Ms. Rand

[Rope64]

Rope, you have established useful standard and benchmark, the "Go and Fuck Yourself Society." That is a laudable model.

That brings us down to a discussion of how best to bring it about and preserve it. I will just refer to my earlier posts regarding human nature, and my knowledge of the laws of economics, to make the case that the Go and Fuck Yourself Society is better served by a limited government than by one with broad scope and power.

All right, then let me give you your first hurdle. There are reasons, I expect we can agree, that people feel they must not say, "Go and fuck yourself," even when that is what they want to say. An obvious reason would be a law, and the penalties and enforcement behind it, that one may not say such a thing. I expect there will be broad agreement that such laws should be avoided with extreme prejudice.

But then there are other reasons, such as that telling Bill Gates to go and fuck himself might make it hard for you to run a successful software company with personal computers as your base (I tend to think that Bill Gates is probably less conscious of insults to himself or his company than most people would be in his situation, but I wouldn't want to count on it). You, Roxanne, seem to offer aphorisms and promises that such circumstances would be rare and short-lived in an environment of unfettered capitalism, but if we agree on the standard we want to achieve, shouldn't we want to do better than aphorisms and promises about how it will be? I can, of course, offer instances of people being prevented from saying what they think for long periods of time for reasons of economic security with regard to private corporations and individuals.

Now, we have in America a general law of employment 'at will,' which means that an employee may be hired or fired for any reason at all or even for no particular reason (other than for six specified reasons for which a protective exception is made: race, religion, ethnicity, age, sex, and ... national origin (?)). And I think this is appropriately so: we can see, with the government as an example, of what inefficiency is created when reasons have to be given for every detrimental employment change -- there will be people hired and fired for the 'wrong' reasons, but the burden of enforcing and abiding by laws designed to prevent 'wrong' employment decisions outweigh such things. So I would not advocate a "You must not fire someone for telling you to go and fuck yourself law," and indeed there are 'legitimate' reasons in the workplace to want people not to tell each other to go and fuck themselves.

But, even if not something so direct, is there nothing a society can do? Some employers should, for their own and for society's good, be told to go and fuck themselves. I think that, in the "Go and Fuck Yourself Society," it should be desired that finding a new job, after you have told an employer to go and fuck himself, should be easy. Much of this is beyond the government's obvious control, but the government could make tax burdens for employment as light as possible, particularly at the lower income levels. Right now, employment is taxed at about 15% from the first dollar, and clearly, directly, that curtails demand for employment. In the "Go and Fuck Yourself Society," is should be desired that taxes on employment income should be minimized, particularly at lower income levels, where economic forces are most strongly felt. Can you agree with this, Roxanne?

I'll pause here, but with the note that I'm thinking my next topic will be making it difficult to accumulate a lot of assets, about which I expect we will have more disagreement.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Ah. Went to one of my favourite books for some hope. It worked too.
I feel much better.

Excuse me, but who started this thread?

 

[3113]

Excuse me, but who started this thread?

Someone posing as rgraham666. That evil imposter...at it again!

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Someone posing as rgraham666. That evil imposter...at it again!

Sometimes I think you have a little bit of the masochist in you, Rob!

Not that I'm unfamiliar or anything...

 

[Pure]

to Roxanne and Rope

Rox: I don't believe that the monopolies you fear are sustainable even for brief periods unless they are able to enlist the state's monopoly on legal violence to serve them.

Pure: but that enlistment is precisely what they do--e.g. call the police to clear away the union picket line, and have the leaders charged with 'conspiracy' and jailed by a friendly court (using force).

however, i find you do not take facts too seriously in proposing your system, Roxanne. you simply wish to postulate and ideal entrepreneur or trader, and then, by definition, he does no ill, and everyone benefits.

to give an example, from your posting:
Rox: To me 'rational self interest' was born on the day that the trader arrived in our village and we decided to not kill him and take his stuff. Yes, doing the latter would mean we get more stuff right now, but we recognized that it would mean less stuff over time, because there would be no trader.

apart from the idealization, in fact, there are a number of ways to deal with the trader, which he might not like and which might generate less 'good' for the overall society that you envision--e.g., kill him and take over his goods and his business.

or, with more finesse, and respecting Rand's no force: set up myself as a competing trader, and with the help of some wealthy backers, lower my prices for a period long enough to drive him to the wall (say, a year). then buy him out, and jack up the prices for the new, consolidated enterprise, above what his were to begin with. it would seem that's quite within the bounds of my 'rational self interest.'

but i'm sure you have an imaginary scene where your desired outcome --flourishing trade in high quality goods for the benefit of all--can be guaranteed; in theory. to put it perhaps more cogently with less sarcasm, you will always get your desired outcome by postulating some superhuman virtuous 'traders', and your system surely would work with the superhumans designed according to Rands specifications. but not necessarily in the real world. (this of course, is the mirror argument to yours against liberals and socialists; their government might theoretically work with the 'right sort,' but in fact they [government persons] be lazy and self serving and corrupt, etc.)

