Atlas Shrugged

iUseVi · 05-06-2010 7:17am

How is socialism impractical whilst capitalism is "perfectly useful"? I realise it was only a dream, but bit of a simplistic take isn't it? I wouldn't exactly say the Chinese socialistic economy is perfect, but impractical? Not really.

iUseVi · 05-06-2010 7:18am

Dental plan.

pH · 05-06-2010 9:35am

My slight problem with the above posts (from the pro-objectivism side) is either "so what?" or "I may have to shoot you" depending on how far you want to take it, let me explain.

We live in a democracy, if you're advocating that someone should start a political party and campaign with "A total cut in the state OAP" (as opposed to the proposal of a slight cut which caused a backlash recently) then fine, go ahead, I can live with that.

However, while no one has stated this explicitly, there seems to be an underlying tone that wealthy people have a right not to pay taxes to support single mothers on welfare, and they'd support a state based on objectivism come what may.

So let me ask a simple question, to those who seem to believe absolutely that Objectivism would be a better way to run the country, do you also accept that there is no chance that a democratically elected government would implement it in the next 20 years in Ireland? If so are you passionate enough about your philosophy to believe it trumps democracy, and we'd be better of living with a dictatorship under Objectivism rather than our current democratically elected government.

So to use a timely analogy, it's like arguing how great Ireland would do in teh World Cup if Messi played for Ireland, either it's a irrelevant fantasy ("so what?" or someones planning a kidnapping ("let me get my gun!").

Eliot Rosewater · 05-06-2010 10:14am

Well firstly that's my take on Ms Rand's book, so the opinions of socialism are hers. The interpretation is more to do with the way social policy appears to us. Giving lots of money to single mothers looks good and helpful, like Keating's work, but the substance is poor: one could argue that giving money to single parents partly encourages what it's designed to remedy. And so one. Equally, it's very hard to advocate for the free market because you get a storm of indignation like "no to greed", "people before profit", "tax the rich" etc etc. Many people use these slogans to "debunk" capitalism, as it were, in the same way commentators debunked Roark's architecture because it didn't look nice; in both cases they fail to have a deeper look into what they're criticizing.

In so far as human rights go, yes. There's more to life than markets! No doubt back in the 60's the Chinese were promised a utopia by the communists but that obviously went down the drain. It probably looked good on the face of it, though.

Yes. In a gombeen country where people vote on who can give them the most freebies, who their grandfather voted for and who fixed the pothole outside their house, does that bother me in the slightest? No.

In any case, "extreme" ideologies will never get populate support. Over on the politics forum I've said that I'd prefer a broad alliance of liberals to run for office, than a few libertarians.

Who said that now?

Permabear · 05-06-2010 10:44am

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pH · 05-06-2010 11:28am

I agree, I'm absolutely convinced in my own head that I'm smarter that everyone else in this country, they're all idiots when it comes to religion and politics, and if everyone did things the way I think they should Ireland would be a utopia! In fact I'm certain I'd make a wonderfully benign dictator.

However, with regret I accept that pretty much everyone else feels the same way, and that as someone once pointed out, "democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time".

Permabear · 05-06-2010 11:34am

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iUseVi · 05-06-2010 1:10pm

Oh I'm sorry it's at least as bad as the detractors say. I agree that this shouldn't effect the ideas, but it's bloody awful and there's no running from that.

robindch · 05-06-2010 2:15pm

Don't be so silly

In every conceivable measure of society, things are better now. Far, far better -- ask anybody old what it was like back in the 50's and before. There was open poverty everywhere. My own dad was one of the few kids to have shoes going to primary school in Killarney (my granddad ran a shoe shop in the town). In the fancy secondary boarding school he went to later on, there was no hot water at the taps for washing in the morning. Back in the period up to the 1920's and 30's, child prostitution was rife in central Dublin, in the area from O'Connell Street towards Amiens Street known as the Monto, and I gather the rate was sixpence a blowjob. Over 1,500 prostitutes were believed to work there -- it was widely known as one of the largest red-light areas in Europe -- until the area was cleaned up by the Legion of Mary who arrived with militant religion.

The only reason that people think that things were better back then is the simple reason that they have no idea of what life was like, nor how appallingly squalid and brutish it was for the majority of the population who lived at the bottom of the heap.

5uspect · 05-06-2010 3:12pm

But they were happy. :pac:

Permabear · 05-06-2010 4:38pm

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Your Airbag · 05-06-2010 4:47pm

Have it, read it, hated it. Its huge too, took over two months. I dont even find Objectivism that revolutinary, a big deal over nothing.

iUseVi · 05-06-2010 5:03pm

So your argument is essentially that everything good is thanks to capitalism, everything bad is due to social welfare. Well. That's a new one. (sarcasm intended)

Ok enough joking around sorry.

