Atlas Shrugged

fontanalis · 04-06-2010 2:28pm

donegalfella wrote: »

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Survival of the fittest is a misnomer. Why aren't there Sabre Tooth tigers, Megalodons, Short Faced Bears still around; they were as fit as any creature. Empathy is a human trait which helped the species survive.
I understand Rand being anti "big government" coming from the background she came from but one extreme doesn't deserve another.

Permabear · 04-06-2010 2:39pm

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Zombrex · 04-06-2010 3:01pm

donegalfella wrote: »

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The current system of government (social democracy) assumes things won't work as planned from time to time which is why the systems are not dependent on everyone doing what they are supposed to do, as a system like Libertarianism is (see no single mothers below)

We do not go without a government just because the current government aren't good at governing. We don't go without health care because the head of the HSE quits. We do not go without a police force because the current police commissioner decides he would rather be a painter.

In the worse cases (which as far as I know never happened here but have happend in other countries) the army is brought in to provide services if the government company is unwilling or unable.

Throughout this there is the expectation that these services exist even if the systems that provide them fail.

With Libertarianism and Objectivizm this is missing. It requires that everyone decides to fund charities in a coherent fashion to deal with the vast social problems humans natural generate. Or simply abandon people to their fates.

donegalfella wrote: »

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Yes but we also have none of the social problems we had 50 or 100 years ago. If you get sick there is a hospital provided for you. It may not work perfectly, in fact it probably won't. But it is there as is the expectation that it is your right and it should work and if it doesn't someone isn't doing there job properly.

I'm not arguing the current system is perfect. I'm arguing that under a Libertarian system it would be much much much worse.

donegalfella wrote: »

We have a bloated, inefficient, and enormously costly public sector.

And as such we don't have all the social issues that countries without that have or would have.

You can argue that while Libertarianism wouldn't stop that it still doesn't mean I've the right to make you pay taxes. But there is no argument for how Libertarianism solves these social problems, other than the so fuzzy it is irrelevant notion that people may, if they choose, decide to fund charities to tackle all the current social issues that the government currently handles.

donegalfella wrote: »

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But that is the point. They wouldn't be economically productive. The long term employed are unemployed because they have mental or social issues that prevent them for working.

How are they dealt with in the Libertarian system? Are they simply dismissed as lazy? Do we let the rot because no one has the right to take from one to give to another (ie taxes)?

donegalfella wrote: »

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And if a poor uneducated woman gets pregnant in the Libertarian utopia what happens do her?

Do would that just never happen? That seems as ridiculously naive as anything the Communists ever came up with.

Zombrex · 04-06-2010 3:10pm

donegalfella wrote: »

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Because it goes against our instincts that have evolved to favor community and altruism (which in an evolutionary context is never truly selfless).

Which is probably why people like Rand end up being miserable depressed paranoid loners. Rand ended up isolating herself from even her closes friends.

There is not a whole lot of reason to not dismiss objectivism as simply the idea of a damaged mind divorced from normal human interactions.

Valmont · 04-06-2010 3:38pm

Wicknight wrote: »

Because it goes against our instincts state that have evolved to favor community and altruism (which in an evolutionary context is never truly selfless).

Well then, why do we need the state to point a gun at our heads and forcibly expropriate our wealth for "altruistic" projects? If, as you say yourself, we have evolved to favour community and altruism, why not just let people get on with it voluntarily?

Permabear · 04-06-2010 4:13pm

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Permabear · 04-06-2010 4:40pm

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Permabear · 04-06-2010 4:45pm

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Woow_Aqualung · 04-06-2010 5:03pm

Bought Atlas Shrugged today. Looking at the size of the book, I'm glad I have a whole summer (and then TY) to read it.
My personal philosophy is that either pure Capitalism or pure Marksisim will work, but that half and half Socialism is flawed as it relies on economic competitiveness between companies (to gain tax), yet kills that competitiveness by owning companies itself which are hard to compete with.

iUseVi · 04-06-2010 5:35pm

donegalfella wrote: »

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Absolute bullcrap tbh. Anyone who thinks a child born today in Ireland is worse off than one born 50 years ago has a very short memory indeed.

