So government regulators become looters, and corrupt capitalists untrammeled by the reins of regulation become mass thieves of the wealth of the nation. That is the state of the nation today, where a tiny powerful elite loot the wealth of the nation for their own benefit using corruption and fraud as their tools. What you are seeing is the one problem of Ayn Rand's vision, which is that she forgot one thing: the nature of power. She thought that removal of checks upon the body public would result in freedom. She thought that removal of government power would result in a better life for all. But invariably what happens in such cases is the end result that you are seeing today -- there are always those who are more powerful than others either because of physically being born as such or because they possess more guns (money, in our current world, being a proxy for guns). In the absence of government (we the people) those who choose to abuse that power will always end up destroying the core idea of capitalism (that is, that people should have the freedom to both produce and enjoy the fruits of their labor) and become looters.
Galt's Gulch, in real life, becomes Mogadishu with everybody out to loot as much as they can loot at the expense of the people who just want to live their lives in peace and freedom. Such is how it is, how it always has been, how it always will be. That is the nature of power, and why unchecked power will almost always become evil. I can count the number of those with power who did not fall to evil on the fingers of one hand, the Attaturks and Lee Kuan Yews of the world are that rare.
So: Now we see what the results of removing checks on power are. Will we decide that power must have checks upon it in order to prevent what we see today? Shall we gather together into an entity called "we the people", otherwise called "government", and make sure that those with power are checked such that they cannot become looters? Or shall we continue to state "government is the problem, not the solution", withdraw government checks upon looters, and continue to cooperate in our submission to those with power? Those are our choices, and refusing to make a choice is itself a choice. I would type more, but American Idle is on, and I must see who gets voted off the show today...
-- Badtux the Power Penguin
WOW, didn't you utterly fail to understand Atlas Shrugged! That is not meant to offend: on my first reading I, too, missed most of the value of the novel. I did manage to grasp the difference between political power —which is politicians' coercion enabled by dupes marking ballots— versus economic achievement via un-coerced individuals 'voting' with their wallets.
ReplyDeleteRead Atlas again, but with more intellectual care. Examine the metaphors (e.g. the use of light to represent the Enlightenment. Examine the motivations of the characters, and why they say what they do, and whether their premises about fundamental human values are right or wrong. Figure out why James Taggart's remark, "Any grafter can make money." is scorned by Francisco's reply: "Someday, Jim, you ought to discover that words have exact meanings." That same retort could be applied to your failure to grasp that Rand did understand the nature of power -an understanding which is central to the very theme of the novel!
intellectual value?
ReplyDeleteare we talking the same turgid crap that's taken as gospel by illiterate motherfuckers?
the theme of the novel is smug, self satisfied garbage promulgated by smug self serving dolts.
here's a simple breakdown straight out of the republican dictionary:
deregulation=lawlessness
the upotian vision of ayn rand is the fever dreams of white russians looking into the depravities of stalin.
neither extreme has fuck all to do with the real world the rest of us inhabit.
you keep trying to squeeze meaning and content out of turds and then tout the nutrional value of crap juice.
the separation of wealth and power is approaching levels unseen since the middle ages.
smoke that fucking pipe for your next dreams.
Actually, I completely understood Atlas Shrugged on the terms you present. Ayn Rand survived most of the totalitarian governments of European history. She then came to the conclusion that the problem was government, and proposed anarcho-capitalism as the solution -- i.e., a form of anarchism that worships creation of real capital as its god. Anarcho-capitalists have since run with Rand's work and proposed that government be replaced with private-enterprise solutions despite the fact that wherever this has been tried, we run into the central problem of anarchism, the problem of power.
ReplyDeleteThe anarcho-socialists at least give lip service to solving that problem via the mechanism of the Commune, which governs via consensus, but even they fail to see that power is something that some people have more than others due to accidents of birth, geography, or physical capability, and that there will always be those who abuse this power to take away from others. Still, they have developed a rich theory of power and the means via which it is used (and abused) in current societies. You may wish to look at that "other side" of anarchism, they present a rather scathing indictment of anarcho-capitalism and its ignorance of the fundamental problem of power.
So, Richard, I will have to say that if you believe that power is solely possessed by government, you are operating on the same delusion as Ayn Rand did. Go read some anarcho-socialist power theory and get back to us. They're wrong, too, in their notion that their "commune" would be sufficient to handle the problem of power, but at least they perceive that there is a fundamental problem with anarchism and propose a solution for it. Anarcho-capitalism... the only solution they've ever proposed to the fundamental problem of power is guns (their refrain being, "God made man, Samuel Colt made man equal"). And the problem with that solution is that in a society where everybody is armed, it is the most vicious and willing to kill, not the most productive, who have power. Mogadishu, bay-bee...
