What is your view of Libertarianism and Ayn Rand?

[Angst]

I skimmed the thread slightly and read Crezth's link about Rand. All I have to say is this:

Founding a political philosophy on a imaginary fantasy setting seems to me like someone suggesting that history is cyclical on the premise of pigs.

The term "objectivism" is also utterly ridiculous since the philosophy isn't objective. I hate her for claiming that term.

Rand speaks for a capitalist oligarchy. Which doesn't work. At all.

 

[JollyRoger]

But it aint your home, it belongs to someone else. You are using force against the rightful owner, they spent part of their life for that house. If that was my house and I needed that $$$ I sure as hell would not appreciate being called an aggressor by the person sitting in my house. Would you?

If I am being forclosed on, it is likely by an entity claiming "ownership", not a person. I do not see a good reason that a piece of paper has a greater right to my home than I do.

 

[Crezth]

If person A gets help from his Dad to get into the elite, that doesn't mean that I owe person B a free education to give him an equal footing to get himself into the elite. So yes, people get varying amounts of help from others, but so what? They don't have a right to extort money from me and force me to help them, just because they are ambitious - if they want it badly enough, let them get it themselves even if they do start out from a disadvantageous position.

So then, what you're suggesting would just end up creating a caste system, with elites and normals born into their station in life.

I've explained it in other threads before, but ensuring everyone has access to a basic standard of education is one of the best, most reliable ways towards ensuring everyone has a basic level of social mobility. And allowing people to have social mobility would be very conducive to any society wherein the best and the brightest are supposed to be allowed to flower.

I mean, a system where advantages are allowed to remain unequal stagnates social mobility by a lot, and promotes mediocrity. I mean, look at Donald Trump. He has absolutely no redeeming qualities and is a failure of a businessman, but he still has oodles of cash simply because he was born into it.

What I'm saying is the people who pulled themselves out of abject poverty into being Carnegies are the exception, not the rule: and their rarity should suggest the impracticality on relying their flowering despite being smothered with dirt and denied all but the strayest rays of sunlight.

Kind of a moot suggestion - it is a work of fiction so it serves well enough. As for your statistic, it's funny I don't remember seeing that figure - also, if you read the book it explains what happens, I'm not going to walk you through the whole plot.

I realize that the book explains why it happens, but I was really unsatisfied with the justification and I fail to see how the, erm, course of action that the greats take with regard to the issue are at all in line with what Rand preached.

Spoiler :

Also I'm pretty sure the number of people who die is in the many of billions, probably making John Galt the worst mass murderer ever. It's justified because everyone who dies is "evil," but, I mean, come on. It's genocide.

 

[Berzerker]

You're just assuming bands of nomads didn't wander across the land before someone settled on it.

And you're assuming they did... So would those nomads be justified in killing the Hopi and taking their crops? After all, they walked across that land just a few months ago and now these aggressors were... what? Taking land from the nomads? I imagine they found better land to live on, the main reason the Hopi are still there is because nobody else wanted it. Give it up, claiming everyone shared the land before an "aggressor" built a hut and grew crops is ridiculous. It didn't happen, filling niches is what life does - and critters dont like other critters invading their niche. Property ownership predates government.

If I am being forclosed on, it is likely by an entity claiming "ownership", not a person. I do not see a good reason that a piece of paper has a greater right to my home than I do.

And we dont have a free market in housing, so why did you bring it up? If you own the house I'm living in and I'm refusing to pay you, I'm taking part of your life. And you think the victim (you, the owner) is the aggressor. Usually these threads are loaded with insults about the lolbertarians but I am impressed by how deep y'all are digging

 

[Cutlass]

And you're assuming they did... So would those nomads be justified in killing the Hopi and taking their crops? After all, they walked across that land just a few months ago and now these aggressors were... what? Taking land from the nomads? I imagine they found better land to live on, the main reason the Hopi are still there is because nobody else wanted it. Give it up, claiming everyone shared the land before an "aggressor" built a hut and grew crops is ridiculous. It didn't happen, filling niches is what life does - and critters dont like other critters invading their niche. Property ownership predates government.

The point is that any land worth living on was worth wandering across hunting and gathering or grazing herds on before someone claimed it and denied the traditional users the right. So you don't have property before you have aggression to seize it.

Government is just the formalizing of that.

