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Trade vs. Force&Fraud

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gabrielpm

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The basic requirements of survival and prosperity can be met via trade, force, fraud or a mixture of the 3.

It is my understanding that the Objectivist stance is that trade `is optimal`, meaning that if trade were to be implemented, it would yeld best results (at an individual level, and secondarly at a group level, but as a side-effect).

Another phrasing could be that `more a society relies on trade for its inner dealings, more it is prosperous`.

Am I correct in this simple interpretation?

I also think that it is quite clear that Ayn Rand held the view that the *initiation of force* is never justified. Did I understand her stance properly?

Taking into account my understanding of Objectivist ethics, I have a few questions:

1) When force has been initiated, by the state or others, and the justice system is not rational, is one moraly justified to use force and/or fraud towards not only the entity which initiated it, but also towards the others?

(How does a rational man act in an inherently socialist, corrupt and lawless society)

2) If fleeing oppression is impossible, due to lacking a safe-heaven (such as Galt's Gulch), is one justified to use force&fraud?

3) Why does Ayn Rand suggests that fleeing (implicitly abandoning posesions and property) is moraly superior to guarding your own by force and fraud?

I guess you're seeing where I'm going with this: Under which circumstances, are fraud and force better than trade, for fostering survival and prosperity of self?

Gabriel Mihalache

http://www.individualism.ro/

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The basic requirements of survival and prosperity can be met via trade, force, fraud or a mixture of the 3.

Not true, the basic requirments of survival may only be met by production. One may trade ones own product for someone else's, or one may forcably take someone elses product, but it is the production itself which allows for survival and prosperity, not the trading/stealing.

And by the way, fraud is a kind of force, there need be no distinction between the two in this case.

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Not true, the basic requirments of survival may only be met by production. One may trade ones own product for someone else's, or one may forcably take someone elses product, but it is the production itself which allows for survival and prosperity, not the trading/stealing.

Not true. The basic requirements of survival are met by the consumption of goods. I admit that most goods must be produces, but that doesn't answer my questions:

Why acquiring good by trade is better than by fraud?

History provides anecdotal evidence that a mixture of the 2 was more probable to lead to prosperity. Why is this? If society doesn't offer one the environment required by trade, what is one to do?

Do you agree that there are certain contexts where force is much more profitable than trade?

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Not true. The basic requirements of survival are met by the consumption of goods. I admit that most goods must be produces, but that doesn't answer my questions:
Firstly ALL goods must be produced. If you show me something which you think does not, I will show you how it does. So, while the way one directly meets the basic requirements of survival is to consume goods, this is only possible AFTER those goods have been produced.

History provides anecdotal evidence that a mixture of the 2 was more probable to lead to prosperity.

This is a funny thing to say, considering that NEVER has there existed a society which did not have a mixture of the two. And, those anecdotes result in this conclusion: The freer the society, the more prosperous.

If society doesn't offer one the environment required by trade, what is one to do?
One is to produce ones own means of survival.

And besides, what do you mean "the environment required by trade," the only thing which "society" must provide is other people, who have things which you want. This, incidentally, is also a requirement of theft.

Do you agree that there are certain contexts where force is much more profitable than trade?

Profitable to whom? By what standard? Not by any moral one.

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3) Why does Ayn Rand suggests that fleeing (implicitly abandoning posesions and property) is moraly superior to guarding your own by force and fraud?

I could fight with the looters today and ward them off my property. But i wouldn't be able to do it tomorrow when their gang grows bigger and bigger. The problem here would be trying to beat them on thier own terms.

The source of all possesions and property is the mind. Instead of trying to fight on their terms, you simply allow them to see their own fraud, as Ayn Rand said "They try to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind."

And here you also got to see the context in which those characters left behind their properties. It was not a lone mugger they were confronting, but a government by loot, who made life impossible to live.

dinesh.

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