Is it necessarily desireable to be "man qua man"?

[donnywithana]

From my interpretation of Rand's work and the opinions on this forum, I have induced that the nature of man is an incredibly advanced consumer that has the ability to create value from raw inputs at an exhaustive rate. Because capitalism is the best way for man to operate (any other system is ridiculous), the only property that can exist is private property. This means that things like water and air must be owned and sold as commodities (in capitalist equilibrium), because this way the quality of these products can be ensured. All property must be strictly defined, or one runs the risk of not being able to defend it in court.

Man will continue to populate so long as the cost of doing so does not outweigh the benefit, until having more children than one's ability can sustain becomes inpractical, thus effectively regulating population control.

Those who make educated and informed decisions will flourish, while those with improperly premised philosophies will be left to figure things out for themselves. Those who literally can not support themselves (young children, disabled, ill) must hope that they mean something to someone(s) who would rather allocate their resources to keeping them alive than let them die, as it is unethical to force someone to care for them.

The role of government is to protect the rights of the citizens, and therefore the government must not be corrupt. The government will provide services to all of its citizens, and must be voluntarily funded. Unfortunately, because the government has the ability to provide its services to someone without their consent (arresting a criminal), it must be funded through some other revenue collection method, such as contract enforcement fees.

Any man who allows another man to trick him into a sacrifice deserves it, because every man has the responsibility of making their own decisions based on knowledge, instead of faith. Individuals are responsible for constantly monitoring their property and person to make sure that no one is initiating any force upon them, because to fail to recognize something immediately might result in permenant damage that might not be replaceable. If someone does initiate a force, it is conceivable that an individual could sue them for the damage done (including emotional in some circumstances) and for all costs involved in bringing them to trial, including the labor that they put into the trial (it would be up to the judge to decide what the plaintiff's labor was worth). Society might also impose a penalty on the guilty in the form of a prison sentence, which would invariably mean some sort of fee or forced labor to fund its own existence. Because violation of the rights of others means losing the ability to claim those rights for oneself, these forced actions are ethical.

The end state of society will be one where man can survive exactly to the extent that his ingenuity will allow. If air continues to be a "public property" despite the nonexistence of such things, the concepts of freeloading and sacrifice will ensure that if it does not become commoditized, it will be polluted to unacceptable levels. Men will eventually, unfortunately, have to deal with this fact, and implement airtight communities with a fee or toll for passing through them. If man can not continue to support his own existence using the resources available on his property, he must either buy someone else's property, or claim some unowned property. Because unowned property most likely will not exist, a destitute individual (including children and handicapped, of course) will be forced to either live with someone who will support him (a parent in the case of children, or a misguided altruist) until he can support himself, or enter into serfdom (sell himself to an employer in exchange for the means for survival, similar to the way Dagny worked for Galt, except Galt didn't have to pay her so well if he didn't want to), or die.

All this makes sense, because no one's rights are being violated, and thus might be considered the "best" possible outcome. Is this something we want? Does it say something bad about the "nature of man?" If anyone wants to expand on this or dispute something I've said, I'd love to discuss it (I'm done "debating" on public forums)

[donnywithana]

By the way, I'd like to appologize to everyone on this forum for our discussion of pollution; I was operating under the flawed premise that we have the "right" to air, and that it couldn't be owned. I was wrong about that, and the rest of the logic flowed forth from that idea. I'm sorry about that, but I would appreciate if people would try not to attack each other quite so quickly. We're all here to learn, and my problem was that I never questioned that one couldn't own their own air. "Why not?" was all I needed to be asked. Clearly this is a more difficult system than what we have now, but it's almost definitely the correct conclusion. Oh, and desirable is definitely spelled wrong in the topic...oops!

Edited October 23, 2005 by donnywithana