The Shah: Is Supporting a Dictatorship Moral?

Political Philosophy
21

… the rights of a foreign people to choose their own system of government

I haven’t been following this thread in detail, so my response is merely to this single point.

The question is: do these foreign people (or any people) have such a right? In other words: do the people in a country have the right to form any type of government they like? The answer is that rights are not collective. Rights are for the protection of individuals. Governments are legitimate only to the extent that they protect individual rights. Therefore, if an overwhelming majority decide that they want to establish a Nazi state and deprive some tiny minority of its rights, they would not have the right to do so.

In other words, the right to action does not flow from being in the majority. It is quite okay to use a majority vote as a procedure to decide things that do not undermine individual rights; but, democracy is not a primary. Indeed, if it becomes mob-like deprivation of the minority – even a minority of one – it is evil to the extent it deprives people of rights. Note this: a government is not evil to the extent it does not represent the will of all people, only to the extent it deprives people of rights.

Most educated people in the West recognize that unlimited democracy is evil and that rights are important too. However, they still hold democracy as a primary. This is where Objectivism disagrees. According to Objectivism, individual rights are the primary in forming political systems.

In the 1900s various British colonies in Asia claimed the right to “self government”. This was claimed as a primary, while it really was not. Take India, for instance. Of course the British deprived Indians of certain rights. However, from this, it does not follow that Indians may morally form a government of locally-born folk who would then become tyrants in the place of the foreign-born folk. In what way does it matter, to the person who’s rights are being deprived, whether his oppressor is local or foreign? What really happened in most cases is that who was being deprived of rights and how was all that changed.

I haven’t found any information backing up the claims that Mossadeq had no legitimacy.

You now have the context required to know how an Objectivist would judge his legitimacy; and, winning the popular vote is not the primary factor in that judgment.

22

I haven’t been following this thread in detail, so my response is merely to this single point.

The question is: do these foreign people (or any people) have such a right? In other words: do the people in a country have the right to form any type of government they like? The answer is that rights are not collective. Rights are for the protection of individuals. Governments are legitimate only to the extent that they protect individual rights. Therefore, if an overwhelming majority decide that they want to establish a Nazi state and deprive some tiny minority of its rights, they would not have the right to do so.

In other words, the right to action does not flow from being in the majority. It is quite okay to use a majority vote as a procedure to decide things that do not undermine individual rights; but, democracy is not a primary. Indeed, if it becomes mob-like deprivation of the minority – even a minority of one – it is evil to the extent it deprives people of rights. Note this: a government is not evil to the extent it does not represent the will of all people, only to the extent it deprives people of rights.

Most educated people in the West recognize that unlimited democracy is evil and that rights are important too. However, they still hold democracy as a primary. This is where Objectivism disagrees. According to Objectivism, individual rights are the primary in forming political systems.

In the 1900s various British colonies in Asia claimed the right to “self government”. This was claimed as a primary, while it really was not. Take India, for instance. Of course the British deprived Indians of certain rights. However, from this, it does not follow that Indians may morally form a government of locally-born folk who would then become tyrants in the place of the foreign-born folk. In what way does it matter, to the person who’s rights are being deprived, whether his oppressor is local or foreign? What really happened in most cases is that who was being deprived of rights and how was all that changed.

I am not sure what you are advocating here. Are you saying that a foreign government, the United States for instance, has a right to subvert the will of foreign peoples if the chosen government is not moral, moral being they protect the rights of its citizens? In that case, according to what I understand about Objectivist philosophy, there is no moral government on the planet.

You now have the context required to know how an Objectivist would judge his legitimacy; and, winning the popular vote is not the primary factor in that judgment.

According to your own definition, no immoral government can be legitimate. So national sovereignty be damned? Or is there some sliding scale in effect…

23

The point is that there is no such caveat. Maybe you don’t understand what you just said: that the concept of “right” is entirely arbitrary, and reduces to “what the law says”. Which would mean, “you have the right to property if and only if there is a law allowing property; you have the right to live if and only if you are given that right by the state”.Yes, and the blame for the mess lies with the aggressor nation, Iran in this case. It remains a fact that the function of government is the protection of rights, not the avoidance of messes, and the bottom line for the protection of rights is the use of retaliatory force.

