This is topic When someone becomes a Randian... in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.


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Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
 
...is it a rule that they have to use the term "emotional crutch" at least once per conversation?

Just wondering. [Grumble]
 
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 
I dont know what a Randian is [Frown]

Edit: nvm GO WIKIPEDIA! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randian
 
Posted by sarfa (Member # 579) on :
 
Yes, it's in the contract. emotional crutch.
 
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
 
Or is that worship of Jordan's never ending saga?
 
Posted by Gwen (Member # 9551) on :
 
Sounds like there's a story there, Puffy Treat. Care to share?

I read Anthem, but I'm putting off reading the Fountainhead until I've fortified myself with enough LeGuin and Che Guevara...
 
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
 
I thought you were supposed to use "mysticism" in every conversation. Maybe I've been doing it wrong.
 
Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
 
I think Ayn Rand had many excellent insights. However I think too many people treat her writing like dogma instead of books with many ideas, some excellent some horrifying.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
When was the last time anyone heard me use that phrase? And I'm probably the closest to a die-hard Rand-worshipping Randroid on this forum.

(Actually, I'm just an Objectivist; but I suspect I'm more die-hard about it than anyone else here.)
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Amanecer:
I think Ayn Rand had many excellent insights. However I think too many people treat her writing like dogma instead of books with many ideas, some excellent some horrifying.

Personally, while I reject certain of her conclusions that were not a part of the Objectivist philosophy she put forth ("the nature of a woman is to worship men and women should never aspire to be president", and the like), I agree with almost every single thing she's written.

Would you automatically assume that this is acceptance as dogma, rather than simple agreement with what I view as a rational exposition of ideas?
 
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by starLisa:
When was the last time anyone heard me use that phrase? And I'm probably the closest to a die-hard Rand-worshipping Randroid on this forum.

(Actually, I'm just an Objectivist; but I suspect I'm more die-hard about it than anyone else here.)

I found it interesting that her views on homosexuality and gender roles were so much less radical then her views on morality. They seemed devoid of a reasonable explanation, but hey I would be interested in seeing how she justified them.
 
Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
 
Lisa- I would not automatically assume, but I might be a bit suspicious. I think that Rand presents her philosophy in a way that it becomes immoral (by her definitions) to disagree with any part of it. I definitely think this leads to dogmatism.

This is just curiosity asking, not trying to make a point or anything, have you read My Years with Ayn Rand by Nathaniel Branden? I personally found it interesting and liked the critiques it had on her philosophy.
 
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
 
One of my acquaintences has recently become a Randian...and he's been using said phrase a -lot-.

He's as subtle as a rampaging bull elephant in sharing his new beliefs.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
She couldn't. And didn't. They were her views, but they were never put forth as part of the Objectivist philosophy.

I like Wagner's music (some of it, anyway), even though he was an anti-semite. I like 60s and 70s rock, even though most of it was done by drug addicts (okay, that's probably why it's so good, but anyway...). So I don't have a problem accepting rational argument from someone who also has irrational convictions.
 
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 
quote:

I like Wagner's music (some of it, anyway), even though he was an anti-semite. I like 60s and 70s rock, even though most of it was done by drug addicts (okay, that's probably why it's so good, but anyway...).

True story, I think the Stone Temple Pilots 2nd album (Purple/12 Gracious Melodies) is their best work and one of the greatest albums of all time. But I had to say goodbye to the music when the lead singer/song writer got arrested for drug posession and went into rehab. It was a bittersweet moment for me.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Puffy Treat:
One of my acquaintences has recently become a Randian...and he's been using said phrase a -lot-.

He's as subtle as a rampaging bull elephant in sharing his new beliefs.

Heh. You'll get the same thing from anyone who has adopted a radically different way of looking at the world, be it political, or religious or philosophical. Converts to an idea tend to be extremely zealous at first. They generally simmer down as time goes by.
 
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
 
I've known some converts (including those who did not convert to my own religion) who've been able to discuss their new beliefs -without- insulting the beliefs of others.

Some. Were they just the exceptions to the rule?
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Amanecer:
Lisa- I would not automatically assume, but I might be a bit suspicious. I think that Rand presents her philosophy in a way that it becomes immoral (by her definitions) to disagree with any part of it. I definitely think this leads to dogmatism.

It can, and it often does.

quote:
Originally posted by Amanecer:
This is just curiosity asking, not trying to make a point or anything, have you read My Years with Ayn Rand by Nathaniel Branden? I personally found it interesting and liked the critiques it had on her philosophy.

I read it in the previous version, when it was called Judgement Day. He's made revisions that... well, they aren't entirely honest. I've also read Barbara Branden's The Passion of Ayn Rand (and seen the movie).

For the sake of seeing more than one side of the story (and the fact that the Brandens wrote these books after Rand was dead made them someone one-sided), I recommend that you try reading The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics. He wrote this after Rand's journals were released, and the Brandens don't come out quite as shiny clean as they do in their own books.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Puffy Treat:
I've known some converts (including those who did not convert to my own religion) who've been able to discuss their new beliefs -without- insulting the beliefs of others.

Some. Were they just the exceptions to the rule?

A lot depends on what you mean by "insulting". I know that when I first became Orthodox, it took me a good year and a half before I stopped trying to convince my family that they should as well. Were they insulted? I think so. Was I meaning to insult them? Certainly not.

Also, a lot depends on the magnitude of the difference between the former views and the latter views. As well as the gap between the new views and the general consensus worldview in the surrounding society. That, I think, more than anything else, because if your views are radically different than those around you, there's more of a feeling that you need to assert your views strongly. That's not nearly as necessary if most people hold similar views.

For example, if you "get religion" in the sense of becoming heavily into charitable giving and working in soup kitchens, that's hardly going to raise eyebrows. The virtues of charity are mainstream values, to some degree or another, in our society. But if you adopt a world view that says it is absolutely vital to think with your brain, and not with your emotions, that's going to run right up against some very basic unconscious assumptions in modern western thought.

It's one of the reasons why some of the things I say are taken as so offensive by many people. In some cases, I actually intend offense. But in most, the very fact that I present a view that goes so much against the grain for some people here is seen as me being offensive.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
quote:
read it in the previous version, when it was called Judgement Day. He's made revisions that... well, they aren't entirely honest.
How do you know? I mean, if two versions differ on facts, then sure, presumably one version is dishonest. But how do you know which one?
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
quote:
But if you adopt a world view that says it is absolutely vital to think with your brain, and not with your emotions, that's going to run right up against some very basic unconscious assumptions in modern western thought.
I disagree; I think what grates is rather the assumption on the part of Randians that only their way actually is thinking with the brain.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:
read it in the previous version, when it was called Judgement Day. He's made revisions that... well, they aren't entirely honest.
How do you know? I mean, if two versions differ on facts, then sure, presumably one version is dishonest. But how do you know which one?
I own Judgement Day and The Passion of Ayn Rand. Vaillant's book pointed out contradictions between the two, and things that Nathaniel Branden changed in Judgement Day, which had clearly made him look bad in retrospect.

There were things in his book in the first place that weren't exactly as he painted them. He'd describe an event, and then draw a conclusion about it that was really unwarranted, and was clearly based on the idea that Ayn Rand was a meanie, so clearly this was bad.

I'm not going to recapitulate Vaillant's whole book, which is extremely comprehensive. It includes all of the difficulties I had with the accounts written by the Brandens. Of course, Vaillant makes some similar mistakes. Areas where he was clearly starting from the idea that Rand was virtually a saint, and wound up concluding that she must have been in the right.

Rand made some bad judgement calls, it's clear. But reading some of the notes she wrote during the whole mess changes a lot of the meaning of some of the things that happened.

I highly recommend that you read this book. Honestly. Take the Objectivist POV with a large grain of salt, if you like, but look at the facts he brings. There's substance to his critique of the Brandens.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:
But if you adopt a world view that says it is absolutely vital to think with your brain, and not with your emotions, that's going to run right up against some very basic unconscious assumptions in modern western thought.
I disagree; I think what grates is rather the assumption on the part of Randians that only their way actually is thinking with the brain.
That's a fact that cannot be disputed, KoM. You can claim that not all of them, or even that very few of them, live up to that principle. But you can't argue with the basic fact that their "way", which is Objectivism, is thinking with the brain. Just like I could argue that you're no king of anyone, but it's still impossible to argue with the fact that your screen name on this forum is King of Men.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
I certainly can dispute it; my suggestion was actually slightly different, though. My exact words were "the part of Randians that only their way".
 
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
 
KoM: How is this different from the way you think of religious people?
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
I'm right, they're not. [Smile]
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
I certainly can dispute it; my suggestion was actually slightly different, though. My exact words were "the part of Randians that only their way".

Pardon. I misread what you wrote. However, you could not dispute what I thought you read.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
Well, actually, I've changed my mind since my previous post, where I asserted that I could do precisely that. Now I'm not sure if I could or not, the reason being, I'm not convinced 'thinking with the brain' has been adequately defined.
 
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
 
quote:
True story, I think the Stone Temple Pilots 2nd album (Purple/12 Gracious Melodies) is their best work and one of the greatest albums of all time. But I had to say goodbye to the music when the lead singer/song writer got arrested for drug posession and went into rehab. It was a bittersweet moment for me.
BlackBlade, please explain this to me. Because the lead singer of a band does drugs, his music is worthless? What if he had been arrested for a DUI and had to go to rehab for alcoholism? What if it was painkillers he was addicted to? Is it the illegality? What about gambling? What exactly is it about drugs that suddenly made his music worthless to you? What if during the making of that album he was completely sober, and only started doing drugs after it was released? Does that invalidate the music also? Do you feel that you were taken in and tricked into liking music made under the influence? Is it a moral stand against drugs and anyone who does them. If that's the case, you're going to have a hard time listening to a lot of music and watching any movies, as well as dealing with a lot of people in life. Heck, our current and former president would have to be disowned by you(maybe not such a bad thing). I'm really curious to understand your reasoning for this. It doesn't make any sense to me.

If someone tells you a true fact, that fact is still true regardless of whether that person does drugs or not. And good music is good music whether the artist does drugs or not. Or to deprive yourself of that music, which you still think is good, as a moral stand against what the artist chooses to do to their body seems even worse to me.
 
Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
 
How awesome would this be?!?!?!
 
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Strider:
quote:
True story, I think the Stone Temple Pilots 2nd album (Purple/12 Gracious Melodies) is their best work and one of the greatest albums of all time. But I had to say goodbye to the music when the lead singer/song writer got arrested for drug posession and went into rehab. It was a bittersweet moment for me.
BlackBlade, please explain this to me. Because the lead singer of a band does drugs, his music is worthless? What if he had been arrested for a DUI and had to go to rehab for alcoholism? What if it was painkillers he was addicted to? Is it the illegality? What about gambling? What exactly is it about drugs that suddenly made his music worthless to you? What if during the making of that album he was completely sober, and only started doing drugs after it was released? Does that invalidate the music also? Do you feel that you were taken in and tricked into liking music made under the influence? Is it a moral stand against drugs and anyone who does them. If that's the case, you're going to have a hard time listening to a lot of music and watching any movies, as well as dealing with a lot of people in life. Heck, our current and former president would have to be disowned by you(maybe not such a bad thing). I'm really curious to understand your reasoning for this. It doesn't make any sense to me.

If someone tells you a true fact, that fact is still true regardless of whether that person does drugs or not. And good music is good music whether the artist does drugs or not. Or to deprive yourself of that music, which you still think is good, as a moral stand against what the artist chooses to do to their body seems even worse to me.

You misunderstand, he wrote the 2nd album at the height of his drug use and its the best. When he went through rehab his ability to song write went with the drugs. I was not saying that because he does drugs I wont listen to his music, I bought their later albums even though I think they are not as well written.
 
Posted by ssasse (Member # 9516) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by starLisa:

Also, a lot depends on the magnitude of the difference between the former views and the latter views. As well as the gap between the new views and the general consensus worldview in the surrounding society. That, I think, more than anything else, because if your views are radically different than those around you, there's more of a feeling that you need to assert your views strongly. That's not nearly as necessary if most people hold similar views.

I wonder if there is also a component of self-selection here. That is, people with a strident personality may be more likely to be attracted to strident views or systems of belief, and so you could see the initial "convert effect" exacerbated by personality.

Not that that would prove anything one way or the other about the theories themselves, of course. One can be strident and be right.
 
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
 
quote:
You misunderstand, he wrote the 2nd album at the height of his drug use and its the best. When he went through rehab his ability to song write went with the drugs. I was not saying that because he does drugs I wont listen to his music, I bought their later albums even though I think they are not as well written.
Ahh...I apologize for jumping the gun there then. [Smile]

It was a bit confusing though, because you posted it in response to this:

quote:
I like Wagner's music (some of it, anyway), even though he was an anti-semite. I like 60s and 70s rock, even though most of it was done by drug addicts (okay, that's probably why it's so good, but anyway...). So I don't have a problem accepting rational argument from someone who also has irrational convictions.
So it seemed you were using a personal counter example to show that you didn't want to listen to the music when you found out he was on drugs. That not everyone would accept rational arguments from someone if they didn't share all their same beliefs.

[ August 19, 2006, 01:22 PM: Message edited by: Strider ]
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Amanecer:
How awesome would this be?!?!?!

Actually, it'd be horrendous. For one thing, I assume that Brad Pitt would be playing John Galt. But Galt needs to be played by an unknown. We see him in the book over and over before he's "unveiled", without knowing that it's him.

There've been fan "casting calls" for Atlas Shrugged in the past. You can probably search for them. I would be surprised if either Brad or Angelina ever showed up on any of them.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
From what little I know of Rand, I don't think I agree with her concepts.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
If you haven't read what her concepts were, you aren't really in a place to have an opinion, though, are you?
 
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
 
Syn: from what I've read of your posts, you are diametrically opposed to Rand.

In fact, if you dug her up and put her in the same room as you, it would cause a matter-antimatter explosion and destroy the universe.
 
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
[ROFL]
 
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
 
Ayn Rand was just a much more boring version of Nietzche. Their mutual anti-humanist views combined with their mutually inflated egos would have made them perfect for each other. Maybe the rest of the world might have been spared them.

Isn't it funny how atheists create their own religions?
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by starLisa:
If you haven't read what her concepts were, you aren't really in a place to have an opinion, though, are you?

I am. I skimmed through them a bit. Someone, a teacher of science, who didn't really teach us much science gave me one of her books ages ago...
Also there are websites devoted to her where you can read some of her thoughts...
And you can hear echoes of that sort of thought in other people...
Righ on her website it says, "My philosophy in essence is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the more purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."
Recenetly I read a book about Mao. Sounds too much like what he believed, that people just exist to hold up people like him and that he could do whatever he wanted to do to make himself happy with no regard for other people. I just dont' agree with that concept at all... I have every right to disagree with a concept, and perhaps upon learning more about it I can change my mind, but I simply HATE laissez-faire capitalism. It has cost too many problems in the past. You have got to have some balance in things.

quote:
Syn: from what I've read of your posts, you are diametrically opposed to Rand.

In fact, if you dug her up and put her in the same room as you, it would cause a matter-antimatter explosion and destroy the universe.

[Big Grin] That's probably true.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Pelegius:
Ayn Rand was just a much more boring version of Nietzche.

Ayn Rand was nothing like Nietzche. That you'd say such a thing means that you either have no clue what Neitzche wrote or no clue what Rand wrote. Or both, more likely.

quote:
Originally posted by Pelegius:
Their mutual anti-humanist views

How you can call Objectivism "anti-humanist" is beyond me. It's positively Orwellian.

quote:
Originally posted by Pelegius:
Isn't it funny how atheists create their own religions?

Isn't it funny how adolescents speak about things they clearly know nothing about?
 
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
 
Heinlein said that boys should be kept in a barrel until they're 18.. then you open the barrel, if you like what you see you let him out. If not, you seal the barrel back up.

Who let Pel out?
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Synesthesia:
Righ on her website it says, "My philosophy in essence is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the more purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."
Recenetly I read a book about Mao. Sounds too much like what he believed, that people just exist to hold up people like him and that he could do whatever he wanted to do to make himself happy with no regard for other people.

Puritan women at the end of the 19th century wanted to ban smoking because it was a pleasurable activity, and they were opposed to it on that basis. The American Cancer Association wants to ban smoking because it kills. By your "logic", the ACA is just puritanism rewarmed.

The truth is in the details, Synesthesia. You can simplify anything to a point where it's similar on the surface to anything else. That's silly. Anarchists don't want kings. The Founding Fathers of the United States didn't want kings. Therefore, the Founders were anarchists. Hell, that's probably an argument the royalists used. But it's ridiculous.

Objectivism does indeed say that I live for my own sake alone. But it never, ever, ever says that anyone else is there for my sake. On the contrary. Have you read Atlas Shrugged? If so, perhaps you'll recall the oath that people took to join the rebellion of the productive people:
quote:
"I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."
And that's what you compare to Mao's belief
quote:
that people just exist to hold up people like him and that he could do whatever he wanted to do to make himself happy with no regard for other people.
quote:
Originally posted by Synesthesia:
I just dont' agree with that concept at all...

Neither did Rand. It's easy to disagree with something that was never claimed in the first place.

I applaud you for rejecting that concept. Mao's concept.

quote:
Originally posted by Synesthesia:
I have every right to disagree with a concept, and perhaps upon learning more about it I can change my mind, but I simply HATE laissez-faire capitalism.

Perhaps you've never actually encountered it. Perhaps you'd feel otherwise if you did. And perhaps you might want to go to the library and find a book called Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, and see (a) what Rand really wrote about the concept, and (b) what the concept really is. And why you might just feel a little different about the real thing than you do about the current protectionism of the US government, which gives special perks to corporations.

I saw a great line in today's newspaper. It said that libertarians (little "L") view conservatives as trying to be everyone's daddy and liberals as trying to be everyone's mommy. Well, guess what? We're grownups. We don't need people acting either way. The so-called "capitalists" you look down upon... I don't just look down upon them: I abominate them with all my soul.

Greed and guilt. The conservatives who steal from us to feed their greed and the liberals who steal from us to feed their guilt. Both of them suck.
 
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
 
Ayn Rand and Nietzche both had a grotesque cult of the "above-man" or übermensch, Nieztche used the term, Ayn Rand, to my knowledge, did not, but the idea is still present in her view of the glories nature of selfishness. Nietzche's übermensch would worship at Ayn Rand's alter of selfishness.

"How you can call Objectivism "anti-humanist" is beyond me." Objectivism is based on the subjugation, either willful or careless, of the mass of humanity to some bizarre ideal of the selfish capitalist. Liberalism and humanism stress the importance of enlightened self-interest, responsible capitalism, Objectivism dispenses with the enlightened aspect.

"Isn't it funny how adolescents speak about things they clearly know nothing about?" I understand just fine, but, like the vast majority of people, am moraly repulsed.
 
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
 
Lisa... You're asking Syn to fundementally change her world view. I just don't think it's going to happen. She's a commie (No offence, Syn, that's just how I've interpreted your posts.) Nothing anyone can say will change that.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
No, I'm not a commie... Mostly I am trying to find some middle ground between caring for the individual and the whole society... But, I do not think I am a communist at all.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Synesthesia:
No, I'm not a commie... Mostly I am trying to find some middle ground between caring for the individual and the whole society... But, I do not think I am a communist at all.

I never claimed you were. I don't think I said anything that could be construed that way, but if I did, I apologize and withdraw it. And ask that you tell me what it was so that I can be more careful in the future.
 
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
She was replying to Pixiest, I think.
 
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
 
I claimed she was a commie, Lisa =)

Syn: Who cares for the individual or society? Society is just a bunch of individuals making their own choices.

I think you mean The Government. And they don't care about anyone but themselves. They're a cold, heartless corporation who call themselves President and Congress instead of CEO and Board of Directors. We are the stockholders who have a very dilutted voice in what's going on, with little regard for the rights of the minorities.

All you have to do is look at how the government treats gay families to know what a cold and hateful thing they are.

Pix
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Pelegius:
Ayn Rand and Nietzche both had a grotesque cult of the "above-man" or übermensch, Nieztche used the term, Ayn Rand, to my knowledge, did not, but the idea is still present in her view of the glories nature of selfishness. Nietzche's übermensch would worship at Ayn Rand's alter of selfishness.

How very childish. "I don't actually know if Rand said what I'm claiming she said or not, but I'm sure she meant it."

You'd fit in very well in the word of Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron", Pelegius. Keeping those with ability down because their talent is offensive to those who lack it. It's really nauseating. The vast majority of people would still be grubbing in the dirt and living in caves without the contributions of people of ability.

quote:
Originally posted by Pelegius:
"How you can call Objectivism "anti-humanist" is beyond me." Objectivism is based on the subjugation, either willful or careless, of the mass of humanity to some bizarre ideal of the selfish capitalist.

Again, the sound we're all hearing is the buzzing of a self-important adolescent who is attributing false claims to someone else. Objectivism is nothing of the sort. It's about every single person in the world living for the sake of life. Striving to be the best they can be.

Objectivism is about the basic fact that you aren't entitled to my life or my property or my earnings just because you're a corporation and have political friends. And that you aren't entitled to my life or my property or my earnings just because you're poor and don't have health insurance.

