Ayn Rand

[loveisdead]

We've been discussing her a bit in the general thread because of this new information. (http://boingboing.net/2011/01/28/ayn-rand-took-govern.html) She's written one of the more influencial political books and has become a pretty polarizing figure because of that. Dom offered some great personal insight on her that I thought we could use as a starting point of discussing her.
As it pertains to her fiction, I just found the writing atrocious. Her ideas themselves either do not make sense in reality or neglects the concrete relations of capital and its situation with regard the other facets of human life. One of her characters says something about never asking another man to live for his sake, and he asks the same courtesy; however, what is capitalism but the capitalist forcing individuals into relations that benefit their profits? Sure, one could go elsewhere, but these relations are pervasive and one must expend most of their time in settings that they have no control over, for profits they do not get in return. Her affinity for reason and rationalism leave a bad taste in my mouth, for those terms have within them preconceived notions regarding a normal state of affairs,e.g., it is reasonable to have hierarchy or "rational division of labor". More importantly, her entire argument for the kind of government we need is essentially authoritarian. The government exists to protect individual rights, yet in capitalism one's rights are equivalent with the amount of wealth or property one has. Generally speaking, wealth is concentrated in the hands of small portion of the population, so that small portion requires armed force to protect it from the masses, on whom they've built their fortunes. In her mind, workers holding their workplace hostage for better wages or engaging in a general strike should be met with appropriate physical force, for the act of a worker asserting their power is an assault on the material circumstances of those who have, through their own force of will, managed to become part of the elite.

[rawesome]

I like that he made the point that I always try to use but no one ever seems to agree with me on or understand or something, about totally unrestricted capitalism essentially leading to corporate oligarchy and thus restricting much of the freedom that ardent capitalists claim it would provide.

[loveisdead]

I've never read her books. But I've never heard of her calling for physical force.

[jefro0685]

I like that he made the point that I always try to use but no one ever seems to agree with me on or understand or something, about totally unrestricted capitalism essentially leading to corporate oligarchy and thus restricting much of the freedom that ardent capitalists claim it would provide.

I think what you are referring to is called Oligopoly. And that only can occur when companies are deemed "too big to fail" by the government.

Capitalism can only work when it's left alone. Through capitalism fairness is ensured by each individual providing for his or her own self interest. You vote with your dollars. More efficient companies do better because they provide a lower cost of living for everyone. The less efficient ones fail.

People deplore John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Trust. Do you have any idea how many industries were built as a result of cheap and affordable oil? It fueled (no pun intended) the Industrial Revolution.

You always hear about the level of 'greed' on the part of the haves, but never of the 'jealousy' on the part of the have nots.

[Simulcast]

I've never read her books. But I've never heard of her calling for physical force.

She calls for physical force only in retaliation. And it's only when the rights of man have been compromised through force. Dom's example of using force to end a workers strike is erroneous. There is not "right" that a capitalist enjoys that guarantees him workers to produce his product. If they wish to strike, it is their right. It is also the right of the employer not to pay his workers and to hire others who might want to work.

On the whole I find Rand very interesting. There is a lot about Objectivism that I disagree with however.

[caveBEAR]

I think what you are referring to is called Oligopoly. And that only can occur when companies are deemed "too big to fail" by the government.

Capitalism can only work when it's left alone. Through capitalism fairness is ensured by each individual providing for his or her own self interest. You vote with your dollars. More efficient companies do better because they provide a lower cost of living for everyone. The less efficient ones fail.

People deplore John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Trust. Do you have any idea how many industries were built as a result of cheap and affordable oil? It fueled (no pun intended) the Industrial Revolution.

You always hear about the level of 'greed' on the part of the haves, but never of the 'jealousy' on the part of the have nots.

Uusually when speaking of food and heat, 'jealousy' shouldn't enter the vocabulary. No one here is worried about the 'have not' who's bitching because they can't afford a 3-D TV; fuck him. We're more concerned about those living in extreme poverty, many of whom are there due to scenarios created by the capitalistic system we live in.

Just because capitalism fueled the industrial revolution doesn't mean it has to stick around now; there were plenty of horrible abuses going on during the Industrial Revolution that we've moved on past, and we could do it with capitalism (as it stands within our country now), too.

[The Personist]

All you need to know about the writings of Ayn Rand is that in The Fountainhead, Howard Roark rapes Dominique and she likes it, even falling in love with him as a result.

[imchriswalken]

i find that most people who rant against ayn rand either have never read her work, read it and didn't understand it, or just don't like her prose (the latter of which i can understand, even though i particularly enjoy it). they like to say how she says all people should be selfish and only go after what they want, whatever the means, and whoever you have to use to get there. but what she says is that every individual is responsible for him or herself, that he or she should never take anything without offering something as a trade, and no man or woman should ever let someone or something else make him or her do or believe anything except by his or her own choice.

so, really, you could say that any case of capitalism (or any system)-gone-wrong that has resulted in extreme poverty and/or abuse of people at the hands of another is, in fact, contrary to ayn rand's philosophy.

All you need to know about the writings of Ayn Rand is that in The Fountainhead, Howard Roark rapes Dominique and she likes it, even falling in love with him as a result.

although i will admit i've never been able to figure that one out. there's probably a reason (good/bad/whatever) she wrote it that way and i just haven't found it yet.

[The Personist]

Her ideas about identity and free will make no sense.

[Just Matt]

I think what you are referring to is called Oligopoly. And that only can occur when companies are deemed "too big to fail" by the government.

Capitalism can only work when it's left alone. Through capitalism fairness is ensured by each individual providing for his or her own self interest. You vote with your dollars. More efficient companies do better because they provide a lower cost of living for everyone. The less efficient ones fail.

People deplore John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Trust. Do you have any idea how many industries were built as a result of cheap and affordable oil? It fueled (no pun intended) the Industrial Revolution.

You always hear about the level of 'greed' on the part of the haves, but never of the 'jealousy' on the part of the have nots.


Nah, that's not an oligopoly. Oligopoly is a market form where 2-3 large companies make most of the sales. It has nothing to do with being too big to fail.

[thelastnameleft]

although i will admit i've never been able to figure that one out. there's probably a reason (good/bad/whatever) she wrote it that way and i just haven't found it yet.
Well, she probably had a rape fantasy.

[crackedthesky]

i find that most people who rant against ayn rand either have never read her work, read it and didn't understand it, or just don't like her prose (the latter of which i can understand, even though i particularly enjoy it). they like to say how she says all people should be selfish and only go after what they want, whatever the means, and whoever you have to use to get there. but what she says is that every individual is responsible for him or herself, that he or she should never take anything without offering something as a trade, and no man or woman should ever let someone or something else make him or her do or believe anything except by his or her own choice.

so, really, you could say that any case of capitalism (or any system)-gone-wrong that has resulted in extreme poverty and/or abuse of people at the hands of another is, in fact, contrary to ayn rand's philosophy.



although i will admit i've never been able to figure that one out. there's probably a reason (good/bad/whatever) she wrote it that way and i just haven't found it yet.

She was a philosophical egoist; she did believe that doing whatever makes you feel good is itself inherently good, including rape.

[jawstheme]

Howard Roark only succeeded because he was an absolute genius at his trade. 99.99999999999999999999999999999999 % of people would have starved in Roark's situation. I read that her point was to show the success of objectivism, and Roark embodied her philosophy. Well great, if you are an absolute genius and the absolute best at what you do you will succeed. Where the hell does that leave the rest of us?

I did enjoy reading that book, however. I have to admit she's a good writer.

[The Personist]

Her prose is boring and her tone is so didactic. And the stories and stuff aren't that interesting. AND I don't like how she lets characters monologue so they can deliver disquisitions on philosophy.

[jawstheme]

Her prose is boring and her tone is so didactic. And the stories and stuff aren't that interesting. AND I don't like how she lets characters monologue so they can deliver disquisitions on philosophy.

I couldn't even finish Atlas Shrugged because of that. Ugh.

[The Personist]

I've only read Fountainhead. Also, I dare say her ideas about aesthetics are retarded.

[loveisdead]

Glad conversation is picking up.

[The Personist]

It's really hard to talk about Ayn Rand because I don't take her seriously as either an artist or a philosopher. She's a joke.

[loveisdead]

It's refreshing to me that a lot of you guys who are very liberal took the time to read her work. I'll have to do that.

[The Personist]

It's refreshing to me that a lot of you guys who are very liberal took the time to read her work. I'll have to do that.

It's not difficult going, but it's thoroughly ridiculous. Don't look for a serious or thoughtful case for libertarian or conservative thought.

[loveisdead]

It's not difficult going, but it's thoroughly ridiculous. Don't look for a serious or thoughtful case for libertarian or conservative thought.

Why? We've had a few libertarians argue their cases extremely well here.

[Simulcast]

Read Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal if you really want to get a handle on her. Much better than her fiction.

[jefro0685]

As it pertains to her fiction, I just found the writing atrocious. Her ideas themselves either do not make sense in reality or neglects the concrete relations of capital and its situation with regard the other facets of human life..

Atrocious writing, perhaps. Main criticism was too much dialogue. However, I felt it kept the pacing going in most cases - and would it have been better for Rand to preach philosophical ideals in prose form directly to the reader? Probably far worse.

However, I'll be honest. I had to put the book down for a while when I got the part of Dagny crashing in Galt's Gulch. What seemed silly to me was that just because people "loved working and being productive" meant that they'd actually be GOOD and CAPABLE at doing these jobs. It sounds silly to reference, but just look at the show Undercover Boss - case and point. But I understood the story to be an overall hyperbole in order to clearly (and repeatedly) make her case. As a piece of literature you HAVE to take it with a grain of salt.

One of her characters says something about never asking another man to live for his sake, and he asks the same courtesy; however, what is capitalism but the capitalist forcing individuals into relations that benefit their profits?

Nothing in capitalism is force. It's an agreement. Agreement on price and value. It's a contract whose terms are decided by the collective through their individual votes in the form of individual purchases. In a pure capitalist society you always have the freedom to say "no". Governments that impose price fixes that aren't voted on by peoples dollars - that's force. That's a few deciding what's good for the many. And in order for a system like that to work, the people making the decisions must be of flawless integrity and intelligence. You can't expect that from anyone, well intended as they may be.

If by being "forced" to expand, you mean you have to grow, evolve and improve your services, then yes, you are forced to expand. One must stay competitive and valuable to the collective in order to maintain any sort of worth. Would you feel sorry for a telegraph salesman demanding a bailout because he couldn't make a sale? No. Move on. Grow. Expand. Realize full potential. It's a constant in nature.

There's a difference between being active and productive. When you are productive you serve the collective need, motivated by yourself interest. If you are providing a service that no one wants, then your are essentially demanding payment without giving anything in return. Money is just a medium that allows for a universal barter system. It says: you've made X amount of contribution to society.

one must expend most of their time in settings that they have no control over, for profits they do not get in return.

You DO get profits in return - so long as you provide a service deemed worthy by the public and in a more efficient manner than any of your competitors. The process of natural selection is one glorified in science and deplored in economics. Why? If one can understand how a cleansing fire is healthy for a forest, one HAS to acknowledge that bankruptcy is healthy for an economy. And even more so - because in a fire all assets are lost and you start from scratch. In bankruptcy those assets get sent to more productive business which creates more jobs and lowers the cost of living.

Her affinity for reason and rationalism leave a bad taste in my mouth

I can see that point. She seems to think that logic is all there is to morality. I disagree. The most logical person in the world is a psychopath. One devoid of emotion. Rand speaks of rationality as morality, but then says only pursue what makes you happy. She cleans it up for the reader by the end of the book…. that one must live with complete honesty and integrity for oneself, in ALL aspects of your life

her entire argument for the the kind of government we need is essentially authoritarian. The government exists to protect individual rights, yet in capitalism one's rights are equivalent with the amount of wealth or property one has

I'm sorry. But that is just 1000% incorrect. In the book Dagny Taggart is constantly fighting against the powers of government. That's why they all go on strike. They leave because the government has become authoritarian. That's the crux of the whole book.

John Galt states FLAT out in his speech that government is there to protect the safety of people in the form of a police, the rights of the people in the form of contracts, and the safety of a country in the form of an army. That's it. Any additional powers the government has were not placed there by true free market, capitalist libertarians.

The one mistake that keeps getting made is that the system of capitalism doesn't work as evidenced by our current economic environment. Capitalist? You sure? With a central bank, fixed interest rates, government intervention in the private sector, and a fiat currency decoupled from anything of real value. Please find any book that considers this form of economic structure to be Capitalism - it's not. We're not.

In her mind, workers holding their workplace hostage for better wages or engaging in a general strike should be met with appropriate physical force, for the act of a worker asserting their power is an assault on the material circumstances of those who have

She never once advocates the use of violence except in protection of one's own person or property. The only time she even comes close to advocating violence is when she mildly empathizes the emotions of Nathaniel Taggart when told of the rumor that he allegedly killed a government official who threatened to take some part of his business - that's it. Things get ugly in the book, but she was trying to point out that chaos ensues when you depart from logical order. She wasn't advocating chaos.

You're forgetting one thing about the worker. He has the right to say NO. He can branch out on his own and find a new job that will make him happier. The same way the business owner took the risk of starting a company, so too can the worker take the risk to find a better job. It's risk vs. reward. Just because it might be hard or difficult to do doesn't mean your absolved from the responsibility of improving your own surroundings. Sometimes the choice is a lesser of two evils with no real "good" option - that's just life.

And i think you're forgetting all of the minor players that Rand glorified - people in no particular position of power, but whom she saw very much as part of the "ideal Randian eutopia". For instance, Owen Kellogg.

[Simulcast]

^^^ I like this dude.

[Simulcast]

The one mistake that keeps getting made is that the system of capitalism doesn't work as evidenced by our current economic environment. Capitalist? You sure? With a central bank, fixed interest rates, government intervention in the private sector, and a fiat currency decoupled from anything of real value. Please find any book that considers this form of economic structure to be Capitalism - it's not. We're not.


Thank you. This is a common thread in the place, to rail against the supposed "capitalism" in this country when it resembles more of a mixed economy.

[The Personist]

Why? We've had a few libertarians argue their cases extremely well here.

No, I mean Rand herself lacks any kind of serious or thoughtful argument in those departments. She's vapid, doesn't engage with any outside criticisms or writing on her subjects (she is ignorant of the history of philosophy wherever she decides to wander), and perhaps most damning is her quickness to judgment. She hammers her reader with litanies of value-judgments, but is remarkably unselfconscious about her process. I don't like calling her novels philosophical novels because that puts them in teh same league as someone like Dostoyevsky who, for my money, actually wrote thoughtful literature.

[Simulcast]

No, I mean Rand herself lacks any kind of serious or thoughtful argument in those departments. She's vapid, doesn't engage with any outside criticisms or writing on her subjects (she is ignorant of the history of philosophy wherever she decides to wander), and perhaps most damning is her quickness to judgment. She hammers her reader with litanies of value-judgments, but is remarkably unselfconscious about her process. I don't like calling her novels philosophical novels because that puts them in teh same league as someone like Dostoyevsky who, for my money, actually wrote thoughtful literature.

You need to read her other works.

[loveisdead]

^^^ I like this dude.

Thank me. I asked him to join. He's a good dude.

[Simulcast]

Thank me. I asked him to join. He's a good dude.

You have smart friends.

[The Personist]

You need to read her other works.

I don't really have the time to sit down and read a 1200 page novel right now. And unless she has something where she specifically addresses her identity politics and her strange refiguration of Cartesian dualism, then I probably won't be interested. :shrug:

[jefro0685]

Nah, that's not an oligopoly. Oligopoly is a market form where 2-3 large companies make most of the sales. It has nothing to do with being too big to fail.

Well an oligarchy technically doesn't have anything to do with business. It's a structure of government. I mean, if the Ant-Trust Act was put in place to make business more competitive for the smaller businesses (a whole other argument, I'm just referring to the spirit of the legislation), then wouldn't a system of government that protects the market share (bailouts) for a few, large businesses exclusively, create JUST that... an Oligopoly?

[Simulcast]

I don't really have the time to sit down and read a 1200 page novel right now. And unless she has something where she specifically addresses her identity politics and her strange refiguration of Cartesian dualism, then I probably won't be interested. :shrug:

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

Specifically the first few chapters.

[jefro0685]

No, I mean Rand herself lacks any kind of serious or thoughtful argument in those departments. She's vapid, doesn't engage with any outside criticisms or writing on her subjects (she is ignorant of the history of philosophy wherever she decides to wander), and perhaps most damning is her quickness to judgment. She hammers her reader with litanies of value-judgments, but is remarkably unselfconscious about her process. I don't like calling her novels philosophical novels because that puts them in teh same league as someone like Dostoyevsky who, for my money, actually wrote thoughtful literature.

I guess it's not quite an Ad Hominem argument... but it's damn close. So let's start with "outside criticisms".... she developed a form of Objectivist philosophy...debating people and refuting opinions was all she did. As for being ignorant of history... she grew up in Communist Russia. Not only is she literate on the topic of socialism... she's an authority on it.

[imchriswalken]

^^^ I like this dude.

agreed. i also like his low post count.

[RushAndAPush]

I attempted reading Atlas Shrugged my sophomore year in high school, but grew bored of the plot-line/philosophy and stopped reading half-way though. No wonder she gets so much hate.

[loveisdead]

Excited for Dom's response.

[Love As Arson]

She calls for physical force only in retaliation. And it's only when the rights of man have been compromised through force. Dom's example of using force to end a workers strike is erroneous. There is not "right" that a capitalist enjoys that guarantees him workers to produce his product. If they wish to strike, it is their right. It is also the right of the employer not to pay his workers and to hire others who might want to work.

What you fail to understand is, those rights are related to the relations of production and if they are organized in the capitalist form, then those rights take the form of preserving those relations.. So, for example, if workers seize a factory, that is an infringement on the capitalists rights, regardless of whether or not the worker's conditions are terrible, and therefore, the government must be called upon to protect the capitalist's interests. Similarly, if workers are striking in front of their workplace or on the grounds, preventing scabs from entering, the capitalist, in Rand's ideology, is having their rights infringed upon and must be taken care of. As such, one can make the determination that those rights are not universal, rather, they are specific to a particular class and Rand's theory of government as protector of those rights make it necessarily authoritarian, insofar as the majority is inherently without representation.

I think what you are referring to is called Oligopoly. And that only can occur when companies are deemed "too big to fail" by the government.
That is an inappropriate word. The best definition of the current status is "plutocracy", in which those with wealth wield the power and the mechanisms of government provide maintenance and stability.


Capitalism can only work when it's left alone.
Capitalism cannot be left alone. Even in its inception, it required state institutions to provide the foundation. For example, one of the precursors to capitalism was the expropriation of various lands, which were then placed into the hands of the early bourgeoisie.



Through capitalism fairness is ensured by each individual providing for his or her own self interest.
Fairness isn't something endemic to capitalism. It requires unbalanced property relations. If capitalism provided an equitable distribution of opportunity,, then profit would be impossible and the entire system would seize up.



You vote with your dollars. More efficient companies do better because they provide a lower cost of living for everyone. The less efficient ones fail.
Efficiency is not something I can envision being associated with capitalism, even within the parameters you've given. If a company is less efficient, but has the means to corner the market, then they will succeed; they will be using their dollars to influence the buying patterns of the public.



People deplore John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Trust. Do you have any idea how many industries were built as a result of cheap and affordable oil? It fueled (no pun intended) the Industrial Revolution.
Do you have any idea of the human cost of the Industrial Revolution? If that cost were taken into consideration, oil would not have been affordable.


You always hear about the level of 'greed' on the part of the haves, but never of the 'jealousy' on the part of the have nots.
Saying that it is jealousy would be comparable to saying that slaves are jealous of their masters freedom. We understand it is not jealousy, but a demand for equality.


i find that most people who rant against ayn rand either have never read her work, read it and didn't understand it, or just don't like her prose (the latter of which i can understand, even though i particularly enjoy it). they like to say how she says all people should be selfish and only go after what they want, whatever the means, and whoever you have to use to get there. but what she says is that every individual is responsible for him or herself, that he or she should never take anything without offering something as a trade, and no man or woman should ever let someone or something else make him or her do or believe anything except by his or her own choice.
I understand Rand's philosophy and not only do I find her fiction terrible, I find the ideas within all of her writing to be intellectually boring. She makes statements about man which she claims are rooted in reality, yet one notices the incredible lack of sophistication and evidence for any of them. I would go so far as to say that she is inept even when it comes to the workings of the system she advocates. The list of ideas you've provided, for example, analyzes interactions within the system, but never take into account the system itself, which is guilty of all those things. I cannot refuse to work or else I will starve and be homeless. I never agreed to capitalist relations, it is something forced upon me, something which alienates me and requires me to live in a structure where a paycheck a week separates me from poverty and, if we take capitalism's valuations seriously, sub-humanity.

[Nuns On A Bus]

I've been meaning to read a book of hers, but Atlas Shrugged is a bit intimidating. Is The Fountainhead the best work of hers to start with if I don't want to read Atlas Shrugged?

[Love As Arson]

I'll respond to the other post later tonight. My partner and I are finally watching the second season of Breaking Bad and it kind of beats debating capitalism right now. Ha.

[Simulcast]

I've been meaning to read a book of hers, but Atlas Shrugged is a bit intimidating. Is The Fountainhead the best work of hers to start with if I don't want to read Atlas Shrugged?