Well I don’t think anyone has established that the land concessions of Iran were themselves legitimate. The subdivision of Iran and clear heavy handed manipulation of the Iranian “government” by the British and Russians puts these concessions on shaky ground legally, and morally. So before fueling up the F-16 squadrons, we may need to establish that these oil companies have firm legal rights here.

This insistance on the protection of individual rights at all costs, regardless of the collective good, seems to be a dangerous notion (military invasion is being advocated here). Its like ensuring the self determination of all airplane passengers, meanwhile the plane is crashing into a mountain.

24

I am not sure what you are advocating here. Are you saying that a foreign government, the United States for instance, has a right to subvert the will of foreign peoples if the chosen government is not moral, moral being they protect the rights of its citizens?

Here’s a question back to you: do you think it is possible for a elected government (i.e. elected by the majority in that country) to persecute it’s citizens? If so, by what standard would you call it persecution?

In that case, according to what I understand about Objectivist philosophy, there is no moral government on the planet.

I suppose you mean perfectly moral. Would you like to name some candidates for perfectly moral governments, using your own standards? Or, at least do you have any personal evaluation – according to your own standards – that would allow you to name some governments that are relatively immoral compared to others and to name some others that are relatively moral. As in the question above, it’s not so much about which governments you’d name; I’m really trying to figure out if you think there is any objective way to evaluate governments on a scale of morality, or if anything goes as long as it is democratically elected. In other words, do you think moral government is whatever the majority want it to be – minorities be damned?

So national sovereignty be damned?

What is national sovereignity? Does it include the unrestricted power of the majority to deprive the minority of their rights? If that is what you mean by national , then… yes, it should be damned. I damn the violation of individual rights. Do you hold that the majority should be allowed to violate individual rights? More fundamentally, do you hold that individual rights are only what the majority say they are, and that questions of ought are not applicable?

25

Well I don’t think anyone has established that the land concessions of Iran were themselves legitimate.

Do you have a basis in fact (not propaganda) for thinking that they were not? For instance, who actually owned the land on which the derricks were erected? Names, for example. The clear heavy-handed manipulation of individual rights by the Iranian “government” in claiming ownership of the land when it was not in fact there for the government to own more than negates any negotiating tactics used by the British.

This insistance on the protection of individual rights at all costs, regardless of the collective good, seems to be a dangerous notion (military invasion is being advocated here).

What is this “collective good” jibber-jabber? You will notice that I have not insisted on protection of individual rights at all costs, under any circumstance. In fact, the cost in Iran was very low.

You aren’t reading this thread close enough. There are two completely separate questions. The first, relevant to this thread, is whether US support of the disposal of Mossadeq a half-century ago was proper and the answer is, more or less “yes”. This involved and involves no military invasion. The other completely separate question is whether direct military against Iran would be presently justified, on the basis of Iran’s threat to the US in the form of their promulgating terrorism. That is not what’s being discussed here.

As a historical matter, please note that nothing about Mossadeq’s existence as Premier of Iran reflects “the will of the people”. He was not elected by the people, he was installed by the Majlis. Remember that Hitler was “democratically selected” as dictator of Germany.

26

Do you remember what the difference in justifications there were in the confiscations of BP’s interests in Iran and the US’s interests in Aramco?

Netafja

That would depend on what the actual alternatives were, and that’s beyond my historical grip. The crucial issue, as I understand it, was whether the Soviet Union would have absorbed Iran as a vassal state (as it tried with Afghanistan). Iran started to take a turn for the bad by stealing western property after the pro-Western PM was murdered by Islamists. That was essentially the end of any movement towards freedom and civilization in Iran, and the beginning of over a half century of “lesser of two evils” thinking. The fundamental question is what right the Iranian government had to confiscate BP’s property – none, of course.

