Thrash-metal artists. With whom (based on her esthetic preferences as expressed in The Fountainhead) Rand would have been utterly disgusted.
lol
Between these two quotes you seem to be saying that the “real” world is one in which we grovel before those who will use extortion to force us to take out their trash.
I don’t mean to be rude, so I’ll ask the question straight up. Do you feel that the person who refuses to take out their trash should have more power than the person who does?
If you believe that the person who doesn’t want to take out their trash is acting in bad faith and their actions should not be rewarded, then the book is a thought experiment as to what would happen if a group of people got the balls to actually enforce the ideal.
If you feel that the person who refuses to take out their trash should be rewarded, then I ask, why?
whats with all this “who should be forced to” stuff. you dont like taxes. you dont like regulation. got it. you have a problem with moochers and people of less ability making you kowtow. ok. that wasn’t the point.
my point is that leaving your trash about or similar forms of laziness or indifference is rude and a bad way to live. but in a society with no power to regulate such civil matters, what happens? nothing?
By the way, though John Galt started the strike, he did not own the Gulch. Midas Mulligan, the banker, owned it. And the others either bought land from him or rented.
Do you think John Galt just rested on his laurels after inventing a machine that got power from static electricity? His second invention was a machine that took trash and converted it back into static electricity. The world’s first true perpetual-motion system.
She obviously did make a lot from her writing, including her non-fiction and speaking engagements. But she didn’t believe in investing; she just put her money in the bank, and it was eaten up by inflation. Even Alan Greenspan couldn’t get her to invest. This was a fairly common attitude in her generation. My father was exactly the same, and he died with only a fraction of net worth he should have had.
And over the years, she paid a bazillion dollars in taxes.
But even if she had lived to be 100, she was virtually guaranteed a fortune in royalties every year.
Right. Howard Roark in the quarry and John Galt on the railroad tracks.
You really need to read the book, before pretending to know what’s in it.
Rearden had immense respect for his workers, and paid them more than his competitors did. And they considered it a privilege to work for him.
And Rearden had nothing to do with setting up the Gulch. In fact he was the second-last person to go on strike. Those of you who did read the book might remember one of its most eloquent lines:
“I HAVE MET HIM. I DON’T BLAME YOU.”
No, cats and Godiva truffles.
Rand herself was very charitable, especially for struggling (but deserving) young people. Hope that enlightens you.
Dagny said “No.” But when she left, she was prevented from knowing the location.
Wrong. You don’t have to be “really talented” to be rational and productive. There was a truck driver in Galt’s Gulch, who was working toward the day when he was no longer just a truck driver. There may also have been other truck drivers there, who had less potential and were happy doing it.
Except that everything you “know” about her isn’t from her at all, but second (or tenth- or hundredth-) hand. If you feel that strongly about her, at least read her books so you’ll know what the hell you’re talking about.
Again, Godiva truffles (which she insisted on calling *Lady *Godiva truffles).
No. Nobody was given a polygraph test to ascertain what philosophy they accept. They were judged by their actions. And there’s no rule against giving anyone a handout. Regarding charity in a free society, Rand said “If I want to help them no one will have the right to stop me.”
And if you really are a lazy moocher, who are you gonna mooch from? Moochers can only succeed in the context of a system that rewards them. Otherwise they’re SOL. This is what Rand called “the sanction of the victim.”
Oh, and to address the OP: Who cleans out the pig sty in Animal Farm?
Actually I’m very liberal when it comes to taxes and regulation, but I’ve also read the book.
This quote is a threat (within the discussion:)). It is used to force me to do something at the expense of suffering some ill, be it happiness, standard of living, or garbage on my land…
Should the person who poses that threat have more power in society then me? Does that threat constituted some ability that I’m not seeing?
You concede that that activity is “rude and a bad way to live” but do you support your ideal through action. Do you cut that “rude” person off, or do you tax people who are not as “rude” to clean up after that “rude” person’s behavior.
That’s the whole point of the book. At what point is it just “rude and a bad way to live”, or at what point do you concede that the bad outweighs the good. That the threats and the effort it takes to avoid them become too much for the good people who support the others.
Where are you getting, to paraphrase, “no power to regulate civil matters”?
