. The real problem is that they only
set policy, but they don't carry out that policy. The civil
service, i.e., bureaucracy, carries out policy. And, because
of asymmetric information, the politicians can't monitor
every action of the bureaucracy. The end result is a system
without much accountablity for the day-to-day decisions that
impact ordinary peoples' lives. In a market system, you can
change employers. It is not always easy to do that, but it
can be done if you want to badly enough. That is much better
than a socialist system, which can degenerate into an
authoritarian system where you would have only one employer,
the state, and might need the permission of a mid-level
bureaucrat with a bad comb-over, to move or change jobs.
Woodard
maison
yes, great stuff
proc.
G*rd*n
| ...
| she didn't take Heisenberg's theory into account. But I can't see how
| that's relevant, and wasn't able to get further clarification.
It depends what Rand is supposed to be doing. If she's supposed
to be playing the game of philosophy in general at the pro
level, then she's got to deal with the big stuff like 20th-century
mathematics, physics, psychology, linguistics, and the 19th-
and 20th-century philosophical big deals like Nietzsche and
Wittgenstein. This is especially the case if she's going to
concern herself with logic, ontology, and epistemology. I
doubt if one can do this very well in a novel, at least not
in a readable novel. As it happens I didn't find _Atlas_Shrugged_
worth reading -- I gave up after reading about 2/3 of it, but
that wasn't because it was full of philosophical text, but
because it was like a long, long action hero comic book, and
those don't happen to be to my taste except in pretty small
doses.
See also
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=26nuup%24gae%40panix.com
and
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1992Nov6.175024.13668%40panix.com
and the threads in which they are embedded. I think the
second thread is rather interesting even though I didn't
participate in it very much. There is one serious mistake in
my second article: I say "There may also be some kind of
biological programing towards altruism." "May" is incorrect;
there is no serious doubt that we are biologically programmed
to be often altruistic, and present scientific controversy,
e.g. Dawkins versus Lewontin, is about how, not whether, this
comes about.
G*rd*n
| >| I know you know this isn't true, but the error is
| >| significant. The bottom line is always the bottom line,
| >| but maximizing profits usually means providing a lavish,
| >| yet responsible, working environment and compensation
| >| package for your workers. Business history has shown that
| >| money well spent there will return more than its costs in
| >| increased profits. The employees win and the employer
| >| wins. ...
| g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote in
| > This must explain why the workplace is always such a
| > paradise and everyone is so happy.
"Woodard R. Springstube" <springstTOR...@Diespammer.net>:
| Straw man argumentation won't win any points. ...
My contribution was merely sarcasm. Sarcasm is too blunt
an instrument to be considered point-winning argumentation.
But having struggled for several years in nasty working-class
jobs, it was all I could manage after hearing about lavish
yet responsible working environments and compensation.
David Friedman
BitGeek <Bit.no.pigp...@mac.com> wrote:
> Have you read it? Would you be willing to provide your opinion of the
> logical errors in the argument the book makes?
You can find my critique of one part of the argument--specifically,
Rand's claim to derive "ought" from "is"--webbed at:
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/My_Posts/Ought_From_Is.html
I should add that I am also a libertarian. But I disagree with Rand, and
her current followers, on a range of issues. The big philosophical one
is the derivation of oughts. The big practical one is anarchism vs
limited government.
You can find more of my stuff relevant to libertarianism at:
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/Libertarian.html
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
BitGeek
<g...@panix.com> wrote:
> It depends what Rand is supposed to be doing. If she's supposed
> to be playing the game of philosophy in general at the pro
> level, then she's got to deal with the big stuff like 20th-century
> mathematics, physics,
Nothing in her novel, other than some sci-fi like futuristic technologies,
are relevant to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
Certainly, her philosophy is only affected by it if you ignore the fact that
in order to objectively view the world, you need reason / judgment. This
is the error most people make in their understanding of objectivism: they
think objectivists think they have the one-true view of reality, and that
therefore objectively viewing reality is impossible because we're not
perfect.
> The only thing I really see
> "wrong" with it -- from my point of view -- is that the
> deterministic performance of the logical engine, along
> with the strong emotional need for it, produce a kind of
> totalitarianism in many of its adherents. For instance,
> this article may well draw _angry_ rebuttals because it will
> seem insufficiently reverent.
Quoting above is from one of the articles you referenced.
Reverance to Ayn Rand is silly- she said lots of stupid things and made lots
of errors in thinking. She often lets her frustration enter her writing
when she's talking about looters and that undermines her other writing.
That said, the determinism of the "logical engine" comes from the
determinism of reality itself. Reality exists. This is the fundamental
assumption.
From what I can tell, "nondeterminism" is the idea that reality does not
exist in any perceivable way, that everyone's view is equally valid, etc.
etc. From a scientific viewpoint, nondeterminism is not relevant to Rand's
philosophy, except that her philosophy requires one to use the most rigorous
application of all available science.
> biological programing towards altruism." "May" is incorrect;
> there is no serious doubt that we are biologically programmed
> to be often altruistic, and present scientific controversy,
> e.g. Dawkins versus Lewontin, is about how, not whether, this
> comes about.
Yes, but this is irrelevant to a discussion of Objectivism, right? Of
course, I'm presuming (since you didn't finish the book) by "altruism" you
mean empathy. Biologically, we are empathetic. And objectivism has
nothing wrong with it.
On the other hand, if by "altruism" you mean truly damaging yourself to help
another, biologically its clear this is NOT true. There is no question
about the mater, as if it were true, life of this type would not exist. If
life's first goal was to help others, rather than to reproduce, given that
there is an essentially infinite quantity of help "needed", one would never
get around to reproducing. Therefore, reproduction is life's first goal,
not altruism.
The altruism objectivists oppose is not the desire (enjoyment, pleasure or
other gain from its application) to help others, but the theft of ones life
by compulsion of the state. I find it hard to believe that this forcible
theft is a biologically programmed thing.
I do wish you'd provided some logical argument against objectivism in the
post referenced or this post, as that would be useful. The snobby "well it
works for such pedestrian thinkers as college sophmores" attitude is silly-
or at least based on the assumption that your readers should base their
morality on whether it gets your approval or not, rather than logic, etc.
But then, you wrote that in 1992. And I'm just frustrated because I often
see criticism of Objectivism, but none of it actually seems to ever deal
with Objectivism itself-- usually it spends more time talking about how poor
a book Atlas Shrugged is.
Thanks for your response, though.
BitGeek
BitGeek
<g...@panix.com> wrote:
> BitGeek <Bit.no.pigp...@mac.com>:
> | >| I know you know this isn't true, but the error is
> | >| significant. The bottom line is always the bottom line,
> | >| but maximizing profits usually means providing a lavish,
> | >| yet responsible, working environment and compensation
> | >| package for your workers. Business history has shown that
> | >| money well spent there will return more than its costs in
> | >| increased profits. The employees win and the employer
> | >| wins. ...
>
> | g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote in
> | > This must explain why the workplace is always such a
> | > paradise and everyone is so happy.
>
> "Woodard R. Springstube" <springstTOR...@Diespammer.net>:
> | Straw man argumentation won't win any points. ...
>
> My contribution was merely sarcasm. Sarcasm is too blunt
> an instrument to be considered point-winning argumentation.
> But having struggled for several years in nasty working-class
> jobs, it was all I could manage after hearing about lavish
> yet responsible working environments and compensation.
This was the situation when I was making minimum wage, and it has been the
situation continuously during my career.
That is not to say that I haven't worked jobs that sucked-- I have worked
many.
But all of them sucked due to errors and imperfections in co-workers. None
of them -- ok, ONE of them-- sucked because the company was trying to get
something for nothing from its employees. The one where this was the case,
I up and left quickly, and they went public soon after at $6 and went
straight to zero from there. They tried to get something for nothing from
everybody and it didn't work.
