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Some loopholes I see with Objectivism

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DougW

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When debating philosophy like this, all one can do is use logic and conjecture...

This is not true, and this is perhaps where you might be missing something here. Discussing philosophy necessarily DOES depend on building a model of the world and how it is and what exists in it, even if implicitly, because your every assumption and assertion depends on it. Disconnecting philosophy from the real world is rationalism and the major problem with the practice of analytic philosophy today. Rand was ultimately concerned with building a philosophy for living on this earth, as it is now, taking the facts of reality into account. So "debating" with nothing but conjecture and unsubstantiated logical phrases will not actually gain you anything.

I think one problem you are having is that you are starting with political philosophy. The political philosophy is a higher-level derivation of more basic principles in metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Rand's ideas about rights and politics are built upon answers to questions like "What IS a human?" and "How must a human live?". If you pass over those questions of course you will never understand where the political conclusions come from. Now, if you want to disagree with her conclusions to those more fundamental questions, that's fine, but we need to figure that out first. Starting with politics and working backwards is a bad call.

I may be going out on a limb by saying so but I think your frustration in the discussions here so far is that the other posters are actively refusing to discuss things on the terms you are presenting them. They are not doing that to mess with you. They're not trying to be demeaning, though that may be how it's coming across. The reason they are doing this is because from an Objectivist point of view the terms themselves are wrong, and so to discuss the topics on the same terms you are is to admit error from the start.

If you're willing to give it another shot, try thinking about the more basic questions and then work from there. Specifically, what does a human need to live as a human (not an animal)?

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Doug, I am having trouble finding a post in which someone personally insulted you and can't begin to understand why you would come onto this board to personally insult its longstanding members as you have RationalBiker.

One could come to the conclusion from your need to swing away from debate into ad hominem that you have no legitimate arguments to support your points and are now thumping your pudgy little fists on the floor in a sea of graham cracker crumbs whilst wetting yourself.

We wouldn't want that now would we?

So, if you have any interest in being anything other than a troll perhaps you can answer this question for me and then we can continue a mature debate on rational self interest.

*) If you want to assert that the wealthy doing A and B with their money would make the world a better place you must first prove that you have a rational right to concern yourself with other people's property. You must also prove that you, not having their fortune would better understand how to steward such a fortune.

If I have escalated the level of rhetoric I apologize. Biker's 'amen' quote above certainly seemed dismissive/demeaning to me, almost like a statement one would make after the person being spoken of had left the room.... That post came first. I responded to that one, and he followed with two additional responses, the second accusing me of making unproven assertions, which I never did. I never made ANY assertions! I asked questions. In every post I ask, "how can it be that...." or "how do we reconcile...." and after every post I get back an answer that says "you want this" or "you have a problem with that". If I'm not asking a question, then I'm starting the sentence with 'It seems to me..." I'm asking for a logical response. I just want someone to show me where I'm wrong...I'm not saying I can't be wrong...just asking to be shown logically, not with statements like "Handing out money irrationally will lead to..." when I never ever said to hand out money irrationally!

No one has ever addressed any of the logic....ever... just give me one post where someone says: "Well Doug, it's like this, when you give money to a stranger, even if only to educate them, we have done studies that indicate....., while our studies show that if the same person gives the same amount of money, or even more to a direct heir, the result is very different...."

And to your point. I clearly quoted a long piece of Rand text which answers your question. Did you miss that? here it is again:

"But man's responsibility goes still further: a process of thought that is not automatic nor "instinctive" nor involuntary - nor infallible. Man has to initiate it, to sustain it and to bear responsibility for its results. He has to discover how to tell what is true or false an how to correct his own errors; he has to discover how to validate his concepts, his conclusions, his knowledge; he has to discover the rules of thought, the laws of logic, to direct his thinking."

But in direct opposition to that concept I am told I shouldn't be questioning. I have no 'right' to question what people do with their property (I agree I have to right to tell them what to do, but why don't we all have the right to question everything? Rand's model asserts that if a businessman is acting irrationally, the marketplace of rational men will choose not to do business with him...how the heck can that happen if we aren't allowed to question what he does? How do we determine whether he is rational? I wish I had Virtue with me I remember another quote of Rand's where she takes apart "Judge Not, Lest Ye be Judged', and turned it around, saying the rational way to live is 'Judge, and prepare to be judged? How do you reconcile your final paragraph with that?

I never said I knew how to steward their fortunes. Never said I had a plan for giving that was loophole free. Never said about 90% of what you have claimed I said. I've asked questions that no one ever answered...including why it would not be an irrational choice to keep wealth beyond 10,000 lifetimes worth of resources... When I can't get an answer to something, it is not that unreasonable of me to assume that you have no answer. If I am wrong, please tell me what the reason is?

Now I am getting a response (not from you, the next post) that indicates I am going about the asking incorrectly. But no indication of what the right method would be.

Is it that there can be no debate? You either agree with what we say or get out? Is Rand's philosophy to be a dead-end, never changing, never being modified to remove errors, never adapting to a chaniging world? I hope not. As I have said repeatedly throughout this post, I agree with a huge amount of what she said, but can see flaws or loopholes in the totality of her philosophy.