Objectivism says that if you're a corporation or a poor person and you want what's mine, you're entitled to ask me for some of it. And that I can give it or not, as I see fit. Not as you see fit. And not as others see fit.

It's about the benevolence of the giver; not the entitlement of the taker.

quote:
Originally posted by Pelegius:
Liberalism and humanism stress the importance of enlightened self-interest, responsible capitalism, Objectivism dispenses with the enlightened aspect.

Your sort of liberalism stresses the idea that people are owned by society, which can dispose of them and theirs as it sees fit.

quote:
Originally posted by Pelegius:
"Isn't it funny how adolescents speak about things they clearly know nothing about?" I understand just fine, but, like the vast majority of people, am moraly repulsed.

You misspelled "repulsive".
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Pixiest:
Lisa... You're asking Syn to fundementally change her world view. I just don't think it's going to happen. She's a commie (No offence, Syn, that's just how I've interpreted your posts.) Nothing anyone can say will change that.

If every collectivist was a commie, we'd be in even worse shape than we already are.
 
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by starLisa:
quote:
Originally posted by Amanecer:
How awesome would this be?!?!?!

Actually, it'd be horrendous. For one thing, I assume that Brad Pitt would be playing John Galt. But Galt needs to be played by an unknown. We see him in the book over and over before he's "unveiled", without knowing that it's him.

I'm gonna agree with Lisa on this one. I like Atlas Shrugged (the story and how it's presented; I don't subscribe to the philosophy behind it), but Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie? What a couple of huge casting mistakes those would be!
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
I'm not sure what I am, but I just want balance, middleground, a system that works with a lot of thought put into it that shifts with the times instead of getting stale and stagnant.
I haven't really found what that is...
 
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
 
"Your sort of liberalism stresses the idea that people are owned by society, which can dispose of them and theirs as it sees fit." Liberalism and humanism (the two are largely inseparable) require that citizens be responsible to society, yes, but they also control it. Rights and responsibilities are intwined, although not entirely inseparable (neither very young children nor the severely mentally ill have responsibilities, but both have rights.)

All societies of, all groups of all species, are collectives, the question is how much control is exerted.

The idvidual defines and is defined by society. It may be a marriage of convience, but divorce would be most unpleasent indeed, for it would kill our humanity.
 
Posted by Mike (Member # 55) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by starLisa:
quote:
Originally posted by Pelegius:
"Isn't it funny how adolescents speak about things they clearly know nothing about?" I understand just fine, but, like the vast majority of people, am moraly repulsed.

You misspelled "repulsive".
Way to go, Lisa. [Roll Eyes]
 
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
 
Jon Stewart's America, The Book has a quote on the back attributed to Ayn Rand:

"This is similar to my works, in that anyone who reads it is sure to be an [bleep!] for at least a month afterword."
 
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Sterling:
Jon Stewart's America, The Book has a quote on the back attributed to Ayn Rand:

"This is similar to my works, in that anyone who reads it is sure to be an [bleep!] for at least a month afterword."

I was trying to figure out what the "bleep" stands for. The "an" before it pretty much leaves it up to whatever words start with AEIOU.

Was A** the word in the book? [Wink]
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
I assume it was meant to be a**hole.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Pelegius:
"Your sort of liberalism stresses the idea that people are owned by society, which can dispose of them and theirs as it sees fit." Liberalism and humanism (the two are largely inseparable) require that citizens be responsible to society, yes, but they also control it. Rights and responsibilities are intwined, although not entirely inseparable (neither very young children nor the severely mentally ill have responsibilities, but both have rights.)

All societies of, all groups of all species, are collectives, the question is how much control is exerted.

The idvidual defines and is defined by society. It may be a marriage of convience, but divorce would be most unpleasent indeed, for it would kill our humanity.

No, it wouldn't. But it suits collectivists to use that as a scare tactic. It helps them maintain their power. Because ultimately, collectivism is about the control of many by the few. They claim that the control is for the good of the few. That's how they manage to avoid rebellion.
 
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
 
Hominids has lived in a society since long before the development of homo sapiens.
 
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
I would be fascinated if someone could tell me what mechanism(s) a society could possibly use to enforce contracts and prevent the use of coervice force (against people who are compliant in their contracts and not themselves coercing others) that neither

1) obviously allows for some agents to break contracts without consequences nor

2) obviously allows for some agents to use coercive force without significant consequence against others for reasons other than enforcing contractual obligations/preventing other uses of coercive force nor

3) is essentially equivalent to government.

I await suggestions; I will be pleasantly surprised if one that meets those criteria is given.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
Lisa has often said that she supports just so much government as will enforce contracts and maintain security against foreign threats; and as I understand it, she is willing to tax enough for that purpose. How she squares this minimal taxation with the absolute right to the benefits of your own work, I don't know; it seems to me equivalent to being only a little bit pregnant.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
I await suggestions; I will be pleasantly surprised if one that meets those criteria is given.
Ayn Rand attempted to reconcile the fundamental hangups by stating that she believed that taxation could and should be maintained, but that it should be "purely voluntary."

The theorycrafting as to how this would ever work is to be observed with morbid fascination.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Pelegius:
Hominids has lived in a society since long before the development of homo sapiens.

We also had cannibalism, human sacrifice, and the divine right of kings. It'd be nice to think that we'd outgrown such things. The kind of collectivism you support is of a kind with those.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by fugu13:
I would be fascinated if someone could tell me what mechanism(s) a society could possibly use to enforce contracts and prevent the use of coervice force (against people who are compliant in their contracts and not themselves coercing others) that neither

1) obviously allows for some agents to break contracts without consequences nor

2) obviously allows for some agents to use coercive force without significant consequence against others for reasons other than enforcing contractual obligations/preventing other uses of coercive force nor

3) is essentially equivalent to government.

I await suggestions; I will be pleasantly surprised if one that meets those criteria is given.

Why would anyone want there to be no government? I mean, other than anarchists. That's insane. Government is what stands between civilization and barbarism. But a government has no rights that its constituent members don't, at least in principle, have themselves.

In principle, every individual has the right to retaliate with force. No one has the right to initiate coercive force against another, but everyone, innately and as a matter of natural law, has a right to retaliate.

But since people, however rational they may be (and they so often are not) can disagree on "who started it", and what counts as initiating force and what counts as retaliatory force, the only way to avoid anarchy is for that right to the use of retaliatory force to be delegated to an objective body. That's the government.

The government can, and should, act coercively to prevent Tom from initiating force against Dick or Harry. And it should deal with the situation if Tom does such a thing. That's why we have police. And because the law of a country isn't something that people outside of the country consider themselves bound by, we need an army. And because, as I pointed out before, people of good will and rational mind can still disagree, there need to be courts to mediate disputes.

And I'd add that aside from criminals and external threats, there's also the threat of infectious disease. So there's a need for a centralized body there as well. But other than police, army, courts, and something like the CDC, pretty much anything else a government does is inappropriate. Everything else should be left to individuals and voluntary associations of individuals.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
Lisa has often said that she supports just so much government as will enforce contracts and maintain security against foreign threats; and as I understand it, she is willing to tax enough for that purpose. How she squares this minimal taxation with the absolute right to the benefits of your own work, I don't know; it seems to me equivalent to being only a little bit pregnant.

It's a matter of short term. In principle, there shouldn't be any taxation. And yet, the government has to fulfill these responsibilities. So until another solution is found, some taxation is necessary. The issue isn't taxation as such. It's taxation for purposes other than those for which a government is necessary.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:
I await suggestions; I will be pleasantly surprised if one that meets those criteria is given.
Ayn Rand attempted to reconcile the fundamental hangups by stating that she believed that taxation could and should be maintained, but that it should be "purely voluntary."

The theorycrafting as to how this would ever work is to be observed with morbid fascination.

Yup. It's a problem.
 
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
 
"Why would anyone want there to be no government?" You say we need a government, and yet you deny we need a society? The one must surely proceed the other.
 
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Natural disasters are outside forces just as much as diseases are [Smile]
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Pelegius:
"Why would anyone want there to be no government?" You say we need a government, and yet you deny we need a society? The one must surely proceed the other.

Why? And society is nothing but an aggregate of individuals. The issue is that you pretend that there's a thing called society that has rights that the individuals making it up don't have themselves. I don't have the right to mug you and give your money to someone I think needs it more or deserves it more. No one has that right. But you arrogate such a pretend "right" to something you call "society". It's that invented construct that I deny exists.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by fugu13:
Natural disasters are outside forces just as much as diseases are [Smile]

You can act against infectious disease.
 
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Lisa: you've given the government a right you don't seem to acknowledge individuals have, the right to coerce people who might be innocent to appear in court (it gets even better if the courts can compel testimony, which one would hope they have for them to work).

And many of the actions against infectious disease are actions against the effects of infectious disease (much as many of the actions in war are actions against the effects of war, et cetera); similarly, one can act against the effects of natural disasters (including preventing them from happen, such as by evacuating areas where a disaster will shortly occur).

Some natural disasters may even be preventable (we know of a few situations that are likely to cause tsunamis at some point in the future, in ways that could theoretically be remedied, for instance).

You're willing to accept a government that can use coercive taxes (albeit you'd prefer another solution, but you're willing to live with that one for now) to fund a program that could be funded through private dollars and contracts to directly aid a subset of the people in a country (not everyone gets sick) at the expense of everyone (who pays taxes).

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, we've established you're willing to tax for programs you deem sufficiently important, we're only haggling over which programs.

[ August 21, 2006, 08:33 AM: Message edited by: fugu13 ]
 
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
 
quote:
But since people, however rational they may be (and they so often are not) can disagree on "who started it", and what counts as initiating force and what counts as retaliatory force, the only way to avoid anarchy is for that right to the use of retaliatory force to be delegated to an objective body. That's the government.
Emphasis mine, of course. Here's the problem that so many people miss. The government is not an objective body, in the sense that it cannot have a "God's eye view" of the world. Any government - of any flavour - will always be fundementally oriented to the interests of a particular group.

If a government subscribes to your views, Star, than it is not objective - it just happens to serve your interests.
 
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
 
"Why? And society is nothing but an aggregate of individuals. The issue is that you pretend that there's a thing called society that has rights that the individuals making it up don't have themselves."

Actually, I believe what I have said is more along the lines that the "rights of society" are based on the rights of individuals. Thus, society has no actual rights except the "right" to serve its inhabitants.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by fugu13:
Lisa: you've given the government a right you don't seem to acknowledge individuals have, the right to coerce people who might be innocent to appear in court (it gets even better if the courts can compel testimony, which one would hope they have for them to work).

And many of the actions against infectious disease are actions against the effects of infectious disease (much as many of the actions in war are actions against the effects of war, et cetera); similarly, one can act against the effects of natural disasters (including preventing them from happen, such as by evacuating areas where a disaster will shortly occur).

Some natural disasters may even be preventable (we know of a few situations that are likely to cause tsunamis at some point in the future, in ways that could theoretically be remedied, for instance).

You're willing to accept a government that can use coercive taxes (albeit you'd prefer another solution, but you're willing to live with that one for now) to fund a program that could be funded through private dollars and contracts to directly aid a subset of the people in a country (not everyone gets sick) at the expense of everyone (who pays taxes).

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, we've established you're willing to tax for programs you deem sufficiently important, we're only haggling over which programs.

No. You're starting from the POV that government exists. I'm not. I'm saying that there are certain functions which are necessary to protect individuals from other individuals. In truth, I'm not even so sure about the addition I put in there of the CDC. I'm still debating that.

But in terms of natural disasters... if someone wants to live in New Orleans, knowing that it has the vulnerabilities it has, there's really no reason why the rest of the country should have to stand as their guarantors.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Pelegius:
"Why? And society is nothing but an aggregate of individuals. The issue is that you pretend that there's a thing called society that has rights that the individuals making it up don't have themselves."

Actually, I believe what I have said is more along the lines that the "rights of society" are based on the rights of individuals. Thus, society has no actual rights except the "right" to serve its inhabitants.

If that's really what you're saying, then we're in agreement. But since me and a friend don't have a right to mug a rich guy on the street so that we can give some of his money to a homeless guy in an alley, then what you're saying is basically that you agree with me that the government has no right to tax us to pay for social programs.
 
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
There are natural disasters in every part of the country, only the frequency and variety change. For instance, while my part of the midwest is usually relatively calm, during US history there has already been one megaquake that reversed the courses of rivers for a time, and it is moderately likely to recur at some point in my lifetime.

I am not starting from the POV that government exists. I do think that a government should exist given various practical considerations, but you apparently do too.

And you seem to not have addressed the issue of court orders, which are most definitely a power that a government with courts must have in order to function, yet fall nowhere in any of the powers you claim individuals have rights to.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Foust:
quote:
But since people, however rational they may be (and they so often are not) can disagree on "who started it", and what counts as initiating force and what counts as retaliatory force, the only way to avoid anarchy is for that right to the use of retaliatory force to be delegated to an objective body. That's the government.
Emphasis mine, of course. Here's the problem that so many people miss. The government is not an objective body, in the sense that it cannot have a "God's eye view" of the world. Any government - of any flavour - will always be fundementally oriented to the interests of a particular group.

If a government subscribes to your views, Star, than it is not objective - it just happens to serve your interests.

My name is not Star. It is not sL or starLisa or StarLisa. It is Lisa.

Second of all, what you are saying is only true in the context of the corrupt thing you know as government. If the government doesn't control the cash, then it's not true at all. And it should not control the cash.

As much as I hate to quote directly from Rand's books, because usually, I find it's better to phrase things my own way (she had a very different style of speaking), I agree with this quote:
quote:
"[T]here should be (but historically has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church"

 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by fugu13:
There are natural disasters in every part of the country, only the frequency and variety change. For instance, while my part of the midwest is usually relatively calm, during US history there has already been one megaquake that reversed the courses of rivers for a time, and it is moderately likely to recur at some point in my lifetime.

I am not starting from the POV that government exists. I do think that a government should exist given various practical considerations, but you apparently do too.

And you seem to not have addressed the issue of court orders, which are most definitely a power that a government with courts must have in order to function, yet fall nowhere in any of the powers you claim individuals have rights to.

I haven't addressed them, because that's too wide a claim on your part. Even if you're talking about the right of subpoena alone, I'd say "sometimes yes and sometimes no".

If Tom and Dick are resolving a dispute in court, I'm not convinced that the court should be entitled to subpoena me as a witness to support or refute the claims of one or the other or both Tom and Dick. But since government, by its nature, must prevent and punish crime (where crime is defined as the initiation of coercive force against against another person or persons, including fraud), then yes, it should be able to subpoena individuals for the purpose of establishing the truth of the matter.

If you mean court orders, such as a court order mandating the searching of an individual's residence, I support that as well, so long as it does not fall under the category of unreasonable search and seizure. And in practice, I think that the boundaries of what is "reasonable" have been stretched pretty close to their breaking point of late.

If the Army requires roads in order to move along, it's legitimate for them to build them at government expense, but beyond that, it's not reasonable for the government to be in the street building and owning business. If the government requires a building to house a courtroom, it should acquire one at government expense. But that doesn't mean the government has a right to build malls or apartment buildings or hospitals.
 
Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :
 
Hey, the ad on the bottom of the page is for athiest dating. How amusing.
 
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
 
You know Lisa, if you're that concerned that people not call you starLisa you ought to change your username. I can see asking people not to shorten it in unapproved ways, but asking people not to call you by the name you've chosen to attach to all of your posts seems kind of futile.
 
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
 
"then what you're saying is basically that you agree with me that the government has no right to tax us to pay for social programs."

Not at all, the government has that right. But taxation is already voluntary under a legitimate government, in that anyone and everyone may vote against it. But, should the majority decide in its favor, then it is the right, the duty of the government to carry out the wished of the majority. As for me, I am in favor of certain forms of taxation, but not of others.

The system of liberal democracy is far from perfect, but no one has yet come closer to perfection than we have. Look at the other systems that have been tried:—

Dictatorship is an excellent system, if you happen to be the dictator. Fascism, Leninist and post-Leninist Communism are dictatorships thinly veiled by ideology. Anarchy and true Communism may work fairly well, in populations of fewer than 100 like minded individuals, but, even is such instances, too many problems arise during times of peace and plenty that one has to wonder what might happen in a crises.

Tyranny is our only option, let it be the tyranny of a majority, limited by a Constitution and an independent judiciary, rather than any other tyranny.
 
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Ah, glad to know at least most of the interstate highway system is okay (a primary justification for its construction was national defense).

Returning to the courts, I never said the extent of the power to issue court orders, merely that some such power must clearly exist for courts to function, and that it would constitute a coercive power over individual members not one possessed of individual members conceded to the government. How do you argue such a capability is not, even minimally, collectivist?

The fundamental difference between me and you is not the assumption of government (which neither of us makes), but your assumption that there is one fundamental principle of human existence which all others should mold themselves to in the organization of individuals. I long ago grew suspicious of single overriding principles.

Interestingly, you don't seem at all to be arguing for a separation of state and economics. Indeed, your scheme seems to rely on the state (largely through the courts) to ensure the operation of the system of economics, via contract enforcement, preventing forcefully coercive measures, et cetera. Most of what you argue for are a separation of government from the traditional parts of governing (amusingly enough). To an extent I agree with that aim, but only to an extent.

I would not support my society being organized in your manner. I would support the revision of the federal government to not much more than what its part would be in what you lay out, allowing states to be basically organized in your manner if desired by their populace.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by fugu13:
Ah, glad to know at least most of the interstate highway system is okay (a primary justification for its construction was national defense).

Returning to the courts, I never said the extent of the power to issue court orders, merely that some such power must clearly exist for courts to function, and that it would constitute a coercive power over individual members not one possessed of individual members conceded to the government. How do you argue such a capability is not, even minimally, collectivist?

You know, that's a good question. And one I hadn't thought of. I think I'll pass it on to some people who've spent a lot more time on Objectivism than I have. Perhaps I'm wrong about such orders being acceptable ever. Or maybe I'm not, and maybe it is something that individuals would be entitled to do, in principle, but delegate to the government.

How about that? An Objectivist who isn't claiming to have all the answers. Don't tell anyone.

quote:
Originally posted by fugu13:
The fundamental difference between me and you is not the assumption of government (which neither of us makes), but your assumption that there is one fundamental principle of human existence which all others should mold themselves to in the organization of individuals. I long ago grew suspicious of single overriding principles.

I bet you'd be willing to agree that all people need to eat. This isn't all that different. You can make any decisions you want, but when you let your decisions turn into an excuse to force me to do your will, you've stepped outside the bounds of any legitimacy.

quote:
Originally posted by fugu13:
Interestingly, you don't seem at all to be arguing for a separation of state and economics.

Certainly, I am.

quote:
Originally posted by fugu13:
Indeed, your scheme seems to rely on the state (largely through the courts) to ensure the operation of the system of economics, via contract enforcement, preventing forcefully coercive measures, et cetera.

No. That has nothing to do, directly, with economics. It has to do with human freedom. The fact that human beings who are free can then engage in trade is secondary.

I own my life. You aren't entitled to it. You aren't entitled to shorten my life or to enslave me. If I engage in activity for trade, which means that I agree with someone else to trade my activity and my time and essentially a piece of my life for recompense, that recompense is mine every bit as much as the time and life I've traded for it. If you try and take it away from me against my will, that's stealing, but more importantly, it's a violation of my basic ownership of my life. If you enter into an agreement with me where you get something of mine in exchange for me getting something of yours, and you don't live up to your side, you have, again, stolen from me that which is mine. To wit: a portion of my life.

This isn't about greasing the wheels of industry. Government has no role in facilitating business any more than it has a role in facilitating education or welfare or housing.

Government is about making sure that no one violates the life of another. That any time someone gets something from someone else, it's voluntary.

quote:
Originally posted by fugu13:
Most of what you argue for are a separation of government from the traditional parts of governing (amusingly enough). To an extent I agree with that aim, but only to an extent.

The traditional parts of governing are paying fealty to the king. I think separating from such things is a good idea. I'm not sure why I should be concerned about what is "traditional" in this area.

quote:
Originally posted by fugu13:
I would not support my society being organized in your manner.

So you'd continue to insist that some people are entitled to take away the product of other people's lives? That's just wrong.
 
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
 
I read Atlas Shrugged about a decade ago. I found myself agreeing with many of the ideas.

I got over it.

I think most people do.

The biggest (of many) problems I have with Ayn Rand's philosophy (as expressed in Atlas as well as in the odd bits I've read of hers on Objectivist philosophy) is that she expects us to grant the premise that there are (or rather would be) sufficient numbers of excellent men (of the John Galt stamp) that a society free of government would actually work.

She (rightly) deplores the industrialists who twist government into giving them hand outs and who basically ruin their own businesses in the attempt to make sure government works to their favor instead of just getting on and doing a good job.

Yes! YES! She's absolutely right about that.

What she is wrong about, it seems to me, is that there are ever going to be sufficient industrialists/businessmen around who would NOT act that way.

And one of the other functions of government is to keep the powerful from just running roughshod over everyone else, twisting things to their advantage, and hogging all the resources and access to power, etc., etc.

