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Is Objectivism Hopelessly Naive

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Swerve of Shore

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In response to my statement "But, although she is the creator, Rand is not the living embodiment of Objectivist ethics."

I don't quite understand this line. This is related to previous questions/posts in here of mine: What, in your estimation, would be an embodiment of Objectivist ethics? What sort of person would this be?

I was hoping folks would address this question, so let me say it more clearly. I did not intend to say anything about Rand's personal ethics. I have not studied her personal life and have no opinion there. The characters in Rand's books clearly show what sort of person would be a perfect embodiment of ethics. My statement was about the development of the Objectivist philosophy. On Rand's death, I would assume, Objectivism did not become fossilized. Rather, it continues to be developed by other thinkers and writers as well. I would suspect everyone in this forum agrees with this. A more interesting question to me is what those in this forum feel about what Rand did put into writing. Do you consider it infallible - like many Christian's view of the bible?

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Would you call the German National Socialist party "socialist"?

Excellent question about the NAZI’s. They clearly weren’t Left, but were they Socialist? Although it is something I would like to study, I have no answer. If you have thoughts on it, I would love to hear them.

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Atlas Shrugged is a novel. I.E. it is art and not a thesis on a philosophy. Rand used it to highlight a philosophy that she developed through the nature of the story she was telling, but it is till a story. A story abstracts the ideas and recreates them in the context of plot, drama, characterization, and a host of other things that are intended for the story, not the philosophy.

...

Anyway, the point is if you want to understand a philosophy then you need to actually read the work on it, not the art.

Quick question, Spiral Architect: Wouldn't you consider Galt's speech in AS to be a "work" on the philosophy rather than "art" around it. My sense was that, while obviously not absolutely comprehensive, it was a pretty thorough explanation of the philosophy. So much so that when I read the Virtue of Selfishness, I felt like I was getting very few new ideas out of it that Galt's speech had not already addressed.

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Excellent question about the NAZI’s. They clearly weren’t Left, but were they Socialist? Although it is something I would like to study, I have no answer. If you have thoughts on it, I would love to hear them.
I think there are two different but similar concepts that can be labelled "socialism".

We start with the more abstract idea of statism: where the state has sweeping control over individuals. We then focus on the economic side of statism: where the state has sweeping control over economic resources and economic decision-making. Control can be implemented in two ways. The state can take over ownership, or the state can retain a system of legal property/ownership rights, but tell owners what they will do with their resources. One could take over almost all resources like many European east-bloc countries did, or one could focus on productive resources (factories, shops, etc.), or one could focus on larger and more important productive resources alone.

Many Western European countries nationalized what they considered to be "core" or "large" industries" railways, coal-mines, steel-mills, telecoms, banks, hospitals, etc. The Russians and the Chinese implemented far-reaching socialism. Despite calling themselves the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, in public perception, the worst parts of their system were labelled "communism", and socialism itself ended up with slightly better press. I suppose this happened because people needed to distinguish between Soviet style widespread socialism versus (say) India's narrower socialism, and Western Europe's still narrower socialism.

The fascist model is to retain private businessmen and to allow them to reap profits, as long as their businesses serve state purposes: the idea being that the same purposes are served, but more efficiently.The Nazi's gave the term 'fascist" the color of death-camps, but there was a time when people would use it as a less loaded term. For instance, some statist thinkers criticized Roosevelt's NRA because it used fascist rather than socialist. Business organizations and labor organizations were left as significant power-centers, with a lot of discretion of how they could best serve the common-good. These thinkers argued for a more socialist model -- where bureaucrats had more direct control.

Both the USSR and the NAZI's explicitly named themselves socialists. Common usage has ended up calling those particular implementations "communist" and "fascist".

If "socialism" is used to describe a system where government has direct ownership of key productive assets, then what term does one have for the concept where government has extensive control of key productive assets, while retaining some aspects of private ownership? Are we prepared to use the term "fascist"?