---

rope,
interesting points,

But I still want the ability to tell people to go and fuck themselves, if that's what they need to be told, and not to find that they are in a position to screw me for having mouthed off to them so. Rand's system does not promise that, and so I don't give a fuck that I might have cheaper bread or a faster, safer car under her system: there's no amount of compensation I'd be willing to accept in order to give up the right to tell people to go and fuck themselves. Really, I think it is an essential quality of an ongoing, successful society that people feel free to tell each other to go and fuck themselves.

this is a classic libertarian, or perhaps anarchist system; possibly 'minimum government' (so called minarchy).

Rand, of course wants it both ways: she claims a philosophy of the individual, who can say 'fuck you,' she claims to be of 'libertarian' essence, though without their shallowness and lack of originality.

but she wants the 'traders' not to be interfered with (and indeed, the huge corporations). she wants 'liberty' so to say, for the larger corporate entities.

so when the real estate 'trader' comes for your house, your 'fuck you' doesn't amount to much. (as in the recent SC case, he's gotten the green light to 'develop' from the appropriate level of government, so has a right to buy you out.)

'fuck you' can amount to so called 'negative liberty,' i.e., a right not to be interfered with (as long as you're not harming others). it is a valuable concept.

the problem comes from the economics: if you're starving (because the wage is too low), your 'negative liberty' doesn't amount to much. you'd better curb the 'fuck you' and keep your nose to the grindstone.

but only government can solve or ameliorate the economics problem (or shall we say, society, acting through its chosen government). given that government's power, it has a capacity not just to offer 'social assistence' but to do things like pass the Patriot Act, and there you go.
a point perhaps Roxanne would agree with.

 

[Sex and Death]

Well, it's a little less naive and silly if the people you love, your little children, your wife, is starving and there's jobs, no bread, no heat or warm clothes and the people in charge are living high-on-the-hog. At this point, it's kinda hard to sing a rendition of "The best things in life are free!"

And let's remember that "spiritual" over physical can be it's own propaganda: "The poor shall get into heaven, so feel lucky you're poor and don't even THINK about trying to be anything else or having more!"

Now I grant you that in a lot of cases, people taking up economic utopias as bible really have little to complain about. They usually have a job (maybe one they don't like, but they do have one), food, a roof over their heads, etc. And that in materialist America, more does not equal happiness. Alas for us, however, the fairy tales were written in the days when people had almost nothing. And so dreams of happiness are always in becoming prince or princess and living in the palace...and never again having to labor every day, 18 hours a day, just to stay alive.

In other words, our technology and economics have taken such a leap forward in the last 200 years that we've outrun both our mythology and our evolution. Both are still stuck in primitive times where warmth, food, and rest were very valuable to happiness. Not in the present where...um...well, we can waste our time at rest, in warmth, with food on hand, arguing economic utopias over the internet

I appreciate your observations, and agree, for the most part, and you make some good and valid points, but I think you are, in some ways, forgetting the forest for the trees.

Survival, econimic or otherwise, and spirtuality are not mutually exclusive. People who have been graced with or achieved a greater or more rich spirutal life than most people still have to live in the world, to breathe, eat, evacuate, pay their way somehow, etc... They just find the spiritual dimension of those things and make it primary while they do them.

Reality (which is hard, if not impossible, to know wholly and objectively) doesn't change according to how much money, food, saftey or comfort we have. If we happen to wake to and value other dimensions of life other than the material, then we can choose to practice putting our attention there or not. We can't escape one dimension of life and reality by denying or remaining ignorant of it.

Rand offers one way to meet the material dimensions and realities of life, and her offeirng is clearly her valid and valuable gift to the world. But her gift does not address all of reality or life. And, inescapably, our greatest gifts flow out of our deepest wounds, so of course there will be problems with her offerngs, or anyone's offeirngs, and it is important to examine those problems so the offerings can be put in their proper context, but if we discount anything completely we run the risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater and seeing everything as a nail because we get too attached to the hammer we have in our hand.

 

[rgraham666]

Sometimes I think you have a little bit of the masochist in you, Rob!

Not that I'm unfamiliar or anything...

Nah. I'm a heretic. I like to be like that nasty old bastard who wandered into the marketplace in Athens everyday and pissed people off because he made them think.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

As I said in my first post here, "Neither of you is likely to change the other's mind, but having narrowed the disagreement to a matter of fact, you set about to marshal evidence and logic to buttress your position. You present your evidence to the world. Over time, in the free marketplace of ideas, one idea or another may prevail because it more accurately describes reality."

