Or, I guess, any strong fiscal conservative. I’m kinda fuzzy on what Objectivism is.
It seems clear that one of the main themes of your philosophy is that people ought to pay directly for their failures. I get where that comes from, it’s the natural reverse to the idea that people ought to earn directly from their successes. My question is: are you okay with the idea of someone paying for their failures for their life? Like, if someone paid off their gambling debts by selling themselves into slavery, would that be a logical outcome of objectivist philosophy, or am I missing the point?
Disclaimer: This is not a veiled criticism, nor a ‘gotcha!’ question. This thread is ABSOLUTELY NOT about health insurance. Please don’t turn it into one. I’m just curious.
Objectivism is really just Ayn Rand’s word for existentialism - basically the idea that minds and ideas didn’t exist during those 13 billion years when (on Earth at least) there were no complex neural networks around to house them. By this token, I’m as Objective as any (while still understanding and appreciating many of Kant’s counterarguments.)
What Randroids then propose, however, in a step that I’ve never understood at all, is that pure law-of-the-jungle capitalism (which I actually don’t distinguish fom plutocracy) is the only true Objectivist political philosophy. I disagree with the maxim “the freer the market, the freer the people”, because I consider that the statistically inevitable ‘losers’ in such a Game of Life are subjected to economic oppression and tyranny which is every bit as grave as if they were living in Soviet Russia.
I’m not an Objectivist, but from what I’ve read about the philosophy and discussed with my Objectivist friends, that would be a perfectly acceptable outcome. I think that a number of libertarians would be okay with it as well (depending on their particular blend of libertarianism).
Disclaimer: I’m not an Objectivist (or any other sort of “ist”) but I have read Atlas Shrugged and tend towards fiscal conservatism.
Yes, you are absolutely missing the point. Objectivism isn’t about “punishing people”. It is about freedom, dealing with reality and personal responsibility.
First of all, one cannot sell themselves into slavery in an Objectivist society (or any other free society) so your question is moot.
Second, like any other debt, the person would be responsible for paying them off.
Third, in an Objectivist society the lender also bears a burden on verifying the credit worthiness of the lendee. So if you lend money to someone who can’t pay you back, consider that a bad business decision and be prepared to suffer the consequences (I’m looking at you AIG, Lehman, Bear Sterns and others).
Finally, as I said, it’s not about making someone pay for their failures. It’s about not making everyone else pay for your failures.
I suppose that’s true but hardly relevant.
So you disagree with being able to apply for any job you feel you are qualified for? Do you agree with companies being able to hire the most competant employee and fire those who can’t or won’t perform to the standards of the company? Do you disagree with being able to buy or sell your goods or services for the best price you can get for them? Do you disagree with being judged on your abilities and contribution? Do you disagree with the company that provides the best product or service should beat out their competition, no matter who they are?
I see two possiblities here. One - You do agree with these things but don’t realize we don’t have them in our current economic system. At least not to the degree that Objectivists would like. People have access to high paying careers because they know someone. Incompetant employees and managers can’t be terminated because of beurocracy. People demand government intervention to keep their company or industry propped up. They demand the government step in when they don’t like the market price of certain goods or services or they think they should get paid more.
The other possibility is that you do not, in fact, want to compete. How many people really believe that if they are one of 5 candidates for a position, the best person should get it? The usually believe they should get it.
Objectivists and fiscal conservatives believe that when you tamper with the free market, you distort the economic value of goods and services. It is essentially a form of slavery . You have some third entity coming into a transaction between two parties of their own free will and saying “you cannot enter into this transaction under the terms you agreed on. I will now set your terms.” Goods and services are no longer priced according to their economic value but according to the whim, sentiment and corrupt biasses of other people who probably have nothing to do with it. And ultimately everyone loses out.
To use an example, let’s pretend we have a company called Sentient Widgets that is putting together a deal to manufacture some product in India. They only have to pay a fraction of what they would pay American workers, but it will result in a much cheaper product. Now lets say someone comes in (as per the Fairness in Outsourcing Act) and says “You can’t manufacture in India. It will cost American jobs and you are exploiting these poor Indians because they have nothing and will gladly accept your unfair wages.” So the deal is blocked. Who loses? The Indian workers who stay dirt poor instead of mostly poor, Sentient Widgets which won’t be as competetive and the consumers who are stuck with a higher priced product. The only winners will be the American workers. At least until they go out of business because our representative on the Fairness in Outsourcing Committee decides his college roomate who is the CEO of Amalgamated Widgets is not violating the Act by manufacturing a similar product in India.
For the record, I don’t think it is possible to have completely free markets without proper regulation and oversight.
