7 hours ago, Laika said:
hey,
I’ve been a Communist for almost a decade, but have found myself on a sort of journey towards “recovering” from the experience of realising how fragile and fallible human beings are after coming to terms with the reality of violence and atrocity in Communist countries. That’s sort of led me to explore other materialist ideas such as Anton Le Vey’s Satanism and Objectivism that my provide a much stronger moral compass and make me much happier. I’ve only flicked through “The virtue of selfishness” and know not much more than I could get off a few Wikipedia pages, so I’m not really in a position to know what I’m looking for.
I’m aware that the forum guidelines specify that members cannot spread ideas contrary to objectivism, including Communism, so I thought I’d get straight to the point and ask a few questions.
Welcome to the board. I hope you benefit from your time here.
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- To what extent was Ayn Rand influenced by her experiences in the Soviet Union, particularly given that she was a women educated at a Soviet University? I realise her First Novel “We the Living” was set in the Soviet Union so I’m just curious if it had an effect on her later work given that Objectivism and Marxism are both atheistic and materialist ideologies.
As a lazy answer, I don’t think it can be questioned that Rand’s experiences in Russia/the USSR had enormous influence on her, just as I expect that any individual is enormously influenced by the circumstances of their upbringing. But to the extent that Objectivism is “atheistic” and “materialistic,” I think it would be a mistake to try to find the reason(s) for that in the fact that Rand hailed from a particular country (if that is the proposed project); Rand typically gives incredibly thought-out and painstakingly argued reasons for her positions on sundry topics, and those reasons – right or wrong – stand without respect to the origin of author (or reader).
That said, I’m certain that Rand’s early experiences and education emphasized certain readings or access to specific intellectual strains of thought, or etc., and perhaps that’s what you’re after, to trace the intellectual history of her ideas. Rand herself chiefly acknowledged Aristotle, though I have heard that she was influenced by Nietzsche early on…
But come to that, others here are Rand scholars who can offer much more insight into this question than I.
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- Is it possible to have a Socialist Objectivism driven by selfishness? Can Altruism be driven by selfishness (such as the expectation of reciprocity, or the selfish gratification of emotional desires such as love, sex, empathy) or do Objectivists use altrusim more narrowly to refer to only when it is driven by coercion or ideologically as a duty/obligation irrespective of the wishes of the individual?
I’m not certain what you mean by “Socialist Objectivism,” but let me try to speak to “altruism.” Yes, Objectivists use “altruism” in a rather narrow, specific way, which is the idea that actions are considered moral to the extent that they benefit others (in contrast to selfish actions, which benefit the self).
Rand on “altruism”: “Altruism declares that any action taken for the benefit of others is good, and any action taken for one’s own benefit is evil.”
Rand on “selfishness”: “[T]he exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word ‘selfishness’ is: concern with one’s own interests. […] The Objectivist ethics holds that the actor must always be the beneficiary of his action and that man must act for his own rational self-interest. […] Since selfishness is ‘concern with one’s own interests,’ the Objectivist ethics uses that concept in its exact and purest sense.”
This is what Rand (and knowledgeable Objectivists) mean when using those terms. There are yet many actions (which we could roundly describe as “kind” or “benevolent” or even “charitable”) which society would sometimes consider “altruistic” that are not contrary to Rand’s selfishness – but are, in fact, quite selfish.
Rand writes, for instance, “Do not hide behind such superficialities as whether you should or should not give a dime to a beggar. That is not the issue. The issue is whether you do or do not have the right to exist without giving him that dime.”
And this is just so. (If you take away from this that an Objectivist could morally give a dime to a beggar, in a given context, I would say that you are correct.) Some people try to point out the supposed hypocrisy of Objectivists by noting, for instance, that the Ayn Rand Institute is “non-profit” (and donates books to schools!), or that one of the Atlas Shrugged movies used Kickstarter as a partial source of funding, or etc. Those people do not understand what Objectivists believe, though this does not appear to give them any pause in their invective.
So, good on you for trying! 
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- Can Capitalism prevent catastrophic climate change through technological innovation or are environmental concerns inherently coercive as altruistic interventions in the marketplace? Do you think Climate Change, whether as a (possibly false) idea to control the people or as a real problem, could encourage a wave of totalitarian mass movements over this century?