Fortunately that marketplace of ideas is much wider than AH!

To Pure and Rope: I just have too many time pressures on me right now to go back and forth on these detailed proposals and rebuttals. I will make one statement that applies generally to most of your assertions though.

Your goal seems to be a system that guarantees that no one is ever prohibited by law or economic circumstance from being able to tell some economic power to go fuck himself.

At any given moment in the life of an economy it is probable that someone somewhere cannot tell an economic power to fuck himself. It's very unlikely that there is anything you can do to guarantee that this never happens. The only way you could succeed in that would so tie our economy and society in knots that no one would be better off.

But economies are dynamic. They change all the time. It seems to me that the best way to preserve the freedom to tell an economic power to fuck off is to maintain a dynamic system that keeps those economic powers always looking back over their shoulder, wary of the lean and hungry newcomers eager to get a piece of the action. That will improve their behavior vis a vis consumers while they do have power, and ensure that their power is temporary in any event.

You say that I'm unrealistic about this. Let me give a concrete example: OPEC's efforts over the years to prevent oil from going to $100 or $200 per barrel. Why do they do that? Because they know they can only squeeze consumers so tight before the incentive to adopt different energy sources (like nukes) becomes so great that it breaks their market. My goodness, if even OPEC behaves this way, how much more evidence do you need that my model of human behavior is correct?

Bottom line: Think "dynamic" and "balance," not "static" and "guarantee." You are more likely to achieve something close to your goal, and you won't crush the life out of the economy to get it. Just the opposite, in fact.

 

[Rope64]

Your goal seems to be a system that guarantees that no one is ever prohibited by law or economic circumstance from being able to tell some economic power to go fuck himself.

No. That could accurately be called my ideal, but it is not something that I think is achievable, and so not a goal.

But economies are dynamic. They change all the time. It seems to me that the best way to preserve the freedom to tell an economic power to fuck off is to maintain a dynamic system that keeps those economic powers always looking back over their shoulder, wary of the lean and hungry newcomers eager to get a piece of the action. That will improve their behavior vis a vis consumers while they do have power, and ensure that their power is temporary in any event.

I quite agree. I suspect that we will have differences about how best to achieve this.

You say that I'm unrealistic about this. Let me give a concrete example: OPEC's efforts over the years to prevent oil from going to $100 or $200 per barrel. Why do they do that? Because they know they can only squeeze consumers so tight before the incentive to adopt different energy sources (like nukes) becomes so great that it breaks their market. My goodness, if even OPEC behaves this way, how much more evidence do you need that my model of human behavior is correct?

I don't see how this validates any model that you've given of human behavior. The situation of OPEC is fairly complex. They attempted, as I'm sure you know, to use oil as an economic weapon on a couple of occasions in the 1970s; no one told them to go fuck themselves. Instead, out of economic pain, oil consumers adapted and did without, and, out of poor planning on its own part, OPEC found that it was less able to withstand a diminished oil market than its consumers were. Had they planned better, or were they to try the same thing now, when there is a broad and growing demand for oil, they might do or have done better.

Most OPEC members are also unstable countries that have tenuous control of their populations, and so often cannot accept even minimal short-term pain in order to maximize long-term gain.

Bottom line: Think "dynamic" and "balance," not "static" and "guarantee." You are more likely to achieve something close to your goal, and you won't crush the life out of the economy to get it. Just the opposite, in fact.

Again, I don't disagree with you on what sort of economy is most conducive to a "Go and Fuck Yourself" society. Clearly, it must be dynamic if it is easy for people to find new jobs after telling their employers to go and fuck themselves. The question is, how best to make it dynamic, and how to do so without otherwise compromising the ability to tell people to go and fuck themselves?

While my language for it is of course more colorful than necessary, I hope that it is clear that what the "Go and Fuck Yourself" society is really about is the free flow of information.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

There is no law against using colorful language in philosophical or economic discussions. It is probably prudent to make the language such that it's not restricted to 'adults only,' but hey - this is a smut site!

 

[rgraham666]

The question I wish to ask is, why must we be beholden to a 'natural' system of economics?

The system most often used in defense of 'natural' economics is the living world. Which is vicious, has a high mortality rate even for the 'successful', involves untold pain and horror, and is prone to collapse.

The unique human trait, the ability to create, has allowed us to escape that, somewhat.

Why would we wish to return to that when we spent so much effort escaping it?

 

[Rope64]

'Natural' tends to be used in social debates as a means to claim a lower standard of proof: "Why shouldn't we do things as I propose, which is only natural, instead of accepting all of the artificial devices that you insist on? I'm willing to be convinced; I just ask that you prove your case."