Yes, in my opinion.

[The Personist]

I guess it's not quite an Ad Hominem argument... but it's damn close. So let's start with "outside criticisms".... she developed a form of Objectivist philosophy...debating people and refuting opinions was all she did. As for being ignorant of history... she grew up in Communist Russia. Not only is she literate on the topic of socialism... she's an authority on it.

Communist Russia is not socialism. There's her first problem.

[imchriswalken]

Saying that it is jealousy would be comparable to saying that slaves are jealous of their masters freedom. We understand it is not jealousy, but a demand for equality.

so... owning my own small business and a house and a car while someone is living out of a car or under a bridge is equivalent to my kidnapping or buying that person and forcing them to work in my business without any sort of compensation?

I understand Rand's philosophy and not only do I find her fiction terrible, I find the ideas within all of her writing to be intellectually boring. She makes statements about man which she claims are rooted in reality, yet one notices the incredible lack of sophistication and evidence for any of them. I would go so far as to say that she is inept even when it comes to the workings of the system she advocates. The list of ideas you've provided, for example, analyzes interactions within the system, but never take into account the system itself, which is guilty of all those things. I cannot refuse to work or else I will starve and be homeless. I never agreed to capitalist relations, it is something forced upon me, something which alienates me and requires me to live in a structure where a paycheck a week separates me from poverty and, if we take capitalism's valuations seriously, sub-humanity.

you could move to a squatter's farm somewhere in europe, and guess what? you'd still have to perform some sort of work just to eat.

[Jake Gyllenhaal]

It's refreshing to me that a lot of you guys who are very liberal took the time to read her work. I'll have to do that.

When I was an undergrad at UConn, I took a poli sci course and one of the sections dealt with reading an excerpt of Atlas Shrugged. Looking back, it obviously didn't make an impact on me since I barely remember it. At the time, I just found it boring. I haven't bothered to read more into her.

That's my contribution to this thread, but please, keep the debate going.

[thelastnameleft]

so... owning my own small business and a house and a car while someone is living out of a car or under a bridge is equivalent to my kidnapping or buying that person and forcing them to work in my business without any sort of compensation?
Strawman fallacy.


you could move to a squatter's farm somewhere in europe, and guess what? you'd still have to perform some sort of work just to eat.
You're not refuting the point he made, but a fictional one that you perceived him making. In a pure capitalist society, one only has the illusion of the choice between working and not working, as the latter will inevitably result in starvation. Ergo, it is not a contact "freely entered", as claimed by objectivism. Granted, one can choose whom to work for, providing a sort of choice, but the fact remains that the worker is still forced into it.

Come on, at least provide some responses with more depth.

[jefro0685]

That is an inappropriate word. The best definition of the current status is "plutocracy", in which those with wealth wield the power and the mechanisms of government provide maintenance and stability.

As denoted by the suffix -cracy. Plutocracy is a form of government. Oligopoly is a business structure in which a few elite maintain the largest part of the market share. One of the way companies have done this in our country is by gaining favor with the elected officials of our Republic through campaign donations. The wealthy don't actually rule the country in our current government structure. Perhaps I should have been more specific with saying Corporatism. Dare you disagree with the beloved Arianna Huffington (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBBRnUbP0yg&t=7m53s) (Intended to be tongue-in-cheek)

Capitalism cannot be left alone. Even in its inception, it required state institutions to provide the foundation. For example, one of the precursors to capitalism was the expropriation of various lands, which were then placed into the hands of the early bourgeoisie.

You can only expropriate lands if they are first owned privately. The "expropriation" of land in this country was the removal of Native Americans from it. It was either that or go about it the civil, logical, capitalist route: pay them a fair amount for it. But once again comes that nagging thorn in the sides of most Socialists. The right to say "no". The expropriation of land to the wealthy class in America formed the basis of our economy by convention, not by necessity - why pay for something when you can take it? Here, force and conquest were what served as the "foundation" you speak of. Capitalism had nothing to do with it. There is no reason to believe that land must be taken in order for the system of Capitalism to function properly.

When I say "capitalism needs to be left alone" I'm not referring to anarchy. I already said that, yes, certain government structures must remain in place in order for the system to work. But for the system operate fairly and efficiently we must be willing to leave things alone on a down cycle. That's part you have to leave alone. It's the bad medicine; the fever that kills the virus.

Fairness isn't something endemic to capitalism. It requires unbalanced property relations. If capitalism provided an equitable distribution of opportunity,, then profit would be impossible and the entire system would seize up.
Fairness is what constitutes the very nature of capitalism. What could be less fair than a group of people, each of whom contributing in various amounts to the whole of society, walking away with the same level of compensation. The same way an equation is balanced by achieving the same value on either side of the "=" sign is the same way compensation should be met with productivity. To say that a disproportionate amount of compensation relative to effort is somehow "fair" doesn't make sense. Pretty much any Logician from any school will agree that A=A.

I find it ironic that you'd mention the provision of an equitable amount of opportunity causing the entire system to seize up - as it is opportunity of this sort that Marxism advocates. So yes, I'd agree with you. However, Capitalism is of the belief that nothing should be provided to you. You are given nothing more than the opportunity for life, liberty and property rights. Once you accept the fact that all men are innately equal, while not necessarily equally capable, you've reached the heart of why some men are better at creating opportunity for themselves than others. Capitalism merely acknowledges and praises this truth, where Marxism tries to run from it.

Efficiency is not something I can envision being associated with capitalism, even within the parameters you've given. If a company is less efficient, but has the means to corner the market, then they will succeed; they will be using their dollars to influence the buying patterns of the public.

Increased efficiency and productivity is exactly what capitalism is about. It's the cornerstone of the philosophy. Henry Ford invested capital in the form of time, money, and research to develop the assembly line for his car. This initial investment yielded a higher return when he was able to produce quality cars for quicker and cheaper than his competitors. The result: the average person could afford an automobile which led to expansion of businesses in areas that average people couldn't previous reach. This led to growth of business in those areas. This is exactly how capitalism works.

Efficiency is the only way a company can corner a market - according to the capitalist model, that is. When the private sector is left alone a process of Corporate Darwinism takes place and the consumer reaps the benefits. The other way to accomplish this is through various forms of government intervention like subsidies, taxes on imported or exported goods, etc. This isn't capitalism.

Do you have any idea of the human cost of the Industrial Revolution? If that cost were taken into consideration, oil would not have been affordable.

Well first things first. In your first sentence, you speak of the human cost of Industrial Revolution. In the second you switch your subject to that of oil. I was merely highlighting an example of success that occurred during the Industrial Revolution - Standard Oil. Now yes, there were some atrocious practices during the day of the Industrial Revolution, but that doesn't mean the capitalist expansion of Standard Oil's business horizontally and vertically, which drove down the price of oil, was the cause of these atrocities. Furthermore, it is widely believed today by most Capitalists that ethical business practices increase productivity (and therefore efficiency). Therefore, you can't say that capitalism made these unethical business practices worse. Protection of the individual's well-being fall's under the "right to life". Capitalism is perfectly capable of functioning under proper ethical business practices.

Furthermore, how do you apply a dollar valuation to a human life in order to reach a number with which you can compare to the cost of oil? These are repugnant concepts and can't be logically debated.

Most people credit (erroneously in my opinion) World War II with being the engine that pulled us out of the Depression. What of the human cost there? There was horrific human devastation under Communist regimes, as well (some would argue more so than in most cases). Human cost is absolutely awful, but certainly not an exclusive characteristic of capitalism.

Saying that it is jealousy would be comparable to saying that slaves are jealous of their masters freedom. We understand it is not jealousy, but a demand for equality.

And this brings me back to the point about capitalism providing each individual with the right to say "NO" - a right slaves certainly didn't have. The problem is that most Socialists view a choice between a lesser of two evils as servitude - wrong. Dead Wrong. You still have a choice. Just because you feel dwarfed by the uncertainty that quitting your job would bring, so that you may find better employment elsewhere, doesn't mean that this choice is unjust or unfair. Furthermore, it doesn't mean that you should be provided with another alternative because you're not satisfied with your current set of options. Own your situation. Make the tough choice. And make something happen for yourself. Just because you "feel" trapped doesn't mean you are trapped. Big difference between capitalism and slavery - BIG.

[rawspinner]

I have a friend who started the objectivist society here at UofT. He's a cool guy, even if I don't agree with his values. I really found Showbread's Anorexia a cool exploration of objectivist philosophy from a Christian band's perspective, especially when it was done in a style similar to NIN and other industrial artists.

[imchriswalken]

Strawman fallacy.

Come on, at least provide some responses with more depth.

aw, did you just learn that in class today?

so his analogy is correct but mine is not - care to go into "depth" on that one?

also, you are suggesting that capitalism alone forces people to work to improve their own situation, and that you can show me a system where i don't have to work and will still have food and shelter. that sounds very humanitarian to me. please, do tell.

[thelastnameleft]

aw, did you just learn that in class today?
Dohoho. I would point out that that's an ad hominem, but i must have just learned that term five hours ago and therefore can't possibly use it correctly.

so his analogy is correct but mine is not - care to go into "depth" on that one?
I wasn't suggesting that his is "correct", but you didn't even attempt to make a reasonable counterargument.

also, you are suggesting that capitalism alone forces people to work to improve their own situation, and that you can show me a system where i don't have to work and will still have food and shelter. that sounds very humanitarian to me. please, do tell.
Seriously, can you only do strawman arguments? I was simply pointing out that the contract was not "freely entered"; that phrase implies that there is a reasonable alternative to the offered "option".

There's an interesting debate going on, and I'd rather read the arguments of the two who eloquently address and attempt to refute the basis of the other's argument than...you.

[loveisdead]

There's an interesting debate going on, and I'd rather read the arguments of the two who eloquently address and attempt to refute the basis of the other's argument than...you.

yup. I'd rather not even hear from anyone but jeff and Dom for awhile. They're having a great debate.

[Simulcast]

yup. I'd rather not even hear from anyone but jeff and Dom for awhile. They're having a great debate.

You have no idea how nice it is to not be the only voice from this side. Your friend is something else.

[loveisdead]

You have no idea how nice it is to not be the only voice from this side. Your friend is something else.

He's a great guy too. He's a few years older than I (he's my best friend's older brother) but in middle school was the dude I kinda looked up to and got advice from. Him and I don't totally agree politically but can definitely have an intelligent debate.

[Matt Chylak]

All you need to know about the writings of Ayn Rand is that in The Fountainhead, Howard Roark rapes Dominique and she likes it, even falling in love with him as a result.
but...that's how it works in real life.

seriously, though, she implies that Dominique wants it bad.

[ImTheSheriff]

:hitself:

[Asthenia-182]

I don't really have the time to sit down and read a 1200 page novel right now. And unless she has something where she specifically addresses her identity politics and her strange refiguration of Cartesian dualism, then I probably won't be interested. :shrug:
Anthem is pretty good and short, though not really anything you seem interested in with her. Just a good read.

[Asthenia-182]

Crush the parasite.

[Love As Arson]

Atrocious writing, perhaps. Main criticism was too much dialogue. However, I felt it kept the pacing going in most cases - and would it have been better for Rand to preach philosophical ideals in prose form directly to the reader? Probably far worse.
I would prefer if she took the time to create something that not a waste of intellectual energy.

However, I'll be honest. I had to put the book down for a while when I got the part of Dagny crashing in Galt's Gulch. What seemed silly to me was that just because people "loved working and being productive" meant that they'd actually be GOOD and CAPABLE at doing these jobs. It sounds silly to reference, but just look at the show Undercover Boss - case and point. But I understood the story to be an overall hyperbole in order to clearly (and repeatedly) make her case. As a piece of literature you HAVE to take it with a grain of salt.
I take the ideas within it seriously, because that is what she seemed to want.


Nothing in capitalism is force. It's an agreement. Agreement on price and value. It's a contract whose terms are decided by the collective through their individual votes in the form of individual purchases. In a pure capitalist society you always have the freedom to say "no". Governments that impose price fixes that aren't voted on by peoples dollars - that's force. That's a few deciding what's good for the many. And in order for a system like that to work, the people making the decisions must be of flawless integrity and intelligence. You can't expect that from anyone, well intended as they may be.
Any economic organization is predicated on force, whether it be an explicit violence, as seen in police repression, or ideological force in the form of creating the worker subject and advocating this state of affairs as immutable. Furthermore, your response remains confined to the framework of capitalism, which is essentially what I am interrogating; you can argue that people vote with their purchases, but my point of contention is the public doesn't get a voice in whether or not the system itself should continue to exist.

One must stay competitive and valuable to the collective in order to maintain any sort of worth.
This is one of my issues with capitalism. Everything, including human worth, is fixed with a price tag.

There's a difference between being active and productive. When you are productive you serve the collective need, motivated by yourself interest. It says: you've made X amount of contribution to society.
That does not make, for we know those who make society function and who produce wealth do not receive monetary compensation for their contribution; rather, they are told that they should be happy for the little they get in return. Furthermore, we know those who receive wealth have, alongside with their commodities, provided environmental damage, for example, to the collective and have gone unpunished. If we follow your line of logic, then someone like Paris Hilton has made more of a contribution to society than a single-mother who works in a production warehouse.

You DO get profits in return - so long as you provide a service deemed worthy by the public and in a more efficient manner than any of your competitors.
Workers do not receive the full amount of compensation for the time they spent laboring. It is not an issue of whether or not they are competitive in the long view, as capitalism requires a suppression of wages to maintain profitability.

The process of natural selection is one glorified in science and deplored in economics.
I actually think most economists, when it comes down to it, agree with social Darwinism. My own objection is related to the fact that natural selection in nature is a requirement, whereas the economic realm is one of choice; that is, humans have erected the relations in which the weak(those who do the work) are subjected to the strong (those who exploit), but this can be changed and we can create a society in which production is concretely tied to the needs of all people.


I can see that point. She seems to think that logic is all there is to morality. I disagree. The most logical person in the world is a psychopath. One devoid of emotion. Rand speaks of rationality as morality, but then says only pursue what makes you happy. She cleans it up for the reader by the end of the book…. that one must live with complete honesty and integrity for oneself, in ALL aspects of your life
That is not my disagreement. "Reason" and "Rationality" have been affixed meaning within the capitalist framework and there conceptualization is one which reinforces the bourgeois narrative.


I'm sorry. But that is just 1000% incorrect. In the book Dagny Taggart is constantly fighting against the powers of government. That's why they all go on strike. They leave because the government has become authoritarian. That's the crux of the whole book.

John Galt states FLAT out in his speech that government is there to protect the safety of people in the form of a police, the rights of the people in the form of contracts, and the safety of a country in the form of an army. That's it. Any additional powers the government has were not placed there by true free market, capitalist libertarians.
Allow me to be more clear: If government's role is designated as the protector of the rights of man and the rights of man are definitely related to property and wealth, then those who have the most of those assets will be those who are protected; the people who do not have these things, who are the majority, then are a subject to system without representation because, by definition, they do not meet the criteria and if they oppose these sets of relation, then they are infringing on the rights of man (the rights of the bourgeois) and must be met with force. That is authoritarian; the rule of the minority over the majority.

The one mistake that keeps getting made is that the system of capitalism doesn't work as evidenced by our current economic environment. Capitalist? You sure? With a central bank, fixed interest rates, government intervention in the private sector, and a fiat currency decoupled from anything of real value. Please find any book that considers this form of economic structure to be Capitalism - it's not. We're not.
The current economic crises is a demonstration of capitalism's failures, however, it reveals the tendencies of the capitalism, the inherent mechanisms by which crises arise and cannot be abated. This is not an aberration, it is the logical conclusion of organization under the capitalist mode of production, just as government intervention is. The very foundations of capitalism,i.e., wealth accumulation, making profits, the circulation of commodities, and so on, necessarily lead to periodic crises; for, as you said, it acts as sort of a cleansing fire and once profitability is established again, the process begins anew with another crises at the end.


She never once advocates the use of violence except in protection of one's own person or property. The only time she even comes close to advocating violence is when she mildly empathizes the emotions of Nathaniel Taggart when told of the rumor that he allegedly killed a government official who threatened to take some part of his business - that's it. Things get ugly in the book, but she was trying to point out that chaos ensues when you depart from logical order. She wasn't advocating chaos.
I've explained above how I've drawn my conclusions regarding her advocacy of violence.

You're forgetting one thing about the worker. He has the right to say NO. He can branch out on his own and find a new job that will make him happier. The same way the business owner took the risk of starting a company, so too can the worker take the risk to find a better job. It's risk vs. reward. Just because it might be hard or difficult to do doesn't mean your absolved from the responsibility of improving your own surroundings. Sometimes the choice is a lesser of two evils with no real "good" option - that's just life.
Again, you remain within the framework of capitalism. The question isn't whether or not the individual can say no to this or that particular job, but whether or not the worker can say no to exploitation and wage labor itself. So long as the relations of production remain, where workers remain disempowered, alienation will persist; the very act of transforming oneself into a commodity to be sold is the point from which this deep dissatisfaction flows.

[imchriswalken]

Dohoho. I would point out that that's an ad hominem, but i must have just learned that term five hours ago and therefore can't possibly use it correctly.

I wasn't suggesting that his is "correct", but you didn't even attempt to make a reasonable counterargument.

There's an interesting debate going on, and I'd rather read the arguments of the two who eloquently address and attempt to refute the basis of the other's argument than...you.

yeah... i know what it was.

all you still haven't done anything but challenge me, so you're contributing even less. i bet you feel really good about yourself, though.

Again, you remain within the framework of capitalism. The question isn't whether or not the individual can say no to this or that particular job, but whether or not the worker can say no to exploitation and wage labor itself. So long as the relations of production remain, where workers remain disempowered, alienation will persist; the very act of transforming oneself into a commodity to be sold is the point from which this deep dissatisfaction flows.

then what is your framework?

[caveBEAR]

then what is your framework?

My guess would be 'something other than capitalism'.

[imchriswalken]

My guess would be 'something other than capitalism'.

yet another person still not answering my question. that's cool though. apparently i'm the guy who can't use deductive or inductive reasoning correctly.

[caveBEAR]

yet another person still not answering my question. that's cool though. apparently i'm the guy who can't use deductive or inductive reasoning correctly.

That'd be my guess.


If you can't figure out what he means from this;
The question isn't whether or not the individual can say no to this or that particular job, but whether or not the worker can say no to exploitation and wage labor itself.
then I don't know why you're even bothering with an attempt at discussion.

He's obviously referring to any other form of government in which people aren't regarded as commodities. My guess, given his user title, would be something involving Marxism, but that's just my deductive reasoning going off.

[The Personist]

Jefro's smart but he's no match for Dom.

[imchriswalken]

He's obviously referring to any other form of government in which people aren't regarded as commodities. My guess, given his user title, would be something involving Marxism, but that's just my deductive reasoning going off.

you misunderstood me.

[loveisdead]

Jefro's smart but he's no match for Dom.

All bias aside, I think he's winning the argument right now.
Edit: I mean that jeff is winning.

[caveBEAR]

you misunderstood me.

Care to clarify, then?

[imchriswalken]

Care to clarify, then?

if the premises being discussed here are so blatantly obvious, i'm sure you could list and clarify them all?

[wileythekid]

I just finished reading Anthem for school and I think it's safe to say it was the worst book I've ever read

[caveBEAR]

if the premises being discussed here are so blatantly obvious, i'm sure you could list and clarify them all?

:yawn:

Fucking rookies.


Again, you remain within the framework of capitalism. The question isn't whether or not the individual can say no to this or that particular job, but whether or not the worker can say no to exploitation and wage labor itself. So long as the relations of production remain, where workers remain disempowered, alienation will persist; the very act of transforming oneself into a commodity to be sold is the point from which this deep dissatisfaction flows.

then what is your framework?

My guess would be 'something other than capitalism'.

Those were the original three posts. I have no idea what you mean by 'if the premises being discussed here are so blatantly obvious, i'm sure you could list and clarify them all?' (especially seeing as you're the one who says I misunderstood you), so why don't you tell me what your point was that I misunderstood?

It seems to me that Love As Arson was clearly talking about (at least) Marxism (as that's kind of his thing), you didn't understand that, asked what his 'framework' was (spoiler alert: Marxism), then bitched that I didn't answer your question when I said 'something other than capitalism' (spoiler: I meant 'Marxism').

Please, please correct me if I'm wrong, however.

[imchriswalken]

It seems to me that Love As Arson was clearly talking about (at least) Marxism (as that's kind of his thing), you didn't understand that, asked what his 'framework' was (spoiler alert: Marxism), then bitched that I didn't answer your question when I said 'something other than capitalism' (spoiler: I meant 'Marxism').