27

Here’s a question back to you: do you think it is possible for a elected government (i.e. elected by the majority in that country) to persecute it’s citizens? If so, by what standard would you call it persecution?

I suppose you mean perfectly moral. Would you like to name some candidates for perfectly moral governments, using your own standards? Or, at least do you have any personal evaluation – according to your own standards – that would allow you to name some governments that are relatively immoral compared to others and to name some others that are relatively moral. As in the question above, it’s not so much about which governments you’d name; I’m really trying to figure out if you think there is any objective way to evaluate governments on a scale of morality, or if anything goes as long as it is democratically elected. In other words, do you think moral government is whatever the majority want it to be – minorities be damned?

What is national sovereignity? Does it include the unrestricted power of the majority to deprive the minority of their rights? If that is what you mean by national , then… yes, it should be damned. I damn the violation of individual rights. Do you hold that the majority should be allowed to violate individual rights? More fundamentally, do you hold that individual rights are only what the majority say they are, and that questions of ought are not applicable?

Now you’ve said a lot about the tyranny of the majority (I think this is the phrase you were looking for). Of course I agree that there are degrees of government immorality. Military intervention in Bosnia and Somalia were justified (and should have been in Rwanda and Sudan) to stop the humanitarian crisis, and economic sanctions are used commonly to take action against a government that exploits its own people.

But the problem with what is being advocated here, toppling authoritarian governments or helping oppress foreign people while propping up a leader who will help us get what we want, is immoral, as adrock3215 said earlier. Even if part of the reason is to secure property rights for American companies on their soil.

Look at what is happening in Venezuela and Russia today. The elections are obviously manipulated by the popular authoritarian governments, yet the results are very popular with most people there. The rights of people are being trampled upon for sure nonetheless.

28

The clear heavy-handed manipulation of individual rights by the Iranian “government” in claiming ownership of the land when it was not in fact there for the government to own more than negates any negotiating tactics used by the British.

Does it now? And you would know this because…?

As a historical matter, please note that nothing about Mossadeq’s existence as Premier of Iran reflects “the will of the people”.

On the contrary, Mossadeq was in fact quite popular amont the people, owing laregly to his stance against foreign influence in Iran. Now that doesn’t mean he was democratically elected by any means, but there was large popular support.

There are two completely separate questions. The first, relevant to this thread, is whether US support of the disposal of Mossadeq a half-century ago was proper and the answer is, more or less “yes”.

Well do you care to elaborate on why such duplicitous games by the CIA should be warranted? Who put the United States in charge of deciding what was moral and proper for the Iranian people?

If you think that a virtual puppet government has legitimacy to grant long-term land concessions to foreign oil companies, then I can see your point. And if that’s the case I think there are some Germans who have a claim on land taken from them in Vichy France. I’ll have to flip through my copy of “The Prize” by Daniel Yergin to get more specifics on the background on those land concessions.

I just find it amusing that the Iranian government is considered legitimate enough to justify land concessions, but then illegitimate when it comes to justifying the overthrow of their leader or military invasion to secure said land concessions.

29

And you would know this because…?

…it’s what I do.

On the contrary, Mossadeq was in fact quite popular amont the people, owing laregly to his stance against foreign influence in Iran.

That suggests to me that you’re not a native speaker of English; if you were, you would know that that’s not an appropriate use of “on the contrary”. Rather, the correct expression is “Tangentially, I might mention that…”. The fact remains that he was not democratically elected.

Now that doesn’t mean he was democratically elected by any means, but there was large popular support.

And that also indicates that he wasn’t democratically elected, so stop trying to change your argument. Hitler was popular.

Well do you care to elaborate on why such duplicitous games by the CIA should be warranted?

I’ve posted a bit on the topic: see this thread.

Who put the United States in charge of deciding what was moral and proper for the Iranian people?

That’s a red herring: the question is whether the Iranian government had the right to steal other people’s property. They didn’t, and that’s really all there is to say about the “who has the right” question. Any free nation has the right to kick the ass of a rights-violating dictatorship. It’s not about bringing the blessings of western civilization to Iran.