I am sure that there are companies who couldn't care less about their
employees. I'm also sure that they are not successful, except possibly in
the short run (And the short run can be decades, if the company got big
enough before it threw logic out the window.)
BitGeek
> You can find my critique of one part of the argument--specifically,
> Rand's claim to derive "ought" from "is"--webbed at:
>1. Existence is a value sought by living things.
>2. Life and death as a fundamental value choice.
Yes, some species die in the process or reproducing. Yes, people who work
for death don't automatically go out and kill themselves. Neither of these
"facts of reality" contradict Rand at all.
Life does require a specific course of action. All of the courses that are
not the required one, you term "suicide". And that is exactly what she's
saying. She's not saying that you have to live your life a specific way
down to the tiniest detail, or even medium sized details. But that there is
a specific course of action in every turning point that life requires. If
your choices are to kill yourself, have sex or eat, then life requires you
have sex or eat... Life doesn't require only one of the three choices.
> But the fact that he lives a full span of life is evidence that he is not in
> fact destroying himself. Somehow, something extra has been slipped into the
> argument, to convert "life" into "the kind of life Rand thinks you should
> live," where the latter is not deducible from the former.
Your assumption is mistaken-- its not "the kind of life Rand thinks you
should live" but the kind of life YOU want to live. The person living in
agony of unthinking self destruction is destroying their human spirit.
Or, put another way, she's saying that you should be happy-- that living
life for yourself, is something that will make you happy. This is the
assumption you could find problems with-- maybe living for yourself will
make you unhappy, but I don't see it.
> Money obtained by fraud will pay for just as much food or medical service as
> money obtained honestly.
However, money obtained by fraud is value obtained at the destruction of
life. This is consistent with the prior points. Obviously the person who
gave you the money was not acting in the interest of his own life-- unless
his choice was survival or death, in which case the first premise comes in
to play-- existence is the value sought. By offering death as the only
alternative to giving money, one has forced the destruction of part of ones
life.... Because life lived for oneself is life. Life lived for others is
death.
This is the connection she makes-- life=selfishness, death=altruism. And
she's shown it by the fact that life has value and costs, and the
alternative is death. If you give the value of your life against your will,
you are being defrauded.
> But the coercer is not trying to defy that reality--his objective is not his
> victim's life but his own.
No, he is acting against his best interests by coercing, in a couple of
ways. First, he brings the wrath of others upon himself by doing so.
Secondly he is living his life on the back of another, and that is
destructive to ones self. The fact of reality is that there are very few
who live life by forcing others to give them money that also have a high
self-esteem. Such fraud is destructive to the human spirit.
Thanks for your response. I find that most criticisms of rand fall into the
same category as yours-- to me they seem to be misunderstandings or
misconstruing what she's written.
But that's one of the core tenants of objectivism-- you must use your
judgment in observing reality.
One of my theories is that all libertarians are objectivists, but that many
object to the term "Objectivist" because they've had fierce arguments with
seemingly crazy people who called themselves Objectivists. I don't know of
another philosophical foundation for libertarianism. Semantics get in the
way a lot.
BitGeek
digger
>
> BitGeek <Bit.no.pigp...@mac.com>:
> | >| I know you know this isn't true, but the error is
> | >| significant. The bottom line is always the bottom line,
> | >| but maximizing profits usually means providing a lavish,
> | >| yet responsible, working environment and compensation
> | >| package for your workers. Business history has shown that
> | >| money well spent there will return more than its costs in
> | >| increased profits. The employees win and the employer
> | >| wins. ...
>
> | g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote in
> | > This must explain why the workplace is always such a
> | > paradise and everyone is so happy.
>
> "Woodard R. Springstube" <springstTOR...@Diespammer.net>:
> | Straw man argumentation won't win any points. ...
>
> My contribution was merely sarcasm. Sarcasm is too blunt
> an instrument to be considered point-winning argumentation.
> But having struggled for several years in nasty working-class
> jobs, it was all I could manage after hearing about lavish
> yet responsible working environments and compensation.
"...nasty working-class jobs..."??????? Your self-pity is really
showing through here.
Wake up! ALL jobs are "working class" jobs, from the CEO, to the
janitor, to the President of the US, to the professor at MIT. Every
person who fills one of those jobs is WORKING, or else he is simply
defrauding his employer out of his pay.
But apparantly YOUR complaint was that you HAD to work for someone,
since you either had no skills to get a 'job' that you liked, and didn't
have a 'daddy' that could otherwise finance your life for you.
Well, I'm sorry if your life was so "bad", but (to paraphrase someone
else) the universe wasn't created to serve YOUR pleasure, and it doesn't
give a DAMN if you exist either, so it is YOUR "job" to make the best of
what you have.
Of course, good little "socialists" don't LIKE that fact, and prefer to
try and change the system so that everyone ELSE is "required" to give
them what they want.
Now, with rant mode off, it is time to respond to the heart of your
comment.
You seem to have a mistaken belief that most jobs were created JUST to
give employers a chance to brutalise, dominate, and coerce their
employees. You're wrong. (Except in socialist countries, where the
'government' is the employer and THEY love to do such things to people,
as a means of keeping them under 'control'.)
In a capitalist system, jobs are created because a consumer decides that
paying another person to perform a task is preferable to doing it
himself. And yes, SOME of those jobs comprise working in conditions that
are not comfortable. But, that does NOT mean that those jobs are "nasty
working-class" jobs. I have NO idea what YOU mean by "working class" but
the "nasty" part of a job usually arises from the behavior of the people
around you, not the task itself.
And, guess what, even a cushy job in a socialist paradise can be "nasty"
since people ARE often "nasty" to each other, no matter what economic
system that they inhabit.
Personally, I've shoveled shit (literally), operated complex equipment,
supervised crews of people, taught, bought and sold things, owned my own
business, worked for others, done complex analysis, performed rote work,
and done a lot of other things in order to make a living. And the ONLY
"nasty" parts of any of that came when I had to deal with ASSHOLES,
either as bosses, employees, customers, students, fellow employees, or
just casual observers.
And, guess what again, I never ONCE considered that ANY of the work I
was performing was so "degrading" that it offended my dignity.
G*rd*n
| > It depends what Rand is supposed to be doing. If she's supposed
| > to be playing the game of philosophy in general at the pro
| > level, then she's got to deal with the big stuff like 20th-century
| > mathematics, physics,
BitGeek <Bit.no.pigp...@mac.com>:
| Nothing in her novel, other than some sci-fi like futuristic technologies,
| are relevant to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
|
| Certainly, her philosophy is only affected by it if you ignore the fact that
| in order to objectively view the world, you need reason / judgment. This
| is the error most people make in their understanding of objectivism: they
| think objectivists think they have the one-true view of reality, and that
| therefore objectively viewing reality is impossible because we're not
| perfect.
It's not a problem unless the philosopher is trying to prove
something through some kind of inexorable, Euclid-like logic.
In that case, the premises have to be examined very, very
carefully. Wittgenstein goes into this in _On_Certainty_, a
fairly accessible book (as opposed to the _Tractatus_).
| ...
"G*rd*n" <g...@panix.com> wrote:
| > ... "May" is incorrect;
| > there is no serious doubt that we are biologically programmed
| > to be often altruistic, and present scientific controversy,
| > e.g. Dawkins versus Lewontin, is about how, not whether, this
| > comes about.
BitGeek <Bit.no.pigp...@mac.com>:
| Yes, but this is irrelevant to a discussion of Objectivism, right? Of
| course, I'm presuming (since you didn't finish the book) by "altruism" you
| mean empathy. Biologically, we are empathetic. And objectivism has
| nothing wrong with it.
|
| On the other hand, if by "altruism" you mean truly damaging yourself to help
| another, biologically its clear this is NOT true. There is no question
| about the mater, as if it were true, life of this type would not exist. If
| life's first goal was to help others, rather than to reproduce, given that
| there is an essentially infinite quantity of help "needed", one would never
| get around to reproducing. Therefore, reproduction is life's first goal,
| not altruism.
|
| The altruism objectivists oppose is not the desire (enjoyment, pleasure or
| other gain from its application) to help others, but the theft of ones life
| by compulsion of the state. I find it hard to believe that this forcible
| theft is a biologically programmed thing.
