Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

Kate87

Regulars
  • Posts

    196
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    2

Everything posted by Kate87

  1. From the Binswanger article: I find this to be an obviously false statement.
  2. Have you stockpiled any tin foil hats yet?
  3. People on the economic right have been predicting that for years. The US's debt situation is nothing like Greece's.
  4. As a side point, I see this as a strength of the American system. It is more democratic and therefore more accountable, and has more checks and balances on power. We have a similar economic situation in the UK (Europe is a completely different ball game), but we have had to suffer years of tax increases and spending cuts. In the UK, we have a sort of elected dictatorship. Every 5 years we have elections, but once the government is elected they can pretty much do what they want with no checks on their power. This is how the UK was able to slide so quickly into socialism during the 1960s and 70s and slide sharply back to more capitalism in the 80s. So Cameron's government has decided it aims to balance the budget, and so by 2017 it will be balanced. Simple as that, with no debate and no checks and balances. The American system in this case is much better.
  5. I agree and I have been fascinated over recent months how the marketing of a fiscal package (the cliff motif) can convince people to change their political convictions. Ie many on the economic right have been fooled into thinking the "fiscal cliff" is a bad thing, when to me the logic of their ideology dictates that they should welcome such a cliff. Now personally, I do think the fiscal cliff is a bad thing, but that is consistent with my economic reasoning which is more Keynesian. Anyone who worries about a fiscal cliff AND is on the economic right, has either betrayed a Keynesian streak in their thinking or has accepted the marketing of their political opponents.
  6. Piers used to be editor of the left wing tabloid The Mirror, which pedals the kind of garbage that should disqualify someone from journalism. Why on Earth CNN would want him as a host is beyond me? One thing is for sure, Britain would not have him back if he was deported!
  7. Why does Objectivism care about the will of the majority?
  8. I both want to reduce the welfare state and do it slowly over time. How is regular theft and taxation different under Objectivism?
  9. All dictators face opposition which they try to eliminate. The IRS would not (and should not) take the decrees of an unelected dictatorship. If the dictator wanted to get their way they would have to jail the IRS leaders, which they could ethically do under Objectivism on the grounds of theft. With regards to the phasing out of the welfare state, what you guys are now saying is that existing initiations of force are justified in the short term, if the long term goal is the elimination of these initiations of force. ie the ends justify the means. Incidently, this is what Hayak thought about dictatorships when he said the following which I assume you agree with as it follows the same logic:
  10. How can Objectivist ethics justify phasing out of welfare systems? If you really believed welfare was stolen goods, you would want an end to the theft immediately! This seems to be a stunning contradiction? You cannot justify theft because some people have come to rely on the proceeds of stolen goods! I think this is a revealing (and honest) statement. An Objectivist dictatorship would simply declare that taxation is theft. The result of this would not be that it isn't doing very much. The result would be the jailing of tax collectors for a start. Why would the IRS recognise an illegitimate dictator who declared them illegal? They wouldn't and they would fight and be jailed. As far as I can see, Objectivism could not say anything against the jailing of tax collectors in such circumstances. Fascinating. Thanks for your insight there Nicky. Keep up the good work. Dictators have come to power with less than a majority of people supporting them. The point is that once in power, they use it to shut down dissent. In this case, they would start by putting IRS employees in jail for theft.
  11. If you can convince 10% of the population to riot, then yes you are a political force worth reckoning with. Note that probably 50% of America wants to see less government and less taxation but guess what? They are not rioting. Why? Because they are living the good life, pursuing values, and not living under tyranny. If you took away all welfare, a sizeable minority would suffer enough injustices to riot. As far as I know these three are the main respected economists who argued for radical capitalism. They all won Nobel prizes and they were all highly respected amongst their peers. You could include people like George Reisman or 100 other economists, but I would say they are in a lower intellectual league than these three. These three essentially influenced the development of the 20th century and beyond. I think my argument can discredit their ideas because I am attacking the application of their own ideas to actual reality. In other words, the reality they inhabited included fascists and dictators - because they knew their capitalist ideas were unrealistic, they supported these dictators as a short term solution to stop communism. I think their application is an entirely logical conclusion of the ideas themselves and I wonder how Objectivism can reject the conclusions also? I can reject dictatorships because I believe in democracy, but why would an O'ist reject a dictator that was spreading Objectivist ideas and ideals? Say a hypothetical dictator simply changed the law to make 90% of tax collecting illegal and punishable by death? On what basis could Objectivism fight this since tax is theft, and the dictator has just outlawed theft?
  12. Another ridiculous shooting: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20838925 Another ridiculous solution: arm all firefighters! It's only a matter of time before someone argues this so I thought I'd pre-empt them.
  13. It was based on the Salon article..... and the quotes I have been quoting throughout the thread..... duh. Good find. Mises conclusion: He is essentially arguing that fascism is better than either communism or socialism. Ie support fascism in the short term to make it more likely that liberalism will win long term. How can Objectivism disagree with this? But with Communism, alternate ideas are often repressed by the government. Culture and intellectual activity are repressed. So capitalism cannot be accepted by any of the people because they won't know about it. Are you sure you wouldn't support fascists under such circumstances? Btw, we still have Hayek as a sympathiser with dictatorship (liberal or not) too.
