liberal

For the record, it wasn't a "concession post". I was asked by the moderater not to continue the debate.

CapitalistSwine, and most importantly, the moderator have called attention to the forum rules and as such I am not allowed to respond to the responses to my arguments. Further debate appears to have been disallowed because I have apparently not displayed the required deference to Objectivism by having "honest questions about Objectivism". Whatever that means. Apparently, I am not challenging Objectivism according to the moderator but merely spreading propaganda. Therefore, this concludes my participation in further discussion in this debate and my participation in this website. I concede nothing.

I'm sorry, I didn't see your PM. Just read it now and responded. I admit I did not read the forum rules but must I convert to Objectivism in order to continue this fascinating discussion? Is the debate section only for Objectivist students?

What is the cost to the other if they are sharing extra resources they don't require for their average level of comfort? How is dignity self made when all our resources come from the Earth and other living things?

You'll be surprised here because I regard scenario 3 as perfectly acceptable but equally acceptable with the socialist scenario. As I said previously, I regard both capitalism and socialism (scenario 2) as important to our survival as a species. Both are imperfect but I believe they should exist side by side and be employed as solutions when and where the other fails such as in the case A having nothing of value to other B. Anything to avoid scenario 1. So yes, capitalism has survival benefits.

Okay to answer. Now I'm going to try to explain an interesting point about cooperative sharing and competition. Cooperative sharing is not a form of dependence on others. Competition is the actual form of dependence. This is easily observable in the example of two members of different species competing over the entirety of a kill that one has made. Because the two animals cannot negotiate an equal division of the resources, the loss of the resource by the one is felt as a "dependence" by the other. Cooperative sharing is compatible with independence because no one is actually being depended on in cooperative sharing. Cooperative sharing of resources is only the sharing of extra resources among a group by a member who does not require those resources to maintain an average degree of comfort. So, as long as the procurer of a resource keeps enough to sustain their average degree of comfort, no loss or dependence is felt. The dependence is on the Earth.

I will. Just breaking for dinner.

Doesn't matter. You're talking about conditions and time spans. That is irrelevant to my point. I'm talking the measure of independence from others acquired from time + effort. OMG you people don't get it.

What do you mean, "Well done"? He's done nothing.

Wrong. It's either way. One is preferable to the other but, when someone is refusing to cooperate, the force solution is totally justifiable.

I provide countless examples and facts through this thread. It is up to you if you want to ignore them. Scenario 1: Fact: All living beings need resources to survive A is a living being and needs resource X to survive but has been unsuccessful in acquiring X itself B has acquired the resource X and refuses to divide X equally Result: A kills B and obtains resource X Scenario 2: Fact: All living beings need resources to survive A is a living being and needs resource X to survive but has been unsuccessful in acquiring X itself B has acquired the resource X and shares X with A Result: Both A and B survive

Are you waiting for further clarification of my points? My question to you regarding the "earned" and "unearned" was serious and I was waiting for your answer so we could proceed. But to address your main point, an inherent conflict of interest in the free market does indeed exist and is on active display all around us. I do not need to point out to you that millions of people work full time jobs with salaries that amount to nowhere near a living wage in the current industrialized environment. A living wage being an amount of compensation enough for an individual to provide for themselves the basic necessities for functional survival in the current industrialized modern environment without the need for outside assistance or combining salaries. Millions of people work 8 hours a day 5 days a week and still cannot support themselves alone. Is THIS the "exchange" you claim to be in their self interest? But the employers have no shame in accepting such an exchange because it is in their self interest to pay their employees as little as they possibly can. Just enough that they can come into work every day and be robbed of their time and effort without the dignity of a roof of their own over their head, day in day out. It seems to me it would be in an employees' self interest and expected of them to be able to fully support themselves, without assistance, after 8 hours of work a day 5 days a week. With these kind of "exchanges" we are better off in the wild. Imagine if you hunted 8 hours a day 5 days a week in the wild. Do you think you'd be able to support your own existence? The Native Americans worked far less hours than the typical American and they at least had the dignity of their work fully supporting their existence even if at a lower level technology. This "voluntary interaction" of the modern industrialized free market system is nothing short of a crime against humanity.

"The reality, again, being we are here to survive as a species and group, not just as individuals. We are a family." Let me rephrase that because you are partially right here. A more accurate sentence would be: Our self interests and survival are best ensured through cooperative sharing of resources.

