Altruism or not? Some extreme cases.

[softwareNerd]

2 hours ago, Adrian Roberts said:

...  ... against the idea of increased Private involvement in Healthcare, or anything else.

Surely Britain had centuries of largely private healthcare. Would it have been better if it was all government run? If so, in what way?

On your question about Rand and Thatcher: I've never seen a direct connection, but you can bet that a lot of people in Thatcher's government would have known of Rand and would have been fans. There may even have been some Objectivists among them. The same with Reagan. Even though Rand wrote an essay about why she would not vote for Reagan, he had some advisers who liked Rand's ideas on free-markets. Sometimes the links are less direct. For instance, some adviser views some conservative intellectual as his primary influence, but perhaps that intellectual was swayed from Trotsky-ite to neo-Con after he read Rand's work.

[Jon Southall]

Hi Adrian,

Ayn Rand once described private business with government support "the worst of all economic phenomena".

The privatisation of the NHS would be to replace what can be a poor organisation with something worse. The private companies will be funded by taxpayers. From historic experience, e.g. of PFI, the government tends to sign up to the worst contracts that allow the private firms to basically screw taxpayers even more than they already are being. 

The real alternative would be to liberalise private healthcare and private insurance and provide citizens with an opt out, so they can pay for private healthcare instead of being forced to pay for the NHS. This gives them a choice. Then whatever grows and survives would be the best there can be.

What I value a lot about the NHS is its accessibility and quality of emergency care. My life and two of my close friends were saved by the NHS, so I recognise its value and personally I don't begrudge paying for it - I would pay for it voluntarily even if I wasn't forced via tax. As an organisation, life is its standard of value - it has a good premise. Although it is expensive, economists know well that money is a poor substitute for healthcare - in that people will pay everything they have to save a loved one even when they will never see the money back. In my view its worth paying for, but I would like people to have the choice.

I would not like to see it become the worst of all economic phenomena.

[StrictlyLogical]

Jon:

 

Does silence speak volumes? Or do you care to answer the following:

In your world, is it proper for the State to impose virtue, morality, or "responsibility" as distinct from and beyond the protection of individual rights against whom there was initiation of force or fraud?

 

Sincerely SL

[Jon Southall]

Apology accepted Snerd. I don't agree that the points raised with SL are a side issue as I think it highlights a lack of acknowledgement that a system of rights is also a system of responsibilities - for it to work it requires personal integrity. 

Responsibilities are not duties, they come from a different place and on different terms. No one has a duty to care for orphans, but if someone is employed by a philanthropist to care for orphans, the terms of their contract is that they are responsible for caregiving; this is what they have accepted by taking on the job. 

If the employee decides they like the pay but would rather neglect the children than care for them, then they are acting irresponsibly and without integrity. If the philanthropist fires them when its discovered they have been paid but haven't been looking after the children, then the fact remains the employer has still suffered a loss. Using government force to get back those losses is not wrong.

The employee cannot claim as a defence that it was self-sacrificial to provide care, and that the employer can just render the contract null and void if he is unhappy about it. 

It would be even more absurd if the employee claimed as a defence that as there will be someone else to take their place it cancels out their irresponsible behaviour, or worse if not there will be an altruist to do it instead. This misses the whole point of the fact the rights of the employer have been breached by the employee, and indirectly the employee may have caused the employer to fail in his ultimate responsibility to the orphans.

We don't need altruism in any situation, but if we are serious about a rights based system (as I am), then we need to recognise this comes with responsibilities and sometimes the use of government force to deal with individuals who have breached the rights of others.

Do you agree?

[Jon Southall]

SL, take my silence as my choice to disagree with you and to not take it any further.

[StrictlyLogical]

4 hours ago, Jon Southall said:

SL, take my silence as my choice to disagree with you and to not take it any further.

Can you at least remind me whether or not you believe yourself to be an Objectivist?

[Jon Southall]

SL, I'm not interested in taking it further with you.

[softwareNerd]

13 hours ago, Jon Southall said:

The privatisation of the NHS would be to replace what can be a poor organisation with something worse.

The problem with things that are called "privatization" is: they replace one mixed system to another. It could be better than the old system or it could be worse. One cannot lay down a principle for things called "privatization". Properly conceptualized, privatization ought to mean: more freedom of action in the particular market. However, when "public-owned" systems are wound back, some monopoly powers previously held by the government are transferred to a private entity. So, the roll-back of government control must come with counter-measures for this problem. Some "privatizations" have been disasters, but most (after some tweaks) eventually proved successful. The bottom line is that privatization, done right, is a good thing.