Please, please correct me if I'm wrong, however.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deductive_argument#Deductive_logic

as in, argument (by love as arson, and i'm paraphrasing my understanding of what he said): capitalism is faulty because a person has no choice but to exist within the market, and that market is inherently designed to force everyone to provide his or her goods or services for less than they are worth, thereby subjecting the good people (the many who produce and provide) to the will of the bad people (the few who have figured out a way to construct an entire system to force people to provide for them without compensation or another choice for survival or success (whatever the definition of that is).

this would then require:

premise 1: capiltalism is a market society.

premise 2: a market requires people to work by providing services or producing goods in order to trade them for necessities and things they can't provide themselves.

premise 3: trading services and goods in exchange for money (capiltalism), and by extension money for necessities, creates an objective value out of a subjective value (labor) - a commodity.

premise 4: objectifying the human factor creates false social relationships where those with many goods and services available to them are considered more valuable than those who provide them, which undermines the value of the labor that went into producing said goods and services that are being used by the very people who objectify and suppress their benefactors.

premise 5: etc.

if i'm not mistaken, this is all marx's view on capitalism, which is fine. i get using that as a premise. but if that's love as arson's premise, and jefro has a different one, and they never agree, then what the hell is the point of an argument?

what i don't understand is how capitalism can be used in an analogy in comparison to slavery. or how it can be insinuated that it's my fault if i have a job and someone else doesn't (or my job is better than another's) and that i somehow owe that person because my situation was different from his (we didn't have an "equal" chance), regardless of any of the factors that went into both situations and what either of us did to contribute to, prevent, or improve those situations.

again, this is my understanding of what is being said, so maybe you could explain the PREMISES that are being used to either affirm my understanding or correct it?

what i also don't understand is how people can read atlas shrugged and think it's about the few trying to oppress the many when it's a book about PEOPLE GOING ON STRIKE.

[Matt Chylak]

what i also don't understand is how people can read atlas shrugged and think it's about the few trying to oppress the many when it's a book about PEOPLE GOING ON STRIKE.

That would be because it's about "people of the mind" (her words, not mine) going on strike. I don't think she ever implies that ordinary workers striking were what she meant by "stopping the motor of the world." I mean, look at the title...a titan is shrugging, not a lowly 9-5 worker. Her stated goal of writing the text was "to show how desperately the world needs prime movers and how viciously it treats them" and to portray "what happens to a world without them."

[imchriswalken]

That would be because it's about "people of the mind" (her words, not mine) going on strike. I don't think she ever implies that ordinary workers striking were what she meant by "stopping the motor of the world." I mean, look at the title...a titan is shrugging, not a lowly 9-5 worker. Her stated goal of writing the text was "to show how desperately the world needs prime movers and how viciously it treats them" and to portray "what happens to a world without them."

sure, but i'd argue that the world needs prime movers just as much as those people need the employees that work for them, and i'd disagree with unfair treatment for either one. the thinkers and laborers both deserve compensation because they do different things and meet different needs.

the fact that she only chose to illustrate a strike from the view point of the prime movers doesn't necessarily exclude the importance of the laborers. we couldn't have a world with only thinkers and no laborers, unless of course those thinkers decided to also do the labor, i.e. galt's gulch. either way, if the prime movers have the right to strike, so should the laborers if they feel the need, take the time to organize, and execute.

we could though have a world without thinkers, and only with laborers, which i guess would be very "humanitarian" and "equal." my questions about framework were ultimately along this line - what system would allow us to have no money, no rich, no powerful, no bosses, no leaders, and still have medicine, transportation, the internet, etc.? if capitalism itself is fundamentally flawed because some people abuse the system and take advantage of others, what other system would hypothetically provide food and medicine for the world's population while also preventing anyone from getting rich, starting companies, having power, and abusing people?

[Matt Chylak]

sure, but i'd argue that the world needs prime movers just as much as those people need the employees that work for them, and i'd disagree with unfair treatment for either one. the thinkers and laborers both deserve compensation because they do different things and meet different needs.

the fact that she only chose to illustrate a strike from the view point of the prime movers doesn't necessarily exclude the importance of the laborers. we couldn't have a world with only thinkers and no laborers, unless of course those thinkers decided to also do the labor, i.e. galt's gulch. either way, if the prime movers have the right to strike, so should the laborers if they feel the need, take the time to organize, and execute.

we could though have a world without thinkers, and only with laborers, which i guess would be very "humanitarian" and "equal." my questions about framework were ultimately along this line - what system would allow us to have no money, no rich, no powerful, no bosses, no leaders, and still have medicine, transportation, the internet, etc.? if capitalism itself is fundamentally flawed because some people abuse the system and take advantage of others, what other system would hypothetically provide food and medicine for the world's population while also preventing anyone from getting rich, starting companies, having power, and abusing people?

Yes, it does, for her at least.

The unexceptional laborers in "Atlas Shrugged" (i.e. the ones who were simply taking orders and not thinking) were generally dehumanized because they were steered around like cattle by the manipulating suck-ups in power. The fact that she only chose to illustrate a strike from the view point of the prime movers, ignoring hard workers like Dagny's assistant Eddie Willers (who ends up dying alone in the desert) is extremely telling. She argues that their lack of intellect and ability to think for themselves ends up helping the destroyers. They're considered inferior because they're manipulated through "public service" and "charity."

The rest of your post makes a decent point, though (and this is important) it's NOT ONE THAT SHE MAKES DURING THE NOVEL.

[crackedthesky]

sure, but i'd argue that the world needs prime movers just as much as those people need the employees that work for them, and i'd disagree with unfair treatment for either one. the thinkers and laborers both deserve compensation because they do different things and meet different needs.

the fact that she only chose to illustrate a strike from the view point of the prime movers doesn't necessarily exclude the importance of the laborers. we couldn't have a world with only thinkers and no laborers, unless of course those thinkers decided to also do the labor, i.e. galt's gulch. either way, if the prime movers have the right to strike, so should the laborers if they feel the need, take the time to organize, and execute.

we could though have a world without thinkers, and only with laborers, which i guess would be very "humanitarian" and "equal." my questions about framework were ultimately along this line - what system would allow us to have no money, no rich, no powerful, no bosses, no leaders, and still have medicine, transportation, the internet, etc.? if capitalism itself is fundamentally flawed because some people abuse the system and take advantage of others, what other system would hypothetically provide food and medicine for the world's population while also preventing anyone from getting rich, starting companies, having power, and abusing people?

None. But nobody is arguing that they want a system like that, nor is capitalism the best - let alone the only - system that works. This is a false choice fallacy. You don't have to have only corrupt people in power and opression of those in lower classes or no money and no classes at all. What we're arguing for a system that falls in between - ideally, one where the rich don't collect the most welfare and get the biggest tax breaks just for having more money than others. We don't have to have our energy and our transportation and our government decided by those who have the most money, regardless of whether they've worked to achieve it or not. According to capitalism, someone who starts a company is worth more than everyone else who will ever work for the company, even though they will most likely end up doing the least amount of actual labor toward said company. No one man has ever started a company and made it successful all by himself, so why should he make billions more than everyone else who works for it, as well as be entitled to more say in how the business works overall, as well as receive the highest tax breaks etc. etc. etc? Just because it was his idea? As though nobody else ever contributed a crucial idea toward the development of the company, without which it wouldn't have taken off at all?

It's not that capitalism is flawed because "some people abuse the system and take advantage of others," it's that capitalism revolves around that. The better you are at abusing the system and at clawing your way over others, the more likely you are to succeed in a solely capitalistic society.

[The Personist]

Jeff: defend capitalism from a moral standpoint. That is, how can you justify supporting a system which by its very nature rests on inequality of humanity?

[Love As Arson]

As denoted by the suffix -cracy. Plutocracy is a form of government. Oligopoly is a business structure in which a few elite maintain the largest part of the market share. One of the way companies have done this in our country is by gaining favor with the elected officials of our Republic through campaign donations. The wealthy don't actually rule the country in our current government structure. Perhaps I should have been more specific with saying Corporatism. Dare you disagree with the beloved Arianna Huffington (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBBRnUbP0yg&t=7m53s) (Intended to be tongue-in-cheek)
My point is using that term is to specifically denote the relationship between business and government. The government's priorities, its conceptualization of rights and the health of the nation as a whole, are intrinsically tied to capitalist relations; they reinforce them and, when necessary, acts to re-establish profitability. And no, Huffington, as a liberal, lacks the theory to interpret society as it functions in reality.

You can only expropriate lands if they are first owned privately. The "expropriation" of land in this country was the removal of Native Americans from it. It was either that or go about it the civil, logical, capitalist route: pay them a fair amount for it. But once again comes that nagging thorn in the sides of most Socialists. The right to say "no". The expropriation of land to the wealthy class in America formed the basis of our economy by convention, not by necessity - why pay for something when you can take it? Here, force and conquest were what served as the "foundation" you speak of. Capitalism had nothing to do with it. There is no reason to believe that land must be taken in order for the system of Capitalism to function properly.
I was actually referring to the end of the feudal era, in which the state expropriated agricultural lands from peasants feudal lords; this was followed by a succession of laws which made it a crime to not have a trade, to be a vagabond and to be idle. Essentially, these laws were a means to force former peasants into the relations we now call wage labor. Since your brought up Native Americans, and we might as well say the slave trade, you argue that capitalism had nothing to do with it, but we know concretely it did; for it was the bourgeois who justified it, who provided the ideological bases and the impetus for the state to act in its interests. We can say "What if?", but it has no historical basis and we are speaking about the concrete formation, and subsequent relations, of capitalism. The state was there in the beginning and we cannot pretend that it played, and continues to play, a vital role in the maintenance of the system. To your last point, capitalism maintains profitability by expanding markets and exploiting new natural resources, and given its criteria for human rights, it was logically consistent to employ genocide and slavery to advance capitalism. Furthermore, very little has changed, as we only need to look to the Middle East and Latin America, where businesses have used terrible violence and anti-democratic means to open markets and to get their hands on natural resources. Always present is capitalist formulation of rights, and Rand's as well, which makes it permissible to oppress the indigenous population; of course, there are humanitarian arguments for oppression, but these differ very little from "The white man's burden".

When I say "capitalism needs to be left alone" I'm not referring to anarchy. I already said that, yes, certain government structures must remain in place in order for the system to work. But for the system operate fairly and efficiently we must be willing to leave things alone on a down cycle. That's part you have to leave alone. It's the bad medicine; the fever that kills the virus.
And I am merely arguing that, from the beginning, "being left alone" has never been a feature of capitalism.
Fairness is what constitutes the very nature of capitalism. What could be less fair than a group of people, each of whom contributing in various amounts to the whole of society, walking away with the same level of compensation.
That isn't what we understand in reality . Necessarily, there must be those who do more work for less, while those who actually are idle receive all of the benefits.
To say that a disproportionate amount of compensation relative to effort is somehow "fair" doesn't make sense. Pretty much any Logician from any school will agree that A=A.
That is exactly what you are arguing for in capitalism. I, on the other hand, am arguing that work should be democratic and, in a stage where money continues to exist, there should be equitable distribution of it based on the fact that each person, in one form or another, is contributing to the health of the collective economy.


I find it ironic that you'd mention the provision of an equitable amount of opportunity causing the entire system to seize up - as it is opportunity of this sort that Marxism advocates. So yes, I'd agree with you. However, Capitalism is of the belief that nothing should be provided to you. You are given nothing more than the opportunity for life, liberty and property rights. Once you accept the fact that all men are innately equal, while not necessarily equally capable, you've reached the heart of why some men are better at creating opportunity for themselves than others. Capitalism merely acknowledges and praises this truth, where Marxism tries to run from it.
I argue that the system will seize up precisely because it is predicated on an unequal distribution of opportunity, wealth and property. Even the mere equitable accessibility of those things would render capitalism unable to operate, for that which puts it in motion would be stuck; there would be an inability to accumulate profit, since everyone could be a capitalist, wealth would be disparate because everyone would have equal access to it and so on. This is the point I was trying to elucidate and I believe you misunderstood as a picture of Marxism. On the contrary, Marxism does not have this problem because it is not predicated on the capitalist mode of accumulation. Furthermore, in regards to your lost argument, this is exactly where capitalist ideology fails, that is, in its idealistic depiction of humanity, divorced from history and transformed into a subject inscribed with capitalist valuations. Humanity, in capitalism, has no history preceding it, both on the individual and collective level, rather, history begins on capitalist premises, e.g., the ancient empires designate the nature of man to dominate one another or, on the individual level, one's place in life designates their inherent nature in capitalism; so, for example, one is in poverty, not due to any social organization, but due to an incapability on their own part. The problem with this depiction of man is that we do have history and it is intimately tied to the way in which a given society organizes itself economically. To be specific, in a society where wealth is accumulated, where profit drives the system and this profit is built on exploitation, there are institutions that educate individuals to be those who are exploited and which keep them in their particular class. This can take the most explicit form, which is wealth accumulation that is then transferred to one's offspring and concentrates wealth into a particular lineage or another example would be the lack of accessibility to higher education. Implicit with those, as well as other examples, are capitalist relations that maintain wealth and opportunity within a particular sphere at the expense of another, such that the latter produces a number of generations that exist in abject poverty or at low-wage labor jobs; their individual will may despise this, but the system places innumerable obstacles on the way to try to transcend class. That is why the American dream is so dear to us, because it is exceptional and not the rule.

Increased efficiency and productivity is exactly what capitalism is about. It's the cornerstone of the philosophy. Henry Ford invested capital in the form of time, money, and research to develop the assembly line for his car. This initial investment yielded a higher return when he was able to produce quality cars for quicker and cheaper than his competitors. The result: the average person could afford an automobile which led to expansion of businesses in areas that average people couldn't previous reach. This led to growth of business in those areas. This is exactly how capitalism works.
I shall take your claims about efficiency and productivity at face value, but only insofar as I can respond by saying that it is directly related to an increase in exploitation and alienation. Using Ford as an example, one can point to his construction of the assembly-line which increased the output of his cars, but did so by dehumanizes the workforce, by making them appendages of the line, wherein they were made to engage in a series of repetitive tasks for hours on end with no skill-building, no creative outlet and no power over any of their surroundings.

Efficiency is the only way a company can corner a market - according to the capitalist model, that is. When the private sector is left alone a process of Corporate Darwinism takes place and the consumer reaps the benefits. The other way to accomplish this is through various forms of government intervention like subsidies, taxes on imported or exported goods, etc. This isn't capitalism.
One of the means to corner the market is through purchasing one's competitors and ensuring that, whatever the quality of your product, you remain the largest entity. I've addressed the rest of your concerns in previous posts.

Well first things first. In your first sentence, you speak of the human cost of Industrial Revolution. In the second you switch your subject to that of oil.
Each are connected in that the low-cost of oil reflects the atrocious conditions of during the Industrial Revolution.

cause[/I] of these atrocities.
If we understand that capitalism is about maximizing profits and also understand that is is cheaper to employ people in poor conditions, for long periods of time and that child labor was also fairly cheap, then one can understand why it was the case that capitalists did so. They could do this and, at the same time, have cheap oil; it is another example of the connection between technological advances and an increase in exploitation.

Furthermore, it is widely believed today by most Capitalists that ethical business practices increase productivity (and therefore efficiency). Therefore, you can't say that capitalism made these unethical business practices worse. Protection of the individual's well-being fall's under the "right to life". Capitalism is perfectly capable of functioning under proper ethical business practices.
What capitalists personally believe and the dynamics of the system are two separate things. As an example, there is a left-wing newspaper who advocates for unions and yet when the paper's workforce decided to unionize, the company fought against it. Similarly, a capitalist may believe that good working conditions are beneficial to productivity, yet the demands of the system and their profits force them into other conclusions. Further, I feel I have to reiterate the point I made above, which is that, if ethics are a detriment to profits, then ethics will be dispatched out of hand. We need look no further than the repeated occurrences of mining disasters or, for that matter, the BP oil spill. The safety procedures were too costly and so workers were sacrificed.

Furthermore, how do you apply a dollar valuation to a human life in order to reach a number with which you can compare to the cost of oil? These are repugnant concepts and can't be logically debated.
Again, you misunderstand me. If, for example, the cost of taking care of a family that has lost the bread-winner or the hospital bills of someone who was seriously injured on the job were reflected in the price of oil, then the price would skyrocket. Similarly, if the environmental cost were added into the price of oil, one would notice another stark increase in prices. These, however, aren't taken into consideration because they are shifted on to individual families or the areas which become polluted.

Most people credit (erroneously in my opinion) World War II with being the engine that pulled us out of the Depression. What of the human cost there? There was horrific human devastation under Communist regimes, as well (some would argue more so than in most cases). Human cost is absolutely awful, but certainly not an exclusive characteristic of capitalism.
I know of no communist countries that participated in World War 2. Furthermore, I would argue that the war was a conflict between imperial powers over economic hegemony.


And this brings me back to the point about capitalism providing each individual with the right to say "NO" - a right slaves certainly didn't have. The problem is that most Socialists view a choice between a lesser of two evils as servitude - wrong. Dead Wrong. You still have a choice. Just because you feel dwarfed by the uncertainty that quitting your job would bring, so that you may find better employment elsewhere, doesn't mean that this choice is unjust or unfair. Furthermore, it doesn't mean that you should be provided with another alternative because you're not satisfied with your current set of options. Own your situation. Make the tough choice. And make something happen for yourself. Just because you "feel" trapped doesn't mean you are trapped. Big difference between capitalism and slavery - BIG.
I cannot say "No, I do not want to sell my labor", because that is exactly what our society requires me to do and if I refuse that, then I will die. Capitalism does not allow you to say know and your own rhetoric essentially admits to that by saying "Own your situation", which simply means "Accept these relations, since we have no alternative".

[Broken Parachute]

I find her to be overly condescending and incredibly annoying. I read both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, and I've watched many interviews with her (and I took a class using her work as the crux), and I just find her to be a bit crazy and pretentious.

[Love As Arson]

so... owning my own small business and a house and a car while someone is living out of a car or under a bridge is equivalent to my kidnapping or buying that person and forcing them to work in my business without any sort of compensation?

You misunderstand the analogy. A slave isn't a jealous of his master's freedom, he understands an injustice has been inflicted on his person and wants equality. The same is true of a worker. Also, I recommend looking up the term wage slavery.



you could move to a squatter's farm somewhere in europe, and guess what? you'd still have to perform some sort of work just to eat.
I am not against work. I am against exploitation and the anti-democratic nature of the workplace/economy.

[imchriswalken]

Yes, it does, for her at least.

The unexceptional laborers in "Atlas Shrugged" (i.e. the ones who were simply taking orders and not thinking) were generally dehumanized because they were steered around like cattle by the manipulating suck-ups in power. The fact that she only chose to illustrate a strike from the view point of the prime movers, ignoring hard workers like Dagny's assistant Eddie Willers (who ends up dying alone in the desert) is extremely telling. She argues that their lack of intellect and ability to think for themselves ends up helping the destroyers. They're considered inferior because they're manipulated through "public service" and "charity."

The rest of your post makes a decent point, though (and this is important) it's NOT ONE THAT SHE MAKES DURING THE NOVEL.

it's not stated that he dies in the desert. i'm pretty sure it was left open intentionally, to show that even honest hardworking people can get lost without someone or something to direct him. i guess that could be considered dehumanizing, though i see that as more of a fact of life - some people just can't see very far, even if they can do great work.

as for the unexceptional laborers who weren't thinking, they were intentionally dehumanized to illustrate the evil of buying into something without thinking. someone who shirks his own responsibility out of laziness or apathy to make decisions for himself will likely find himself at the behest of another who is willing to take advantage of him. and back to the honest person who is unable to think for himself for whatever reason, i suppose he's sort of at the mercy of whoever finds him first. that's why it's important to have responsible, practical, reasonable, etc. people as the prime movers, as opposed to the "manipulating suck-ups," but i still think that applies to all systems and not just capitalism.

None. But nobody is arguing that they want a system like that, nor is capitalism the best - let alone the only - system that works. This is a false choice fallacy. You don't have to have only corrupt people in power and opression of those in lower classes or no money and no classes at all. What we're arguing for a system that falls in between - ideally, one where the rich don't collect the most welfare and get the biggest tax breaks just for having more money than others. We don't have to have our energy and our transportation and our government decided by those who have the most money, regardless of whether they've worked to achieve it or not. According to capitalism, someone who starts a company is worth more than everyone else who will ever work for the company, even though they will most likely end up doing the least amount of actual labor toward said company. No one man has ever started a company and made it successful all by himself, so why should he make billions more than everyone else who works for it, as well as be entitled to more say in how the business works overall, as well as receive the highest tax breaks etc. etc. etc? Just because it was his idea? As though nobody else ever contributed a crucial idea toward the development of the company, without which it wouldn't have taken off at all?

It's not that capitalism is flawed because "some people abuse the system and take advantage of others," it's that capitalism revolves around that. The better you are at abusing the system and at clawing your way over others, the more likely you are to succeed in a solely capitalistic society.

again, i think any system with corrupt people at the top will be a problem, not just capitalism. i was asking to have this magical system defined that will allow people to be successful and have whatever they need, but will also inherently prevent a few from taking advantage of the rest. evidence and examples would be appreciated to assist in my understanding.

also, is it defined somewhere that capitalism has to exist at the expense of somebody? like, hey welcome to the club, but in order to be a join, you must exploit someone? i still don't think that's a solely capitalist trait, or that capitalism is defined that way - it's just a cynical way to look at a specific thing that happens and generalize it across the whole system.

as for the business owner, and i'm not sure what your current life status is, but it is a scary thing to put yourself out there and take the risk to start something. it is very likely that you are working longer and harder than anyone else to keep it going (if not, then you must be very smart or have something else going for you), and if it fails, it all falls back on you and whoever you're responsible for. that is not a small thing. and i would think that anyone who made a breakthrough or had a good idea along the way would be rewarded - promotions, bonuses, etc. and after however long, if the company makes it to such a level where billions are involved, as i've said before it takes a special skill to be a leader for something like that.

now the guy who started it may not be working 50 hour weeks to produce and analyze reports, but he's probably hired someone to do it who accepted a certain amount of money for that task. i don't see what's unfair about that, or why the guy who took all (or most) of the risk owes anyone who comes in a later stage as an agreement for certain wages. why is it that, simply because he has more money, the guy who started it owes everyone else, and especially people who may not have contributed at all or possibly even detracted from his work at one point or another? i think that's just as deplorable as a dishonest man starting a business so he can exploit workers and crush competitors.

they're both trying to take what they haven't earned. they're both trying to have something for nothing. and i think they're both evil, and have existed at every stage of civilization, not just starting with the industrial revolution and on through capitalism.