 

[bernie14]

X who did Y was not Z, therefore nobody who ever does Y could be Z? Bad, bad logic you're peddling, there.

I apologize if the sarcasm was not sufficiently pronounced….my comment was not meant to be logically sound, only a slightly less slippery slope version of the comment responded to, since I don’t know of a self proclaimed objectivist/s whom have:

"1) seize control of the state, to impose his own rule and law on everybody else.

2) create an alternative power structure which overthrows the state and imposes its own rule and law on everybody else."

But several self proclaimed socialists/marxists whom have….

That strikes me as ignorant and arrogant...

And I respect that…..

my objection to your comment was that an opinion, and a sweeping generalization to boot , could be as valid an opinion, (despite being an opposite sweeping generalization) by just changing two words… so your statement was at least, as ignorant and arrogant as mine, a dangerous combination.

Unfortunately, we here at OT tend to do this all too commonly.

And when I say "we"…..

 

[JollyRoger]

And we dont have a free market in housing, so why did you bring it up? If you own the house I'm living in and I'm refusing to pay you, I'm taking part of your life. And you think the victim (you, the owner) is the aggressor. Usually these threads are loaded with insults about the lolbertarians but I am impressed by how deep y'all are digging

It's not a free market if you are enforcing it with government privileges. If my arguments sound absurd and you must retreat to government force to make it les absurd, then perhaps the point I a making has something to do with that. It's funny how libertarians are making statist arguments to deal with me on this.

 

[Perfection]

my objection to your comment was that an opinion, and a sweeping generalization to boot , could be as valid an opinion, (despite being an opposite sweeping generalization) by just changing two words… so your statement was at least, as ignorant and arrogant as mine, a dangerous combination.

No, my statement was based on people with a very specific, very wrong political philosophy (Rand's Objectivism), yours was based on an extremely loose term.

(I should note that my usage of "Strikes me" to make my statement more of a personal opinion was a mere act of politeness.)

 

[HannibalBarka]

I don't know if we are ever planning to take power, but as we are not the kind for military coups then it would probably have to be the election route. Under Objectivism, every kind of political party would be allowed to stand for election, recruit, write newspapers, annoy us etc. We have almost unlimited commitment to freedom of expression.

Good to hear

Indeed, but there are private consumer monitoring groups out there and for most of history, this kind of thing has been handled privately and we somehow managed to avoid self-slaughter. Such groups can be charities, or financed by an industry association, newspapers, philanphropists and so on.
I know, I know - people solving their problems without help from government. Who would have thought? But seriously, there are two models [as you know] - one is private, the other government-based. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, but as I observed above, people tend to take a "faith" based approach to the question of which one works best.

Hummm, I don't trust industry association because of conflict of interest, that's like EXXON paying for studies about Global Warming or Philip Morris about the cig's health consequences. Now I have nothing against newspapers, philantropist bare the fact that I, as a citizen, have no control over them so if they fail, I'm cooked. For special things that may have irreversible consequences (eating toxic food or using bad medicine), I am more inclined to have a public or publicly observed entity.

Anecdotes can be very interesting but also have the potential to be misleading - for example, your anecdote doesn't give a breakdown of the costs of the government program, nor corruption risks, nor cases where government has gotten it wrong, nor the burden on the companies of conformance etc. So in the overall scheme of things, it's not possible to evaluate something so complex just because one libertarian thought cheerios were healthy [and let's face it, they're not exactly toxic waste that kills you on contact are they? It's not that bad].
First thing I would ask is - "what are the real economic costs including opportunity costs of keeping those lands as national parks".
Then if we could get a dollar figure, would you be prepared to pay a fair contribution to that each time you used the parks? If you would, then private interests can buy parks and keep them for you and others to pay to use. If you wouldn't, then why should someone else have to pay the cost for you?

The thing about freedom is that people get to choose what their real priorities are, instead of having those priorities chosen for them. While I wouldn't want to see the national parks sold off, if people don't value them enough to pay for them then why should their productive assets be kept out of use?

I don't have a problem with privatly run parks. I am however against "selling" the land to private sector as there will be the risk that they use it for another purpose. Now if American people vote for doing exactly that, I don't know who would have the right to stop them from doing so. I however know they won't

If person A gets help from his Dad to get into the elite, that doesn't mean that I owe person B a free education to give him an equal footing to get himself into the elite. So yes, people get varying amounts of help from others, but so what? They don't have a right to extort money from me and force me to help them, just because they are ambitious - if they want it badly enough, let them get it themselves even if they do start out from a disadvantageous position.