Is troll worse than beatnik poet by the way?

Edited by DougW
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I did not read the rest of this discussion but this is what I am seeing as the main issue:

I am new to this forum, and not an expert on either Rand or Objectivism by any stretch, but I have read her 3 most popular books (Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged and Anthem), and read a bit of the forums. I think the biggest 'loophole' in objectivism

You can get a general idea of the philosophy from the fiction but thats about it, a general idea, unless you really dig into all of the different little transactions and situations in each one. I think you would be on a much more firm basis for debating Objectivism and identifying "loopholes"/"issues" if you read the non-fiction. I suggest you pick up Virtue of Selfishness and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. A lot of the questions or statements you are making are easily disproven or corrected if you read those books. Most of the issues you are coming up with are based on misconceptions/misinterpretations. No matter what philosophy it is you aren't really going to get the "meat" i.e. proper understanding of it through fiction works, a perfect example being Thus Spake Zarathustra (Nietzsche's fiction work).

I think the thing that would help you most though, and its FREE, is if you go to the ayn rand institute website and register on there. You will then see an option on the semi-top right that says registered users page or something of that nature. Click that and you will be able to see some of Peikoff's radio podcasts and there will be things on the right side you can click to go the the multimedia library and ARI lectures. Theres like 40 audio podcasts/interviews, mostly Ayn Rand herself (no better way to get the right explanation from the Objectivist standpoint) on a large range of specific issues. You should listen to some of those. They are all like 30 minutes long at least and a decent amount of them an hour, and thats not including the ones that have an additional half hour or hour with a Q&A session.

Edited by Jennifer
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But in direct opposition to that concept I am told I shouldn't be questioning. I have no 'right' to question what people do with their property (I agree I have to right to tell them what to do, but why don't we all have the right to question everything?

You can question such things, of course. You can ask yourself why Howard Hughes was so irresponsible as to leave no will, for example, or whether Bill Gate's foundation actually accomplishes something. You can even question Bill gates himself, if you cna get to him. But you don't have a right to amke Bill Gates, or the Microsoft janitor, to account himself to you on how he manages his money. In either case it's his money and he's ultimately responsible for it. He owes you nothing, certainly not explanation.

As for studies, well, it's not rigorous, but it should serve: compare the economic development of the Soiet Union and, later, the rest fo the Communist coutnries, to that of America and the other semi-free countries in Europe, Asia and elsewhere.

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This is not true, and this is perhaps where you might be missing something here. Discussing philosophy necessarily DOES depend on building a model of the world and how it is and what exists in it, even if implicitly, because your every assumption and assertion depends on it. Disconnecting philosophy from the real world is rationalism and the major problem with the practice of analytic philosophy today. Rand was ultimately concerned with building a philosophy for living on this earth, as it is now, taking the facts of reality into account. So "debating" with nothing but conjecture and unsubstantiated logical phrases will not actually gain you anything.

I think one problem you are having is that you are starting with political philosophy. The political philosophy is a higher-level derivation of more basic principles in metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Rand's ideas about rights and politics are built upon answers to questions like "What IS a human?" and "How must a human live?". If you pass over those questions of course you will never understand where the political conclusions come from. Now, if you want to disagree with her conclusions to those more fundamental questions, that's fine, but we need to figure that out first. Starting with politics and working backwards is a bad call.

I may be going out on a limb by saying so but I think your frustration in the discussions here so far is that the other posters are actively refusing to discuss things on the terms you are presenting them. They are not doing that to mess with you. They're not trying to be demeaning, though that may be how it's coming across. The reason they are doing this is because from an Objectivist point of view the terms themselves are wrong, and so to discuss the topics on the same terms you are is to admit error from the start.

If you're willing to give it another shot, try thinking about the more basic questions and then work from there. Specifically, what does a human need to live as a human (not an animal)?

I already understand about living as a human, not an animal. There is a particular logical flow I have a problem with:

1) A=A

2) Man must live as man

3) To live as a man, you must be rational, focused, conscious. You must live for your own self-interest.

4) Self-interest does not mean by 'whim' or 'desire'. It is only because self-interest creates a more rational world that we can conclude that there is no conflict of interest among rational men. (i.e. rational is rational not 'rational only for me' or 'rational only for you')

5) We must constantly judge and be prepared to be judged. If we find irrationality we must defeat it.