Using the term "mixed-economy" has a huge problem: it does not offer any clue as to whether the gray is nearly white or nearly black.

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Quick question, Spiral Architect: Wouldn't you consider Galt's speech in AS to be a "work" on the philosophy rather than "art" around it. My sense was that, while obviously not absolutely comprehensive, it was a pretty thorough explanation of the philosophy. So much so that when I read the Virtue of Selfishness, I felt like I was getting very few new ideas out of it that Galt's speech had not already addressed.

The speech certainly does walk up to that line and Rand did cross it. Honestly, when I made the statement I thought of how art works quo art, independent of the speech which is a very unique phenomenon when you look at literature. The problem is people will look at a novel like Atlas Shrugged and immediately want to draw specifics away from it when many times the characters or actions are abstractions given concrete form as they relate to the story. There are other issues, like I knew someone who was constantly chagrinned because he felt he couldn’t be exactly like Hank Rearden, meet a Dagny, or gain the emotional reactions of Roark which is the wrong way to go about it. Things like the speech does break the fourth wall and can lead to this confusion, but it is important to abstract out the differences between from her philosophy (really every speech in the book) and art demonstrating only parts of that theory within the context of that story (the Wet Nurse, for example).

As for the speech, it was thorough and I'd imagine part of the three years she spent writing it was spent on trying to say everything she wanted within those 70+ pages!

That’s an interesting subject but I’ll leave it at that for a quick answer :)

Edited by Spiral Architect
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As a complete aside (and it’s been a while so please bare with me here) but it is important to note that Socialism versus Fascism really is the story of Left Socialism versus Right Socialism. Hegel popularized the idea of zeitgeist which had more to do with the inevitability of the race. Marx put “Hegel on his feet” by making socialism an international issue of class then added in his theories. This fundamental difference eventually would flow through others (Lenin and Heidegger if I’m not mistaken) to become (Left) Socialism through State action for the working class and (Right) Socialism for the race/nation. Thus National Socialism that was fascism is simply Right Socialism that was a form of collectivism centered on the race and nation versus the international worker struggles of the left version of collectivism. They simply argued over whom the collective was and the consequences. From there certain particulars formed from the division, for example Left Socialism is about State ownership of production while National Socialism “allowed” people to keep the means of production as long as the completely submitted to the Nation’s central planning.

It is important to point out that both forms did apply centralized planning and a gun awaited those who did not obey the public good. The only difference was that the public good was either the Proletariat or the Nation and both did demonize individual rights. The German’s even put it on their money: “The Common Good Goes Before The Interest Of The Individual.”

In the end, Stalin and Hitler were simply brothers of a different mother.

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"On Rand's death, I would assume, Objectivism did not become fossilized. Rather, it continues to be developed by other thinkers and writers as well. I would suspect everyone in this forum agrees with this. A more interesting question to me is what those in this forum feel about what Rand did put into writing. Do you consider it infallible - like many Christian's view of the bible?"

Actually, that first part you mentioned has a history of being a big source of contention. Most of the people here though are of the position that Objectivism is strictly the name for Rand's philosophy and direct applications of what she developed in her life time and that's it. That isn't to say though that anybody thinks Objectivism has covered all philosophic truth and/or that more things can't be come up with that are consistent and compatible with Objectivism. Those things just can't be called Objectivism, which is no big deal.