Of course, that's not to say that our current government works well to make sure that powerful evil men aren't getting away with too much...

I think Objectivist philosophy suffers from expecting that everyone would just naturally see that a meritocracy would be the best possible form of "government" -- that we all simply would agree to be led by the people who have the best thoughts about how to use resources, and can keep the most people employed, and so on.

I think that meritocracies cannot survive alongside democracy and even basic freedoms. And I value democracy more than I value being "THE BEST" as measured against any standard -- even an "objective" one. I'll be fine with "good enough" as long as freedoms are preserved.

NOTE: Again, this is not to say that our current system is better than the one proposed by Rand. But I prefer a different one than what she proposes because I think hers is doomed to fail for simple and stupid reasons.

What makes a Randian world fall apart is the same thing that makes it so appealing -- selfishness. The individual's belief that his personal code is more important and valid than anyone else's works fine on paper, but it is not possible to have it function long term if human beings are involved. If John Galt were the norm, rather than a fictional ideal, maybe it'd work.

But...there's too much opportunity to be a cheat on the system. It's too easy to get to the point where instead of the honorable and smart getting power, the powerful decide what they do is obviously honorable...and smart.

And who's to tell the difference? Objectivists like Rand don't really say. She claims there's an external objective standard for honor and merit, but she can no more define it than anyone. It's little wonder that her fiction (especially Atlas) is so popular while her philosophy is simply rejected as unrealistic.

How many people here think they know a John Galt?

How many people here think they ARE or could eventually BE a John Galt?

I don't know a single person who is LIKE John Galt.

I know some people who probably think they are like him, but based on their behavior, I'd say they fall far short of it.

And that brings me to Rand's other failing. Her truly great people have to be perfect at it. A John Galt who cut one corner, ever, would be the death of her system. A guy who built exactly to specs rather than caring enough to improve on the design would be a failure. Heck, a John Galt who fought in court rather than just taking all his marbles and leaving would be an utter disaster in her world.

The only way for her system to survive is to go somewhere and form an exclusive club.
 
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
You are willing to let some people take away the product of other people's lives, too, you just have a minimal set of purposes you're willing to accept it for. What else are these taxes funding the military and police force (until a better way is found, of course)? Don't say I'm just wrong when you're willing to accept the same thing under certain criteria.

I don't think you need to be concerned with what the traditional parts of governing are, but the actions you're talking about are traditional parts of governing. Money and fealty to the king are only one part of what (some) monarchies involved; monarchs also had duties (albeit unenforceable) to the people. I'm just somewhat amused by it, as I noted.

Those certainly are government interventions in economics. Economics happens whether or not there are contracts and whether or not force can be employed. It just happens very awkwardly without those guarantees. It doesn't matter if the intention has nothing to do with economics, government most certainly is intervening in the economic system by enforcing contracts and preventing coercive force.

You misunderstand me. That people need to eat is not an overriding principle. It certainly isn't to you, for instance, you're willing to accept some people starving if they lack means to attain food and no individual remedies that, so I'm not sure why you think it would be an overriding principle for me. The key word is overriding -- something to which all other considerations bend.

And one of the things I like about you is that you understand you don't know all the answers (which is good, as nobody does) [Smile] .
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz:
I read Atlas Shrugged about a decade ago. I found myself agreeing with many of the ideas.

I got over it.

I think most people do.

Most of the time, that happens because the person first gloms onto Objectivism as an adolescent. Nineteen, twenty years old at most. All piss and vinegar and wanting to be independent. Rand's stuff feeds into that, big time. But of course, they miss most of the point, because all they really see is the "I don't owe anyone anything", and they miss the part about being rational. So when they grow out of the adolescent rebellion and independence, they toss the Galt out with the bathwater.

quote:
Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz:
The biggest (of many) problems I have with Ayn Rand's philosophy (as expressed in Atlas as well as in the odd bits I've read of hers on Objectivist philosophy) is that she expects us to grant the premise that there are (or rather would be) sufficient numbers of excellent men (of the John Galt stamp) that a society free of government would actually work.

She (rightly) deplores the industrialists who twist government into giving them hand outs and who basically ruin their own businesses in the attempt to make sure government works to their favor instead of just getting on and doing a good job.

Yes! YES! She's absolutely right about that.

What she is wrong about, it seems to me, is that there are ever going to be sufficient industrialists/businessmen around who would NOT act that way.

I think, Bob, that the point is not to allow the government to be able to give such favors. After all, while it may be deplorable that so many industrialists use this leverage, it's hardly surprising that they'd use it when it's so obviously available to them. Make it unavailable, and then it doesn't matter whether they're the type to take advantage of it or not.

quote:
Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz:
And one of the other functions of government is to keep the powerful from just running roughshod over everyone else, twisting things to their advantage, and hogging all the resources and access to power, etc., etc.

That's not true. Not in the slightest. There's absolutely no reason why laws should be enforced more for one sector than another. If what you call "running roughshod" involves actual theft or fraud or violence, simply enforcing the law is good enough. If what you mean is them having the temerity to set prices as they choose, then who died and made you, or anyone else, God?

I've heard the nonsensical concept of "economic violence" a million times. Tell me you're too honest to buy into that.

quote:
Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz:
Of course, that's not to say that our current government works well to make sure that powerful evil men aren't getting away with too much...

The root of political corruption is the ability of politicians to meddle in the economy. The vast, vast majority of political promises which are made in order to get elected are economic in nature. When you offer someone economic benefit in exchange for their vote, there's a technical term for it. Bribery. You can hardly have political corruption without political bribery.

quote:
Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz:
I think Objectivist philosophy suffers from expecting that everyone would just naturally see that a meritocracy would be the best possible form of "government" -- that we all simply would agree to be led by the people who have the best thoughts about how to use resources, and can keep the most people employed, and so on.

Keeping people employed is not a governmental function. Neither is dictating how resources are to be used. A government may legitimately oversee the acquisition of resources in order to prevent fights over them. Homesteading, for example. Apportioning radio frequencies. But once they are apportioned, they belong to whoever they belong to, and it's up to them to decide how to use those resources.

quote:
Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz:
I think that meritocracies cannot survive alongside democracy and even basic freedoms.

The folks in "Harrison Bergeron" would agree with you.

quote:
Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz:
And I value democracy more than I value being "THE BEST" as measured against any standard -- even an "objective" one. I'll be fine with "good enough" as long as freedoms are preserved.

Where do you see freedom of any kind being preserved when you get to tell other people what they may or may not do with their own property?

quote:
Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz:
NOTE: Again, this is not to say that our current system is better than the one proposed by Rand. But I prefer a different one than what she proposes because I think hers is doomed to fail for simple and stupid reasons.

What makes a Randian world fall apart is the same thing that makes it so appealing -- selfishness. The individual's belief that his personal code is more important and valid than anyone else's works fine on paper, but it is not possible to have it function long term if human beings are involved.

Sure it is. See, one bald assertion in exchange for another.

quote:
Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz:
If John Galt were the norm, rather than a fictional ideal, maybe it'd work.

But...there's too much opportunity to be a cheat on the system.

Only if the system is built to allow it. Or, like our current one, is built to foster it.

quote:
Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz:
It's too easy to get to the point where instead of the honorable and smart getting power, the powerful decide what they do is obviously honorable...and smart.

What would they have to gain by such a thing? If the government isn't capable of giving goodies, what do the boogiemen of your nightmares have to gain by what you're describing?

quote:
Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz:
And who's to tell the difference? Objectivists like Rand don't really say. She claims there's an external objective standard for honor and merit, but she can no more define it than anyone.

Yes she can. And does. Again, I could elaborate, but one bald assertion deserves another. At least I can defend mine. Yours is simply opinion that's not based on anything other than... opinion.

quote:
Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz:
It's little wonder that her fiction (especially Atlas) is so popular while her philosophy is simply rejected as unrealistic.

How many people here think they know a John Galt?

Do you think John Galt could have pulled off what he did in the book all by himself? I don't. How many John Galts were there in the book? One. Dagny was no John Galt. Francisco? No John Galt. Reardon? Definitely no John Galt. John Galt is an ideal. To poo-poo working towards an ideal because most people won't fully reach it is pathetic. And you don't even mean it. Not in any real situation. You'd never actually suggest such a thing in real life. You do so here merely as rhetoric.

quote:
Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz:
How many people here think they ARE or could eventually BE a John Galt?

I don't know a single person who is LIKE John Galt.

Rhetorical jibber-jabber, Bob. For any quality I have, I can probably name someone who is better at it than I am. Not being the best is no reason not to strive to be better.

quote:
Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz:
I know some people who probably think they are like him, but based on their behavior, I'd say they fall far short of it.

I suspect you don't really know some people who probably think they are like him. I suspect that you are guessing as to their thoughts in the matter, and that you're probably quite wrong. Assuming that such people actually exist in the real world, and not only in the world of Scopatzian theoretical examples.

quote:
Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz:
And that brings me to Rand's other failing. Her truly great people have to be perfect at it.

Dagny spent most of the book utterly unable to make the jump that lesser talents had made before her. Even after her little vacation in Galt's Gulch, she went back with the intent of working against what Galt was trying to do. Perfect? Hardly.

Hank Reardon signed the rights to Reardon Metal away, sacrificing the fruits of his mind and labor for the sake of someone else. Without even checking to see how that person would feel about the sacrifice. Perfect? Perfect what?

But in any case, you're confusing Atlas Shrugged with Objectivism. That book was a book of archetypes. They are intended to illustrate points. Cherryl Brooks and Eddie Willers are representations of good people who lack the extraordinary qualities of the heroes of Atlas Shrugged, and they both die. But the book makes it clear that they die because of the extremity of the situation, and not simply because they aren't Dagny Taggart.

quote:
Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz:
A John Galt who cut one corner, ever, would be the death of her system.

Wrong.

quote:
Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz:
A guy who built exactly to specs rather than caring enough to improve on the design would be a failure.

Wrong.

quote:
Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz:
Heck, a John Galt who fought in court rather than just taking all his marbles and leaving would be an utter disaster in her world.

Wrong. The story simply wouldn't have happened. Where do you come up with these whoppers?

quote:
Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz:
The only way for her system to survive is to go somewhere and form an exclusive club.

Nope. The book was about them withdrawing from society while it ate itself alive. And then returning.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
quote:
The root of political corruption is the ability of politicians to meddle in the economy.
I agree with you.
Where we part ways, though, is your apparent belief that, given a government somehow unable to meddle in the economy, businessmen will not become their own government.

Because here's the thing: people will always attempt to use force to guarantee their positions. If government is carefully established to deny this use through governmental means, extra-governmental force will be applied -- through deception, through direct violence, through economic terrorism, and through straightforward deceit. The government can attempt to fight back against this force, but in so doing will almost certainly have to retain enough power to be an effective economic and legal "combatant" -- and once that is permitted, the government again becomes a potential tool of corruption.

This is why I think most such situations are ultimately cyclic. The objectivist dream turns into socialism in a hundred years, and spins back again in another hundred.
 
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
 
quote:
Do you think John Galt could have pulled off what he did in the book all by himself? I don't. How many John Galts were there in the book? One. Dagny was no John Galt. Francisco? No John Galt. Reardon? Definitely no John Galt. John Galt is an ideal. To poo-poo working towards an ideal because most people won't fully reach it is pathetic. And you don't even mean it. Not in any real situation. You'd never actually suggest such a thing in real life. You do so here merely as rhetoric.
No, Lisa, it's not rhetoric. It's the point of her book and it makes the book so flawed as to be meaningless except as a work of fiction. In other words, her philosophy carries within it the seeds of its own destruction. As soon as people realize that the John Galts of "real life" are screwed up selfish bastards who don't play by any set of rules but the ones they made up, the whole thing falls apart.

John Galt in the real world could not have hidden away waiting for society to fall apart so he could come back and do whatever. He might be able to hide, but not set up his own little utopia somewhere.

btw, most of the people I know who glommed onto Rand did so as adults and got over it. It's not the missing of the rational bit that makes people ultimately reject her philosophy. It's that her philosophy doesn't fit the real world and the more people think about John Galt, the less they'd want to know such a person in real life.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
I'd quite like to get back to the topic of 'thinking with your brain'. Can we have this defined?
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
Objectivism is about the basic fact that you aren't entitled to my life or my property or my earnings just because you're a corporation and have political friends. And that you aren't entitled to my life or my property or my earnings just because you're poor and don't have health insurance.
What makes something "your property"?

Is it your property because "the Law" says its yours? If so, I will point out that laws are made by men, they are arbitrary and can be changed. It is entirely possible to make a Law that says 50% of your property, is now the property of the poor. And objectively, if the Law is what makes it your property, then the law can unmake it your property.

Is it because you "made" it? If so what did you make it from and how did you obtain the right to use those material. If you used tools that were made by others, then they in fact also "made" your property and should have some right to it. Did you use any knowledge that was taught to you be someone else in making this "property"? Did you use any resources of nature to make your property? If so, do all people have equal unfettered access to those resources? If not, how did you obtain the right to use those resources? If a law gave you the right to use certain resources and denied that right to others, why is that any more just than a law which would require you to give your property to others?

Did you purchase that property? If so did, did you pay a fair price for the item? How did you determine that what a fair price was for the item? Any economist will confirm that the market price for an item has little if any relation to its intrinsic worth. Can every individual obtain the same property for the same effort that you expended? If not, how much of the difference is the result of your personal virtues or failings as opposed to accidents of birth. If you purchased the object, but paid less for it than its intrinsic worth, you obtained your property by cheating others. Can you complain about others cheating you out of the use of your property, when you have cheated to obtain your property?

If you have benefitted from knowledge, wealth, tools, labor, laws or any other product of your society, then any property you "own" you owe in part to the society which enabled you to obtain it. To say it is "yours" and society has no right to demand you share it, indicates an utter ignorance of humanity, society and justice.
 
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
 
Rabbit, if everyone thought like that, I think I would rather die than live under your thumb.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
Perhaps, Pixiest, you could be so kind as to explain the flaws in my reasoning. If not, I will just chalk this up to another "Pixiest" post.

Perhaps I should explain. I have on numerous occasions put in a great deal of effort to construct a post built on logical arguments and/or empirical scientific evidence. If such a post happens to disagree with your preconcieved notions, you follow my post with some glib statement that blows it off.

I find this to be extraordinarily rude. When anyone takes the time to carefully explain their reasoning on a subject at hatrack, they deserve to have their ideas intelligently critiqued and not blown off as a joke. I have come to understand, that you will not grant that kind of respect to my posts. I am uncertain whether this is because you can't logically address the points I make, or if you are just to arrogant to condescend to rational discussion.
 
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
 
Something is "my property" because I made it or traded something for it. The law exists to protect that. Before there was law, one could still have property, just someone stronger than you could take it. Law defends your rights, it doesn't give them to you.

You could change the law (as has been done too often) to say that what is yours belongs to someone else. someone who NEEDS it more. But that changes the purpose of the law. Instead of protecting you, it takes from you by force. And we're back to where we started. Someone stronger than you taking from you.

Material, tools, real estate, raw resources. These are all paid for by a form of portable work we call Money. When you take someone's work without their consent, it's called Slavery. That is why I'd rather die than live under your rule.

Life is unfair. You can't balance it. You can't make everyone as talented and lucky as everyone else. It's just not possible.

However, that doesn't mean that simply because someone is less talented and lucky than someone else that the more talented and lucky person owes them anything.

Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it. That is how you define what's a fair price.

We all contribute (well, except those living off the contributions of others) and get the aforementioned portal work "Money." It is with this you buy whatever you need. It is as if you made whatever you bought yourself because your portable work was what you traded for it. Just as the person you buy from will take that portable work and buy whatever they need.

Society has no right to demand your money from you because you kicked in your part in earning the it. To take yet another share is, as I said, Slavery.

Your philosophy is the one of tyrants everywhere. That people are just part of the machine of their empire.

Pix
 
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
I assume you refuse all benefits of taxation, then, beyond the value contributed by yourself, because you believe that they are the fruits of slavery? Your inability to recognize middle grounds, even if you also don't like that middle ground, is one of your biggest weaknesses. Of course, you might consider slavery less of an evil than I do, and be comfortable reaping its benefits.

Some other comments on your post:

Things are not just worth what their purchasers will pay for them. Even if you assume that worth is determined by sale price (and economists are pretty darn sure that marginal worth is what is determined by selling price, not any sort of average or typical worth for that good), that selling price is a combination of the value the buyer and the seller place on the item, not just the buyer. Also, some items do not sell, yet it makes little sense to call them worthless, when what seems to be the case is they have greater value to the owner than the price anyone is willing to pay.

Nobody I've run into wants to make everybody as talented or lucky as anybody else. Far more popular desire to, for instance, have fewer people die.
 
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
 
Fugu: Taxation is a necessary evil (VERY evil)to pay for law enforcement, military and courts. I also have no problem with a user fee (gas tax) to pay for roads. The more you drive on the roads, the more you pay.

I don't think a voluntary tax would work. I, unfortunately, think it has to be manditory, but kept as low as we possibly can get it. The more we pile on to it the more evil/slavery we have and the more possibilities for governmental abuse we have. Remember, the goverment is just another giant corporation... with Guns.

The seller tries to get as much as the buyer will pay. If the buyer won't pay that much, it won't sell. I really don't see how what you're saying contridicts me.

And a key part of Rabbit's argument was equal access to the resources that gained your property. ie: luck and talent.
 
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
One last note. While the following would be arguably true in a society without a government, we do have a government, and it is almost certainly not true. Some of the goods and services used in earning money (notably roads) are provided on a noncompetitive basis, meaning that 'your part' of the price was not necessarily 'kicked in' by those (such as yourself) who take advantage of those roads. In fact, since we have progressive taxation, its almost certainly not true in your case [Smile] .

quote:
Society has no right to demand your money from you because you kicked in your part in earning the it.

 
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
 
Roads are primarily paid for by the gas tax. I pay as much as I use. As I said in my post above, it's one of the few taxes I have no problem with. It's not a tax, it's a user fee.
 
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
What I'm saying contradicts you in several ways, even in your amended version. One, items that do not sell still appear to have value (and in fact, greater value than if they had sold in one of the attemted transactions). Two, as I note, price only determines marginal value of an item, not, say, mean value, which explains why trade generally makes both people happier/better off. That is, trade routinely seems to result in more value for both parties, which is not possible if the items traded only had value equal to the transaction price.

Thank you for addressing some of the questions I had addressed to lisa, btw [Smile] .

BTW, despite both of you mentioning the comparison, iirc, neither you nor lisa seems to have formulated a government where that government is much like a 'corporation . . . with Guns'. Shares are not bought and sold, governance rules tend to be radically different, the actions the government can take are significantly constrained (where a corporation's wouldn't be), the government can commit 'evil' acts in the pursuit of the greater good at least sometimes (such as taxation for national defense), et cetera.

Rabbit's argument is based on luck and talent, but not on making everybody have the same luck and talent. Of course, I also think Rabbit's argument is necessarily flawed, mainly because I reject the notion that any good or service has an 'intrinsic worth' (a view generally held by economists).

Part of her argument is interesting -- the question of how land use rights are acquired. All land on this planet has coercive acquisition at some point in its past. Clearly the coercive acquirer had no right to the land or product of the land (we'll ignore what might or might have derived from the product), but what about the person who acquired the land from that entity through a transaction? Do transactions involving the sale of something acquired illegitimately wipe away the illegitimacy? If not, is there a point the taint goes away?

I think its an interesting academic question, but my notions about how government should be set up (which, as noted in the past, aren't actually all that far from your own) are not derived from a singular notion about the moral legitimacy of trade (edit: and personal property, et cetera), and instead dependent on notions of what I think make people better off in their own estimation (which I think necessarily leads to an extremely laissez faire preference), so its answer will have no impact on my own views.
 
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
 
I'm going to die in WoW becuase I keep shelling out to post...

Things that don't sell still have value? well, sure. maybe the seller is holding out for a better buyer. Maybe it has sentemental value. Maybe it's beyond value. There's lots of ways to be valuable rather than monitary worth.

And of course the government is a corporation. We are all very diluted share holders with a very diluted voice. Whatever the masses vote for, the government comes and takes by force. This corporation's only limiting force is how the courts interpret the constitution and they've made some doozy jumps in logic over the years.

They can do anything and they'll prolly get away with it.
 
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Being able to take by force isn't a part of being a corporation. Also, the limiting force cannot be the courts, because the courts have no power of coercion -- the limiting force in that case is what the people would do were the courts sufficiently violated. I suspect there are other limiting forces in place, too, though they likely all boil down to the will of the people. One reason I strongly suspect this is the extensive material evidence of what governments with truly small limits on power do around the world. Given that our government, even at its worse (which isn't now, btw), hasn't been much like those governments, I can only assume something limits it considerably.