[Matt Chylak]

it's not stated that he dies in the desert. i'm pretty sure it was left open intentionally, to show that even honest hardworking people can get lost without someone or something to direct him. i guess that could be considered dehumanizing, though i see that as more of a fact of life - some people just can't see very far, even if they can do great work.

as for the unexceptional laborers who weren't thinking, they were intentionally dehumanized to illustrate the evil of buying into something without thinking. someone who shirks his own responsibility out of laziness or apathy to make decisions for himself will likely find himself at the behest of another who is willing to take advantage of him. and back to the honest person who is unable to think for himself for whatever reason, i suppose he's sort of at the mercy of whoever finds him first. that's why it's important to have responsible, practical, reasonable, etc. people as the prime movers, as opposed to the "manipulating suck-ups," but i still think that applies to all systems and not just capitalism.

It's all but stated that he dies in the desert, I'm not going to quibble with you.

[imchriswalken]

You misunderstand the analogy. A slave isn't a jealous of his master's freedom, he understands an injustice has been inflicted on his person and wants equality. The same is true of a worker. Also, I recommend looking up the term wage slavery.

I am not against work. I am against exploitation and the anti-democratic nature of the workplace/economy.

thank you for further explaining your analogy. that was indeed all i was asking for (i'm looking at you, thelastnameleft.)

i still don't see why capitalism = only exploitation and anti-democracy. i think individuals in a capitalistic system = the possibility/tendency for exploitation and anti-democracy, and i still assert that those same individuals would cause just as many problems in other economies and societies. yet here i am, also against exploitation. what can be reconciled of that?

i guess my question is (disclaimer - "within the framework of capitalism"), why is it automatically an injustice and inequality if someone works for someone else? turning 16 and working at mcdonalds because you're young and that's the only job you can get doesn't mean you're stuck there. it's not like someone stamped your head as a child, labeled you a fry cook, and you grew up in the mcdonalds caste, forever destined to be flipping burgers. maybe it's unfair that you have to work at mcdonalds because you perceive it as demeaning, but if you're responsible enough, you can parlay that into other things. and for some people, mcdonalds is all they need. why is that an exploitation?

how is it fair to turn 16 and demand that you make as much money as the manager just because you're the one actually making fries? you're not writing the schedule, or filling out legal documents and handling the taxes and health inspections. i think that would be an inequality, because there wouldn't ever be an incentive to rise above making the fries.

if anything, the manager should be responsible for training you and making sure you produce a quality product, which would make you more valuable in terms of attracting more customers, and therefore increase your wages since it's more worthwhile to keep you around. at least, that's how businesses ought to be run.

(end "within framework of capitalism")

i realize that you think it's an injustice that a 16 has to get a job because otherwise he won't be able to afford anything, but where is there a system on earth where people don't have to work for food? there's evasion, but squatting, hopping trains, shop-lifting and left-handing all require a system to exploit.

[imchriswalken]

It's all but stated that he dies in the desert, I'm not going to quibble with you.

you don't have to?

[crackedthesky]

i was asking to have this magical system defined that will allow people to be successful and have whatever they need, but will also inherently prevent a few from taking advantage of the rest. evidence and examples would be appreciated to assist in my understanding.

No one is saying it exists. You can't seem to grasp this. That is a false dilemma. You can't pretend we have only two options, one of which being impossible, and then conclude that the other must be the only logical choice. No one is going to give you evidence and examples of a system that clearly doesn't exist. Stop asking.


also, is it defined somewhere that capitalism has to exist at the expense of somebody?


Ironically, yes. Capitalism doesn't work unless someone is there to buy from someone else. By its very principle, someone must be already above someone else, or else it collapses. In the case of capitalism, in order to keep it going, said commodity must be basic needs, such as food, water, medicine, things people will die without, otherwise the system couldn't sustain itself. If everyone had access to these commodities, nobody would be buying them from anyone else. Therefore, the system is based upon someone who has something, and someone who needs said thing, and then upon the second person being able to meet the demands of the first. The power is shifted entirely to one side.
No one is saying that any system will go without corruption, but when you take a system that depends on two people and give 100% of the control to one of them, it's ridiculously easy to exploit. Capitalism isn't the only system that gets abused, but it is by far the easiest system to abuse. With capitalism, you end up with what we have: less than one percent of our population owns 98% of the wealth, and retain 100% of the power involved in whether or not that changes.



as for the business owner, and i'm not sure what your current life status is, but it is a scary thing to put yourself out there and take the risk to start something.

While this may be true, doesn't deciding to work for that person also count as a risk? And in any case, is that risk worth more than all of the labor that will ever be put into making it work, even hundreds of years after the risk has been taken? Capitalism says the answer is yes. You have ketchup companies founded over a hundred years ago, but the current CEO, who never took that risk, still makes millions more than the workers, doesn't he?


it is very likely that you are working longer and harder than anyone else to keep it going
(if not, then you must be very smart or have something else going for you), and if it fails, it all falls back on you and whoever you're responsible for.

Not even close. We just had ALL of our major banks fail. Did that fall on the CEOs? Hell no. They got PAID for it. It fell on the middle class. CEOs almost never take the blame for a company going under. They invest the money in golden parachutes, making sure that if they fuck up, they get a big bonus and the blame lands on anyone but them. Meanwhile, the workers get a "sorry, better luck next time, go find another job."


that is not a small thing. and i would think that anyone who made a breakthrough or had a good idea along the way would be rewarded - promotions, bonuses, etc.


Nope. Sometimes, but anyone? If that was the case, you'd have companies with a hundred different CEOs.


and after however long, if the company makes it to such a level where billions are involved, as i've said before it takes a special skill to be a leader for something like that.

Obviously not. Companies tend to last longer than their "leader." A company can have a hundred different leaders and still be just fine. A company can have no leader and be just fine. But without workers, the company can't be anything at all. If a company makes it that far, it's because of the leader and the workers. You can be the greatest leader who ever lived, but if you're the last man on earth, you're pretty much fucking worthless, aren't you? There's a symbiotic relationship, but capitalism gives all of the money and all of the power to one side of it, based on the priniciple that "it was my idea, so I get all of the profit from it."


now the guy who started it may not be working 50 hour weeks to produce and analyze reports, but he's probably hired someone to do it who accepted a certain amount of money for that task.

This goes back to that risk factor we talked about earlier. Here's the problem with it:
Who gets to decide that "certain amount?"
Again, you have one side who gets to decide how much is made. And here's where it gets complicated:
Idea Man Johnson has an idea. He hires Worker Bob, says "I'll give you x amount of money to do the work."
Bob does the work, gets paid x amount of money. The idea sells, and the company gets a thousand dollar bonus. Who gets it? Idea Man Johnson gets it. And yeah, he should give Bob a raise. But he doesn't have to. And capitalism says Bob has to accept it or gtfo. So you have two people who contributed to one goal, and one of them gets to decide how the benefits of both of their work is divided. So yeah, Bob accepted that he'd do the work for x amount of money. But now the company is off the ground, and now Johnson can say "now we're going to do things this way" and Bob gets no say in it. Basically, one guy can change the rules, change what was agreed upon, and that's okay, but he owes the worker nothing in return. Sure, it would be nice if Bob got a raise. But he doesn't have to, because capitalism says he doesn't have to. And yeah, he can go look for another job, but that doesn't mean he'll find one. He most likely won't. So one side gets to decide everything, and the other gets to just deal with it. It has absolutely nothing to do with who worked more, who contributed more, or even who made what risks, in the end. It comes down solely to whoever has the idea gets to decide. You have one CEO and a thousand workers, and the CEO still gets to decide. I don't care if he DOES take 50 hours a week to produce reports; he's not working harder than one thousand employees, but he's making more money than one thousand employees.


i don't see what's unfair about that, or why the guy who took all (or most) of the risk owes anyone who comes in a later stage as an agreement for certain wages.

Because taking a job is also taking a risk. So one guy takes one risk and it's fair that he gets all of the money, but a thousand workers who take the same risk are only allowed to profit as much as the first guy says they are? You don't see how that's even slightly unfair?


why is it that, simply because he has more money, the guy who started it owes everyone else,

It's not because he has more money. If the company does very well one year, who gets a raise? The CEO. Who doesn't? The workers. Some of them might, sure. But not all of them. Every single one contributed to having a better year, so why does only one reap the reward of it? He doesn't owe everyone else, and it's not for having more money. If the company does better and takes in more money, he's sure to get more, but nobody else is, even though they're all a part of the company.


and especially people who may not have contributed at all or possibly even detracted from his work at one point or another? i think that's just as deplorable as a dishonest man starting a business so he can exploit workers and crush competitors.

That is deplorable, sure. But I wonder what the ratio of corrupt CEOs is to workers who are secretly trying to bring down the company they work for.
And besides that, the CEO's job is to maximize profit. This often comes at the expense, either financially or literally, of the workers. Why is it not okay for a worker to do something that might detract from the CEO's work, but it's okay for the CEO to, say, not pay for an oil pipe shutoff valve that results in an explosion that kills dozens of people? Maybe we should check the history books, and we'll count how many workers have died due to work place accidents in comparison to the number of CEOs who died due to work place accidents. You'll find two things: That the number of the former far outweighs the latter, and that in every case, the CEO was behind the decision that led to said accident. Now let's take this back to that risk factor: Henry Ford took a risk starting a motor company. He deserves all profit from this. But the workers don't, because they aren't taking a risk? If Henry Ford had fallen through, he might've been financially bankrupt. But if the same happened to the worker, they don't go bankrupt. They lose a limb. They die.
Of course, it's not that extreme anymore, but do you see what I'm getting at? You act like only one man makes a risk to get a company off of the ground, and you're incorrect. So clearly, risk isn't the deciding factor. The deciding factor is principle. My company, my rules, my profit.


they're both trying to take what they haven't earned. they're both trying to have something for nothing. and i think they're both evil, and have existed at every stage of civilization, not just starting with the industrial revolution and on through capitalism.

And the difference is that one of them can pay lawmakers and lawyers to make sure they not only don't go to jail for it, but that they get paid for it and even that someone else goes to jail for it, while the other gets to rot in prison. Because our economy relies heavily on capitalism, the rules are incredibly relaxed. For example, some restaurants are exempt from paying minimum wage on the premise that the waiters will probably make that money in tips. Isn't that exactly the opposite of everything you're saying? The waiter is promised x amount of money and earns y more, but because they earn y, they suddenly aren't entitled to x? But I'll bet the CEO doesn't have to compromise his salary if he gets a bonus, does he? And nobody finds this odd; in fact, they make it law. Now we have a case of someone making something for nothing, and someone else making nothing for something, and capitalism says that's just fine and dandy.

[saysmydoctor]

You have no idea how nice it is to not be the only voice from this side. Your friend is something else.
Yeah, he frames an argument. You could start from there.

[Simulcast]

Yeah, he frames an argument. You could start from there.

You can learn to engage someone without insulting them.

[Just Matt]

Well an oligarchy technically doesn't have anything to do with business. It's a structure of government. I mean, if the Ant-Trust Act was put in place to make business more competitive for the smaller businesses (a whole other argument, I'm just referring to the spirit of the legislation), then wouldn't a system of government that protects the market share (bailouts) for a few, large businesses exclusively, create JUST that... an Oligopoly?

You didn't say Oligarchy. You used the term Oligopoly. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/oligopoly

[Jake Gyllenhaal]

I think I stated earlier in this thread that I found Ayn Rand boring, but a friend of a friend posted this on Facebook:

PqWd46O64zU

Is Ayn Rand's philosophy as simplistic as that?

[GuitarR0cker1]

Fuck Ayn Rand. I can't believe I have to read a turd of her's this semester (Anthem). I'm going to thoroughly enjoy ripping the book's ideas to shreds in class.

[saysmydoctor]

We were discussing philosophies of education in class on Tuesday and Objectivism came up. I can think of no better example than seeing Rand's philosophy applied to education that shows just how uninspired Rand is and how little she actually understands about human nature.

[Nuns On A Bus]

Whatever happened to that jefro guy?

[Jake Gyllenhaal]

Atlas Shrugged Part 1 opens today. After watching the trailer, it's no surprise the film is getting terrible reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, so far it has a 6% rating (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/atlas_shrugged_part_i/) (from only 16 reviews at the moment).

Unfortunately, the critical reception for the film thus far has been rather abysmal. "I suspect only someone very familiar with Rand's 1957 novel could understand the film at all," Roger Ebert wrote (http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110414/REVIEWS/110419990) in the Chicago Sun Times. "For the rest of us, it involves a series of business meetings in luxurious retro leather-and-brass board rooms and offices, and restaurants and bedrooms that look borrowed from a hotel no doubt known as the Robber Baron Arms." "Part one of a trilogy that may never see completion, this hasty, low-budget adaptation would have Ayn Rand spinning in her grave," wrote Peter Dubruge in Variety (http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117944986?refcatid=31). Bill Goodykoontz went further in the Arizona Republic (http://www.azcentral.com/thingstodo/movies/articles/2011/04/14/20110414atlas-shrugged-review-goodykoontz.html), writing that "the acting is so poor and the story so badly told that the viewer's feelings about Rand's novel -- an epic ode to free-market fundamentalism -- are almost immaterial."


The director of the film is a life-long fan of Rand, and said that if the movie does not do well, he will never make another movie again.

Yet, the marketing team behind the film is hoping the TEA Party movement will make the film a success

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/14/atlas-shrugged-film-tea-party_n_849445.html

[Mitch]

I am glad the movie hasn't been as hyped up as my friends and I had expected it to be.

[Simulcast]

I love this book, but have absolutely no desire to ever see this film. It should never have been made.

Side note: Rand was no fan of conservatism.

Extra side note: She was no fan of crony big business either.

[Love As Arson]

lol. Exegesis of her texts doesn't change the fact that her work is terrible.

[Theseventhson]

Extra Extra Side Note: She wasn't a very good writer

[The Personist]

lol. Exegesis of her texts doesn't change the fact that her work is terrible.

Extra Extra Side Note: She wasn't a very good writer

These.

[loveisdead]

Criticizing her writing (which wasn't good) seems like a cop out on the bigger picture.

[Matt Chylak]

I'd like to see the film, despite reviews. she tells an original story

[GuitarR0cker1]

Paul Ryan gives all of his staff members copies of Atlas Shrugged, all the more reason for me to hate him with a passion.

[The Personist]

She does not tell stories well.

[Broken Parachute]

Reading Atlas Shrugged was like getting root canal.

[The Personist]

Criticizing her writing (which wasn't good) seems like a cop out on the bigger picture.

I disagree with this. I think criticizing her writing is perfectly fine, especially because it fit with her didactic aesthetic. Form and content are not so easily separable, and Rand was quick to criticize avant-garde/Modernist writers for their formal innovations (see: Fountainhead). So, I think it's fine to criticize her writing. What she's saying and how she's saying it are intricately linked, so when I criticize one, I criticize both.

[Matt Chylak]

her plots are interesting enough, if poorly executed

[The Personist]

No, her plots are not interesting. They are vehicles for her didactic nonsense.

[open mind]

someone bought me atlas shrugged when i was locked up and i still ended up telling myself that it would take to much time to read it.....especially cause the philosophy behind it makes me want to gag.

edit:that may sound like i'm writing off the philosophy without giving it a chance, but that isn't the case.

[knash9]

My coworker, the only one thats politically coherent, was talking about bad Atlas is. He said should have been 400 pages max and she can't describe things for shit. Anyone agree or disagree?

[loveisdead]

My coworker, the only one thats politically coherent, was talking about bad Atlas is. He said should have been 400 pages max and she can't describe things for shit. Anyone agree or disagree?

Most everyone here would agree.

[Simulcast]

How many people have actually read the full text?

[knash9]

Most everyone here would agree.

I guess I'm kinda of late to the party on this and I can't imagine ever reading any of her works

[loveisdead]

I guess I'm kinda of late to the party on this and I can't imagine ever reading any of her works

Eh, it's just that the regulars here are almost all left-leaning. Rand is the polar opposite.

[The Personist]

How many people have actually read the full text?

She wrote two books. I read Fountainhead.

EDIT: Two novels. I don't care about anything other than the novels since--and it really pains me to say this--having looked at her other work I find the writing even worse than her fiction.

[Simulcast]

She wrote two books. I read Fountainhead.

EDIT: Two novels. I don't care about anything other than the novels since--and it really pains me to say this--having looked at her other work I find the writing even worse than her fiction.

3 novels. Plus two short stories.

Fair enough though. At least you gave it a shot.

[The Personist]

3 novels. Plus two short stories.

Fair enough though. At least you gave it a shot.

I think if she had taken the time to actually engage in the thought she disagreed with instead of erecting egregious straw men, I'd take her more seriously. As it stands, though, she just bandies about skeletons of things she disagrees with as if that somehow allows her to rationally prove her point. And, to make a quick distinction, I am OK with someone like Nietzsche who isn't so heavy on the source-citing or example-explicating, precisely because his whole point is to work against that kind of rational thinking (Sorry Dom if you're reading this, I know that's reductive). With Rand, you would expect a lot more rigor when it came to framing her ideas: after all, she's obsessed with rational thought.

[Simulcast]

I think if she had taken the time to actually engage in the thought she disagreed with instead of erecting egregious straw men, I'd take her more seriously. As it stands, though, she just bandies about skeletons of things she disagrees with as if that somehow allows her to rationally prove her point. And, to make a quick distinction, I am OK with someone like Nietzsche who isn't so heavy on the source-citing or example-explicating, precisely because his whole point is to work against that kind of rational thinking (Sorry Dom if you're reading this, I know that's reductive). With Rand, you would expect a lot more rigor when it came to framing her ideas: after all, she's obsessed with rational thought.

I've yet to read all of her non-fiction, so unfortunately I cannot agree or disagree with your assessment.

[Matt Chylak]

How many people have actually read the full text?

I've read Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged a few times. I think she has interesting, yet impractical ideas that aren't supported well.

[Simulcast]

I've read Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged a few times. I think she has interesting, yet impractical ideas that aren't supported well.

I would have to agree here. She favors a different sort of utopia, one that is predicated on perfecting human nature.

[Matt Chylak]

I would have to agree here. She favors a different sort of utopia, one that is predicated on perfecting human nature.

the second-handers in Atlas Shrugged even argue that the main characters aren't "practical," but get shut down

[Simulcast]

the second-handers in Atlas Shrugged even argue that the main characters aren't "practical," but get shut down

Yes, but they also are incapable of producing. I think that some qualities of the first handers are to be admired, but on the whole they are not human.

[Matt Chylak]

Yes, but they also are incapable of producing. I think that some qualities of the first handers are to be admired, but on the whole they are not human.

they're more Platonic ideals of characters rather than well-formed characters

[knash9]

Eh, it's just that the regulars here are almost all left-leaning. Rand is the polar opposite.

I know these threads are biased but it was more of a I'm pretty left-leaning so its probably not worth my time.

[Love As Arson]

How many people have actually read the full text?
I read Atlas Shrugged. This was prior to my turn towards Marxism and even at that point, I noticed the writing wasn't very good and the ideas she conveyed were horrific. Sadly, I could not return the book, so I used the pages to roll up my tobacco.

[Simulcast]

I read Atlas Shrugged. This was prior to my turn towards Marxism and even at that point, I noticed the writing wasn't very good and the ideas she conveyed were horrific. Sadly, I could not return the book, so I used the pages to roll up my tobacco.

lol

[jefro0685]

Wow. So this was a long time ago. I'm sorry guys, but I just can't justify spending three hours on replying to an online thread. I found this on my computer and figured I'd post it. I included quotes OF quotes to help refresh the context of the argument.

- Jeff


Atrocious writing, perhaps. Main criticism was too much dialogue. However, I felt it kept the pacing going in most cases - and would it have been better for Rand to preach philosophical ideals in prose form directly to the reader? Probably far worse.
I would prefer if she took the time to create something that not a waste of intellectual energy.

If you don't like someone's writing, don't buy their book. If enough people feel as you do, said writer will no longer have the means to continue on with writing as his or her profession - this is the beauty of Capitalism.

However, I'll be honest. I had to put the book down for a while when I got the part of Dagny crashing in Galt's Gulch. What seemed silly to me was that just because people "loved working and being productive" meant that they'd actually be GOOD and CAPABLE at doing these jobs. It sounds silly to reference, but just look at the show Undercover Boss - case and point. But I understood the story to be an overall hyperbole in order to clearly (and repeatedly) make her case. As a piece of literature you HAVE to take it with a grain of salt.I take the ideas within it seriously, because that is what she seemed to want.