Are you suggesting that it’s ever moral and proper for “the Iranian people” to steal?

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…it’s what I do.

I don’t know what this means.

That suggests to me that you’re not a native speaker of English; if you were, you would know that that’s not an appropriate use

BB Code Help Toggle Side Panelof “on the contrary”. Rather, the correct expression is “Tangentially, I might mention that…”.

Nice cheap shot. I was avoiding ad hominem attacks as I hear it is frowned upon here. However, as you are a moderator this must not apply to you. And in fact, “on the contrary” works better than “tangentially”, in that the point I was making was opposed to your point that "nothing about Mossadeq’s existence as Premier of Iran reflects “the will of the people”.

Condescension works much better when you demonstrate you know what you are talking about.

That’s a red herring: the question is whether the Iranian government had the right to steal other people’s property.

Pointing out that it was a red herring argument would be more convincing if we were still not bogged down in determining if the property was legitimately given in the first place, or whether US oil companies were even affected, which no one as of yet has demonstrated. I know you don’t want to wait for the evidence to get started with the invasion, but…

Any free nation has the right to kick the ass of a rights-violating dictatorship.

Eloquent. So its time to fuel up the Tomahawk missiles and Abram tanks, because we have a lot of ass-kicking to do in the world if this is how low the threshold is for the use of the military. Listen, this discussion is pointless, your rudimentary logic on this subject is not very interesting to me, and I would like to read comments from other posters.

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Any free nation has the right to kick the ass of a rights-violating dictatorship.

Eloquent. So its time to fuel up the Tomahawk missiles and Abram tanks, because we have a lot of ass-kicking to do in the world if this is how low the threshold is for the use of the military.

A free nation has the right to use military force against a rights-violating one, but definitely not the obligation.

Since, to a smaller or greater degree,all governments violate rights one should first answer this question: what amount of rights-violation authorizes the use of military force against another government? What is the threshold?

Further, before using outright force, there is a place for diplomatic measures. Mind you, carrying a big stick does add to the attention paid to your discourse, never mind how soft-spoken it may be.

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A free nation has the right to use military force against a rights-violating one, but definitely not the obligation.

Correct: that obligation would come from an evaluation of the extent to which the rights-violating nation is violating the rights of citizens of the free nation. It’s quite analogous to the obligation which the police have to investigate a crime against a person. Even though there is such an obligation, it is not unconditional and open-ended; thus it would be wrong for the police to spend 50% of their annual budget on a single case of credit card fraud costing $500, but it could well be right for them to spend 50% of their annual budget to investigate the killings by Malvo and Muhammad.

33

It is simply a matter of poor foreign policy for a government to intervene on behalf of an entity which had its right to own property violated in a country that does not respect property rights. All that the interceding government is able to do is take back the property and install a regime that is friendly to its own interests. This does not address the true problem, and will result in undesirable consequences for the interceding government because the philosophic undercurrent opposed to property rights will remain in the country, irregardless of who is put in charge.

Any free nation has the right to kick the ass of a rights-violating dictatorship.

Let us suppose for a minute that I agree with this statement. It can still be shown that this does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that a free nation should intervene. What I am submitting to you is that it is not in the best interests for a government to intercede, because it will lead to widespread resentment of the interceding government by the people of the country, who still believe that the concept of property rights is philosophically incorrect. This resentment will end up costing the government of the interceding country more than it gains by interceding. The key fact here is that it is not possible to change widespread popular ideas within an irrational (or rational) culture by force.

From the Wall Street Journal Op-Ed page on Monday the 19th of November there was a relevant editorial about the current state of Argentina. Just to quote from it quickly:

The [Argentine] government needs to raise $7 billion in the capital markets next year and an estimated $10 billion in 2009. Meanwhile, the flight to quality since the subprime debacle has pushed up Argentine borrowing costs. In a 10-year dollar-denominated domestic bond offering issued last week, it had to pay 10.5%. By comparision, Brazilian 10-year bonds yield 5.6%. In other words, Argentina’s creditors are demanding almost five percentage points over Brazil to cover the risks of the unsustainable economic agenda of a government that thumbs its nose at property rights, contract security and free prices. The $22 billion of bonds held by the private-sector and still in default don’t help either.