OK, but that does mean that the society objectivist propose is not really free and makes no effort to make it becoming so. If the purpose is to let the creativity of the most gifted bloom, the result won't be attainted. That brings another question by the way, what do Objectivist think about inheritence?

 

[Traitorfish]

Owning property is older than government

There is no single transhistorical form of either property or government, so this claim is essentially meaningless for the purposes of this discussion.

I apologize if the sarcasm was not sufficiently pronounced….my comment was not meant to be logically sound, only a slightly less slippery slope version of the comment responded to, since I don’t know of a self proclaimed objectivist/s whom have:

"1) seize control of the state, to impose his own rule and law on everybody else.

2) create an alternative power structure which overthrows the state and imposes its own rule and law on everybody else."

But several self proclaimed socialists/marxists whom have….

And as an observation that's fine, albeit so incomplete as a discussion of dictatorship and so over-generalised as a discussion of the Left as to be complete worthless. But what predictive powers does that give you, exactly? What are you claiming to have discovered that would preclude an unilateral seizure of power by Objectivists?

 

[aelf]

The thread moved pretty quickly. I haven't read everything, so feel free to point me to other posts that have covered what I'm talking or asking about.

I'll try

Rand opens her metaphysical onslaught by stating "existence exists" and deriving two corollaries from this - that something [existence] is there to be perceived, and someone [consciousness] is there to do the perceiving. Existence then is identity, and consciousness is identification.

So whatever has been identified, and the fact that you identify it, are two inescapable forms of existence that comprise the basis of objective reality. The fact that a consciousness is engaged in identification, is as much an objective fact as the entities that possess identity.

Rand made no attempt to offer a complex logical "proof" for reality's existence as I believe the positivists tried and failed to do - she just considered it axiomatic and that some axioms are secure. Note also that this is not an argument of the type "the World is out there and objects are real and solid etc". Although Rand does get to that as self-evident and thus true based on the best knowledge available.

To proceed to the epistemology, Rand identifies the nature of consciousness and the primary fact that it is an agent of identification, with specific properties. These properties are identified, measured and put into a concept system - which together form a mind. The episteomology is essentially one of identifying the primary properties of rational consciousness in reality.

Ethics transitions from epistemology to the mind's relation to reality, which it understands [through identification] to be one of it's own survival in the World [and the pursuit of other values necessary to survival and comfort].

Theres seems to a big jump between your epistemology and your ethical framework, even if we accept the former (which seems a little suspect, but I'm not prepared to get into a complex debate about that now). I'm not sure "the mind's relation to reality" can, given the premises outlined in your metaphysics and epistemology, simply be identified as "one of it own survival in the World".

Let's say that there is indeed such a thing as 'objective reality' that consists of an indisputably existent world and that is invariably affirmed through its unfailing perception by the mind, why should the mind be therefore concerned about its own survival or existence? What's the connection?

Rand therefore embraces a form of Aristotelian virtue ethics as the ethical solution to the survival/prosperity situation - in which values [things worth having for survival and prosperity] are identified and acquired by the cultivation of virtues [abilities, such as rationality, justice, pride, productiveness].

Rand therefore embraces individualism, through which she means a productive, rational and independent mind living its own life without unjustly burdening or allowing itself to be a burden on other living beings. This is necessary because reality will "wipe us out" if we do not make the correct identifications and follow the course of action that its nature demands.

As for selfishness, Rand states that it was simply distorted by improper identification in earlier history and there is no need to maintain the idea that it is immoral. Selfishness is a virtue, provided it is exercised in the context of the other virtues of rationality, justice, productivity etc.

So you are saying that Objectivism is Aristotelian except that its telos is simply the survival of the individual? If that is the case, Aristotelians could accuse Objectivists of confusing means and ends. Survival is essential, yes, but once the individual is able to survive, there would seem to be no reason to continue to pursue his rational self interest if survival is the aim of such a pursuit.

I know you also mentioned prosperity, but so far its place has not been explained. You suggested that the mind needs and wants to able to survive, and that to ensure its survival it must embrace an ethic of individualism. How does prosperity fit into the picture?

