A criticism of Objectivism

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Objectivity is an impossible and unattainable goal.

But it does not mean one should stop striving for it.

The subjectification of the object; the objectification of the subject.

The objectification of the subject; the subjectification of the object.

If we eliminate the objectification, does it leave the subject?

If we eliminate the subjectification, does it leave the object?

If we eliminate both the subject and object, or the object and subject, what is left?

The elimination itself.

If people decide to fear change, decide to believe the myth that there isn't enough to go around, that they need to hole themselves in and protect their belongings from the hordes of starving "others" who want to take it, that will definitely be the result. If that is truly the inevitable future then shame on those who decide to bring more children into such a bleak future world.


That sounds like Objectivism, only take the "do not initiate force" out of the equation and instead of titans of industry you have titans of war. Instead of trying to accumulate green pieces of paper the goal is to accumulate bounty and slaves.


Not only is the instinct to weed out the weak. We should also weed out those who live among us that look slightly different, eat different things, claim to worship a different gods, have slightly different customs, etc... Their loyalty isn't to be trusted. Maybe they should be put in camps until we can figure out what to do with them.


And the ironic part is that certain people today believe they are "self made", that they create their own wealth by the sweat of their brow. Not that they played a game where they use certain things they acquire to trade for other things, none of which they have the faintest clue what goes into making from scratch.


$1500 is completely arbitrary. Without a market there is no "value". If I'm hungry and everyone around me is hungry I don't want a damn cell phone or i-pad and neither does anyone else. My first priority is food and shelter. Also, if there's no network and I have no contact with anyone who can access a network that value is closer to $0 than $1500. I'd be better off melting the i-pads down and selling trinkets and jewelry made out of the metal circuitry. I might actually be able to sell those for food or shelter.


I don't think you have a choice. Collectivism is as much about survival as individualism and it is just as instinctual that people will band together to stop themselves from being eaten.

Also, today people are mostly literate and can communicate with broad groups of people. It seems to me people would be more likely to enslave or eat those they can't empathize with because they look different, dress different, and speak in incomprehensible gibberish. Nothing will turn us back into brutes quicker than illiteracy.

Last edited by marshall on 01 Apr 2013, 10:01 am, edited 2 times in total.

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If what you say is true, then famine and disease, not to say anything about war will take care of the population excess.

Behold! A Pale Horse.

ruveyn

Objectivism is a heavily distorted and dogmatic version of libertarianism.

It's interesting to look into as long as you don't take it seriously.

The same could be said about Anarchism.

That's false. While I do not agree with the concept of anarchism, it is much less biased and inconsistent than Rand's fauxlosophy.

One can second the emotion, but one will also choke on the details.

Lets face it. The government is very easy to hate. Unfortunately we are stuck with it pretty much as it operates. A ruling hierarchy stealing our loaf and giving us back crumbs and making us feel grateful to even receive that.

ruveyn

... and guilty if we ask for more.

Good point, but I don't think such an economy has ever even come close to existing.

The two that I sometimes see mentioned both collapse upon examination. First, there's the US economy from the end of the Civil War until 1900 or 1905 or whenever you wish to say Teddy Roosevelt and his "Progressives" started pushing stuff like the first food and drug laws. Granted it was a time of unregulated capitalism, but it was anything but laissez-faire capitalism. As in US industries only grew to become world leaders since they were protected behind a series of downright extortionate tariff walls, that kept out goods of comparable quality and more efficiently made -- meaning otherwise salable at a lower price -- from places like Britain and Germany.*

Second, there's Hong Kong both before and after its return to the People's Republic of China. The government there wasn't active in the economy, until it was. As in there was a currency crisis in the late 1990s where the central Hong Kong government suddenly reacted very vigorously toward the arbitrage artists trying to manipulate said currency, earning the disgust of Milton Friedman in the bargain.

So while I have no clue where such data would be located, I'd suggest that there's simply no way to calculate it, since you'd be chasing a chimera.

* How to embarrass a "free trader?" Point out that the elimination of all tariffs was almost as much a "cornerstone" of the beliefs of the Confederate States of America as was the maintenance of slavery. The Northern oligarchs wanted high tariffs, and got them. The Southern oligarchs wanted no, or next to no tariffs, and made that very much a part of their reasons for wishing to leave the Union.

The problem with communist anarchism is it simply won't work with our current reliance on economies of scale and mass production for our standard of living. In a science fiction universe where almost everything can be produced locally it could work. The problem with capitalist anarchism is it will always become indistinguishable from feudal warlord-ism.

There's Somalia, quite free from government interference in the economy, but I don't know of any data on social mobility.

The USA and UK have a reputation for being far more committed to free markets (or what the corporate lobbyists are pleased to call a free market, when it suits their purposes) than France, Germany or Scandinavia. If there is any truth to that, we can use country as a proxy. One of my top hits for a search is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility, which has a country comparison. The USA and UK have the highest "intergenerational income elasticity", meaning the lowest social mobility. The US and UK variety of social market doesn't seem to deliver.


If degrees of laissez-faire capitalism can be at least ranked, and if the ranking conforms to popular conception, then laissez-faire capitalism reduces social mobility within the range of variation for which we have data.

