Question for Objectivists

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As a Fascist, a Confucianist, and someone with a firm belief that hierarchy in concept and in practice is natural i find Ayn Rand's philosophy to be pretty damn amusing joke. Ayn Rand's belief that people should be guided by a "rational self-interest", basic selfishness and hedonism in a more appealing and intelligent sounding label, thats some philosophy. Even animals are like that, besides a "society" of rational egoists, would a world run by misers,criminals, and every other manner of scum. Life would be nothing more than a bellum omnium contra omnes, a war of everybody against everybody. It's amazing people believe in this stuff, but then again I consider intelligent life on earth, to be like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster, a myth.

We have had this discussion before, as I'm sure it will probably continue here. The rich can not AFFORD to pay more tax. That's ridiculous. The rich are the engines of any economy. What the envious, not necessarily poor, mostly middle class, never seem to understand is this basic economic fact. Let me remind you. BASIC ECONOMIC FACT. You can't have rich without poor, that's true. Without rich, however, what have you got? Worse than poor. Deprivation.

Think about it. THINK. It's called Communism. Under communism, which Alyssa Rosenbaum knew very well having grown up under it, everyone is in the grip of the abundance of privation. Remember, the philosophical underpinning of Communism is the vacuum that is Kantianism. Kantianism says you don't exist, only the bodied masses exist, therefore your life is not YOURS, but THIERS and you should live it accordingly. You cannot selfishly feed your family with food you can't afford, because your neighbours are hungry too, also can't afford their food, and are therefore, since YOUR interests don't exist, only THIERS, you MUST feed THEM first. WTF? I and the rest of the Western world say.

Now, as you dismiss my words as pie-in-the-sky it will never happen ridiculous extreme thinking, allow me to ask you why we are deindustrialising the Western World in the name of mitigating warming that isn't happening and isn't our fault, but with the expectation that nothing will change? If we shut down coal-fired power stations, it won't effect electricity. All Ayn Rand asked, if she were alive today she would do it also, is where does electricity, the single-most determinate factor in the industrial, and therefore social prowess of the West, come from? Renewables don't work. And, with governments picking winners based on ideology and not on science, and with science moving from its traditional scientific base to a post-natual science world, where science is defined by the nobility of its morality rather than by its scientific scrutiny and value, where is the world now with the Left completely in control and altruism our highest virtue?

Nowhere. And only getting worse.

Hood was not about reimbursing unfair taxation. He was a thief. Simple. He flouted the law. Peasants could live well by their own means, Richard wasn't the problem, and he saw the error of his ways and removed England from the crusades, not because of Robin, but because he could no longer justify the wasting of England's resources in the name of the Pope. If the Pope wanted to fight, he could do so under his own auspices. Sound like any philosophy you know?



Say what you will, but Ayn Rand always paid her taxes. As do I.

And if you seriously think that a business is going to voluntarily pay more tax to prove its PR credentials, go back and read Atlas Shrugged, please. And actually think about inherent danger, not of the action itself necessarily, but of the altruistic hubris behind it.

The question I love to ask the Left, but never seem to get an answer to:

DO YOU HEAR YOURSELF?

And, as an aside, how much extra tax do YOU voluntarily pay to prove YOUR social credentials?

I almost forgot. Who's Alyssa Rosenbaum?

Ayn Rand. Maybe she knew of what she spoke...

The fact that Objectivism sees altruism as a threat to ones self esteem makes it narcissistic. On a normal model of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it goes: Physiological<Safety<Love/Belonging<Esteem<Self-Actualization. A narcissist's structure of motivational needs would be: Physiological<Safety=Esteem<Love/Belonging=Self-Actualization.

There's a difference between knowing that every choice you make starts with considering your own needs and just plain disregarding the needs of others. Ayn Rand was inspired by William Hickman, who was a convicted child murderer. Objectivism sounds like a cheap excuse for justifying narcissism to me.

I think a good sign of when I did not think something through
is when I assume that people that disagree with me are stupid or "don't get it".
Q: Why to logical rational people disagree?
A: Because they begin with different assumptions and values.
(would add class interests but then you would figure out that I am a leftist)

the people that disagree with me are not stupid they are just working with
different materials.