Call a government a corporation all you want, but I suspect you consider certain behaviors by it to be immoral that you would not in a corporation (such as adopting any voting structure other than oner person/share, one vote), and certain actions to be (barely) acceptable for it that you would in no way accept out of a corporation. Those two differences seem to make it significantly structurally and capability-wise different from a corporation.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
It seems to me that, if you have a minimalist government, there is an issue of how that shall be enforced. After all, every state we have now began as an organisation geared for war, and pretty much only for war; welfare is a much more recent invention than the machine gun. Ultimately, all power comes from the barrel of a gun, and therefore from the minds of people who wield guns. If the population does not want your minimalist state, how can you compel them? And if they consent to the 'abrogation of their rights' that you insist modern government is, how shall you object? After all, you are entirely at liberty to move to Antarctica and make a living hunting penguins. (And, in those lawless environs, Greenpeace is quite at liberty to shoot you, but that's a separate matter.) So is everyone else. It follows then, that modern government has at least the minimal consent of the governed; even of those who call themselves libertarian.
 
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
 
quote:
My name is not Star. It is not sL or starLisa or StarLisa. It is Lisa.
Oh, I'm sorry. The fact that you sign your name StarLisa confused me. Yeesh. [Roll Eyes]

quote:
Second of all, what you are saying is only true in the context of the corrupt thing you know as government. If the government doesn't control the cash, then it's not true at all. And it should not control the cash.
So all tax must be voluntary? Let's say the John Galts of the world - the minority - are contributing the majority of the taxes. If a handful of these Galts decide to just stop paying taxes, how should the State handle this? Let them go on their merry way and close all the courts for lack of money?

If all taxes are voluntary in this way, than certain people will be contributing more resources to both the government and the police. Someone will always choose to pay more. Do you seriously believe that these greater contributers will not expect greater benefits from the government?

If taxes are not voluntary, than the State has to use guns to take the money from the rogue Galts. Somebody has to pay for the guns. And who will expect the benefits for having paid for the guns? That's right, the folks who paid the taxes.

Government cannot be objective.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
I'd quite like to get back to the topic of 'thinking with your brain'. Can we have this defined?

I asked someone why she was going to vote for Kerry. She said, "He seems more capable than Bush". I asked her what she meant. She shrugged and said, "I don't know. He just seems like that to me." I pointed out that if she didn't know why she felt that way, wasn't she making a pretty important decision for no real reason at all? She said, "It's not for no reason. That's how I feel."

That's by way of counter-example. That's thinking with your emotions. Emotions are important, but they are not a tool of cognition. When you get the two mixed up, it's pretty pathetic.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:
Objectivism is about the basic fact that you aren't entitled to my life or my property or my earnings just because you're a corporation and have political friends. And that you aren't entitled to my life or my property or my earnings just because you're poor and don't have health insurance.
What makes something "your property"?
It could be a few things. One. If it belongs to no one else and you take possession of it, it's probably your property. Of course, in the case of things like homesteading, you do need to "prove the land", but other than that, simply taking possession is enough, provided someone else hasn't done so first.

If you create something that didn't previously exist, it's your property.

If someone voluntarily transfers ownership of their property to you, it's now your property.

Thanks for asking.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Is it your property because "the Law" says its yours?

No.

(Remainder of scary totalitarian ranting snipped for simple decency.)
 
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
 
Hmmm. I wonder if she meant emotion or intuition. But I do get what you're saying.

-pH
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by fugu13:
I assume you refuse all benefits of taxation, then, beyond the value contributed by yourself, because you believe that they are the fruits of slavery?

It's impossible to determine how much of such things are being paid for by what I've paid (albeit against my will) in taxes. So no, I don't refuse such benefits. I would be willing to, though, if I didn't have to pay taxes.

It's also impossible to go from the mess we have right now directly to a healthy and proper society. Not without a violent revolution, and no one wants that. There needs to be a transition.

But saying we can't have things right later this afternoon doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for them. If the Founding Fathers who recognized that slavery was contrary to the values they were getting ready to fight for had insisted on it at the time, the secessionists would have lost, and independence would never have been declared. Should they have remained oppressed subjects of the British crown?

quote:
Originally posted by fugu13:
Some other comments on your post:

Things are not just worth what their purchasers will pay for them.

In a certain context, that's true. A thing can be worth X to me and Y to you. So what, though? To the purchaser, a thing is worth what they will pay for them. Or they won't pay for them. That's sort of a no-brainer.

quote:
Originally posted by fugu13:
Even if you assume that worth is determined by sale price (and economists are pretty darn sure that marginal worth is what is determined by selling price, not any sort of average or typical worth for that good),

Hi. I'm an economist. Of sorts. I have a degree in it, at any rate. And I'm here to tell you that there are many different economic theories, not one of which accurately describes reality in all its facets. Economics is on the level of Psychology when it comes to theories. Some are accurate in certain limited cases, but overall, "voodoo economics" is redundant.

quote:
Originally posted by fugu13:
that selling price is a combination of the value the buyer and the seller place on the item, not just the buyer.

Bottom line, if the buyer doesn't like the price, the buyer doesn't buy. That's why I don't have a new car. It's not that I can't buy one. It's that I won't. Not now. It's not worth it for me.

quote:
Originally posted by fugu13:
Also, some items do not sell, yet it makes little sense to call them worthless, when what seems to be the case is they have greater value to the owner than the price anyone is willing to pay.

The problem here is that you're dropping context. When you speak of what something is worth, there is always an implied: "to whom?" If something doesn't sell, it means that it is not worth the price to the buyers. It might be worth a lesser price to buyers. And if it's something that buyers wouldn't take for free, that still doesn't mean it is worthless. It might be worth something to its creator.

There's no such thing as "intrisic worth" of a thing. Worth is always subjective.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
I'm going to repeat this, because it's important to the discussion at hand. There is no such thing as intrinsic worth. To speak of such a thing is to waste your time. What a thing is worth is purely subjective. It can only be worth X to Y.

Value... I go by Rand's definition of that word, which is somewhat different than "worth". Value is that which one acts (or wishes to act -- my addition) to gain or to keep.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Perhaps I should explain. I have on numerous occasions put in a great deal of effort to construct a post built on logical arguments and/or empirical scientific evidence. If such a post happens to disagree with your preconcieved notions, you follow my post with some glib statement that blows it off.

I find this to be extraordinarily rude. When anyone takes the time to carefully explain their reasoning on a subject at hatrack, they deserve to have their ideas intelligently critiqued and not blown off as a joke. I have come to understand, that you will not grant that kind of respect to my posts. I am uncertain whether this is because you can't logically address the points I make, or if you are just to arrogant to condescend to rational discussion.

You sound like your feelings are hurt. So I'll try and explain. First, the reason I dismissed what you wrote as I did (I can't speak for Pix, but maybe there's some similarity) is that what you wrote was so horrible in its implications that I could hardly even look at it, let alone respond to it civilly. But perhaps you hadn't considered those, and perhaps you don't get it.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
It is entirely possible to make a Law that says 50% of your property, is now the property of the poor.

It's been done. It doesn't make it the case, however. If something is mine, it's mine. If I get mugged, my money doesn't become the property of the mugger. Passing a law that says it does doesn't make it so, either. "If the law says that, the law is an ass".

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
And objectively, if the Law is what makes it your property, then the law can unmake it your property.

See, when you start by asking what makes something property, and then continue by assuming that the answer is "the law" and go on to make arguments based on that answer, you're taking a risk. What if the answer is that it's not the law that makes something property? Then you've wasted your time creating arguments based on vapor. That's what you did in this case. "If the law is what makes it your property". It's not. "Then the law can unmake it your property." It can't. The word "then" implies a conditional. The condition hasn't been met, so the rest of the argument fails.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Is it because you "made" it? If so what did you make it from and how did you obtain the right to use those material.

An honest way of doing this is to wait for an answer before assuming that you know what the answer is going to be.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
If you used tools that were made by others, then they in fact also "made" your property and should have some right to it.

This is fallacious. If I stole the tools, you might have an argument. I don't think you would, frankly, but at least there's the possibility. But if someone makes a tool, that doesn't mean that they are part makers of what I make with that tool. I traded for that tool. I gave up something of mine in exchange for that tool. A transaction that was freely agreed to on both sides. The toolmaker voluntarily gave up ownership of that tool to me in exchange for what I gave him. If he didn't like the deal, he would have kept the tool.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Did you use any knowledge that was taught to you be someone else in making this "property"?

Quite probably. So what?

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Did you use any resources of nature to make your property?

Unowned resources? If you're going to discuss something like this, you need to be more clear about what you're asking. For example, suppose I sail to an island in the middle of the ocean that has never been claimed by anyone. On this island, I find a rock. I take possession of that rock. It's now my rock. It belongs to me. If someone else tries to take it away from me, they are committing an act of violence.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
If so, do all people have equal unfettered access to those resources?

In principle, originally? Why not? In practice, it's awfully hard to find resources that someone hasn't already taken possession of. Space exploration is going to change that eventually, but pretty much everything on earth has been claimed by this point.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
If not, how did you obtain the right to use those resources? If a law gave you the right to use certain resources and denied that right to others, why is that any more just than a law which would require you to give your property to others?

A law didn't. Law can recognize and protect rights. It can't create them.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Did you purchase that property? If so did, did you pay a fair price for the item?

Who gets to say what's fair? If the buyer and seller agree, that's all that matters. If the buyer doesn't want to buy, the buyer doesn't have to buy. If the seller doesn't want to sell, the seller doesn't have to sell. No one else in the world has the right to say yay or nay about it.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
How did you determine that what a fair price was for the item? Any economist will confirm that the market price for an item has little if any relation to its intrinsic worth.

Anyone who uses the words "intrinsic worth" as though they mean anything is making a mistake.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Can every individual obtain the same property for the same effort that you expended?

Why does that matter? Since when are individuals entitled to any such thing?

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
If not, how much of the difference is the result of your personal virtues or failings as opposed to accidents of birth.

Again, what's the relevance of the question?

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
If you purchased the object, but paid less for it than its intrinsic worth,

There's no such thing as intrinsic worth.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
you obtained your property by cheating others.

Since the question is based on a false concept, the conclusion you reached is a false conclusion. No "cheating" pertains.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Can you complain about others cheating you out of the use of your property, when you have cheated to obtain your property?

This is why some people don't respond to your arguments as you'd like. You start with invalid premises, and then say things like this. A statement which assumes its own premise. Do you honestly not get the extent of the fallaciousness you're engaging in here?

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
If you have benefitted from knowledge, wealth, tools, labor, laws or any other product of your society, then any property you "own" you owe in part to the society which enabled you to obtain it.

Not at all. I don't "owe" anything to the molecules of oxygen I just processed through my body as I wrote this, either. Rights come first. Not society. And none of the things you mention are "products of society". Society didn't create those things; people did. Individuals did.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
To say it is "yours" and society has no right to demand you share it, indicates an utter ignorance of humanity, society and justice.

So after paragraphs of vague definitions, false concepts, assuming your conclusions, and answering your own questions, you finish up with an accusation of "utter ignorance of humanity, society and justice". And then you whine when you don't get a civil response. Do you honestly not see the hypocrisy?
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
It seems to me that, if you have a minimalist government, there is an issue of how that shall be enforced. After all, every state we have now began as an organisation geared for war, and pretty much only for war;

That's not even slightly true.

quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
welfare is a much more recent invention than the machine gun. Ultimately, all power comes from the barrel of a gun

At which point, I can't even bring myself to read the rest of your rant. I swear, O King, you are scarier than Rabbit.
 
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
 
Lisa,

Your debate tactic of calling people "scary" or "childish" is getting old. If you really have nothing to add to the discussion other than ad hominem attacks try saying nothing.

It's not clever or enlightening, and you aren't changing anyone's mind.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
When I say it, it's because I mean it. It's not a debate tactic. I'm not the one here who thinks in terms of debate tactics, Bob.
 
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
You might notice where I explicitly reject the notion of implicit value, lisa [Smile] .

quote:
To the purchaser, a thing is worth what they will pay for them.
One part of my argument is that it is essential an 'at least' be inserted in this sentence.

Also, I realize that there may be a confusion here. I am arguing based on an equivalence between the words value and worth, which it seems Pixiest was not equating, she seems to be equating price and worth (both are reasonable mappings), so I was reading her post in response to Rabbit as saying something other than it did (that price was equal to value).

As for the potshot at economists, considering most of the rest of your post seems to be agreeing with the reasoning that price is marginal value, and that for some people value may be greater than price, this doesn't seem to be one of the areas where you think their theories are kooky [Smile] .
 
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
 
Hmm... Rabbit chides me for not responding to her well thought out posts, yet when I do a point by point rebuttal of her manifesto she completely blows me off except to take a shot at me in another thread.

It's prolly for the best. Her "Society Owns You" rant made me physically ill.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Pixiest:
Roads are primarily paid for by the gas tax. I pay as much as I use. As I said in my post above, it's one of the few taxes I have no problem with. It's not a tax, it's a user fee.

Not true. Highways are paid for primarily by the gas tax. Local streets are paid for primarily by property taxes, income taxes, and sales taxes. Unless you drive only on highways (which is impossible), you're driving is subsidized by other taxes.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
Can you perchance give me an example of a state that did not begin as an organisation for war? And I still stand by my question : How are you going to enforce your minimalist state, if people don't want one?
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
Hmm... Rabbit chides me for not responding to her well thought out posts, yet when I do a point by point rebuttal of her manifesto she completely blows me off except to take a shot at me in another thread.

It's prolly for the best. Her "Society Owns You" rant made me physically ill.

Or maybe I've been off line for the past 12 hours.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
Oh, and two more questions. Where are you going to get power, if not out of violence or the threat of it? I'm not saying anything about the morality of it, just asking about the practical enforcement. And finally, what part of "property is an absolute right guaranteed by Heaven, the Fates, and my assertion that it's so" is 'thinking with your brain'?
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
Can you perchance give me an example of a state that did not begin as an organisation for war?

Australia. The various colonies that became the United States. The United States itself. The State of Israel. The Kingdom of Jordan. Lebanon. Kuwait.

quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
And I still stand by my question : How are you going to enforce your minimalist state, if people don't want one?

Do you mean if people don't want a state at all? That's not an option. If they want a state where they're entitled to violate the rights of others, we'll simply work to convince people that such a thing is wrong.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by fugu13:
As for the potshot at economists, considering most of the rest of your post seems to be agreeing with the reasoning that price is marginal value,

No. I agree that it can be. Not that it need be.

quote:
Originally posted by fugu13:
and that for some people value may be greater than price, this doesn't seem to be one of the areas where you think their theories are kooky [Smile] .

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
quote:
If they want a state where they're entitled to violate the rights of others, we'll simply work to convince people that such a thing is wrong.
But here's the rub: at some point, you'll get a majority on your side. You'll create your state, which restricts the freedom of individuals to violate the rights of others. It will restrict this freedom through the application of force. Once your state possesses the only legitimate force, control of the state becomes a desirable good, and intelligent, self-interested people will attempt to seize that good.

And you're back where you started.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:
If they want a state where they're entitled to violate the rights of others, we'll simply work to convince people that such a thing is wrong.
But here's the rub: at some point, you'll get a majority on your side. You'll create your state, which restricts the freedom of individuals to violate the rights of others. It will restrict this freedom through the application of force. Once your state possesses the only legitimate force, control of the state becomes a desirable good, and intelligent, self-interested people will attempt to seize that good.

And you're back where you started.

That's just as true of religion. Preventing religion from taking over the country by putting that in the Constitution has actually been fairly effective. Despite the constant challenges to it, it has, by and large, held. This is something that should be as absolutely guaranteed by the constitution as the freedom from imposed religion.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by starLisa:
quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
Can you perchance give me an example of a state that did not begin as an organisation for war?

Australia. The various colonies that became the United States. The United States itself. The State of Israel. The Kingdom of Jordan. Lebanon. Kuwait.
Australia's government descends directly from that of England, which began as a way to raise troops for the kings to fight in France; and, like most nineteenth-century governments, it didn't (initially) do much except keep internal order and raise troops for imperial commitments. The same is true of the American states, whose initial governmental organisations were anyway pretty much limited to drilling the militia to fight the Indians; and the United States began as an alliance of convenience for fighting the British. As for Israel, you are surely joking, right? I mean, there wouldn't be a state of Israel if they hadn't won their civil war. If there's a better example of a state organised purely for war, I don't know what it is, unless perhaps Prussia. Lebanon gained independence in a violent revolt against France, and certainly was no welfare state ; just what are you suggesting they were, if not an organisation for fighting wars? And basically ditto for Kuwait and Jordan.


quote:
quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
And I still stand by my question : How are you going to enforce your minimalist state, if people don't want one?

Do you mean if people don't want a state at all? That's not an option. If they want a state where they're entitled to violate the rights of others, we'll simply work to convince people that such a thing is wrong. [/QB]
I'm sure that will work real well, yes. How many divisions has the Pope?
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
Something is "my property" because I made it or traded something for it.
But you didn't make it out of nothing. Since you are born with no property, and you now own property. At somepoint in your life, you have obtained property that you neither made nor traded for something. What's more, you weren't born with the knowledge needed to make anything. Every skill you have, you gained by learning from your community. In this sense, your property was made, at least in part, by the community and not solely by you.

quote:
Law defends your rights, it doesn't give them to you.
Absolutely, but the question we are debating is whether property ownership is an in alienable right. You are begging the question. Why is property ownership a right and not a privelegde?

quote:
Material, tools, real estate, raw resources. These are all paid for by a form of portable work we call Money.
This is an idea that is historically indefensible. All resources on this planet existed long before they were owned by anyone. At some point some one claimed the exclusive right to use certain natural resources either because they were there first or were stronger than others. If someone steals my bike and then sells it to you. Does the fact that you traded something for my bike to a thief it make it yours? Most people, and our current laws, agree that if you buy something that was stolen, it is not yours. Yet originally, virtually every resources was stolen.


quote:
When you take someone's work without their consent, it's called Slavery.
What constitutes consent? Force labor takes many forms. If people are given a choice of trading their labor to you, or going to prison or being killed -- is that consent or slavery. If people are given a choice of going without food, water, clothing and shelter, or trading their labor to you, is that force or consent. Where do you draw the line at what constitutes free consent and what is coersion. Most of the people on this planet work at a wage they can not set. They do so because their only choice is starvation. People can not choose not to eat without surrendering their inalienable right to life.

quote:
Life is unfair. You can't balance it. You can't make everyone as talented and lucky as everyone else. It's just not possible.
True, but that doesn't mean that we should not strive toward fairness. If you truly believe that there is no point in striving for fairness, then why do you object to the unfairness of society taking your property without your consent.

quote:
However, that doesn't mean that simply because someone is less talented and lucky than someone else that the more talented and lucky person owes them anything
I have never claimed that you owed anythign to the unlucky and the untalented. My claim is that you owe something to the community, because you benefit in incalculable ways from being a member of a community. No human being would survive their infancy, without a community.

quote:
Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it. That is how you define what's a fair price.
No, that's what defines a market price. I suggest you read Adam Smith.


quote:
We all contribute and get the aforementioned portal work "Money." It is with this you buy whatever you need. It is as if you made whatever you bought yourself because your portable work was what you traded for it. Just as the person you buy from will take that portable work and buy whatever they need.
Fair is defined in the OED as
quote:
Free from bias, fraud, or injustice; equitable, legitimate. Hence of persons: Equitable; not taking undue advantage; disposed to concede every reasonable claim.
and in the websters dictionary fair is defined as

[quote]: marked by impartiality and honesty : free from self-interest, prejudice, or favoritism : conforming with the established rules : consonant with merit or importance.[quote]

To say that an exchange is "fair" implies that things have an objective value which makes equitable exchange possible. Market forces will not result in "fair" exchanges unless all traders are on equal footing. If some people are trading from a position of luxury and others are trading from a position of necessity (which is the condition in our world), market forces will reinforce the existing inequity rather than lead to equitable exhanges. In other words, market systems allow the wealthy to coerce the poor into inequitable trades. You operate under that assumption that the free market is never coercive, but that assumption is patently untrue.


Consider hypothetical (but very realistic) 15th century fishing community in Iceland. The only substantive source of food in this community is fish which can only be caught in fishing boats.
Fishing and making boats are key skills which are taught all the children of the community. As a member of this community, I am given the knowledge and resources to make my own boat. I make the boat, which takes about a years worth of labor during which my family and other members of the community feed me. I made this boat and so everyone agrees that its my boat. One day, I get hole in the bottom of my boat and so I haul it on shore and spend a couple of days repairing the boat. While I'm fixing my boat, there is a catastrophic storm and all the other boats belonging to the community sink. By an act of chance, I now control the food supply for the entire village. While the other members of the village can build new boats, it will take a very long time to complete these boats. The people cannot choose not to eat until their new boats are finished. What this means, is that I can demand any price for the fish I catch. I could demand that the people trade all their property to me for food, and they would essentially have not choice but to agree or die. By your definition, this would be fair. In fact, I could demand all their labor in exchange for food, and they would have no viable option. If I am a skilled trader, I could arrange it so that all future boats built in this village will belong to me. After all, boat builders have to eat. All I have to do is set the price of fish that a boat builder needs while completing a boat, equal to the price of a boat. The boat builders have no room to negotiate. They have to have food, where as I an get along fine only one boat. In effect, I could enslave all the other members of the community because I control the one thing that every member of the community must have to live -- food. While they might nominally consent to trade all their labor for my food, such consent is meaningless because we are not trading from equal positions. I am trading for luxuries, if they don't consent to my terms, I will continue to live. They are trading for necessities, if they don't consent to my terms they will starve.