6) Having any concern with how an individiual acts with regard to his property is irrational (I don't get how that fits)

7) It could be rational to do something sometimes but not others (don't get that either)

6 and 7 are representations of what I have been told here. Number 6 is proof of how I am wrong to even question what a person does with their property. But that simply can't be true all the time. If a neighbor sets fire to his woodlands, I would certainly have a right to be concerned about the effect on my property. Likewise, if a neighbor continually overvalues his contribution to the economy, and removes much more than what his efforts indicate he should get, I should be concerned. In a completely rational world, rational buyers would simply not trade with this person, rational workers would not work for him. But we don't live in a completely rational world, and I don't think that if we believe he is being irrational we should just 'not be concerned'. Likewise I just don't get how giving something to a stranger who has not earned the compensation (whether that is an education or food or money) would result in that person becoming lazy, irrational, etc., but giving money to your heirs when you die won't make them lazy or irrational, etc. I get that you can do whatever you want, but it seems to me that either it would be harmful to both (and what would you want to harm your loved ones??) or it wouldn't be harmful to either (and the argument about harm when giving to strangers is not really true, but it sells better to the public...)

Anyway... Again, I'm not trying to make anyone mad....as you said it's frustrating, and I was feeling like I was being dismissed...

Edited by DougW
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Dude, grow up!

Done that.

When debating philosophy like this, all one can do is use logic and conjecture

...and examples but who's counting, right?

of course, you've never debated philosophy, just spouted your beliefs, misstated what others have said and contibuted nothing....

Great, now the ad hominem starts. Way to use "logic and conjecture". There are many examples in my many posting on this forum to demonstrate otherwise, but I can see conjecture means more to you than proof or example.

I can see no further use in discussing this with you at this point.

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You can question such things, of course. You can ask yourself why Howard Hughes was so irresponsible as to leave no will, for example, or whether Bill Gate's foundation actually accomplishes something. You can even question Bill gates himself, if you cna get to him. But you don't have a right to amke Bill Gates, or the Microsoft janitor, to account himself to you on how he manages his money. In either case it's his money and he's ultimately responsible for it. He owes you nothing, certainly not explanation.

As for studies, well, it's not rigorous, but it should serve: compare the economic development of the Soiet Union and, later, the rest fo the Communist coutnries, to that of America and the other semi-free countries in Europe, Asia and elsewhere.

D'kian,

I agree completely. I don't want any legislation about what people should or shouldn't do with their money. Admittedly I like the idea that Melinda Gates convinced Bill to give away a vast bulk of his wealth at his death. In fact she did so by convincing him that saddling his children with 80 B of unearned capital would probably ruin their lives, removing any understanding of the pride of self-accompliushment. Don't know your feelings on this but I'm hoping you don't think it is a mistake.

As for the comparison of Communism to America, again, I'm completely not getting why you would say that! I never ever advocated communism. In fact, let's take a minute and compare what I have been saying using your example:

In which country is there more voluntary 'giving' by wealthy individuals to the less fortunate, the former USSR or America? And how has the ecomony in that country fared with regard to the other? Clearly the answer is that there was NO voluntary giving by wealthy individuals in the former USSR. There was a huge corrupt system of government officials controlling the distribution of all wealth. In the United States, there is significant voluntary giving, and the US has a better economy. So my suggestion using your example proves my point, that voluntary giving leads to increased rationality, and better economic outcome.

That's where we have differed all along. I am saying that working the system to try and elevate yourself to 'king-like' status economically is irrational. For many reasons, from the probability that your contribution almost certainly doesn't merit that compensation, to the probability that the world will be less rational if the resources are so concentrated among the wealthy that millions upon millions have no food shelter chloting, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, no education which could be used to elevate themselves.

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Dude, grow up! So you don't agree with me...guess what, I don't agree with you either. As I said, I presented logical arguments...again, you misstate my words as you did in EVERY ONE of your posts! I never said I ACTUALLY demonstrated anything, because, duh, It would be kinda hard to build a model of the world that has been populated by millions of people for the several thousand years we've had civilization....and guess what, Rand ALSO didn't ACTUALLY demonstrate anything...unless you are so far gone you think AS was a true story. When debating philosophy like this, all one can do is use logic and conjecture...of course, you've never debated philosophy, just spouted your beliefs, misstated what others have said and contibuted nothing.... unless I'm missing some logical statement in your most recent post....lemme re-read it.... nope!

You DO realize that she wrote more than just fiction works right? She demonstrates plenty of things with large amounts of examples from third parties and history in many of her works, especially Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. You say you don't know much about Objectivism or Rand yet you make statements that make it seem as if you have read all of her works and understood them. You have had such a minute amount of material, all fiction no less that I don't think it's right for you to make such assertions.

I don't know if he was misinterpreting you because I did not read all of these posts but he is saying your making suggestions without proper reasoning behind them.

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Done that.

...and examples but who's counting, right?

Great, now the ad hominem starts. Way to use "logic and conjecture". There are many examples in my many posting on this forum to demonstrate otherwise, but I can see conjecture means more to you than proof or example.

I can see no further use in discussing this with you at this point.

On the grow up comment, I apologize. As I mentioned earlier, your 'amen' response seemed a bit dismissive... I overreacted.

Second examples ARE using logic and conjecture. It's not a proof, because the exact circumstances you are trying to prove don't exist.

Third, I didn't use Ad Hominem. Ad Hominem would be something like "how could one ewxpect a 'biker' to have a rational argument...and I never said anything like that. I specifically said that in this thread you didn't use any logic in your arguments. That is not ad hominem. Also, the fact that you have posted a lot doesn't indicate anything about whether you are right or wrong. If it does. I'll just keep posting until I'm right all the time...