Somalia is a lawless nation. It surely is not capitalist. And it is not socialist either. It is a thugocracy.

ruveyn

Technically, it's an Anocracy.


Since the Warlords of Somalia are generally thugs (imo), you are generally correct.

That does define my goal. Holding an income producing business has not changed, there are more barbarians, all looking for something to loot.

Now walls are made of corporate shells, all who hold debt and lose money, after supporting the warlord's troops. Profits are held as unrealized capital gains, useful but invisable.

Our barbarians. We have the ones of old, who if they could not take it could destroy it, unless they are given something. City Inspectors who watched the Godfather a few times.

Companies that can be forced out, a major stock holder is offered a bonus, which forces the sale, so someone can dump the workers, abandon the building, and take production to Mexico, all they wanted was the customer list, the name, Bain Capital did a lot of this.

The Magic Underwear People have a lot of cash.

Then there are the ones who will buy one of each of your products, send them to China, and open shop across the street from you. Walmart did this on a mass scale.

So a Warlord has to have something that cannot be stolen, Not have Minority Stockholders, who can sue, and lately accept the Thrall of workers who are tipped, @ $2.13 an hour, and a shift meal.

At under a hundred a week and one meal a day they can maintain Social Security Disability coverage, They do need a second part time job to survive, and all of those go to the estates serfs.

Those jobs do pay better, and as the retirement fund is open to all workers at that level, with company matches, money can move directly into their personal retirement accounts without being taxed.

As a reward for faithful service, they can be terminated, and take on the same role as Sub Contractors.

A near untaxed survival income, better work that allows for pre tax income to be diverted to retirement funds, which can be tapped for buying a home, and replaced by Sub Contractor income which the tax law favors. Such as they can buy a building, live in an apartment, and write the rest off as their business.

The Capitalist Warlord is a paperhanger, the one who creates structure within objective reality. He feeds his serfs desires, survival, having something of their own, in a diverse manner, where none can tell what it is he produces or how, which makes it hard to steal.

Hedge Funds do this to the extent that income is called Carried Interest, would be taxed as Capital Gains, but most of it is directed to the retirement account, and avoids that and Social Security, which is only paid on wages. Company paid health care, life insurance, club membership, also comes with the job.

I could only deal with people who understand that a state of war exists with all government, religion, and other economic units. They can be loyal, or read the fine print on their death benefits, which calls for instant creamation, and the ashes spread at sea. It now reads like the cause of death.

Business has to have a vision of the future. We are trying to converge with things that have not happened yet. That vision is my job.

Those who have read my views know I do not think well of the future, in fact, it rates lower than the present.

Chapter Eight of my Business Plan is titled, Behold! A Pale Horse.

While the Magic Underwear people have told everyone that each house has a year's supply of food, I do not expect them to survive a famine, when food runs out all around them.

Historic famines did not last long, a year, sometimes two. Everyone hordes, steals, people will do anything, everyone dies.

I am also watching the New Madrid Quake, It has been regular as clockwork, every 200 years for the last 1400, and it last went off in 1812-13. Drought has reduced the barge traffic on the Mississippi, so grain has been shipped by rail and truck. The quake will make a mess of roads, rails, electric power, oil and gas pipelines.

The last time, it rang church bells in Washington and Boston. It is a true 9.0, with lots of major aftershocks. A lot of dams had been built before anyone figured out that it was a cycle quake.

Will it do it again? Yes, 100% for sure, Yes! When? Sometime soon.

Am I concerned with the well being of those who know and have nothing who are looking for someone to take what they need from? Only to the extent they do not know where I am, what I have, and fall into the quicksand and alligator pit before they get there.

Like Cyprus, when the government goes beyond broke, they will take everyone's bank account to fund borrowing another ten billion. Like Sryia, they will take all the food for the army.

Maintaining a working government is the most important thing, because otherwise they would all be hung.

Which is stranger, betting that at some point things will fall apart, at least for a while, or betting your life that could never happen?

The job of Corporate Warlord is to chart a path to the future, taking into account everything that could happen, with plans to live through it. It is no more than having Fire Escapes, Lifeboats, Medical supplies.

All Isms try to force reality to comform to their Ism. Objectivism tries to conform to reality. There is no One True Reality, there are many, and they are all in constant change.

We cannot force reality, march into it, we can only stay engaged and dance with it, to ever changing music.

There is only one world outside of our collective skins. However each of us only gets to see a small part of it. Think of the old story of the five blind philosophers and the elephant.

ruveyn

Ayn Rand had no moral objection to charity. Most of the richest people give up large chunks of their wealth voluntarily. The problem comes when someone (ie the government) forces you to support a cause you don't believe in, such as by taxation and invading Iraq or creating huge welfare systems that reward lazy people for having more babies, for example.

The truth is, the better life becomes for rich people the better it becomes for homeless people. The poorest person in America is still better off than half the population of Earth. The "middle class" owns a smaller percent of the wealth, but they still have technological advances that were impossible for even the richest person a decade or two ago. You want to know why no one can save money? Because things that were elite luxuries a decade ago are now considered necessary -- high speed internet access, smart phones, cable television. These things cost hundreds of dollars a month, but no one is financially responsible enough to choose to live without them. We're living like kings and still whining about it simply because the people who made this stuff happen for us are better off. I say they deserve it, thank you to the 1%.