Personally I quite like how things are now, but I'm acutely aware that I'm in a minority there. Not to say there isn't room for improvement, but I think a move towards socialism is a move forwards and not backwards.

Oh and I also think the tax system should be more like in Denmark and Sweden where the base rate is 60% or something.

Permabear · 04-06-2010 5:57pm

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iUseVi · 04-06-2010 6:16pm

donegalfella wrote: »

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Rapes certainly were a feature, it's just they were covered up. As were wife-beatings and child rape by clergymen. But I'll give you shootings! There certainly are more of them now.

But if you focus on areas other than crime for a second, there are many things which are much better now. Life expectancy for a start. Standard of living. The fact that 99% of the populace has more than adequate food, clothing and housing. Literacy.

donegalfella wrote: »

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Well yes, to get Nordic-style services would be quite a feat just atm, the whole structure of government and also the culture would have to change. But I can dream.

Woow_Aqualung · 04-06-2010 6:22pm

iUseVi wrote: »

Not to say there isn't room for improvement, but I think a move towards socialism is a move forwards and not backwards

iUseVi wrote: »

Oh and I also think the tax system should be more like in Denmark and Sweden where the base rate is 60% or something.

So your saying that at a time when the country is financialy crippled, and unemployment is high, you say we should increase the ammount people who are unemployed are receving in benefits while increasing the tax on those who actually work? This high tax rate works in Denmark and Sweden because the sevices they recieve for the tax, such as Health care, are brilliant. If you get sick in Ireland and you haven't got a Health Card (i.e. your working and paying tax for the Health care of those who have Health Cards) and you don't pay through the nose for Health insurence, there is a good chance you will die.

The Mad Hatter · 04-06-2010 6:32pm

Woow_Aqualung wrote: »

So your saying that at a time when the country is financialy crippled, and unemployment is high, you say we should increase the ammount people who are unemployed are receving in benefits while increasing the tax on those who actually work? This high tax rate works in Denmark and Sweden because the sevices they recieve for the tax, such as Health care, are brilliant. If you get sick in Ireland and you haven't got a Health Card (i.e. your working and paying tax for the Health care of those who have Health Cards) and you don't pay through the nose for Health insurence, there is a good chance you will die.

Paying through the nose for health insurance? At least in our heavily-regulated health insurance market, people can afford their own health insurance. The annual cost of my insurance is about €2k less than the average American (taking the example of a virtually unregulated market) pays per month.

Incidentally "you're," not "your."

Woow_Aqualung · 04-06-2010 6:36pm

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Incidentally "you're," not "your."

Well if yer going to be petty.

Woow_Aqualung · 04-06-2010 6:41pm

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Paying through the nose for health insurance? At least in our heavily-regulated health insurance market, people can afford their own health insurance. The annual cost of my insurance is about €2k less than the average American (taking the example of a virtually unregulated market) pays per month.

Incidentally "you're," not "your."

And Americans are covered for dental treatment, such as braces.

And plus my arguement isn't against health insurence. I just think it's unfair that people have to pay for Health care through taxes, and then have pay insurence to receive Health care. Either one or the other. Like I said previously, Marksism or Capitalisim, but not the luke-warm in between.

Permabear · 04-06-2010 7:00pm

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Permabear · 04-06-2010 7:06pm

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iUseVi · 04-06-2010 7:37pm

Woow_Aqualung wrote: »

So your saying that at a time when the country is financialy crippled, and unemployment is high, you say we should increase the ammount people who are unemployed are receving in benefits while increasing the tax on those who actually work? This high tax rate works in Denmark and Sweden because the sevices they recieve for the tax, such as Health care, are brilliant. If you get sick in Ireland and you haven't got a Health Card (i.e. your working and paying tax for the Health care of those who have Health Cards) and you don't pay through the nose for Health insurence, there is a good chance you will die.

You just skipped my last sentence where I said "Well yes, to get Nordic-style services would be quite a feat just atm, the whole structure of government and also the culture would have to change. But I can dream."

So your post was unnecessary really if you had read that.