Peronists [the ruling political party] still insist that market economics are part of a right-wing “neo-liberal” plot. In other words, they have a lot to learn. The international community can help by letting them learn it on their own.

The Argentine government openly stated in 2000 that it will not be paying interest or principal to any bond investors. If one had loaned the Argentine government money by purchasing bonds in the 90’s, then one would have received back less than 30 cents on the dollar after waiting years, if one was lucky. A stubborn refusal to pay back borrowed money is a clear violation of the property rights of creditors all over the world. Indeed, under United States law, creditors are the first to be paid (sometimes by claims on property) when a company or district is in bankruptcy. After Argentina defaulted on its bonds, a major financial crisis could have been triggered in many Western countries whose banks and hedge funds held these bonds. Do you hold that governments should have interceded on behalf of these creditors?

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Let us suppose for a minute that I agree with this statement. It can still be shown that this does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that a free nation should intervene. What I am submitting to you is that it is not in the best interests for a government to intercede,

You seem to ignore the fact that we were in a cold war with the Soviets and it most certainly was in our interests to see that such oil resources did not fall.

35

You seem to ignore the fact that we were in a cold war with the Soviets and it most certainly was in our interests to see that such oil resources did not fall.

The long-term cost of interceding was far greater to us than the cost of letting such resources fall, as we saw with the Iranian hostage crisis, and as we are now seeing 50+ years later.

Moreover, the Soviets were not a factor in our decision to overthrow the government.

From Volume 5 of Foreign Relations of the United States under Kennedy located here:

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/c4035.htm

[Krushchev]The Soviet Union does not want a revolution there and does not do anything in that country to promote such a development. However, the people of the country are so poor that the country has become a volcano and changes are bound to occur sooner or later. The Shah will certainly be overthrown. By supporting the Shah, the United States generates adverse feelings toward the United States among the people of Iran and, conversely, favorable feelings toward the USSR. This, of course, is to the US’s own disadvantage.

[Kennedy]The President said that he agreed with Mr. Khrushchev and expressed the belief that unless the present Prime Minister of Iran improved the lot of his people and ensured better living conditions, there would be important changes in that country.

[Krushchev]Mr. Khrushchev then said that he had noted some inconsistency in US policy. He specified that he did not mean the policy of the President personally, because he had been in the White House only since quite recently, but rather US policy in general. He said that the United States places great emphasis on democracy. However, if one takes Iran as an example, the ruler there is the Shah, who says that his power was given to him by God. Everybody knows how this power was seized by the Shah’s father, who had been a Sergeant in the Iranian Army and who had usurped the throne by means of murder, plunder, and violence. Now the United States supports the Shah and the Iranian people transfer, as it were, their anger from the Shah to the United States. The United States is spending vast sums of money in Iran but that money does not go to the people; it is plundered by the Shah’s entourage. The United States supports the most reactionary regimes and this is how the people see US policy.

36

The long-term cost of interceding was far greater to us than the cost of letting such resources fall, as we saw with the Iranian hostage crisis, and as we are now seeing 50+ years later.

I certainly see the costs to us of interceding. What do you hypothesize the costs of letting those resources fall would have been exactly? And how did that calculus look at the time, given that they didn’t have your benefit of hindsight?

Moreover, the Soviets were not a factor in our decision to overthrow the government.

From Volume 5 of Foreign Relations of the United States under Kennedy located here:

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/c4035.htm

Your quote is less than obvious. Mind connecting a few dots to actually support that claim?

37

I certainly see the costs to us of interceding. What do you hypothesize the costs of letting those resources fall would have been exactly? And how did that calculus look at the time, given that they didn’t have your benefit of hindsight?