A stronger trading position can be used as a means of coersion in exactly the same manner that stronger arms and bigger weapons can be used a means of coercion. By your definition, it would be completely fair for me to enslave every member in my village in exchange for the minimum amount of food required to maintain their lives.

People can and are unjustly coerced by "market forces" just as easily as they can be coerced by another force.

From my view, while the boat would be my property, it would also be in some sense property of the village. I was only able to build my boat because of the support and instruction I obtained from the members of my community. I owe a debt to my community, because without them I would be as unable to catch the fish I need to live as they are to catch fish after their boats have been destroyed. If I am unwilling to assist the community while they rebuild their boats, then the community has every right to coerce me to use the skills they gave me for the benefit of the community rather than for my personal gain.

The system you propose, in which any "trade" you can get me to agree to will inevitably lead to coersion or as you call it slavery.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:
Originally posted by starLisa:
quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
Can you perchance give me an example of a state that did not begin as an organisation for war?

Australia. The various colonies that became the United States. The United States itself. The State of Israel. The Kingdom of Jordan. Lebanon. Kuwait.
Australia's government descends directly from that of England,
Cheater.

quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
The same is true of the American states, whose initial governmental organisations were anyway pretty much limited to drilling the militia to fight the Indians;

I don't think that's true.

quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
and the United States began as an alliance of convenience for fighting the British.

No, it didn't.

quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
As for Israel, you are surely joking, right? I mean, there wouldn't be a state of Israel if they hadn't won their civil war.

"Civil war"? The hell? What are you smoking, O King?

quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
If there's a better example of a state organised purely for war, I don't know what it is, unless perhaps Prussia. Lebanon gained independence in a violent revolt against France,

Lebanon was partitioned off of Syria because the Muslims couldn't get along with the Christians. It was created specifically to avoid that problem.

quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
And I still stand by my question : How are you going to enforce your minimalist state, if people don't want one?

Do you mean if people don't want a state at all? That's not an option. If they want a state where they're entitled to violate the rights of others, we'll simply work to convince people that such a thing is wrong.

I'm sure that will work real well, yes. How many divisions has the Pope? [/QB]
<yawn>

[ August 22, 2006, 01:58 PM: Message edited by: starLisa ]
 
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
I don't have a enough knowledge of economics to post anything significant in this thread. But I did want to say that I am finding your posts absolutely fascinating, Rabbit.

Thanks!
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
quote:
I don't think that's true.
Then I suggest you find a source for your disbelief, neh? What other functions do you think colonial governments had? (I'll give you the Puritans enforced some blue laws, but I'll take that under 'internal order'.)

quote:
"Civil war"? The hell? What are you smoking, O King?
The civil war between the Jews and the Arabs. I suppose you would prefer to call it the Glorious War For Independence From Corrupt Foreign Oppression, or something. But you can hardly deny that it was a war. And by the way, smoking is much healthier than injecting directly into the vein, as you are clearly doing. Shall we stop the personal attacks there, or shall we see who can get banned first?

quote:
No, it didn't.
Yes, it did. Now that we have our assertions cancelling each other out, suppose you tell me how the Continental Congress and Articles of Confederation are not an organisation for war? Consider particularly the third article:

quote:
...for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them...
quote:

<yawn>

I'm so glad to see you have the ability to admit when you have nothing constructive to say about a given argument. Doesn't it worry you that you are managing to come off as less interested in civil discourse than me, of all people?
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
I'm going to repeat this, because it's important to the discussion at hand. There is no such thing as intrinsic worth. To speak of such a thing is to waste your time. What a thing is worth is purely subjective. It can only be worth X to Y.
B.S. Intrinsic value has been an underlying assumption in human philosophy since at least the time of ancient Greece and probably before that. It can be argued that intrisic value is an underlying proposition in the Judaic Law and the codes of Hamurabi. In fact, up until the 20th century virtually every philopher agreed on the existence of "intrinsic value", including Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Moore, and infinitiem presume that "intrinsic value exists.


It is only in very recent times that the existence of "intrinsic value" has even been called into question. To boldly proclaim that "There is no such thing as intrinsic worth. To speak of such a thing is to waste your time. " begs one of the central and most debated philosophical questions of our century.

The idea that intrinsic value does not exist, is the radical position. As a result, simply proclaiming such a statement without clear logical support, brings into doubt every conclusion that follows from the argument.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
Oh, I forgot this :

quote:
Cheater.
I notice you didn't respond to the rest of my point about what the actual functions of the Australian government were.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
On intrinsic worth, the argument Rabbit is making seems rather equivalent to agruing for creationism on the grounds that evolution is the radical position. Which I guess was true for a few years in the 1800s, actually, so I'm not sure where I was going with this. Oh yes; what is the evidence all these esteemed thinkers proposed for their notion of intrinsic worth? How would you measure the intrinsic worth of something?
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:
Something is "my property" because I made it or traded something for it.
But you didn't make it out of nothing.
But I did make it out of things that belonged to me. Or which didn't belong to anyone.

You seem to think that things that no one owns are actually owned by everyone. That's not true.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Since you are born with no property, and you now own property. At somepoint in your life, you have obtained property that you neither made nor traded for something.

Wrong. I own my life. And if I trade a small bit of my life for some money (that's called a job, Rabbit), I then own some money. I can then trade the money for other things. It's not really that complicated. Honest.

Or perhaps I was given some property by my parents. I love my parents.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
What's more, you weren't born with the knowledge needed to make anything. Every skill you have, you gained by learning from your community.

Wrong. Every skill I have, I gained by learning from individuals. To the extent that they charged me for that knowledge (traded values with me), they voluntarily gave of their time. No debt is owed after that. To the extent that they did not, no debt is owed here either, because there can be no debt without an agreement.

If I see someone using a hammer to hammer a nail, I've learned that I can hammer a nail with a hammer. But unless the hammerer has gotten me to agree up front that I have to pay to watch him, I might as well have watched a beaver build a dam. Do you think I owe something to a beaver who builds a dam? I don't.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
In this sense, your property was made, at least in part, by the community and not solely by you.

No. That's where you keep messing up. If I make a hammer and you buy it from me and hammer a nail, I did not hammer that nail. Not in any way.

Nothing I make is made by anyone but me.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:
Law defends your rights, it doesn't give them to you.
Absolutely, but the question we are debating is whether property ownership is an in alienable right.
Property ownership isn't even a right. It precedes rights. Owning property derives from ones ownership of ones own life. I own my life, which means that I own the product of that life. The only way in which it can be alienable is if I give it to someone else or exchange it for something in its place.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
You are begging the question. Why is property ownership a right and not a privelegde?

Define privilege. A privilege, as I understand it, is something granted by someone else. Something someone else has that they give to you, but don't have to. Who is the "giver" here?

I think it's pretty clear that you see everything as basically owned by everyone in the aggregate. "Society". <gag> And that society merely permits individuals to exercise ownership of what really belongs to society. It's not like this is the first time I've run into that kind of socialist mishmash.

What you don't understand is that society is just the name of a bunch of people. It owns nothing. It has no perogatives. It comes after the individuals that make it up.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:
Material, tools, real estate, raw resources. These are all paid for by a form of portable work we call Money.
This is an idea that is historically indefensible. All resources on this planet existed long before they were owned by anyone. At some point some one claimed the exclusive right to use certain natural resources either because they were there first or were stronger than others.
Because no one else had a greater claim. If no one exists who can say, "No, you can't have that, it's mine," then on what basis do you say that someone can't just come along and claim it?

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
If someone steals my bike and then sells it to you.

Commas are nice, too. Even nicer than periods, sometimes.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Does the fact that you traded something for my bike to a thief it make it yours?

No. But taking possession of something that no one owns isn't the same as taking possession of something someone else owns. Unless you're starting from the socialist idea that everything is already owned by "society". In which case, there's really not a whole lot to say. It would mean, if that's really where you're coming from, that you're espousing totalitarianism of the blackest kind.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Most people, and our current laws, agree that if you buy something that was stolen, it is not yours. Yet originally, virtually every resources was stolen.

Like I said, you think that taking possession of something no one owns is stealing. That's only possible if you think it really does belong to some amorphous thing called "society". And that's a very, very dangerous and scary idea. It's also completely unsupportable.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:
When you take someone's work without their consent, it's called Slavery.
What constitutes consent?
Consent is consent. Human beings are not children who cannot decide whether to agree or not and need some sort of übercritter looking over their shoulder and ratifying such decisions.

If I don't pay taxes, the government will put me in jail. That makes those taxes involuntary. Lacking in consent. Some people may consent after the fact. Good for them. I'm not one of those.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Force labor takes many forms. If people are given a choice of trading their labor to you, or going to prison or being killed -- is that consent or slavery.

Slavery.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
If people are given a choice of going without food, water, clothing and shelter, or trading their labor to you, is that force or consent.

Consent.

This isn't rocket science, Rabbit. No one owes you food, water, clothing or shelter. They're all things that you want. Some of them are things that you need. But your need -- and certainly your want -- doesn't equate to an obligation on someone else's part. Whereas you are entitled to your life. And being killed or imprisoned is a violation of that life.

This is important, Rabbit. Helping is not the same as not harming. Harming is not the same as not helping. If I don't give you a dollar, I haven't done anything wrong. If I take a dollar away from you, I have. If you are hungry and I give you food, that's good. If you are hungry and I don't give you food, that's unfortunate. If I take your food away from you against your will, I'm a criminal.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Where do you draw the line at what constitutes free consent and what is coersion.

Like I said, it's not all that complicated. Consent is consent. If there is a natural consequence, that's one thing. If the consequence is that someone will commit violence against me, that's something very different.

And no, it doesn't matter if it has the same outcome. If no one gives me food (and I can't get food without someone giving it to me), I will die. If you shoot me in the head, I will die. But those are still not the same thing. I don't owe you food. I do owe you not to shoot you in the head.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Most of the people on this planet work at a wage they can not set. They do so because their only choice is starvation. People can not choose not to eat without surrendering their inalienable right to life.

That's harsh. And that's why there are so many organizations the world over which are voluntarily dedicated to helping such people. See, that's a very good thing. It's good to help people. But it's voluntary. It's not something you are entitled to force.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:
Life is unfair. You can't balance it. You can't make everyone as talented and lucky as everyone else. It's just not possible.
True, but that doesn't mean that we should not strive toward fairness. If you truly believe that there is no point in striving for fairness, then why do you object to the unfairness of society taking your property without your consent.
Fair and just are two different things. Taking what's mine isn't unfair. It's unjust.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:
However, that doesn't mean that simply because someone is less talented and lucky than someone else that the more talented and lucky person owes them anything
I have never claimed that you owed anythign to the unlucky and the untalented. My claim is that you owe something to the community, because you benefit in incalculable ways from being a member of a community. No human being would survive their infancy, without a community.
The "community" is just other people. I take nothing from other people that they do not voluntarily give to me. As a gift or in trade. I owe no debts that I have not accepted upon myself of my own free will. Nor do you. Nor does anyone.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:
Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it. That is how you define what's a fair price.
No, that's what defines a market price. I suggest you read Adam Smith.
And I suggest you lose the idea of intrinsic worth. There's no such thing.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
To say that an exchange is "fair" implies that things have an objective value

But things do not. Things can only have a value to someone.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
which makes equitable exchange possible. Market forces will not result in "fair" exchanges unless all traders are on equal footing. If some people are trading from a position of luxury and others are trading from a position of necessity (which is the condition in our world), market forces will reinforce the existing inequity rather than lead to equitable exhanges. In other words, market systems allow the wealthy to coerce the poor into inequitable trades. You operate under that assumption that the free market is never coercive, but that assumption is patently untrue.

You're abusing the word "coercive".

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
What this means, is that I can demand any price for the fish I catch. I could demand that the people trade all their property to me for food, and they would essentially have not choice but to agree or die. By your definition, this would be fair.

It would be legitimate. It would be your choice.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
In fact, I could demand all their labor in exchange for food, and they would have no viable option. If I am a skilled trader, I could arrange it so that all future boats built in this village will belong to me.

Unlikely.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
After all, boat builders have to eat. All I have to do is set the price of fish that a boat builder needs while completing a boat, equal to the price of a boat. The boat builders have no room to negotiate. They have to have food, where as I an get along fine only one boat.

They can find food elsewhere. Or go elsewhere. They can outbreed you. It's a silly example, because there are always options.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
In effect, I could enslave all the other members of the community because I control the one thing that every member of the community must have to live -- food. While they might nominally consent to trade all their labor for my food, such consent is meaningless because we are not trading from equal positions.

They can agree or they can leave. Or they can find other sources of food. When you break your leg, they can refuse to help you. You'd be utterly irrational to act this way, but you could do it.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
I am trading for luxuries, if they don't consent to my terms, I will continue to live. They are trading for necessities, if they don't consent to my terms they will starve.

Not necessarily. There will always be ways to improvise. You have a low view of human beings, Rabbit.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
A stronger trading position can be used as a means of coersion in exactly the same manner that stronger arms and bigger weapons can be used a means of coercion. By your definition, it would be completely fair for me to enslave every member in my village in exchange for the minimum amount of food required to maintain their lives.

Nope. Taking advantage of a trading position is not the same as enslaving people. What you describe could never happen in real life. You've set the conditions artificially and fictionally.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
People can and are unjustly coerced by "market forces" just as easily as they can be coerced by another force.

Again, you're abusing the term "coersive."

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
From my view, while the boat would be my property, it would also be in some sense property of the village.

Only if you agreed to that in the first place. If you really are just using communal property, that's one thing. You've been deliberately vague about that in your example. There's a difference between "yours to use" and "yours".

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
I was only able to build my boat because of the support and instruction I obtained from the members of my community. I owe a debt to my community, because without them I would be as unable to catch the fish I need to live as they are to catch fish after their boats have been destroyed.

You owe such a debt only if you take it upon yourself of your own free will. It's not something that can be imposed upon you from the outside.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
If I am unwilling to assist the community while they rebuild their boats, then the community has every right to coerce me to use the skills they gave me for the benefit of the community rather than for my personal gain.

Not unless they gave you those skills on the condition that you owe them such things in return. If no such agreement was made, no such agreement exists.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
The system you propose, in which any "trade" you can get me to agree to will inevitably lead to coersion or as you call it slavery.

Funny how you go from a caricature of village life to "inevitably". Your example is unrealistic. It bears no relationship to reality, and does not produce the conclusions you're looking for.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
Oh, I forgot this :

quote:
Cheater.
I notice you didn't respond to the rest of my point about what the actual functions of the Australian government were.
It was a penal colony that declared independence.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
Here is what I see as a fairly clear explanation for why "intrinsic good" must exist.

quote:
Suppose that someone were to ask you whether it is good to help others in time of need. Unless you suspected some sort of trick, you would answer, “Yes, of course.” If this person were to go on to ask you why acting in this way is good, you might say that it is good to help others in time of need simply because it is good that their needs be satisfied. If you were then asked why it is good that people's needs be satisfied, you might be puzzled. You might be inclined to say, “It just is.” Or you might accept the legitimacy of the question and say that it is good that people's needs be satisfied because this brings them pleasure. But then, of course, your interlocutor could ask once again, “What's good about that?” Perhaps at this point you would answer, “It just is good that people be pleased,” and thus put an end to this line of questioning. Or perhaps you would again seek to explain the fact that it is good that people be pleased in terms of something else that you take to be good. At some point, though, you would have to put an end to the questions, not because you would have grown tired of them (though that is a distinct possibility), but because you would be forced to recognize that, if one thing derives its goodness from some other thing, which derives its goodness from yet a third thing, and so on, there must come a point at which you reach something whose goodness is not derivative in this way, something that “just is” good in its own right, something whose goodness is the source of, and thus explains, the goodness to be found in all the other things that precede it on the list. It is at this point that you will have arrived at intrinsic goodness.[10] That which is intrinsically good is nonderivatively good; it is good for its own sake. That which is not intrinsically good but extrinsically good is derivatively good; it is good, not (insofar as its extrinsic value is concerned) for its own sake, but for the sake of something else that is good and to which it is related in some way. Intrinsic value thus has a certain priority over extrinsic value. The latter is derivative from or reflective of the former and is to be explained in terms of the former. It is for this reason that philosophers have tended to focus on intrinsic value in particular.
For example, In Pixiest posts she repeatedly implies the "slavery" is bad. Why is slavery bad? The implication is that the freedom to profit from ones own later is a good thing. So I ask, why is freedom good?
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
You sound like your feelings are hurt. So I'll try and explain. First, the reason I dismissed what you wrote as I did (I can't speak for Pix, but maybe there's some similarity) is that what you wrote was so horrible in its implications that I could hardly even look at it, let alone respond to it civilly. But perhaps you hadn't considered those, and perhaps you don't get it.
I get it just find. I simply don't think that whether or not you find an idea repugnant has any relevance to its validity. The more I explore the underpinnings of "private property rights" the more I find the idea morally repugnant, yet I make an effort to logically explain my position rather than simply mocking you. I believe I deserve the same.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Here is what I see as a fairly clear explanation for why "intrinsic good" must exist.

I'm snipping that lengthy passage because it's silly. If you ask me, "Is helping people good," my answer is going to be, "Give me context."

A vicious murderer is running after a 10 year old child with the loudly proclaimed intent of killing the kid. He slips and bangs his head. You can go and give him a sip of water, and maybe bandage up his head. Is that helping someone? Yes. Is it good? Absolutely not. On the contrary; you'd essentially be making yourself an accomplice to murder.

Or a poor man comes up to me and asks me for a dollar. All I have is a dollar. Is it good for me to give him my dollar? Not when it's just going to transfer the need from him to me, it's not.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
For example, In Pixiest posts she repeatedly implies the "slavery" is bad. Why is slavery bad? The implication is that the freedom to profit from ones own later is a good thing. So I ask, why is freedom good?

It's not that freedom is good. It's that I own my life. For someone else to steal that is wrong.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by starLisa:
quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
Oh, I forgot this :

quote:
Cheater.
I notice you didn't respond to the rest of my point about what the actual functions of the Australian government were.
It was a penal colony that declared independence.
1. That is an extreme oversimplification of Australian history, to the point of being a real distortion - or to put it less politely, a lie. I suggest you take a quick look at the Wiki; you appear to be confusing Australian with American history.
2. I don't see what it has to do with my point, in any case. What were the functions of the Australian government? Were they internal order + external security, or were they something else?
 
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
 
Thanks Lisa, Great post.

Rabbit wrote:
quote:

For example, In Pixiest posts she repeatedly implies the "slavery" is bad. Why is slavery bad? The implication is that the freedom to profit from ones own later is a good thing. So I ask, why is freedom good?

If we have to debate that we have no hope of ever finding common ground.

And I believe you just showed what you really are.

Pix
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
If it belongs to no one else and you take possession of it, it's probably your property. Of course, in the case of things like homesteading, you do need to "prove the land", but other than that, simply taking possession is enough, provided someone else hasn't done so first.
How does the fact that you claimed something first, give you an ethical right to its exclusive use?

There is nothing which belongs to no one. Ownership of a thing, implies an right to use that thing. Consider a peace of land which is not owned by anyone in particular. This implies that you and I and anyone else who comes across this peace of land can walk across it, we can pick the berries that grow there, gather the stones, cut the trees etc. In effect, this land belongs to everyone not to no one. There are only things which belong to everyone, that is things which every person has an equal right to use, and things which belong to someone in particular, that is things of which some one claims the exclusive use.

If you claim something as your property which once belonged to everyone, then you have stolen from everyone.


quote:
If you create something that didn't previously exist, it's your property.
When you show me a person who can create something ex-nihilo, this will be a relevant statement.

quote:
If someone voluntarily transfers ownership of their property to you, it's now your property.
Define voluntary. As I have explained in my previous post, any trade which is undertaken between unequal partners can involve and element of coersion.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Pixiest:
Thanks Lisa, Great post.

Rabbit wrote:
quote:

For example, In Pixiest posts she repeatedly implies the "slavery" is bad. Why is slavery bad? The implication is that the freedom to profit from ones own later is a good thing. So I ask, why is freedom good?

If we have to debate that we have no hope of ever finding common ground.

And I believe you just showed what you really are.

Pix

We are not debating whether or not slavery is bad. We are debating whether or not anything is intrinsically bad or good. If you maintain that slavery is bad just because it is, I will agree but you have then agreed to the proposition that somethings are bad and good in and of themselves with out relation to anything else. You have agreed that things have intrinsic value.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
I think you are using 'value' in two different senses, which is really bad for debate. One sense is 'moral values', one of which is that slavery is bad. (Incidentally, I still don't think this is somehow 'intrinsic' in the fabric of the Universe, as Lisa and you both seem to believe; I just don't feel like being a slave myself, and am willing to extend the same protection to others.) The other is monetary value, a completely different concept. How can you measure the intrinsic monetary value of anything? You can't, even in principle; therefore it doesn't exist.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
No. That's where you keep messing up. If I make a hammer and you buy it from me and hammer a nail, I did not hammer that nail. Not in any way.
No, you did not hammer the nail. But without the hammer that you made, I could not have hammered the nail. Therefore the hammering of the nail can never be considered an act performed by an independent being. Without the person who invented the hammer, the person who invented the nail, the person who mined the oar, the person who cut the wood, the persons who formed the hammer and the nail, the nail would never have been hammered. The fact that we have developed a system of trade, does not obviate the fact that every person involved in the making of the hammer and the nail was essential to the end

It is not I who is messing up, but you. We human beings are fundamentally interdependent beings. None of us could survive our own births without the help of a community. All of our property, all of our skills and all of our knowledge are inseparably linked to our participation as part of a community. Independence is an illusion created by our egos. To deny this is comparable to a kidney claiming is independent of the heart and lungs.