As for what she did write, there's plenty of things she wrote or said in her life time that lots of us disagree with. There are are a number of cases we know of where she changed her mind on something too. No human is infallible and we all have to think for ourselves and work with our own context of knowledge. That said, if the things you disagree with are core parts of Rand's philosophic system, you don't qualify for the term Objectivist and you can expect that you'll meet with lots of people who disagree with you on that topic on this forum. Doesn't necessarily mean anything bad about you or that we'll look down upon you as long as you are evidently really making an effort to think logically about the issue. At most such an honest disagreement will probably be regarded as a bit unfortunate since we expect acting on incorrect ideas leads to a negative impact on one's quality of life as compared to what it could be. As far as those of us who agree with the main philosophic writings and positions of Rand, we don't agree because we think the writer was incapable of error, we've just thought about the issues and concluded that the things in Objectivism make sense and things to the contrary do not make sense. Rand was capable of being wrong on these issues of philosophy, but we don't see any compelling reason to believe she actually was wrong. Things though where people often disagree with her which might not disqualify one from the term Objectivist are non-philosophic issues. A lot of people consider a small amount of commentary she made on things like gender and homosexuality to be matters of psychology and not philosophy really and think she was mistaken on those things. You definitely don't get disqualified from the term Objectivist for disagreements on things like a favorite food or pet choice or what car you think is best.

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Before letting this topic die, one final post. I feel we have gotten off on some interesting tangents, including the one I started on the Galt's Gulch / Utopia angle, but I would like to go basic to my main question. Going back and rereading posts, I found one by 2046 that captures the basic idea I was originally getting at.

I don't see the OP saying Rand thought moral behavior was a default behavior, I interpreted him as saying something like he takes Rand to believe that if we don't have governmental regulations of business, then we essentially are blindly trusting or assuming the wealthy and powerful elite will act in a non predatory way, like Rearden; whereas he thinks this naive, and so supports governmental regulations to control this unethical behavior.

In this case, I think he conflates two different meanings of capitalism, and possesses what I would consider a naive view about governmental regulations actually achieving his goal, rather than existing for the exact opposite reason.

Let me spell out my original question is further detail.

My discussion of the “from each … to each” maxim intended to make this point: the simplicity and naivete of that world view necessarily and inevitably leads to results that are contrary to those intended. That is, taking as a premise that altruism is a powerful enough force to lead to productivity and innovation will necessarily lead to stagnation and failure because the premise is false. And, attempting to achieve a system that harnesses human potential through the measurement of abilities and needs will necessarily lead to oppression and disaster because such measurement is impossible and therefore the evil and corrupt will make themselves the arbiters.

So, the question I was trying to posit was whether Objectivism’s premises would necessarily lead to failure if the attempt was made to implement them because the premises are too simplistic and naive. 2046 has hit on both of the aspects I had in mind. First, that the expectation that most "men of the mind" will naturally adhere to Objectivist ethics is naive. Second, that the focus on laissez-faire capitalism with minimal regulations was destined to failure because the level of regulations needed to insure all men of the mind will behave in line with Objectivist ethics is actually quite substantial.

On the first aspect, keeping in mind that it is merely a novel, Atlas Shrugged shows two extreme types of men. On the one hand, there are the men of the mind like Reardon, Francisco and Galt himself who do adhere more or less perfectly to Objectivist ethics. (Indeed, only Reardon is shown to have failings and then only on the personal, relationship front.) In opposition, are the looters and moochers who have neither "mind" nor "ethics". Even when they spout Collectivist slogans, they clearly don't believe them. The most obvious example of this type is Jim Taggart. My thesis is that most true "men of the mind," such as the Robber Barons of the early 1900s, also have questionable ethics. They are more than willing to use influence to achieve bad laws and regulations, and eagerly collude to eliminate competition. That is, the movers and shakers in real life are a combination of Reardon and Jim Taggart, not one or the other.

The second aspect is the one that can give rise to pages and pages, even books and books, of discussion. How much law and regulation is necessary to insure Objectivist ethics prevail? 2046 is quite right that many regulations do the opposite: for instance, the limitation of tax cab medallions in NYC stifles competition rather than fostering it, and serves no good purpose in terms of safety or health. But what about the Anti-Trust division of Justice? What about the EPA and the FDA? The latter two are bloated, but are still necessary - with considerable size and reach - in my opinion. The one area where principled Objectivists and principled Collectivists would be expected to disagree is in "positive" regulation instead of purely "negative" regulation. That is, to quote Wikipedia's Objectivism entry: "[R]ights are specifically understood to be rights to action, not to specific results or objects, and the obligations created by rights are negative in nature: each individual must refrain from violating the rights of others." [citing Peikoff 1991 p355]. So, anti-pollution regulations are not necessarily contrary to Objectivism, but regulations requiring insurance companies to cover birth control are.