-Badtux the Power Penguin
I always enjoyed the turgid 'prose' of Ms Rand as it was elevating the individual above the common herd. Except that the herd seems to think that they all are 'unique'-see driving skills surveys.
ReplyDeleteAfter years of training, fromal education, and professional work, I am not likely to socially inhabit the worlds of JimmyBoBobBrain or Lawqweena Eboni Bantututustan. So what, they have their life and I have mine. The problem arises when they feel they have the duty to inflict their ignorance and sloth upon me. No thank you.
Mold
Rand was vehemently opposed to anarchism, for very sound reasons. She was in no way an advocate of "anarcho-capitalism".
ReplyDeleteCapitalism requires enforcement of contracts in terms of individual rights. That also deals with fraud, in all its variations --if only the courts understood it properly, & that is a big if.
You wrote "even they fail to see that power is something that some people have more than others due to accidents of birth, geography, or physical capability.
This argument is an equivocation on the term "power". As I rather awkwardly said before, there is an enormous difference between political power —which is politicians' coercion enabled by dupes marking ballots for "consensus"—versus the power of economic achievement given by un-coerced individuals 'voting' with their wallets." The two must not be confused.
The issues of birth, geography, ability, are just natural differences between circumstances; they are differences that have always occurred & always will, under any political model. No one should be robbed (e.g. taxation) or legislated to change such conditions. But such changes can be achieved in a society in which every citizen is free from the initiation of coercion of others (whether by democratic consensus or criminal acts.
Indeed, the freedoms held by Americans after the end of slavery did more for the poor than has occurred in any other system, place, or time in human history
The corner variety store is a brilliant boon compared to stores of 250 yrs ago. In the West, the sane poor have shelter, & even TVs!
"Government by consensus" is nothing less than the slowly progressing tyranny of the majority (de Tocqueville).
Your last paragraph only furthers the aforementioned equivocation over the meaning of power.
"Mold" makes the obvious case against hate-mongers like minstrelboy, but also against do-gooders on both the Left and the Right who would use government force to make others live by their rules.
Power is power. Once again I urge you to study the power theory of the anarcho-socialists, because you clearly do not understand the nature of power. Chairman Mao stated it bluntly -- all power grows from the barrel of a gun. That is, economic power IS EXACTLY THE SAME THING as what you call "political power", because money = guns. If you have money, you can hire an army and go out and take other people's stuff. Having charisma and being able to convince other people to follow you IS EXACTLY THE SAME THING as what you call "political power", because charisma = guns. If you have charisma, you can convince an army to follow you and go out and take other people's stuff. Assuming there is no other check upon your violence. Such as, say, a bunch of people getting together and forming a self-protection organization that pools their money and hires violent people to make sure that other violent people are not able to run roughshod over them. We call this organization "government". What may be confusing you is that a man who hires or convinces others to join him in looting and pillaging and rules over others is also called "government". We use the same word for two different things, which is certainly confusing, but so it goes.
ReplyDeleteRegarding your disdain for rule of the people, by the people, for the people, I don't have much to say about that. Your hatred of democracy is too clear to comment further upon, except to mention Winston Churchill's observation that democracy is the worst of all possible forms of government, except for all others that have been tried. I will simply point out that the collapse of Lehman Brothers today was not caused by too much regulation. Rather, it was caused because people with power decided to loot the economy and funnel off its monies to offshore bank accounts, then once the ponzi scheme was over, let the whole enterprise collapse. We need some power to prevent this looting and pillaging. We might call this power "government". Which, if it is government of the people, by the people, for the people is not going to engage in the sorts of behaviors that you apparently believe government will always engage in. Our base problem right now is too little government in major portions of the economy (especially the financial system), not too much. This is allowing a wealthy and powerful elite to loot the wealth of the nation via fraud and deceit without any repercussions. Somebody got all that money from Fannie/Freddie/Lehman Bros/etc., money that was supposed to be the pension funds of millions of Americans. Who got it? Answer that question, and you know whether we have gone to the opposite extreme of Ayn Rand's fear that the elite would be plundered by the body public. It appears that the exact opposite is happening at the moment -- and that you have no problem with this, because you hate democracy and believe that the elite should be allowed to plunder simply because, well, they're elite. Why you embrace a foreign Eastern European doctrine like that rather than American democracy, I have no idea. So it goes.