I'm sorry if you don't want to engage on this...I would think that if you really wanted Objectivism to become widespread, you'd understand that you'll need to convince a lot of people who start off with wrong opinions. If you simply dismiss them because they ask for proof, or because they aren't convince by your first argument, how can you ever spread your philosophy widely enough to actually bring rationality to the world?

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I think Jennifer has your number, Doug.

I think the best option right now is for you to walk away from this thread - that's it, don't click on "reply", go read all the material you're not reading by spending time discussing on this thread with but a minuscule knowledge of the subject, and then when you have armed yourself intellectually you can come back and address whatever points you want to make with actual knowledge to back up your arguments. Right now you're trying to navigate a building in absolute darkness and you're hoping that every time you slam against a wall you'll be one stop closer to finding out where to go. Just flip on the light switch.

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You DO realize that she wrote more than just fiction works right? She demonstrates plenty of things with large amounts of examples from third parties and history in many of her works, especially Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. You say you don't know much about Objectivism or Rand yet you make statements that make it seem as if you have read all of her works and understood them. You have had such a minute amount of material, all fiction no less that I don't think it's right for you to make such assertions.

I don't know if he was misinterpreting you because I did not read all of these posts but he is saying your making suggestions without proper reasoning behind them.

Jennifer,

I admit I'm not an expert. I did not make assertions. I keep asking questions. I bought 'Virtue of Selfishness' and read it after the first couple of posts, noting that in it Rand herself says that all of her philosophy is contained in Atlas Shrugged, which I have read twice.

I will get and read more on Objectivism as I can. I believe I understand what I am reading. The main thing I have problems with, and am asking questions about, is that there seems to be a 'sacred' aspect to immense wealth. In my mind (and only in mine, I make no claims on anyone else), amassing huge amounts of money is no different from amassing political power or economic power. You have every right to do so if you want, but having power of any type does not absolve one from examination and judgement, nor does it abdicate one's responsibility to 'rationality'. I don't believe I have read anything an any of Rand's work that says differently. Yet, whan I ask if it is rational for a billionaire to choose keeping his wealth vs. using it to help others (spefically to help educate those born in abject poverty), in light of the fact that the billionaires life would not be significantly adversely affected, vs. the benefit of living in a world made more rational by educating these people, I am told that I am not allowed to ask this question. It is wrong. I have no right, etc. I had been hoping someone would instead use logic. In a few cases some people did do that, but I felt the logic was flawed (i.e. the billionaire spending the money on himself creates jobs, stimulates the economy, etc. but I pointed out that building the schools and buying the books, teaching, etc. also stimulates the economy, that in fact the economy is stimulated by how much is spent, not by who is is spent 'for'). But mostly I got responses that claimed I was pro-communist (I'm not), that I was saying there should be laws forcing people to give away their money (no, I'm not), or that I'm advocating giving the money to anyone who asks regardless of whether they can work or not (no, I'm not).

I'm very worried that we will never get to a rational world if we aren't willing to point out irrationality wherever we see it. If we think there is a rational world in which one person's contribution to production is worth 10,000 times as musc as another man's, when both men work hard, and both work full-time, that really scares me. While I don't have any hard data to prove that belief is wrong, I would ask for an example of a major corporation that went belly-up soon after the death of it's president CEO. I am saying that it is my belief that the primary way that businessmen get to be billionaires is by making irrational claims to the profits of production in virtually every transaction they make. Whenever there is work to be done and profit to be split, they assess their contribution to be much higher than it actually is. I said this earlier in the thread also, I rarely have found CEOs to be the smartes person in the room at meetings, but they are always the most ruthless...

Anyway, we differ about the best means to get to the same ends...a rational world. It's a very long thread, so I don't blame anyone for not reading it all, but I think that if you do, you woudn't say I was irrational, or making unsubstantiated claims. You'd probably say I was ADD, that I switched topics too much, maybe got too emotional...but I think you'd also see that people kept assigning beliefs to me I never stated (and don't have)....

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I think Jennifer has your number, Doug.

I think the best option right now is for you to walk away from this thread - that's it, don't click on "reply", go read all the material you're not reading by spending time discussing on this thread with but a minuscule knowledge of the subject, and then when you have armed yourself intellectually you can come back and address whatever points you want to make with actual knowledge to back up your arguments. Right now you're trying to navigate a building in absolute darkness and you're hoping that every time you slam against a wall you'll be one stop closer to finding out where to go. Just flip on the light switch.

OK....

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OK....