I think this covers my thoughts much more clearly. I don't recommend getting into a discussion of Anti-Trust here since that is a huge and complicated topic worthy of its own thread. (For my part, I am not at all sure it is necessary - at least on a large scale - in this day and age when disruptive technologies flourish.)

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...taking as a premise that altruism is a powerful enough force to lead to productivity and innovation... ...
I'm not sure if I'm reading you right. According to Objectivism, altruism is evil. Objectivism holds selfishness to be moral. Rearden is selfish. He does what he does for fun and profit. If you look at today's innovators, even though many explicitly think altruism is moral, in their key productive achievements, they do what they do for fun and profit.

First, that the expectation that most "men of the mind" will naturally adhere to Objectivist ethics is naive.
Objectivism does not make any such assumption. I'm afraid you don't really understand the Objectivist position on politics. You're assuming it is the position of Adam Smith or the neo-Cons.

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Right so there's a lot in there. Why don't we try to capsulate it further into a single point or two and see if we can untangle it and make things more clearer. To Rand, humans are not "perfectible" in the sense you mean, e.g. Christian ethics holding something impossible to reach as the standard, then condemning men for failing to live up to it. Rather, to her, morality is based on man's nature and thus a realistic ethics has to consist in behavior possible to man. Where no choice is even possible, morality cannot be said to apply. Thus to her, and most other virtue ethicists in history, perfection means something more like doing one's best to act virtuously. It is something more like "moral ambitiousness."

Now that we've rescued Rand from the charge of moral utopianism, there is the political aspect that I think you also get wrong in a few crucial ways. You seem to think that the goal of political organization is to get man to act in accordance with objectivist ethics, that this would require substantial regulation, and thus, even if it's not utopian and impossible, it will be more than the minimal government that Rand envisioned.

Well hold on. The goal of political organization is to allow man to act morally, not to turn him into an objectivist, or even to make him moral. But more crucially, this isn't possible through politics. Central to the objectivist conception of morality is independence and autonomy. In seeking one's values, something that was foisted upon you through coercion cannot be of benefit to you. This is why Galt refuses to become dictator of America. He knows it's pointless. Every person needs to pursue is his interests from his own point of view, and that is why the non-aggression principle of a capitalist society is designed to protect the marketplace of ideas, to allow people to pursue even conflicting values in search for what will benefit our lives. Since human nature is capable of both good and evil, a free society, by not establishing such a legitimated channel for theft and tyranny, discourages the criminal tendencies of human nature and encourages the peaceful and the voluntary. Thus liberty and the free market are necessary to discourage aggression and compulsion, and encourage the harmony and mutual benefit of voluntary interpersonal exchanges, economic, social, and cultural, etc.

But now we come to the heart of what I believe is a pretty common conflationism, especially among those on the left. You speak of "'men of the mind' such as robber barons" and, as my previous post point out, you fear that Rand assumes the rich and powerful elite will act ethically instead of rapaciously. But I think this is mistaken because it treats those undesirable features of actually existing and historical capitalism as though they constituted an objection to the free market. This view relies on believing the free market and corporatism are in fact one in the same, whereas those features you point out actually follow from governmetal privilege and, in many cases, the exact regulatory and interventionist measures you yourself (and other leftish inclined people) advocate.