Yes, we have established a system by which we trade our labor for goods and services created by others and that system has many advantages, but that system does not make us independent of our communities.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
It's not that freedom is good. It's that I own my life. For someone else to steal that is wrong.
Then why is it wrong for someone else to steal your life?

There is no reason, it is simply "intrinsically wrong".


If "Intrinsic Value" does not exist, then your life only has no intrinisic value. If your life has no intrinisic value, then we can not say that it is intrinsically wrong for someone to steal your life. Such a judgement can only be made based on context. So tell me, what is the context in which it is wrong for someone to steal your life.

And for Pixiest sake, please recognize that I am not arguing that stealing someone life is right or that your life has no value, I am arguing that your claims that "Nothing has Intrinsic Value" and your claim that it is wrong for someone to steal your life are self contradictory statements. Please explain to me how they are not.
 
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
 
I remember being immature enough to think that I earned the good things that came to me and that the bad things were "bad luck". And that the opposite was true for other people.

I try not to think that way anymore. I became a much better person once I realized that everything I have is a gift.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
I think I just did, actually. [Smile]
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:
No. That's where you keep messing up. If I make a hammer and you buy it from me and hammer a nail, I did not hammer that nail. Not in any way.
No, you did not hammer the nail. But without the hammer that you made, I could not have hammered the nail. Therefore the hammering of the nail can never be considered an act performed by an independent being.
Untrue. I don't remain connected forevermore to that hammer. Except historically. But that's a matter of information, and nothing else. Once I give you or sell you that hammer, I no longer have any connection to it. You are now the owner of a hammer. Not the owner of Lisa's hammer, but the owner of a hammer. Its history is of no relevance, and nothing you do with it has anything to do with me. If you build something with it, I may have the personal satisfaction of knowing that I contributed, but I have no claim, ever, over the thing you built. If your name is Maxwell Edison and you kill people with the hammer, I have no culpability whatsoever for those deaths. Not even if I made the damned thing out of silver.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Without the person who invented the hammer, the person who invented the nail, the person who mined the oar, the person who cut the wood, the persons who formed the hammer and the nail, the nail would never have been hammered.

Free rider problem. That's boring. I have information on my website. It is free for the taking. I've received e-mails from people thanking me. I appreciate that. Do they owe me thanks? No. I gave it away.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
The fact that we have developed a system of trade, does not obviate the fact that every person involved in the making of the hammer and the nail was essential to the end

That's history. It conveys no rights or responsibilities or debts or duties. It's simply a curiosity. A piece of information.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
It is not I who is messing up, but you. We human beings are fundamentally interdependent beings.

Human beings are fundamentally individuals.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
None of us could survive our own births without the help of a community. All of our property, all of our skills and all of our knowledge are inseparably linked to our participation as part of a community.

You may be a bug in a hive, or a Rabbit in a warren, but I assure you, you live in a world full of people who own their lives and who owe you not a damned thing.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Independence is an illusion created by our egos. To deny this is comparable to a kidney claiming is independent of the heart and lungs.

Socialist twaddle. I'm not part of a machine. I exist for me.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Yes, we have established a system by which we trade our labor for goods and services created by others and that system has many advantages, but that system does not make us independent of our communities.

I feel like I need to wash my eyes after reading something so villainous.
 
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
 
KoM said it. This is a semantical argument. Rabbit is using value to mean anything that's good. Lisa is using value to mean Monitary worth.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:
It's not that freedom is good. It's that I own my life. For someone else to steal that is wrong.
Then why is it wrong for someone else to steal your life?
Because it's mine. And the more you write, Rabbit, the more you show yourself to be anti-life. The anti-individual stuff is simply a special case of that.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
There is no reason, it is simply "intrinsically wrong".

Bloody hell. Don't ask a question if you aren't going to wait for an answer.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
If "Intrinsic Value" does not exist, then your life only has no intrinisic value.

In the first place, while I may have been lax in specifying "there is no intrinsic value of an object", that is what I said initially. Go back and read. In the second place, it most certainly does have value to me. As yours does to you. Or, I should say, as the life of a person who is not anti-life does to that person. I wouldn't venture to guess in your case.

quote:
If your life has no intrinisic value, then we can not say that it is intrinsically wrong for someone to steal your life. Such a judgement can only be made based on context. So tell me, what is the context in which it is wrong for someone to steal your life.
It's mine. I own it. I know that means nothing to someone who believes property is theft, but I don't believe such people really believe that. I think they give lip service to it, but will defend their property every bit as much as sane people do.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Pixiest:
KoM said it. This is a semantical argument. Rabbit is using value to mean anything that's good. Lisa is using value to mean Monitary worth.

Not necessarily. Value is that which one acts to gain or keep. Virtue is the means by which one gains it or keeps it. Knowledge is a value (to a rational person). Education is a virtue by which it is attained. It's not the only one. Observation is another one. Both education and observation can cost money. But they can be free, as well.

But yes, I've been careful to define what I mean by "value". And it's why I haven't discussed the idea of "intrinsic value", which isn't even a bad concept. It's not a concept at all. I'm saying there's no such thing as intrinsic worth.

But yes, both worth and value only have meaning in relation to their subject.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
I think I just did, actually. [Smile]

Context?
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by kmbboots:
everything I have is a gift.

I've always viewed that as the flip side of "We've all got it coming" from Unforgiven.

The proper question isn't "why do we have to die?" but "why did we get to live at all?" I certainly did nothing to deserve that.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
quote:
And the more you write, Rabbit, the more you show yourself to be anti-life.
Can I ask that you show Rabbit a bit more courtesy, Lisa? I think we can safely assume that she's no more "anti-life" than you are.

If your definition of "pro-life" requires the recognition of property rights, it's fine to put it that way, like, "I consider your views to be inimical to life."

But since Rabbit clearly does not, any attempt to classify her as "anti-life" is at best going to be seen as insulting.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
I think you are using 'value' in two different senses, which is really bad for debate. One sense is 'moral values', one of which is that slavery is bad. (Incidentally, I still don't think this is somehow 'intrinsic' in the fabric of the Universe, as Lisa and you both seem to believe; I just don't feel like being a slave myself, and am willing to extend the same protection to others.) The other is monetary value, a completely different concept. How can you measure the intrinsic monetary value of anything? You can't, even in principle; therefore it doesn't exist.
I think what you are saying is that while somethings may have "intrinsic value", money does not. I will agree to that. Money is simply an instrument we use in an attempt to equate things which are not equivalent. Let's assume that I have ten oranges I'd like to trade to someone for something of equal value. Those oranges have the exact value of ten oranges. Unfortunately, that is a true yet utterly valueless piece of information since I am unlikely to desire to trade my oranges for ten identical oranges. As a result, we have invented this instrument we call money in an attemt to give equivalence to the value of things which aren't identical. So we arbitrarily say that ten organges are worth $2, and that perhaps 12 apples are also worth $2, and 1 gallon of milk is worth $2, and 2/3 of a gallon of gasoling is worth $2 which means that in some sense we have agreed that all of the these things have equal value.

My argument is that a trade is fair, if the monetary value we assign to things is proportionate to their intrinisic value.

Lisa's argument is that the concept of "intrinsic value" is obsurd. Things only have the value we agree to when we trade, therefore any price we mutually agree to is "fair".

Although, I frankly can't understand what "fair" means if nothing has intrinsic value. Randians stipulate that a trade is only fair if both parties agree to the exchange, (for example if you offered me $1 for my oranges, but I refused to trade at that price it would be unfair for you to simply take my oranges and leave the $1). This leads me to ask why "consent" is essential to a fair trade and the only conclusion I find satisfactory is that "free agency" has intrinsic value. If it doesn't, then I can find no logical reason to conclude that consent is crucial in determining the external value of an object.

There has been much debate amongst philosophers over what the "intrinisic value" is of any object and it is certainly not clear that we can define an currency which could adequately capture intrinsic value or that we can know an objects intrinsic value in anyway. Whether or not we can know an objects intrinsic value is however quite a different question from the question of whether any objects have intrinsic value.

Adam Smith maintained that the "intrinsic value" of any object was equal to the amount of human labor required to make the object. In essence Smith is arguing that human labor has "intrinisic value". So if it takes me "1 unit of labor" to make a dose antibiotic and it takes you "1 unit of labor" to write a story, then it would be a "fair trade" if I gave you a dose of antibiotic in exchange for a story. Smith maintained that free markets would ultimately lead to a system in which all labor was rewarded equally. That has never even come close to happening for two key reasons. First, Smith assumes that resources are unlimited which is simply untrue in the real world. Second, Smith does not recognize the distinction between true human needs and human desires and the inequalities that will always arise when needs and desires are exchanged. That inequality will result in instability of any market system because the more wealth you accumulate the more leverage you have to make trades which disproportionately favor yourself.

Consider my example of the dose of medicine and the story. If you are critically ill and require my medicine to live, I have an enormous advantage over you because while think I would really enjoy your story, I can easily live without it. As a result, I could probably demand "10 labor units" of stories, or perhaps even a hundred in exchange for my medicine and you will likely agree to the price. Smith maintains that if I make the price to exorbidant, you will simply make your own dose of medicine or find someone else who will trade you a dose for "1 labor unit of story."

That works because in Smith's world, the natural and human resources needed to make a dose of medicine are unlimited and so no one can effectively monopolize the knowledge and resources needed to make the dose of medicine. If I start to charge too much for the medicine I make, someone else will step in and start making it at a lower cost.

In the real world, people can very effectively monopolize knowledge and resources which makes free markets fundamentally unstable. The more wealth I accumulate, the greater my ability will be to coerce you to exchange your labor for my labor at a rate that is unfavorable to you. As soon as things get even a little off balance, I have a lever by which I can coerce you to work for me which drives the system perpetually away from equity.
 
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
 
Yup. I didn't do anything to "earn" my life or my parent's love and care for me. I can take no credit that I was born without serious medical or developmental issues. I didn't create the strengths I have that have enabled me to have a nice life. I may or may not have improved on them, but I didn't create them. Whatever I have "earned" or created using those gifts, will always be dependent on something undeserved.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:
And the more you write, Rabbit, the more you show yourself to be anti-life.
Can I ask that you show Rabbit a bit more courtesy, Lisa? I think we can safely assume that she's no more "anti-life" than you are.

If your definition of "pro-life" requires the recognition of property rights, it's fine to put it that way, like, "I consider your views to be inimical to life."

But since Rabbit clearly does not, any attempt to classify her as "anti-life" is at best going to be seen as insulting.

Saying that a person does not own his or her own life is inimical to life.
 
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
What intrigues me is not that I agree with almost everything that Rabbit has said in this thread. What intrigues me is that as best I can determine, Rabbit's position is completely consistent with Pirkei Avos.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
Saying that a person does not own his or her own life is inimical to life.
Lisa, Perhaps you could point out to me where I said that a person does not own his own life? I don't believe I have ever said anything of the kind and if you are interpreting my words to mean this then you are failing to understand most of what I am saying.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
Then why is it wrong for someone else to steal your life?
Because it's mine. And the more you write, Rabbit, the more you show yourself to be anti-life. The anti-individual stuff is simply a special case of that.

There is no reason, it is simply "intrinsically wrong".
Bloody hell. Don't ask a question if you aren't going to wait for an answer.

If was a rhetorical question and I normally it is considered rude to ask a rhetorical question unless you answer it yourself.

Your answer to my question is fundamentally equivalent to the one I gave. You say its wrong because it's wrong. I can rephrase the question as many times as you like. "Why is it wrong for me to take something that is yours?" "Because its mine, does not define this "wrongness" by its relationship to other things. You are just repeated that its wrong because its wrong, which is equivalent to saying that somethings have intrinsic value regardless of extrernal relationship to anything else.

And once again, since you refuse to recognize the point of this argument. I have never claimed nor do I believe that it isn't wrong to steal someones life. My claim is that this arguement requires "intrinsic value" to have any rational meaning.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
Lisa, I think you might be conflating responsibility with ownership; the idea that someone "owns" himself, as property, is not necessarily a prerequisite to the assumption that someone is primarily or solely responsible for himself.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
The concept behind "owning yourself" is arbitrary conceptualization.

Wonderful rhetorical device, though. You could then get to term government coercions as theft, seizure, No Fair, what have you.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Lisa's argument is that the concept of "intrinsic value" is obsurd. Things only have the value we agree to when we trade, therefore any price we mutually agree to is "fair".

I'm saying that an orange has no intrinsic value. It may be of value to me. If so, that value may be quantifiable. It may be of value to you. If so, that value may be quantifiable. But it has no value in and of itself.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Although, I frankly can't understand what "fair" means if nothing has intrinsic value. Randians stipulate that a trade is only fair if both parties agree to the exchange,

Objectivists (not Randians -- that's a slur) don't really see any meaning to the word "fair". Fairness is utterly subjective. We care about justice; not fairness.

My daughter has a Blues Clues video. There's a scene in which Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper ask Steve to help them count their apples. Mr. Salt, it turns out, has 3 apples. Mrs. Pepper has 5 apples. For a total of 8 apples (in case you weren't paying attention).

Mr. Salt says, "But zat is not fair! We should both have ze same number of apples!" So Steve takes one of Mrs. Pepper's apples and moves it over to Mr. Salt's side. Mr. Salt is happy as a clam. I'm a lot less happy, of course, and have made sure, when watching this with Tova, to point out that there's absolutely nothing wrong with Mr. Salt having 3 apples and Mrs. Pepper having 5. And that she should never to let anyone bully her into giving something up just so that everyone has the same amount.

You and Mr. Salt, Rabbit, have the same attitude, it seems.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
(for example if you offered me $1 for my oranges, but I refused to trade at that price it would be unfair for you to simply take my oranges and leave the $1).

If I came in when you weren't there and left you a $100 bill for your oranges, it would be equally wrong. Those are your oranges. Only you get to decide whether to sell them or not, and if so, for how much to sell them. And who to sell them to, for that matter. And when. No one in the universe has any say over what you do with those oranges, so long as you don't throw them at my head or through one of my windows.

This isn't a matter of fairness. It's a matter of justice. And dictionaries to the contrary, those are not the same thing. I am not owed oranges. You are owed respect of your ownership of those oranges. If I want oranges, I can bloody well ask. And if I don't like the deal you're offering, tough on me.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
This leads me to ask why "consent" is essential to a fair trade and the only conclusion I find satisfactory is that "free agency" has intrinsic value.

Blibber blabber. Without consent, you are violating someone's ownership of what is theirs. Without your consent, anything I do to those oranges is a violation of you. I'm not entitled to do that.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
If it doesn't, then I can find no logical reason to conclude that consent is crucial in determining the external value of an object.

No one said it is. You're mixing apples and oranges (I couldn't help that). Objects don't have intrinsic value. Not internal and not external. They only have subjective value. Subjective means "in relation to the subject". An orange can have a value to me. It can have a value to you. It can't have a value without a "to X".

Furthermore, it can't really have a value to me in a vacuum. It can only have a value to me in a context. An orange has a certain value to me when I'm hungry. It has less or no value to me when I'm in the bathroom. So a thing can only have a subjective and contextual value.

If I own oranges and I go to set a price for those oranges, I'm going to set the price that I think people will pay. But that's a higher order description. Dig a little more deeply, and you find that what I'm doing is gambling that enough people will find my oranges to have a sufficient value to them, and in the context in which they come into my store or the context in which they envision deriving benefit from those oranges that they will decide that paying my price is worthwhile for them.

If I've miscalculated, I'm not going to sell all the oranges I wanted to. Or perhaps they will all sell really fast, and I'll realize that I could have gotten more for them. In that case, by the way, I will have learned a lesson. But I won't owe my customers anything for that lesson. When I act differently the next time, it will be me acting differently. I won't owe my customers anything for the lesson.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Whether or not we can know an objects intrinsic value is however quite a different question from the question of whether any objects have intrinsic value.

Why is it a different question? If you want to claim that an entity exists, the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that it exists. We know from the real world that the same thing can have a different value for different people. Other than some Platonic nonsense, what basis is there to claim that there's some objective value for a thing? You have to demonstrate one, and you can't.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Adam Smith maintained that the "intrinsic value" of any object was equal to the amount of human labor required to make the object.

If so, then Adam Smith was wrong. Doubly wrong, because there's no intrinsic value to human labor, either. Only subjective and contextual value.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
In essence Smith is arguing that human labor has "intrinisic value". So if it takes me "1 unit of labor" to make a dose antibiotic and it takes you "1 unit of labor" to write a story, then it would be a "fair trade" if I gave you a dose of antibiotic in exchange for a story.

Excellent example. Your example itself is proof that human labor cannot have intrinsic value.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Smith maintained that free markets would ultimately lead to a system in which all labor was rewarded equally. That has never even come close to happening for two key reasons. First, Smith assumes that resources are unlimited which is simply untrue in the real world. Second, Smith does not recognize the distinction between true human needs and human desires and the inequalities that will always arise when needs and desires are exchanged. That inequality will result in instability of any market system because the more wealth you accumulate the more leverage you have to make trades which disproportionately favor yourself.

No. He was wrong for the simple reason that labor doesn't have intrinsic value. None of the rest of that pertains.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Consider my example of the dose of medicine and the story. If you are critically ill and require my medicine to live, I have an enormous advantage over you because while think I would really enjoy your story, I can easily live without it. As a result, I could probably demand "10 labor units" of stories, or perhaps even a hundred in exchange for my medicine and you will likely agree to the price.

Because the value of that medicine to you, in the context of you needing it to live, is much greater than, say, the value of that medicine to someone who doesn't need it at all. It has no intrinsic value whatsoever. Only subjective and contextual value.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Smith maintains that if I make the price to exorbidant, you will simply make your own dose of medicine or find someone else who will trade me a dose for "1 labor unit of story." That works because in Smith's world, the natural and human resources needed to make a dose of medicine are unlimited and so no one can effectively monopolize the knowledge and resources needed to make the dose of medicine. If I start to charge too much for the medicine I make, someone else will step in and start making it at a lower cost.

In the real world, people can very effectively monopolize knowledge and resources which makes free markets fundamentally unstable.

But since no one is owed that medicine, none of that really matters. If you want it, you pay for it. Or you get someone else to pay for it. Or you get someone who has it to give it to you. And you do that by asking. By trying to convince them. Not by putting a gun to their head.

[ August 22, 2006, 05:11 PM: Message edited by: starLisa ]
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
The Rabbit and I part ways on several key points in this discussion and definitely think that there is an ethical basis for private property, but this exchange demonstrates why I find Rabbit's moral reasoning to be preferable in this thread:

quote:
quote:
Then why is it wrong for someone else to steal your life?
Because it's mine. And the more you write, Rabbit, the more you show yourself to be anti-life. The anti-individual stuff is simply a special case of that.
The Rabbit is insisting that the entire moral universe is the proper subject of human analysis. She is asking that the most basic assumptions shared by most of us on the subject of morality be either declared as axioms or shown to derive solely from axioms.

It's not entirely clear from Lisa's response, but it seems that she is citing the question which embodies this insistence as evidence of Rabbit's "anti-life" status.

I, on the other hand, see it as evidence of Rabbit's recognition that any moral system has axioms and that recognition of these axioms is necessary for meaningful discourse about those moral systems.

This is a good thing, not a bad thing.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by kmbboots:
Yup. I didn't do anything to "earn" my life or my parent's love and care for me. I can take no credit that I was born without serious medical or developmental issues. I didn't create the strengths I have that have enabled me to have a nice life. I may or may not have improved on them, but I didn't create them. Whatever I have "earned" or created using those gifts, will always be dependent on something undeserved.

So. Your parents gave all that to you with strings attached? That's sad. My parents loved and cared for me without any strings. and that means that whatever I have earned or created using those gifts is 100% mine, and entirely deserved. None of which detracts the slightest bit from my gratitude to my parents.

It's not a zero sum world. They could have given those same gifts to me, and I could have thrown them away and be living under a bridge in a cardboard box. What I did with them is what I did with them. Only I am responsible for those choices.
 
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 
quote:
So. Your parents gave all that to you with strings attached?
I have no idea how you arrived at that interpretation of what you quoted. It's as though you are commenting on something completely different.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by rivka:
What intrigues me is not that I agree with almost everything that Rabbit has said in this thread. What intrigues me is that as best I can determine, Rabbit's position is completely consistent with Pirkei Avos.

I couldn't possibly disagree more. And it's foreign to the rest of Jewish literature as well, Rivka. Ha-motzi me-chavero, alav ha-raaya.