State your Axioms and Values and if your logic works you will find the right
answer for your Axioms and Values if I agree with your assumptions then
as a rational person I will have to agree with you.

I disagree with miss Rosenbaums ----:cry: (my mother is a Rosenbaum)---
Assumptions about human nature

I disagree with her Value that a "productive" human is better then a "non Productive one"
Everyone that does not bring calories into the tribe is a "Goldbricker".
so in my view anyone who is not a farmer is non productive including Ayn (who farmed very poorly).
We are all carried on the backs of farmers not Industrialists. I don't eat steel.
and I certianly don't eat investment banking.

I divide the world rather into the Interesting and the Boring.
and futher divide it into Kind folks and a**holes in both groups.

so if you want to convince me of Objectivism.

build it on the axioms
1. Human are obligate co-breeders (altruism (at least on the tribal level) is geniticaly encoded).
2. Rationality is not a automatic human state

and the values
1. hurting others is bad.
2. interesting conversation is good

and then I will "get it" or HEAR MYSELF.
-Jake

Sorry, welfare is in my self-interest.


Maybe because it would help society.
There is more that only a small elite that keep productivity too. The production of farmers or factory workers are essential, even though they not necessary smart or creative.


Mathematically speaking rich can certainly affords to pay more tax. http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/149918
Also, having some richs in the population do not necessary mean propserity. The tird world country for example got a lot of richs, but they also lack a middle class and prosperity. In true prosperity come from a middle class that can buy production.
I don't say we must make richs poor, I only say we should tax them more, they take a lot more of it and be rich.

Also, I've got a question for you... If only caring about his self-interest is the best for society, then why evolution as selected altruism among our behaviors?

How do you know that the rich cannot afford to pay more tax? I look at the excesses of some of the rich, and I think, why?

As for global warming, the only alternative would be a massive population reduction, and mass murder is not legal. And how do you know that renewable resources won't work? The main problem is that the industrialists will not try to switch their infrastructure to something cleaner. Abandoning coal and oil completely is obviously not feasible, but reducing dependence and helping develop the infrastructure of renewable energy will help. The key is not deindustrialisation, but changing the paradigm of how industry is fuelled, energy wise.

Richard was once heard to say that he would sell London if he could find a buyer. Error of his ways? I don't think so. He abandoned the Crusade after he signed a treaty with Saladin. He was exhausted, as was Saladin, and had access to Jerusalem restored to Christian pilgrims. The Pope's problem was that the Christians didn't rule it. To my knowledge, Richard's resources weren't the problem.

And to lighten the mood, I'd like to quote from Python's Philosopher's Song: Immanuel Kant/ was a real pissant/ who was very rarely stable...

Seriously, though, the only philosopher whose work I even know enough about to make even a small argument for is Jeremy Bentham, and with him being a utilitarian, you'd hate his guts. I know virtually nothing about Kant and his work. But I know all too many philosophers who I have something against, and good ol' Rand, aka Alyssa Rosenbaum, is one of them.



Counterquestion. Do YOU hear yourself? I struggle between cynicism and misanthropy on one hand, and my idealism and humanism on the other. I know that I am conflicted, but I know that absolute certainty has led humanity down more bad roads than good. Oh, I hear myself very well. I know that there is probably no God, that there is probably nothing after death, but that means that the value of a human life is immeasurable. And yet, Randy people treat anyone who is not one of the creators or industrialists as fodder for a machine to make money, and their lives are of no consequence. I certainly didn't hear Galt mourning the deaths of anyone who are killed by the Strike, directly or indirectly.

I see moneyed people doing whatever they like. All too often without regard to consequences. Buying stuff just because. Money is not be the root of all evil, but it is certainly a strong catalyst for it. At the very least, fraudsters should be taken to the cleaners and divested of everything they own. And one yacht surely should suffice for a millionaire. It is wasteful indulgence of money that I have objection to, that I feel should be channeled back into the government's coffers. They had a term for such people who waste in Weimar Germany, I'm trying to think about it. Gimme a second...Ah, yes. Raffke.