The last point is in regards to your prescriptions. Since your goals seem to be somewhat appropriately anti-corporatist, rather than achieving them through free market means, you prefer to achieve them through broadly (though not what you consider an extreme or authoritarian) statist means. But if the corporate elite uses their wealth and influence to enhance their position in society, why would you expect increasing the power of government over society will do anything other than increase the ability of the wealthy and powerful elite that controls the government to increase their position of privilege. Isn't that truly a naive view? What if those very same "left" goals could be achieved only through market means? Would that make you support the free market instead?

So how much legislation is necessary to ensure adherence to objectivist ethics? Well none, since that's not even possible. But how much legislation is necessary to enforce private property rights? My view is that legislative law itself is unnecessary to protect private property rights. Regulation certainly isn't necessary, and is designed for a different purpose. As far as regulatory agencies go, the FDA is a mass murdering organization that is responsible for countless deaths and should be dismantled completely (cf. Higgs). The EPA is useless, since the general law the protect private property is sufficient to combat pollution. But the EPA was designed not to do that, rather to protect large industries from pollution claims and smaller competition (cf. Coase, Rothbard, and Block.) In a similar vein, anti-trust was put over in the name of protecting the public against monopolistic firms, but actually was organized and passed through by these big businesses themselves, and used to smash each other with (cf. Kolko.) I implore you to look over some of the history of these things.

Edited by 2046
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Thanks 2046 for your wonderfully thorough response. It greatly furthers my understanding of Objectivism. I'll just make a few minor comments.

But now we come to the heart of what I believe is a pretty common conflationism, especially among those on the left. You speak of "'men of the mind' such as robber barons" and, as my previous post point out, you fear that Rand assumes the rich and powerful elite will act ethically instead of rapaciously. But I think this is mistaken because it treats those undesirable features of actually existing and historical capitalism as though they constituted an objection to the free market. This view relies on believing the free market and corporatism are in fact one in the same, whereas those features you point out actually follow from governmetal privilege and, in many cases, the exact regulatory and interventionist measures you yourself (and other leftish inclined people) advocate.

This sounds a bit like those defenders of "true" Communism who say it has never been implemented in real life. My from-each-to-each discussion explains that it can never be implemented in practice because the premises will inevitably lead to results contrary to those intended. I'm not sure how this is different.

The last point is in regards to your prescriptions. Since your goals seem to be somewhat appropriately anti-corporatist, rather than achieving them through free market means, you prefer to achieve them through broadly (though not what you consider an extreme or authoritarian) statist means. But if the corporate elite uses their wealth and influence to enhance their position in society, why would you expect increasing the power of government over society will do anything other than increase the ability of the wealthy and powerful elite that controls the government to increase their position of privilege. Isn't that truly a naive view? What if those very same "left" goals could be achieved only through market means? Would that make you support the free market instead?

Yes, I am very interested in ways of harnessing the power of markets to achieve other goals. That's the beauty of "cap and trade". (Which oddly the Republicans now oppose even though they invented it.) Rather than writing prescriptive regulations on how each company needs to reduce pollution, it allocates the "right" to a certain amount of pollution to each company and allows them to trade them for value. The companies succeed in finding new ways to reduce pollution are able to sell allocations at a profit. Very interesting stuff!

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This sounds a bit like those defenders of "true" Communism who say it has never been implemented in real life. My from-each-to-each discussion explains that it can never be implemented in practice because the premises will inevitably lead to results contrary to those intended. I'm not sure how this is different.

Partially or poorly implimented capitalism doesn't lead to results contrary to those intended. Its just leads to a less free society. If everything were unregulated except the meat packing indusry, it woldn't cause the market to go haywire, the meat packing industry would just be less productive. Poorly implimented capitalism is better than no capitalism. Ayn Rand agrees with this. For instance she calls fort the defense of Israel against the various Arab nations opposing it. This was on the grounds that while Israel had poorly implimented capitalism (well the poorly implimented socialism also), they were still better than the medievalists surrounding them.