But cars, TVs, computers are thanks to genius of humans. You'll find similar geniuses in communist regimes and all over the world. (Think soviet space program, not all the technology was stolen from the US by spies) The kind of person you describe who doesn't work and takes all the benefits they can is not the kind of person who helps create a better world in any case. Take those benefits away and I seriously doubt that they would contribute much more. Now, of course I am against paying for benefits for lazy do-nothings that sit at home/and or spend my tax money on going to the pub. But this is not a fundamental flaw in socialism, this is specific to our rubbish benefits system. I don't think when Marx said "to each according to his need" he was thinking about giving money to lazy moochers. In fact I know he wasn't.

If we want to discuss the failings of the benefits system, then you and I will agree to a great extent, I expect. But your vapid linking of crime to social welfare payments is unfounded.

Permabear · 05-06-2010 5:17pm

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pH · 05-06-2010 5:44pm

That's an interesting statement, link to these figure please.

Are you saying that you believe there is causation here, giving poor people (and their children) access to education, medical care, housing and a basic income *causes* more murder, rape and assaults? or merely stating that *something* has caused an increase in these, and spending money on social welfare hasn't alleviated it?

Statistical crime data is manipulated to produce any results. I'd be extremely skeptical of say statistics showing an increase in sexual assault, unless it could be shown you'd an extremely good way of taking into account how little it used to be *reported* in the past compared to now.

We *know* that urban environments generate more crime than rural ones, we know that modern Irish homicide stats are skewed by adding in "death by dangerous driving" which adds a 50% to 100%+ bump in homicide figures when you include them, and so on.

Anyway, can we have a rough period from you for "things going downhill" and some crime stats that support your case?

5uspect · 05-06-2010 6:39pm

^Not forgetting that marital rape wasn't a crime until very recently.

Valmont · 05-06-2010 7:55pm

Well back to the book- I really enjoyed it because it illuminated another way of thinking about society, the individual, and the government. Something that is notably absent in the media; it was an eye opener of sorts for me. The main reason I loved Atlas Shrugged was that I was really rooting for the characters to solve their various problems. I know people say it's too long but I felt that their protracted struggles added to the suspense in the final book and made the denouement all the more juicy.

robindch · 05-06-2010 8:46pm

Well -- as others have asked -- could you produce these statistics, please?

I'm asking because all research that I'm aware of shows that the lowest recorded rates of crime in human history are correlated with the highest rates of social welfare, as Stephen Pinker has pointed out:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html

Permabear · 05-06-2010 11:47pm

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Permabear · 05-06-2010 11:49pm

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Black Swan · 06-06-2010 12:49am

This observation may suffer from those limitations attributed to making broad sweeping generalisations, often contributing to the stereotyping of entire populations as if they were ideologically homogeneous?

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported a survey of incoming freshmen in the nation's higher education institutions, and these results suggest that most students cluster towards the mean of the distribution, rather than being skewed to the far left or far right ideologically? Results:

2009
Far left 2.8%
Liberal 29.0%
Middle of the road 44.4%
Conservative 21.8%
Far right 2.0%

Another interesting statistic from The Chronicle of Higher Education is that the highest declared major (i.e., course of study) in the USA 2009 survey for incoming freshmen was "business" at 14.4%, which would be more concerned with profits than some social agenda? Further, would it be safe to assume that some majors tend to be less ideological in their curriculum focus, such as professional fields (tied with business at 14.4%), biological sciences (9.7%), engineering (9.7%), physical sciences (3.7%), and technical fields (1.1%) for 53.0 percent of incoming declared majors?

If there was an ideological skewedness towards the left in a population of students (including their reading preferences), would you think that to be more likely in declared disciplines such as arts & humanities (13.3%), and social sciences (11.7%) for a total of 25.0% of declared majors?

The essential point being that to broadly paint the ideological orientations of students of higher education in the USA (or the millions of California college students) is problematic at best, stereotypically biased at worst?

Once again this claim may suffer from making generic, broad sweeping generalisations about "college and university faculty in the USA" as if they were homogeneous in their ideological perspectives, as well as ignoring the diverse perspectives of their disciplines, which may or may not be laden with an ideological focus? Further, such broad sweeping generalisations become more confounded when we make cross-cultural comparisons; e.g., faculties in Ireland or other EU nations, or Scandinavian, Asian, or Middle Eastern countries?

Party registration may not clearly label ideological orientation, and may be confounded by controlling for region of the country in your analysis; e.g., the Deep South often produces conservative Democrats that rival conservative Republicans making party registration problematic, and sometimes meaningless? In addition to regional differences, there are county differences within many populous states; e.g., compare Orange County with San Francisco County in California, and you may find marked differences between Democrats in one and Democrats in another (as well as with Republicans). The complexity seems to increase when you consider faculty at public tax supported institutions with private and religious colleges and universities?

