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Workable Objectivism (Ayn Rand)


Br16

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3 hours ago, Br16 said:

The reality is that the interdependence is not equal. The common worker has no means of purchasing raw materials, designing machinery, opening new markets or weaving operations in accordance to a complex business plan or supply chain. They need ready made jobs others create for them. 

2 hours ago, Br16 said:

Not just capital that could be risked, but also specialist skills, innovative knowledge, and profound vision. 

Son, let me tell you a secret: skills and knowledge are acquired characteristics. Not just that, but "profound vision" is largely acquired as well.

As humans age most of us come to realize how much we owe to others. Our parents, our teachers, our family, friends and acquaintances... etc. That's why so few people take Ayn Rand seriously.

Your entire ideology is built on the premise that there are some humans who can do things that others can't. But physical differences aside, that'll be far harder to demonstrate than you think. And entrepreneurship isn't even the best example to take because as far as I know it requires no fixed innate characteristic.
Funnily enough I'd find the argument more convincing if we were to laud people who can become great surgeons or astrophysicists. But entrepreneurs? Meh. Organisational skills with a bit of commercial sense, what's supposed to be so great about that? I'd assume most people who come out of business school can run a business. It's literally not rocket science.

1 hour ago, Br16 said:

So she has a point.

She suffered so she has a point? No, that's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.

Edit: and yes, I'm a eurocommie with a French passport btw.

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General note.

I am all in favour to drop off all the Randists in Dafur (or some other region without a functional goverment and those pesky structures), and see how well they do on their with their superior intellect. If they survive and strive there without their credit cards, then fairplay, I will accept that they made on their own, and Rand might be worth more than a footnote in a Highschool textbook on bad fiction.

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4 hours ago, Br16 said:

Current forms of government often do more to red tape/burden free enterprise, free trade and free movement than help it. Galt's Gulch symbolizes that capable and rational entrepreneurs can create forms of government to meet their superstructure needs, for mutual benefit. 

Even in the very novel itself, Galt's Gulch only works because of a scientifically impossible infinite energy perpetual motion machine. Rand herself could only ever make her ideal society work, even in her own imagination, by appealing to a vague hand-wave.

Also, ever notice how Galt's Gulch completely glosses over all of the other details about how the society works. There are no labourers, only industrialists. Who does the work?We're told all of the manual labour is done by machines, which rather implies that in Rand's view, anyone incapable of building or buying industrial robots doesn't deserve to live in her society, and therefore deserves to die.

And furthermore, how about that Galt's Gulch, despite being a supposedly hyper-competitive objectivist utopia, doesn't actually have any competition. Francisco D'antonia runs the only copper mine. Ellis Wyatt runs the only oil well (and by the way what's that oil even for if they have an infinite energy device?). Nobody ever tries to undercut each other or take over each other's business. For a supposedly capitalist society, Galt's Gulch is rather cooperative. Dare I even say communist? Each member has an assigned place in society, and contributes to the common good and receives enough for their needs.

Galt’s Gulch was Rand’s chance to show her dream of how an objectivist society would actually work. She had total freedom of imagination to do so. And the result is a philosophically contradictory mess that relies on literal magic to work.

 

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21 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

One guy had a wife going through chemotherapy that was suddenly cut off because the Magnificent Titan of Industry who employed us didn't bother to tell us that health insurance was being cut off while he was asking us to come in to work and save the company.

My sympathies to your friend and his family. If your employer had violated the employment contract while you and your colleagues were still working, then that is a grave wrong on his part. The trade I support is based on honest adherence to terms. Either he openly renegotiates or closes the company immediately, if he tried to hold it by unilaterally revoking part of your pay package, then that is deceptive and wrong.  

22 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

The owner of the business that failed still lives in his mansion and his kids never suffered a moment of want. My colleagues variously went bankrupt, had their credit ratings tanked, had to relocate all over the country.

It is unfortunate, but the most common deal is that you can quit anytime, and he can lay people off when needed. He has no obligation to keep everyone afloat. 

Let's say you were a star employee in a middle of a critical project and you get a dream offer from somebody else, you'll likely take it regardless of the interests of your current company. And it would be your prerogative.

Would you have rather he never existed and you be unemployed for all those months and years he employed you? 

23 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

if leftists have to own Mao and Stalin (what a fucking stupid thing to say) then you get to own the miseries inflicted on my friends.

I acknowledge the hardships of your friends, but no force or legal power was ever deployed against their right to life or property, unlike in many cases of redistribution we have seen in the previous century. 

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9 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Twenty bucks says this br16 is 16 years old

His every response speaks to that, yes. "All these injustices wouldn't happen in a perfectly frictionless system where everyone is a ball bearing."

@Br16, kid, I don't want your sympathy. I just want you to learn a fucking thing or two about life.

This "red tape" that you think is holding you back from fulfilling your untapped potential as the next Elon Musk doesn't exist because the great sea of unremarkable humanity can't bear to see a true prodigy get ahead. Red tape exists because the ownership class abused the system and killed people, inflicted suffering on workers, or abused their rights, and society decided we shouldn't let them do that anymore. That's not to say that all regulations make sense. That's not to say that some good ideas aren't held back by too much regulation or by officious bureaucrats. But even in those cases, a lot of the time, the regulations exist as they are to provide an entry barrier against people who would compete with entrenched interests.

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5 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

I don't want your sympathy. I just want you to learn a fucking thing or two about life.