State theft isn't altruism, however. It's just one group of
people taking stuff from another -- presumably the people
running the state are selfish enough. The "altruism" contemporary
scientists are interested in is the willingness of various
beings, human and otherwise, to sacrifice themselves for the
benefit of their communities. According to Dawkins, of "selfish
gene" fame, it's because the genes don't care about individuals,
only their own survival, and since they're present in many
members of a breeding community, the constituents thereof can
often secure the genes' survival by sacrificing themselves.
But there are plenty of problems with this view, etc. etc. A
search for such names as Dawkins, Lewontin, Gould, De Waal,
and Axelrod in Google, singly or two or three at a time, will
probably turn up some interesting material in this area. I
think it's still pretty cutting-edge.
BitGeek <Bit.no.pigp...@mac.com>:
| I do wish you'd provided some logical argument against objectivism in the
| post referenced....
I was hoping someone else would take care of that, or had
already. There are probably resident anti-Objectivists in
the objectivism newsgroup(s).
| ..
Ron Allen
> Ron Allen (and anyone else)--
> I'm new to alt.politics.libertarian. I find your postings interesting.
> While I don't think you're going to change my mind, I'd like to invite
> you to try.
> I've recently read Atlas Shrugged, and after reading it, I moved from
> being basically a liberal to being a libertarian. I am open to the
> possibility that this book is not a logical, rational proof of a
> philosophy, but is a meme based on emotionalism, cleverly hiding as
> logic.
> This is what I thought the book was prior to reading it, as I saw the
> changes it brought to people who read it.
> Have you read it?
Ron Allen answers:
Yes, I've read it; but many years ago, during the late 70s
early 80s, when I was into Ayn Rand, but not as zealously as
some of her believers. I do think that all of her books are
well worth reading. I see no reason to ignore her, but I
also see no reason to assume that her worldview is all that
challenging to a libertarian and democratic socialist brand
of political philosophy.
BitGeek wrote:
> Would you be willing to provide your opinion of the logical errors in
> the argument the book makes?
Ron Allen answers:
It is a book of fiction, and does not provide a logical
argument. I think her errors are that she does not find
a balance -- i.e., the truth is in the center, rather than
in the extreme.
BitGeek wrote:
> I cannot find fault with its assumptions, logic, or conclusions. And,
> more importantly, I've had trouble finding anyone to provide good
> criticism of the book, as what I've gotten has seemed to come from
> misreading/misunderstanding or not really get to the core of the matter.
> An example is one person said her argument didn't really make sense
> because she didn't take Heisenberg's theory into account. But I can't
> see how that's relevant, and wasn't able to get further clarification.
> Given that it takes your position and expresses it very well, and then
> shows its errors, I think in reading, it will be immediately obvious to
> you the errors that Rand makes (if any.)
> Thanks in advance.
Ron Allen answers:
I do not happen to have that book in my library. If you
wish to summarize her logic/argument, I will be glad to
make an effort to share my thoughts. But I must say at the
start that her beef is not with libertarian and democratic
socialism, but with statism -- both big brother capitalism
and big brother communism.
Ayn Rand wrote: "Capitalism and altruism are incompatible;
they are philosophical opposites; they cannot co-exist in
the same man or in the same society."
As an anti-capitalist, I fully agree with Ms. Rand on that.
But Ms. Rand throws in words without using care to define
her usage. I think that's why she confuses some people.
<><><><><><><><><><><>
"I never knew a girl who was ruined by a bad book."
-- Jimmy Walker
Ron Allen
> One of my theories is that all libertarians are objectivists, but
> that many object to the term "Objectivist" because they've had fierce
> arguments with seemingly crazy people who called themselves
> Objectivists. I don't know of another philosophical foundation for
> libertarianism. Semantics get in the way a lot.
Ron Allen answers:
I recommend that you read John Locke and William Godwin as
important philosophical libertarians.
If you like Ayn Rand, you may want to read Max Stirner, an
individualist anarchist.
<><><><><><><><><><>
"The government fighting inflation is like the Mafia
fighting crime."
-- Laurence J. Peter
David Friedman
BitGeek <Bit.no.pigp...@mac.com> wrote:
> > biological programing towards altruism." "May" is incorrect;
> > there is no serious doubt that we are biologically programmed
> > to be often altruistic, and present scientific controversy,
> > e.g. Dawkins versus Lewontin, is about how, not whether, this
> > comes about.
...
> On the other hand, if by "altruism" you mean truly damaging yourself to help
> another, biologically its clear this is NOT true. There is no question
> about the mater, as if it were true, life of this type would not exist. If
> life's first goal was to help others, rather than to reproduce, given that
> there is an essentially infinite quantity of help "needed", one would never
> get around to reproducing. Therefore, reproduction is life's first goal,
> not altruism.
Your first sentence is not correct.
Evolution selects for reproductive success. Reproducing more is one way
of achieving reproductive success but not the only way. Consider two
others:
Keeping your children alive. A parent who altruistically risks death to
save his children may be increasing his reproductive success.
Keeping other relatives alive. Genetically speaking, two nephews are
equivalent to one child--i.e. have the same effect on the frequency of
your genes in the next generation. Hence making sacrifices in order to
increase the survival probability of close kin can also increase
reproductive success.
Finally, altruism may indirectly increase your own survival chances.
Suppose we are in an environment where individuals often have an
opportunity to greatly increase another member of the group's survival
chances at the cost of a small reduction of theirs. Further suppose that
trade and enforceable contracts aren't an option (it's thirty million
years ago--we're pre-human primates--your argument was a general one).
The knowledge that I am somewhat altruistic--that, given the
opportunity, I will risk my life to save yours--gives you an incentive
to risk your life to save mine even if you aren't altruistic. You want
to keep me alive because my altruism increases my value to you. This is
related to an explanation of the evolutionary survival of altruism
offered somewhere by Gary Becker.
I limited myself to your first sentence because after that you shift
from the question of altruism would exist to the question of whether
individuals would be so altruistic that they put benefitting other
people ahead of all other goals. But most organisms don't work that way.
You give up a little of goal A to get a lot of goal B, but also a little
of B to get a lot of A, depending on what opportunities you happen to
have. Altruism only requires that you are willing to pay some price in
your own welfare to produce a benefit to someone else, not an infinite
price.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
David Friedman
BitGeek <Bit.no.pigp...@mac.com> wrote:
[lengthy rebuttal to my webbed piece omitted]
Having been through these arguments a very large number of times, most
often on humanities.philosophy.objectivism, I really don't feel like
another round. I expect you can find the answers I gave to arguments
similar to yours in the past with google, searching h.p.o. for posts
with my name and appropriate key words.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
BitGeek
> And, guess what again, I never ONCE considered that ANY of the work I
> was performing was so "degrading" that it offended my dignity.
One of the great ironies I see is that leftist are always complaining about
how poor it is for those at the "bottom of the ladder" while libertarians
are always happy to get their hands dirty and WORK. Yet at the same time,
leftists speak using code words to say they think only the idle rich can see
things the way we do (such as "shareholder").
BitGeek
> running the state are selfish enough. The "altruism" contemporary
> scientists are interested in is the willingness of various
> beings, human and otherwise, to sacrifice themselves for the
> benefit of their communities.
Thanks, that answers my question.
I'll check out objectivism newsgroups. Haven't used usenet in almost a
decade, still exploring.
BitGeek
BitGeek
> Keeping your children alive. A parent who altruistically risks death to
> save his children may be increasing his reproductive success.
This isn't altruism. This is a freely made investment in life, even if it
ends in death. The person who does this is deciding that their life is more
valuable if it is spent saving the life of their child. Note, you say "his
children."
