Ayn Rand's objectivism and laissez-faire capitalism

KyussBishop

Valmont wrote: »

And you're surprised that I compare this faultless belief in state regulation to belief in a higher power? Here you have an analogy where the organisation of society resulting from voluntary interactions between free individuals is likened to a chaotic, completely disorganised, and dangerous rapids which could drown everyone at a moments notice. Somehow transcending the fate befalling his brethren, the guide can galvanise, direct, plan and design their deliverance from a certain watery death if only they would submit to his superiority. I don't agree with your analogy and I'm not sure it makes sense but you can surely see the religious aspect in how you frame the issue?

On the contrary, your caricature of anyone who supports any semblance of a state, as a faith based 'believer' etc., is just another way of avoiding addressing any arguments.

That's the pattern of every discussion with many Libertarians on boards: Start selectively ignoring/avoiding arguments or questions, whenever they start to compromise your position.

The inelegant dancing around of issues, and constant falling-back to rhetoric-based arguments, doesn't really convince anyone who doesn't already believe; that's why Libertarians mainly only gain new supporters, when they present their arguments free from outside challenge; because they are based on one-way rhetoric.


For instance, this is a pretty important and basic question, which seems to be danced around a lot:
Do you support anarcho-capitalism with no state whatsoever, or minarchism with some semblance of a state?

Answering that, forces Libertarians to actually engage in pragmatic arguments over the details of constructing the political system they support, which quickly shows up significant inconsistencies that they don't have any answers to; that's when the arguments based on rhetoric get trotted out, and any semblance of honest argument goes out the window.


What mystifies me about that, is that I don't understand how Libertarian supporters can't see that for themselves, and aren't angry about having been deceived; it becomes a bit like supporting a football team or something, where it's more about picking a side and staying loyal.

Mark Hamill

Valmont wrote: »

And you're surprised that I compare this faultless belief in state regulation blah blah blah

You inability to read posts is bordering on creationist:

Me, in the post you just responded to! wrote:

You don't do your argument any favours by a) constantly asserting that we have some kind of religious adulation for the government (you come across like the type of drive-by posters we get here who assert that atheism is a religion) and b) constantly ignoring the point everyone has made that as bad as the government is, at least we get a say (even only just at voting times) in who goes into it.

Tell me, have you seen the threads on this forum about gay marriage, abortion, RCC control of schools etc?

No-one is this thread believes that state regulation (or regulators) are faultless. It would be nice if you were honest enough to accept this and drop your incessant religious strawmen so we could move on.

Mark Hamill

Valmont wrote: »

There is no empirical evidence to suggest that patents increase innovation or productivity unless one simply counts the number of patents awarded (a measure which does not correlate at all with standard measures of productivity). Despite a large increase in the number of patents awarded worldwide and stronger legal protection for them, technological progress has not accelerated and investment in R & D has not grown either. Patents are nothing more than a restriction on what should be the free flow of ideas. To think they are needed for 'innovation' simply flies in the face of the available evidence. When I see patent I see another destructive use of state power. I refer anyone interested to Michele Boldrin and David Levine's Against Intellectual Monopoly for a thorough discussion on the problems of the copyright and patent system. And these guys are no libertarians either.

How can you not see the massive inconsistency in your own arguments?
You can't on the one hand argue that no-one would innovate without the guarantee of profit (What motivation would anyone have to produce [] if they weren't trying to make a profit?) but then say that innovation can't happen without free flow of ideas. These two positions cannot exist together.

Valmont

Mark Hamill wrote: »

How can you not see the massive inconsistency in your own arguments?
You can't on the one hand argue that no-one would innovate without the guarantee of profit (What motivation would anyone have to produce [] if they weren't trying to make a profit?) but then say that innovation can't happen without free flow of ideas. These two positions cannot exist together.

For a supporter of the scientific method, you ignore the evidence when it suits you. There is no empirical evidence to suggest that patents increase innovation and productivity and we have seen no increase in technological progress and investment in R&D as patents numbers have increased and their legal protection grown stronger.

I find it curious that despite your strong opposition to the misdeeds of private companies you fully support a system which rewards innovation with the provision of a monopoly! If you want to be consistent, and I'll assume you do, you should be supporting monopolies of all shapes and sizes considering that you seem to believe that without them there would be no profit incentive? How is it that a newsagent down the road has a profit motive even though I can freely compete with him next door? That such day-to-day examples of a profit motive existing despite a lack of a patent solves your perceived contraction.

fitz0

Mark Hamill wrote: »

How can you not see the massive inconsistency in your own arguments?
You can't on the one hand argue that no-one would innovate without the guarantee of profit (What motivation would anyone have to produce [] if they weren't trying to make a profit?) but then say that innovation can't happen without free flow of ideas. These two positions cannot exist together.