The same could be said of right-wing academics, although I would guess that if we were to sample the population of faculty found in the hundreds of higher education institutions in the USA, we would probably find most to cluster towards the middle of the distribution rather than to evidence a skewedness towards left or right?

Although I have been going along with this bipolar left-right distinction for discussion purposes in this thread, I really wonder to what extent this dichotomy suffers from being an over simplistic generalisation of a person's ideological perspective in a Derridean sense; e.g., it too suffers from a stereotyping, labeling bias that misses the diversity, complexity, and sometimes uncertainty of one's perspectives of the natural world?

Permabear · 06-06-2010 10:24am

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robindch · 06-06-2010 10:45am

Probably no more than the chances of some university's biology department offering tenure to a creationist

Permabear · 06-06-2010 1:08pm

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Valmont · 06-06-2010 6:50pm

I'm slightly confused. Does a prospective lecturer have to state their political affiliations or leanings as part of the selection process?

Permabear · 06-06-2010 7:18pm

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Valmont · 06-06-2010 8:46pm

From what I remember of my sociology course, I find it somewhat of an oxymoron to speak of a "classically liberal" sociologist!

Eliot Rosewater · 06-06-2010 11:14pm

I haven't read much about Derida beyond a few encyclopedic consults, but I still laughed when, in the introduction to Europe: A History, Norman Davies says, "It is all very well to deride the authority of all and sundry; but it only leads in the end to the deriding of Derida. It is only a matter of time before the deconstructionists are deconstructed by their own techniques. We have survived the 'Death of God' and the 'Death of Man'. We will surely survive the 'Death of History', and the death of post modernism."

robindch · 07-06-2010 1:09am

Given that the deconstructionalists disbelieve everything except themselves, it seems only fair that everybody except themselves disbelieve them

Black Swan · 07-06-2010 1:31am

Once again a broad sweeping generalization is made that places all those opposed to Rand’s Objectivism into an over simplified and homogeneous category, conveniently ignoring fundamental and complex differences, be they in philosophy or method? Nice dichotomy: Rand’s Objectivism = Good; anything opposed = Bad (or the cliché and pejorative catchall label “Left”)?

A superficial reading of Jacques Derrida, or only paying attention to his critics, may allow for such convenient labeling? I find him a very complex, diverse, and profound read, although he never formally constructed his theory of deconstruction per se. Rather, deconstruction was more method than a formalized theory or philosophy for Derrida, essentially looking for inconsistencies in the philosophies or theories of others; a process that can make him quite unpopular with those he deconstructs (or with their followers).

The spirit and intent of Derrida’s deconstruction was not new, and was given more credit than was due? Popper’s principle of knowledge that informs the scientific method contends we proceed by falsification, not by verification. We test the null hypothesis, not the research hypothesis. Deconstruction can serve as a method of falsification by discovering inconsistencies in thought. Even when not falsified, we still treat research findings with caution, rather than to act as unquestioning true believers of some dogmatic faith as expected by the followers of Rand.

Noting inconsistencies can at times be troubling? For example, was there some reason why you completely ignored the problem of cross-cultural comparisons of faculty when using the “Left” label to categorize American faculty (noted in my earlier post)? Are such labels context-specific in terms of being different for different disciplines (e.g., Humanities vs. Business), or by state, or region, or country? Would someone you have labeled “Left” in America be considered equally “Left” in Ireland, France, Germany, Sweden, Russia, Iran, or China?

Reiterating the earlier posted point, using the Left and Right label is not particularly useful when taking into account cross-cultural perspectives and contexts; further, to label someone Left or Right is a gross oversimplification of the complexities of their positions, as well as their self-admitted uncertainties (e.g., Robert Merton’s justification for only having theories of the middle range, Hayek’s fatal conceit, or Hume’s ignorance awareness), and a distortion of reality attributable to the limitations of dichotomies as noted by Derrida in Points.

Rand in Atlas Shrugged does not seem to suffer from too many uncertainties when advocating her Brave New World, or its surrogate God in the mysterious John Galt. This Galt exemplifies a Social-Darwinian uberman that is All Good and All Knowing, with a cold, objective means-ends rationality and strength of selfishness that would make Nietzsche blush. In like manner, this cold objectivism permeates the bedroom of character development in her lead female and male characters, with a shallow and superficial depth of feeling between partners.

Unfortunately, Rand’s use is more a spurious tautology than an analytical truth, completely ignoring the reformulation of Aristotle by Hume in terms of how ethics should be treated. In Atlas Shrugged Rand conveniently ignores (or unwittingly combines) a fundamental distinction between things value-rational and things instrumental-rational (see Max Weber) by parroting Aristotle’s laws, while at the same time confounding them with subjective values in her version of means-ends capitalism.

Right is right.
Bad is bad.

Atlas Shrugged

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