If that's how you took it, then that's how you took it. However, I find it hard to believe that Rand was seriously suggesting that all of the heads of the major corporations of the world gather together and live hidden away from the world in a valley somewhere in Colorado, obscured by a cloaking device and a powered by a static energy generator - both of which were (and, to my knowledge still are) forms of nonexistent technology.

Nothing in capitalism is force. It's an agreement. Agreement on price and value. It's a contract whose terms are decided by the collective through their individual votes in the form of individual purchases. In a pure capitalist society you always have the freedom to say "no". Governments that impose price fixes that aren't voted on by peoples dollars - that's force. That's a few deciding what's good for the many. And in order for a system like that to work, the people making the decisions must be of flawless integrity and intelligence. You can't expect that from anyone, well intended as they may be.Any economic organization is predicated on force, whether it be an explicit violence, as seen in police repression, or ideological force in the form of creating the worker subject and advocating this state of affairs as immutable. Furthermore, your response remains confined to the framework of capitalism, which is essentially what I am interrogating; you can argue that people vote with their purchases, but my point of contention is the public doesn't get a voice in whether or not the system itself should continue to exist.

No. Wrong. Not all economic organizations are predicated on force. Only command economies work in terms of force (hence the term command economy). In such an economy the government controls labor, they own all means of production, and they decide how each get used. Free market capitalism allows each member of society to exercise his or her own free will and do with their own life what they decide is best for them.

It's only Socialists who believe it's possible to centrally plan what's best for an entire group of individual people, each of entirely different circumstances, and each of entirely different subjective value judgements. You can't force a structure onto natural human behavior. It does not work.

All you can do is set up a system of non-aggression and free agreement between individuals. The structure rises out of that organically…it doesn't need to be forced.

Example:
After a snow storm, a boy offers to shovel his elderly neighbor's driveway for a fee of $10. Elderly neighbor believes that it's worth sacrificing $10 so that he may avoid the backbreaking work and the boy thinks that the work is so easy that getting $10 is a steal. Both parties walk away happy. Both willingly entered into this agreement. Where's the force?

So I guess you're right. The "public" (a very loose term that Socialists love to use) has no say over the "system" I live under or how I go about my own life. They get no say whatsoever about my place in this world. It's all on me - for better or for worse.

And that's how it should be.

One must stay competitive and valuable to the collective in order to maintain any sort of worth.This is one of my issues with capitalism. Everything, including human worth, is fixed with a price tag.


You're going in circles. I'll quote a previous post of mine…
(From page 3)
"Furthermore, how do you apply a dollar valuation to a human life in order to reach a number with which you can compare to the cost of oil? These are repugnant concepts and can't be logically debated."

Human worth has no dollar valuation. However, a person's productivity does. What a person has to offer to the rest of society to improve the surroundings of all others matters, yes… it matters a great deal. However, this speaks nothing to the person's value as a human being. Again, capitalists believe in the right to life… no one is saying that an individual who is unemployed deserves to die. Capitalists just believe that if you find yourself in such a situation, you have no right to demand that someone else provide for your existence. (However, asking for a helping hand never hurt anyone… you're just not entitled to anything from anyone else - that's all.)

There's a difference between being active and productive. When you are productive you serve the collective need, motivated by yourself interest. It says: you've made X amount of contribution to society.
That does not make, for we know those who make society function and who produce wealth do not receive monetary compensation for their contribution; rather, they are told that they should be happy for the little they get in return. Furthermore, we know those who receive wealth have, alongside with their commodities, provided environmental damage, for example, to the collective and have gone unpunished. If we follow your line of logic, then someone like Paris Hilton has made more of a contribution to society than a single-mother who works in a production warehouse.

No one is told that they must be happy with anything. An employer says: "X is what your labor is worth to me. I'm only going to pay you X amount, otherwise I'd rather invest the money elsewhere (like new machinery). If you find these terms to be agreeable, then come work for me. If not, seek employment elsewhere."

First of all, whether or not a laborer is a woman, single or a mother has nothing to do with her productive output in a warehouse. Secondly, Paris Hilton had the good fortune of being born into a family that had produced a hotel service for millions of people. It made travel and vacation easy and more accessible. Her wealth was bestowed upon her by loving (and perhaps overindulgent) parents who chose to give Paris that money because it made them more happy to see her have it than it did for them to hold onto the money for themselves. It was a value judgement; a willing exchange that both parties benefited from (in the eyes of the exchangers).

As for Paris' contribution to society. Let me propose this scenario: Paris Hilton tweets about a new line of clothes on Twitter. She is paid $10,000 for the simple endorsement. The ad was part of a campaign paid for by an ad agency that employs thousands of people. The campaign is a big deal because it's a large account with a major clothing label that may pay thousands upon thousands of dollars over the next few years, thus allowing the ad agency to expand and employ more people. The clothing line is happy because the exposure on Twitter spikes their sales for the next few weeks. The sudden influx of capital allows the clothing line to reinvest in their means of production with new machinery. The new machinery is operated by existing workers who are retrained to use this new machinery. This new training is something that can be permanently added to each worker's résumé and makes them more skilled laborers than before. The company's investment in training and new machinery increases the productive output per worker and makes them each more valuable to the company. As a result, your single mother working in a warehouse is given a raise.

You DO get profits in return - so long as you provide a service deemed worthy by the public and in a more efficient manner than any of your competitors.
Workers do not receive the full amount of compensation for the time they spent laboring. It is not an issue of whether or not they are competitive in the long view, as capitalism requires a suppression of wages to maintain profitability.

How can you speak in such universal terms about every worker on earth? Who is to say what the absolute value of labor is? The value of one's labor is whatever it is they willingly agree to give it for.

Laborers aren't receiving the full amount of compensation for their labor? Then why are they still there? Why not leave? I'm happier than a pig in sh*t at my job. I get paid more than fair, however I always have an eye out for new opportunities. Am I some random, deluded anomaly?

EVERYONE wants more money. Think Socialists are exempt from the desire for more? Notice that you only deplore capitalism for not paying the worker enough… in other words you feel that each worker should experience a higher level of profitability. However, you deplore the employer for seeking a higher level of profitability. This isn't some "principled argument" you're making about how Man's contribution to society should be for some higher aesthetic ideal (although that's how Marxism is often packaged).

A socialist is a capitalist in disguise who sympathizes exclusively with the "have-nots" of society. Free Market Capitalists are those who sympathize with the rights of all individuals and refuse to penalize men for their capability.

If capitalism required a suppression of wages to maintain profitability than all I'd have to do is kidnap a group of people, get them to perform some menial task, and watch the money roll in. Except I need to produce something. I need to produce something that other people want. I need to produce something that other people want better than a competitor of mine. A competitor that probably has higher productive output because he keeps his employees happy with a fair, market-priced wage.


The process of natural selection is one glorified in science and deplored in economics.I actually think most economists, when it comes down to it, agree with social Darwinism. My own objection is related to the fact that natural selection in nature is a requirement, whereas the economic realm is one of choice; that is, humans have erected the relations in which the weak(those who do the work) are subjected to the strong (those who exploit), but this can be changed and we can create a society in which production is concretely tied to the needs of all people.


Humans do have choice, yes - individual choice. Once again, in a true capitalist society - no one is exploited. I've met people who were exploited. In 2009 I had the pleasure of being sponsored to go to the UN for a conference on women's rights. A large part of this conference was spent on human trafficking. The survivors I met, they were exploited… not some poor sap counting his days until his pension. He can leave at any time. While the "exploiters" of these people being trafficked were motivated by profit, that doesn't make them capitalists.

True, free market, libertarian capitalism endorses a policy of nonaggression. In other words, all aspects of life should be an agreement between consenting individuals. NOTHING should ever be demanded or taken from another - ever.

Once again, capitalists do not attempt to place ANY structure on people. They simply give them the freedom to choose, the right to life and property, and an organic structure arises out of that naturally. Bastiat once marveled at something as simple as the fact that all of Paris was fed. Or read the article 'I, Pencil'. No central planner is needed - in fact, one should be avoided.

No one person can decide how to concretely tie all production to the needs of all people. Individuals do that. In capitalism it's called supply and demand. How could one person possibly guess what's best for the needs of a group of people? Or know the best way to go about meeting these needs? How could he know what resources to use, in what amounts, so as to avoid waste? No single person can know this. It's naïve. It doesn't work. It hasn't worked.

Furthermore, you seem to ignore the fact that "the weak" have every opportunity to rise to a position of power should they prove capable. Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish immigrant who worked his way up from the bottom of rung of the steel industry.

I can see that point. She seems to think that logic is all there is to morality. I disagree. The most logical person in the world is a psychopath. One devoid of emotion. Rand speaks of rationality as morality, but then says only pursue what makes you happy. She cleans it up for the reader by the end of the book…. that one must live with complete honesty and integrity for oneself, in ALL aspects of your life
That is not my disagreement. "Reason" and "Rationality" have been affixed meaning within the capitalist framework and there conceptualization is one which reinforces the bourgeois narrative.

Well, if you ever find yourself dehydrated in a desert, but happen upon the knowledge that there is a fresh water spring one mile north, I guess you could try to appeal to the sentimental side of your surroundings. You could try to tell the ground how tired you are already and how to get up and walk another mile in this heat might push you past the point exhaustion. You could tell the ground of how much you've suffered in this desert for a few days already, and that you need the ground to give way for you so that it may part and allow the fresh water spring to run downhill towards you.

Or you could do the "rational" and "reasonable" thing, accept the fact that the real, concrete world of cause and effect is most often austere, pick yourself up and labor your way to the fresh water spring.

Capitalists aren't rational to be cold. They're not trying to be devoid of emotion. They say things are such and such a way - that humans behave this or that way - because that's the way it is.

If you remember at the end of Atlas Shrugged, Eddie Willers (a protagonist in the story) is left banging against the dead train because he lacks the know-how to fix it. The train needed fuel to move, all the sentiment and good nature in the world wouldn't move it an inch.

I'm sorry. But that is just 1000% incorrect. In the book Dagny Taggart is constantly fighting against the powers of government. That's why they all go on strike. They leave because the government has become authoritarian. That's the crux of the whole book.

John Galt states FLAT out in his speech that government is there to protect the safety of people in the form of a police, the rights of the people in the form of contracts, and the safety of a country in the form of an army. That's it. Any additional powers the government has were not placed there by true free market, capitalist libertarians.
Allow me to be more clear: If government's role is designated as the protector of the rights of man and the rights of man are definitely related to property and wealth, then those who have the most of those assets will be those who are protected; the people who do not have these things, who are the majority, then are a subject to system without representation because, by definition, they do not meet the criteria and if they oppose these sets of relation, then they are infringing on the rights of man (the rights of the bourgeois) and must be met with force. That is authoritarian; the rule of the minority over the majority.

That's because man's rights are not directly related to property and wealth.

All men are endowed with the right to life, liberty and property. What he makes of these are entirely up to him. The price he pays for this freedom is the agreement that he will never insist that another provide for him.

The only way the elite few could rule over the majority is by direct force or through coercion by the state. This is a socialist concept. In a society with the right to individual property, the only way one could be deprived of his property is in the event that the government tells him what he can or cannot do with that property. The US is a mixed economy that shrinks the capital resources of it's citizens with it's inflationary fiscal and monetary policies, as well as the tariffs and regulations it imposes on markets when it decides they are necessary.

This is the central planner trying to hide behind the guise of liberty. It is not free market capitalism.

Furthermore, what country do you live in, in which the majority of society owns nothing? Clearly, you, at the very least, own a computer.

The one mistake that keeps getting made is that the system of capitalism doesn't work as evidenced by our current economic environment. Capitalist? You sure? With a central bank, fixed interest rates, government intervention in the private sector, and a fiat currency decoupled from anything of real value. Please find any book that considers this form of economic structure to be Capitalism - it's not. We're not.The current economic crises is a demonstration of capitalism's failures, however, it reveals the tendencies of the capitalism, the inherent mechanisms by which crises arise and cannot be abated. This is not an aberration, it is the logical conclusion of organization under the capitalist mode of production, just as government intervention is. The very foundations of capitalism,i.e., wealth accumulation, making profits, the circulation of commodities, and so on, necessarily lead to periodic crises; for, as you said, it acts as sort of a cleansing fire and once profitability is established again, the process begins anew with another crises at the end.


I list a litany of institutions that pretty much define our current economic state, every one of which is the farthest thing from a true capitalist state, and your response is the glance over these and restate your original point: "The current economic crises is a demonstration of capitalism's failures..."

No, this is not the example of capitalism's failures. Read what F.A. Hayek had to say about the business cycle.

The current crises began when Greenspan lowered interest rates to impossibly low levels in order to stimulate spending after the 'dot-com' bubble. Interest rates, like prices, are bits of information that inform consumer spending. When interest rates are lower, longer term investment in projects are encouraged because people are more willing to borrow and less willing to save. This manifested in a glut of housing production that drove housing prices well beyond what they were actually worth. Furthermore, you had government legislation intervening with private enterprise when Congress tried to create "an ownership society" by telling lending institutions that if they didn't lend to riskier borrowers they could face legal action for discrimination. To be clear, before the housing bubble you didn't need a job or even good credit to get a loan. Furthermore, what did the lending institutions care? The loans are backed by the federal government (aka the taxpayer). This removes all risk from the process lending. This risk would normally occur in a capitalist society in which the lender (as a risk-taking entrepreneur) would own all profits as well as all losses. After a few years of this process of inflating the bubble, all that was necessary was a few defaulted loans to make the whole house of cards fall.

This is the cascade of events that led to our current crises. Intervention and central planning - once again NOT capitalist.

As for the "cleansing fire". The business cycle would not be necessary with out the ebb and flow the Fed creates with it's monetary policy. F.A. Hayek won the Nobel Prize for his explanation of how the Fed creates the business cycle. It manipulates the information the consumer needs to make financial decisions (interest rates, money supply, etc.) which then encourages incorrect spending practices… this creates the boom and bust.

What are the odds that a group of separate, competing lending institutions ALL came down at the same time without a common central cause?



She never once advocates the use of violence except in protection of one's own person or property. The only time she even comes close to advocating violence is when she mildly empathizes the emotions of Nathaniel Taggart when told of the rumor that he allegedly killed a government official who threatened to take some part of his business - that's it. Things get ugly in the book, but she was trying to point out that chaos ensues when you depart from logical order. She wasn't advocating chaos.I've explained above how I've drawn my conclusions regarding her advocacy of violence.


I've refuted them all thoroughly.


You're forgetting one thing about the worker. He has the right to say NO. He can branch out on his own and find a new job that will make him happier. The same way the business owner took the risk of starting a company, so too can the worker take the risk to find a better job. It's risk vs. reward. Just because it might be hard or difficult to do doesn't mean your absolved from the responsibility of improving your own surroundings. Sometimes the choice is a lesser of two evils with no real "good" option - that's just life.
Again, you remain within the framework of capitalism. The question isn't whether or not the individual can say no to this or that particular job, but whether or not the worker can say no to exploitation and wage labor itself. So long as the relations of production remain, where workers remain disempowered, alienation will persist; the very act of transforming oneself into a commodity to be sold is the point from which this deep dissatisfaction flows.

I remain within the framework of human choice. The human can say no to wage labor. He can either choose to be unemployed, or he can save and invest his capital into a business of his own. No one is holding a knife to the throat of all laborers telling them to stay put. Dissatisfaction is what motivates all action in life. There is no impulse to act in the absence of discontent. We would all stay in bed in the morning if we didn't dislike the idea of losing our jobs or if we didn't dislike the idea of feeling lazy or unproductive more than we liked the comfort of remaining in bed. Dissatisfaction stems from being a living person of needs and wants.

You have a choice. If you are really that opposed to capitalist structures and they disgust you so much, you can certainly educate yourself as to how to live apart from society at a subsistence level. Human beings did it for thousands of years. But you do not get to take part in the society of abundance that is built on human cooperation and individual contribution without being willing to contribute yourself.

You are entitled to nothing in this life other than the opportunity to improve your current set of surroundings.

And for God's sake… stop begging the question that workers are "disempowered". They're not. Workers just don't get to tell a business owner what he gets to do with his own company (his property) the same way I don't get to tell you how to arrange the furniture in your living room. If they don't like the company, they can leave (and remove themselves from the capitalist structure altogether if they desire to do so).


As denoted by the suffix -cracy. Plutocracy is a form of government. Oligopoly is a business structure in which a few elite maintain the largest part of the market share. One of the way companies have done this in our country is by gaining favor with the elected officials of our Republic through campaign donations. The wealthy don't actually rule the country in our current government structure. Perhaps I should have been more specific with saying Corporatism. Dare you disagree with the beloved Arianna Huffington (Intended to be tongue-in-cheek)
My point is using that term is to specifically denote the relationship between business and government. The government's priorities, its conceptualization of rights and the health of the nation as a whole, are intrinsically tied to capitalist relations; they reinforce them and, when necessary, acts to re-establish profitability. And no, Huffington, as a liberal, lacks the theory to interpret society as it functions in reality.


Again, in a true free market society, the government has the power to do none of these things. It can't define anything. It can only enforce the agreements people enter into and protect each individual's right to life, liberty and property. Only in a mixed economy of socialist overtones are these things possible.


You can only expropriate lands if they are first owned privately. The "expropriation" of land in this country was the removal of Native Americans from it. It was either that or go about it the civil, logical, capitalist route: pay them a fair amount for it. But once again comes that nagging thorn in the sides of most Socialists. The right to say "no". The expropriation of land to the wealthy class in America formed the basis of our economy by convention, not by necessity - why pay for something when you can take it? Here, force and conquest were what served as the "foundation" you speak of. Capitalism had nothing to do with it. There is no reason to believe that land must be taken in order for the system of Capitalism to function properly.I was actually referring to the end of the feudal era, in which the state expropriated agricultural lands from peasants feudal lords; this was followed by a succession of laws which made it a crime to not have a trade, to be a vagabond and to be idle. Essentially, these laws were a means to force former peasants into the relations we now call wage labor. Since your brought up Native Americans, and we might as well say the slave trade, you argue that capitalism had nothing to do with it, but we know concretely it did; for it was the bourgeois who justified it, who provided the ideological bases and the impetus for the state to act in its interests. We can say "What if?", but it has no historical basis and we are speaking about the concrete formation, and subsequent relations, of capitalism. The state was there in the beginning and we cannot pretend that it played, and continues to play, a vital role in the maintenance of the system. To your last point, capitalism maintains profitability by expanding markets and exploiting new natural resources, and given its criteria for human rights, it was logically consistent to employ genocide and slavery to advance capitalism. Furthermore, very little has changed, as we only need to look to the Middle East and Latin America, where businesses have used terrible violence and anti-democratic means to open markets and to get their hands on natural resources. Always present is capitalist formulation of rights, and Rand's as well, which makes it permissible to oppress the indigenous population; of course, there are humanitarian arguments for oppression, but these differ very little from "The white man's burden".


No. I argued that the individual desire for gain motivated the removal of Indians from their land, but the use of force (as opposed to free agreement) makes it non-capitalist. This is not a definitive structure of a capitalist society. It happens, yes, but not because the society is capitalist. You can be a Communist and still be a bastard - it's possible. You get evil people in every society. Stealing isn't necessary in a capitalist society - if it were… why do people trade everyday? If it was necessary "at the beginning" why is it not necessary today? Do you know who confiscates your property? Communist governments - actually it's a tenant of Communism. But it's done for the good of "the public," so that makes the theft justifiable.

What is this socialist utopia you imagine where because people declare themselves "Socialist" they somehow automatically behave morally? You keep mentioning the horrors of the capitalist engine, and then list examples that would have been impossible had the government been operating under a truly capitalist, free market, libertarian state. The above examples range from Communist behavior to Fascist behavior... in each, the government is taking control over individual rights and property. How is this capitalist or libertarian?

In a true free market, capitalist society, by law the state would not have had the power to expropriate lands from feudal lords, the choice not to trade would have been perfectly legal, and the Native Americans would have been paid in full for the land (something the US attempts to make up in reparations - and, by the way, much of the land was paid for. New Amsterdam for example was not the result of "white man force."). Anything else would have been unlawful or wrong, but I fail to see how taking the power out of the hands of this supposed "ruling" class and placing in the hands of a centralized government power would have prevented any of these atrocities…why are these people suddenly more moral? Because they've announced that they act in the name of the public good?

The failure of the state and it's "maintenance of the system" is an example of the socialist overtones that have crept their way into of government structure and created utter chaos. IT'S NOT CAPITALISM. What structure is there to maintain in a system of freely agreeing individuals besides maintaining their right to freely agree?

The only relations that matter in capitalism is that between individuals. Yes, "the state was there in the beginning" and was intended to play a very limited role… which it does not do anymore.

Just because money is changing hands doesn't mean it falls under the banner of free market capitalism. You are debating with an advocate of the wrong system of economics and individual rights. Try Ben Bernanke.



Fairness is what constitutes the very nature of capitalism. What could be less fair than a group of people, each of whom contributing in various amounts to the whole of society, walking away with the same level of compensation.That isn't what we understand in reality . Necessarily, there must be those who do more work for less, while those who actually are idle receive all of the benefits


No. There are those who save and invest their capital. They are called entrepreneurs and business owners. As a result of their willingness to take risks, they are rewarded in the form of profit. The people who are good and smart entrepreneurs have growing businesses, and as a result they are able to expand their business and obtain more resources. This process of economic Darwinism ensures that the scarce resources of society are used in the most efficient way because only those meeting the needs of the people (as evidenced by their profits) will be allowed to continue on existing. If not, these entrepreneurs go bankrupt and they are unable to waste anymore scarce resources.

