Where is Objectivism?

Political Philosophy
21

Nicky,

Social Darwinism says that if you cannot keep up, you die.

My point with prisons was that even individualism needs checks - it’s a pointed philosophical statement.

My address of Objectivism is purely philosophical - if it is an ideal, then mankind cannot presuppose to make those ideals actionable.

and lastly - I never said that money was the root of all evil. I could not ever believe such a thing.

From Francisco’s speech:

" Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce."

I believe Rand did not go far enough, in that there are not merely moochers and producers, but that what are considered ‘moochers’ are in fact merely responding to the oppression of the producers - in the form of socioeconomic oppression. I believe that mankind’s basic tendency is to excel. When he is corrupted - or a ‘moocher’ - it is because he sees no way out. He sees himself being held down by an irresistible force.

A moocher is a moocher, therefore, not because he is merely inferior to a creator - rather, he is informed by his socioeconomic standing - juxtaposed against a zeitgeist of power worship and insurmountable oppression.

Money should be evidence of work. Moochers are created by the greedy.

22

I appreciate your analogy, however - it bears little resemblance to the way business is run today. Luck is always subsumed by shrewdness.

I’m not sure what you mean by “shrewdness”. It can be a virtue. Business people are “street-smart”, which means they understand that life is not simply about having thoughts an ideas, but in figuring out how to put them into action. They may not be the Phds., but – on average – they can spot a good idea and pay for it, they can figure out how to implement it, they have the drive to overcome obstacles, they have the self-confidence not to let rejection put them off their course.

These are all great human virtues, and if these had disappeared, we would not have today’s world of easy-living, with fascinating stuff all around us.

If such a member were to use an inheritance to gain the upper-hand in a market - knowing that his competition would be wiped out in the exchange, it should stand as a fundamental transgression of the moral value of objectivism - making it something ‘other’ than objectivism.

The notion that people can use wealth to beget wealth in some sort of automatized way is false. Inherited wealth disappears in a few generations. Essentially, many heirs are distributing that wealth to others while enjoying it themselves. In today’s global economy there is no market position that can be maintained primarily through the use of size/wealth and still remain profitable. There is no shortage of capital ready to flow to a good, promising competitive idea. Companies too do not stay at the top for more than a few generations – at best. In fact, this is becoming ever shorter. Look attop-5 retail chains: every 10 years, one of them loses their top-5 rank. More importantly, the ones that remain do not do so because they have financial muscle. They do so because they understand their customers, they understand what their customer will value, and they find a way to deliver it at as low a cost as possible.

… …I would love to see a living example of pure objectivism.

Like you, I would like to see many more Objectivist businessmen. They exist and they run businesses. Objectivists are a small fraction of the population, and therefore Objectivist businessmen are a small fraction of businessmen. However, your concept of what it takes to be an Objectivist might reject such people.

I know that it is an ideal and as such, can only work in a morally ideal environment.

There’s a bit of chicken-and-egg here, because I read it to say “Objectivism can only survive if people agree with Objectivism”.

Stepping back, I’d like to make a broader point: do you think Steve Jobs enjoyed his work and made money? what about Bill Gates of old? and people in finance, like John Paulson to pit their intellect against the market? and Sam Walton? If you think these people were happy, and if you accept Objectivism’s idea that happiness is a legitimate goal, then you should question how they achieved happiness without being Objectivists. Also, ask how you can do more of the things they did. Objectivism is not about spending one’s life contemplating the state of the world, while a guy in India who accepts a few mystical ideas also enjoys building his business and thriving. You have just one life, and this is personal. The “test-question” to yourself is: when you look back at your life in retirement, will you say you’ve used your few years on earth the way you really wanted to?