- Badtux the Democracy Penguin
Richard demonstrates the problem with all ideologies, even Objectivism:
ReplyDelete"Capitalism requires enforcement of contracts in terms of individual rights. That also deals with fraud, in all its variations --if only the courts understood it properly, & that is a big if."
It's the "No True Scotsman" writ large. "If only they'd implemented [Communism/socialism/Christianity/capitalism/divine monkey kung fuism] properly [often a synonym for "as I understand it"] and all would have been well!"
If something is fine in theory but impossible to implement, what's its value as a theory?
Further, Richard incorrectly separates political and economic power. They are far too interlinked to do so, especially in the American system of capitalism. It wasn't until the 1850s or so that the two were even thought of as distinct, and wrongly at that.
ReplyDeleteMinstrel boy,
ReplyDeleteThanks, I wondered why I could't slog through that piece of crap.
Badtux wrote:
ReplyDelete"Having charisma and being able to convince other people to follow you IS EXACTLY THE SAME THING as what you call "political power", because charisma = guns."
So the person who evaluates his budget, examines several similar cars intended for approximately similar purposes, before purchasing the one that most suits him is actually a victim, buying under coercion = buying at gunpoint? Nonsense.
Sure, many people are perhaps not as thoughtful as that person, but their failing does not support your premise. Check your premises. People do have minds, and can choose to use them.
As for the two governments you describe, Rand distinguishes the right & wrong in politics very clearly. One is coercive and may be powerful, while the other may be powerful without being coercive. In that respect several Founding Fathers of America beseeched Americans to avoid "foreign adventures", but even in their lifetime America's presidents failed to uphold that ideal. That does not mean those Founding Fathers were wrong, it means their Declaration and Constitution was gravely misunderstood.
"Rule of the people, by the people, for the people", as originally articulated, was not meant to be the tyranny of the majority! Democracy was supposed to be limited by the Constitution so that no man (or group, such as politicians) could enact coercive laws against individuals. The voting people were only to fill offices in their Constitutional government. That governments job, for the first time in history, was to act on their behalf —the peoples' Individual Rights were intended to be sacrosanct.
Even Alexander Hamilton and John Adams never fully grasped that.
It is well documented that the housing mortgage crisis was brought about by, at times coercive, political pressure on lenders to make widespread risky loans. The chickens (of that policy) came home to roost, damaging the entire American economy. That was, in part, a misuse of power by politicians selling the violation of lenders' better judgment to a public that disregarded their own budgets, caring only to get away with housing they otherwise could not afford... all being a function of politicians relying on the tyranny of the majority.
For you to say, of me, "you believe that the elite should be allowed to plunder simply because, well, they're elite." demonstrates an extraordinary failure to observe (perhaps a deliberate blank-out) of the fact that that view is precisely what I am opposed to (see above paragraph; recall my earlier rejection of fraud and other offenses against Individual Rights).
Nowhere have I embraced a "foreign Eastern European doctrine". Apparently you assume to argue against your fears, projected onto others, rather than read carefully --no wonder you failed to actually read Rand for the purpose of understanding.
I support the literal meaning of the Declaration and the Constitution, but with the added fundamental support of a proper individualist ethics and an epistemology based on reasoning from Reality.
Modern public education (paid for and supported by a coercive American government) renders entire generations incapable of genuine conceptual thought.
So it goes!
Batdutx, did you see this?
ReplyDeletePublished on Monday, September 15, 2008 by CommonDreams.org
Who Will Protect Us From Plunge Protection?
Congress and the Press Must Probe This Secret 'Working Group'
by Danny Schechter
James Elliot, in a blinkered view of history and world politics your point would appear valid, except that America once did have the kind of courts I described. In fact it is the American Constitution and Declaration that lead to the emancipation of the slaves (though it could have been less violent if left to the courts rather than a rabid anti-slavery movement). Slavery is not the point here, rather it is that the courts were once on the right course, but have since devolved. Thus, my point is not a "No true Scotsman" fallacy, it is a valid description of reality missed by those who disregard history.
ReplyDeleteYour second comment on Capitalism reveals an absurd disregard for 2,000 years of history, and hundreds of nations presently on the World Map. No men have been freer of other men's power than under capitalism. Until America, every human to ever exist suffered under the coercive power of one form of tyranny or another. The same is true today, when contrasted with other nations, except to the extent that America has decayed.