These people are not idle. The are the risk takers that drive society and every member of our society with a good idea can become one of them.

THIS is what we understand in reality.

If I were to take away all the factories, machinery, training, materials and money that the entrepreneur provides to the workers of his shoemaking factory, how long before those "exploited laborers" produced a single pair of shoes? Furthermore, if they own all means of production then they have to wait for payment from the client - as the owner of the company does now. So you can wave bye-bye to bi-weekly paychecks, as the laborers would now have to shoulder the burden of uncertainty that the business owner already does.



To say that a disproportionate amount of compensation relative to effort is somehow "fair" doesn't make sense. Pretty much any Logician from any school will agree that A=A.
That is exactly what you are arguing for in capitalism. I, on the other hand, am arguing that work should be democratic and, in a stage where money continues to exist, there should be equitable distribution of it based on the fact that each person, in one form or another, is contributing to the health of the collective economy.


That is exactly what happens in the capitalist economy. The distribution of wealth is calculated in the form of prices and wages. Of course as a wage earner you feel you should earn more… who doesn't want to earn more? Aside from the glaring problems with incentive (how do you "democratically" choose who cleans the toilets), how can you be sure that you're not distributing the wealth to sectors of the economy that are either inefficient or unnecessary??

Sure people can still buy things, but you're setting yourself up for serious shortages. Prices, wages and interest rates inform investment. In a society where the money is being confiscated, the government has to decide not only to what citizens to give money to, but to what businesses. The only time you actually see demand is after the producer has made the product. What if the government guessed wrong? That would've been a tremendous amount of wasted labor and resources. What about prices? How do you set prices without free market demand?

Who decides who gets what amount of money? What is the democratic process? We vote every day with our dollars. There is no need to implement an institution that already happens automatically in the presence of free trade.


I find it ironic that you'd mention the provision of an equitable amount of opportunity causing the entire system to seize up - as it is opportunity of this sort that Marxism advocates. So yes, I'd agree with you. However, Capitalism is of the belief that nothing should be provided to you. You are given nothing more than the opportunity for life, liberty and property rights. Once you accept the fact that all men are innately equal, while not necessarily equallycapable, you've reached the heart of why some men are better at creating opportunity for themselves than others. Capitalism merely acknowledges and praises this truth, where Marxism tries to run from it.
I argue that the system will seize up precisely because it is predicated on an unequal distribution of opportunity, wealth and property. Even the mere equitable accessibility of those things would render capitalism unable to operate, for that which puts it in motion would be stuck; there would be an inability to accumulate profit, since everyone could be a capitalist, wealth would be disparate because everyone would have equal access to it and so on. This is the point I was trying to elucidate and I believe you misunderstood as a picture of Marxism. On the contrary, Marxism does not have this problem because it is not predicated on the capitalist mode of accumulation. Furthermore, in regards to your lost argument, this is exactly where capitalist ideology fails, that is, in its idealistic depiction of humanity, divorced from history and transformed into a subject inscribed with capitalist valuations. Humanity, in capitalism, has no history preceding it, both on the individual and collective level, rather, history begins on capitalist premises, e.g., the ancient empires designate the nature of man to dominate one another or, on the individual level, one's place in life designates their inherent nature in capitalism; so, for example, one is in poverty, not due to any social organization, but due to an incapability on their own part. The problem with this depiction of man is that we do have history and it is intimately tied to the way in which a given society organizes itself economically. To be specific, in a society where wealth is accumulated, where profit drives the system and this profit is built on exploitation, there are institutions that educate individuals to be those who are exploited and which keep them in their particular class. This can take the most explicit form, which is wealth accumulation that is then transferred to one's offspring and concentrates wealth into a particular lineage or another example would be the lack of accessibility to higher education. Implicit with those, as well as other examples, are capitalist relations that maintain wealth and opportunity within a particular sphere at the expense of another, such that the latter produces a number of generations that exist in abject poverty or at low-wage labor jobs; their individual will may despise this, but the system places innumerable obstacles on the way to try to transcend class. That is why the American dream is so dear to us, because it is exceptional and not the rule.

Equitable access of capital would seize the system? I have a $100 in potatoes. You have $100 in carrots. I trade $25 worth of potatoes for your $25 worth in carrots. We each profit. Money is not gained for the sake of hoarding. Money earned, stored and put away never to be spent or given to another results in loss. You accumulate wealth in order to meet your individual set of preferences.

There's no seizure so long as you have a society of varying individuals of varying subjective value judgements. Human desire for goods wouldn't come to a screeching halt because there was suddenly a mathematical equilibrium of dollars in our bank account… we'd still be people, each wanting different things.

Idealist picture of history? Once again, you keep bringing up "capitalist horrors", that were either not the result of capitalist structure or are instances human behavior that free exchange between individuals has no effect over - Jack the Ripper wasn't a result of capitalism.

History? How about the dichotomy between East and West Berlin? On the Eastern Soviet Side it was the job of the guards to keep the citizens from trying to escape.

Humanity is not divorced from capitalism. What could be more humane then allowing two individuals to freely engage in an agreement that they deem acceptable. Confiscating property. Dictating one's profession to him or her. Impeding on individual liberties and property. That is inhumane.

Are you suggesting that pursuing means for profit would cease if everybody had equal value amounts of money? How could this occur in a naturally flowing economy?

Ok… you go on to talk about empires… not capitalist.

Poverty…? The North Korean government won't allow people to turn the lights on after 7PM (Google: Korea's Dark Half). Awful wars have been waged by supposed capitalist countries, however our interventionist foreign policy is counter intuitive to the ideal set forth by Madison and Jefferson. Moreover, without the government controlled monopoly over the money supply (a socialist structure) none of these acts of aggression would have any funding. However, at least when "capitalist nations" kill they do so outside their own country. Marxist nations seem highly adept at starving their own people to death without any outside help.

"in a society where wealth is accumulated, where profit drives the system and this profit is built on exploitation, there are institutions that educate individuals to be those who are exploited and which keep them in their particular class."… Someone who is motivated by profit cares to improve his own surroundings. It's not built on exploitation. It's built on competition, which is healthy. Yes, I want to see a competitor do worse, but so long as I behave lawfully I can only put him out of business if I produce something that the public wants more. Once again THERE IS NO FORCE IN A TRUE MARKET ECONOMY. Exactly how are you being exploited in this country? What are you being forced to do? Who is telling you that you have to do it? Why do you need a share of my paycheck to get the things you want?

Capitalism is divorced from humanity? Capitalism sets human creativity and innovation as the standard for what should be rewarded. People who are able to produce things that are original, innovative, and efficient do the best. It's accumulation that allows people to do wonderful things. The greatest shapers of the world were motivated by profit. The computer you type on, the clothes you wear, the automobiles you drive, pretty much everything in your life that makes it livable was produced as a result of pursuing profit. Not only that, the fact that's affordable is because you have groups of individuals competing with each other to give you, the willing consumer, your products at the cheapest price.

How does Marxism explain the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation? They're getting billionaires to either donate or pledge half of their wealth to charity. Yes, charity can happen without it being mandated by the government.


Education… I might note the failure of the public school system. This is not capitalist. Even if you wanted to tax for schooling it'd be better to have at least have voucher system where you can choose which school to go to and where to take your tax dollars. Case in point: Finland.

The most explosive period of growth occurred over the course of 200 years of free trade in the US. It was incredible. It was done without central planning. The result? By the mid-1900's we had the largest middle class in the entire world. Each family earned enough money to live on one salary. Government intervention after intervention in monetary and fiscal policy has slowly eroded that away.

Once again, labor is a form of trade. You willingly enter into it. You are not forced. You don't even have to labor. All trade is entered into willingly. Mutual exchange does not occur unless both sides believe that they are benefiting. There is no exploitation. No demands. No one says you have to do anything. True free market capitalism advocates a "hands off" policy with regard to individual agreement. It imposes no structures.

Yes, there are wealthy people in this world. Some who inherited their wealth and are completely inept. What this has to do with you or anyone else less fortunate than such individuals, I have no idea. I find it hard to believe that Paris Hilton takes time out of her day to make sure the wage earners of the world are being kept down to serve her.

The increased productivity (when left uninhibited) allows the standard of living to continually rise for all members of that society… this is historical fact.

[caveBEAR]

Jesus Christ...

[knash9]

Damn that's an impressive reply whether or not it's right. That's dedication.

[Jake Gyllenhaal]

tl;dr

...libertarians are smug.

[jefro0685]

tl;dr

...libertarians are smug.

I really try to keep my responses within the confines of what I originally posted. Not because I think the other posts aren't worth my time, but I shudder to think of all the other tangential discussions that would be spawned as a result, which aren't as pertinent. However, I think it's important I address this one.

So, two things:

I can see why you'd think the post as being smug, but I think if you look over all of the posts you'll see a healthy amount of smugness coming from the other side of the argument as well. More than once my intelligence has been called into question (in some instances this is veiled by a simple statement, "you misunderstand..." - not terribly insulting, but nonetheless condescending to a degree) without even addressing the actual substance of the post. However, I think smugness is much easier to forgive when you agree with the content of what said "smug person" is writing.

But to me that really isn't a big deal. So secondly, (and most importantly) while I don't want to put anyone off or seem disrespectful of someone's viewpoint, to be anything less than direct and to the point in my replies would take these posts from being "long" to "one-off dissertations." I'd love to preface everything with niceties, but have instead chosen to just stick to what seems to me like the raw substance of the argument.

All I ask is that people assume positive intent whenever I post something. I don't post consistently (an understatement), but if and when I do, it's done so in the name of spirited discussion - never condescension. I promise.

[crackedthesky]

I really try to keep my responses within the confines of what I originally posted. Not because I don't think the other posts aren't worth my time, but I shudder to think of all the other tangential discussions that would be spawned as a result, which aren't as pertinent. However, I think it's important I address this one.

So, two things:

I can see why you'd think the post as being smug, but I think if you look over all of the posts you'll see a healthy amount of smugness coming from the other side of the argument as well. More than once my intelligence has been called into question (in some instances this is veiled by a simple statement, "you misunderstand..." - not terribly insulting, but nonetheless condescending to a degree) without even addressing the actual substance of the post. However, I think smugness is much easier to forgive when you agree with the content of what said "smug person" is writing.

But to me that really isn't a big deal. So secondly, (and most importantly) while I don't want to put anyone off or seem disrespectful of someone's viewpoint, to be anything less than direct and to the point in my replies would take these posts from being "long" to "one-off dissertations." I'd love to preface everything with niceties, but have instead chosen to just stick to what seems to me like the raw substance of the argument.

All I ask is that people assume positive intent whenever I post something. I don't post consistently (an understatement), but if and when I do, it's done so in the name of spirited discussion - never condescension. I promise.

I can relate to a lot of this. I hate repeating myself on here and sometimes I'm so direct that it comes off way more insulting than I mean for it to.
That said, I think the guy you quoted was joking.

[jefro0685]

I can relate to a lot of this. I hate repeating myself on here and sometimes I'm so direct that it comes off way more insulting than I mean for it to.
That said, I think the guy you quoted was joking.

Either way, no hard feelings. Just seemed like an opportunity to address it.

[Jake Gyllenhaal]

To be fair, every libertarian I've come across in real life act like their shit don't stink. They come off as elitist by believing in a political ideology that is outside of the mainstream two-party system and come off as real douchebags. This does not reflect jefro0685, since I previously stated, his post was tl;dr

[Nuns On A Bus]

Every other post I have seen on this forum pales in comparison to that post. That is a work of art. Plus I agree with plenty of it so I have to give you props on how articulately you argue everything.

[The Personist]

If I reject the libertarian notion of human subjectivity (I exist and I am free) then everything else completely falls apart, and the economic philosophy becomes irrational--it helps too that I reject the idea of "rationalism" in capitalist thinking, which as Dom rightly pointed out reinforces a bourgeois narrative. I think jefro's post falls apart at the moment he says that human life has no dollar value, but productivity does. How do you separate these things? I would like this delineated clearly. Furthermore, how is it that productivity is not taking the place of the human life for the sake of an equation? How do we act to preserve human life as sacred while positing different values for productivity that, if Rand has her way, should have real consequences on those who are less productive, and real benefits for those who are more productive? Or, more simply, if we grant that many African-Americans are poor simply because they're unproductive, how do we separate our apathy toward their poverty from our decision not to do anything to alleviate the destructive and deadly consequences of that poverty? And then how do we insist we're not racist?

I don't think using hypothetical situations or anecdotes relying on a certain conception of nature is particularly useful, either. I understand that underlying the entire philosophy is an idea of human nature that, deny it though you may, is commensurate with Social Darwinism, and which opens up onto the figurative vocabulary of nature as something that we are merely imitating, or implicated within. Nature, however, does not act rationally. To say as much is to be intellectually dishonest. "Rational thought" and reason are human frameworks of conceptualization and interpretation that we impose upon the natural world to attempt to derive understanding of it. We can't reject them wholesale because they have proven effective in certain situations (and I would not say that "economics" or "government" is a place in which such methodologies prove effective at all); however, reifying them--and this is at the center of Randian libertarianism and related libertarianisms--does violence to and shows ignorance of their history (Cf. Kuhn's Structures of Scientific Revolution). Jefro's points are well-argued but accept as irrefutable a certain frame and context in which knowledge and evidence occur, which I think renders most of the conclusions specious at best. Instead of basing everything on a fixed conviction of "human nature," we should be asking what human nature means historically, how it is used in various situations and how it functions in relation to extant structures of power that subject and oppress individuals.

Above all there is a conviction that freedom comes first, that what matters most is my ability to do whatever I want in isolation from everyone else. History shows that this simply isn't how social relations work. No one can be truly isolated from anyone else, and isolation itself ends up being a social, shared condition at the times when it can be observed. But setting that aside, what is the ethical argument for ignoring my responsibility to the other? It's intellectually dishonest to valorize freedom over an acknowledgement of our fundamental interconnection, especially when that freedom is grounded on ideas like private property--which is never truly private, since the way in which one acquires it is comprised of a system of signifying relations that make up the transactions of capitalism (IE having a job, getting paid by someone else, paying someone else for that property, etc.) I guess what I'm saying is, if there is a libertarian ethical position, it is either unethical or it is a contradiction of libertarianism itself, since ethics is a mode of relating to others.

And while I'm indulging myself...Ayn Rand IS a terrible writer who wrote ridiculous Romantic allegories that were so blatant you'd have to be legally dead to miss the point of them (all the points were the same, btw). She glorified rape. She "argued" against strawman Marxism/communism. She wanted to be taken seriously as a philosopher without doing the work of a philosopher. She was a hypocrite. She introduced "selfishness" as a virtue but in such a way that it doesn't impose parameters on the selfish actor, that is, I can accept government funding for my hospital stay under an assumed name rather than paying my own way and insist I was being selfish and acting on my own interests. It's technically true, but anathema to Rand's thought. Fun fact: the example I just used is something she herself did. So what I don't get about those eager to defend libertarianism is why she is always such a rallying point. Robert Nozick might have been a better choice, since at least he made intellectual arguments within that framework. What is it about her that is worth defending?

[rawesome]

Hmm, a guy at work just talked to me about Ayn Rand today at lunch before I saw this thread got bumped. SO WEIRD!

[Zeran]

To be fair, every libertarian I've come across in real life act like their shit don't stink. They come off as elitist by believing in a political ideology that is outside of the mainstream two-party system and come off as real douchebags. This does not reflect jefro0685, since I previously stated, his post was tl;dr

yeah, i get this feeling from them as well. especially when reading the economist, the tone of the magazine is definitely smug.

[Love As Arson]

*Bourgeois ideology*

Suffice it to say, there are a lot of problems with this, many of which relate to the individuals involved arguing past one another. If one person is arguing about capitalism as it is now and the other is arguing about capitalism as it could be, then there is a point at which one must acknowledge the conversation cannot continue. Anyway, shall have a systematic response later on this week. Between work and organizing, I seem to have little time for the interwebs.

[Jake Gyllenhaal]

yeah, i get this feeling from them as well. especially when reading the economist, the tone of the magazine is definitely smug.

I will say that I accept the basic premise of how I understand libertarianism: whereby you are free to do whatever you want to do as long as it does not harm others. However, that could never be universally adapted by American society.

[Reece Wagner]

I had never read Ayn Rand before, and I know next to nothing about politics or anything political, but I just finished The Fountainhead and I thought it was incredible. I love her way of writing; I'm not sure how I'll get back into anything else.

[Zeran]

I will say that I accept the basic premise of how I understand libertarianism: whereby you are free to do whatever you want to do as long as it does not harm others. However, that could never be universally adapted by American society.
i feel like, first of all, if you carried libertarianism to its logical conclusion, it's just stupid. also, many libertarians appear to really just be free-market fanatics, rather than social/political liberals as well.

[caveBEAR]

I had never read Ayn Rand before, and I know next to nothing about politics or anything political, but I just finished The Fountainhead and I thought it was incredible. I love her way of writing; I'm not sure how I'll get back into anything else.

:squint:

What?

[crackedthesky]

:squint:

What?

Apparently, dude's a big fan of ridiculous dialogue, false dilemmas, fallacious arguments, absurd characters, and Rand's world-famous blathering on and on and on about things already established in one or two sentences earlier in the book.

[Matt Chylak]

the intelligence in this thread > rest of AP combined

[jefro0685]

also, many libertarians appear to really just be free-market fanatics, rather than social/political liberals as well.

You have an EXCELLENT point there. And it really is unfortunate. Not because it tarnishes the "illustrious" label "libertarian," but because when these self-proclaimed libertarians associate themselves with ideas that are anything but, it leads to a confusion of what libertarian beliefs actually are. You can't be against gay marriage if you're a true libertarian. Period. You can't be for preemptive war if you're a libertarian. Period.

The same thing happens when certain ideas get associated with free market capitalism that are anything but free or capitalist. Again, the harm here is not in the tarnishing of the label "capitalist," but in it leading to a confusion of definitions. People end up having to clarify which terms are being used equivocally before actually debating anything of real substance in the form of philosophical ideas.

[InExile]

You can't be against gay marriage if you're a true libertarian. Period.

Actually, not true. Libertarians believe that the government/states shouldnt even recognize/control marriage.

[Love As Arson]

No. Wrong. Not all economic organizations are predicated on force. Only command economies work in terms of force (hence the term command economy). In such an economy the government controls labor, they own all means of production, and they decide how each get used. Free market capitalism allows each member of society to exercise his or her own free will and do with their own life what they decide is best for them.
-Here is an easy demonstration of force used to maintain capitalist relations: Workers strike in their workplace, causing a disruption of production and the owner calls the police to break up the mob. This has happened time and again. Now, according to your line of argumentation, wherein this a mutual exchange of benefits, the strike would be perfectly legitimate. The fact that, historically, owners of production have been able to use the police to break such things up demonstrates, not only the use of force for maintenance of particular relations, but the actual role of the police force, as well as the military in some cases, as a stabilizer for the general population. Putting that aside for the moment, I anticipate your argument running along the lines of the owner having the right to protect his property as defined by the law; however, that only goes to prove my point, for if we understand that the law is defined by the dominant sociohistorical circumstance of a particular class, then we understand there is an equation in which property rights = rights and, therefore, require a systemic antidote to any threat to such things. This remedy, since property rights have been codified as law, takes the form of force.

It's only Socialists who believe it's possible to centrally plan what's best for an entire group of individual people, each of entirely different circumstances, and each of entirely different subjective value judgements. You can't force a structure onto natural human behavior. It does not work.
-Well, no, socialists believe that the people, as a group of individuals that work together, can decide what they need, what sort of infrastructure they desire, how and when they want to work, etc. As for the reference to natural human behaviour,well, that is an a priori formulation grounded in an ideology that necessarily requires the concept of an egotistic human nature.

All you can do is set up a system of non-aggression and free agreement between individuals. The structure rises out of that organically…it doesn't need to be forced.
-Capitalism is aggressive. On what basis do you think it became a worldwide phenomenon? The bourgeois revolutions of the eighteenth/nineteenth centuries were forceful, violent and forced a particular state of things on to whole populations. In other cases, it was imposed on nations. Furthermore, I do agree with free associations, but given that capital is inert without labor, the case might be that, if a free association of individuals existed at the outset, the producers and skilled craftsmen might have gotten together and decided what they wanted to produce. This wasn't the case, however, and it cannot be simply attributed to some organic manifestation of human nature, since human action is mediated by the historical situation in which they live; in other words, it isn't a given that a particular social formation might come to fruition, rather, social formations occur at given points in history based on the development of the means of subsistence and the necessity, as a result of this, to enter into a certain set of social relations, which informs the rest of the development of society. So, for example, in a society where the bourgeois has been successful in becoming a ruling class, their conception of the law, the political framework, intellectual life, etc., reigns supreme.