You're insinuating that patents=profit. This isn't exclusively the case. Makerbot became a profitable company in something ridiculous like 40 days despite their product holding no exclusive patents. I'm sure there are many cases where holding a patent didn't prove profitable at all and vice versa. That post of Valmont's doesn't mention patents at all.

The point is that holding a patent does not promote innovation. It restricts innovation in that specific area since nobody but the patent holder can use the patented work to build off without paying a royalty fee. Monopolies are never a good thing. Just look at the progesterone debacle in the US - the FDA granted a single company a monopoly for something that was previously over the counter and the price went from $10 to $1500 despite the company not having developed the drug. It's not a patent but it's a government backed monopoly.

I'm in favour of government regulation but not in favour of patents as they currently stand. I would like to see the patent system overhauled, granting patents for a maximum of 20 years or, in the case of the inventor's death before that, for a further 5 years, transferred only to next of kin. Similarly in music and film, copyright should always rest with the creator and should die with them. I don't agree with software patents, gene patents or broad patents (Apple's rounded rectangles) at all. Corporations should only be granted patents for 10 years from commercial application. Then again, I'm no expert on patents so I'm sure there would be more to it.

Mark Hamill

@ Valmont & fitz0

I'm not saying I agree with patents as they are (I agree with fitz0's suggestions on how they should be). Given all the examples of the aggressiveness with which companies go after their profits and how industries put such broad patents out to catch competitors in the first place, it would seem that a great many industries see patents as equalling profit. Valmont put unquestionable support in said industries, thats how the industries work and yet he disagrees with patents? Contradiction.

Valmont

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Valmont put unquestionable support in said industries, thats how the industries work and yet he disagrees with patents? Contradiction.

As a libertarian I support the free market. Given that patent legislation was created and is enforced by the state, I see no contradiction in arguing against the provision of monopoly by the state. Just the same way I see no contradiction arguing against bank bailouts.

sephir0th

Valmont, do you support any form of forced taxation - even for purposes of law and justice - to protect an individuals rights?

fitz0

This is quite relevant to discussion on patents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRCA1#Patents.2C_enforcement.2C_litigation.2C_and_controversy

A patent application for the isolated BRCA1 gene and cancer-cancer promoting mutations discussed above, as well as methods to diagnose the likelihood of getting breast cancer, was filed by the University of Utah, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and Myriad Genetics in 1994;[5] over the next year, Myriad, in collaboration with investigators at Endo Recherche, Inc., HSC Research & Development Limited Partnership, and University of Pennsylvania, isolated and sequenced the BRCA2 gene and identified key mutations, and the first BRCA2 patent was filed in the U.S. by Myriad and other institutions in 1995.[11] Myriad is the exclusive licensee of these patents and has enforced them in the US against clinical diagnostic labs.[13] This business model led from Myriad being a startup in 1994 to being a publicly traded company with 1200 employees and about $500M in annual revenue in 2012;[12] it also led to controversy over high prices and the inability to get second opinions from other diagnostic labs, which in turn led to the landmark Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics lawsuit.[13][76] The patents begin to expire in 2014.

How any system can allow he patenting of genes is beyond me, it's absurd. I wonder how much development this preposterous patent retarded. From the wiki, it seems that it's only in the US that the monopoly on testing for the gene is enforced but all the same, it is utterly ridiculous that this could happen in the first place.

Mark Hamill

Valmont wrote: »

As a libertarian I support the free market. Given that patent legislation was created and is enforced by the state, I see no contradiction in arguing against the provision of monopoly by the state. Just the same way I see no contradiction arguing against bank bailouts.

Given that its private companies that fight tooth and nail over patents and abuse patent laws to everyone else's disadvantage, I think you'll find that those CEO's you so completely support do not support the free market in the same way you do.

Popinjay

fitz0 wrote: »

From the wiki, it seems that it's only in the US that the monopoly on testing for the gene is enforced

Based solely upon those dodgy pretend journalism shows that appear on TV, it also appears to be enforced in Australia but it's something I couldn't swear to. Those shows aren't exactly notorious for unbiased presentation or fact-checking or other similar nonsense. And they're much worse here than they ever were back home. Schlock 'journalism' at it's finest.

Chuck Stone

Mark Hamill wrote: »

I think you'll find that those CEO's [..] do not support the free market

Good god no. Corporations love the state with all the privileges it bestows upon them; their very status, patents, copyrights, limited liability, socialised cost of infrastructure, education/graduates etc.

These folks who support the status quo are what are known as 'nanny state conservatives'. The state is fine as long as it is keeping the money flowing 'upwards' by distorting the market and not in other directions in the form of taxation.