I agree that I think you are arguing in mid-stream. You are making moral arguments contrary to Objectivism. I would definitely recommend "The Virtue of Selfishness" and "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal." At that point, you may still have those same nagging questions, but at least you will have read the correct replies to what issues you are bringing up. For one thing, it sounds like you hold the idea that if Bill Gates or someone else has billions, then he must have gotten them from someone -- zero sum gain attitude implying that he didn't do anything to earn those billions. I like the Windows operating system and Internet Explore and I pay for those and similar software when necessary to upgrade, so I definitely get a benefit. It's not as if Bill gets something from me and I get nothing from him -- I get a computer that works and he gets money and we are both satisfied in that arrangement. Likewise for anyone else making a fortune by selling products.

you mentioned earlier that you don't see the difference between political, economic, and military power, and those are premises you need to check by reading the suggested books. There is a big difference between those powers. Bill Gates does not have the power to point a gun at me and make me do things, whereas someone with political power or military power does have those possibilities. All an individual with money or products can do is to offer me a value for my voluntary acceptance or rejection -- he can't force me to buy his products. At this point, the government is trying to force us to pay for health care insurance under the threat of a heavy fine if we don't comply, that is political power. And Russia can come in and try to take over a country with military might. But businessmen don't have those types of powers -- only the power to offer a product or service.

Please, read "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" for more economic understanding and "The Virtue of Selfishness" for more of a moral understanding of Objectivism.

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you mentioned earlier that you don't see the difference between political, economic, and military power, and those are premises you need to check by reading the suggested books. There is a big difference between those powers. Bill Gates does not have the power to point a gun at me and make me do things, whereas someone with political power or military power does have those possibilities.

I think it is fairly obvious that what he means is that economic power can buy both political and paramilitary and military power in most of not every existing nation on earth. I don't agree with anything he said, but I thought it would be useful to clarify.

You know it damn well as in those same books you mentioned, Ayn Rand accuses the lobbists of doing just that.

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You know it damn well as in those same books you mentioned, Ayn Rand accuses the lobbyists of doing just that.

That's not the case at all. What Ayn Rand demonstrates is that political pull under our current system would not be there under full capitalism. In other words, if the government only protected individual rights as it is supposed to, there would be no need for lobbyists to try to gain special favors against laws that might come up. Right now, we do not have capitalism, but rather a mixed economy, and with the government intruding more and more into our lives and into business practices, yes, being a lobbyist is necessary for self-defense of those companies. As it is with our government trying to force the purchasing of health care insurance onto us, the insurance industry better get involved so they are not total slaves to the government at no profit. If the government was not involved in such dealings, then there would be no need for the insurance companies to get involved -- since under capitalism they wouldn't be made slaves in the first place.

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That's the point, we don't live under full capitalism, that's why courts can't prevent money to buy political and brute power.

That's true, but capitalism is something we ought to be fighting for. Under our current system of mostly freedom and a high mix of controls, there will necessarily be injustices and some people buying political power by buying a senator or two; but that is what we have to fight against. If we reduced the government to only providing defense of individual rights, these issues wouldn't even come up, and the only way to fight them is to push for capitalism and get the government out of the economy. Nonetheless, having money or earning money is still not the same thing as political pull; and it is not the same thing as military power. having that money in and of itself does not mean that those people are going to run to the government for special favors. And if they do run to the government to force something on us, they are immoral. Aside from force and fraud, the government ought to stay out of economics altogether.

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Couldn't agree more. Now I don't know where or when or how that separation will take place. The separation of religion and state has taken a long time and is not only not fully finished (As in muslim states, and some catholic) but even recurring (as in the state of Israel which carries the shield of david in its flag). So how to implement that separation, or is it happening gradually and we fail to notice?

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If we think there is a rational world in which one person's contribution to production is worth 10,000 times as musc as another man's, when both men work hard, and both work full-time, that really scares me. While I don't have any hard data to prove that belief is wrong, I would ask for an example of a major corporation that went belly-up soon after the death of it's president CEO. I am saying that it is my belief that the primary way that businessmen get to be billionaires is by making irrational claims to the profits of production in virtually every transaction they make. Whenever there is work to be done and profit to be split, they assess their contribution to be much higher than it actually is. I said this earlier in the thread also, I rarely have found CEOs to be the smartes person in the room at meetings, but they are always the most ruthless...

Look past the range of the moment, you who cry that you fear to compete with men of superior intelligence, that their mind is a threat to your livelihood, that the strong leave no chance to the weak in a market of voluntary trade. What determines the material value of your work? Nothing but the productive effort of your mind—if you lived on a desert island. The less efficient the thinking of your brain, the less your physical labor would bring you—and you could spend your life on a single routine, collecting a precarious harvest or hunting with bow and arrows, unable to think any further. But when you live in a rational society, where men are free to trade, you receive an incalculable bonus: the material value of your work is determined not only by your effort, but by the effort of the best productive minds who exist in the world around you.

"When you work in a modern factory, you are paid, not only for <as_979> your labor, but for all the productive genius which has made that factory possible: for the work of the industrialist who built it, for the work of the investor who saved the money to risk on the untried and the new, for the work of the engineer who designed the machines of which you are pushing the levers, for the work of the inventor who created the product which you spend your time on making, for the work of the scientist who discovered the laws that went into the making of that product, for the work of the philosopher who taught men how to think and whom you spend your time denouncing.

