On 4/15/2017 at 4:14 PM, Will_to_Know said:
Objectivist intellectuals have been very good at standing up for business. What I have never seen, however, are Objectivist discussions of the tools that individuals can use to push back against immoral businesses.
Hi Will_to_Know and welcome to the forum!
I see you’ve already received some response. Yet I hope you won’t mind if I start fresh with your OP?
I’ll say broadly up front that, as an Objectivist, I’m not interested in “standing up for business,” as such; rather, I’m interested in standing up for individual rights. It happens that individuals do business.
As for tools that individuals can use to push back against immorality (in business or otherwise), well, they can generally do as seems reasonable, so long as they do not initiate the use of force. I know that’s a very generalized answer, but perhaps we can find some specifics as we go…
On 4/15/2017 at 4:14 PM, Will_to_Know said:
(As an aside, I also haven’t fully understood why Objectivists want an immediate reduction of government when they argue that Libertarianism is morally bereft. If an ideology isn’t already present in society before government is removed, then the economically powerful (as well as ordinary individuals), will have a much greater chance of acting irrationally. Under such conditions, I would guess that unscrupulous business practices would be more commonplace, meaning that individuals would have an a very urgent need for protective tools.)
I think this comes closest to my position (though the specifics of governmental transition to a Capitalist system are far beyond me): I believe we ought to govern differently because the initiation of the use of force is immoral and destructive. Accordingly, I would like to see these changes made as fast as possible, because people are suffering in the interim. (It is a little like wondering – “what will the plantation families do if slavery is outlawed overnight?” Honestly, I consider such a consideration to be in distant second place.)
I do not expect any radical change in our current society, however, because most of the people of the United States (and world) do not support the system I endorse; there will be no immediate reduction of government. (If there were radical change in modern America, it would almost certainly be for the worse.)
The changes we’re talking about would require, first, something of a philosophical revolution (or evolution). I trust that, by the time anything close to an Objectivist system were implemented politically, that a good percentage of the citizenry would have already adopted the kinds of tools that they would need to be more successful absent modern governmental oversight and support. It’s the only way for such a fundamental political shift to occur in the first place.
On 4/15/2017 at 4:14 PM, Will_to_Know said:
Examples for discussion:
- Toxic dumping that affects a community downstream
- Say members of the community bring the company to suit. How could a group of ordinary citizens have the financial ability to stand up to a wealthy offender who could hire an army of lawyers, bribe investigators, or expertly hide his tracks?
- If the wealthy lacked any regulation requiring transparency or the need to keep records of certain activities (waste disposal in this case), how would individuals know that said company was the cause?
This may be me being a bad Objectivist, but I’m not completely convinced that law/regulation is inappropriate for the handling (or documentation) of certain harmful materials, etc. I regard it as similar to arms control. If we would not permit a private individual to own his own nuclear missile (as I would not… or at least, not without regulation as to approximate a governmental entity), due to the capacity for incredible and irreparable damage that it represents, then we might be equally sensitive to activities that can, say, ruin a river serving one or several communities.
Further, when you ask how a group of citizens can stand up to a wealthy offender, I would say that the challenges we’re discussing are similar to the challenges we experience today. Wealth, of its nature, confers advantages. Bribery of governmental officials (or those acting in such a capacity) ought to be illegal, and yes, we will need good criminal investigators to uncover hidden tracks.
Yet the citizens are not powerless. If they could, in theory, unite through tax and vote and governmental action, then I would expect that they could unite without those things, too – in a voluntary, cooperative capacity. If people do not want their rivers polluted (and generally speaking, I’d say that we don’t), then that suggests to me that there would be the ability to raise funds and take appropriate action.
On 4/15/2017 at 4:14 PM, Will_to_Know said:
- Libel or other legal claims that can be used to sue. If a wealthy party decides he didn’t like what a person said or did even if the party knows that the person didn’t do anything legally or morally wrong, he me might be able to find an avenue to sue. The wealthy party may not care if he wins or loses; but rather, he would be mostly concerned with financially ruining the alleged offender through legal defense fees.
Isn’t this, again, already a bug (or feature) of the current system? I’m no expert in it, but I’m certain that the present legal system could use reform to prevent such abusive lawsuits, as already exist.