Altruism is decreasing the value of your life to the benefit of someone
else. "Unselfish concern for the welfare of others".
> Finally, altruism may indirectly increase your own survival chances.
Again, the example you give is in error. The mutual incentive to risk your
life to help another, given that they will do the same for you, is not
altruism. It is an investment in yourself, an expression of selfishness--
by doing so you increase the chances of your own survival, should you need
it. As you said, the risk to yourself is small in rescuing the other. Its
a profitable arrangement.
> Altruism only requires that you are willing to pay some price in
> your own welfare to produce a benefit to someone else, not an infinite
> price.
I think you're missing a point of the definition-- Altruism requires that
the price you pay be greater than the value you receive. Otherwise, its
selfish.
BitGeek
Constantinople
news:B8ABEBC2.1052A%Bit.no.pigp...@mac.com:
> On 3/6/02 12:56 PM, "David Friedman" wrote:
>> You can find my critique of one part of the argument--specifically,
>> Rand's claim to derive "ought" from "is"--webbed at:
>
>>1. Existence is a value sought by living things.
>>2. Life and death as a fundamental value choice.
>
> Yes, some species die in the process or reproducing. Yes, people who work
> for death don't automatically go out and kill themselves. Neither of
> these "facts of reality" contradict Rand at all.
>
> Life does require a specific course of action. All of the courses that
> are not the required one, you term "suicide". And that is exactly what
> she's saying. She's not saying that you have to live your life a
> specific way down to the tiniest detail, or even medium sized details.
> But that there is a specific course of action in every turning point that
> life requires. If your choices are to kill yourself, have sex or eat,
> then life requires you have sex or eat... Life doesn't require only one
> of the three choices.
I don't find your response to this clear. However, I might respond to
Friedman's point by saying, OK, so personal existence is not the ultimate
goal of the organism.
Nevertheless there *is* a difference between life and inanimate matter, which
comes about from the fact that life evolves through natural selection and
therefore is selected to work toward the goal of being selected and therefore
works toward that goal and therefore has that goal. There is such a thing as
health and illness.
Would it destroy Rand's philosophy to replace personal existence with what we
actually know about life's goals and about the difference between life's
proper functioning and malfunction, between health and illness, between the
organism's integrity and the violation of that integrity, and similar
distinctions which exist for life but not for inanimate matter?
Mightn't it be defensible to suppose that this is what Rand really means? She
is after all a writer and can be expected to craft her words to be striking,
to be memorable, to have an effect on the reader. There is a philosopher
named Ruth Millikan who painstakingly defined biological function in a way
which is hard to fault, but her writing is the sort of writing that would
drive any but the most persistent reader away. And she's not a bad writer,
for a philosopher. So there may be a tradeoff between excruciatingly correct
statements, and keeping the reader awake.
Now we get to Friedman's second point.
Again my reaction is to request a more charitable reading of Rand.
Given that there is a biological goal involved in the functioning of an
organism, such as a human, we can therefore make a defensible distinction
between an organism which is really functioning "as intended", and an
organism which has been violently (in the sense of "violation", so the word
is actually redundant) co-opted by a parasite for its own purposes. For
example one organism might deliberately keep another organism alive in order
to keep it fresh so that it can be eaten tomorrow. But then the life
processes of the victim organism have been co-opted. They no longer have any
hope of furthering the organism's biological goal of reproduction, and are
now serving a new master - the predator organism which has the immediate goal
of eating a fresh meal tomorrow.
In the case of humans, we might reasonably suppose that individuals have
brains for the purpose of furthering the biological goals of the organism.
But those brains could be co-opted by other people who use their persuasive
power over others to benefit themselves. Or the brains might simply be
possessed by mental illness.
It may not be easy to sort out a person's biologically proper goals from
improper goals, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a difference.
Now, David Friedman's argument could be construed as answering this point as
well. In which case we might read him as saying that behavior such as
nationalistic behavior occurs on a level independent from the underlying
biological reality, much as a game of go occurs on a level independent from
the necessities of life - it truly is irrelevant whether a person wins or
loses a game of go, life goes on.
But actually David Friedman seems to agree that nationalism is not really
independent of a human's biological goals, that it is relevant from a
biological standpoint. And his main argument against Rand seems, then, to be
nothing more than a quibble about her dramatic wording ("the motive and
standard of death"), that he wishes she did not dramatize her philosophy but
kept it dry and technical. I very much hope, however, that writers will not
pay any attention to David Friedman's complaint. We need more writers who do
not put their readers to sleep.
>> But the fact that he lives a full span of life is evidence that he is
>> not in fact destroying himself. Somehow, something extra has been
>> slipped into the argument, to convert "life" into "the kind of life Rand
>> thinks you should live," where the latter is not deducible from the
>> former.
>
> Your assumption is mistaken-- its not "the kind of life Rand thinks you
> should live" but the kind of life YOU want to live. The person living in
> agony of unthinking self destruction is destroying their human spirit.
>
> Or, put another way, she's saying that you should be happy-- that living
> life for yourself, is something that will make you happy. This is the
> assumption you could find problems with-- maybe living for yourself will
> make you unhappy, but I don't see it.
I agree that David Friedman has made a leap of logic here. He jumps from
noticing that the person hasn't actually died, to concluding that nothing is
left to what Rand is saying but that it is a preamble to whatever Rand
considers to be the good life. But a person who merely survives is not
necessarily free from having been co-opted by some alien goals.
If you enslave a person, that does not necessarily kill him, but it surely
violates him on a biological level. The very fact that a person struggles
against his would-be enslaver demonstrates that enslavement goes against his
biology, since it is his biology that caused him to struggle against his
captor. Now, one might argue that the struggle against enslavement is not
biologically natural but is rather perversion, or insanity, or random whim.
However, I personally find such an objection unbelievable.
My point is that something can go against a person's biology without killing
him. Enslaving someone by force is an example. But it is also conceivable
that a person could be enslaved by subterfuge. Maybe a chemical could be
slipped into his food which renders him open to suggestion. Or maybe the
attack is by means of hypnotism, by means of fraud, or maybe even simply by
means of charisma and persuasion. I would argue that, in order to go against
a person's biology, it is not necessary that the attack be resisted. The co-
optation could take place "peacefully", as through a mind-controlling drug or
lies or just through highly effective rhetoric.
How does one resist the pull of rhetoric? Perhaps by questioning that
rhetoric from the point of view of one's own biological nature. One can ask,
"what is the ultimate goal of the speaker? Why is he seeking to persuade me?
What do his goals ultimately have to do with me (i.e. with me as an organism,
with its own goals)? And if they have nothing to do with me, then what am I
getting in exchange for helping him, that *has* something to do with me? Is
he taking advantage of some psychological technique or is he possibly lying
to get me to serve some purpose which is really alien to me?"
>> Money obtained by fraud will pay for just as much food or medical
>> service as money obtained honestly.
>
> However, money obtained by fraud is value obtained at the destruction of
> life. This is consistent with the prior points. Obviously the person
> who gave you the money was not acting in the interest of his own life--
> unless his choice was survival or death, in which case the first premise
> comes in to play-- existence is the value sought. By offering death as
> the only alternative to giving money, one has forced the destruction of
> part of ones life.... Because life lived for oneself is life. Life lived
> for others is death.
But if you offer the *other* person death to force him to do something for
you, then you are not living for others, *he* is living for others.
I find it almost impossible to extract any defensible argument from Rand
here. Sometimes I think I see one, but then it dissolves.
Dan Clore
You want to look here:
http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html
--
Dan Clore
mailto:cl...@columbia-center.org
Now available: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://www.wildsidepress.com/index2.htm
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1587154838/thedanclorenecro
Lord We˙rdgliffe:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/
Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/necpage.htm
News for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
"It's a political statement -- or, rather, an
*anti*-political statement. The symbol for *anarchy*!"