In a single mundane example of differences, that shows how men in a free country are free of the power that Badtux et al. here fear: consider the ubiquity of Windows O.S. software. In spite of its dominance, there are other O.S.s and other computers (Apple comes to mind) from which people may choose. The same can be said for tens of thousands of other products. Compare that with Russia or China 50 years ago. The largest variation in shoes lay in sizes, until the relative freedoms of the citizens improved.
Your overall argument seems to stem from Leftist textbooks and Anarcho-Libertarian fanaticism rather than from reality.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, the following violates the Ground Rules above the comment box:
ReplyDelete"you keep trying to squeeze meaning and content out of turds and then tout the nutrional [sic] value of crap juice.
the separation of wealth and power is approaching levels unseen since the middle ages.
smoke that fucking pipe for your next dreams.
Once again, Richard, you fail to address the central question of anarchist theory, the problem of power. Furthermore, you are confusing rote regurgitation of talking points (what you are doing) with critical thinking.
ReplyDeletePlease address the problem of power. If you are not familiar with this central facet of anarchist theory you are not familiar with what I am talking about. Some online sources: a brief history of anarchism. From Wikipedia, Issues in anarchism. Anarcho-socialists have published scathing indictments of libertarian or "anarcho-capitalist" thought using the the fundamental theory of power as their basis which give a good account of anarchist thoughts on the central problem of power, albeit without seeing the plank in their own eye as they criticize the beam in the anarcho-capitalist's eye. Etc. Google is your friend. Google "anarchist criticism ayn rand", "anarchistic theory power", and related terms. You will find quite a bit there to chew upon.
Once again, Richard, you may be a bright youngster, but you need to read this before you further spew talking points. And you *are* spewing talking points, whether you realize it or not. I have heard pretty much every talking point you're spewing from other Randian Libertarians. You believe you're engaging in "rational thought", but all you're doing, in the end, is regurgitating the thoughts of others in the belief that they are your own. You need to look at some political philosophy from outside of your preferred political philosophy before you are capable of rational thought regarding political philosophy. Since you appear to be unaware of the problem of power as the central problem of anarchism theory, you need to go read up on that, and get back to us.
- Badtux the Philosopher Penguin
I read
ReplyDeleteWho Will Protect Us From Plunge Protection?
Congress and the Press Must Probe This Secret 'Working Group'
by Danny Schechter.
Part of Schechter's point is valid... Plunge Protection simply worsens the economy, just as FDR's New Deal extended the '29 Depression by several years. Unfortunately, Schechter focuses on the destruction and misidentifies the elite by package dealing anyone with wealth who may not be at fault with those of wealth or political power who are at fault. Rather the same error as BadTux adheres to.
One of the so called Plunge Protectors was Alan Greenspan of the Federal Reserve. He spent a great deal of time with Ayn Rand, even contributing to her book "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal". Once he became Chair of the Fed, he systematically went against his own arguments, causing all the negative economic consequences his original writings predicted. Such it is with men of little integrity.
Richard, MB has earned the right to stretch the rules here. You have not. This is my property, my blog, I am the person who has the power to make decisions regarding what content is allowable here and what is not, so you just have to live with that "unfairness". Perhaps if you studied left-anarchist critiques of power rather than simply dismissing them out of hand without ever reading them, you would understand :-).
ReplyDelete-Badtux the Blog-owning Penguin
Note: Richard, you are on warning here. You are coming precariously close to spamming my blog by repeating the same discredited notions over and over again without addressing any of our critiques. There is a name for that -- it's called "trolling" -- and once my patience gets exhausted, your posts will simply be deleted. Please address the statements in question instead of making up things such as "FDR's New Deal extended the Great Depression by years" (thereby demonstrating that you haven't the foggiest notion what the fundamental economic problems of the Great Depression were, but nevermind, you're just rote-reciting what other people have told you) or "you are too influence by anarchist theory" (please note that I do not believe anarchism is a practicable philosophy because it fails to answer its own central question, the question of power).
ReplyDeleteYou are rote-reciting a lot of people's words, many of which I recognize vaguely from my own reading of libertarian or classical "Chicago School" economic theory, but you need to address the criticisms otherwise mentioned before you continue doing so. Thank you.
-BT
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteGive him hell, Badtux, but realise that members of the Ayn Rand cult are as one-eyed as Moonies or other cultists. (I realise you realise this; you're a jump ahead of lots of things.) I read "Atlas Shrugged" and tried to slog through "The Fountainhead" when I was in college, but Rand sucked as bad at writing as she did at thinking. If the stories about young Alan Greenscam are true, though, maybe she was good at sucking.