I hypothesize that the cost of letting these resources fall to a primitive culture is negligible. Without the application of the intellect and the advancement of technology capable of occuring only in a free society, a primitive culture can sit on resources for thousands of years without discovering how to use them. However, when they are discovered by an outside mind and taken by coercion, one will find them quickly depleted in an inefficient manner, providing little benefit. Destruction under this scenario is unavoidable in a free market. Observe this occuring with Venezuela’s state-run oil concern Pdvsa, even as we speak.

I would recommend reading the following NY Times article to observe how the nationalization of oil in Venezuela and the ouster of several key employees from Exxon, Shell and Gulf brought the government less in revenue and contributed to several other destructive problems:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/magazine…nted=1&_r=2

Even so, this is, as you say, a hypothesis. But make no mistake about it, an exact calculation is not needed. One can simply study history and understand that supporting a dictator and/or trying to establish a foreign government one feels is “proper” has, and will, always lead to a long-term cost greater than what one has gained in the short-term.

Your quote is less than obvious. Mind connecting a few dots to actually support that claim??

Krushchev states the Soviets have no interest in Iran. We did not help prevent this nationalization from occuring because of the Soviet Union.

38

I hypothesize that the cost of letting these resources fall to a primitive culture is negligible. Without the application of the intellect and the advancement of technology capable of occuring only in a free society, a primitive culture can sit on resources for thousands of years without discovering how to use them. However, when they are discovered by an outside mind and taken by coercion, one will find them quickly depleted in an inefficient manner, providing little benefit.

“Little benefit”? hmmm. there’s a new thread around here somewhere that would seem to argue against that very concept. I think your timescale for what constitutes “quickly” is a bit off.

While Soviet Russia was backward, I can hardly say that it was primitive. Running on borrowed time maybe, but the havoc it reeked in the 40+ years where it was dominant seems to argue against your theory.

Your policy, in order to work, requires a complete 100% boycott of the “primitive culture”. This would include every single oil company with the technology to exploit those resources, inlcuding hte ones that aren’t on US soil. If you can’t get that, then letting such resources fall into the wrong hands will almost assure that someone who you can’t control is going to give them the ability to exploit it. Still wanna let it happen.

I would recommend reading the following NY Times article to observe how the nationalization of oil in Venezuela and the ouster of several key employees from Exxon, Shell and Gulf brought the government less in revenue and contributed to several other destructive problems:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/magazine…nted=1&_r=2

Even so, this is, as you say, a hypothesis. But make no mistake about it, an exact calculation is not needed. One can simply study history and understand that supporting a dictator and/or trying to establish a foreign government one feels is “proper” has, and will, always lead to a long-term cost greater than what one has gained in the short-term. .

Trust me, I know hte problem…

http://crucibleandcolumn.blogspot.com/2007…-you-think.html

http://crucibleandcolumn.blogspot.com/2007…umbian-oil.html

http://crucibleandcolumn.blogspot.com/2006…me-back-we.html

I admire your principle, but I think you are failing to see the unintended consequences of the policy you advocate.

The senario you give really isn’t the case here, right. I mean we let these assets fall into Russian hands and we would have been “failing to support” a petty dictator to the benefit of one of the most powerful totalitarian regimes on the planet at the time. Not quite the same senario…

Krushchev states the Soviets have no interest in Iran. We did not help prevent this nationalization from occuring because of the Soviet Union.

Oh, I see. Krushchev told it to Kennedy. Well, it must be true. Respectfully sir, were you even around during the cold war? Because if you were, you’d realize how idiotic that statement is.

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I’ve concluded that I can’t document the financial interest of US companies in AIOC w.r.t. Iran. It turns out the documented Socony and Jersey connections to AIOC were as partners in separate oil companys, or involved buying contracts, or were after the coup.

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I’ve concluded that I can’t document the financial interest of US companies in AIOC w.r.t. Iran. It turns out the documented Socony and Jersey connections to AIOC were as partners in separate oil companys, or involved buying contracts, or were after the coup.

In addition, I do not remember any overt financial interests of U.S. companies in AIOC discussed in Michael Oren’s Power, Faith and Fantasy or in Ali Ansari’s Confronting Iran.