 

[Crezth]

So you are saying that Objectivism is Aristotelian except that its telos is simply the survival of the individual? If that is the case, Aristotelians could accuse Objectivists of confusing means and ends. Survival is essential, yes, but once the individual is able to survive, there would seem to be no reason to continue to pursue his rational self interest if survival is the aim of such a pursuit.

Yes, you're right; and they do. Aristotle often places a virtue on matters of the self that go beyond simple self-interest and draws a clear line between altruism (virtuous) and selfishness (non-virtuous). He says that being altruistic is not a trait one has for the gratification of the self, but the gratification of the spirit. It rewards someone in a way that is deeper and more satisfying than merely being selfish does.

I've seen an Objectivist argue that is still compatible with Objectivism because the choice to be selfless, or to do something for someone else, is made on the part of the self and is a rational choice made with respect to one's own rational self-interest. It's not an argument that holds water, however, because Aristotle doesn't leave it as an exercise for the reader to find out what the moral action is: he outright tells you. And he never admits that altruistic deeds are ultimately selfish, just that they benefit the self through their own virtuousness.

 

[Murky]

First thing I would ask is - "what are the real economic costs including opportunity costs of keeping those lands as national parks".

There are great long term benefits when it comes to national parks. The tourism from the Grand Canyon is far better economically and environmentally than ruining it just to get some Uranium. The Uranium mine would be a one time, short-term boost to the economy. So long as we preserve it, the Grand Canyon will continue providing a place for people to go to see a natural wonder and keep tourist dollars coming in.

Then if we could get a dollar figure, would you be prepared to pay a fair contribution to that each time you used the parks? If you would, then private interests can buy parks and keep them for you and others to pay to use. If you wouldn't, then why should someone else have to pay the cost for you?

There actually are some entry fees to some national parks. It goes to pay for park employees and maintenance. Yes, I would gladly pay to see them.

The thing about freedom is that people get to choose what their real priorities are, instead of having those priorities chosen for them. While I wouldn't want to see the national parks sold off, if people don't value them enough to pay for them then why should their productive assets be kept out of use?

Freedom is great. I support being able to go hike through the National Parks anytime you like. It would be a travesty if they were sold to commercial interests, then closed to the public so that they can be exploited for temporary short-term gains.

 

[El_Machinae]

National Parks suffer from the Free Rider problem. Aquifer protection/filtering, biodiversity maintenance, pollution cleaning, etc. are all benefits borne by those who never even look at the park.

In a perfectly fair world, people would pay their proportionate benefit or lose the benefit. We only have proxies for those. Sometimes, they're taxes.

 

[Murky]

National Parks suffer from the Free Rider problem. Aquifer protection/filtering, biodiversity maintenance, pollution cleaning, etc. are all benefits borne by those who never even look at the park.

In a perfectly fair world, people would pay their proportionate benefit or lose the benefit. We only have proxies for those. Sometimes, they're taxes.

Not entirely accurate. We all benefit from having healthy ecosystems because we live on a globe that is shared by all. What happens to a rainforest in South America matters to people in Europe though most of them will probably never see it in person.

 

[Ayn Rand]

Not by me, and my point stands unanswered.

How can the weakling states you imagine prevent individuals or groups from becoming powerful enough to subvert them, and to replace them with something far less friendly to individual freedoms?

Allowed nothing more than the enforcement of contracts, property rights, and non-violence, the state would have no way to prevent individuals or cartels acquiring power vastly greater than its own. And once you reach that point, it's inevitable that the power of the state itself will fall into the hands of those who might reap far greater profit from expanding that power than from continuing its restriction.

How would it be a "weakling State"? The fundamentals of State security are there in a minarchist system - police, army, courts [and intelligence services within that]. There will be a free press, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, open journalism. So with the freedom to criticise, voice dissent, organise and modify policy, then it's no more likely that a small number of goons could take over the country than in any other stable democracy. In a worst-case scenario, people will use their democratic freedom to put a different kind of government into power.

The problem is, that once you have easy access to a government liability shield, most entities of any size take it.

You say we can avoid those carrying the government shield, but can we? When is the last time you bought gas from a sole proprieter or partnership?

The point is, if you have a government provided shield and a bunch of people acting in their rational self-interest, most are going to take the handout of the shield. In a true free market, the shield should not be government provided, but should be negotiated on a contract-by-contract basis, with silence in the contract meaning the shield is not there.