In Pirkei Avot, we are told ofwe are told of four types of people:
Now, to explain the Sodom bit. According to Jewish tradition, in Sodom, giving charity was actually forbidden. They would mark the money, and if you gave alms to a stranger, they'd see who did it and punish you.

So the two different views of "what's mine is mine and what's yours is yours" are of someone who sees that as the norm (that's a normal person) and someone who requires that (that's the behavior of Sodom).

Rivka, you were the one who cited Pirkei Avot, not me. I wouldn't have done so, because calling Rabbit a fool or an evil person would be wrong. Particularly on Hatrack. But since that's what Pirkei Avot says, I'm kind of curious to know how you think that what she's saying is in any way consistent with what it says in Pirkei Avot.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
I'm a bit overwhelmed now by this thread, but I believe that people own their lives, but other people own part of their lives just by being intertwined in their threads. It's near impossible to live without getting entangled in someone's thread one way or another. It's impossible not to be responsible for other people or to have someone be responsible for you.
Therefore your life is yours, but you have no right to take it because it also belongs to other people, just as someone doesn't have the right to take a life without good reason.
That's my odd way of looking at things... I also believe in working hard to earn my keep in the world which is why I am typing this from my job and working overtime for the next two hours or more...
I think people need to take care of each other for the corny reason that it really does make things better... things would be worse than they could be if people only looked out for their own and not for the whole, but if people just looked out for the whole of society and sacrificed their happiness (Mao comes to mind again)
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:
So. Your parents gave all that to you with strings attached?
I have no idea how you arrived at that interpretation of what you quoted. It's as though you are commenting on something completely different.
She said "dependent".
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
So. Your parents gave all that to you with strings attached?
I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that that isn't what Kate meant.

If you're going to constantly interpret other people's meaning based on your underlying premises, you are going to constantly be very wrong about what they meant.

Beyond that, your reply doesn't even make sense. Why does Kate's lack of deserving something mean that strings were attached?

quote:
It's not a zero sum world. They could have given those same gifts to me, and I could have thrown them away and be living under a bridge in a cardboard box. What I did with them is what I did with them. Only I am responsible for those choices.
But you are not responsible for the vast majority of the environment around you that determined what the effect of those choices would be.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by starLisa:
quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:
So. Your parents gave all that to you with strings attached?
I have no idea how you arrived at that interpretation of what you quoted. It's as though you are commenting on something completely different.
She said "dependent".
So? Unless you can demonstrate what you did to deserve to be born, everything you do is dependent on something you didn't deserve - being born. That's not "strings attached."
 
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
 
Yes. Everything depends on what I was given. Without what I was given (by parents, God, fate, whatever), unearned, undeserved, I would not have been able to create, earn, or deserve anything.

Of course there were no "strings attached". If there had been it would have been a bargain or contract, not a gift.

edit to add: Thanks Dag and Porter for helping me clarify.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
quote:
I wouldn't have done so, because calling Rabbit a fool or an evil person would be wrong.
Can I point out here that "anti-life" is not a value-neutral statement?
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
Go ahead.
 
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by starLisa:
quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:
So. Your parents gave all that to you with strings attached?
I have no idea how you arrived at that interpretation of what you quoted. It's as though you are commenting on something completely different.
She said "dependent".
Yeah. I read what you quoted the first time, including that particular word. Your talk of "strings attached" still doesn't make sense.
 
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
 
kmb: If it's a gift, with no strings attached, then Rabbit's argument of "Everything you have you owe to society" holds no water. There is no debt to pay. It was a gift, not a loan.

Rabbit, do you agree with KMB's statement that it's all a gift?

Lisa, Take a deep breath before you post. If you're still upset, don't post. And remember you can vent to me in email. I don't know if you're really angry or not, but some of the things you say are being read that way.

Pix
 
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by starLisa:
So the two different views of "what's mine is mine and what's yours is yours" are of someone who sees that as the norm (that's a normal person) and someone who requires that (that's the behavior of Sodom).
Not according to the Maharal. When we discussed this very mishnah in the weekly class I attend (this was probably 3 months back), we specifically discussed Ayn Rand, and that what Maharal described as midas Sodom was exactly consistent with Objectivism (well, my rav doesn't know the word Objectivism).

The Maharal says that the person with midas Sodom is the one who says, "I won't take anything from you, because that way, I can ensure that you will make no demands on me."

As it happens, I wasn't even thinking of that specific mishnah, but I'm glad you brought it up.

I was thinking of Ten lo mishelo, ki atah v'shelcha shelo.
 
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
 
Nobody exists outside of society and its rules. People who have control over a lot of resources (money, "stuff," the means to generate wealth) are in that position at least in part because of the context in which they live. If the rules were different, so too would their opportunities be. And, one assumes, their actions.

In a larger sense, and this is mainly a faith-based argument, all of life is a gift from God. If God were not, then we would not be either. If God had not willed creation, then nothing would have ever come into being.

These are not mutually exclusive viewpoints.

It seems to me that a rich person to feel no debt to humanity, or society is rather short-sighted. For example, there are all the people who sacrificed much to make America into the capitalist paradise it is. Without that prior sacrifice, what would there be for the Objectivist to work with here in the US?

Certainly a Rockefeller in Communist Russia might still rise to a position of power, but it was certainly easier and more rewarding to do so in the West, no?

I think it's equally short-sighted to deny that some people have more of what it takes to succeed in any given environment. For any given system, there are those who are ideally suited to exploit it, and those who are least able to exploit it.

Some people are going to excel in just about any environment. Some people are going to fail in just about any environment. But for everyone else, success or failure depends a great deal ln the rules in force for the society they live in.

An objectivist-leaning society would favor a certain type of person. I would call that person selfish and they would say "well, of course." Since the vast mass of people would not do well under the "rule" of objectivism, I suspect that the outcome of any move toward objectivist as a "state policy" would be wholesale rioting.

But then, I'm told I'm missing the point of Objectivism as being the only and best possible way for individuals to realize their true potential.

What I see is a justification for grabbing everything that isn't nailed down and claiming that possession is 100% of the law. At least, that's what I see as the real appeal of Objectivism's celebration of selfishness. The only barrier to outright criminality is supposedly the rational self-interest of the people. It makes me worried whenever anyone claims that rational (or as Lisa has stated "sane" people) would do x...especially since the vast majority of us don't agree with it.

Any philosophical movement that starts by claiming that the majority of the people it is trying to gain as adherents are currently not sane, or are being dishonest, raises red flags for me.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
In essence Smith is arguing that human labor has "intrinisic value". So if it takes me "1 unit of labor" to make a dose antibiotic and it takes you "1 unit of labor" to write a story, then it would be a "fair trade" if I gave you a dose of antibiotic in exchange for a story. Excellent example. Your example itself is proof that human labor cannot have intrinsic value.

No Lisa, the example proves only that market value and intrinsic value are not the same.


quote:
Rabbit, do you agree with KMB's statement that it's all a gift?
Not exactly. I will agree that all of us benefit from things we did not and could not have earned, but my principal argument is quite distinct. I argue that we humans can not exist without a community. No human ever has and no human will ever be able to do so. We are born completely helpless. Without the help of others we could not live past birth. All of our basic skills including recognizing that hunger means we should eat, that thurst means we should drink, recognizing what can be eaten, what can be drunk, being able to walk, talk, recognize simple patterns . . . We humans are born with none of these skills, we have no instincts that tell us these things. We must learn them all from other humans. Whether other humans choose freely to care for us and teach us is effectively irrelevant, because we can not choose to refuse these connections. Even if, as an adult, you choose to move to a remote area, live in a hole and eat what you can forage, you can never escape the knowledge you carry with you from the community. You could not survive for even a few days without the knowledge that you gained from other humans. You can not choose to be independent of the society. Human beings can not survive without community any more than a kidney can survive without the heart, the lungs, the liver, and the mouth. Any philosophy that maintains that we are first and foremost individuals who have no obligation to community, does not understand the very basics of what it means to be a human being.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
The Rabbit and I part ways on several key points in this discussion and definitely think that there is an ethical basis for private property, but this exchange demonstrates why I find Rabbit's moral reasoning to be preferable in this thread:
Its curious what people have assumed about my position on private property, since I have never stated my position at all. All I have done is the question the assumption that "private property" is an inalienable human right.

I do see an ethical basis for privat property, but I view property ownership as a privilege and not a right.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
Objectivists (not Randians -- that's a slur)
I'm curious, which do you see as a more serious slur. Randian or "anti-life".

[ August 22, 2006, 07:53 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
Can I ask that you show Rabbit a bit more courtesy, Lisa?
You can ask Tom, but your wasting your time.


And as I final note, I won't have time to return to this debate for at least three days. As provoking as I've found this discussion, I do have a life away from hatrack which has far greater intrinsic value than this debate.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
I think I just did, actually. [Smile]

Context?

I was referring to Rabbit's question :
quote:
I am arguing that your claims that "Nothing has Intrinsic Value" and your claim that it is wrong for someone to steal your life are self contradictory statements. Please explain to me how they are not.
and referring to my post where I attempted to separate 'value', meaning money, from 'value', meaning the value we attach to a human life. Unfortunately another post intervened, so it wasn't quite clear what I was responding to. [Smile]

quote:
I think what you are saying is that while somethings may have "intrinsic value", money does not. I will agree to that.
Well, that's not at all what I was saying, so unfortunately the rest of your post goes off on a bit of a tangent. I am saying that 'the value of a human life' is a qualitatively completely different thing from 'market value', and that you are confusing them, which is really bad for the clarity of the discussion.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
About the labour theory of value, I had the definite impression that this was Marx and not Smith. Not that it matters too much; whoever wrote it, it's plainly wrong since one hour of a skilled writer's labour can be a lot more valuable (even for some vague concept of 'intrinsic worth') than one hour of a bungling apprentice chemist's labour.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
Its curious what people have assumed about my position on private property, since I have never stated my position at all. All I have done is the question the assumption that "private property" is an inalienable human right.
I'm sorry for misinterpreting you. I thought you were taking the position that property is not an inalienable right, which I would consider to be a position on private property.

I do think it's an inalienable right. I don't think it means what Lisa claims it to mean, though. Not by a long shot. I also don't think that right must be expressed merely in terms of individual, exclusive ownership. There are all kinds of property ownership which are expressions of that right.

But I do believe that there is a state of being owned, and that once something is in that state, the owner has rights associated with it, and that those rights are inalienable in the same sense that liberty is inalienable. This leaves room for many restrictions within a society of laws.

(Also note that I don't believe that "inalienable" means absolute.)

I also think "ownership" is an appalling metaphor for human being, even for use as a person owning their own life. It's inaccurate on so many levels and tends to dull the distinction between things and people.
 
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
 
KoM: Different people's work is worth different amounts. This generally (GENERALLY) corresponds the supply (number of people who can do what you do) vs the demand(who needs/wants what you do)
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
Yes, obviously. Isn't that what I was saying?
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
Speaking of slavery and the possible immorality of owning things; pretty much anything that's owned at this time was built from 'stolen goods' at some point, right? Yet Lisa, apparently, definitely does not want this to be taken into account for some kind of compensation. On the other hand, I would assume that she does not object to freeing slaves, which are in some sense owned. (I appreciate that this is not 'real' ownership in Lisa's sense of the word, since the slaves' right to own themselves cannot be taken away, being built into the fabric of the Universe.) But what of the fruits of the slaves' labour? Shouldn't that also be taken away? (The slave owners, presumably, have no right to it, having coerced the labour out of their victims.) It wasn't in 1865, and I suspect Lisa would object if it were done now. So there is some limit in time at which stolen goods become really owned goods, right? But if so, it seems to me that Rabbit and Lisa disagree only on where the lie should be drawn, with Lisa putting it very close to the original theft, and Rabbit quite far removed in time.
 
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
 
quote:
All I have done is the question the assumption that "private property" is an inalienable human right.
What does being "an inalienable human right" mean? I would hold that the right to private property is an inalienable human right, but that the "right" to unlimited private property cannot exist because it interferes with other, more important, rights. An obvious example is that no one should be able to hoard all the food in the world, even if they earned this food in an honest manner, because this interferes with the most basic right, the right to life.

And the right to property can be given up, voluntarily by a very few who choose to live as monastics or otherwise communally, or involuntarily, by people whose criminal actions merit the seizure of (usually illegally obtained) property. I would love to see corrupt third-world politicians have their estates and limousines seized and auctioned to pay for hospitals and schools. They have voided their right to own by voiding others. Thieves have rights as do all humans, but the right to the property they steal is not one of them.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
Well, that's not at all what I was saying, so unfortunately the rest of your post goes off on a bit of a tangent. I am saying that 'the value of a human life' is a qualitatively completely different thing from 'market value', and that you are confusing them, which is really bad for the clarity of the discussion.
Clearly, I'm not communicating well. I agree that the "intrinsic value" is qualitatively a completely different thing from 'market value'.

What I have meant by intrinsic value, is that somethings (although possibly not all things) have value without regard to their context. Somethings which might have intrinsic value include joy, love, beauty, peace, free agency, self determination or even private property. The key here is that if something has intrinsic value, then the question of why its valuable is obsurd. It has value because it has value. So when I have asked questions like "Why is slavery wrong", "Why is it bad for someone to steal your life", I have been intensionally asking questions which I know that Pixie and Lisa will find obsurd. My goal was to get them (or maybe someone else) to recognize that they do indeed recognize that somethings have intrinsic value. They see "free agency" and "self-determination" as having intrinsic value, so to them it is obsurd to even ask these questions. Unfortunately, as an objectivist StarLisa rejects the idea that anything has intrinsic value so rather than understanding the point of my question she simply accuses me of immorality for asking.

Now I need to explain why I keep trying to connect "intrinsic value" and "market value" which gets confusing because the two are not inherently connected. My argument is that the equity of any exchange depends on the intrinsic value of the items being exchanged and not their market value.

The "market value" of an object is nothing more than the price one can obtain for it in trade. This price is determined largely by supply and demand and there is no reason to believe that this price will bear any relationship to the "intrinsic value" of the objects being traded. Market value has no relationship to justice or equity or fairness. It is simply the amount one is able to get in trade. So in essence, if you are able to persuade someone to give you a quarter in exchange for 5 pennies, the the quarter has a market value (for this exchange) of 5 pennies.

So now let's imagine that two objects exist one of which has higher "intrinsic value" than the other. So suppose that you and I agree that I will give you the less valuable object in exchange for the object of greater value. Such an exchange is by definition "inequitable" or unfair. The objects being exchanged do not have equal value.

My arguement is that whenever the market value of objects is not proportional to their intrinsic value, then the market value is by definition inequitable. So when someone argues that it is "just" for them to own something because they have paid the market value for it, their argument can only have validity if there is some close correlation between market value and "intrinsic value" (which there generally is not).

The objectivist view point is that intrinsic value does not exist and so its pointless to even discuss it. Value is determined only by context. If two people consent to exchange two objects, the exchange is always equitable because the objects have no value outside of the context of the exchange.

Of course it is possible and consistent to believe that one thing, for example "self determination" has intrinsic value but nothing else does. If one held such a belief, then it would be consistent to believe that any exchange of objects which did not violate the "self determination" of the traders was just. But then of course one would need to justify the idea that "self determination" and only "self determiniation" has intrinsic value. If there are any other things which have intrinsic value, then we will have to check for the equity of each of these items in the exchange to determine if the exchange was just.

[ August 22, 2006, 09:33 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
According to both Webster and OED, inalienable means: incapable of being alienated, surrendered, or transferred. So if you believe that some right can be justly taken by society or forfeited for any reason, that right is by definition not an inalienable right.

Perhaps what you mean is that you believe that private property rights are "natural rights", which implies simply that there rights are inherent in the nature of the world rather than granted by any being.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
quote:
According to both Webster and OED, inalienable means: incapable of being alienated, surrendered, or transferred. So if you believe that some right can be justly taken by society or forfeited for any reason, that right is by definition not an inalienable right.
I'm using "inalienable" in the sense that "unalienable" was used in the Declaration. Both words have similar dictionary definitions.

Under your definition, the "big three" of the Declaration are not inalienable - not life, not liberty, not the pursuit of happiness (or, as the Constitution put it, property) - so I agree with the contention that property is not an inalienable right under that definition.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
About the labour theory of value, I had the definite impression that this was Marx and not Smith. Not that it matters too much; whoever wrote it, it's plainly wrong since one hour of a skilled writer's labour can be a lot more valuable (even for some vague concept of 'intrinsic worth') than one hour of a bungling apprentice chemist's labour.
Your objects indicate a misunderstanding of what is meant by "1 unit of labor". Smith explains it fairly well in Chapter five of the wealth of nations.

quote:
EVERY man is rich or poor according to the degree in which he can afford to enjoy the necessaries, conveniences, and amusements of human life. But after the division of labour has once thoroughly taken place, it is but a very small part of these with which a man's own labour can supply him. The far greater part of them he must derive from the labour of other people, and he must be rich or poor according to the quantity of that labour which he can command, or which he can afford to purchase. The value of any commodity, therefore, to the person who possesses it, and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it for other commodities, is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or command. Labour, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities.

The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it. What everything is really worth to the man who has acquired it, and who wants to dispose of it or exchange it for something else, is the toil and trouble which it can save to himself, and which it can impose upon other people. What is bought with money or with goods is purchased by labour as much as what we acquire by the toil of our own body. That money or those goods indeed save us this toil. They contain the value of a certain quantity of labour which we exchange for what is supposed at the time to contain the value of an equal quantity. Labour was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased; and its value, to those who possess it, and who want to exchange it for some new productions, is precisely equal to the quantity of labour which it can enable them to purchase or command.

and then later

quote:
It is of difficult to ascertain the proportion between two different quantities of labour. The time spent in two different sorts of work will not always alone determine this proportion. The different degrees of hardship endured, and of ingenuity exercised, must likewise be taken into account. There may be more labour in an hour's hard work than in two hours' easy business; or in an hour's application to a trade which it cost ten years' labour to learn, than in a month's industry at an ordinary and obvious employment. But it is not easy to find any accurate measure either of hardship or ingenuity.
So in essense, Smith is claiming that labour has intrinsic value. That value is difficult and possibly impossible to precisely qualtify because it involves not only the time, but also the difficulty and skill involved. None the less, Smith is arguing that such a value exits in the abstract.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
There are many who believe that life is an inalienable right. In fact, I believe that is the position of the Catholic church. The right to life can be violated (as all right can) but it can not be forfeited or taken from anyone.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
The Catholic Church acknowledges several instances where it is just to take a life.
 
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
In fact, the use of force - if necessary, lethal force - can be considered a grave duty for certain people:

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a5.htm

quote:
Someone who defends his life is not guilty of murder even if he is forced to deal his aggressor a lethal blow:

If a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful: whereas if he repels force with moderation, his defense will be lawful. . . . Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit the act of moderate self-defense to avoid killing the other man, since one is bound to take more care of one's own life than of another's.66

2265 Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.


 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
All right; I have to say, Smith is rather better at explaining it than you were. [Smile]

About intrinsic value; can you measure it? If not, it essentially doesn't exist. (And if you're going to measure it by some sort of average market value, why not simply use the market value in the first place? No need for an extra concept.) You did mention that it might be possible to believe that only self-determination has intrinsic value; clearly, then, not everyone agrees on what the intrinsically valuable things are. Further, there are plainly many things for which it is absurd to posit any such intrinsic value. For example, suppose I have a watch my father gave me; it is valuable to me because I value the memories; in other words, it gives me happiness. I suppose you would agree that it has intrinsic value, no? But it doesn't have that quality for anyone else, being rather battered and not very good at keeping time. What is the intrinsic value of this watch, that it has regardless of circumstances?
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by rivka:
quote:
Originally posted by starLisa:
  • One who says, "What is mine is mine and what is yours is yours" is a regular person. Others say that this is the behavior of Sodom.
So the two different views of "what's mine is mine and what's yours is yours" are of someone who sees that as the norm (that's a normal person) and someone who requires that (that's the behavior of Sodom).
Not according to the Maharal. When we discussed this very mishnah in the weekly class I attend (this was probably 3 months back), we specifically discussed Ayn Rand, and that what Maharal described as midas Sodom was exactly consistent with Objectivism (well, my rav doesn't know the word Objectivism).

The Maharal says that the person with midas Sodom is the one who says, "I won't take anything from you, because that way, I can ensure that you will make no demands on me."

As it happens, I wasn't even thinking of that specific mishnah, but I'm glad you brought it up.

I was thinking of Ten lo mishelo, ki atah v'shelcha shelo.

Fine, God owns us all. What does that have to do with this? B'dinei shamayim, any kinyan that any of us do is like the "ownership" of children, when their parents really own all of their things. L'Hashem ha-aretz u-melo'o. But you haven't addressed ha-motzi me-chaveiro.

And the medrash about what they actually did in Sodom sort of makes it clear what pshat in that mishnah in Pirkei Avot means. With all due respect to the Maharal's drash, you can hardly just set that aside.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:
Objectivists (not Randians -- that's a slur)
I'm curious, which do you see as a more serious slur. Randian or "anti-life".
It depends. I tend to think of a descriptor which is justified as less of a slur than one which is not.
 