However, if there was one thing to admire about Hank Rearden, it was that he actually channelled a lot of his profits into his own company, if I recall correctly. THAT I have absolutely no objection to. As long as someone who earns a ridiculous amount of money invests much of it (not all of it, obviously) in improving his company in terms of production, output, cleanliness (environmentally speaking), and ethics, then they shouldn't be taxed extra.

As for paying tax, I can't. I am on social security. But because I have been on social security, once I get a source of steady income, I intend to pay my taxes without complaint. Because I have been there. I may even pay as much extra tax voluntarily as I can afford, if I can understand the tax system well enough to do so.

And yes, I have heard of Ayn Rand's birth name. I forgot what it was, exactly, but I knew that Ayn Rand was not her birth name.

Last edited by Quatermass on 20 Feb 2011, 7:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Therefore it is o.k. to rob the rich at gun point? Which is what governments do. Taxation is theft.

If a private person did what governments do on a regular basis they would be flogged and locked up for life.

ruveyn

Taxation is a legalised protection racket, if you look at the history of it. But it had very pragmatic reasons. After all, you need money to fight and administer the land.

And private people did do it, of sorts, in France prior to the revolution:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferme_g%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale

Last edited by Quatermass on 20 Feb 2011, 8:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yes. A necessary evil. But a necessary evil is still an evil.

ruveyn

Who pays for the shipbuilder, and shipbuilding in highly skilled work, you need to understand engineering, architecture, molding, metallurgy, and any number of other skills, when you shut down the shipbuilding industry for private modality? It might be an excess, but it is still highly economically valued and endows the country with more intellectual property. Which, as you highlight Reardon, is the point of productivity.

You're right, to those who say you don't eat steel. But, I ask you, how much steel goes into the modern-day farming techniques and transport infrastructure that allows us to feed seven billion people? Well? I will concede that more needs to be done to help the third world, with food and basics, but might I remind you that one-third of the agricultural output of both Europe and America, enough overall food production in the world to feed twelve billion people daily, is lost, rotting because it was grown to meet a quota for Leftist Agricultural subsidy, not to be eaten. I ask you, under Objectivism, where this food would go where people want to eat it, not where it wants to be grown, where is the conflict?

Just because Objectivism stands for value-adding doesn't make it non-socially advantageous. To whomever it was that asked for axioms based on logic, swallow that one and then defend starving people so small farms that produce nothing that is eaten, only left to rot on piles for subsidies to grow and produce the food in the first place. Defend that.

I ask once more.

DO YOU HEAR YOURSELVES?

If a person did most things the government does they would be locked up for life.

Lavoissier, the worlds greatest chemist at the time had his head sliced off by the revolutionaries because he ran the Pharme General, a tax collecting company, for the French Crown. Privatized tax collection goes all the way back to Rome. It was easier to authorize privateers than to set up the equivalent of the IRS.

ruveyn

Amen.

And, to Quartermass, one more thing. I too am currently looking for work. I will never pay one more cent of tax in my life than necessary. You have to realise that there is no way to voluntarily pay more tax. The absurdity of it is what prohibits it. Governments, and I hope this holds for the rest of my life, deliberately structure tax systems so you pay the least. Although, here in Australia with the Lefter-than-thous holding a minority government to ransom it is being increasingly well-received in increased government appropriation.

I always find it funny that Lefter-than-thou politicians on well in excess of one-hundred-thousand dollars a year never stand for cutting their own, only everyone elses. And, then there's the question of their living standards. They won't cut their own, but expect everyone else to do so. Which is what this all boils down to. Do you want to cut your living standard for no better reason than you feel as if you should? If you don't want a boat, don't buy one. That doesn't mean that someone who does, who has paid his taxes and fed his family, if he wants one, and paid his workers might I add, then why should he not have a boat?

The Left always seem to forget this, but freedom goes both ways.

Rand was on welfare for a spell herself. Total hypocrite.

Whose children do you care for more? Your own or the children of a stranger?

ruveyn

It's possible to care about other human beings. Most people manage it in some way. I don't know about objectivists though. If i were being looked down upon as morally inferior by a Fascist that would sure make me question my beliefs.