It's not a handout when people choose to form their company with limited liability. Do you know what the word "handout" means? It has nothing to do with the formation of a legal business entity for trading - no-one is having wealth taxed off them and given to these companies - as I said, I think this is a tedious conflation where you are trying to equate something as a handout when it isn't. And anyway, if it really were seen to be an unfair economic intrusion, it would be eliminated anyway.

snip

Will reply in full in a separate post

So answer me this, when we are not required by regulatory laws to have certain standards in advertisingélabelling etc. do you think companies will simply volunteer to put out all the information on their products?

No, but some will. And if consumers really want that, then they can choose their preference.

I am surprised that you seem genuienly surprised by Ziggy Stardust's 100% Orange Juice example that is only 10% juice and that you seem to think this a strange/peculiar funny and not ideal company but also don't seem to think that it's the norm. In Objectivist society I create a cigarette company and market that my cigarettes have health benefits, (as they used to be marketted) so how will the market resolve that issue?

The courts will resolve that issue because it is false advertising.

The other companies will start marketting their health benefits instead. Those nasty government mandated labels will come off the boxes.

You keep saying the legal mechanisms would be kept, but what legal mechanisms? The regulations and laws we currently have? Why must we keep law based on other social theories and ideas, let's not talk about gradual, if Objectivism is the best social theory around than surely the laws should be based on Objectivist principles. So what law will say I cannot label my cigarettes as such?

The same law that will stop you shooting people and saying "I did it for the health benefit". It is a form of aggression against people to harm them by deceiving them. If you sell the cigarettes on the grounds that they are healthy, then you are legally liable for that claim. Objectivists are not interested in eliminating the rule of law, only in removing most or all intrusive regulations that are seen as unnecessary for business and society.

Since the role of the courts is to enforce these laws I really would like to hear what laws these courts would be enforcing. For instance, will there be some 'government' regulatory law requiring I can't advertise how I choose for my own business?

The same laws and legal principles as exist today, with the exception of some or most of the excessive business regulations that exist. The body of law is enormous and regulations are just one small part of it - most of the law would be kept.

You seem to be thinking of a society in which there is no law - try anarcho-capitalism or anarchism for that Objectivism has a minarchist State and rule of law.

If it turned out that people were exploiting loopholes in the law to poison food etc, then the law would be changed in some way to prevent them doing that. It is the intention of Objectivism to make society as free as possible, not to turn it into a jungle.

See, there's another problem. You want a state to protect what you want, but not to protect what others want. So you're really just another group of authoritarians.

What kind of definition of authoritarianism is that? By that definition, isn't almost everyone an authoritarian - please tell me who, under that definition, would not be classed as an "authoritarian"?

yes it does have a good history, BUT it also has a history of opposing the views your supporting , unless you have an example i don,t know about, I mean even the Salvos take Huge government grants and lobby for more Government intervention, so your sort of saying yes there are private solutions avalible that work well, if we don't adopt the system your advocating for

perhaps you could give an example where the private charity ALSO advocates the ideas your advocating

There are different kinds of private charity, but I don't think the issue is whether charity supports Objectivism, but whether pricate charity is an effective mechanism for looking after people without government support. Nearly all charities acquire private funds where possible - such as Red Cross, Medicine Sans Frontiers, Bill Gates Foundation to name a few. They may not support the entirety of Objectivism, but they certainly support private solutions to social problems, else they wouldn't form themselves as charities.

You're just assuming bands of nomads didn't wander across the land before someone settled on it.

Now you appear to be saying private property is immoral, based purely on some unknown speculation you are making about what our ancestors might have done 75,000 years ago. This is part of anarcho-communist myth-making - that sometime in the past, there was a virgin Earth, and that this free Earth was enclosed and denied to others by the creators of private property. Anarcho-communists go on to say that this "original sin" invalidates all the private property in the Earth today. It completely ignores the fact that it is utter speculation, that social development was immensely complex and occured in multiple locations, and that it hardly matters anyway what our ancestors did 75,000 years ago, as what they did or did not do has no relevance on the current wisdom of private property ownership and legal titles for organising production.

 

[JollyRoger]

It's not a handout when people choose to form their company with limited liability.