23

Social Darwinism is not an ideology, though. Some people use the phrase social Darwin to describe supposedly bad consequences of capitalism, in the sense that only a heartless, cruel individual would be a capitalist. The belief that free markets logically lead to the rich being privileged and the poor being denied possibilities such as health care or schooling is based on the premise that wealth is a zero-sum game. If wealth is zero-sum, then certainly the rich are more socioeconomically better off, and the poor are simply going to have to struggle through life due to their lack of privilege. Without government in this circumstance, the poor won’t be able to “keep up”, so will not gain access to health care or education. Of course, Objectivism rejects that wealth is zero-sum, and also rejects that capitalism/free market leads to a dog-eat-dog world. Regarding value, wealth is limitless; it’s not about dividing up a pie. The money speech excerpt has a little explanation as to why that is.

Hellboy, I’m not sure why you mentioned family honor - Francisco didn’t support the d’Anconia name because of tradition, but because he believed in upholding virtuous standards that his family members believed in. Francisco received his inheritance because he strived to show himself worthy of running a multi-national business. Earning an inheritence doesn’t necessarily have to mean doing manual labor for the company. If you wrote a will so that your child would receive a large sum of money that they need to start a software company and show ability to do, that would be fine even if you earned your money by running a successful local restaurant. At the same time, I agree that it’s also partly up to the recipient of an inheritance to decide if they actually deserve it. Francisco, I imagine, would reject his inheritance if he didn’t believe he earned it.

The market being increasingly monopolistic (whatever that means) is likely due to the types of government controls in place today - which isn’t to say that no controls whatsoever are moral. My only response to your reasoning about justice is that government cannot realistically legislate justice so that someone who doesn’t deserve an inheritance does not actually receive in an inheritance. I certainly would rather that *all* people act virtuously, but as the saying goes, “you can’t fix stupid”; some people will still act unjustly. Objectivism supports capitalism because free markets are the best way to maintain a just society, by allowing individuals to choose what is a value for value trade (with all the usual caveats; you might not be familiar, but it’s a common view around here that no, an individual should not be allowed to buy nukes or other heavy weapons for private use).

24

Nicky,

Social Darwinism says that if you cannot keep up, you die.

Well then, Social Darwinism is obviously false. First, for using a vague metaphor instead of precise language, and second, because people who can’t keep up obviously don’t die. They are helped. Examples are endless. I personally know people who aren’t surviving on their own (or welfare), but due to the voluntary help of others.

My point with prisons was that even individualism needs checks - it’s a pointed philosophical statement.

Yes, I know. And your point is wrong, because private prisons are not an example of individualism put into practice. You are arguing against a strawman.

And it’s not that original an argument either. Liberals coming up to me and saying “you are a silly idealist, because we obviously need cops and prisons and soldiers because human nature blah blah blah”, is practically an everyday occurrence. I of course reply that I agree, and that Capitalism is a system with cops and prisons and soldiers. And then they usually understand the difference between Capitalism and anarchy, and withdraw the argument. Will you?

Social Darwinism is not an ideology, though.

For what it’s worth (not that much, I guess), wikipedia agrees with me that it is. But it doesn’t really matter, since HellBoy isn’t using it in that sense.

Some people use the phrase social Darwin to describe supposedly bad consequences of capitalism, in the sense that only a heartless, cruel individual would be a capitalist. The belief that free markets logically lead to the rich being privileged and the poor being denied possibilities such as health care or schooling is based on the premise that wealth is a zero-sum game. If wealth is zero-sum, then certainly the rich are more socioeconomically better off, and the poor are simply going to have to struggle through life due to their lack of privilege. Without government in this circumstance, the poor won’t be able to “keep up”, so will not gain access to health care or education.

Right. So let’s say all that is true, and the poor can never escape their condition. What does that have to do with Darwin? Being poor, uneducated, without access to cutting edge healthcare tech, etc. doesn’t mean your genes will die out. Look at all the countries filled with poor people: Not only are they not dying out, their population is expanding at a much higher rate than those of rich countries. And within individual societies, the poor are having more (viable) offspring than the rich.