Chuck Stone

An interesting report on how the so-called 'war' between Apple and Samsung serves both companies because the aggressive and costly litigiousness dissuades smaller companies from getting in the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wj8Bt5D8NM

Valmont

sephir0th wrote: »

Valmont, do you support any form of forced taxation - even for purposes of law and justice - to protect an individuals rights?

Libertarians generally fall into two camps (there are many nuances as you can imagine): small-state libertarians like Ayn Rand and anarcho-capitalists like Murray Rothbard. Like Rothbard, I suppport the non-aggression principle so I don't endorse or think any form of taxation is acceptable on either practical or moral grounds.

robindch

Valmont wrote: »

I don't endorse or think any form of taxation is acceptable on either practical or moral grounds.

So, I take it (a) you don't pay taxes and (b) you don't use any of the facilities the state provides -- roads, hospitals, schools, police etc?

coffee_cake

I take it he doesn't want to go to jail
We are able to have ideals while still dealing with everyday practicalities - or perhaps you're not an atheist if your child is baptised?

Valmont

robindch wrote: »

So, I take it (a) you don't pay taxes and (b) you don't use any of the facilities the state provides -- roads, hospitals, schools, police etc?

If I put a padlock on your front door and charge you to have me open it every morning before you leave for work you wouldn't complain? I mean you're using my services after all.

And presumably you see nothing wrong with a protection racket on the grounds that the gangsters will protect you from local hoodlums, thieves, and other gangs etc. The victim of the protection racket is using the mafia's services, right? Do you agree?

Next you'll be telling us the inmates of Dachau had no right to complain given that they ate the gruel on offer at meal times. I mean they were using the services after all. If they were thoroughly opposed to the incarceration they should have resisted the whole system, right? :pac:

I could come up with 50,000 pages of reductio ad absurdums along these lines.

robindch

Valmont wrote: »

Next you'll be telling us the inmates of Dachau had no right to complain given that they ate the gruel on offer at meal times. I mean they were using the services after all. If they were thoroughly opposed to the incarceration they should have resisted the whole system, right?

Nice godwin there, Valmont

Anyhow, since you've haven't answered the question -- several times now -- I think I can safely conclude that you believe it's OK to profit from theft (since you believe that taxation is theft, and that you use the services the states pays for with this "theft").

Rand had a similarly flexible approach.

robindch

bluewolf wrote: »

We are able to have ideals while still dealing with everyday practicalities [...]

Up to a point, yes, but not the silly extreme that Valmont has reached.

If somebody regards taxation as theft, then as above, using the proceeds of theft (ie, state services) is tantamount to theft too. Also, since all of the state's assets must have been fraudulently obtained, why not -- say -- just steal whatever one wants from the state when one can (up to the value of one's taxation, if one wants to be "honest" about it)?

In the Randian moral universe, I would imagine that this kind restorative thievery amounts to a moral good or a moral imperative.

KyussBishop

Valmont wrote: »

Libertarians generally fall into two camps (there are many nuances as you can imagine): small-state libertarians like Ayn Rand and anarcho-capitalists like Murray Rothbard. Like Rothbard, I suppport the non-aggression principle so I don't endorse or think any form of taxation is acceptable on either practical or moral grounds.

So, seeing as the logical conclusion of this is complete abolition of the state, who gets to decide who owns what property/land, since even the concept of private property, is codified in law?

If you argue a private legal system, how will that private legal system come to have authority over a piece of land/property in the first place, in order to be able to grant private ownership to someone?
A private legal system granting itself authority over an area, seems to be a theft of the public commons in itself, which is automatically a form of 'violence' or coercion on others.

What is to stop a competing private legal system, from claiming authority in the same jurisdiction, and giving private ownership of property there to someone else either?

Both legal systems would be equally valid it seems (although there is no principle they can use to claim authority over or ownership of land, that is not 'theft' or coercion in some way), and thus this seems to mean that the ultimate claim over property would seem to be the use of force to claim it, i.e. violence.

Valmont

Robindch wrote:

I think I can safely conclude that you believe it's OK to profit from theft (since you believe that taxation is theft, and that you use the services the states pays for with this "theft").

If you haven't noticed, we live in a state with a progressive tax system and I am a net contributor. This means that I pay more tax than I receive in 'services' from the state. Now on what planet are you surmising that I profit from these 'services'?

I think you've all gone soft from only having creationists to argue with.

Robindch wrote:

If somebody regards taxation as theft, then as above, using the proceeds of theft (ie, state services) is tantamount to theft too.

This is a transparently weak argument. If you simply switch the state for another group of individuals we can see what sort of crime you end up endorsing:

Tony Soprano wrote:

If you regard a mafia protection racket as theft, then using the proceeds of theft (ie, mafia protection from rival gangs and petty criminals) is tantamount to theft too.

Any denial of this simply invalidates your previous position as the argument is exactly the same.