On your comment that the NHS provides great, and life-saving services: that's merely the seen versus the unseen. [An excellent book to read is Henry Hazlitt's "Economics in One Lesson"]. That book takes various cases where statist economists argue for something, based on the positive outcomes; however, they miss the counterfactual -- what could have been. It's difficult to convince people about a counterfactual, because it's assumed via argument (i.e. unreal, in a sense). People -- particularly casual observers -- think the "bird in hand" is a safer bet. In the absence of the NHS, every service provided by the NHS would be provided by some non-government entity, with better results at lower cost. It's been done for centuries, it is still being done elsewhere, and if the NHS gets out it will be done again. Seeing this does not require much research or imagination.

The type of situation that Adrian asked about -- a mentally retarded person -- is a little different. If we research into the past, we will see family and charity as the options. Modern markets could offer better solutions. When a woman gets pregnant, even with all the tests we have, the baby can be delivered with severe disabilities. The financial burden ends up an order of magnitude larger than raising a normal child. However, only about 3% of US-born babies have serious birth defects and many of these are not as completely debilitating as serious mental retardation. To a finance professor this calls for insurance. If the government allowed it, someone would sell a policy that would cover the expenses. Of course, this would raise the cost of having a child, but that is appropriate. A good use of charity would be to pay the premiums for poorer people, not to get into the business of running shelters. Also, if the government allowed it, the costs would be higher when the risk factors were high. So, a woman over 35 would probably need to pay a higher premium. Or, the insurer may lower the rate if she has an amniocentesis at a week where abortion is still legal. Money makes things rational, and places costs on the person who ought to bear it. 

6 hours ago, Jon Southall said:

... a system of rights is also a system of responsibilities - for it to work it requires personal integrity. 

...   ...  Do you agree?

The problem with that statement is that it is so broad and malleable that every statist uses it. For example: "with the right to live and work freely, comes the responsibility to take care of those who cannot do so for no fault of their own". or, "with the right to be left in peace, comes the responsibility to fight for one's country". Everyone uses the language of "rights". A Marxist would be comfortable arguing that workers are merely fighting for their rights, an Islamist Iranian would say he and his countrymen have the right to make the Ayatollah their leader and have his dictate rule their land. 

 

Edited December 22, 2015 by softwareNerd

[softwareNerd]

2 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

Can you at least remind me whether or not you believe yourself to be an Objectivist?

based on his posts over more than a year, I believe Jon does not think of himself as an Objectivist.

43 minutes ago, Jon Southall said:

SL, I'm not interested in taking it further with you.

If it is because you were called a "statist" or some such thing, this is an over-reaction. That's not exactly an insult, even if you think its a mistaken evaluation.

[Jon Southall]

Snerd, I will quote this from the Lexicon in full because I believe it will help you understand how I am using my terms - the same as Rand did.

"Responsibility/Obligation

 

In reality and in the Objectivist ethics, there is no such thing as “duty.” There is only choice and the full, clear recognition of a principle obscured by the notion of “duty”: the Law of Causality.

 

The proper approach to ethics, the start from a metaphysically clean slate, untainted by any touch of Kantianism, can best be illustrated by the following story. In answer to a man who was telling her that she’s got to do something or other, a wise old Negro woman said: “Mister, there’s nothing I’ve got to do except die.”

 

Life or death is man’s only fundamental alternative. To live is his basic act of choice. If he chooses to live, a rational ethics will tell him what principles of action are required to implement his choice. If he does not choose to live, nature will take its course.

Reality confronts man with a great many “musts,” but all of them are conditional; the formula of realistic necessity is: “You must, if—” and the “if” stands for man’s choice: “—if you want to achieve a certain goal.” You must eat, if you want to survive. You must work, if you want to eat. You must think, if you want to work. You must look at reality, if you want to think—if you want to know what to do—if you want to know what goals to choose—if you want to know how to achieve them.

 

In order to make the choices required to achieve his goals, a man needs the constant, automatized awareness of the principle which the anti-concept “duty” has all but obliterated in his mind: the principle of causality—specifically, of Aristotelian final causation (which, in fact, applies only to a conscious being), i.e., the process by which an end determines the means, i.e., the process of choosing a goal and taking the actions necessary to achieve it.

 

In a rational ethics, it is causality—not “duty”—that serves as the guiding principle in considering, evaluating and choosing one’s actions, particularly those necessary to achieve a long-range goal. Following this principle, a man does not act without knowing the purpose of his action. In choosing a goal, he considers the means required to achieve it, he weighs the value of the goal against the difficulties of the means and against the full, hierarchical context of all his other values and goals. He does not demand the impossible of himself, and he does not decide too easily which things are impossible. He never drops the context of the knowledge available to him, and never evades reality, realizing fully that his goal will not be granted to him by any power other than his own action, and, should he evade, it is not some Kantian authority that he would be cheating, but himself . . . .

