Thanks everyone for your thoughts. I’m working on replies buy might be a little slow.
I don’t recall . . . did Ayn Rand indicate that dealing with the state apparatus of that country constituted support, or dealing with individual citizens? I do recall that she indicated that intellectual assistance (such as by cooperating with Soviet scientists on projects) would constitute support for the state apparatus.
There are several exertps that I’ve seen. Here are a few from different sources in different contexts:
**QUOTE(The Letters of Ayn Rand. pp. 435-436)**I do not “heartily endorse the attitude of the State Department” and I most emphatically denounce and despise the idea of any “cultural rapprochement between the American and Russian peoples.” I do not wish to seek rapprochement with a people while it is enslaved and to make deals with a slave “culture.” No kind of “rapprochement” or “culture” is possible while the Soviet government remains in existence. To make friends with slaves, while they remain slaves, is to support the regime of their masters. Instead of talking about “rapprochement,” the decent and self-respecting people of all free countries should impose the most rigid cultural blockade and boycott against all totalitarian countries – and thus declare that they do not accept as “culture” any product of a reign of brute force, and that they do not deal on “cultural” terms with bloody mass-slaughterers.
QUOTE(Ayn Rand Answers @ pp. 99-100, 1978 Ford Hall Forum) Is it moral to sell goods to our government and to foreign governments, when the source of government funds is expropriated wealth?
It’s certainly moral for an American businessman to sell goods to our government, to the extent to which it is moral for him to exist. He cannot accept moral responsibility for actions or policies over which he has no control. Government money is expropriated funds. Nevertheless, the moral blame falls on the government and on advocates of taxation, not on the businessman. It is not his job, qua businessman, to worry about the source of government funds. But it is his job, politically, to condemn government power and taxation, which today, unfortunately, businessmen don’t do.
Whether he should deal with foreign governments is a different issue. You need to judge each case according to the nature of the particular government. It is totally immoral to deal with Soviet Russia, as it was to deal with Nazi Germany, or any genuine dictatorship.
VOS, Rational life in an Irrational Society
The policy of always pronouncing moral judgement does not mean that one must regard oneself as a missionary charged with the responsibility of “saving everyone’s soul” - nor that one must give unsolicited moral appraisals to all those one meets. It means (a) that one must know clearly, in full, verbally identified form, one’s own moral evaluation of every person, issue and event with which one deals, and act accordingly; (b that one must make one’s moral evaluation known to others, when it is rationally appropriate to do so.
The first definitely indicates that business dealings with individuals in a totalitarian regime implies a sanction.
The 2nd I read ONLY in the context of dealing with other foreign governments, rather than individuals.
The 3rd of course indicates that one can’t fight every battle and while one must identify the direct moral implications of ones actions, that does not necessarily mean that all of the indirect implications of ones actions must be taken into account.
It is my thinking that, since evil totalitarian regimes are reliant, mostly, on philosophical appeasement, that tax money that they might gain from your traffic with private citizens is incidental and should be regarded as unfortunate, but not evil. However dealing directly with the government of said country (such as selling missile computers or assault rifles or even grain) would be material support to the evil regime.
In a fully Communist regime, any business dealings would be dealings with the state apparatus: everything in the country is owned by the state, after all. In a state like China, where freedom exists de facto to a greater and greater extent and many things are increasingly privately owned, I think you’re okay.
I think the question of support and sanction are two separates aspects of the analysis, with sanction being the broader one.
To the extent that any monetary or technological exchanges supports a questionable govt, then it would be immoral. By support I really mean “prop up” a failed govt. One that would cease to exists eventually without that support. David’s Mugabe example is an example. China is the real question here. I don’t think a stable mixed economy, like Thailand, France, etc, even though they have all sort of things wrong with it, is in any way propped up by tax revenues it receives.
Sanction is a tougher problem. To not give sanction one needs to make clear lack of sanction for the relevant, negative factors that one is dealing with. So when Google has nothing bad to say about Chinese censorship, that’s a tougher problem.
Is this country an eminent threat to the US? In case the answer is yes I would consider setting my business there as immoral. If the answer is no then I would not have a problem with it.
I don’t consider my responsibility to fight against every evil in the world.
Is it just eminent threats? or might it also be wholly evil regimes that were not eminent threats, as a question of sanction of the regime. Note: I’m not sure there can be dictatorships that are not threats to the US, unless they are small ones.
Odden’s Mugabe example, or Mainland China are the sorts of examples that come to mind.