Well, her ontological philosophy is what she supposedly bases her political philosophy on. I don’t see quite how it follows, of course, but she would consider its truth relevant, even (ahem) essential :).
No. Like I said, I’m as far from political Objectivism as anyone here.
Of course, the third possibility is that I believe you can have a free market and something called taxation which can be used to address the welfare of your population, to which political Objectivists would, well, object.
Heh heh - I know you’re not a political Objectivist, but it is such absurd equivalences which make Rand so hilarious.
Errr, what? If you’re honestly asking for my take on this situation you’ve constructed, I’d tell the Indians to say bollocks to IP law and make it themselves independently, but I’m struggling to see how it relates to anything I’ve said. Can you help?
It’s not a “handwave”. That part of the OP was founded on completely wrong premises. Objectivists usually have the concept that people can’t be owned as their primary practical principle.
Which is actually where I disagree with them most fundamentally since I consider that when one depends upon the property (ie. monopolistic use defended by force) of others for one’s very life, one becomes their economic slave. Like I said, I see very little difference between Marxism and Objectivism when viewed from the bottom up.
Because the concept of slavary is a complete antithesis to Objectivism.
Fair enough. I never really understood who was supposed to maintain the public roads, police and fire services or if there were public schools and hospitals in Atlas Shrugged. I suppose everything would be privitized.
The problem that Objectivists see with the concept of addressing the welfare of your population is that the population continues to demand more and more. The people eventually saddled with providing end up being those who are are successful and productive. Atlas Shrugged takes this philosophy to its logical conclusion. The government continues to take more and more from the successful companies and they enact legislation to prop up the inefficient and incomentant companies in the name of “fairness”. Eventually there is no one else to take from as all the industrialists and other “Men of the Mind” opt out and society grinds to a halt.
Basically, according to most economists I’ve read, free trade (including outsourcing) between two nations only has a net benefit. Each nation is able to provide the good or service it can best provide. This frees up resources that can be utilized in other areas of the economy. And it ultimately ends up with more affordable products for the consumers.
Politically it is unpopular because some people may find that their jobs are no longer competetive. So they pressure the government to enact protectionist legislation which ultimately hurts the consumer through higher prices.
Basically the government is saying “While Company A is cheaper, we have decided it is more politically desirable for you to do business with Company B.” Well if the government or anyone can tell you who to do business with, based on geography, why not other forms of favoratism that may be even more arbitrary?
Well, I’m still not sure where I’ve advocated protectionism or anything like it, ms (indeed, I’ve advocated jettisonning IP law, which is surely the ultimate anithesis of protectionism!), but hopefully your example will be instructive to someone else.
How are you dependent on the property for your very life? Objectivism isn’t feudalsim or mannorism. You don’t become some sort of ronin engineer roaming the countryside if your CEO dies. You just look for a new job.
Much like it is today, it is up to you to figure out a way to make yourself valuable to others. In Atlas Shrugged, Rand frequently makes a point that the companies and their owners are as dependent on hard working, motivated employees as those employees are dependent on the company. And the owners who understand this treat their employees well in order to keep them.
We are all economic slaves. Business owners, who bear the enormous responsibility for the livlihoods of hundreds, if not tens of thousands of employees, must constantly find new ways to innovate and keep the company competetive. Middle managers who are responsible for finding better ways to organize and lead their employees. Employees competing to demonstrate their value to the company.
The difference between Marxism and Objectivism is that in Objectivism or Capitalism you can actually move up from the bottom with hard work. Marxism you can’t
If someone else has a medical treatment or apparatus which will save you life, say, or a suplus of food when you have none.
Some more than others, as Napoleon the pig might say.
Neither a Marxist nor an Objectivist I, but just because one can move up in an Objectivist system rather ignores the brute statistical fact that, by virtue of a deprived upbringing, many simply won’t. Social mobility is a very difficult thing to acheive even in an enlightened and reasonable tax-based system. In an Objectivist plutocracy, it seems to me that a few bubbles might rise to the top but the drink will remain largely unmixed.
How so? Look, that was the foundation of the OP, so it’s not like I’m jumping on some semantic issue/hijack, and I’m really not trying to be a wiener (honest!).
Just saying it’s a fundamental premise seems kind of, well, arbitrary. I guess it would be one thing if the OP was asking about capturing people and using them as slaves, but the OP is asking about a voluntary arrangement between ostensibly consenting parties.
What is it about Objectivism that prevents me from entering into a carefully crafted engagement–inhibits my freedom to contract?
Does Objectivisim prevent indentured servitude? Why?
Does it prevent injunctive relief for contracts?
Is there no recourse against someone who willfully violates a contract?