Woow_Aqualung · 04-06-2010 7:46pm

You posted that as I was typing. I'm not too fast with the keyboard. I do apologise, I should have Previewed my post before hand.

bnt · 04-06-2010 7:52pm

I started it, and finished Part I before university study hijacked my head. I mean to read at least Part II this summer, preferably the whole thing. It's such a famous book that I already know what happens in outline, but I am interested in the details. From reading other Rand material over the years, I generally see where she's coming from, though I'm hardly a "Randroid".

I do see a lot of criticism based on an incomplete understanding of what Rand was trying to say. The classic example is her advocacy of "enlightened selfishness", where critics tend to focus on the "selfishness" and ignore the "enlightened" bit. Blind self-centred "me first" selfishness is not a good idea, since it's often in your best interests to help other people or consider their wishes. Rand was against "duty" and pure "altruism", against having your time or resources forcibly taken from you by others, but she was not against making an enlightened choice to help others, of your own free will. Choosing to take out insurance is one thing; being forced to take out insurance is something else.

If you see a critic getting this bit wrong, you may as well ignore the rest. And "selfishness without enlightenment" sounds like a good description of what happened in the global economy. Alan Greenspan really should have known better, considering how close to Rand he was at one time.

recedite · 04-06-2010 8:24pm

donegalfella wrote: »

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Survival of the fittest; yes, but survival of the gene not the individual. The selfish gene can survive best when it exists in a tribe of cooperating social individuals. Archaeologists have several times discovered bones of neolithic people which showed evidence of crippling handicap brought on by disease or injury. These people lived on for many years with their handicap, apparently relying on some sort of charity or, if you like, a primitive welfare system.
One of the interesting differences between the social system of higher animals ie wolves or humans as compared to social insects eg bees or ants, is in the flexibility and variety of roles. The insects have fixed roles.
Humans can have a range of strategies being pursued by different individuals simultaneously, so if one fails another might work.
Thus we have loners, who are often the ones who strike out into new territories and can start off whole new tribes. Other times these risk takers die, such as the Otsi the Iceman who tried to cross the Alps over 5000 years ago. He was apparently resourceful and well equipped, not an idiot but a "fittest" person in evolutionary terms. No doubt his tribe produced other individuals who left the comfort zone of the tribe and later succeeded in the quest.
In regard to rapists, this can unfortunately be seen as a valid strategy by the selfish gene. To produce lots of offspring without helping to look after them may work just as well as producing a few well cared for offspring. It could explain why, as a social species, we have not eliminated the psychopaths by natural selection.

iUseVi · 04-06-2010 8:36pm

Woow_Aqualung wrote: »

You posted that as I was typing. I'm not too fast with the keyboard. I do apologise, I should have Previewed my post before hand.

No I posted all of it at the same time.

Woow_Aqualung · 04-06-2010 8:50pm

iUseVi wrote: »

No I posted all of it at the same time.

You made the first post (The one I disagree with) at 17:35. At, let say, 17:50, I began my post arguing with your (Right, Mad Hatter?) post. As I was typing, you posted your post ammending your previous post. I then posted at 18:22. That means I spent 32 minutes typing my post, like I said I'm not fast at typing. And I still disagree with your preposition that the goverment should raise taxes. Its the premise of an arguement that I don't agree with your ideals or beliefs. Don't take it personaly.

iUseVi · 04-06-2010 9:12pm

Woow_Aqualung wrote: »

You made the first post (The one I disagree with) at 17:35. At, let say, 17:50, I began my post arguing with your (Right, Mad Hatter?) post. As I was typing, you posted your post ammending your previous post. I then posted at 18:22. That means I spent 32 minutes typing my post, like I said I'm not fast at typing. And I still disagree with your preposition that the goverment should raise taxes. Its the premise of an arguement that I don't agree with your ideals or beliefs. Don't take it personaly.

But you quoted from an unedited post I made! About the content of that unedited post.

Tbh I don't give a **** I only made a thing of it because you are squirming out of things. Anyway I didn't take it personally, but I have now made use of the ignore feature. Thanks.

Woow_Aqualung · 04-06-2010 9:22pm

There's no need for langugue. I'm only expressing my opinion on the matter.