You're first part doesn't really challenge the facts I've presented. I'm glad you agree cooperative sharing is a good thing because that is very important to understanding, not only why it is in a life forms self interest, but why withholding extra resources when they are needed by others is a detriment to an individual's survival. The exception you cite wouldn't really be cooperative sharing, but competition. As for the "earned" and "unearned", my position is you cannot fully earn a resource taken from the Earth. None of us have earned the Earth. None of us have earned the animals we've killed or plants we've harvested anymore than you earn a person when you kill them. When the Earth does not freely give these up to us through natural causes, we engage in competition to acquire these things for our survival. Competition is the unregulated taxation of Nature. Taxation is regulated competition. Because you are not on this planet alone, your effort does not give you a claim upon the whole of your acquired resources if they exceed an amount greater than required for your comfortable survival. If you recognize this and engage in cooperative sharing your survival chances will be increased. If you maintain your acquired extra resources are yours and yours alone, you run the risk of having to defend them in competition. Our axiom being: Competition, in any form, is a danger to the survival of the competitors.

You are assuming I postulated that animals were conscious that cooperative behavior served the interests of others. I never said that. The fact remains, cooperative behavior benefits both the survival of the individual and the group. I maintain it serves a beings' self interest to be cooperative and share their resources whether they know it or not. To not share resources leads to competition and is a detriment to the self interest and survival of the individual. Also my request to 2046 to define the "earned" and "unearned" was not a question for myself but for 2046. I know the answer. It has been over an hour since 2046 first responded to me. It seems "it" is taking longer than he expected. I am not going to exhibit much more patience in regards to refuting anymore very basic and clearly incomplete and misapplied refutations of my positions. If this debate is going to continue you are going to have to get someone in here who knows how to respond properly to my assertions. I am not going to go on refuting and deconstructing every misapplied challenge based on what is assumed I am saying or where my assertions are assumed to be taken. It's best not to assume anything with me. Just answer the assertion directly. And don't try to teach. Just answer.

Okay, tough guy. What is the "earned" and "unearned"?

And neither can capitalism without socialism. It reverts into social darwinism and members of the same species stop cooperating to the extent they have and the group fractures back into a solitary species.

If you really want to start a separate thread, let me know and in what forum and I will. But if your evidence of capitalism's superiority is going to be statistics that shows it is more productive, that is not necessarily a good thing when the destruction of the environment due to the pace of production is the result. So yes, capitalism can be more productive but be completely out of balance with its natural environment. It can be argued that a slightly less productive system (still of capitalism) but one that preserves its balance with the natural world is more desirable. As a small example, we can travel at 60mph in a gasoline vehicle that poisons our air and pollutes our rivers...or we can travel at slightly less speed in an electric vehicle and have clean air and rivers. The same can be applied to different systems: We can let only the lucky and able keep the full results of their production and let the others, less lucky and able, exist in a deprecated state of lack and misery and therefore in disharmony with those of their species that refuse to assist them, effectively living as separate species in competition with each other since all are driven by biology to obtain their survival needs by one means or another. Or we can employ some socialism and recognize that, in a "civilized" species, it is to the survival advantage of the procurer of resources to share regardless of who participated in its acquisition. To not share in this respect is to not recognize these individuals as members of your own species and invite competition. It is more efficient to survival to have less and harmony than have everything and competition. For thousands of years we existed in precarious competition with a certain species of wolf. But in sharing our resources with this separate species we reduced our degree of competition with them and introduced harmony to that part of our environment. What happened? We recognized that species need for a portion of earth's resources regardless of their initial competitive relationship with us. This increased our chances of survival. But beyond that idea that sharing reduces threats to us, there is simply no rational reason to keep for ourselves more than we need to survive with an average degree of comfort. Anything more is driven either by pure ego, material gluttony, envy, misanthropy or all of the above. In regards to forced taxation, what do you think competitive struggle is in nature? This is the taxation of survival. When one species forcibly attempts to encroach upon the resources of another species, it is because no other means of negotiation for procuring a portion of the resources necessary for its survival are possible to them. The species with the resources is unable to recognize the survival need for a portion of those resources by the species without those resources and so competitive disharmony results necessitating the need for the introduction of force endangering both competitors. It is observable in countless examples that members of different species, especially between humans and other species, that this introduction of force for resources does not occur when one species recognizes the others necessity for a portion of earth's resources.

If you really want to start a separate thread, let me know and in what forum and I will.

Not at all. I think most Objectivist are very well meaning people. They are just misinformed and misguided. So your claim that we are just trying to demonize you does not hold true for me. I'm saying when ideas start to fail in practice for someone, even if they are correct ideas, it can push that person, depending on their circumstances, into behaving in erratic ways. For instance, would the killer have shot up all those people if Giffords had lost re-election? I'm not here to demonize you. I am here to say things Objectivism would interpret as blasphemous and then defend them. I think the basic edifice of Objectivism is based on certain untruths. Namely, that we are all "entitled" to the full results of our "production" and no other adult is regardless of their situation. There are situations where you or I are NOT entitled to the full production of our "effort" regardless of how much we worked for it or how little others were involved in their acquisition. I think this practice Objectivists are advocating of proclaiming the totality of everything they acquire from the Earth whether through inheritance or effort as "mine" is ego driven, not reality driven. The reality, again, being we are here to survive as a species and group, not just as individuals. We are a family. Families don't cut others off because they are unable to work (or even unwilling) to exert effort as we are. Work itself, employment by others, is a relatively newly introduced construct to the Earth only to be found in humanity. There is no "employment" in the other animal species and still in some pre-modern human tribes. They all, whether alone or in cooperative groups, just go about collecting what they need for themselves from what is directly provided by their natural environment. Humans are the only species that have corrupted this natural fulfillment of survival needs by introducing a "middle man" (a dependency) between ourselves and the natural world. This practice of going through a "middle man" to obtain what we once could acquire ourselves directly from our environment has overtaken the planet and, whether through corruption of the environment or corruption of our minds, has removed us as individuals further and further from direct contact with our natural supplier, the Earth.