The thing about life is that you can only trust what you have in your hands. You all knew you could be fired or laid off at anytime, yet many of your colleagues perhaps thought they could have kids because of that job, take on settle down mortgages, or perhaps live as if those checks were guaranteed annuities. And then everyone was caught unprepared and severely indebted when the meltdown came.

The key is to look for your next job as soon as you were hired. Once there is a beginning , the end is already guaranteed and hovers over you like the sword of damocles. Always monitor the job market and keep your resume polished, and contacts ready. Recruiters are unsentimental and don't like people with career breaks, but they love to poach the currently employed. When the first signs of instability shows, immediately charge forth to get offers. The first to the life boat survives, he who lingers drowns with the crowd. 

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1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

with a French passport btw.

Thanks for telling. I am unfamiliar with the French welfare system except for the usual stereotypes and criticisms  floating around the news. 

Now given your confidence in what you have, I will look into it over the weekend, along with the rest of the WID website. It'll be a lot of fun. I enjoy diverse opinions.

 

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The further the discussion goes, the further the mask of "I thought these ideas were interesting, what do other people think" drops, and the more we get into regurgitated right wing claptrap. We're probably just a couple more exchanges away from mention of the red pill.

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2 hours ago, Br16 said:

Well, I do own it, and from an economic point of view, it's true. And those of the Left need to own the massive failure of the Soviet model, and its corresponding human cost. 

I'll do that as soon as those on the right own Irish potato famine, Bengal famine (and various other famines in Indian Raj), and tens of millions of victims of colonialism in Africa and Asia as the human cost of the massive failure of capitalism.

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16 minutes ago, Gorn said:

I'll do that as soon as those on the right own Irish potato famine, Bengal famine (and various other famines in Indian Raj), and tens of millions of victims of colonialism in Africa and Asia as the human cost of the massive failure of capitalism.

I think we can then agree that both asks are ridiculous.

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59 minutes ago, Br16 said:

Now given your confidence in what you have, I will look into it over the weekend, along with the rest of the WID website. It'll be a lot of fun. I enjoy diverse opinions.

I won't be holding my breath. Like most  (if not all) "nanny states" the French social (ist)(ic) programs have been under attack for decades now. It would take more than a weekend of research and at least a passing knowledge of the politics involved to fairly assess them. I know it would take me at least a week of work to gather the data alone.

Plus you've dodged an inconvenient argument again, which makes me doubt you're really willing to question your own belief system in the first place. Methinks you come at this with too many pre-conceptions. We all do mind you but your ideology is one that doesn't even try to appeal to the masses so I don't see what you're trying to convince us of. The socialism thread quickly led to discussions about actual policies. You've mainly defended inherited wealth. Unless you start thinking hard about "workable objectivism" in the real world this conversation isn't going anywhere. 

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8 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

My favourite libertarian "example" that I have seen trotted out now and again is Medieval Iceland. Never mind that the economic system was not analogous to modern capitalism by any stretch of the imagination, have these people ever actually read Njal's Saga? Do they honestly want to live in a society with that level of bloodthirsty nutters and violence?

Fascinating about the sagas is the failure of their means of de-escalation and negotiation that seemed in principle not too bad, like everyone meeting on equal terms at the althing, the option to pay large amounts of money instead of a kill for a kill etc. I don't remember the details, but there are several occasions when after someone got killed the leader of the responsible faction paid something like the double wereguild at the althing and everybody vowed to stop the violence etc. But there are always people harboring their grudges and in next spring another guy gets killed in revenge

The really puzzling thing is that David Friedman (Milton's son) has been a member of the society of creative anachronism for years and apparently DOES know quite a bit about medieval Iceland but still seems to believe libertarianism is feasible and not an even more unrealistic pipedream than utopian communism.

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6 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

 

Plus you've dodged an inconvenient argument again, which makes me doubt you're really willing to question your own belief system in the first place. Methinks you come at this with too many pre-conceptions. We all do mind you but your ideology is one that doesn't even try to appeal to the masses so I don't see what you're trying to convince us of. The socialism thread quickly led to discussions about actual policies. You've mainly defended inherited wealth. Unless you start thinking hard about "workable objectivism" in the real world this conversation isn't going anywhere. 

He won't be able to engage on those terms because all he's got is a feeling deep in his slowly dropping scrotum that semi-clever young white guys with comfortable parents are the most precious and undervalued currency in the world and are being held back by vicious and all-powerful poor people.

His response to real world complaints about misdeeds of the ownership class are that such abused will not occur when all economic actors have perfect knowledge and can sign "fair" contracts with each other. Eventually he might try and figure out just who is responsible for enforcing these eminently fair and not at all coerced contracts, but I doubt it.

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I spent a year bartending down in Manhattan's Financial District, just off Wall Street. My clientele were an entire bar full of rich men's sons. This young man would be perfect there. Not on my end; an Irish waitress would punch his teeth in after hearing ten minutes of this tripe. The suits on the other side would eat it up, though, and they could trade business cards. Eggshell with Romalian Type.

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8 hours ago, Br16 said:

The reality is that the interdependence is not equal. The common worker has no means of purchasing raw materials, designing machinery, opening new markets or weaving operations in accordance to a complex business plan or supply chain. They need ready made jobs others create for them. 

Utter bullshit. You sound as if you have never worked in anything more complex than a fast food restaurant.   There is a bucket load more skill involved in being a tradesperson than in being an entrepreneur.  Who do you think fixes the entrepreneur's screw up? And don't say engineers. 

If you want to collapse civilization, get rid of plumbers. All the entrepreneurs in the world won't help when dealing with shit.

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