-- Batman, explaining the circle-A graffiti, in
_Detective Comics_ #608
BitGeek
> Would it destroy Rand's philosophy to replace personal existence with what we
> actually know about life's goals and about the difference between life's
> proper functioning and malfunction, between health and illness, between the
> organism's integrity and the violation of that integrity, and similar
> distinctions which exist for life but not for inanimate matter?
>
> Mightn't it be defensible to suppose that this is what Rand really means? She
I think that is what she means, and I think that零 what I was failing to get
across.
> Again my reaction is to request a more charitable reading of Rand.
This is the problem, as she has not provided a scientific proof style
statement of her philosophy, so you have to interpret her words. At the
same time, this interpretation could be based on emotion that feels like
logic, rather than logic-- especially after 400 pages of prose designed to
open your mind to the meme.
I can't find fault, though, with the idea that reality and existence being
what they are, we are born with a desire to live, the moral imperative to
live (in most cases) and therefore that our lives being a necessary
possession of ours (in the sense that its our sentience inhabiting the body)
this creates ownership of the body. Since you own your body, it then
follows that you own its work product, have sovereign domain over its
application, etc. Given that, if someone violates your sovereignty, it is
an expression that is anti-life. That is to say, the ultimate violation of
your sovereignty would be your death. From this, all the other human rights
flow-- right of expression, defense, property ownership, freely entered
contracts, etc.
> But if you offer the *other* person death to force him to do something for
> you, then you are not living for others, *he* is living for others.
By doing so, you are working against your biological impartive, you have
undermined your value. I don't know if I can make this case logically at
this point, I'm going to have to think about it. You are living your life
on the work of others, something Rand clearly dispises, but I don't know if
I can pin it down.
Thanks!
BitGeek
David Friedman
Constantinople <constan...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Would it destroy Rand's philosophy to replace personal existence with what we
> actually know about life's goals and about the difference between life's
> proper functioning and malfunction, between health and illness, between the
> organism's integrity and the violation of that integrity, and similar
> distinctions which exist for life but not for inanimate matter?
Without going into the details of your response--I've been through this
many times, and I mentioned it in this thread in response to a direct
request for criticism of Rand--let me point out one implication of your
line of argument.
Insofar as we have a purpose, biologically speaking, it is reproductive
success. So if you really follow out the argument that identifies oughts
with what we are designed by evolution to do, you conclude that Rand was
a spectacular failure, having had no offspring and done only a little to
improve the success of her near kin. And you conclude that a hardworking
orthodox Catholic who produces ten children and gets them reasonably
well fitted to make their way in the world is much closer to what a
human being ought to be than most of us.
Do you really want to go that way?
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
David Friedman
BitGeek <Bit.no.pigp...@mac.com> wrote:
> On 3/6/02 5:22 PM, "David Friedman" wrote:
> > Keeping your children alive. A parent who altruistically risks death to
> > save his children may be increasing his reproductive success.
>
> This isn't altruism. This is a freely made investment in life, even if it
> ends in death. The person who does this is deciding that their life is more
> valuable if it is spent saving the life of their child. Note, you say "his
> children."
An an altruist is deciding his life is more valuable if spent
benefitting other people. Once you base your oughts on whatever people
have chosen to do, its a lost cause.
> Altruism is decreasing the value of your life to the benefit of someone
> else. "Unselfish concern for the welfare of others".
And if you have decided that benefitting other people increases the
value of your life? You've produced an empty theory.
>
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
digger
One of the reasons why I became so anti-leftist over the years was
precisely that reason. Not the "work" part, but the attitude.
I was raised to believe that ANYONE "working" hard, no matter what the
job, deserved respect simply by vitue of the fact that he/she WAS
working, instead of 'sponging' off of others. And, in conjunction with
that, such people were ALWAYS presumed to be capable of making their OWN
decisions about their wants and needs.
"Modern" American liberals, nowadays, always seem to assume the opposite
of this. They believe that physical work is "beneath" them, and seem to
envy anyone who has a job that pays better wages than they get. ( As a
corollary, they also ASSUME that anyone who "gets" a job like this, if
not a liberal also, MUST have done so using "unfair" methods)
Lastly, and what irritates me the most, they ALWAYS "presume" that a
manual laborer is too IGNORANT to be able to make his own political
choices from competing ideas, and MUST be "led" by the liberal crowd,
who "know" what is best for such people.
Of such attitudes are most modern tyrants born.
BitGeek
> You want to look here:
> http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html
Thanks. There's a lot there. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
BitGeek
> In article <B8AC2AF7.10869%Bit.no.pigp...@mac.com>,
> BitGeek <Bit.no.pigp...@mac.com> wrote:
>
>> On 3/6/02 5:22 PM, "David Friedman" wrote:
>>> Keeping your children alive. A parent who altruistically risks death to
>>> save his children may be increasing his reproductive success.
>>
>> This isn't altruism. This is a freely made investment in life, even if it
>> ends in death. The person who does this is deciding that their life is more
>> valuable if it is spent saving the life of their child. Note, you say "his
>> children."
>
> An an altruist is deciding his life is more valuable if spent
> benefitting other people. Once you base your oughts on whatever people
> have chosen to do, its a lost cause.
But you weren't talking about "other people" You were talking about
children and other kin. The sacrifice made for ones children is different
than one made for the benefit of anonymous strangers. The motivations are
different (notice few people would give their lives, without compensation,
for strangers, but most people would for their children.)
>> Altruism is decreasing the value of your life to the benefit of someone
>> else. "Unselfish concern for the welfare of others".
>
> And if you have decided that benefitting other people increases the
> value of your life? You've produced an empty theory.
Then you are not being altruistic. If it benefits your life, its not
"unselfish".
I think you're making an error in thought that rests on changing the
definition of altruism.
BitGeek
Yes, good points!
G*rd*n
BitGeek <Bit.no.pigp...@mac.com> wrote:
| >> Altruism is decreasing the value of your life to the benefit of someone
| >> else. "Unselfish concern for the welfare of others".
"David Friedman" wrote:
| > And if you have decided that benefitting other people increases the
| > value of your life? You've produced an empty theory.
BitGeek <Bit.no.pigp...@mac.com>:
| Then you are not being altruistic. If it benefits your life, its not
| "unselfish".
|
| I think you're making an error in thought that rests on changing the
| definition of altruism.
One of the problems with the selfishness-altruism dichotomy
is the vagueness of its definition. If one _wants_ to be
altruistic, then one is being altruistic for selfish reasons,
for instance. But then, one's desire to be altruistic might
be actually programmed by one's genes or social forces, so
the desire really isn't selfish after all, it's some kind
of hidden creeping other-directed power.
The error I see here is forcing a kind of bookkeeping on life
where it can't be successfully forced. Many thoughts and acts
are ambiguous as to origins and beneficiaries (or victims).
The question, to me, is not who gets the goods but whether
one can do as one wills.
BitGeek
Well, Dan, it looks like my hopes are dashed. I've read 5 of the articles
on that page, the ones that claimed to provide a logical response. All of
them so far have not been based on logic, but misreading, misinterpretation
or misrepresentation.
I don't call myself an Objectivist and I'm not a fawning admirer of Rands.
But almost all of the criticism (including what I've read on this page and
David Friedman's) are thinly veiled attacks for those who don't want to
accpet objectivism, but can't find anything really wrong with it. An
example:
"Michael Huemer finds eight fatal flaws in Rand's derivation of objectivist
ethics. (That's all?) "
Which contains no flaws, let alone fatal flaws. It does contain a lot of
quibbling over semantics. You can't disprove something if you ignore its
meaning.
Another:
"Barry Stoller presents a plain-speaking analysis of Objectivism as a
supremacy doctrine for people too busy, lazy, or stupid to actually be
intellectuals."
I loved the reference to the scientology page "debunking" Objectivism, too
bad the page has apparently disappeared! Only one from the Vatican
debunking Objectivism would be more entertaining.