For the fairly nominal fee of $300 I purchase the courts and police to protect my government privilege of protection from limited liability, something worth a bit north of $300. Now, I can see why it is beneficial (especially if you think government should have such a role in the marketplace), but it certainly isn't libertarian. If you want protection from individual liability, from a libertarian perspective, you should negotiate for it in the free market, not purchase government enforcement of it for a nominal fee.

 

[Ayn Rand]

I think that you're certainly right that Rand didn't set particularly great store on social domination for its own sake, and that she was on the contrary interested in, as you say, domination of objects - "man over nature", rather than "man over man", as Marx would have had it.

However, the fact that she rejects social domination for its own sake does not imply that she rejects social domination altogether.

Yes, quite right. Marx was well-informed when he pointed out that capitalism often has many unintended forms of domination and exploitation that aren't even intended [as do all systems].

Her conception of rational creation as the driving purpose of human existence doesn't settle on self-employed artisans, as a conservative interpretation of this principle might, not only accepting but enthusiastically embracing modern industry as a further shedding of the fetters on freedom as she understands it. This is a form of production which necessarily entails the subsumation, however voluntary, of the creative will of the majority to that of the minority, a subsumpation which only becomes more advanced as the production process becomes more refined. It becomes a form of production in production in which a minority dominate the majority in the process of the production and re-production of daily life. The very act of "playing with their toys", whether they want it or not, makes them masters over others.

Now, the obvious response is to say that this is only a temporary domination, one that ends at the factory gate, and that's accurate insofar as we're a specific relationship between individual and individual. (Setting aside the draconian interference of some employers aside, for a minute, because it's not a fundamental issue.) But to end our analysis there neglects to acknowledge the fact that the world is not just a jumble of independent relationships, conducted in isolation, but a social totality, that the aggregate of these individual relationships determines the overall structure of society. In a world in which a minority control the process by which society is re-produced, they come to hold the last word in how it is reproduced, both as a process and as an outcome. There may well be conflict within this elite- even Marx accepted that this was the case- but the fact is that they remain within an elite. Society becomes theirs to shape in their own image, and even if their motives are those of Aristotelian virtue, and they prove entirely happy to let the majority lead lives of peace and happiness, the relationship of domination persists.

That's a classical Marxist view of society and class-interest, but the first question [which I know your answer to] is "what better alternative do you have"?

The second part of any reponse to that criticism is to look at the details of it - for example, why would you prefer artisan [second-best] to industrial production [first-best]. If you choose the second-best method of steel production, then you aren't serious about human progress.

Next, wherever people are free to make a preference, they generally tend to choose a more advanced and free society. Your artisan-style economy [of whatever form] would be a high-cost society, whereas advanced capitalism is a low-cost society. The low costs free up resources for research into medicine, science, space research etc. They also allow for greater responsiveness for rapid change and progress, or response to crises such as famine.

Also, in a free society, people will be able to create artisan-style businesses if they choose to - they can make that preference, or even go into a commune with other like-minded individuals. But most people prefer the sophistication and convenience of urban living with its improved access to information, transport, jobs and other opportunities and resources.

As a final point, it is pointless to criticise a social system simply because it isn't perfect, as no social system will be. Society will reflect reality, rather than the whims and wishes of people to create a "social reality" that is somehow independent of "real reality". Objectivism is more concerned with the "real reality" and if social reality is a little unfair, or has some hard struggle, then it's not the end of the World. People can deal with it and still find purpose and happiness in their lives.

This is why "going Galt", and Rand's ideal society more generally, cannot be satisfactorily addressed as a simple retreat from authority. Rand advocates that the small elite of "producers" take radical action, as radical as any syndicalist mass strike, to achieve very real social and political change; that is in itself an exercise in authority. The majority are obliged to submit to the construction of a society orientated around this "productive" elite, the fact that it is ultimately for their own good being entirely secondary to the fact that they have no real choice to the contrary. And I don't think that this is something that Rand wasn't aware of, because the choice offered to the populace by Galt is quite coolly acknowledged as one of submission or death.

In fact they are not obliged to submit - the only obligation is to give these "elite" people their freedom, rather than fixing all the plans of society on the idea that the best minds can be turned into productive cattle. If people resent or dislike the most talented and able people, then they don't have to live in a society with those people. The talented can simply leave, or withdraw their support. If the most able people are such a burden to society, then society will be better off without them anyway.