So I don’t understand the choice of metaphor. If anything, statistics say that being rich and highly educated is what is more likely to lead to the extinction of a bloodline, not being poor.

25

If you found an abandoned planet with “a billion dollars” of goodies, you “earn” it by making use of it. You make use of it by having vision for the wealth and putting it to your purposes. You can inherit any amount with no problem. Earning it after the fact is just as well as earning it before the fact. You earn it by using it well, just as the person who gave it to you would have wanted. They wanted you to enjoy life, so they gave you additional means to achieve your goals sooner. Hopefully, your goals do something to elevate mankind. There is more than one way to earn a value. A simple smile has earned many people a cut of an inheritance.

An inheritence is just abandoned property, no different from landing on a continent for the first time and seeing all those trees that could be cut to lumber, or all that iron bleeding out of those rocks. Because it is abandoned, if you don’t make use of it, the state will. So, that takes a value from the postive, and turns it into a negative, another reason for abolishing the estate tax and accepting an inheritence. You are keeping resources out of the hands of the state.

P.S. If you have a billion dollars you need to dispose of because it is taking up space or giving you a mental burden, I can collect what you think is garbage, no problem. You have a problem, I have a solution. Thus, I earned the inheritance.

26

There was a recent thread about private prisons here. I am against them.

27

Right. So let’s say all that is true, and the poor can never escape their condition. What does that have to do with Darwin? Being poor, uneducated, without access to cutting edge healthcare tech, etc. doesn’t mean your genes will die out. Look at all the countries filled with poor people: Not only are they not dying out, their population is expanding at a much higher rate than those of rich countries. And within individual societies, the poor are having more (viable) offspring than the rich.

So I don’t understand the choice of metaphor. If anything, statistics say that being rich and highly educated is what is more likely to lead to the extinction of a bloodline, not being poor.

I stand corrected on the origin of social Darwinism being an ideology, but the discussion is still about a type of social condition. I think you’re taking the analogy too literally; Social Darwinism here is used to describe a state of society. The analogy is for socioeconomics, not actually living or dying. Rather, it’s about privilege versus nonprivilege. Consider how monarchies in the past used their wealth to subjugate others, and that power often stayed in place until another monarchy took over, still leaving the poor in terrible living conditions with no means to climb a ladder of privilege. Being a serf is hardly a situation you can get out of without manipulation. There are two ways to think about what leads to pretty bad conditions of some people in medieval Europe. One is that a profit motive is a corrupting force that wants to dominate other people, without regard to harm that may come to others. That isn’t a totally ridiculous conclusion; the people with a lot of money were the abusers of individuals who may very well explicitly see the poor as inferior people by nature. Objectivism, though, suggests the issue is actually individual rights. Simply acting without regard to rights will lead to the same bad conditions for a serf on a manor. All money enabled is paying bribes, arranging marriages to solidify power through dowries (and other benefits), finding support from the church (which was also out for power/authority!), and so on. In other words, money was used as a means to pretend rights didn’t exist.

What is the solution, then? Individual rights matter first and foremost, which is the way Objectivism is like classical liberalism. Capitalism is an arrangement of society to achieve that end. What leads to a state of social Darwinism is ignoring individual rights, not money or inheritance. That’s how the Industrial Revolution period led to increased prosperity overall, despite there still being abuses of rights in some places.

28

This is why I call myself an Objectivist Idealist. I know that it is an ideal and as such, can only work in a morally ideal environment.

This has absolutely nothing to do with idealism, just a full embrace of the (false!) moral-practical dichotomy.

29

I stand corrected on the origin of social Darwinism being an ideology, but the discussion is still about a type of social condition. I think you’re taking the analogy too literally; Social Darwinism here is used to describe a state of society. The analogy is for socioeconomics, not actually living or dying. Rather, it’s about privilege versus nonprivilege.

So what’s the analogy?