My mind is not closed on this matter. I've recently made the change from
liberal (though apparently quite different from current liberals) to
libertarian objectivist, and I don't buy it all. I've certainly seen a lot
of foolishness from people calling themselves objectivists-- but the errors
in their thinking are clear, and don't address objectivism itself.
Unfortunately, not all who call themselves objectivists are ready to
objectively view things, and instead fall back on ideology, which is not an
objectivist trait.
Maybe that's the proof I'm looking for. The "8 fatal flaws" article has
value, as no alternative is provided in the "flaws". No "Here's what's
really true" is provided at all... If someone puts so much time into
quibbling over words, they must not have found problems with the meanings
that were actually intended.
BitGeek
BitGeek
Here's a great example of Objectivism criticism (and how bad it is.) They
redefine objectivism and claim that objectivists believe:
"One group, clearly the largest with a hierarchical organization
modeled on the other political parties, believes, like most
Marxists, in constitutional parliamentary republican democracy.
They believe that the state is a necessary guarantor of indi-
vidual safety and the product of the individual's labor, and in
gradual progress toward a free society through participation in
the political process."
BitGeek
This is from one of the "testaments" of people who "broke free" from
objectivism on the objectivism criticism page:
> She uses definitions in a similar manner. Ayn Rand freely redefine words to
> fit her ideas, and this allows her to use more emotionally charged language.
> Her definition of altruism is (loosely) seeking the good of others without
> regards to one's own values and happiness, and her definition of sacrifice is
> sacrificing a lesser good for a greater. So where most people see the forgoing
> of some luxuries to save up for retirement as a sacrifice, and feeding the
> poor out of charity altruism, she does not. She sees giving the lives of men
> to defend the rights of squirrels as sacrifice, and giving people the money
> you would have used to feed yourself as altruism. With these re-definitions,
> she can now rage against the absurdity of altruism and sacrifice. All of a
> sudden, religious and charitable organizations that were reasonable in the
> mind of the reader appear to be ridiculous.
(http://world.std.com/~mhuben/swierczek_1.html)
But the simple fact is that Rand uses altruism correcty. To quote:
al·tru·ism Pronunciation Key (ltr-zm)
n.
1. Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness.
2. Zoology. Instinctive cooperative behavior that is detrimental to the
individual but contributes to the survival of the species.
(http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=altruism)
Obviously, objectivists don't have a problem with charitable organizations.
They have a problem with being compelled against your will, to "contribute"
to the welfare of others. Force is key, as is made obvious in Atlas
Shrugged.
If you aren't forced to give money to charity, out of guilt, or at the
prodding of a gun, then you are doing it for selfish reasons.
Michael A. Clem
G*rd*n wrote:
> BitGeek <Bit.no.pigp...@mac.com>:
> | ...
> | An example is one person said her argument didn't really make sense because
> | she didn't take Heisenberg's theory into account. But I can't see how
> | that's relevant, and wasn't able to get further clarification.
> | ...
>
> It depends what Rand is supposed to be doing. If she's supposed
> to be playing the game of philosophy in general at the pro
> level, then she's got to deal with the big stuff like 20th-century
> mathematics, physics, psychology, linguistics, and the 19th-
> and 20th-century philosophical big deals like Nietzsche and
> Wittgenstein. This is especially the case if she's going to
> concern herself with logic, ontology, and epistemology. I
> doubt if one can do this very well in a novel, at least not
> in a readable novel. As it happens I didn't find _Atlas_Shrugged_
> worth reading -- I gave up after reading about 2/3 of it, but
> that wasn't because it was full of philosophical text, but
> because it was like a long, long action hero comic book, and
> those don't happen to be to my taste except in pretty small
> doses.
"Action hero comic book"? You must not have read the same book that I read.
However, a novel is still fiction, however much she tried to incorporate her
philosophy in it. She also wrote quite a number of essays and such that are
nonfiction, and deal with most of the philosophical issues, like epistemology
(The Objectivist Epistemology is its own book), ethics, esthetics, political
philosophy, and especially reason and logic.
She wasn't perfect, but the foundations of her philosophy seem solid enough.
She came up with an enormous framework for a comprehensive philosophy of life,
and that's more than most philosophers have even tried to do.
The Essentials of Objectivism has the best one-page synopsis of Objectivism:
http://www.aynrand.org/objectivism/essentials.html
But of course, anybody wanting more detail will have to follow up with further
reading.
The Institute of Objectivist Studies (http.//ios.org) is also a good source for
Objectivism.
Michael A. Clem
BitGeek wrote:
The part about Marxists is an obvious smear, not an argument. However the
"official" Objectivist view *is* that government must have a monopoly on the
use of force. While I agree with much of what Rand said, especially in
political philosophy, I've had to part with her view on this. If you truly
believe in the non-initiation of force principle, as she so fervently
advocated, then I can't understand how a monopoly on the use of force can be
justified.
I consider myself to be an anarcho-capitalist, and not an Objectivist.
David James Polewka
>I've recently read Atlas Shrugged, and after reading it, I moved from being
>basically a liberal to being a libertarian. I am open to the possibility
>that this book is not a logical, rational proof of a philosophy, but is a
>meme based on emotionalism, cleverly hiding as logic.
Most people know how to live in peace. They follow the Golden Rule.
When people get a lot of power, they tend to forget this. That's why
we need to minimize government interference in the economy, everywhere.
=========================
"Endeavor to persevere"
=========================
David James Polewka
>If you aren't forced to give money to charity, out of guilt, or at the
>prodding of a gun, then you are doing it for selfish reasons.
Most people know how to live in peace. They follow the Golden Rule.
David Friedman
BitGeek <Bit.no.pigp...@mac.com> wrote:
> But the simple fact is that Rand uses altruism correcty. To quote:
>
> al·tru·ism Pronunciation Key (ltr-zm)
> n.
> 1. Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness.
> 2. Zoology. Instinctive cooperative behavior that is detrimental to the
> individual but contributes to the survival of the species.
> (http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=altruism)
Not that your 2 includes altruism towards kin--and biologist routinely
refer to it as kin altruism. And your 1 is consistent with the person
who chooses to donate money to others that he could spend on himself.
> Obviously, objectivists don't have a problem with charitable organizations.
> They have a problem with being compelled against your will, to "contribute"
> to the welfare of others. Force is key, as is made obvious in Atlas
> Shrugged.
>
> If you aren't forced to give money to charity, out of guilt, or at the
> prodding of a gun, then you are doing it for selfish reasons.
"Out of guilt?"
Rand's argument against altruism isn't the same as the argument against
coercion. And persuasion is not force.
Rand is saying that you shouldn't feel that helping other people is in
itself a good thing to do--on her argument, it is good only to the
extent that it indirectly benefits you. Of course, in practice, she
fudges a lot on that, as part of the general shift from "life" to "life
as man qua man" that lets her slip in whatever feels right to her while
pretending that it is all derived from the facts of reality.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
Constantinople
But I believe you are mistaken in a couple of respects.
First of all, you are judging (i.e. you are portraying my
interpretation of Rand's position as judging) an individual
person (Rand, a "failure") when what natural selection really
judges is a pattern, which is typically given many trials over
many individual lives. If one person follows that pattern and
dies young, that suggests that the pattern *may* be unfit, but it
may simply be that the pattern carries some risk but is
nevertheless fit. Moreover since a person embodies many different
overlapping patterns, it makes a mess of things to say that the
person, i.e., the whole bundle of patterns he happens to embody,
is unfit. If I die from a badly formed heart, then that form of
heart may be a failure, but to say that I as a whole am a failure
is to suggest that my hands are failures, my eyes are failures,
etc.
Second, even if we correct this and take you to be judging a
pattern rather than a person, the question of whether the pattern
embodied in an organism is fit is orthogonal to the question that
I was addressing in my interpretation of Rand, which is whether
the pattern and its particular functioning (however fit or unfit
that functioning may be) has been compromised by something alien,
e.g. an illness or a poison or a human parasite.