Climate change is a matter for scientists, and while philosophy sets the ground rules for scientific thought, Objectivism qua philosophy does not have a position on whether the climate is changing, or what the cause is, or etc. Accordingly, you will find diverse opinions among Objectivists on those sorts of questions.
Personally, I’m not sufficiently educated about climate change to hold forth on it to any great extent, though I am impressed (and distressed) by the seeming scientific consensus. I know there are skeptical challenges to various models, and use of data, and etc., but again, I’m not sufficiently educated on these topics to be able to say much more.
I take it for granted that catastrophic climate change is a real possibility for planet Earth, whether man-made or not, because obviously the climate has changed in the past (in ways I would regard as “catastrophic” for human life, if repeated), and I expect it could again. If technological innovation has the potential to help mankind combat such catastrophic outcomes, should they threaten – and I would suppose that such innovation is our best hope, speaking generally – then I would want man to be unfettered to think and work and pursue those innovations. This “unfettering” refers to political “liberty,” which is what Objectivists mean when referring to “capitalism,” which thus primarily refers to a political system and not economics, as such.
This said, there are specific scenarios related to the environment which I believe would justify “interventions in the marketplace,” by which I mean regulatory laws (or criminal laws, or civil lawsuits). If we were to determine that polluting the ocean (which is a common resource; or at least, I don’t know of any proposal to privatize it yet) to whatever extent is bound to exterminate the world’s algae, let’s say, and thus choke off all of our oxygen, or what-have-you, then yes, we cannot be allowed to pollute the ocean like that (though such a discussion would be heavily nuanced and context-dependent). If this makes me a heretic in the eyes of other Objectivists, so be it, but my policy is to keep breathing.
Edited to add: As to the question of whether climate change (real or imagined) could lead to totalitarianism, well yeah. But the power hungry have never wanted for reasons to impose their wills on others, and totalitarianism has seemed to exist in every age. If climate change could spark a resurgence in totalitarianism (and it certainly seems to me to have that potential), the path will have been paved by centuries of philosophical thought which have argued for self-sacrifice (in the interests of the state, or God, or the race, or etc.) and against the rights and happiness of individual human beings.
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- If free markets lead to free societies, would you agree that it is logical to argue that the freest society would be an Anarcho-capitalist one without a state? Would you expect the future to therefore evolve in the direction of anarcho-capitalism or does the necessity of the state mean that only a “minarchist” society can be achieved?
There is no Objectivist dictum like “free markets lead to free societies,” so far as I am aware, and I would redirect you to what I’ve said above, which is that Objectivism is primarily concerned with a moral political system (which we find in protecting individual rights, which we call “liberty”/capitalism) and not economic outcomes, as such. (Though many Objectivists may appeal to various economists who have argued that such liberty does generally result in prosperity, and etc.)
That said, a “free market” is not simply an absence of state authority… and in fact, a “free market” is not possible without some state authority to protect people in the use of their individual rights, whether in producing goods, trading them, or consuming them. The market is not “free” (and not truly a “market”), for instance, if you can steal from me with impunity. That’s not an example of a free society, either, and such lawlessness is not what Objectivists regard as either moral or desirable.
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- Has anyone here on Objectivism Online actually changed their views from being a Marxist-Communist to an Objectivist? or made the change from Socialism or Anarcho-Communism? What were the experiences that meant you made that shift? Was it something that made you happier and more fulfilled out of respecting yourself more?
I never would have described myself as Marxist-Communist, or an anarchist, but I was certainly a liberal in my youth. The experiences that led me to shift are probably too numerous to mention, but as a quick reduction I’ll say that I read a number of influential books (including Rand, but not exclusively written by her), and I’ve spent many years applying ideas, testing them out in my own life, reviewing the results, studying history and my own past, and etc.
It is a complex process.
Throughout my intellectual development (which began when I was a liberal, and many years before discovering Objectivism), and despite the pride of place I now give to “happiness” and “self-esteem,” I was led onward in the main by a passion for discovering the truth of things.
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- […and just for fun :D] How many of you watched Wall Street and wanted to be Gorden Gekko as a kid?
I watched Wall Street when I was young, and I cannot tell you what impression it made on me (because I do not remember). I imagine that the stereotypical “businessman world-beater” aesthetic did not do much for me at the time, as, quite frankly, it does not do much for me now.