Oh, so they have regulations? Which ones?
what? seriously, what??? how does regulating things like trash or pollution or the maintenance of roads, etc, give anyone power over you? in the absence of regulation it is a power struggle between your neighbor and you. with proper regulation it is a power struggle between your neighbor and local government.
yes, you have to tax people in order to have police, and building inspectors and restaurant inspectors and dog catchers and all manner of similar necessities. of course, if you want to save on taxes by not having a dog catcher, don’t complain when a stray dog bites your child and sends them to the hospital.
more regulation than less. a neighborhood where all the fences must be of an exact height and people must mow their lawns and no trash or abandoned car parts can be left in the front yard, that is not ideal, but, it’s better than the polar opposite where trash and car parts are all over the yard in poor blue collar neighborhoods.
from my understanding, libertarians don’t want any regulation on any level of government or at least very very very little.
They are indeed free to Unionise.
What they can not do is force anybody to join their Union. If the Garbage Collectors union goes on strike, then anybody at all can take up the slack. I could, for example, enter into a contract with the Union’s existing customers to start collecting garbage immediately at the rate as the union was getting, on a 10 year contract. And the customers can add a clause that says I can’t hire any Union members because they don;t want a repeat of these shenanigans.
So the union had better be damn sure that the customers think they are worth what they are demanding. Because if they don’t, the customers will simply pay someone else, and all the Union members are out of a job.
In the real world, strikes only work when the Union has a monopoly sanctioned by the government, or obtained through threat of violence. In an Objectivist world neither are possible. in such a world, a strike is very likely to be indistinguishable from a resignation. Unionists say they aren’t turning up to work today, customers say don’t turn up tomorrow either.
The only time a strike could work in an Objectivist world is as a reminder for customers who have come to take services for granted. This wouldn’t happen often. At any other time, striking will only serve to produce bad blood and prove the unreliability of the Union, weakening their negotiating position.
so, in the objectivist world if i own a large company with a union i can just hire people who work for less and replace them?
Yes, unless you have a pre-existing contract with the Union not to do so.
I think this is the important point people miss here. If the Union is genuinely valuable, then it should be able to negotiate a contract of that sort without difficulty If it can’t negotiate such a contract without using threat of violence, then I can’t see how it is legitimate.
“More regulation”, you seem to feel that you are I control of this regulation. You need more police because of the criminals. You need more dog catchers because of those unwilling to train their dogs. You need more garbage collectors because of those unwilling to do it for themselves.
Who is driving these needs? Is it you, the non-criminal, good dog training, trash collecting land owner. Or are you in effect paying protection money to those who don’t live up to your ideals? You advocate for more regulation under the assumption that it will solve something. At the same time you base your entire idea of regulation off of what others may do. You have in effect given all regulation over to those that won’t abide by it in exchange for nothing.
what???
the point is workers, who form unions, AREN’T valuable to their employers. if they were, there would be no need FOR a union. only by making them irreplaceable are they able to negotiate.
1- I suspect that when you say you in reference to me you actually mean Robert163. Whereas when I say you need dog catchers I am using the hypothetical you. So if you could quit trying to personalize the fact that I point out that dog catchers are necessary because they pick up stray dogs, I would appreciate it.
2- I really have no idea what you mean when you say a civil regulation is protection money. Under such a model you are a victim either way. You are a victim if a stray dog bites you. According to you, you are a victim if you pay taxes for the dog catchers salary.
3- “You have in effect given all regulation over to those that won’t abide by it in exchange for nothing.” only if the dog catcher doesn’t do his job, like never, just sits at the shop and drinks coffe all day.
You are seriously contending that non-union workers do not get paid anything? :rolleyes:
Utter nonsense. Non-union workers still get paid. Therefore they obviously have value to the people paying them. Unless you are contending that employers pay non-union workers out of charity since, according to you, they have no value to the employer.
You’ve posted a lot of silly and easily disprovable nonsense in this thread, but this one takes the cake.
Really? So non-Union workers are never able to negotiate huh? Care to stake your reputation on this ludicrous claim?
I hope you say yes. We can then end this debate very swiftly and dispense with further hyperbolic, absolutist, declarative nonsense of this type.
Of course you won’t agree. You will instead attempt to weasel and say that you didn’t mean “literally” no value and didn’t literally mean that workers have to “always” be made indispensable to negotiate.
You don’t seem to understand that there are a great many industries and entire national economies where the vast majority of workers are not Unionised. And they negotiate just fine. So your claims are falsified instantly.
I meant that if the union has a wage of $30 an hour, if they can be replaced at whim, the boss/owner will just go out and hire people who will work for $10 an hour.
People for whom this is the best job they can get. Same as in the real world. In the book, not every Gulchian is a super-genius, like John. If you had read the book, you would know that.