"The machine, the frozen form of a living intelligence, is the power that expands the potential of your life by raising the productivity of your time. If you worked as a blacksmith in the mystics' Middle Ages, the whole of your earning capacity would consist of an iron bar produced by your hands in days and days of effort. How many tons of rail do you produce per day if you work for Hank Rearden? Would you dare to claim that the size of your pay cheek was created solely by your physical labor and that those rails were the product of your muscles? The standard of living of that blacksmith is all that your muscles are worth; the rest is a gift from Hank Rearden.

"Every man is free to rise as far as he's able or willing, but it's only the degree to which he thinks that determines the degree to which he'll rise. Physical labor as such can extend no further than the range of the moment. The man who does no more than physical labor, consumes the material value-equivalent of his own contribution to the process of production, and leaves no further value, neither for himself nor others. But the man who produces an idea in any field of rational endeavor—the man who discovers new knowledge—is the permanent benefactor of humanity. Material products can't be shared, they belong to some ultimate consumer; it Is only the value of an idea that can be shared with unlimited numbers of men, making all sharers richer at no one's sacrifice or loss, raising the productive capacity of whatever labor they perform. It is the value of his own time that the strong of the intellect transfers to the weak, letting them work on the jobs he discovered, while devoting his time to further discoveries. This is mutual trade to mutual advantage; the interests of the mind are one, no matter what the degree of intelligence, among men who desire to work and don't seek or expect the unearned.

"In proportion to the mental energy he spent, the man who creates a new invention receives but a small percentage of his value in terms of material payment, no matter what fortune he makes, no matter what millions he earns. But the man who works as a janitor in the factory producing that invention, receives an enormous payment in proportion to the mental effort that his job requires of him. And the same is true of all men between, on all levels of ambition and ability. The man at the top of the intellectual pyramid contributes the most to all those below him, but gets nothing except his material payment, receiving no intellectual bonus from others to add to the value of his time. The man at the bottom who, left to himself, would starve in his hopeless ineptitude, contributes nothing to those above him, but receives <as_980> the bonus of all of their brains. Such is the nature of the 'competition' between the strong and the weak of the intellect. Such is the pattern of 'exploitation' for which you have damned the strong.

"Such was the service we had given you and were glad and willing to give. What did we ask in return? Nothing but freedom. We required that you leave us free to function—free to think and to work as we choose—free to take our own risks and to bear our own losses—free to earn our own profits and to make our own fortunes—free to gamble on your rationality, to submit our products to your judgment for the purpose of a voluntary trade, to rely on the objective value of our work and on your mind's ability to see it—free to count on your intelligence and honesty, and to deal with nothing but your mind. Such was the price we asked, which you chose to reject as too high. You decided to call it unfair that we, who had dragged you out of your hovels and provided you with modern apartments, with radios, movies and cars, should own our palaces and yachts—you decided that you had a right to your wages, but we had no right to our profits, that you did not want us to deal with your mind, but to deal, instead, with your gun.

Edited by Plasmatic
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On the grow up comment, I apologize.

Accepted.

As I mentioned earlier, your 'amen' response seemed a bit dismissive... I overreacted

The amen part of that was not even directed at you though the second part was. I said then, and I maintain now that your concern with the property of other people is the problem. If they acquire the money by legitimate means that does not violate the rights of other people, and they don't use it to violate the rights of other people, it is none of your legitimate concern what they do with it. IF you actually wanted to provide some argument as to why it would be in their rational self-interest to spend their money the way you think they should, then that is the argument I'm waiting for. Instead, if you are not asserting, you are at the very least strongly assuming that spending their money on schools in Somalia (or some such act) is the most rationally self-interested thing they can do with what you have decided is their excess money. I'm asking why are you assuming that and why do you think you get to decide what is too much for someone else (as long as it is legitimately acquired) such that you can say they should use it in some other way than they decide for themselves.

You won't get an answer to your question when a fair part of your premise is mistaken in the first place. IF you establish why your premise is valid, perhaps your question would be meaningful.

Also, the fact that you have posted a lot doesn't indicate anything about whether you are right or wrong.

And that's what you took from that? The thought never crossed you mind that maybe if you checked the content of some of those many posts that perhaps you might find evidence contrary to your assertion that I have never debated logically before?

The proof is not in the numbers, it's in reading the posts.

I'm sorry if you don't want to engage on this...

You don't have to be sorry for an erroneous assumption... well maybe you do. It's not that I'm not engaging this, I'm telling why it cannot be engaged in the framework you are presenting.

If you simply dismiss them because they ask for proof

What proof are you asking for? That the concept of "property" or "ownership" is legitimate?

If you simply dismiss them because they ask for proof, or because they aren't convince by your first argument, how can you ever spread your philosophy widely enough to actually bring rationality to the world?

By getting them to check the premises of their framing of the context in this case.

