Mathlete

First regarding the capitalization of "Objectivism" and "Objectivist" I'm a novice for a reason and will make an effort to improve my grammer. To be honest Biker I had exactly the same idea as the Objectivist version of how charitable organisations would receive funding as you do. When it comes to efforts such as cancer research for example I can see a lot of incentive for people to invest in such research. However when it comes to investing in childrens charities I do not believe that people would contribute the money's required if there only incentive is to get every urchant off the streets they live. Even if we suppose that people would support such an initiative in order to improve property values and/or the apperance of their neighborhoods the same cannot be said for districts with lower incomes. Such residence would prioritize spending on basic neccesities rather than to give to charities. Now I believe that Objectivism would create a highly prosperous economy where such instances would be far lower then some welfare state that makes goals such as eliminating street kids priority one. I know I'm really off topic here and reading the things I've written I realize that the question I want answered is: Given Ayn Rand made distinctions between better and lesser abled members society (as is reality) must we as Objectivist accept that there will be a number (noticable but not not neccesarily significant) of people in such a society that must skulk off and die quietly in a corner somewhere given the emphasis on self reliance?

Okay David you got me there. Unimaginable was a bad choice of word. Simply replace it with "unrealistic".

To say that it is completly unimaginable that an abandoned child would die on the street in a society that dispises non-profit activities because a non-profit organisation would care for it seems to me to be a contradiction. The mere concept of giving or receiving charity is viewed as unethical (but still legal) according to Ayn Rand (see Galt's Gultch). Thus if you were to imagine the scenario (deadbeat child scenario) taking place in an objectivist state you would have to imagine there would be very few if any NPOs (non-profit is almost a curse word to an objectivist). An objectivist society would create the most morally and ethical sound and even the most prosperous and happy society but to take the view that simply nothing bad could possibly happen in such a place would be cause for some serious utopian delusions (the favourite slur that is so often thrown our way). Building a succesful society means being able to anticipate and plan for the good and the bad and not simply brush what we don't like under the rug to do so would be denying reality the very principle on which this philosophy is founded.

I follow what you are saying for the most part but get a bit lost in the execution of your ideas. Consider this following case: Deadbeat has a child. The deadbeat in question has no assets that can be confiscated or put towards the childs upbringing. Furthermore the deadbeat is unable to perform any meaningful job that could be used to support the child. How is government meant to protect the child's rights which we agree is a real right to financial support from said deadbeat? We are in agreement that government sponsored foster care and day care are not acceptable solutions so what are others? The way I see it there are only a few possibilities: 1) Child dies on the streets due to lack of support 2) Some charitable individual or organisation takes care of the child but resources are limited so they could not possibly care for every one 3) Perhaps a private initiative offers the child support in exchange for the future revenue that the child could earn. However a child could not consent to such an agreement or any other for that matter as it would lack the ability to conclude a binding contract at its age. Would we have to accept option (1) as perhaps not being a common event but nevertheless a possible one under a laisse-faire economy and an objectivist government and society. If option 1 were to happen then the mother of course would be guilty of criminal negligence and by extention murder in which case losing her right to reproduce would probably seem lenient.

What about the individual rights of the members of society that that abandoned child is going to affect. By simply dropping an orphan onto a free society invariably someone else is going to have to bear the burdon of that action. That someone else would then require some sort of restitution. If the woman in question commited any other sort of delict against another individual surely objectivism would hold that in that case some sort of punishment is appropriate. Objectivism does not grant absolute rights on all the citizens living in a free society. Consider if someone stole something from you. Would an objectivist judge not then order he pay you back what he stole plus some additional damages even though such an action entails forcibly taking away a portion of that persons property along with what is rightfully yours? The same is true here were rights are suspended based upon the irresponsible actions of a member of society.

Excellent point by rationalbiker. One also has to consider the negative impact what having an abandoned child could have on individuals living in a free society. Revisiting the crack whore child machine problem; I feel that this case is not that uncommon and that the major violators of an abandoned child population explosion would stem from few members of society having many children. If we agree that a parent has a legal obligation to support their children then parents who fail to comply with that responsibility should be banned from having children until they can prove otherwise. I feel this would be a good remedy as the individual whos rights are being revoked has already violated those of other individuals by failing to care for his or her original child hence objectivism can be used to justify punative measured.