As for Galt, he talked nothing about submission. All he did was walk away - from that moment on, they were as free as he was to do whatever they pleased. However, in the absence of a rational elite, human societies tend to support leaders who are irrational, mystical, violent and deceptive. They choose those leaders who lie to them and tell them that reality can be evaded, that a perfect World is possible, that the elite are parasites who deserve to be enslaved for the "common good". They make their own choices.

 

[Ayn Rand]

So then, what you're suggesting would just end up creating a caste system, with elites and normals born into their station in life.

Nope, a caste system is quite a different thing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system

Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with... social class

My bold.

I've explained it in other threads before, but ensuring everyone has access to a basic standard of education is one of the best, most reliable ways towards ensuring everyone has a basic level of social mobility.

I don't disagree - but your assumption that government is the only and/or best provider of education seems to be so deep that you can't even think of a World where people educate themselves.

It is not a foregone conclusion that government education will increase social mobility - governments can educate in order to indoctrinate, if they so desire. So your faith in government as the source of all educational wisdom is seriously misplaced.

And allowing people to have social mobility would be very conducive to any society wherein the best and the brightest are supposed to be allowed to flower.

You're assuming that something similar to the European welfare state gives maximum social mobility, while a free society would have zero social mobility. That is an unwarranted exaggeration.

I mean, a system where advantages are allowed to remain unequal stagnates social mobility by a lot, and promotes mediocrity. I mean, look at Donald Trump. He has absolutely no redeeming qualities and is a failure of a businessman, but he still has oodles of cash simply because he was born into it.

Picking a random example of one person [especially of a media-savvy businessman like Donald Trump] doesn't prove your point.

What I'm saying is the people who pulled themselves out of abject poverty into being Carnegies are the exception, not the rule:

Yet they still exist, and created profound changes in the nature of our society. You are arguing in absolutes, whereas the reality is much more complex.

I realize that the book explains why it happens, but I was really unsatisfied with the justification and I fail to see how the, erm, course of action that the greats take with regard to the issue are at all in line with what Rand preached.

Spoiler :

Also I'm pretty sure the number of people who die is in the many of billions, probably making John Galt the worst mass murderer ever. It's justified because everyone who dies is "evil," but, I mean, come on. It's genocide.

It's just a piece of fiction - Galt did his best to stop socialism, but he can't be blamed for the actions that socialism performed. Perhaps some blame can be put on his shoulders for not finding a way to stop the collectivists, but that hardly makes him genocidal [unless you are determined to keep trying to reverse the cause-and-effect, in which case believe what you wish ].

Hummm, I don't trust industry association because of conflict of interest, that's like EXXON paying for studies about Global Warming or Philip Morris about the cig's health consequences. Now I have nothing against newspapers, philantropist bare the fact that I, as a citizen, have no control over them so if they fail, I'm cooked. For special things that may have irreversible consequences (eating toxic food or using bad medicine), I am more inclined to have a public or publicly observed entity.

Yep, a variety of safeguards is necessary and ultimately there is an argument to be made for government controls. But there is a good case for market self-regulation and also an argument against government influence-peddling and bribery/lobbying that can become systemic when elements such as the US Congress are given the reigns over every industry and market. So there is no easy solution to this problem from either viewpoint.

I don't have a problem with privatly run parks. I am however against "selling" the land to private sector as there will be the risk that they use it for another purpose. Now if American people vote for doing exactly that, I don't know who would have the right to stop them from doing so. I however know they won't

I largely agree - however, times change. If resources start to get too depleted, people may change their attitude.

OK, but that does mean that the society objectivist propose is not really free and makes no effort to make it becoming so. If the purpose is to let the creativity of the most gifted bloom, the result won't be attainted. That brings another question by the way, what do Objectivist think about inheritence?

Inheritance is fine, as it is up to the property owner to gift the property to whomsoever they wish.

I disagree with you on this point, because paying for the education of people who don't want to learn is a drain on society which holds back creativitey as well. But in a free society, people will work out solutions to solve the problems that face them - those who want to advance, may not have government programs or subsidies, but will gain in other ways because they have lower taxes and fewer impediments. Also, government education is not that good in most countries. People can educate themselves and each other if the will to do it is really there.

 

[Traitorfish]

That's a classical Marxist view of society and class-interest, but the first question [which I know your answer to] is "what better alternative do you have"?