Edited by RationalBiker
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And to your point. I clearly quoted a long piece of Rand text which answers your question. Did you miss that? here it is again:

"But man's responsibility goes still further: a process of thought that is not automatic nor "instinctive" nor involuntary - nor infallible. Man has to initiate it, to sustain it and to bear responsibility for its results. He has to discover how to tell what is true or false an how to correct his own errors; he has to discover how to validate his concepts, his conclusions, his knowledge; he has to discover the rules of thought, the laws of logic, to direct his thinking."

Caught in your own trap I'm afraid, Doug, if you are using this quote to illustrate why someone else's money is of your concern. Your problem here seems to be a basic misunderstanding of Rand's use of pronouns.

Note Ayn Rand said:

"He has to discover how to tell what is true or false an how to correct his own errors"

..not his neighbors' errors his OWN errors

"he has to discover how to validate his concepts, his conclusions, his knowledge"

not his neighbors' concepts, conclusions and knowledge

"he has to discover the rules of thought, the laws of logic, to direct his thinking"

again, his OWN thinking is his to direct, not his neighbors'

We are having an issue of basic premise here.

As to your arguing that we refuse to answer your questions on the level I can only put it this way:

I can only point out that the premise of your question is so faulty that an answer is impossible.

If you were to ask "why is the sun green"?

I could only answer "first of all, the sun is not green, when you come to understand the correct colour of the sun I will explain further".

If your question is "how should a billionaire spend their extra money"?

I can only answer that there is no such thing as extra money.

Not only that but you are getting into subjective statements with Objectivists which will never do.

We assert that a man's property is his own. Period. Of no one's concern but his own. Period.

(so long as he doesn't use it to violate another individual's rights)

You said earlier that your concern was with persons who had "more money than they and four generations of their family can ever spend".

You just went subjective. Different families, different generations could have different spending patterns. One family's "enough for several lifetimes" is another family's "enough for five years".

By stating that a group with a certain wealth should be judged (by whom?) as having too much (according to who?) you are in fact creating a special, discriminated against class. You would need to be saying that private property is private property for A B and C but not for D.

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Hi, I am new to this forum, and not an expert on either Rand or Objectivism by any stretch, but I have read her 3 most popular books (Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged and Anthem), and read a bit of the forums. I think the biggest 'loophole' in objectivism from what I have seen so far is that while it gives a clear description of how to act at a high level, it seems to give little guidance in gray areas, and in fact can be construed to be encouraging what many people would consider bad behavior. I can think of a few examples where this can be pointed out.

One example is the CEO of a drug company has a cure for a deadly disease....does he release the drug at an etremely low profit margin to everyone, thus saving thousands of lives, or does he use his business and marketing skills to extract as much money from the marketplace as possbile, allowing many to die (it's important to remember in this example that the highest return from the marketplace will be selling less of the drug at a much higher price...if everyone can afford it then you have not priced it correctly!).

Now if your answer to that is that a follower of objectivism would always choose the path that preserves human life, OK, all we have to do is lower the sights of the example slightly....say that instead of a deadly disease, the drug company has a cure for some basic allergies....nothing that will kill anyone, but certainly something that is the cause of some not-insignificant suffering to many people....again, what should the actions of the CEO be in that case. If he is always thinking of his own interests, how could he choose anything other than to raise the price of the drug and limit it's distribution?

And you can also bring the example waaaay down to the level that we all deal with every day...the owner of a small business is about to set pay guidelines for his company. If he knows that the economy is bad, and many people are out of work, should he lower pay across the board to his employees, knowing that they will be afraid to quit in the current economic climate, and keep all the extra money for himself? You might argue that if he is thinking rationally, he would realize that the 'bad will' he will generate from lowering salaries will have more value than the immediate gain of cash he would receive, but what if his intention is to sell the business in a few years, before that equation could tip?

Anyway, its these gray areas that are the biggest problem with objectivism, that and the fact that it seems to imply an inherent trust in individuals with great power to do the right thing, when in fact it seems that the more power someone has the less likely they are to do the right thing....

First, welcome to the forum. From reading your post, I understand the source of your confusion. Think about how you are defining "right" and "wrong." Objectivism does not define right and wrong based on majority opinion. Reality is not determined by majority opinion. Gravity exists whether you acknowledge it or not. The earth is not flat, regardless of how many people know it or not. Reality is mind independent. The good is also not defined in terms of how much you sacrifice. In Altruism, it is. Different versions of that moral code have ruled over much of the earth during recorded history, with disasterous results. Let's examine your example of the CEO and the drug company.

Everything we have is the product of a human's mind. Drugs are developed by individuals or corporations. No one can exist without the right to the product of his/her labor. Drugs cost resources to produce and are valued commodity. That is why they are produced in the first place. A life saving drug is more valuable to you than your iPod, that is why you would be willing to pay more for it than you would for an iPod. Price is an objective quantitative measure of how much a product is valued. However, value is subjective on an individual basis. You might be willing to pay more for a drug than I am, that is why you would get it before I would. A rational CEO will seek to maximize his firm's total profit, not necessarily his profit margin. Profit Margin = Profit / Revenue (simplified). Profit = Revenue - Cost (again simplified). Observe that a high profit margin does not neccessarly equal maximum profit. There exists an inverse relationship between price and quantity demanded which must also be taken into account. Also, consider how you characterized the CEO depending whether he was earning a low profit margin vs. a high profit margin. You use the phrase "saving lives" in the former vs. "allowed to die" in the latter. Regardless of how much a drug company, doctor, or nurse charges for life saving treatment, more lives are saved with treatment than without. If 20 out of 100 people are treated, 20 lives were saved. To say that the doctor, nurse, or drug company "allowed 80 people to die" implies that they were in responsible for the illness in the first place, which is not the case.