 

A disciple of causation is profoundly dedicated to his values, knowing that he is able to achieve them. He is incapable of desiring contradictions, of relying on a “somehow,” of rebelling against reality. He knows that in all such cases, it is not some Kantian authority that he would be defying and injuring, but himself—and that the penalty would be not some mystic brand of “immorality,” but the frustration of his own desires and the destruction of his values . . . .

 

Accepting no mystic “duties” or unchosen obligations, he is the man who honors scrupulously the obligations which he chooses. The obligation to keep one’s promises is one of the most important elements in proper human relationships, the element that leads to mutual confidence and makes cooperation possible among men . . . .

 

The acceptance of full responsibility for one’s own choices and actions (and their consequences) is such a demanding moral discipline that many men seek to escape it by surrendering to what they believe is the easy, automatic, unthinking safety of a morality of “duty.” They learn better, often when it is too late.

 

The disciple of causation faces life without inexplicable chains, unchosen burdens, impossible demands or supernatural threats. His metaphysical attitude and guiding moral principle can best be summed up by an old Spanish proverb: “God said: ‘Take what you want and pay for it.’” But to know one’s own desires, their meaning and their costs requires the highest human virtue: rationality"

 

When a person chooses to become a parent, he or she chooses to take on the obligation to care for their child. That is his or her promise to his child. My point is a parent must accept the full responsibility of that choice - whether it be become a chosen burden or a pleasure. Can you point out where this is in any way a statist position - I really can't see your reasoning. 

Edited December 22, 2015 by Jon Southall

[Jon Southall]

I'm not sure why, SL and Snerd, you have become pre-occupied with whether I am an Objectivist or not.

For the record, I agree with Objectivism but it is not a complete or fully realised system; there are parts of it which still need work. These are the parts which interest me because by exploring them, I learn more and find it easier to come to a position on it. Surprisingly on Objectivist forums my experience has been that if you explore a topic in a way which means you have to think about things perhaps in a new or unconventional way, contributors find it easier to brand you something other than an Objectivist so they don't need to think differently than they have become accustomed to. This is basically thought evasion - if you are not an Objectivist then I don't need to think seriously about your reasoning - which leaves everyone poorer.

Snerd - the reason I don't want to discuss it with SL is because I consider his position to be irrational. Furthermore I judge his responses to be driven by a desire to win an argument at all costs rather than to learn and develop his understanding. Given that is my judgment, why would I indulge him?

[Adrian Roberts]

Quote

 

Ayn Rand once described private business with government support "the worst of all economic phenomena".

The privatisation of the NHS would be to replace what can be a poor organisation with something worse. The private companies will be funded by taxpayers. From historic experience, e.g. of PFI, the government tends to sign up to the worst contracts that allow the private firms to basically screw taxpayers even more than they already are being. 

 

Jon

Of course PFI is a disaster; where I live in SE London, there are at least two district acute hospitals built with PFI money; lovely buildings but they have pushed NHS London into even more debt, leading to closures elsewhere and management dismissals (usually with a Golden Handshake several times my salary). My small mental health NHS trust, which was doing well financially, has had £4million taken from it to pay for the shortfall in he acute sector.

I'm not an economist or a businessman, but I suspect that this because a mixed economy leads to the worst of both worlds as in your quote from AR. And I completely agree that the NHS gives largely satisfactory care - though as someone else said, we can never know if privately-run healthcare would have been better. I have certainly considered getting Private Health Insurance for my family but  I just can't afford it. If as you suggest the government was to encourage Private Health Insurance, perhaps the one incentive would if people who bought it had their National Insurance payments reduced - not that NI has much correlation to healthcare these days.

Basically it is all a bit of a mess, and if things were to change, it would have to be very slowly over at least a generation - the Turning the Supertanker problem. It is probably easier to apply Objectivism to our own lives rather than to the economics of a nation.

I have been reading your discussions with SL and Snerd - I have no intention of joining in, but I have noted some of your points, especially the difference between causality and duty.

[Jacob Smith]

On 12/16/2015 at 6:24 AM, Adrian Roberts said:

On 12/16/2015 at 6:24 AM, Adrian Roberts said:

The first situation is about War.

 

Whether participating in a war is altruist or not, depends on particular individuals and the reason why they are participating and no general or universal answer can be drawn. If in a free country like America, if someone volunteers to participate for a cause they consider to be just and for which they are even willing to risk their lives, then it is not altruistic. But if in some communist country, someone goes to war only as a duty or for a blind obedience to state, then it is altruistic. 

[StrictlyLogical]

17 hours ago, softwareNerd said:

based on his posts over more than a year, I believe Jon does not think of himself as an Objectivist.

Thanks SN. 

Care to speculate on what in my post(s) Jon feels is irrational?  

Even better, as a knowledgeable Objectivist, can you identify anything in my post(s) which is "irrational" or counter to Objectivism?