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
 
quote:
clearly, then, not everyone agrees on what the intrinsically valuable things are.
I believe that was a big part of her point.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
Speaking of slavery and the possible immorality of owning things; pretty much anything that's owned at this time was built from 'stolen goods' at some point, right? Yet Lisa, apparently, definitely does not want this to be taken into account for some kind of compensation. On the other hand, I would assume that she does not object to freeing slaves, which are in some sense owned. (I appreciate that this is not 'real' ownership in Lisa's sense of the word, since the slaves' right to own themselves cannot be taken away, being built into the fabric of the Universe.) But what of the fruits of the slaves' labour? Shouldn't that also be taken away? (The slave owners, presumably, have no right to it, having coerced the labour out of their victims.) It wasn't in 1865, and I suspect Lisa would object if it were done now. So there is some limit in time at which stolen goods become really owned goods, right? But if so, it seems to me that Rabbit and Lisa disagree only on where the lie should be drawn, with Lisa putting it very close to the original theft, and Rabbit quite far removed in time.

If I steal a hammer, and use it to build a building, the building is still mine. I owe the hammer to the real owner, and I owe whatever damages will cover the fact that the owner was deprived of the hammer for the amount of time that I had it. I don't owe him the building.

I hadn't even been thinking of the idea of slave reparations, but while I think that heavy reparations should have been paid to actual slaves, I don't for a second think that such a debt is hereditary. Nor that it is some sort of "societal debt". My family wasn't even in the US at the time that there were slaves, for example. And I suspect there are no remaining slaves, either.

And before you ask, because I know you, and I know you're going to, I'm opposed to Holocaust reparations to family members of Holocaust victims as well. Actual survivors is a different story.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
They see "free agency" and "self-determination" as having intrinsic value, so to them it is obsurd to even ask these questions.

No, I don't. They are rights. But it's interesting to see that you've backed down from some of your more absurd claims. If saying that you were being intentionally absurd in order to be provocative is a useful face-saving technique, I'm okay with that.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Unfortunately, as an objectivist StarLisa

It's Objectivist (objectivist doesn't mean the same thing), and it's Lisa; not StarLisa.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
rejects the idea that anything has intrinsic value so rather than understanding the point of my question she simply accuses me of immorality for asking.

There's nothing immoral about thinking there's such a thing as intrinsic value. There's nothing immoral about thinking there's such a thing as the Tooth Fairy, either. It's where you go with it that's immoral.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Now I need to explain why I keep trying to connect "intrinsic value" and "market value" which gets confusing because the two are not inherently connected.

Nor can they be. One exists. One does not.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Market value has no relationship to justice or equity or fairness.

It has everything to do with justice and equity. It reflects a mutual meeting of minds. A free and uncoerced agreement between two sides.

There are ultimately only two ways that individuals can get something they want from someone else who owns it: Persuasion or coercion. Every single method of acquiring something from someone else boils down to one or the other of those options. There is no third option. And for all the grey in the world, this is a case where things are black and white. Coercion is always the immoral choice.

As a collectivist, you've made it very clear that you think some forms of persuasion are actually coercion. But words have meanings, Rabbit. If there is no threat to take away what's yours by right (including harming you and including reneging on an agreement), there's no coercion.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
So now let's imagine that two objects exist one of which has higher "intrinsic value" than the other.

No can do, Rabbit. There's no such thing. Any two objects you could think of could have higher and lower values to different people in different contexts.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
So suppose that you and I agree that I will give you the less valuable object in exchange for the object of greater value. Such an exchange is by definition "inequitable" or unfair. The objects being exchanged do not have equal value.

It's not inequitable or unfair, because both sides have agreed to it. It's a perfectly moral and just transaction. No one can claim that one or the other object has a higher "intrinsic value" both because there's no such thing, and because you literally have nothing objective that you can use to measure such a fictional quality.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
The objectivist view point is that intrinsic value does not exist and so its pointless to even discuss it. Value is determined only by context. If two people consent to exchange two objects, the exchange is always equitable because the objects have no value outside of the context of the exchange.

That's correct. And unlike your view, there are no fictional quantities that need to be sought in order to make it work.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Of course it is possible and consistent to believe that one thing, for example "self determination" has intrinsic value but nothing else does.

No one has claimed any such thing. You've deliberately introduced such a claim as a strawman to knock down. Self determination doesn't have intrinsic value. It may be a value, but it doesn't have a value. When I go to work, I'm choosing to exchange a degree of my self-determination (within the bounds of my job) for recompense. Self-determination is, for me, a value. In my current context, making a living is a higher value, for me, than full self-determination. I can't take off in the middle of the day to go and see a movie. That's the choice I've made.

You've invented the premise that I (and Pixiest) hold self-determination to be an intrinsic value. I say again: there is no such thing as intrinsic value. Only subjective and contextual value.

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
If one held such a belief, then it would be consistent to believe that any exchange of objects which did not violate the "self determination" of the traders was just. But then of course one would need to justify the idea that "self determination" and only "self determiniation" has intrinsic value.

The question, though, is why anyone would want to justify such a thing. Just because Rabbit invented it and attributed it to us?

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
If there are any other things which have intrinsic value, then we will have to check for the equity of each of these items in the exchange to determine if the exchange was just.

You have no yardstick for such a thing. Just your personal feelings. And those have value only to you.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
I'd like to get involved in this conversation, Lisa, but the tone you're taking makes it less than compelling for me. Would you be willing to be marginally less hostile, so that I might feel more inclined to participate?
 
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
I agree with Tom about the tone, but I will make one more attempt to explain what I meant.

The way I was taught Ten lo, which I realize is not the literal reading, but I thought was a common second reading, is:

Give to him (the poor person) what is his, because you and yours are His (God's).

That is, you are merely a steward of any wealth God has allowed you to amass. You do not actually OWN anything, and by failing to give money or goods to whoever God wants you to give them to, you are actually stealing from them.

Hamotzi me'chaveiro is a question of practical law, not necessarily of ethics. It also applies only between two individuals. You may not think that there exists such a construct as society, but it is clear that Chazal did.
 
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
 
That's lovely, Rivka.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
quote:
If I steal a hammer, and use it to build a building, the building is still mine. I owe the hammer to the real owner, and I owe whatever damages will cover the fact that the owner was deprived of the hammer for the amount of time that I had it. I don't owe him the building.
Extending your example, if you force someone at gunpoint to build you a house, then you owe him the house, plus perhaps reparations for the use he might otherwise have made of his time; but you do not owe him any profit you make from business meeting held in the house; correct?

quote:
I hadn't even been thinking of the idea of slave reparations, but while I think that heavy reparations should have been paid to actual slaves, I don't for a second think that such a debt is hereditary. Nor that it is some sort of "societal debt". My family wasn't even in the US at the time that there were slaves, for example. And I suspect there are no remaining slaves, either.
Well, that brings up an interesting point : Are other debts hereditary? Indeed, what is your take on inheritance generally? It seems to me that there is an absolute right to dispose of your property before your death; you can give it to your children, fling it in the sea, or have a potlatch party. Right? So, it seems that you should also have a perfect right to dispose of your property in a will. But people do die without making their wills; in such a case, is it not reasonable to assume that they will gift their property to their children? At any rate, that's been the going assumption for some centuries, and I see no immediate need to change it.

So, given all this, it seems that a debt must also be hereditary, yes? A debt is nothing but property you have temporarily given away, on the definite understanding that it will be returned. And if you grant that, then why should not reparations for slavery be inheritable? It's a debt; it was not paid to the original creditors. Why is it different from any other debt?
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:
If I steal a hammer, and use it to build a building, the building is still mine. I owe the hammer to the real owner, and I owe whatever damages will cover the fact that the owner was deprived of the hammer for the amount of time that I had it. I don't owe him the building.
Extending your example, if you force someone at gunpoint to build you a house, then you owe him the house, plus perhaps reparations for the use he might otherwise have made of his time; but you do not owe him any profit you make from business meeting held in the house; correct?
I don't think so. First of all, a person isn't a hammer. There are criminal issues here, and not only civil ones. But simply on the level of what you owe civilly, you'd owe him for the time you took from him, in which he could have been doing other things. Why would the house be his? You kidnapped him, which is wrong, and you forced him to work, which is wrong, but the materials are yours, and the house, I would say, is yours as well.

quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:
I hadn't even been thinking of the idea of slave reparations, but while I think that heavy reparations should have been paid to actual slaves, I don't for a second think that such a debt is hereditary. Nor that it is some sort of "societal debt". My family wasn't even in the US at the time that there were slaves, for example. And I suspect there are no remaining slaves, either.
Well, that brings up an interesting point : Are other debts hereditary?
I can't see why they should be. I mean, I can see an heir paying back his father's debt. I would consider that to be praiseworthy. But I can't see any justification for making it obligatory.

quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
Indeed, what is your take on inheritance generally? It seems to me that there is an absolute right to dispose of your property before your death; you can give it to your children, fling it in the sea, or have a potlatch party. Right? So, it seems that you should also have a perfect right to dispose of your property in a will. But people do die without making their wills; in such a case, is it not reasonable to assume that they will gift their property to their children? At any rate, that's been the going assumption for some centuries, and I see no immediate need to change it.

I don't know. I've never given it much thought.

quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
So, given all this, it seems that a debt must also be hereditary, yes? A debt is nothing but property you have temporarily given away, on the definite understanding that it will be returned. And if you grant that, then why should not reparations for slavery be inheritable? It's a debt; it was not paid to the original creditors. Why is it different from any other debt?

Inheritance is a gift. I can accept it or not, as I see fit. Similarly in the case of the kind of debt you're talking about. If I want to take it on, I can. But I don't have to.
 
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
It is very important to note that Smith's argument on labor does not afford it any intrinsic value.

quote:
EVERY man is rich or poor according to the degree in which he can afford to enjoy the necessaries, conveniences, and amusements of human life. But after the division of labour has once thoroughly taken place, it is but a very small part of these with which a man's own labour can supply him. The far greater part of them he must derive from the labour of other people, and he must be rich or poor according to the quantity of that labour which he can command, or which he can afford to purchase. The value of any commodity, therefore, to the person who possesses it, and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it for other commodities, is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or command. Labour, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities.
This part in particular is worth paying attention to. The labor of a person is only valuable insofar as it allows one to "exchange it for other commodities". That is not an intrinsic value, but a value derived from context.

And Smith is quite correct about the existence of that formulation, though he is incorrect in viewing it as the definitive formulation, it is merely one way of viewing transactions.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by rivka:
Give to him (the poor person) what is his, because you and yours are His (God's).

That is, you are merely a steward of any wealth God has allowed you to amass. You do not actually OWN anything, and by failing to give money or goods to whoever God wants you to give them to, you are actually stealing from them.

Almost. Rabbinic literature sees two frames of reference. These are called "dinei Adam" and "dinei Shamayim". Basically, these are our frame of reference and God's frame of reference.

In God's frame of reference, we own nothing. How can we? We're merely His creations. He owns everything. L'Hashem ha-aretz u-melo'o.

And yet, God instituted the concept of ownership for us between one another. In our frame of reference, property exists. In His, it does not.

Since God is the real owner of everything (including you and me and Rabbit), He's entitled to tell us that we have to give some of what is ours to others. I don't have any problem with that. But that privilege doesn't extend to the government. Back in the days of divine rights of kings, it was pretty much the same thing. We've grown up since then.

And think about this, Rivka. If I give a dollar to a poor person out of hesed, is that better or worse than giving that same dollar to a poor person at gunpoint? As philanthropic as people are, and they are; billions and billions of dollars of charitable contributions are given every year, it's nothing compared to how people behaved before the government started getting involved.

Hospitals used to be created by people because there was a need for it. Now corporations build them for the profit, or governments build them.

If 10% of what I make goes to poor people (I don't know that the number is correct), how much better would it be for me to give that amount myself? When the government forces us to give, they rob us of the opportunity to give ourselves. The society we have now is, in part, a result of that.

Regardless, comparing not giving to stealing is something you've introduced yourself. There's no way on Earth you can pull that out of the sources you're citing.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
Lisa, I believe we are looking at opposite sides of the inheritance thing. You are thinking that you should not inherit your father's debt, and that's reasonable enough; there have been quite nasty examples of what happens if that's allowed. But I am thinking that you should inherit the debts of others to him; otherwise, in principle, you would not inherit the contents of his bank account.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
quote:
Why would the house be his? You kidnapped him, which is wrong, and you forced him to work, which is wrong, but the materials are yours, and the house, I would say, is yours as well.
It seems to me that this lets the criminal profit by his crime; I do think, on the criminal side of the law, the house should be confiscated and perhaps given to the victim. In fact, even on the civil side, I think I would prefer to give the victim the house, and let him pay for the materials out of whatever he realises in selling it; with a generous time limit. Otherwise, you might have the situation of a criminal who's happy to pay for the labour at the market rate (and what else is a court going to impose?) because the marginal value of the house is much larger to him; and he's willing to gamble on not getting caught. If he gets caught, fine, he pays for the labour - oh well. If not, splendid, he got the house for free. I think you want to avoid that kind of incentive.

But these are niggling details to be settled by a court, I think.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
Lisa, I believe we are looking at opposite sides of the inheritance thing. You are thinking that you should not inherit your father's debt, and that's reasonable enough; there have been quite nasty examples of what happens if that's allowed. But I am thinking that you should inherit the debts of others to him; otherwise, in principle, you would not inherit the contents of his bank account.

That's true. But the debt would have to be established prior to his death. Otherwise, we could all sit down with our history books and try to find potential debts from the past.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
Yes, well? A moral obligation is a moral obligation, no?
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
Yes and no. There are two ways a debt can be incurred. One is if you agree to accept a debt, and the other is if the court imposes a debt on you.

How can a court impose a debt on you? For one thing, you'd have to go to the court and petition for it. Nowadays, we have the concept of not having to press charges. You know, a crime against the state, where even if you don't press charges, the state can go ahead and prosecute someone anyway. But a victim never gets redress in a situation like that. You only get recompense in a civil court. And that requires someone to actually go to court and demand it.

You can't come along later and say, "Well, if our system existed in the year 1498, we would have been able to sue the hell out of the Inquisition, and this is what I think they would have awarded me, so I'm entitled to that now."
 
Posted by John Van Pelt (Member # 5767) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Lisa:
quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:
Objectivists (not Randians -- that's a slur)
I'm curious, which do you see as a more serious slur. Randian or "anti-life".
It depends. I tend to think of a descriptor which is justified as less of a slur than one which is not.
Now I'm curious. How does 'Randian' (begging your pardon) differ from
quote:
... a die-hard Rand-worshipping Randroid...
?

For the record, I think one of the detestable (and difficult) things about slurs is that those who use them generally consider them to be merely justified descriptors.

Also for the record, I do not consider 'Randian' or 'anti-life' slurs, according to my understanding of the term 'slur.' Though, curiously, it does feel as if the slur-factor of the two terms is vaguely inverse in the following sense: Someone who is not 'anti-life' would most object to being so described; whereas someone who is a devotee of Rand would (might?) most object to being so labeled (as compared to someone who had never heard of her).

Also, because I couldn't let this go by:
quote:
Originally posted by Lisa:
Pardon. I misread what you wrote. However, you could not dispute what I thought you read.

[ROFL]

For an Objectivist, you have an outstanding sense of humor [Smile]
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
Well, but our current system really did exist, with some minor modifications, in 1865. Then again, if it had been working properly, it would plainly have imposed the debt on the actual slave owners, and as we agreed, debts owed to others are not inheritable, only debts others owe you. So I think I can have my cake and eat it too : I can say that a debt really was owed to the slaves, and that it descends to the present day; but also that nobody has to pay it, because the original debtors, wily bastards that they were, managed to die their way out of it.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
Ah, but hang on; the estates of many of those slave owners still exists, for chunks to be taken out of. Tricky, that.
 
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by starLisa:
Regardless, comparing not giving to stealing is something you've introduced yourself. There's no way on Earth you can pull that out of the sources you're citing.

Actually, that is what I was taught. But since this was over 15 years ago, you are correct that I cannot cite a source.

I believe the distinction you are making is a practical one, and not an ethical one. But I am sure there is plenty of evidence for both sides of that particular debate. So I won't.

And I found a non-Maharal source for the interpretation of midas Sodom. It is more mainstream than you implied.

You also seem to be ignoring the concept of Gadol hamitzuveh v'oseh mi'mi sheieino mitzuveh v'oseh.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
Only metzuveh by God. Not by the government, for crying out loud. No one has ever applied that to non-God sources.

Also, I don't think it's that clear that this source is non-Maharal. He doesn't say where he got it from. And it seems like a lot of editorializing on his part.

[ August 23, 2006, 06:00 PM: Message edited by: starLisa ]
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by John Van Pelt:
quote:
Originally posted by Lisa:
quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:
Objectivists (not Randians -- that's a slur)
I'm curious, which do you see as a more serious slur. Randian or "anti-life".
It depends. I tend to think of a descriptor which is justified as less of a slur than one which is not.
Now I'm curious. How does 'Randian' (begging your pardon) differ from
quote:
... a die-hard Rand-worshipping Randroid...
?

Um... the latter was a joke. That's a slur often directed at Objectivists, but it does at least communicate the general idea that I'm not just a libertarian. That I buy into the whole Objectivist philosophy. Lock, stock, and good premises.

quote:
Originally posted by John Van Pelt:
Also, because I couldn't let this go by:
quote:
Originally posted by Lisa:
Pardon. I misread what you wrote. However, you could not dispute what I thought you read.

[ROFL]

For an Objectivist, you have an outstanding sense of humor [Smile]

Hey, I try.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
Ah, but hang on; the estates of many of those slave owners still exists, for chunks to be taken out of. Tricky, that.

But there's no one who is entitled to any of it. Determination of damages would have to be done with the actual victim there, and at the request of the actual victim. Not some descendent or collateral relative.

I have a third cousin who died in the Holocaust. Do you think I should be entitled to any kind of reparations from Germany? I don't.
 
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by starLisa:
Not by the government, for crying out loud. No one has ever applied that to non-God sources.

Sure they have. Pretty sure they were all Republican, though.
 
Posted by GeronL (Member # 9674) on :
 
Libertarian economics make sense. Libertarian anything else is a bit odd. Randians... are a cult like Scientology but with fewer celebrities.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by GeronL:
Libertarian economics make sense. Libertarian anything else is a bit odd. Randians... are a cult like Scientology but with fewer celebrities.

Easy to say, not at all easy to substantiate. Sounds like just an insult for the sake of being insulting. Without any substance to it.
 
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
 
Welcome GeronL! I notice you're a newb. And, most likely, a conservative christian.

Enjoy the debates you find here, though I think you'll find that off the cuff remarks such as "Randians are a cult..." won't make as big of an impact as well thought out, reasoned responses.

Pix
 
Posted by GeronL (Member # 9674) on :
 
OK, I guess there are probably some celebrities in there =o)
 
Posted by GeronL (Member # 9674) on :
 
It was an off the cuff remark meant to be taken as a light joke. I think I will stay out of the deeper discussions for a little bit longer. I have my ideas of course, and they are noticeable in my new story, well its not finished yet.

I had planned to call it EMPIRE, but that ain't happening now, thanks Uncle Orson... I am calling it SOLIDARITY
 
Posted by Dobbie (Member # 3881) on :
 
I meant to post a note yesterday that TCM was showing "The Fountainhead" last night, but I forgot. I really don't know why I'm bringing it up now; it's too late to do anything about it.
 
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
 
TCM is a great station. It's so sad that it doesn't come with most people's basic subscriptions, and that most people don't value it enough to pay extra for it. They just don't know what they're missing. I think the government should pay for every American to have TCM, so that they can watch fine classic films like The Fountainhead. After all, those old movies are a part of our culture, and it's worth it to make sure everyone has access to them.

Don't y'all agree?
 
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
 
(How interesting that the Google ad for this page is for some Atheist proselytizing.)
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
The Google ad I'm seeing for this page is for Entertainment Book fundraisers. [Smile]
 
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
 
Huh. I would think it was random, but I get the same ad each time I load the page.
 
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
 
Huh. I take that back. I just got the Entertainment book.
 
Posted by Dobbie (Member # 3881) on :
 
They're showing it again this Wednesday at 8 p.m.
 
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
 
Maybe the government could pay to provide a copy of this important movie to every household, and that way even people who don't get TCM could see it.
 
Posted by Dobbie (Member # 3881) on :
 
The people most likely to think this movie is important are the least likely to think the government should pay to provide anything to every household.
 
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
 
*sigh*

I no longer believe you are Dobie.
 
Posted by Dobbie (Member # 3881) on :
 
I never believed you were Dobie.
 
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dobbie:
The people most likely to think this movie is important are the least likely to think the government should pay to provide anything to every household.

<blink> Thanks for stating the obvious.
 
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dobbie:
I never believed you were Dobie.

What if I am?
 
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
 
Will the original Dobie please come forward?

[ October 01, 2006, 06:49 AM: Message edited by: Morbo ]
 
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
 
Here he is!
 
Posted by Dobbie (Member # 3881) on :
 
Actually, this version came first.
 
Posted by Dobbie (Member # 3881) on :
 
Just a reminder that the movie starts in about 10 minutes, in case anyone was planning to watch it.
 


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