Tordmor

Love stems from a recognition of your own values in another human. Children are not born with values but have to acquire them, which they normally do from their parents. Therefore there is a strong tendency of parents and their children and thus siblings as well to share most of their values. That's why it seems like "automatical" and "unconditional" love. But as has been pointed out, it's not. I no longer share the values of my mother. Therefore I no longer have any contact with her. I don't normally think of her. Thus in this case the role of "mother" or "son" no longer mean anything at all. But I still do have contact with my father. In this case his being the father means that he is older and has already acquired more values and more understanding than I have. Thus it has something of a teacher/pupil relationship. I receive from him values that will further my life. My mother basically is a stranger to me now. If I would meet her, I do not know whether I would even recognize her. So no love there. I also have a brother who doesn't share my values. There is some kind of a connection because I still know him somewhat, but that connection is getting weaker just as it did with my mother. So 'blood connection' is just another word for knowing someone very well. It is neither automatic nor genetically mandated or some such thing. It can weaken just as anything else can. I would not seek out my birth parents. They would have abandoned me and I would not have anything in common with them only by pure chance. You cannot find immortality in your children. However if you have raised your children well and they accept your values you can pass on your purpose to them. And your purpose would be pursued for at least one more generation. I think that is what people think of when they seek "immortality through their children".

What are your criteria for when it is justified to overthrow the government?

As I understand it, the argument for a government monopoly on force is that otherwise the application of force in a non-defense scenario could not hold to objective standards. That is the single reason for the existence of government. Therefore I cannot see how reacquiring your own property without use of force against anybody could be considered "vigilantism". Remember that Ragnar Danneskjold did "steal" from government in order to repay taxes.

Not enough for what? How much gold do you think would be needed? Keep in mind that value increases if demand increases relative to supply.

I made this one. But I think I remember seeing something like it somewhere. It has the A is A for objective reality, the I for individualism the $ for capitalism and the O for objectivism / universe and it is an eye as symbol of reason. Edit: black on black doesn't look too good, but you should see it if you click on it.

I do. If you print out that sticker and display it you are getting a benefit out of A.R.'s work without having paid for it. I think, whether that benefit is monetary or non-monetary is a minor difference. However, the sentence WIJG "has passed into the 'common vernacular'" as anonrobt put it because it hasn't been protected. If a copyright holder allows his work to be used freely for several decades he can not later come and stop it. He has by not protecting his copyright abandoned his property claims. That's probably a trademark. That's different.

Those wont shrug.

Now that's obvious.

But only to a small degree as Napster has shown. Does it still count as moral if it's a matter of degree and not of principle?

power outage

I think it refers to how you conceive yourself. Do you think you are your consciousness and just happen to "inhabit" a body, i.e. conceive yourself to be distinct from your body, or do you conceive yourself as your body and think of consicousness as an illusion? Both views are common and both are wrong.

I admit, I downloaded a pirated copy of atlas shrugged. But realizing it is wrong (and more importantly why) I have now bought legit copies of atlas shrugged and the fountainhead. So at least for me it turned out right. I would probably never or at least not for some years have found objectivism if not for thepiratebay, but of course that would have been my problem and by stealing atlas shrugged I received a value without having paid for it. My point is, those who download AS and don't buy a copy afterwards wouldn't have bought a copy anyways, so although it's still wrong nobody is really loosing something, I guess.

Isn't that the same thing? The fact that something furthers my life is what makes it valuable to me. I'm trying to understand the underlying principle not jump to conclusions. Today corporations are regarded as persons. If I make a contract with a corporation I do not contract with the CEO nor with the joint owners of the corporation but with someones imaginary friend. That doesn't seem to be a valid position to me. So I'm looking for a valid philosophical position regarding corporations. But that's not the whole problem. It also affects marriage. Me and my wife jointly own property. But what if one of us wanted to unilateraly withdraw from our marriage? We would then have a judge assign our joint property to one of us. But on what grounds? My property can not suddenly be no longer my property without my consent, can it? Objectivism holds that one cannot live on a contradictory philosophy. So if the concept of joint property contains a contradiction I do not have to outline an alternative. But what I think the alternative would be is that one person owns any asset of a corporation. The shareholders only lend money to that person. That of course doesn't solve the marriage case especially when children are involved.

I think the first mistake of the question is to presuppose that government needs some funding to begin with. If government were reduced to its propper function would there really be so much work that full-time officers are a necessity over voluntary workers? If I understand correctly the only government employees would be judges, police officers and soldiers. Judges will be payed by those who seek a court ruling on something. Police officers are really only a neighbourhood watch with a set of specific rules of operation and some special training which is true for soldiers as well. Now what prevents those people who consider a police force as a good thing to pay for those special training and being a part-time voluntary police officer while they pursue their normal lives? There are even people who already pay for military training outside of the military. In germany there exist voluntary fire departmens who work on pretty much that principle. While their equipment is being funded by taxes nothing prevents them from getting their equipment from insurance companies who have a great intrest in a working fire department and for which it would be good advertisement as well.