I think Bob makes an excellent point. The objectivist would hold that property rights are absolute and your land is yours to do with as you please even if you are not acting rationally. However it is not uncommon to see some Ornery Cuss put the breaks on some massive developments (see Donald Trump and his new Scottish golf course development). Another situation where property is forcibly sold routinly is when it comes to hostile or non hostile take overs of public companies. If a company or individual submits a bid to shareholders subject to it receiving the required percentage of market cap (90-95% I think) to delist the company and say 5% of the shareholders or rather the shareholder(s) holding the remaining 5% would be forced to sell to that company or individual at the price that was offered to the other shareholders. This is not considered a breach of that shareholders property rights as he accepted that term as it would have been a condition of sale when he bought the stock. However selling land on these terms is far more complicated as their is no incentive for the original owner to include such a term as a condition of sale. How would the principles of objectivism be applied to this scenario to reach an acceptable solution to all parties involved? Is it acceptable for government to impose a similar condition of sale to all land as is the case with purchasing equity?

Back to the original post I feel you only have to look at the thriving success of middle eastern and islamic states to realize that the world in my opinion would have been better off with sadism than islamism for the past 2000 years.

David Thank you for a very comprehensive reply to my question. I can see you have an incredible depth of knowledge on this issue because having lived in South Africa for 20 years I had no idea their were no Siphos to be found North of Zimbabwe! I tried to keep my original question brief but just to clarify when I refered to terms such as "social justice" I meant their (the environmentalists") definition of the term (which is obviously very warped). The study from which I am paraphrasing is the IPCC (intergovernmental panel on climate change) Fourth Assessment Report. I have not delved into exactly how the study was carried out but it appears to be a major justification for political environmental action as it comes up time and time again as it was a UN sanctioned report established by the World Meteorological Organization. What strikes me as the most heinous about the environmental movement is that they appear to have not interested in development or developing Africa specifically for that matter. Their chief concern seems to be "equality" which seems to translate into as you put it all of us (Americans, Europeans and Africans) living in caves in tiny communities eating raw tofu and singing kumbaya. In other words bringing the entire world down so some very low level of social and technological development therby eliminating inequality and thus achieving their goals. I fear that the term "green" is simply a euphimism for "communist" just that the green movement has way better marketing and new buzz words (Those red army deathcamps were never that popular with the kids). I find it ironic that their favourite piece of rhetoric is to accuse the right of having some dark sinister agenda and not being open with their policies especially when it comes to use of scare tactics i.e. the threat of terrorism while all the while they are telling people that unless you embrace Marxism (because Marxism and Communism have nothing to do with one another at least according to them) the entire planet is going to look like the surface of the moon. -Mat

Hi all I'm new to the forum and wanted get a community opinion on the current state of the environment and environmental politics. My concerns stem from: An understanding as to how human activity is really affecting the environment For instance it is my understanding that the larger portion of the scientific community believes that global warming will result in potentially devasting consequences for the quality of life on earth. However having made a consorted effort to determine the details of this "potential disaster" i.e. what coastlines will be affected? how much of the coastlines will be lost? and what are the economic impacts of this event? All I uncover are radically varying opinions and estimates. Nevertheless it appears that the overwhelming majority of the scientific community believe global warming caused by greenhouse gas emmisions will increase the worlds temperature and lead to a host of undesirable consequence to a greater or lesser degree. Now we enter the world of environmental politics and the self proclaimed protectors of the environment most notably the green party predictably use global warming to justify and promote their policies. A quick jump to the green party of Canada's website and a visit to their policies section produces this statement: "We (the green party) declare that there is no social justice without environmental justice, and no environmental justice without social justice." Now by environmental justice they of course mean reduction in greenhouse gas emmisions, conservation of environmental resources forest, endangered species etc. and by "social justice" they mean: * a just organization of the world and a stable world economy which will close the widening gap between rich and poor, both within and between countries; balance the flow of resources from South to North; and lift the burden of debt on poor countries which prevents their development. * the eradication of poverty, as an ethical, social, economic, and ecological imperative * the elimination of illiteracy * a new vision of citizenship built on equal rights for all individuals regardless of gender, race, age, religion, class, ethnic or national origin, sexual orientation, disability, wealth or health Now what I fail to understand is what on earth could reducing global emmisions possibly have to do illitracy and "wealth distribution". It is my fear that so called "environmental advocates" have simply hijacked what could be a ligitamate and rational need to reduce global emmisions by saying that you simply can't have your ozone layer unless Sipho in Uganda can read the communist manifesto and send a percentage of your earnings to some disenfranchised African state. Apologies for the cynasim but is that not what the environmentalists are really saying?