You're going in circles. I'll quote a previous post of mine…
(From page 3)
"Furthermore, how do you apply a dollar valuation to a human life in order to reach a number with which you can compare to the cost of oil? These are repugnant concepts and can't be logically debated."
-I explained what I was referring to later on :"Again, you misunderstand me. If, for example, the cost of taking care of a family that has lost the bread-winner or the hospital bills of someone who was seriously injured on the job were reflected in the price of oil, then the price would skyrocket. Similarly, if the environmental cost were added into the price of oil, one would notice another stark increase in prices. These, however, aren't taken into consideration because they are shifted on to individual families or the areas which become polluted."

Human worth has no dollar valuation. However, a person's productivity does. What a person has to offer to the rest of society to improve the surroundings of all others matters, yes… it matters a great deal. However, this speaks nothing to the person's value as a human being. Again, capitalists believe in the right to life… no one is saying that an individual who is unemployed deserves to die. Capitalists just believe that if you find yourself in such a situation, you have no right to demand that someone else provide for your existence. (However, asking for a helping hand never hurt anyone… you're just not entitled to anything from anyone else - that's all.)
-I agree with the first sentence and I must make you understand that what is expressly said is quite different from the way in which the system practically plays out, both in terms of the material realm of production and the production of ideas. As such, no capitalist will say that the homeless are better off dead; rather, the issue manifests itself as a problem of totalization within the capitalist system which has folded human relations into the market to such an extent that one's productivity is associated with their worth as a human being,e.g., people that shout at the unemployed to go get jobs. The implicit message within this is, in order to be considered a member of society in the proper sense, one needs to be productive. The same can be said regarding the right to life: A capitalist cannot come out and say that some do not have a right to life when measured against their profit. They will, however, engage in practices that materially lead to the loss of life to a large number of people.

No one is told that they must be happy with anything. An employer says: "X is what your labor is worth to me. I'm only going to pay you X amount, otherwise I'd rather invest the money elsewhere (like new machinery). If you find these terms to be agreeable, then come work for me. If not, seek employment elsewhere."
-What does this mean in a world where wages have steadily been on the decline for decades?

First of all, whether or not a laborer is a woman, single or a mother has nothing to do with her productive output in a warehouse. Secondly, Paris Hilton had the good fortune of being born into a family that had produced a hotel service for millions of people. It made travel and vacation easy and more accessible. Her wealth was bestowed upon her by loving (and perhaps overindulgent) parents who chose to give Paris that money because it made them more happy to see her have it than it did for them to hold onto the money for themselves. It was a value judgement; a willing exchange that both parties benefited from (in the eyes of the exchangers).

-My point was that the mother actually contributes to society in terms of her production and that her work can be considered more arduous because she has a home life, which is inexorably connected to her work life. And as for my Paris Hilton example, you and I agree again on where he wealth comes from, but the difference is, I do not pretend that her wealth is demonstrative of her work ethic or her contribution to society. It is just as you said, a matter of fortune and, given the statistics, we can say the vast majority of those with that kind of wealth were fortunate enough to be born into the right families.

As for Paris' contribution to society. Let me propose this scenario: Paris Hilton tweets about a new line of clothes on Twitter. She is paid $10,000 for the simple endorsement. The ad was part of a campaign paid for by an ad agency that employs thousands of people. The campaign is a big deal because it's a large account with a major clothing label that may pay thousands upon thousands of dollars over the next few years, thus allowing the ad agency to expand and employ more people. The clothing line is happy because the exposure on Twitter spikes their sales for the next few weeks. The sudden influx of capital allows the clothing line to reinvest in their means of production with new machinery. The new machinery is operated by existing workers who are retrained to use this new machinery. This new training is something that can be permanently added to each worker's résumé and makes them more skilled laborers than before. The company's investment in training and new machinery increases the productive output per worker and makes them each more valuable to the company. As a result, your single mother working in a warehouse is given a raise.
-Here is a scenario: A company pays Paris Hilton a million dollars to endorse their product. After she does this, demand increases and requires new machinery to compensate for that demand. The company purchases the new machines, trains the workers on them, but keeps them at the same salary level and requires that there will be an increase in the minimum amount of items they are produced. Or, to look at it from another perspective, the introduction of new machinery decreases the number of employees needed to produce the necessary amount of a given item, at which point 1/4 of the workforce is dismissed and the rest have to pick up the slack. This is a bit closer to the actual dynamics of a business.


How can you speak in such universal terms about every worker on earth? Who is to say what the absolute value of labor is? The value of one's labor is whatever it is they willingly agree to give it for.
-Because, on the whole, a worker is paid less than what they produce for a capitalist. This is how profit is produced. An example: I work for a recycling company. Through my work, I make the company five hundred thousand dollars every two months. I am paid sixty thousand dollars a year. That may be considered a great wage, however, there remains an immense deficit between what I produce for the company and what they make on a yearly basis.

Laborers aren't receiving the full amount of compensation for their labor? Then why are they still there? Why not leave? I'm happier than a pig in sh*t at my job. I get paid more than fair, however I always have an eye out for new opportunities. Am I some random, deluded anomaly?
-It isn't particular to certain workplaces, it is endemic to the way business is structured under capitalist relations. Even if one decided to go elsewhere, it would be a matter of choosing where to be exploited less, but never where to not be exploited; that is impossible in the capitalist structure.

EVERYONE wants more money. Think Socialists are exempt from the desire for more? Notice that you only deplore capitalism for not paying the worker enough… in other words you feel that each worker should experience a higher level of profitability. However, you deplore the employer for seeking a higher level of profitability. This isn't some "principled argument" you're making about how Man's contribution to society should be for some higher aesthetic ideal (although that's how Marxism is often packaged).
-I deplore capitalism for its exploitation of workers, of which wages are merely a part. The desire for higher wages as a reform, however, cannot be equated with "profitability". That is a vulgar generalization of the term, only meaning "making more than before". Profit, in my view, has a particular usage and cannot be applicable to the average worker that must sell their labor, for the sale of labor necessarily means that one is producing profit for another. Let me put my argument in a broader perspective: Money is merely an expression of definite social relations and we have no need for it within the context of communism. As a part of smaller reforms, sure, I think fighting for higher wages is certainly something worth doing; in the broader scheme of things, in a time where crises has caused a revolutionary upswing, there is necessarily going to be a point at which, despite reform, we will need break away from the insoluble contradictions of capital. In that period, where capitalism is placed into question, it isn't a matter of wages, it isn't an egotistic drive for more, in the same manner that capitalist accumulation is; rather, the goal is the emancipation of the working class from a set of relations under which they are exploited, to put the vast majority who produce in control, to produce a society where democracy isn't merely a set of elections for representatives, but is intrinsically connected to the workplace and all those who inhabit it. When you equate that project with the project of the capitalist class, you betray a sort of idealism - one which ignores the definite social formations, each of which have their own objective interests, that occur throughout history.

A socialist is a capitalist in disguise who sympathizes exclusively with the "have-nots" of society. Free Market Capitalists are those who sympathize with the rights of all individuals and refuse to penalize men for their capability.
-Ad hominem attacks aside, I believe I addressed the conflation of property rights with the "rights of all individuals".

If capitalism required a suppression of wages to maintain profitability than all I'd have to do is kidnap a group of people, get them to perform some menial task, and watch the money roll in.
-I believe that was called the transatlantic slave trade.

Except I need to produce something. I need to produce something that other people want. I need to produce something that other people want better than a competitor of mine. A competitor that probably has higher productive output because he keeps his employees happy with a fair, market-priced wage.
-How does this fit in with the increased output of production in areas that pay very little in in countries like China? There is a reason that Apple produces the iPhone in China and not in the USA, and that reason relates to the desire to increase profit.


Humans do have choice, yes - individual choice. Once again, in a true capitalist society - no one is exploited.
-One's individual choice does not occur in a vacuum. It is informed by their social situation and effects others as well. As for the last statement, if one has to sell their labor, then, yes, exploitation will continue to exist.

I've met people who were exploited. In 2009 I had the pleasure of being sponsored to go to the UN for a conference on women's rights. A large part of this conference was spent on human trafficking. The survivors I met, they were exploited… not some poor sap counting his days until his pension. He can leave at any time. While the "exploiters" of these people being trafficked were motivated by profit, that doesn't make them capitalists.
This is a straw man. I never implied that all exploitation is equal, nor have I said that all workers are equally worse off. We know that isn't the case simply by looking at people in the workplace that have some degree of power like a team leader or supervisor, both of whom do work and are exploited, but have more privilege in the sphere of work.

In other words, all aspects of life should be an agreement between consenting individuals.
- The problem is the structural tendencies of the system do not allow this.

Once again, capitalists do not attempt to place ANY structure on people. They simply give them the freedom to choose, the right to life and property, and an organic structure arises out of that naturally. Bastiat once marveled at something as simple as the fact that all of Paris was fed. Or read the article 'I, Pencil'. No central planner is needed - in fact, one should be avoided.
- I've addressed this in my above statements. There does exist a set of freedoms of sorts: A.) You can choose who you work for within the sphere of the marketplace. B.) You can choose to starve.
The things one cannot do are innumerable, but, above all, you cannot question the market, for it is eternal. It is the natural state of man. Of course, we must dehistoricize man and take for granted those characteristics, which we must pick and choose, engage in abstraction by conflating socially determined relations with the necessary and the universal. It is this process which justifies capital, which argues that we have reached the apex of our social horizons and can go no further.

No one person can decide how to concretely tie all production to the needs of all people. Individuals do that. In capitalism it's called supply and demand. How could one person possibly guess what's best for the needs of a group of people? Or know the best way to go about meeting these needs? How could he know what resources to use, in what amounts, so as to avoid waste? No single person can know this. It's naïve. It doesn't work. It hasn't worked.
-I do not think I've argued that one person can do this or should do this. I have said that production should be democratically decided, though. As for supply and demand, if it is at an equilibrium, then it ceases to be a useful tool for explaining the economy. One can trace everything back to labor, whether it is supply,e.g., the production of a particular commodity or demand,e.g., the ability of a worker to use their purchasing power to consume a given commodity, which links up with how much they are paid.

Furthermore, you seem to ignore the fact that "the weak" have every opportunity to rise to a position of power should they prove capable. Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish immigrant who worked his way up from the bottom of rung of the steel industry.
-I think you undermined your own example with the Paris Hilton argument. And, let us be honest, the Andrew Carnegies would not be trotted out as examples if they were common-place.


Or you could do the "rational" and "reasonable" thing, accept the fact that the real, concrete world of cause and effect is most often austere, pick yourself up and labor your way to the fresh water spring.
Capitalists aren't rational to be cold. They're not trying to be devoid of emotion. They say things are such and such a way - that humans behave this or that way - because that's the way it is.
-Capitalists aren't rational. That isn't to say they are personally irrational; rather, their activities within the marketplace are irrational. In any event, I think I have been misunderstood again. "Rationality" and "Reason" aren't general concepts. They have a function within the bourgeois framework, such that conformism is perceived acting rational and a rejection is irrational/unreasonable.



That's because man's rights are not directly related to property and wealth.
-Not explicitly. As I've demonstrated above, what is explicitly stated and the results of particular social formations are quite different.

All men are endowed with the right to life, liberty and property. What he makes of these are entirely up to him. The price he pays for this freedom is the agreement that he will never insist that another provide for him.
-I do not want another to provide for me. I want to provide for myself via control of the means of production.

The only way the elite few could rule over the majority is by direct force or through coercion by the state. This is a socialist concept. In a society with the right to individual property, the only way one could be deprived of his property is in the event that the government tells him what he can or cannot do with that property. The US is a mixed economy that shrinks the capital resources of it's citizens with it's inflationary fiscal and monetary policies, as well as the tariffs and regulations it imposes on markets when it decides they are necessary.
-The only relation socialism has with the government/state is when the working class seizes control and becomes the new ruling class. As for your initial statement, you are being remiss in addressing the various ways of making an ideology into "common-sense", such that the population in general accepts it as one might accept the laws of gravity. Moreover, capitalism and the state are not posed against one another; rather, the former informs the latter in terms of its development, its policies, its base-lines, etc. For example, it isn't a coincidence that a schism occurred between the north and the south over slavery, as the former had become far more industrial and the latter had become a fetter on industrial capital; as such, given the changing framework in the north, abolitionism became a prominent force and the republican party, the party of progressive industry, rose to prominence and it was understood that this would mean the end of the slaveocracy, causing escalated tensions and eventually a war which put an end to slavery and made wage-labor the standard. (obviously, in any historical shift, there remain hangovers from a previous period, but the demonstration of the intersection between shifts in the economy and its reflection in the political establishment remain valid.)


Furthermore, what country do you live in, in which the majority of society owns nothing? Clearly, you, at the very least, own a computer.
-America

Financial gains over the last decade in the United States have been mostly made at the "tippy-top" of the economic food chain as more people fall out of the middle class. The top 20 percent of Americans now holds 84 percent of U.S. wealth, as Paul Solman found out as part of a Making Sen$e series on economic inequality.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec11/makingsense_08-16.html

I list a litany of institutions that pretty much define our current economic state, every one of which is the farthest thing from a true capitalist state, and your response is the glance over these and restate your original point: "The current economic crises is a demonstration of capitalism's failures..."
-I reject your idea that capitalism does not exist because these things are in place. Strictly speaking on historical terms, class society has always required a state. The state, far from being neutral entity or an entity in the game for itself, is an agent for whatever class is dominant in a given epoch. I think Engels stated it best:

“Because the state arose from the need to hold class antagonisms in check, but because it arose, at the same time, in the midst of the conflict of these classes, it is, as a rule, the state of the most powerful, economically dominant class, which, through the medium of the state, becomes also the politically dominant class, and thus acquires new means of holding down and exploiting the oppressed class....” The ancient and feudal states were organs for the exploitation of the slaves and serfs; likewise, “the modern representative state is an instrument of exploitation of wage-labor by capital.

-Even if one were to go back to the foundation of the republic, within the founding documents, one notices that its aims directly correspond to the nascent bourgeois class in the thirteen colonies, those who held the most power,i.e., white males who owned slaves or the merchant class.

No, this is not the example of capitalism's failures. Read what F.A. Hayek had to say about the business cycle.
- I have and remain unimpressed by the innumerable silences on a number of issues, namely the existence of the harsh recessions prior to the introduction of the FED. Even Friedman conceded that Hayek's account of the business cycle was not consistent with reality.

The current crises began when Greenspan lowered interest rates to impossibly low levels in order to stimulate spending after the 'dot-com' bubble. Interest rates, like prices, are bits of information that inform consumer spending. When interest rates are lower, longer term investment in projects are encouraged because people are more willing to borrow and less willing to save. This manifested in a glut of housing production that drove housing prices well beyond what they were actually worth. Furthermore, you had government legislation intervening with private enterprise when Congress tried to create "an ownership society" by telling lending institutions that if they didn't lend to riskier borrowers they could face legal action for discrimination. To be clear, before the housing bubble you didn't need a job or even good credit to get a loan. Furthermore, what did the lending institutions care? The loans are backed by the federal government (aka the taxpayer). This removes all risk from the process lending. This risk would normally occur in a capitalist society in which the lender (as a risk-taking entrepreneur) would own all profits as well as all losses. After a few years of this process of inflating the bubble, all that was necessary was a few defaulted loans to make the whole house of cards fall.
-The problem goes farther back than that. Putting aside the systemic tendencies of capitalism, one can trace the origins of crisis to two points, which are connected:

1. Financialization of the economy: Money, for a large part of the economy, ceased being a mediator and became capital. This corresponded to a lack of profitability in the post-war economy and there required a new means of producing surplus value. The subsequent decline of wages, which normally may have created a gap in demand, allowed for the formation of an increase in the consumer debt market.

2. The exponential increase in capital required various outlets and, in the most recent case, it was the housing market. Now we can return to Marx's original critique of capital, for it is with these investments that houses were built, but could not be sold at a profitable level. It is worth mentioning that, prior to these developments, interest rates were lowered at the behest of the market in order to create even larger profits.


What are the odds that a group of separate, competing lending institutions ALL came down at the same time without a common central cause?
-If you understood how connected this small set of lending institutions are, then it isn't really improbable at all.


I remain within the framework of human choice. The human can say no to wage labor. He can either choose to be unemployed, or he can save and invest his capital into a business of his own. No one is holding a knife to the throat of all laborers telling them to stay put.
-The latter, given the circumstances of life in wage labor, is extremely difficult. The difficulty isn't the reason not to do so, since I anticipate you saying they'd do so if they really wanted to, rather, the issue is a structural orientation that prevents the ascendancy from one class to another. To face unemployment is to essentially have a knife to your throat, as you need to be able to pay for rent, heat, food, clothing, etc.

Dissatisfaction is what motivates all action in life. There is no impulse to act in the absence of discontent. We would all stay in bed in the morning if we didn't dislike the idea of losing our jobs or if we didn't dislike the idea of feeling lazy or unproductive more than we liked the comfort of remaining in bed. Dissatisfaction stems from being a living person of needs and wants.
-This isn't substantive response. It is an amalgamation of capitalist rhetoric, masquerading as common sense. People do have needs and wants, however, the means to get them isn't fixed within our DNA. It is derived from our historical circumstances


You have a choice. If you are really that opposed to capitalist structures and they disgust you so much, you can certainly educate yourself as to how to live apart from society at a subsistence level. Human beings did it for thousands of years.
-Since capitalism is a pervasive system, it would be impossible to escape it. In any event, that is similar to saying, "Well, if you are so opposed to an infringement on human rights, get away from your society. Rather than change the circumstances of your existence by enhancing your own rights, the best possible course of action is to simply go away."

But you do not get to take part in the society of abundance that is built on human cooperation and individual contribution without being willing to contribute yourself.
-Isn't this exactly what the ruling class does? In fact, I am merely saying that those who actually produce should be able to control the society of abundance precisely because that abundance exists as a result of their labor.

You are entitled to nothing in this life other than the opportunity to improve your current set of surroundings.
-Is this another axiom? On what basis is this claim made as universally true?How does this practically play out in a society in which the improvement of the social organism is identified with the improvement of business? That is to say, if one is entitled to nothing, then why is the interest of one class made supreme over another?

And for God's sake… stop begging the question that workers are "disempowered". They're not.
-Well, as enlightening as that was, it merely demonstrates how mired you are in the ideology of "property = the right to exploit". By this line of logic, we can ignore every type of exploitation under the auspices of, "Well, they have human choice. That is all they need."

the same way I don't get to tell you how to arrange the furniture in your living room. .
-The analogy would be more appropriate if we lived under the same roof and I had you build the furniture for our living room, then made all of the decisions without your input.

If they don't like the company, they can leave (and remove themselves from the capitalist structure altogether if they desire to do so).
-I've addressed this line of argumentation already.


Again, in a true free market society, the government has the power to do none of these things. It can't define anything. It can only enforce the agreements people enter into and protect each individual's right to life, liberty and property. Only in a mixed economy of socialist overtones are these things possible.
-I am critiquing capitalism as it exists and has existed since the revolutions that proceeded the Enlightenment period. As I said, it is precisely because government's acknowledgement of rights within the confines of a particular class' conception of them, that the government can be said to be an organ of the economic system. Any type of society with a division of labor, where producers exist side-by-side with a class of elites necessarily requires a state. One need only look at human history prior to the development of social surplus, where human societies had little, if any, hierarchy. They need only get the basic means of subsistence for a particular period of time, which doesn't require an agency that stands above the population to enforce a particular set of rules.


No. I argued that the individual desire for gain motivated the removal of Indians from their land, but the use of force (as opposed to free agreement) makes it non-capitalist. This is not a definitive structure of a capitalist society. It happens, yes, but not because the society is capitalist.
- I think I'll let Marx explain it better than I can:

"The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signaled the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief moments of primitive accumulation. On their heels treads the commercial war of the European nations, with the globe for a theatre. It begins with the revolt of the Netherlands from Spain, assumes giant dimensions in England's Anti-Jacobin War, and is still going on in the opium wars against China, &c. The different moments of primitive accumulation distribute themselves now, more or less in chronological order, particularly over Spain, Portugal, Holland, France, and England. In England at the end of the 17th century, they arrive at a systematical combination, embracing the colonies, the national debt, the modern mode of taxation, and the protectionist system. These methods depend in part on brute force, e.g., the colonial system. But, they all employ the power of the state, the concentrated and organized force of society, to hasten, hot-house fashion, the process of transformation of the feudal mode of production into the capitalist mode, and to shorten the transition. Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one. It is itself an economic power."

-In other words, it is the case that genocide of the Native Americans and slavery, along with a host of other historical situations, laid the required foundations for a market system, one which required a significant amount of labor on the one hand and a plethora of capital on the other. Given the circumstances of the time, state force was the only means by which to create the conditions in which capitalism may arrive.

You can be a Communist and still be a bastard - it's possible. You get evil people in every society.
-Again, reducing it to the individual level of "evil people" does not make sense when speaking about societies. We are all individuals, but the antagonisms we experience aren't mere products of our own actions, they aren't pre-given; rather, they are made manifest by an entire history of relations behind us that has led up to a particular phase of development. If we are to engage in your line of argumentation, then we merely go in circles:

Humanity is filled with evil people.
Why are the evil?
Well, they just are.
What about the similarities in actions across the globe?
That just proves that people are evil.

It makes a statement, then proceeds to ground it in some circular metaphysical conception of innate attributes that still remain unable to explain why, if it is a matter of isolated evil individuals, we see the same tendencies within similar social formations.