Thank you for the responses. Is there a recommended reading about property and property rights?

I still don't quite get it. If I understand correctly then property serves a purpose namely it's all those resources the owner can use to further his life. In analogy the purpose of joint property would be the furthering of the owners joint life, but of course that doesn't exist. Each individual lives for himself. If the purpose of my property is my own life then I must be able to change the use of my property any time should the circumstances of my life change. If I have made a contract of course I would have to repay my partners for their losses under that contract but in principle I'm free. With joint property, however, if the circumstances of my life change, I can not adjust the use of my property accordingly, therfore I don't see how this would be my property. But with property there needs to be someone who owns said property. Since the group doesn't exist to own something it must be the individuals within this group. So I equally own and not own this property which cannot be. So which of my premises is wrong?

Let's assume I make a contract with person B to allow him free passage over my property as long as he lives. Later I want to build some factory and due to the nature of my business I can no longer allow B to do so. Do I still have a right on my property or did I sign it over to B? If I understand correctly, I would say I still have the property right and can leave the contract at any time. However, if this is the case, what is with joint property? Is such a thing as joint property possible to begin with? Because if two people own something neither of them can unilateral withdraw from the contract regarding this property. So let's say three people form a company. They jointly own any assets of this company but neither of them can change his mind regarding "his" property so in fact none of them really owns anything anymore. The same would hold if contracts were absolutetly binding. Then I could no longer use my mind to further my live with this property because I'm no longer free to realize my ideas if they violate this contract.

"John Galt" is actually what I'm hoping for. He didn't come to people who were objectivists. He came to people who were sucessful businessmen. So what I am trying to do is to become sucessful and rich and then lookout for other objectivists if they don't find me. The last line is a good motto. Thanks for that

No objectivists in Germany. Not even close.

"There's nothing wrong with the economy."

While I agree in principle I think there are two sides to John Galt. Fist there was the withdrawel of the mind. But second there was galt's gulch and that one is still missing (or at least I haven't been invited yet ). That's the thing I am trying, what I think is my purpose in life: to find or found the place where my children can be free.

The overall wealth of any market depends equally on the freedom of interaction on this market, i.e. the freedom inside the market and the freedom to cross the market borders (Indizes of economic freedom usually only capture the former) and its size. The US is huge, that plays in their favor.

First there is no such thing as a monopoly because any business not only competes on its market but also with substitute products. The example our marketing professor told us is that of Porsche. Porsche is a manufacturer of luxury cars. It has no direct competitors because no other car manufacturer competes for the same customers. If anyone wants a Porsche he doesn't think about buying a Mercedes instead. That's simply two different wants. However Porsche has a strong competition with Yacht manufacturers because people do think about buying either a Porsche or a Yacht. So unless you have a completely state run market there is always the option of adressing a want in an entirely different way. Second, no business can have a monopoly on a large section of a market. E.g. Coca Cola could never sustain a monopoly on beverages as a whole because there are just too many variations to produce everything within one organization. So businesses concentrate on smaller segments of the market. The goal of a business therfore is a monopoly on a tiny, well defined segment of the market and that allows for a multitude of businesses in "neighboring" market segments. E.g. you can't have a monopoly on beverages but you could try for a monopoly on non-alcoholic beverages served in small to medium sized cinemas. Then I could specialize on huge cinema complexes or on alcoholic beverages or on theaters instead of cinemas or any other such thing. Or I could try to take away from you the small cinemas by specializing on small quantities or a better distribution channel.

I think there are some misconceptions here. When calculating the value of gold you can't just devide the amount of money in exchange by the amount of gold available. Because a lot of this money is only circulated because we have a fiat money system. There is money that only circulates in the financial sector without it ever getting into the real goods market. The amount of credit asked or given would also drastically decline when the credit money actually is worth something to someone which in turn will reduce the amount of intrest payed. So it's more like the amount of money in circulation will adapt to the value of gold and not the other way round. Instead of still thinking in terms of current dollar values think about the value of gold: If I were to take my 1/10th US eagle and go into a bakery, what amount of bread would I get for it? At the current gold price I should be getting about 25 kg of bread. I don't think that's too far from the truth. Even if it were twice as much, it still would mean gold will not rise above about twice the price it has today. I think that's within a reasonable range.

That makes sense. Thank you both.