To use an analogy, Farmer John may have a very inefficient farm,
far less fit than Jack's farm. But this issue is orthogonal to
whether John's farm has been compromised by, e.g., a thief who
steals what little food John was able to grow. It is one thing to
be less fit than someone else. It is something quite different to
be victimized by someone else. There is no doubt relatedness
between these things, since part of a farm's fitness may be its
resistance to theft, but they are nevertheless distinct.
As I recall Rand is concerned about parasites, not about, e.g.,
the excellence of a person's own mind. I really do not recall
Rand ever saying anything in her books against modest (as opposed
to high) intelligence. One might argue that modest intelligence
is less fit than high intelligence. But Rand does not go after
modest intelligence. Rather, as I recall, in her novels what Rand
goes after is various kinds of parasite. People who latch onto
other people.
And I don't think that there was anything in my interpretation of
Rand that went against this thrust. I think I was careful to talk
about the co-opting, the taking over, of an organism's life-
process by an alien for alien purposes. I don't think I talked
about fitness, which is what you're addressing.
Constantinople
While I don't think I would come to agree with Rand any time soon - that
is, assuming you have captured her actual view on altruism - still, I
think it is worthwhile making a distinction. First, we have altruistic
impulses, impulses to do good for other people. Second, we have ideologies
of altruism, which is pushed by a certain crowd. While I don't think we
can really fault altruistic impulses per se as somehow "unnatural" or
"anti-self", ideologies of altruism are another thing from those impulses.
By these I mean, not ideologies which merely affirm the goodness of the
occasional altruistic impulse, when it arises, but which actually go
against, denigrate, and perhaps even seek to forcibly suppress, a person's
impulse *not* to be altruistic, when *that* arises.
Having made this distinction, I think that we *can* say on the one hand
that certain altruistic acts are "okay", while consistently saying that
certain other altruistic acts are not "okay", where this second class of
act is altruistic in a different sense from the first. The first is
selfish in the sense that this act is what the person would naturally do,
that he is following his nature in doing whatever it is that he's doing.
Nothing is violating him here. The second is self-less in that it has
been, possibly, forced - in which case we might say that it is not
genuinely altruistic, any more than giving one's wallet to a mugger is
altruistic. And I think it remains consistent to go beyond only those
"altruistic" acts which are brought about through force. We can go on to
talk about "altruistic" acts which are brought about through infection by
one or another ideology of altruism.
Your criticism - that Rand is merely naturalizing her own preferences - is
not thereby refuted. However, I find the notion compelling, that a person
can in effect parasitize others by manipulating them psychologically so
that they become his cattle, something he in effect feeds on, and that he
can do this without force. I think this is possible, and I think that it
would be more than merely an expression of one's own preference to observe
and classify certain noncoercive relationships as parasitic relationships
where one party in effect has the other party hypnotized. I think that
such relationships can exist and can be characterized in objective terms -
which is not to say that it would necessarily be easy to do so, nor that
there isn't a very fuzzy category a huge gray area. In such a
relationship, when the person entranced gives 'altruistically' to the
person who has him entranced, we can consistently categorize this as
'bad' in a sense in which not all altruism is 'bad', because in the case
of such a parasitic relationship the cause of that 'altruistic' giving is
manipulation by the parasite, rather than *just* the natural processes of
the giver.
G*rd*n
| ...
| is, assuming you have captured her actual view on altruism - still, I
| think it is worthwhile making a distinction. First, we have altruistic
| impulses, impulses to do good for other people. Second, we have ideologies
| of altruism, which is pushed by a certain crowd. While I don't think we
| can really fault altruistic impulses per se as somehow "unnatural" or
| "anti-self", ideologies of altruism are another thing from those impulses.
| By these I mean, not ideologies which merely affirm the goodness of the
| occasional altruistic impulse, when it arises, but which actually go
| against, denigrate, and perhaps even seek to forcibly suppress, a person's
| impulse *not* to be altruistic, when *that* arises.
However, the problem that is arising here is coercion, not
altruism. Rand to my recollection is specifically opposed
to _altruism_.
Constantinople
> However, the problem that is arising here is coercion, not
> altruism. Rand to my recollection is specifically opposed
> to _altruism_.
I recall this too, which is why in the paragraphs after the text you
responded to I broadened my remarks to include a distinction between 'good'
and 'bad' altruism where neither one is coerced.
As to whether Rand really truly was opposed to all acts of what one might
call 'altruism', I don't think that she was, and it seemed to me that her
apparent inconsistency on this point was being attacked. I argued for a
distinction as a way of explaining the apparent inconsistency.
BitGeek
> One of the problems with the selfishness-altruism dichotomy
> is the vagueness of its definition. If one _wants_ to be
> altruistic, then one is being altruistic for selfish reasons,
> for instance.
Called Charity or charitable. Except when you're being "altruistic" to your
kid- then that零 called "not being negligent".
Just now I had the guy who runs the site of Objectivism criticism tell me
that a mother caring for her kid is the same as being forced to sacrifice
for another. This is obvious illogic-- someone who has a kid made a
volitional choice to have a kid, and that's not the same as someone you
don't know putting you in chains and making you work for them. Does all
Objectivist criticism rest on this kind of misrepresentation?
I think the problem with altruism- the word- is that most people don't
really know the mean and think taking care of your kid is altruistic.
> The question, to me, is not who gets the goods but whether
> one can do as one wills.
Right.
BitGeek
> The part about Marxists is an obvious smear, not an argument. However the
> "official" Objectivist view *is* that government must have a monopoly on the
> use of force.
Whoa. Never have I heard that before. Maybe some new ARI inspired
"official view". But Rand has said (paraphrasing) "a nation of pacifists
will fall to the first brute that shows up."
> believe in the non-initiation of force principle, as she so fervently
> advocated, then I can't understand how a monopoly on the use of force can be
> justified.
Me neither- you must be able to respond when someone else initiates force.
Can you give me an example or pointer to where you got this "official
position"? Was it something you read in one of her books, or something you
saw in a position statement?
I don't think you're making it up, but I do want to clarify.
Below I quote from the "essentials of objectivism" and it says that
governments job is to protect us from the initiation of force, but I don't
read it to say that only government can do that.
³The basic social principle of the Objectivist ethics is that no man has the
right to seek values from others by means of physical force ‹ i.e., no man
or group has the right to initiate the use of physical force against others.
Men have the right to use force only in self-defense and only against those
who initiate its use. Men must deal with one another as traders, giving
value for value, by free, mutual consent to mutual benefit. The only social
system that bars physical force from human relationships is laissez-faire
capitalism. Capitalism is a system based on the recognition of individual
rights, including property rights, in which the only function of the
government is to protect individual rights, i.e., to protect men from those
who initiate the use of physical force.²
BitGeek
> as man qua man" that lets her slip in whatever feels right to her while
> pretending that it is all derived from the facts of reality.
Glad to hear you've published books. Best of luck with them. I won't read
them, as twice I've pointed out the flaw in your logic and twice you've
pretended it doesn't exist in the interest of unsupported assertion as
above.
Now I understand why you didn't want to talk about it.
BitGeek
> However, the problem that is arising here is coercion, not
> altruism. Rand to my recollection is specifically opposed
> to _altruism_.
Altruism cannot exist without coercion. If you do it because you want to,
its not altruism, its charity. The ideology that you should "help others
cause god wants it" or "we're from the government to take your charity
payment" is coercive-- by fraud in the first place and gun in the second.
I think what confuses many people is that commonly altruism is used as a
word when people really mean charity.
Objectivism does not oppose voluntary charity. I have this on authority of
no less than Barbra Brandon (her recent posts to Ra...@wetheliving.com)
Andrew J. Brehm
> On 3/7/02 8:36 AM, "G*rd*n" wrote:
> > One of the problems with the selfishness-altruism dichotomy
> > is the vagueness of its definition. If one _wants_ to be
> > altruistic, then one is being altruistic for selfish reasons,
> > for instance.