Don't take this analysis as a personal attack :)

Edited by Mixon
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Caught in your own trap I'm afraid, Doug, if you are using this quote to illustrate why someone else's money is of your concern. Your problem here seems to be a basic misunderstanding of Rand's use of pronouns.

Note Ayn Rand said:

"He has to discover how to tell what is true or false an how to correct his own errors"

..not his neighbors' errors his OWN errors

"he has to discover how to validate his concepts, his conclusions, his knowledge"

not his neighbors' concepts, conclusions and knowledge

"he has to discover the rules of thought, the laws of logic, to direct his thinking"

again, his OWN thinking is his to direct, not his neighbors'

We are having an issue of basic premise here.

As to your arguing that we refuse to answer your questions on the level I can only put it this way:

I can only point out that the premise of your question is so faulty that an answer is impossible.

If you were to ask "why is the sun green"?

I could only answer "first of all, the sun is not green, when you come to understand the correct colour of the sun I will explain further".

If your question is "how should a billionaire spend their extra money"?

I can only answer that there is no such thing as extra money.

Not only that but you are getting into subjective statements with Objectivists which will never do.

We assert that a man's property is his own. Period. Of no one's concern but his own. Period.

(so long as he doesn't use it to violate another individual's rights)

You said earlier that your concern was with persons who had "more money than they and four generations of their family can ever spend".

You just went subjective. Different families, different generations could have different spending patterns. One family's "enough for several lifetimes" is another family's "enough for five years".

By stating that a group with a certain wealth should be judged (by whom?) as having too much (according to who?) you are in fact creating a special, discriminated against class. You would need to be saying that private property is private property for A B and C but not for D.

Quo,

I'm really sorry that I am posting again, after I said I wouldn't, but it seemed like your response was addressed to me to elicit a response.

I understand the logic you are using, but I disagree with it. How can a man direct his own actions rationally if he does not ask 'what is rational?' If I were to ever (lol) be faced with the dilemma of having a few billion dollars and need to decide what to do with it, how could I possibly make a rational decision, if all through my life whenever I asked what kind of spending is rational or irrational I was told 'hush, now, that's none of your business.' Also, in the same book, Rand later followed up with the statement 'Judge, and prepare to be judged' as the rational way to live. I believe that Rand would say that you can (and even should) discuss, have opinions, and share those opinions about anything that anyone is doing. It is only if you either refuse to use your mind, to think, to be conscious OR if you act that you can be irrational. So, by that logic, my saying that I believe the acts of certain people with regard to their property is irrational should be fine. If I advocate making laws to prohibit their use of their property (I haven't and wouldn't), if I act to harm them or restrict them in any way (I haven't and wouldn't) then I would be irrational.

And later you say that 'I' went subjective. But in reality, for the point in question, my position is Objective and yours is Subjective! My one error is not putting the word 'rational' in my argument, as in: '...has enough money for a person to rationally care for himself, his family, their family, etc.' Now in an 'Objective' system, that amount is and must be the same everywhere, for everyone. It is purely 'Subjective' to say that the amount differs from person to person. Those are base definitions of objective and subjective, ( Objective = same answer from multiple reporters; Subjective = varies by the person or situation).

Lastly, you make the statement: "We assert that a man's property is his own. Period. Of no one's concern but his own. Period." Who is 'we' in this statement. Again, not to say I've read every word Rand ever wrote, but that statement was nowhere. What IS there is something that starts out the same, but ends differently "We assert that a man's property is his own, to dispose of as he wishes." If there is a quote by Rand that follows that up with this being 'no one's concern', I'll buy the book and read it and stand corrected, but I don't believe it exists.

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Doug, I have not been following this thread lately, but of course you can (and often should) draw judgments about what other people do, even where that person has the right to do what they're doing. Of course, we do not always know all the facts and motivations of others, but if we know enough, we can make judgments;and, if we don't know enough for that we can still make some contingent judgments. It sounds as though someone gave you the impression that one ought not to do so. If that's the case, that is wrong. One can make judgments. For example, I judge Bill Gates's recent turn of heart to be immoral, even though I fully support his right to blow his money. I don't simply stop at "it is his right to do what he wants with his money, so anything he does is fine". That would be confusing morality with politics. Insterad, I analyse whether a rational man would do what he is doing, and I see that a person might do so out of ignorance. Then, I listen to what he is saying to explain his behavior, and I realize that it is not ignorance but immorality.

Edited by softwareNerd
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