MichaelMartin

You are completely missing my point. I'm not sure what your first paragraph has to do with anything, but I will give it a shot: Factories build the equipment and machinery that the theme park uses. They make the cars that people use for weekend getaways to those theme parks. They make the ancillary items the theme park sells as souveniers. They build the computers and other necesary items to operate the business. Farmers grow the produce that is made into the foods sold at the concession stands at the theme park. Do you have any idea how much produce is bought and sold through theme parks every year? It is a consumer outlet as important as any other from the perspective of the farmer, isn't it? Your claim that the theme park would be obsolete without these or other businesses is pretty dubious. The same could be said with equal conviction in the reverse. Yes, Microsoft has improved the productivity of just about every business I can think of and I'm sure a great many grew up because of opportunities created by Microsoft but you MUST know that theme parks existed and thrived long before Microsoft was founded. Come on. Your final statement is wrong on the face of it. Yes, any business that generates new wealth in a fair trade of value for value is essential to those who own it, trade with it or are employed by it. Period. If you have a good argument why that is not the case, let me know. Your cake factory is a straw man and not a good one at that. If I owned the cake factory or the sugar supplier that sold to the cake factory or the grocery chain that bought the cakes, that cake factory is mighty essential. What you are doing is a kind of socio-economical triage. This business is necessary, that one is not. That is what Fidel Castro and his sort do. You should read Atlas Shrugged again and see what happens to a whole economy when businesses are favored or disfavored by the kinds of people who take it upon themselves to determine which are essential. Michael

In contrast, property crimes are fundamentally different than crimes that violate one's person, too. Rand had a lot to say about people who initiate violence. A crime such as murder is fundamentally and objectively different than stealing the same person's banana or car precisely because it is irreversable. Comparitively, murder is a kind of theft in that the murder steals EVERYTHING that person values, will value, can value, might value, etc. It also takes from other anything of value that person may have been to them. In that sense, the theft of any one object is relatively inconseqential, isn't it? With any crime, the criminal must make the victim whole again. Steal a banana, provide the value of the banana. He must also make up for the fact that he had no right to take it. That is punitive damages in civil law and fines or incarceration in criminal law. Criminal law really does not account for the victim in the same way civil law does. That is why it is not Victim v. Criminal but rather The People v. Criminal. So, my feeling is full compensation to victim plus what it cost him to pursue, plus something to make up for the aggravation for any kind of theft. Murder is really a whole other subject. Michael

I'm a little troubled at the notion of people who don't themselves engage in a particular business determining whether or not that business is "essential." In a purely Randian sense, doesn't that smack of "the boys in Washington"? Whether it is MicroSoft or a Safari Park, a business that is trading value for value IS essential to the people who own it, trade with it or are employed by it. Plus which, how many business that would be deemed by you to be not essential are the paying customers of business you do consider essential? If Safari Park does not buy MicroSoft products I'll eat my sock. Any business that allows the owner to grow wealthy by providing a desired product to his customers at no harm to anyone else in a fair market is definitely essential. It takes a lot of variety to drive the engine of this masssively successful economy. Surely an innerspring mattress is not essential if a straw mat will suffice. Is a movie theatre essential? An ice cream shop? Yes! It is this existense of businesses that provide the means of enjoyment of life that marks ours as a great system. Michael Martin [email protected]