Vaguely free societies can get along, However collectivists tend to kill one another over their differenes in ideology. They are so bent on controlling everything people who don't conform their opinion are a threat to them. This leads them to dissavow one another all the time.

The soviet union wasn't socialist (or failed) because -

- There was a state, and that is still a class. (Anarchism).

- My traditions and culture were disrespected (Tribalism).

- No one wants to bow down to Moscow (naitonalism).

- Only people of similar hertiage and race can really care for on another, attempting to encourage altruism between racis is a Christian myth (Nazism).

- The Soviet Union wasn't socialist, it was state capitalism. The state owned the means of production , not the people, who were never given proper representation, and were forced to compete for the favor of the state. (Democratic Socialists)

- It threw away institutions that could have strengthended the state and thus the nation. It destroyed the church, scared away industrialists, and left the working class as an unorganized mess. All of these pieces could have been brought under the state. (Fascism)

Under all of this though is the fact that collectivists can only say that a certain itteration of collectivism didn't work because it wasn't their specific form of collectivism. Individualists on the other hand can see the merits of societies with mediocre levels of freedom and can point out how to improve them.

Edited by Hairnet
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Thanks 2046 for your wonderfully thorough response. It greatly furthers my understanding of Objectivism. I'll just make a few minor comments.

This sounds a bit like those defenders of "true" Communism who say it has never been implemented in real life. My from-each-to-each discussion explains that it can never be implemented in practice because the premises will inevitably lead to results contrary to those intended. I'm not sure how this is different.

Well it is the same, insofar as they are both claiming "this has never been implemented in real life." Rand's conception of capitalism is not a description of the current system or of historical reality, but rather a projection of an ideal. According to Sciabarra, "an ‘ideal-type’ [is created by] abstracting liberal referents from historical states, while disregarding nonliberal factors that have been internal to every state in history. For Rand, such concepts as ‘government’ and ‘capitalism’ are socially transformative; their ‘ideal’ character is latent in currently distorted social forms.” (Sciabarra, Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical, p. 283.) It is in this way she means "unknown ideal." In saying that you call into the conflationist trap, I am saying those features of the current system you point to are products of the nonliberal factors, not the liberal ones.

How are the two claims different then? Obviously they differ in regards what they think is desirable (socialism and capitalism), but if you think that attempting to implement one thing leads to different results, then they also differ in terms of what outcomes each side thinks socialism or the free market will produce. In that case, the difference in our positions is simply over the latter. Since I agree the attempt to implement socialism leads to something different than what the socialists themselves describe, I have nothing to add there. But I also think interventionism leads to something different than what you think it will, and that only the free market will reliably lead to results that I, and to a large extent you and most people, desire.

I think on the Randian grounds, the current economic landscape is a corporate state produced not of free competition but of government intervention, including not only direct subsidies, grants of monopoly privilege, and barriers to entry, but also a regulatory framework that enables firms to socialize the various costs and externalities, while pocketing the benefits, and leaving employees and consumers with a straitened range of options. In the absence of government intervention, we maintain, the market would not resemble anything like the current system dominated by a group of large corporations with their current form, and might perhaps even involve greater worker empowerment and solidarity (!).

Yes, I am very interested in ways of harnessing the power of markets to achieve other goals. That's the beauty of "cap and trade". (Which oddly the Republicans now oppose even though they invented it.) Rather than writing prescriptive regulations on how each company needs to reduce pollution, it allocates the "right" to a certain amount of pollution to each company and allows them to trade them for value. The companies succeed in finding new ways to reduce pollution are able to sell allocations at a profit. Very interesting stuff!

But if, crucially, the free market refers to the sphere of voluntary human interaction, then such markets cannot be created by government force. I think cap and trade represents another government-corporate partnership designed to rip the rest of us off. In our view, polluters who damage others' property are simply forced to stop and to pay restitution. They are not granted arbitrarily the "right" to pollute a certain amount, and thus they cannot trade this right in return for various privileges. Edited by 2046
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