As a 501© they did not pay money into the system as an entity. They therefore have no moral standing for an argument that they are entitled to claw it back. What they should have said was either nothing, or that they needed the money to continue to pay their employees so those folks could continue to buy food and pay rent and keep their jobs. That’s not the argument they made to my knowledge. Instead they engaged in sophistry about taking money back from the government on behalf of their constituents/donors. In other words, ‘Well, we’ll just take this money from the government because we would have gotten it anyway from our supporters.’ That earns them the Sordid Little Hypocrites award.
I don’t see the relevance. He was risking his life; but that doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that would make the difference between something being forbidden to Randians and something being commendable for Randians.
ARI breathlessly explaining why it’s okay for them to take government welfare is exactly as convincing as a racist person listing all the interactions they’ve had with black people as proof that they aren’t racist.
I’m not sure I’m following you: when you say “they” there — who is that? The individuals, or the ARI?
ARI. We’re talking about ARI and their public statement about why they are applying and willingly taking PPP assistance.
It should also be noted that as a non-profit, ARI may qualify for and receive various government grants and loans. I do not know whether they have taken advantage of that or not. It would be an interesting thing to find out if anyone has the time to dig for that information.
Got it. So my response would be: ARI did not pay money into the system as an entity, but the individuals at ARI claim they did. The individuals at ARI can therefore have moral standing for an argument that they are entitled to claw it back.
And that’s fair enough. But if these individuals want to step back and examine their objectivist philosophy, they might have cause to reconsider, given that they are being forced to recognize that under these circumstances, they, their colleagues, their employer, their families, their friend with the dog grooming business, etc… have need of a government based system that helps them in times of need. Without that, many of these people, would be shit out of luck. Or, they could just continue to act like entitled brats and look at this as their opportunity to get what’s theirs. Mileage varies, as they say.
The ARI is a legal person that doesn’t pay taxes. Its employees do pay taxes.
The ARI already benefits from other people paying taxes in many ways – it can rely on the court system to enter into contracts, sue and be sued. It gets copyright protection. It gets fire protection, assuming it has a physical location. It gets police protection. It benefits from roads leading to and away its facilities. It benefits from the armed forces. It has all these benefits without paying any taxes.
However, it can’t really opt out of those benefits. The fire department will put out a fire in its building regardless. The army will protect the borders. Cities and states will put down roads and other infrastructure.
So, the ARI gets many benefits as a legal person, without paying any taxes for them. It can’t opt out of those benefits.
However, it doesn’t have to take the active step of applying for PPP. No legal persons will get PPP automatically, you have to actively apply – that’s where it is being hypocritical.
Now, without the PPP, it may have to lay off workers – those workers, being (presumably) taxpayers, may apply for unemployment and other tax-funded benefits without fear of being hypocritical, since they pay for those benefits (whether they like it or not) through their taxes.
The ARI is its own legal person. Those individuals are different people who pay taxes. Those individuals benefit from ARI’s standing as a separate legal entity – for example, if the ARI gets sued, those individuals would not be personally liable.
So, you can’t say that just because its workers pay taxes that the ARI should apply for PPP. Those workers may not even believe in the philosophy.
But their argument — as I understand it — is that this system is simply paying out money that got paid in by them and their colleagues and their family members and their friend with the dog-grooming business: that this wasn’t getting pooled to buy a fleet of ambulances or battleships or whatever that maybe none of them could’ve afforded but all of them can get use out of; it’s instead just getting handed back to the folks who could’ve simply kept it in their pockets until this time of need.
Now, we can argue about whether they’re wrong; maybe it does makes more sense to collect it from all of them and then hand it back in this fashion. But I don’t see how it follows that their position is, necessarily, hypocritical.
The taxes which are collected from them go towards services they use and benefits they reap every single day of their life as members of the society in which they live. I won’t itemize them for you because I know you know what those are. So yeah, I maintain that they are hypocrites. They were hypocrites before ARI reminded everyone of the kind of hypocrisy that objectivist philosophy entails. They will remain hypocrites after. As long as they maintain their views.
And just to note that accusations of hypocrisy is one of the weakest arguments and criticisms that there is in human interactions. Everybody is guilty of hypocrisy in their lifetime of one kind or another. We’re just talking here about a particular kind of very obvious hypocrisy that exposes a very shallow philosophy. It’s okay to be reminded of that once in a while. It will not change the world. Perhaps one or two minds every now and then will be enough.
Yeah, I know what those are; if they were out to claw back what they paid in for those, I’d be with you in calling it hypocrisy. I don’t want them double-dipping by making use of the services, and then asking for their money back; I want them to okay one or the other, and would criticize them if they demanded both.
But, here, the service is the money. It’s not like an ambulance service that some bad actor wants to make use of even while he keeps complaining that he also wants his money back; it’s getting money back while complaining that he wants his money back. And I get how that can look like double-dipping, but it seems to me that it can be itemized as single-dipping.
Whatever tax money they paid into the system have already been spent on the services they received. The PPP money is something that has put the country into deeper debt by over two trillion(?) dollars. It is money that we as tax payers will be paying back (ostensibly) next year and for years to come. We’ve saddled future income earners with that debt as well. Why? Because we collectively decided that in this situation, it’s a necessary step to prevent a far worse disaster.
Now, what do you think their view is with respect to continuing to pay taxes on the benefit (PPP) they applied for and receive now? Do you think they will be all, ‘Yeah, no… we get it! We gotta pay this back to the gov’t coffers and reduce debt.’?
I believe their stated claim is that they — the individuals at ARI — will, in fact, be paying for it as taxpayers in years to come.
My dude. You’re a smart poster. Why has this conversation become so difficult?
I don’t get it either. They’re alleging that the government is going to raid everybody’s “savings”? How? Whose? Everybody’s broke.
Even if that were true, they’re justifying universal theft for the sake of them getting to advocate Objectivism. It would mean wealth distribution does make everybody happy.
Having read their official statement, I think this is the argument that they are making (NOTE: I am NOT advocating, supporting, or justifying this argument, just relaying it):
Government regulation crippled what would otherwise have been an effective market-based response to the pandemic. Government shut-down orders compounded the economic damage. The U.S. government is further compounding the economic damage by engaging in deficit spending.
Deficit spending is inherently inflationary. Inflation by definition devalues savings. Deficit spending therefore amounts to confiscation of savings, including the savings of the Ayn Rand Institute and its donors.
Government by definition can’t create wealth. When the government gives one person money through deficit spending, it is in effect transferring wealth to that person from everyone else who has savings.
Someone who argues in favor of such wealth transfers is morally bankrupt and has no moral claim on such wealth. Someone who opposes such wealth transfers is in a position of moral superiority, and can therefore morally accept such a a transfer as a partial recompense for the unjustified takings they have suffered. (I’ve got to admit, this bit of Objectivist argument has always been particularly opaque to me, so I might be straw-manning them here).
Since the PPP is funded by deficit spending, it by definition a wealth transfer from current savings, including those of the ARI and its donors, to the recipients of the PPP. So, the ARI has decided to participate in PPP and claim funds from it as a recompense for the involuntary transfer of wealth from their savings.
I think.
Objectivist or Libertarians are not Anarchist. I never understand this argument against them, “Well if the Ayn Rand Institute was burning down would you call the Socialist funded Fire Department” ha ha gotcha!