  14. Capitalism could be enacted in reality by a dictatorship, but would soon be changed since dictatorships collapse given enough time.
  15. Pure laissez faire capitalism I think is a utopia and is therefore not compatible with reality. This is because in the best case scenario, a sizeable minority of people would riot to protect the welfare state. This is because the welfare state is relied upon by people and does correct some real injustices in society. For example, if you are born to lazy parents who spend their money on alcohol and not elementary education, you could potentially start life with a huge disadvantage by not being able to read or write properly. To argue that charities would find this disadvantaged child and fund her education I think is unrealistic. Or to argue that the parents would be charged with neglect and sued by the state to fund her education I find unrealistic since the parents are alcoholics and do not care. The child would be left languishing.
  16. Sorry the quote above makes him a sympathiser of dictatorship. With Mises, it looks from the quote in my OP that he does sympathise specifically with fascism. So, so far Friedman is exonerated but Hayak sympathises with dictatorship and Mises with fascism.
  17. I just found these two sources regarding Friedman. To be fair, they persuade me that Friedman doesn't have any sympathies with fascism: Letter from Friedman to Pinochet: http://wwww.naomikle...het-letters.pdf PBS interview: http://www.pbs.org/w...riedman.html#10 Having read these, I think Friedman genuinely visited many states including fascist and communist in order to honestly advance his policy advice. With Hayek, I have not been so convinced in my search (http://coreyrobin.co...k-von-pinochet/): This quote is explicitly endorsing temporary dictatorship as solution against what he views as an increasingly illiberal democracy. I find this an interesting argument and wonder how this can be rejected from an Objectivist perspective? Ie, why don't you guys try to infiltrate the military in order to form a military dictatorship with a view to dismantling the welfare state and instituting a republic with free market capitalism enshrined in the new constitution? I find this unacceptable as it is antidemocratic, but wonder how Objectivism could reject this solution? I don't have time to look into Mises at the moment, but will come back to him. I definitely don't appreciate your accusation of me making up lies. That's not my style, I look at the evidence and see where it leads no matter where that place may be. I do take your point about "liberal dictators" not being the same as fascists.
  18. The UK has an "unwritten constitution" although much of the constitution is written such as Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, Habeas Corpus etc. But if Parliament wants to do something, then it cannot be deemed unconstitutional. So I would probably agree that the UK's "constitution" isn't really one.
  19. Your constitution is flawed. Get over it and get it amended! Solving government tyranny which has a modern Army behind it, with civilian gun ownership is extremely impractical to say the least.
  20. My contention is that capitalism is not compatible with democracy. First I want to define democracy because I noticed that Objectivist's use the term in a very specific way. Ayn Rand Lexicon: I want to make it clear that I am not using the word democracy to mean unlimited majority rule. Rather I am using "democracy" to mean a system of representative government through elected representatives, ie a "representative democracy". For example both Britain and America are representative democracies even while one is a constitutional republic and one a constitutional monarchy. Here is a quote by Ludwig von Mises which expresses sympathy for fascism (there are other quotes from Hayek and Friedman in this article http://www.salon.com...libertariansim): Unfortunately in every actual case of a respected economist arguing for radical capitalism, that economist also has sympathies with fascist dictatorships. With Friedman it was Pinochet. With Mises it was Mussolini. With Hayak it was Pinochet also. I think the reason this has always happened with respected radical capitalists is because they are the ones who best know that an electorate would never accept their policies in a million years. Even if you managed to persuade 90% of people to accept the policies, the 10% would riot for a revolution. These respected economists know this and for this reason, radical capitalism is a utopia. I use this word to mean it is a perfect system which could never and will never happen in reality unless it was combined with taking away people's right to vote for their representatives which is undemocratic.
  21. I noticed that the NRA is advocating armed guards in school. This would probably lead to a reduction in massacre deaths in the context of today's America which is awash with guns. A much better solution however would be to work to destroy the gun culture in the first place so that armed guards are not needed.
  22. OK I'm really drunk right now but I think that you Americans are awesome so even though you are awkward sometimes I think your "sense of life" is absolutely brilliant. It has took me a long time to write this so you better appreciate this. No spelling errors or anything. You guys rule. Britain and America rule. But really America is an old colony of Britain but we won't mention that. Honestly I think you guys are amazing, I don't agree with your conclusions but you have really impressed me with your candidness. I wish I could marry one of you, But you would never marry me because I am drunk. I know who I actually like on here but I would never admit it. Gun control is good English common sense which you guys should accept. I think you are being awkward on purpose. If I was only slightly drunk I wouldn't feel the need to write this but being absolutely ******ing wrecked means that I have no choice. Well I do have a choice really but there you go. I realise I will regret having wrote this however part of me feels I won't but maybe this is the drunk part. You rule.
  23. It would take about 2 hours to respond to all the replies, so I'm going to chip in intermittently. I think this is revealing. You hold the dominant culturally American view. But don't make the mistake of thinking this is the Objectivist view. For example, the dominant American view of metaphysics is that an invisible desert god rules the universe. Clearly this is not the Objectivist view. Americanism ≠ Objectivism
  24. I am really curious on the opinion of Objectivists on this issue hence this poll: http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?showtopic=24476
  25. I want to gauge the opinion of Objectivists on this issue.
×
×
  • Create New...