>
> Called Charity or charitable. Except when you're being "altruistic" to your
> kid- then that's called "not being negligent".
>
> Just now I had the guy who runs the site of Objectivism criticism tell me
> that a mother caring for her kid is the same as being forced to sacrifice
> for another. This is obvious illogic-- someone who has a kid made a
> volitional choice to have a kid, and that's not the same as someone you
> don't know putting you in chains and making you work for them. Does all
> Objectivist criticism rest on this kind of misrepresentation?
You commit a logical error when you assume that having a kid and having
chosen to care for the kid are the same thing. It should be, but it
isn't.
There is also no argument in the assumption that someone who has a kid
made a choice to have a kid. Not everybody really has, but many have
assumed responsibility to the child when it existed, even when it was
the result of rape or a broken condom (there are many ways people can
get pregnant without having chosen to have a kid).
Pregnancy is altruistic, since it doesn't server any self interest at
all. It's dangerous (compared to not being pregnant), it's a career
stopper, and it's expensive. It doesn't pay of at all, except
emotionally.
Pregnancy shows the true nature of mankind. We are a very altruistic,
social(ist), and collectivist race. If we weren't, we'd not exist (an
animal that doesn't want to have children will die out).
Objectivist criticism does not rely on misrepresentation, but it does
rely on people thinking logically.
Caring for your child IS being forced to sacrifice for another, unless
you would argue that a kid doesn't have a (positive) right to be cared
for, by his parents. Your instincts, society, and the law force you to
sacrifice yourself for your child to an extent. If it wouldn't work like
that, it wouldn't work at all.
Show me an animal that doesn't want to breed and doesn't care for its
children and I show you an animal that is close to extinction. The
Kakapo comes to my mind.
> I think the problem with altruism- the word- is that most people don't
> really know the mean and think taking care of your kid is altruistic.
Taking care of your kid is altruistic. Many animals make the ultimate
sacrifice for their children, any humans have been known to do that too.
It's the ultimate altruism, unless you believe that caring for your
genes is the same as caring for yourself, but that would mean that you
have to ignore the individual and free will, which Objectivism certainly
wouldn't want to do.
--
Fan of Woody Allen
PowerPC User
Supporter of Pepperoni Pizza
Yong Kim
"BitGeek" <Bit.no.pigp...@mac.com> wrote in message
news:B8ACE86E.10AF5%Bit.no.pigp...@mac.com...
> But the simple fact is that Rand uses altruism correcty. To quote:
>
> n.
> 1. Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness.
> 2. Zoology. Instinctive cooperative behavior that is detrimental to the
> individual but contributes to the survival of the species.
> (http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=altruism)
>
>
> Obviously, objectivists don't have a problem with charitable
organizations.
> They have a problem with being compelled against your will, to
"contribute"
> to the welfare of others. Force is key, as is made obvious in Atlas
> Shrugged.
>
> If you aren't forced to give money to charity, out of guilt, or at the
> prodding of a gun, then you are doing it for selfish reasons.
Just because Bob gives money to charity because he wants to, it's selfish?
How does that follow? I don't think you're using the term "selfish"
correctly. Unless you're presupposing some absurd theory like psychological
egoism.
Michael A. Clem
BitGeek wrote:
> On 3/7/02 10:12 AM, "Michael A. Clem" wrote:
> > The part about Marxists is an obvious smear, not an argument. However the
> > "official" Objectivist view *is* that government must have a monopoly on the
> > use of force.
>
> Whoa. Never have I heard that before. Maybe some new ARI inspired
> "official view". But Rand has said (paraphrasing) "a nation of pacifists
> will fall to the first brute that shows up."
>
> > believe in the non-initiation of force principle, as she so fervently
> > advocated, then I can't understand how a monopoly on the use of force can be
> > justified.
>
> Me neither- you must be able to respond when someone else initiates force.
> Can you give me an example or pointer to where you got this "official
> position"? Was it something you read in one of her books, or something you
> saw in a position statement?
>
> I don't think you're making it up, but I do want to clarify.
>
No problem. The essay "The Nature of Government", from the book, The Virtue of
Selfishness.
The essay starts: "A government is an institution that holds the exclusive
power to enforce certain rules of social conduct in a given geographical area."
Later in the essay: "The fundamental difference between private action and
government action--a difference thoroughly ignored and evaded today--lies in the
fact that a government holds a monopoly on the legal use of physical force. It
has to hold such a monopoly, since it is the agent of restraining and combatting
the use of force..."
And later on in the same essay, she pooh-poohs the idea of "competing
governments" with a perfectly ridiculous example that she obviously didn't spend
much time thinking about.
Overall, the essay says wonderful things about rights, why preventing initiation
of force is so important, and why doing that is the only legitimate function of
government. But she never gives any good reason why government must have a
monopoly to do that. Oh, she does say that government must be strictly limited so
that it doesn't get out of control, but she offers little beyond the Constitution
and the checks and balances that have *already* failed, as to how we're supposed
to limit government. All minimal government advocates need to come up with an
effective way to limit their government.
The answer is obvious to me: No monopoly on the use of force. Use the market
for the protection of rights. Rand tries to suggest that rights-protection is
somehow different from other services that the marketplace provides, and thus the
monopoly is necessary. But I'm just not convinced that violating people's rights
(monopoly on use of force) is the best way to protect rights. And I'm certainly
not convinced that there really is any effective way to limit government, once
you've given them that monopoly.
Thus, I agree with much of what Rand said, but not everything. As incredible a
person and thinker as she was, she was not infallible.
Dan Clore
Here's some relevant definitions of altruism found through
dictionary.com:
Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness.
Regard for others, both natural and moral; devotion to the
interests of others; brotherly kindness; -- opposed to
egoism or selfishness.
the quality of unselfish concern for the welfare of others
All of these are incompatible with coercion. Someone who is
coerced to do something for the good of another is not doing
so out of unselfish concern for the other's welfare, or out
of regard for the other, or out of devotion to the other's
interest's, or out of brotherly kindness. Instead, one who
is coerced does the act demanded by the coercer out of
selfishness or egoism, out of self-interest, in order to
avoid a possible punishment for not committing the act
demanded.
--
Dan Clore
mailto:cl...@columbia-center.org
Now available: _The Unspeakable and Others_
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G*rd*n
|>> However, the problem that is arising here is coercion, not
|>> altruism. Rand to my recollection is specifically opposed
|>> to _altruism_.
BitGeek wrote:
|> Altruism cannot exist without coercion. If you do it because you want to,
|> its not altruism, its charity. The ideology that you should "help others
|> cause god wants it" or "we're from the government to take your charity
|> payment" is coercive-- by fraud in the first place and gun in the second.
|>
|> I think what confuses many people is that commonly altruism is used as a
|> word when people really mean charity.
|>
|> Objectivism does not oppose voluntary charity. I have this on authority of
|> no less than Barbra Brandon (her recent posts to Ra...@wetheliving.com)
Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org>:
| Here's some relevant definitions of altruism found through
| dictionary.com:
|
| Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness.
|
| Regard for others, both natural and moral; devotion to the
| interests of others; brotherly kindness; -- opposed to
| egoism or selfishness.
|
| the quality of unselfish concern for the welfare of others
|
| All of these are incompatible with coercion. Someone who is
| coerced to do something for the good of another is not doing
| so out of unselfish concern for the other's welfare, or out
| of regard for the other, or out of devotion to the other's
| interest's, or out of brotherly kindness. Instead, one who
| is coerced does the act demanded by the coercer out of
| selfishness or egoism, out of self-interest, in order to
| avoid a possible punishment for not committing the act
| demanded.
Of course, Rand could have been using the word differently
from the common usage. But this raises the question of what
meaning she did intend, and why she didn't use different
and clearer language.