In the case of Darwin’s theory and Social Darwinism (as commonly used), the common element is the actual killing off (or at least sterilization) of those unfit or deemed unfit to live. If that isn’t the common element (because no one is getting killed off, all genes, fit and unfit, are passed on), then what is? What justifies drawing a parallel between the two? Or between Darwin’s theory and feudalism, for that matter?

30

We need to relook at our talking points.

  • There is no such thing as “pure” or “ideal” Objectivism. It is a philosophy and even its own admirers discuss application, but at the end it is a philosophy for living on earth. If you disagree with or don’t understand how to apply something then you are in the right place to ask and chew on these ideas.
  • Individualism does not need checks. It needs to be discovered.
  • Atlas Shrugged is art. It is an ideal recreation of reality to highlight the artist’s values and further inspire others and their values. As such it ignores subjects nonessential to its purpose. Reality has those, which is why art is so important. To sort it out is the process of philosophy or specific sciences in application (like economics). Again you are at the right place to do this.
  • The argument against inheritance is a straw man made popular by Marx. It exists because of the very practical reality that someone who earned it decided upon death to give it to someone else, which is his right since he earned it. A person’ life just doesn’t vaporize and return to the ether magically. To assume you have a right to determine what the deceased does with it violates that person’s rights. To imply it is immoral for that person to give it to someone else or for their benefactor to honor the wish of who is presumably a love one is frankly silly. I wouldn’t tell my parents “Don’t leave we anything, I didn’t earn it so keep your life work to yourself!” I’d say, if I had the chance, “I love you too and will cherish the memories.”
  • Darwinism has no place being discussed in terms of human action. Darwinism is applied to nature since nature does not have free will, therefore plants and animals adapt over time to changes to insure survival. Humans do have free will and change their environment to survive. Animals adapt to their environment, we adapt the environment to us. People are not helpless pawns to society unless that society is immoral enough to force itself on the individual, which is clearly not Objectivism.
  • Finally, Objectivist theory of government is not anti-government, it is pro proper use of government.
31

I forgot one part:

  • There is no practicing “Objectivism as an ideal” that “cannot be obtained”. Objectivism does no separate ethics from reality. The point of Objectivism is to be a philosophy for living on earth. It is a practical guide for living by striving to understand and meet the requirements to achieve happiness and thriving. That is why it comes with principles derived from realty so you can rationally apply those principles to day-to-day life. If not then you have rules that need no input from you, which is dogma and the same guilt trap of religion.
32

So what’s the analogy?

In the case of Darwin’s theory and Social Darwinism (as commonly used), the common element is the actual killing off (or at least sterilization) of those unfit or deemed unfit to live. If that isn’t the common element (because no one is getting killed off, all genes, fit and unfit, are passed on), then what is? What justifies drawing a parallel between the two? Or between Darwin’s theory and feudalism, for that matter?

Being “king of the jungle” where being a superior person allows one to live a vibrant lifestyle while harming or abusing others, like a lion might as a predator. The weaker/poorer/dumber people are unable to attain a similar survival fitness. I’m not saying calling this Social Darwinism is the best phrase considering how explicit advocates of social Darwinism believed in eugenics and whatnot, but this analogy works alright and this is what people mean. Similarly, people may use the word “selfish” in a poor or misleading way, but most people *mean* taking advantage of others or sacrificing others to self. Say “Social Natural Selection” rather than Social Darwinism if you prefer.

33

Okay, if you guys want to talk about Social Darwinism I suggest looking up Herbert Spencer, to whom this term is often attributed too.

He was a sociologist and philosopher. He advocated a capitalist government because he said that it was necessary for the progress of man . He argued that socialism would lead to stagnation because it didn’t encourage men to be develope and pass on the values required to survive. H. L. Mencken later took some of these views and combined them with nietzche’s, creating a very strong argument for capitalism. H. L. Mencken was a signifigant influence on Ayn Rand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Spencer#Social_Darwinism