Permabear · 04-06-2010 11:15pm

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Eliot Rosewater · 04-06-2010 11:52pm

robindch wrote: »

The book is hugely popular in the USA, and apart from the bible, I gather it's the only book which all the members of the US Congress have claimed to have read (or tried to). Thankfully, the book and Rand are relatively unknown in Europe.

I can understand your dislike of objectivism, but I don't think that's any reason to be glad people are not aware of it. One of the core aims of atheism, from what I can see, is to expose ignorance and to challenge preconceptions; in other words, to promote being better informed. I don't see how this view is compatible with one that applauds a situation where people are ignorant of certain ideologies that you don't personally agree with.

Or maybe I've misunderstood.

donegalfella wrote: »

If I have a fault with Atlas Shrugged as a novel, it's that it is far too repetitive—there is endless reiteration of the same set of themes.

I'm glad you feel that way; that you're willing to separate the literature from the politics. I personally didn't like The Fountainhead because I found it repetitive, though I obviously agree with Ms Rand's message.

I had a dream one night in which it occurred to me that the novel can be read metaphorically: Peter Keating's architecture looks good on the face of it, but is completely impractical, like socialism, while Howard Roark's architecture is perfectly useful, but held back by its mere appearance, like capitalism. The latter part ties in with bnt's post above: as an advocate of the free market one is constantly doing battle with distorted images of what it really is and what it really represents.

I don't know if this a viable reading of the novel, but it is notable if only because it's the sole time I've engaged in literary criticism while asleep!

Black Swan · 05-06-2010 1:29am

robindch wrote: »

The book is hugely popular in the USA

I crossed the pond over 4 years ago and have been in California at university, and have not found that many persons (students or otherwise) familiar with her books.

After reading this thread, I was curious to see if Atlas Shrugged was recommended reading in their high schools over here as a prep for college, and did not find any of her works on this list of 42 books: http://www.sms.org/books_co.htm

robindch wrote: »

Anyhow, have anybody read this book and found it worthwhile?

I am a faculty brat, and my Da's study has a large, quite diverse library, including a copy of the Atlas Shrugged novel. I had heard her name mentioned during informal faculty debate over coffee about the pros and cons of capitalism, was curious, and read it one summer while in Galway. I would have tossed it into the Corrib, but the water was already not fit to drink, and I did not want to contribute to the pollution.

I must admit that summer occurred when I was mid-teen a few years in the past, and I would be at a loss to remember particular details from the plot or character development. Given this disclaimer, her novel appeared to promote a form of Spencerian Social Darwinism in isolation; i.e., a fictionally segregated part of Colorado where only capitalistic entrepreneurs were allowed to dwell, surrounded by the remaining states that where in various stages of so-called socialistic decline? This capitalistic Brave New World was in all ways said to be Good, while that which was beyond its borders was Bad and on its deserving way to hell?

I seem to remember there was a mystical surrogate god in the novel that struck shock and awe in his capitalistic followers as symbolized by the line, "Who is John Galt?" For some reason at the time I expected something Catholic to follow this question like "Et cum spiritu tuo" from his followers, in repetitious affirmation of what is All Good.

Wasn't there a love triangle in Atlas Shrugged that epitomized her philosophy? I am struggling to remember, but I seem to recall a capitalistic-bred entrepreneurial heroine that was at first attracted to one entrepreneur-alpha-male, only to dump him later in the novel for someone superior in entrepreneurship? To this extent, I remember her concept of romance as starkly objective and mechanically impersonal as that attributed to salmon going up river, jumping obstacles, with the survivor of the (entrepreneur) gauntlet qualified to mate with her; i.e., to ensure the survival of the capitalistic species?

I recall the novel to be elitist and socially inept, and reactionary to her Soviet experience, with a coldly objective, Weberian means-ends rationality of what constitutes value and meaning in human relationships. While substituting the biblical good-and-evil dichotomy for a contrasting capitalism (Good) vs. socialism (Bad), her over-simplistic perspective of our complex world was a two-dimensional distortion of realty that would make for grand parody if we knew that the author (and her followers) were not serious.

Zillah · 05-06-2010 4:29am

Woow_Aqualung wrote: »

And Americans are covered for dental treatment, such as braces.

Lisa needs braces.

Atlas Shrugged

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