Ever hear of just voting them out of office?

Dude, are you serious right now? And in the Ethics forum?

Firstly, since there is no active, fully capitalistic example, you don't prove these things, the best we can do is infer and observe them from small instances of applications of principles we encounter. Secondly, since any examples of pure socialism that may have existed or exist today have been and are denied full interaction with the world due to pre-existing Western power plus later boycotts and trade embargos, we don't have an example of a socialist model operating in a world without political and socio-economic restraints. Thirdly, nor am I implying socialism is superior to capitalism. I maintain they are both of importance and can contribute, despite their flaws, to advancement toward the next socio-economic system and that they are both weakened, as all past organized socio-economic models have been, by their reliance on an unhealthy form of dependence between their participants. So I will not rescind it because there is no proof that capitalism IS the superior system. In addition, if you are implying the collarly that capitalism IS the superior system you'll never prove that. I have not implied that either system was superior to the other.

"Animal" is a very fitting choice of words to describe your reaction because my whole point has been that this competitiveness over resources is animal-like. And it's making you take this aggressive posture. I don't threaten your right to life because your life and mine doesn't depend on us hogging every single resource we each acquire through our own effort. Try to keep an open mind about this (yes, I know Ayn Rand has a retort for that suggestion too) but think about it: Wouldn't an animal, who could have no knowledge that their loss of a single meal wouldn't necessarily mean their starvation, act aggressive and competitive? That appears to be what's going on here. As if to share with our species means you or I are never going to eat again....and so your view is we must fight tooth and nail to protect our meal? But where do all of our resources come from? The Earth. For thousands of years the Earth gave humanity these things free. Think about this: There was a time when we picked fruit off trees for free. But today we have been trained to pick it from a shelf in a store and pay for it.

No, let's do forget that because that is not true. As far as premises, there is an inherent conflict of interest in the capitalist model of exchanging work for compensation or, indeed, in attempting to exchange anything of equal value. If the basis of your existence should be your self interest, both sides will want the most for the least they can give the other. It doesn't matter if some are fair, the conflict is always there and it leads to all the issues people have with one another. Number two, Capitalism and Socialism are two sides of the same coin and only differ in method of operation. They both require dependence. They both have their good and bad points but Capitalism is hardly a "superior" system, only different and with its own set of problems. Again, the main one being it perpetuates an unhealthy form of dependence and therefore leaves individuals locked in a perpetual struggle against each other. Incidentally, the free market is only a more evolved version of the principle of "whoever has the biggest gun wins". It's even right in the terminology capitalists freely use themselves: Competition. It's evolved Darwinism, a few steps removed from the combative and territorial existence of the lower animals only the weapons employed are not claws and teeth but access to resources and wealth. Thirdly, the advancement of humanity has not been primarily related to the individual keeping what they earn themselves but in the broad distribution of resources among its population, regardless of an individual members' direct participation in their acquisition. The gathering of individuals of a species into permanent groups enhanced the survival of the individuals as well as the species and for that to happen, competition between individuals of a species had to be reduced and cooperation increased and cultivated. If only those can who obtain resources by their own effort are entitled to keep all of those resources and are not obligated or refuse to share with a group of other members of their species, that group breaks down and is no longer a group species but a solitary one. In a group species, resources are obtained to advance the group. In a solitary species, resources, excepting pre-natal exchange, advance only the individual. Group species' or species that gather or organize in permanent clusters have more survival value for both the individual and the group. Notice that a pride of lions is far stronger than a bear because the lions cooperate as a group and the bear does not. That is because the individual lions within a pride have largely overcome their instinct for competition between each other over territory whereas the bear has not. So, this effects the bears' ability to cooperate in groups and therefore its ability to defend itself successfully against a pride of lions who can cooperate for defense. Also notice that the hyena, much smaller than most bears, because of its more advanced group cooperation, is able to challenge and harass lions on the plains. The underlying principle behind all this is: Competition, in any form, is a danger to the survival of the competitors. Today's advanced economic "competition" or free market is not a form of cooperation, it is the leftover territorial aggressiveness over natural resources.