On 4/15/2017 at 4:14 PM, Will_to_Know said:
- Third-party legal funding (probably similar to libel)
- The case of Hulk Hogan vs. Gawker is a good example as Peter Thiel’s billions funded Hogan. Regardless of what you think of that particular case, how might an innocent, ordinary individual protect himself under such circumstances and should would such a thing even be legal?
I don’t see how there was anything untoward in that particular situation. If Thiel funded Hogan, or Hogan funded himself, what difference does it make?
On 4/15/2017 at 4:14 PM, Will_to_Know said:
- Organizing Boycotts
- I looked over another topic thread on this site about how to decide when to boycott a company/individual. The number of people that need to be included in a boycott has to be large to have any serious impact on the offending party. If people are irrational, or subscribe to a, perhaps, legitimate idea that “because toxic dumping happened in small-town Alabama and not in California where we live, there is no imperative for us boycott,” what are affected individuals supposed to do there?
Well, what’s needed to make boycotts effective, or more effective, is more education. (Isn’t that what’s always needed?)
I’m not convinced that the notion that “because dumping happened in Alabama, not here, so what do I care?” is particularly “legitimate.” It reminds me of the old “first they came for the Socialists” poem. We would defend against other intrusions against liberty (free speech, property, etc.) in Alabama, because we understand the implication for liberty everywhere; I expect such a sort of reasoning might provide the impetus for Californians to take events in Alabama personally. (And if you investigate, I believe you’ll find that many already do.)
On 4/15/2017 at 4:14 PM, Will_to_Know said:
- Disproportionate Consequences
- Because wealthy companies have such immense resources and needs, a company that poisons people through faulty pharmaceuticals or toxic dumping has the capacity to harm or kill scores of people. Even if a suit brought against the offender ruled against him, how could retribution really be served? Let’s say that hundreds of people die. Even if the offender were executed (which, I would argue, probably wouldn’t happen, especially in the case of an accidental wrong), so what? How does that in any way square with the death of hundreds?
I don’t know how to rectify the death of hundreds, either in contemporary society or any utopia we might imagine.
I will say that a company that poisons people, and the individuals responsible within that company, ought to be held accountable for their actions (with reasonable distinctions made between accident and intention, as in other applications of proper law, and etc).
On 4/15/2017 at 4:14 PM, Will_to_Know said:
- Or, what would be more likely I’d guess, is a company dumping toxins in the water that have no apparent affect until the children at the time start developing cancer at the age of 60. The person primarily responsible may be, by now, dead. So, after the lawsuit, the company goes under, even though the current CEO is an upstanding person who runs a highly safe and moral company. Is that justice? A company going under is nothing compared to premature deaths; and besides, the current incarnation of the business isn’t even the offender anymore.
That doesn’t sound much like justice to me.
Knowing that these toxins may cause these problems (if indeed we do), we would need to be extra-vigilant against them. Whether through regulation (if we can agree that any are appropriate) or economic/internal pressures (such as boycott, and the kind of industry-created groups New Buddha mentioned), if people have an interest in protecting our children – and we do – we will find a way to ensure that our children are protected. It remains to do so morally and rationally. But Objectivism carries with it no call for us to stand back and allow our rivers and children to be poisoned.
On 4/15/2017 at 4:14 PM, Will_to_Know said:
Without answers to these questions, which would help satisfy the rational desire to protect one’s life from those who are exponentially more powerful, I have a hard time thinking that Objectivism will go very far. Principles are necessary, but if we don’t show people that they have recourse against abuses of power that far outweigh them, are people really going to want to live in a laissez-faire society?
There is no Big Objectivist Book of Answers, unfortunately. Objectivism advocates for the use of reason and logic and evidence, which I think is a good way to approach questions such as these, and morally/politically it insists that we do not violate the rights of others through the initiation of the use of force.
Some of the scenarios you’re presenting, where companies poison rivers and give people cancer, are, I would argue, an example of the initiation of the use of force. That is to say, they are a violation of individual rights. Per Objectivism, and if I am correct, they ought to be stopped. How best to do this, how best for people to organize, how best to administer the court system, and etc., are all worthy and difficult questions that we struggle to answer today, just as I would struggle to answer them in any theoretical future.