P1. But how did the medical treatment or apparatus come into being, in the first place? How did the surplus of food come to exist, in the first place? It didn’t just spring forth from some fountain in the desert. It was created by people who put their own resources at risk. If you take away the reward that is commensurate with that risk, they won’t bother to try again.
P2. Seems to me that is a bland assertion without any facts to back it up whatsoever.
P3. Ah. But who does the mixing? If you designate a ‘mixer’, with Supreme Authority To Mix, you have just violated your own principles of social mobility, fairniess and whatnot. Because now that dude has it all. He is at the top of the heap. He will decide your fate from now on.
You have just disempowered yourself, and transferred that power to a Supreme Mixer who now has final say over the mixing. And you won’t get that power back.
Are you kidding me? In an objectivist world, people can rise up through the ranks, and will, one at a time.
An important part of Objectivism is the worth of the individual, and that he can not only change his situation, but change the world. If one has a better work ethic, or a stronger back, or a bigger brain, or a better idea, he can rise. I have no idea where you get a notion to the contrary.
As far as your slave metaphor, it is just that. Trying to then equate it with actual slavery is beyond absurd.
Could you expand on your claim? I dont see how anything you said after "existentialism" relates to existentialism, but maybe you werent actually trying to support that claim. I’m curious to hear more about how you think Objectivism is related to Existentialism.
I have a shitload of food in my fridge in my appartment. Should some homeless guy have right to just come in and take it?
You probably won’t move up unless you have some superior skill or ability. However those who manage you or run the businesses you own will be in their positions because they are very good at it, understand what contribution you add and will reward you accordingly.
In Atlas Shrugged, Rand describes inhereted wealth as one of the greatest possible gifts and with it comes a responsibility to use it wisely and productively. She also heavily criticizes class stratification and the entitlement, debauchery and idleness that can come from having excessive money you did nothing to earn. Rand’s heros were not successful so they could live a life of leisure. They were successful because they loved what they did. Most expressed disatisfaction with having to socialize with the uper echeolons of society who did not produce anything of value and who struggled to find meaning and worth in their existance.
The OP used the term “slavery” which is a loaded term with a very specific meaning. And I would almost catagorize it as a clumsy attempt to trap Objectivists and fiscal conservatives into revealing themselves to be pro-slavery.
Being tried and sent to jail for violating the law is not slavery. Fullfilling a contract you freely engaged in with another party is not slavery. And freely enlisting in the military is not slavery either.
Rand clearly did not believe in anarchy:
“the proper functions of a government are the police, to protect men from criminals—the armed services, to protect men from foreign invaders—the law courts, to settle disputes among men according to objectively defined laws.”
-Ayn Rand
So the “recourse” would probably be similar to what it is now. If you violate a contract, you have to reconcile with the party you initiated the contract with. You may lose whatever assets you put up as collateral. Or you may have a lein against your wages until the contract is payed off.
Understand that is very different from slavery. The agreived party does not own you. They don’t care what you do or how you get the money. They simply own the right to whatever labor you produce before anyone else.
Keep in mind that people do not lend out money arbitrarily (current financial crisis notwithstanding). If someone is a degenerate gambler or a wild speculator with little to no track record, lenders would be very wary about providing them with a loan if they didn’t feel they would get it back.
Ouch. The main theme is the competency of mankind.
I think that’s a fair assessment.
As noted, slavery as such would have absolutely no place in an Objectivist society. (Note the capital ‘O’, to distinguish it from a far more innocuous philosophical position of the same name.) That said, I think it kind of depends on what you are going to count as slavery. As the term is understood in sort of everyday parlance, namely, that you become someone else’s property, the answer can only be a resounding no. But, could you contract away your labor? Yes, certainly. Might this lead to de facto slavery? An interesting question. (I think yes, but I am not an Objectivist.)
Objectivism is pro-slavery; they just don’t like the word. It’s an inevitable consequence of them refusing to admit the power of economic coercion, and insisting that only coercion by the government counts. The government which just happens to be the most effective way the common people can exercise power.
When the government won’t help you and you have the choice of doing what you are told or dying, you are a slave in all but name. And no, “get another job” isn’t an option because disobeying will cause the employers to collectively blacklist you, rendering you unemployable; the sort of thing they can and will do without the government intervening. And that’s assuming they don’t just have you beaten or killed; speeches about how they deplore violence aside, an Objectivist nation would realistically only enforce the rights of the wealthy*. One way or another they’ll make an example of you.
So if the boss wants you to work until you are crippled or to submit as a sex toy that’s what you’ll do. And we know this to be true because that’s exactly what employers have done when the government didn’t prevent it.
And if you say “That’s not how it’s supposed to work!”, that’s not any different than someone defending Communism by claiming that what Communists have actually done in the real world isn’t what “real Communists” would do.