In your haste you've ignored a crucial difference between state-forced services and privately contracted services. If you believe that being forced to benefit from a theft makes an individual complicit then you must fully support my plan to padlock your door and charge you for the privilege of being allowed out with my key. As soon as you choose to pay me and have me open it for you, your actions are also tantamount to theft; this is the logical outcome of your position Robindch, and considering the answers you've simply demanded from throughout this thread I think it only fair you acknowledge it.

Also, since all of the state's assets must have been fraudulently obtained, why not -- say -- just steal whatever one wants from the state when one can (up to the value of one's taxation, if one wants to be "honest" about it)?

Rand thought so; Ragnar Danneskjold was such a figure in Atlas Shrugged. He stole money back from the state and returned it to the original owners!

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

robindch

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Cypriot depositors have been coining it over the last few years owing to the high interest rates the Cypriot banks were able to pay on account of their heavy investment in (high-yielding) Greek government bonds.

Now that the economic cycle has turned, they're unhappy that they must give some of that money back.

From one recent briefing note:

Erik Nielsen of UniCredit wrote:

A Cypriot (or foreigner) who placed €100,000 in deposit in Cyprus in 2008 would by now have earned just around €15,000 more than if he had placed that money in Italy or Spain (and some €23,000 more than if he had placed it in Germany). Why does the Cypriot parliament (and many commentators) seem to suggest that a 15 per cent tax on such deposits (which would cover the bill also for the sub-€100,000 deposits) would be unreasonable now the banks are in trouble, but that German, Italian and other eurozone taxpayers should rather foot the bill?

Kinski

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Number of Cypriot legislators who voted in favour of that tax: 0.

Suryavarman

robindch wrote: »

Nice godwin there, Valmont

Anyhow, since you've haven't answered the question -- several times now -- I think I can safely conclude that you believe it's OK to profit from theft (since you believe that taxation is theft, and that you use the services the states pays for with this "theft").

Rand had a similarly flexible approach.

Using your logic, if a robber stole my TV, sold it and then offered to give me half the money he got for selling the TV, I would be a thief even though I would only be taking back some of what was originally mine.

It is not theft on Valmont's part to use services that were funded with money originally stolen from him. However, it would be theft on his part if he were to advocate for the state to steal a greater amount than it currently does to fund a service he quite likes.

It would be morally questionable for him to take out more than the state takes from him but not straight out wrong for him to do so. If he were to invest in a business it wouldn't be wrong for him to make a return greater than the initial investment, why not treat the money stolen from him the same way?

joseph brand

'Free Market' Ayn Rand Ideology Was a Root Cause of the Horrific Explosion in Texas.

The tragedy in Waco is part of a larger story about the deregulation of business in the name of pocketing massive profits.

April 23, 2013 |


On Thursday, I wrote about the central role that absolute free market libertarianism, as personified by the fictional John Galt, played in the horrific explosion in West, Texas that took the lives of fourteen people, most of whom were volunteer firefighters fighting a fire at an unregulated fertilizer facility. We have now learned that the facility had a checkered history of ignoring regulations and had 1350 times more ammonium nitrate on hand than the amount that triggers a legal requirement to report the facility to Department of Homeland Security. Of course, the facility’s owner chose to ignore that regulation along with the many other regulations he chose to ignore. Sadly, some press accounts of the owner chose to focus more on his role as a church elder (Update: he was even at Bible study when the fire broke out!) than on how his choice to flout regulations and good sense led directly to this tragedy. Whatever the cause of the original fire that eventually triggered the explosion, the plant owner’s decision to maintain such a large and unreported amount of highly explosive ammonium nitrate so close to so many people played a huge role in how this tragedy played out.

Those deaths, and their roots in blatant disregard for government regulation in the belief that it harms business, are sadly just a small part of the larger picture of how free marketeers have corrupted the public marketplace of ideas to sow widespread death and destruction so that the “job creators” can go about their usual business of pocketing massive profits while refusing to make microscopic investments in small steps that would save many lives.

Remember the other, larger Massachusetts tragedy that killed at least 50 and injured 722? No? It was discovered last fall that New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Massachusetts had been flaunting the rules on drug manufacturing and in their haste to reap maximum profits shipped out vials of steroids contaminated with fungus. Thousands of patients around the country were injected with contaminated material and deaths and injuries followed.

He should be okay with 'god', as long as he goes to confession. :rolleyes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQoJOi6mQW8

Having over 400 lbs of ammonium nitrate on site should be reported. They had 540,000 lbs! Laissez-faire regulations.

Turtwig

I'm surprised there wasn't any regulations against being built in proximity to a residential area.
(There must have been.)

KyussBishop

Here is a good Fry and Laurie clip, which is a good representation of Libertarianism, particularly like in this thread where it comes to mass privatization of police services and such (also reminds me of the type of argumentation encountered, to an extent):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6CkltzGAxY