It's really not a Marxist critique- I paid no reference to class, to capital and labour, or to commodity production, or any other of the fundamental elements of the Marxist conception of society. I'm dealing solely in the realities of the organisation of contemporary capitalist production: the division of labour, the concentration of decision-making roles into a managerial minority, the necessary subsumption of the will of the employed majority to the employing minority, and so on. My point here is not to criticise capitalism, and so not to offer alternatives, but to criticise the way in which capitalism is addressed by Objectivism.

The second part of any reponse to that criticism is to look at the details of it - for example, why would you prefer artisan [second-best] to industrial production [first-best]. If you choose the second-best method of steel production, then you aren't serious about human progress.

Next, wherever people are free to make a preference, they generally tend to choose a more advanced and free society. Your artisan-style economy [of whatever form] would be a high-cost society, whereas advanced capitalism is a low-cost society. The low costs free up resources for research into medicine, science, space research etc. They also allow for greater responsiveness for rapid change and progress, or response to crises such as famine.

What is "human progress", in the Objectivist view? As I said previously, Rand's primary concern was in enabling individuals to freely pursue rational creation, so any notion of "human progress" would have to be expressed within these terms, which is not self-evidently true of the development of capitalist production.

Also, in a free society, people will be able to create artisan-style businesses if they choose to - they can make that preference, or even go into a commune with other like-minded individuals. But most people prefer the sophistication and convenience of urban living with its improved access to information, transport, jobs and other opportunities and resources.

That's a practical impossibility, though. The realities of competition preclude the overwhelming majority of the population from ever attempting to engage in this sort of enterprise, and those such enterprises that do exist peripherally, in those areas of the market that larger business have been, for whatever reason, unable or unwilling to enter into. This "freedom" becomes for the overwhelming majority a purely abstract and therefore meaningless freedom, as much as my being told that I'm free to turn myself into a unicorn is a meaningless freedom.

As a final point, it is pointless to criticise a social system simply because it isn't perfect, as no social system will be. Society will reflect reality, rather than the whims and wishes of people to create a "social reality" that is somehow independent of "real reality". Objectivism is more concerned with the "real reality" and if social reality is a little unfair, or has some hard struggle, then it's not the end of the World. People can deal with it and still find purpose and happiness in their lives.

My intent isn't to suggest that Objectivists are insufficiently utopian, but to suggest that they lack rigour in the development of their political philosophy. Individualist capitalism is assumed to be preferable simply because it is individualist, but without a strong argument for this particular form of individuals proceeds from Rands underlying ethical philosophy. (The only resolution that I can see is to return to Rand's apparent scepticism as to the ability of the majority to act in a truly rational fashion anyway, thus making their freedom a disposable second to that of the rational minority.)

In fact they are not obliged to submit - the only obligation is to give these "elite" people their freedom, rather than fixing all the plans of society on the idea that the best minds can be turned into productive cattle. If people resent or dislike the most talented and able people, then they don't have to live in a society with those people. The talented can simply leave, or withdraw their support. If the most able people are such a burden to society, then society will be better off without them anyway.

As for Galt, he talked nothing about submission. All he did was walk away - from that moment on, they were as free as he was to do whatever they pleased. However, in the absence of a rational elite, human societies tend to support leaders who are irrational, mystical, violent and deceptive. They choose those leaders who lie to them and tell them that reality can be evaded, that a perfect World is possible, that the elite are parasites who deserve to be enslaved for the "common good". They make their own choices.

But just because Galt (and Rand) did not conceive of this as an active domination, or domination for its own sake, but that doesn't mean that his agenda is not one of domination. You can say that they were just restoring their entitled freedoms, and that may be consistent within Objectivist political thought, but that their freedom entailed the domination of other human beings is a reality that Objectivism does not appear to have ready answers for. Galt may say "give us our freedom, or we'll leave you your own devices", but the content of that message, and the content that Galt very clearly knows is in that message, is "Reshape society as we decree"- submission both in itself, and in the form of society which he demands- "or perish". Again, the only apparent resolution to this is to return to Rand's elitism, to say that the freedom of the minority is the true freedom- perhaps that the freedom of the majority consists exclusively in the freedom of this minority, as seems to be implied in Atlas Shrugged- which is to abandon anything but a rather abstract libertarianism.