ReplyDeleteRand worshipers are utopians, imagining a world of perfectable human beings and evil governments. Might work if everyone was a wealthy, well-educated, basically honest person (like me.) But people aren't, so it doesn't. You can't reason with these people, just like you can't talk a Moonie, or an evangelical Xtian, out of their beliefs. If they haven't gotten it by now, they never will, because they're determined not to. And their reasoning is so tendentious.
Good onya for trying, though. My attitude is to say "Screw you. You're stupid. You're not worth my time." Same as I say to Bush cultists. Do you ever wonder why people of that mindset bother with your blog?
I find this moment strangely exhilirating. It's the implosion I've been predicting! People I've given advice and commentary to have looked at me like I was a lunatic. Sometimes I wondered myself, even though I had read a lot more about a lot of stuff than anyone who doubted me. Now it seems to be happening.
Me and Mrs. Bukko are flying to Europe today for our usual month on the Continent. We will be visiting Zurich to "visit the vault." I shouldn't put it in quotes, because we will LITERALLY be doing that. For us, there are so many exciting possibilities! Nunya, Minstrel, any of Tux's other commenters with who I have chatted, good luck! Have you ever lived in a hurricane zone? Make preparations for a hurricane, only this one's going to be a financial storm. Less wind and warter damage, but it doesn't go away as fast either.
Well, me Bukko, good luck on your trip. I asked Richard to not come back until he was willing to discuss the problem of power, he does not seem willing to do so, so (zappp!). I have power. He doesn't, not when it comes to my blog. So it goes.
ReplyDeleteYes, I have lived in a hurricane zone before, and lived through several hurricanes. I remember one day I went in to the university library (ULL) to study for an exam, and Hurricane Betty decided it felt like wobbling over in our direction. So at 12 noon the announcement came down: the library was closing. And my ride wasn't supposed to pick me up until 3pm after the exam was over. Oh joy. I left a message on the phone answering machine of my ride (this being in the pre-cell-phone era), and sat there on the front porch of the library watching rain sweep in horizontally with 65mph winds. What fun.
Regarding the economic storm, I'm currently being paid by the Chinese to teach them how to create good software, so I suspect I'm going to weather things fairly well. If not, I have contacts in the expatriate world who might come in handy. Or maybe not. So it goes.
- Badtux the Engineer Penguin
Richard,
ReplyDeleteThe disciplines of political science and economics were considered one discipline of study, political economy, for centuries, including those 2,000 years or so you so blithely tossed around. Political economy exists as a concept because it is just that; the government is one of, if not the, primary economic actors.
To divorce the notion of economic and political power into two separate spheres is to divorce oneself from reality.
Your "point" about the courts is not even wrong. But that's okay, we forgive you. In discussing your interpretation of the founding of our nation, you elide the fundamental tension that has existed from day one, between individual rights and governmental powers. You rely upon a simplistic and not-at-all valid demarcating of economic and political power. My point, and Badtux's, is that this is mistaken, that no such demarcation exists. Even Adam Smith acknowledged in Wealth of Nations that once the human psyche was involved, the pure mathematics of the market were inevitably shunted aside by the very nature of human interaction.
If you knew the history you so deride me for not knowing, you'd know that capitalism predates democracy. And if you looked at those hundreds of nations on the map, you'd see that tyranny, corruption, and markets mix quite well. Capitalism is not a cure-all. It's kind of like democracy in that it's better, but not perfect.
You wouldn't know "leftist" education if it bit you in the ass. When I went to college and studied international relations the dominant paradigm was neoliberalism. So dominant, in fact, that I had to take an almost equal number of economics classes to political science ones. And in college, I was a neoconservative.
Fortunately, I got better. I'll forgive you for calling me an Anarcho-Libertarian, since you clearly don't know what that means.
Badtux > Rand
ReplyDeleteThis is great stuff. Thanks, y'all.
Too many people think that everyone has equal opportunity when born, regardless of wealth, class, status, etc. If that were true, Rand could even have some relevance. But: no. Not at all.
The discrepancies are too numerous to enumerate. People do not have equal opportunity to succeed.
Sadly, at my Institution of Higher Learning, we just got a grant to establish an Ayn Rand chair of Philosophy.
WTF?
(Keep it up Badtux!11!eleven)