tommyedison Posted September 6, 2004 Report Share Posted September 6, 2004 I keep coming across the problem of population in my school textbooks. But isn't welfare to the needy and charity responsible partly for the burgeoning population? If Social Security did not exist and we lived in a perfect capitalist society then excess population would automatically be eliminated according to Darwin's theory if the excess population is not as able as the others. But it is the government which expropriates the wealth of the able and gives it to the poor and the inable thereby paving the way for their continued parasitic existence. They don't produce, they just consume adding to the loss of resources. By the way, I read on a site that Ayn Rand didn't believe in Darwin's theory of evolution of species. Is this true and if it is, then does someone know her reasons? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xobject Posted September 6, 2004 Report Share Posted September 6, 2004 http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~campber/randcogrev.html a little extract out of the link: A particularly egregious example of Rand's desire to distance philosophy from the sciences is her professed agnosticism about biological evolution. "Darwin¹s theory, Ayn Rand held, pertains to a special science, not to philosophy. Philosophy as such, therefore, takes no position in regard to it" (Peikoff 1993, 476 n.19). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MinorityOfOne Posted September 6, 2004 Report Share Posted September 6, 2004 Very few people are genuinely incapable of earning a living, and that would be even more true in a free market economy. Prices would be dramatically lower due to lack of taxes, greater efficiency of production, etc., and since there wouldn't be a minimum wage, there would be job openings even for people whose abilities were absolutely minimal. Welfare may to some extent contribute to high birth rates in certain demographics, but I suspect the threat of the "welfare mom" is greatly exaggerated. There is no "population problem." The US is not overpopulated, not even in NYC or Los Angeles. Japan's population density is immensely higher than ours, AND they hardly have any natural resources -- & they're doing just fine. There is no problem of "overpopulation", there's a problem of production and distribution in certain areas of the world. You might find it interesting to take a look at the political systems in effect in the places where people claim there is a "population problem." I think you'll find that in each case it's really a political problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Betsy Posted September 7, 2004 Report Share Posted September 7, 2004 http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~campber/randcogrev.html That was an article "Reprinted with permission from theJournal of Ayn Rand Studies,1:107-134 (1999)." That's journal specializes in pretentious, but clueless nonsense allegedly about Objectivism -- which isn't. a little extract out of the link: A particularly egregious example of Rand's desire to distance philosophy from the sciences is her professed agnosticism about biological evolution. "Darwin¹s theory, Ayn Rand held, pertains to a special science, not to philosophy. Philosophy as such, therefore, takes no position in regard to it" (Peikoff 1993, 476 n.19). If you check the context of that quote in Peikoff's OPAR, you'll find it comes up in a discussion of Spencer's Social Darwinism (which many erroneously believe Ayn Rand advocates). Ayn Rand's actual ethical theory is not based on or related to Darwin and she holds that the truth of Darwin's theory is a scientific matter, not a philosophical issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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