Stealing isn't necessary in a capitalist society - if it were… why do people trade everyday? If it was necessary "at the beginning" why is it not necessary today?
- Primitive accumulation is an ongoing process, however, it has taken on a different form as capitalist countries have developed. For example, in countries that aren't particularly developed, companies enter into a set of agreements with a government or simply provide a justification for being there, then go on to privatize resources, like water or land, which originally belonged to the public, but are now sources of profit that the population must now pay for; in more advanced countries, we see something similar in the manifestation of gentrification, whereby wealthy interests move into low-income areas, causing an increase in property taxes, rent/mortgages with the result being the displacement of original community.

Do you know who confiscates your property? Communist governments - actually it's a tenant of Communism. But it's done for the good of "the public," so that makes the theft justifiable.
-Again, I'll quote Marx:

Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriations.


What is this socialist utopia you imagine where because people declare themselves "Socialist" they somehow automatically behave morally?
- I'm not sure what you are referring to with this comment. Seems like a red herring to me.

You keep mentioning the horrors of the capitalist engine, and then list examples that would have been impossible had the government been operating under a truly capitalist, free market, libertarian state.
-I am merely enumerating the historical dimension of capital. I am not working within the Platonic realm of forms, but the socially situated expression of capital, from its beginning, to the formation of its general tendencies up until this point and one can see the continuity for themselves.

The above examples range from Communist behavior to Fascist behavior... in each, the government is taking control over individual rights and property.
-That's impossible. Fascism isn't catch-all term, it refers to a specific ideology that comes into power when the interests of the ruling class are threatened and it has no escape valve other than to use the brute force of that movement. Communism, at least the historical period we have been referring to, didn't exist as such. Certainly, there were materialist philosophies, but socialism had only been conceived of in terms of a religiously-tinged utopianism. It was not until Marx that communism/socialism received a methodological treatment of class antagonisms. As such, a statement which compares fascism and communism with primitive accumulation is an anachronism at the outset. Let us not even begin to mention the incongruities between fascism and Marxism.

In a true free market, capitalist society, by law the state would not have had the power to expropriate lands from feudal lords, the choice not to trade would have been perfectly legal, and the Native Americans would have been paid in full for the land.
-But, given the mode of production and the necessities of the global marketplace - the marketplace comprised, at least on the European end, freely consenting individuals - it was not. Their ideological limitations precluded the recognition of Natives as people, and the same can be said for African slaves; they were needed as raw material and the demands of the system must be met, so state force stepped in.

(something the US attempts to make up in reparations
-They're going to need more than reservations to do that.


by the way, much of the land was paid for. New Amsterdam for example was not the result of "white man force.").
-Yes, one finds a parallel between the incomprehensible treaties the Natives signed and the practices of modern capitalism with regard to bad loans.

Anything else would have been unlawful or wrong, but I fail to see how taking the power out of the hands of this supposed "ruling" class and placing in the hands of a centralized government power would have prevented any of these atrocities…why are these people suddenly more moral? Because they've announced that they act in the name of the public good?
-As I've reiterated before, no one is advocating communism in the form of a strong, centralized government with specialized planners except for yourself. Let me be more explicit: The state, as most conceive of it, exists as a means to quell class antagonisms and further the interests of the bourgeoisie. The expropriation of the means of production from the ruling class, following a socialist upheaval, necessarily eliminates, via the processes of putting those things under the control of the working class, the state as the thing you speak of. So, again, to say that socialism is state-oriented is not only to misunderstand the concept, it is to misunderstand the definite relations under which we now exist.


The failure of the state and it's "maintenance of the system" is an example of the socialist overtones that have crept their way into of government structure and created utter chaos. IT'S NOT CAPITALISM.
-Your statement makes it seem as though there was an original point at which capitalism existed? When was this? I have postulated that this role has existed since its inception.

What structure is there to maintain in a system of freely agreeing individuals besides maintaining their right to freely agree?
I think I've already refuted why this does not exist.

The only relations that matter in capitalism is that between individuals. Yes, "the state was there in the beginning" and was intended to play a very limited role… which it does not do anymore.
-Again, the reduction of the system to the individuals is intellectually faulty, for it presupposes that the individual is unstuck in history and makes every decision without cultural/economic information/ideas of the previous era.

Just because money is changing hands doesn't mean it falls under the banner of free market capitalism. You are debating with an advocate of the wrong system of economics and individual rights. Try Ben Bernanke.
-Wasn't it you who said that the exchange of money between individuals is the best representation of free market economics? I understand that it is grounded in the necessity of capitalist relations. You, on the other hand, might see it as an association of free producers.

No. There are those who save and invest their capital. They are called entrepreneurs and business owners. As a result of their willingness to take risks, they are rewarded in the form of profit. The people who are good and smart entrepreneurs have growing businesses, and as a result they are able to expand their business and obtain more resources. This process of economic Darwinism ensures that the scarce resources of society are used in the most efficient way because only those meeting the needs of the people (as evidenced by their profits) will be allowed to continue on existing. If not, these entrepreneurs go bankrupt and they are unable to waste anymore scarce resources.
-If risk is the measure by which we determine whether or not an individual's income is appropriate, then why are workers not compensated for a very real physical risk? Certainly, physical risk, given that it puts the livelihood and life of the laborer at risk, is greater than losing money. Further, you give the system too much because, while there is competition, it is competition within the confines of an oligopoly which minimizes risk; evidence of this can be seen in the lack of economic mobility downward for the capitalist class.


These people are not idle. The are the risk takers that drive society and every member of our society with a good idea can become one of them.
-Except that, for the most part, the industries that changed the face of society in our era were products of government sponsorship,e.g., computers/internet.


If I were to take away all the factories, machinery, training, materials and money that the entrepreneur provides to the workers of his shoemaking factory, how long before those "exploited laborers" produced a single pair of shoes?
-Be more specific. What type of situation would that occur in? If it were to occur within the confines of the current system, then both would be impoverished, but in the case of the worker, they have solidarity and the skill to survive without capital. Capital without the laborer is inert, producing no profit and causing widespread chaos for the ruling class.

Furthermore, if they own all means of production then they have to wait for payment from the client - as the owner of the company does now. So you can wave bye-bye to bi-weekly paychecks, as the laborers would now have to shoulder the burden of uncertainty that the business owner already does.
-That assumes that capitalist relations would still be in place. While certain things might persist for a time, I do not think clients as such would exist; rather, there would be projects or initiatives that correspond to the needs of a given community.

That is exactly what happens in the capitalist economy.
-People that do no work get the most of the money?

The distribution of wealth is calculated in the form of prices and wages.
-This is problematic. Prices and wages are merely externalized form of capitalist relations. Those relations, in their total form, determine the distribution of wealth according to a sociohistorical determination of the mode of production.

Of course as a wage earner you feel you should earn more… who doesn't want to earn more?
- I want more than that. Workers want complete control. "Earning more" is merely a transitional demand.

Aside from the glaring problems with incentive (how do you "democratically" choose who cleans the toilets),
-The "dirtier" jobs, in my opinion, can be a communal activity, which has rotating members or something along those lines.

how can you be sure that you're not distributing the wealth to sectors of the economy that are either inefficient or unnecessary??
-I think we can do better than a system which cannot recognize the inefficiency of its environmental agendas or one which purposefully creates more and more means of subsistence that goes well beyond the ability of society to consume, either causing a crash or being destroyed in order to main probability. In the beginning, as in the beginning of the republic, it will be a matter of trial and error; we will find out what works and does not work. I cannot be more specific, because it would be necessary for me to forecast the precise situation in which a socialist society might be built.

Sure people can still buy things, but you're setting yourself up for serious shortages. Prices, wages and interest rates inform investment. In a society where the money is being confiscated, the government has to decide not only to what citizens to give money to, but to what businesses. The only time you actually see demand is after the producer has made the product. What if the government guessed wrong? That would've been a tremendous amount of wasted labor and resources.
-What government? If the premise is faulty, I cannot address the rest of the argument.

What about prices? How do you set prices without free market demand?
-Prices only have a meaningful existence in a world where commodities are being bought and sold.

Who decides who gets what amount of money?
-Money will not exist under socialism. As I said a while back, money is the objectification of definite social relations, the elimination of which means the elimination of money, particularly as an objectified instrument of power.

What is the democratic process?
-I cannot prefigure a society. However, something along the lines of worker's councils appeals to me. I believe Simulcast and I had this discussion a few pages ago or in another thread.

We vote every day with our dollars. There is no need to implement an institution that already happens automatically in the presence of free trade.
-And like the current political system, there is a monopoly that precludes real choice. More importantly, the very relations that underpin the system limits the purchasing power of a given individual.


Equitable access of capital would seize the system? I have a $100 in potatoes. You have $100 in carrots. I trade $25 worth of potatoes for your $25 worth in carrots. We each profit. Money is not gained for the sake of hoarding. Money earned, stored and put away never to be spent or given to another results in loss.
-Imagine we lived in a secluded community that was essentially a miniaturized version of the market, where people had to sell their vegetables in order to make a living. Now imagine everyone had access to fertile soil, everyone produced the same amount of vegetables, everyone produced the same wide variety of vegetables. Given that every single individual within the community is producing at the same rate, with the same opportunity and the same kind of thing, there would be no basis on which to have produce a profit. Such relations, however, would not be problematic under socialism, however - at least, insofar as everyone would merely be able to produce for the need of the aforementioned community.


You accumulate wealth in order to meet your individual set of preferences.
- Wealth functions more like this under capital (C= Capital, M= Money): M-C-M'

In other words, for the capitalist, the circulation and the accumulation of wealth begins and ends with money, not the satisfaction of particular wants or needs.

The repetition or renewal of the act of selling in order to buy is kept within bounds [in a society governed by use values] by the very object it aims at, namely, consumption or the satisfaction of definite wants, an aim that lives altogether outside the sphere of circulation. But when we buy in order to sell [as in capitalism], we, on the contrary, begin and end with the same thing, money, exchange-value; and thereby the movement becomes interminable.

The only way to increase the amount of money one ends up with is exploitation of the worker who adds value to a given commodity that is produced; the end of this process leads to the beginning, where the capitalist uses money to purchase commodities ad infinitum; or, in the realm of financialization, uses money to make money, which is then put into investments that make the capitalists more money and so on and so forth. I say all of this to say that, for the capitalist, it is not a matter of individual preference; rather, that preference is determined by their relation to production and they cannot help but be compelled, as though by an external force, to engage in the circular process of the market.

There's no seizure so long as you have a society of varying individuals of varying subjective value judgements. Human desire for goods wouldn't come to a screeching halt because there was suddenly a mathematical equilibrium of dollars in our bank account… we'd still be people, each wanting different things.
-Where perhaps we have missed each other on the finer points is that I am not speaking particularly of money, but an equilibrium of the manifold fields of capital.

Idealist picture of history? Once again, you keep bringing up "capitalist horrors", that were either not the result of capitalist structure or are instances human behavior that free exchange between individuals has no effect over - Jack the Ripper wasn't a result of capitalism.
-I root my examination of those horrors in the history of capital and the subsequent solidification of relations via constitutions, revolutions, war, exploitation, etc. You, on the other hand, seem to view human history as a history of the individual, which is completely incapable of explaining social phenomena except by abstraction from the real relations of the collective individuals involved.

History? How about the dichotomy between East and West Berlin? On the Eastern Soviet Side it was the job of the guards to keep the citizens from trying to escape.

-What about it? I fail to see the connection between what we are speaking about and this example. I assume you mean to represent East Berlin as communist and West Berlin as capitalist. Well, you cannot have it both ways: West Berlin was social-democratic, meaning the market was somewhat subdued by regulation and there was a healthy social safety-net. Either the characteristics you've enumerated above are capitalism or your definition of capitalism is faulty and West Berlin is now a good example of capital. To me, there are structural differences between the East and West, with the former having more freedoms, but I would say that East Berlin was not a communist experiment simply by virtue of the fact that it had a ruling class which was tied to an imperial power.

Humanity is not divorced from capitalism. What could be more humane then allowing two individuals to freely engage in an agreement that they deem acceptable.
-That would be a better alternative to the force of capitalism, but then, as I asked earlier, why would these freely associated individuals not band together, produce together, share, decide what should be produced, etc? Why is there this tendency to dismiss that out of hand? Has it anything to do with the ruling ideas that have an a priori conception human nature and the limits of our social horizons?

Confiscating property.
-Well, the means of productions because to control these means to hold on to the levers of power and if the workers were to procure these, it would necessarily mean an exponential increase in democracy. That would be different from seizing, say, the iPod of a member of the ruling class. I do not want that, mostly because I am certain that most members of the ruling class listen to Michael Bolton.

Dictating one's profession to him or her.
- Why would a socialist society do that? The problem with capitalism is that classes are rigid structures, such that if one's parent is a laborer, one might surmise that their offspring will be a laborer. So, while one does not have an official telling them what they are going to be, it is an implicit given within the confines of capitalism. I want a society that engages human potential, that allows every individual a plethora of avenues with which to express themselves. Only by taking control of the means of production, eliminating material want and thereby eliminating class distinctions, will people actually be free to determine their own paths in their lives.

Impeding on individual liberties and property.
-Bourgeois rights /= The rights of man. I have no problem eliminating bourgeois rights, for those rights are merely the rights, in legal form, to exploit. I hate to keep quoting Marx, but he foresaw such criticisms:

All objections urged against the Communistic mode of producing and appropriating material products, have, in the same way, been urged against the Communistic mode of producing and appropriating intellectual products. Just as, to the bourgeois, the disappearance of class property is the disappearance of production itself, so the disappearance of class culture is to him identical with the disappearance of all culture.

That culture, the loss of which he laments, is, for the enormous majority, a mere training to act as a machine.

But don’t wrangle with us so long as you apply, to our intended abolition of bourgeois property, the standard of your bourgeois notions of freedom, culture, law, &c. Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of the conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class made into a law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economical conditions of existence of your class.

The selfish misconception that induces you to transform into eternal laws of nature and of reason, the social forms springing from your present mode of production and form of property – historical relations that rise and disappear in the progress of production – this misconception you share with every ruling class that has preceded you. What you see clearly in the case of ancient property, what you admit in the case of feudal property, you are of course forbidden to admit in the case of your own bourgeois form of property.


Are you suggesting that pursuing means for profit would cease if everybody had equal value amounts of money? How could this occur in a naturally flowing economy?
-Nope. The desire to pursue profit will persist so long as capitalism and class society will.

Ok… you go on to talk about empires… not capitalist.
-Which, as I've explained, are intrinsically connected to capital.

Poverty…? The North Korean government won't allow people to turn the lights on after 7PM (Google: Korea's Dark Half).
-Relative to other countries, yes, the US is better off. No one is saying that all poverty is equal. If I critique poverty in the US, I am not saying it is the worst possible poverty ever, but that it is harsh nonetheless. Moreover, you act as though poverty abroad has no connection to prosperity in the first world.

Awful wars have been waged by supposed capitalist countries, however our interventionist foreign policy is counter intuitive to the ideal set forth by Madison and Jefferson.
-Didn't Madison order the invasion of Canada? In any event, the reticence of the early republic to engage in imperialism abroad directly corresponds to the amount of power it had as a newly-born nation; within the republic, however, there was no concern given to the relocation, destruction, enslavement, etc., of the indigenous and African people. In fact, Jefferson, the representative of individual liberty, owned slaves, did he not? He, as an individual unstuck from his historical situation, must have been one of those evil people you refer to.

Moreover, without the government controlled monopoly over the money supply (a socialist structure)
-Government =/ socialist It's more like State Capitalism.

none of these acts of aggression would have any funding.
-The market is one of the biggest boosters of imperial adventures. It gives industry all sorts of opportunities to produce weaponry, food, vehicles, etc. More importantly, when the dust has settled, the market can come in, take the natural resources and have the army at its side in case any of the victims decide to resist the occupation/expropriation.

However, at least when "capitalist nations" kill they do so outside their own country.
-Guess we can't count natives and Africans, or the people that died from lack of access to food and health care, both in the past and in more modern times.

Marxist nations seem highly adept at starving their own people to death without any outside help.
-That's a straw man.

Someone who is motivated by profit cares to improve his own surroundings.
-Why? Using the environment and the oil industry as an example, what is the motivation to produce a better world when pollution is easier and much more profitable?

It's not built on exploitation. It's built on competition, which is healthy.[quote]
-Competition among capitalist; exploitation for workers, although they do tend to pit workers against one another.

[quote]Yes, I want to see a competitor do worse, but so long as I behave lawfully I can only put him out of business if I produce something that the public wants more.
-Or if you simply own a larger share of the market and can crush them, despite how good their idea is.

Exactly how are you being exploited in this country? What are you being forced to do?
-I must sell my labor in order to survive.

Who is telling you that you have to do it?
-There is no who, it is something that is assumed as natural according to the structure of the system.

Why do you need a share of my paycheck to get the things you want?
-I don't want your paycheck. I assume you are a worker and that would make the seizure of your paycheck counter-intuitive to the socialist project, which has as its aim the desire to take over the means of production from the capitalist class and to expropriate their wealth. I sometimes envision the domiciles of the wealthy, which reside in areas with acres and acres of land, being demolished and being put to public use. Ah, a man can dream, eh?

Capitalism is divorced from humanity? Capitalism sets human creativity and innovation as the standard for what should be rewarded.
Then, given the distribution of wealth, are we to assume there are only a few humans that are creative/innovative?

People who are able to produce things that are original, innovative, and efficient do the best.
-Isn't it interesting how innovation generally occurs in classes with the most economic freedom? Example: Facebook

It's accumulation that allows people to do wonderful things.
- Like, purchase more commodities?

The greatest shapers of the world were motivated by profit.
-Well, given the epoch in which they were living, it isn't as though they had an alternative. It'd be a bit like saying, "The greatest nobles in the feudal period were motivated by plunder, therefore plunder is the zenith of human activity."

The computer you type on,
the clothes you wear,
the automobiles you drive,
pretty much everything in your life that makes it livable was produced as a result of pursuing profit.
- I do not deny capitalism's immense productive capabilities. That is precisely why, as Marx said, we now have a system of production whose capabilities now render communism a material possibility.

Not only that, the fact that's affordable is because you have groups of individuals competing with each other to give you, the willing consumer, your products at the cheapest price.
- I thought it had to do with the employment of cheap labor abroad, some of which are children, who work sixteen hour days and whatnot.

How does Marxism explain the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation? They're getting billionaires to either donate or pledge half of their wealth to charity. Yes, charity can happen without it being mandated by the government.
-"The philanthropists, then, want to retain the categories which express bourgeois relations, without the antagonism which constitutes them and is inseparable from them. "

Education… I might note the failure of the public school system. This is not capitalist.

-The educational system that was established, and continues today, works within the paradigm of industrial capitalism; that is, producing within the new generation the constitutive elements that make up a good worker. I would go further and say that, not only do we need to improve public education by changing the paradigm, but we need to make all education free to the public at large.

The most explosive period of growth occurred over the course of 200 years of free trade in the US. It was incredible. It was done without central planning. The result? By the mid-1900's we had the largest middle class in the entire world. Each family earned enough money to live on one salary. Government intervention after intervention in monetary and fiscal policy has slowly eroded that away.
-The mid-1900's? That was the point at which government intervention, in the form of social democratic and regulatory measures, had reached the pinnacle of its expression; the tax rate was something like ninety percent and there were government subsidies that allowed people to go to college. Of course, we should note that whole cross-sections of the population were left out of this,e.g., African-Americans
Moreover, the dominance of America at that particular time had more to do with the devastation of the rest of the world after World War 2. Once those countries recover in the '70's, American dominance began to be whittled away, such that there was a crisis of profitability and the instruments that ensured a lengthy post-war boom could no longer function in the new epoch. And so, as a result, we got neoliberalism.

Once again, labor is a form of trade. You willingly enter into it. You are not forced. You don't even have to labor. All trade is entered into willingly. Mutual exchange does not occur unless both sides believe that they are benefiting. There is no exploitation. No demands. No one says you have to do anything. True free market capitalism advocates a "hands off" policy with regard to individual agreement. It imposes no structures.
- I've addressed this more than once.

Yes, there are wealthy people in this world. Some who inherited their wealth and are completely inept. What this has to do with you or anyone else less fortunate than such individuals, I have no idea. I find it hard to believe that Paris Hilton takes time out of her day to make sure the wage earners of the world are being kept down to serve her.
-It undercuts your argument that wealth = contributions to society or innovative ideas. And she is demonstrative of the rule, not the exception, for children of the privileged. Given the rigidity of economic mobility, we can surmise that the concentration of privilege at the top necessarily means less for the rest of the population.

The increased productivity (when left uninhibited) allows the standard of living to continually rise for all members of that society… this is historical fact.
-It isn't uniform. Until the regulations imposed during the progressive era, in spite of what capitalists wanted, not because of it, the standard of living for workers was pretty terrible. Moreover, the changes in features within capitalism over the past forty or so years has now made it possible to have increased production without the necessary increase in wages or standards of living. See:

In many countries, working people have suffered an absolute decline in living standards. In the United States, the real weekly earnings of production and nonsupervisory workers (in 1992 dollars) fell from $315 in 1973 to $264 in 1989. After a decade of economic expansion, it reached $271 in 1999, which remained lower than the average real wage in 1962.
http://monthlyreview.org/2004/01/01/after-neoliberalism-empire-social-democracy-or-socialism