A rejoinder a friend of mine used to make regarding claims of being natural, albeit with regard to a certain herbal substance of which we were known on occasion to partake, was, "Cobra venom is natural, but you don't seem to eager to let that into your system."

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

An economic system must work with the realities of human nature. The goal is to harness man's inborn desire to improve his material well being so that this serves society. Which means it must serve himself first. Incentives and disincentives really matter, and you must get them right. There are no short cuts.

Those systems that deny human nature and require "new socialist men" are the cause of oceans of blood spilled in the past two centuries. Those that accept human nature and seek to harness it, ie. the system described by Adam Smith (yes, that Adam Smith), have created a standard of living and comfort for even the lowest levels of society that was undreamed of by previous generations.

Is there viciousness? Certainly, but it is not intrinsic to the system. The problem is that there is a streak of viciousness in humans, or perhaps more accurately ruthlessness, since it's usually not so much a case of maliciousness as, "don't get in my way!"

Affluence softens this tremendously. Look at the state the mass of humanity lived in 150 years ago. It makes us shudder. That such conditions were accepted then was due to the fact that society was so much less affluent than it is today. Affluence solves most problems.

To the extent almost everyone is better off (and they are by an immeasurable amount) this is because we have allowed an economic system to flourish that is amazingly productive and innovative. (Comments above that "money can't buy me love" are written on computers that would have cost a million dollars 25 years ago.) Imagine where we'll be in another 150 years – as long as we don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg by messing up the system that provides incentives to work, invest, take risks and innovate. (And assuming fanatics on one side or another don't blow it all up first.)

The thing that people find painful is that efforts to take "shortcuts" and eliminate inequality right now always backfire and set us back, because they ignore human nature, or try to "change it." They get the incentives wrong.

I dream of a future in which society is so affluent that the most vicious events are Internet flame wars and ruthless Tour de France blood doping scandals. I believe this is possible, and is closer than we think. But there are no short cuts.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

"Cobra venom is natural, but you don't seem to eager to let that into your system."

So is hemlock.

"I drank what?"

 

[Pure]

rg

The question I wish to ask is, why must we be beholden to a 'natural' system of economics?

The system most often used in defense of 'natural' economics is the living world. Which is vicious, has a high mortality rate even for the 'successful', involves untold pain and horror, and is prone to collapse.

excellent point, rg.

the same applies in ethics.

unfortunately, Rand, like Thomas Aquinas, has a kind of 'natural law' approach, purporting to derive shoulds and oughts from nature:

Rand says living things by nature seek to survive, and 'man', by nature, has the capacity to reason about 'his' means of survival 'qua man'.

From those slender premises, the first one false, she purports to derive her entire ethical system.

The second premise is vague in the crucial area of 'qua man.' Does an ascetic saint living in a cave, 'survive qua man'. Rand says, has to say, 'no'.
So you can guess that 'qua man' means 'as trader, entrepreneur'. So in terms of 'natural capacity,' the second premise may be true.

BUT, here is where your point comes in, rg. ASSUME for the sake of argument that the premises are true. Does any ethical conclusion follow? For instance that honesty is a virtue?

How does she do it: Through various pyrotechnics:

To survive you have to face reality.
To survive as a trader, you have to avoid misrepresenting.
You should not misrepresent, to survive as a trader (at least in the long run).
You need the virtue of honesty, to survive as a trader (at least in the long run).

Unfortunately most of these premises are questionable, and their 'logic' is also.

 

[amicus]

I am now convinced that Pure could not possibly walk and chew gum at the same time.

I am convinced because in Pure's hands, words and concepts are malleable, like clay, subject to changing shape and form at any instant.

Thus, Pure attempting to walk, could not define the concept and may attempt to fly, thinking and believing there is no difference; and the gum, oh yes, upon a whim could turn to Hemlock or Venom, and with that possibility, Pure would attempt neither to walk nor chew gum, merely to gravitate, without form or function from point a to point b, if only Pure could define either a or b, which in his case, is a logical impossiblity.


I would pay good money to see that. total immobility in mind and body.



amicus...

 

[Sex and Death]

From those slender premises, the first one false, she purports to derive her entire ethical system.

(Pure, I hate to do this, because I enjoy your scrappiness and flexibility of mind, and Amicus needs his chief detractor, but Amicus has a point. Given that all positions begin with an unprovable first premise...what is yours?)

 

[Pure]

Let's clarify the facts:

Those that accept human nature and seek to harness it, ie. the system described by Adam Smith (yes, that Adam Smith), have created a standard of living and comfort for even the lowest levels of society that was undreamed of by previous generations.

If you are going to use 20th century advances you're going to have to concede that all these happened in 'mixed' economies. For example. in the US, since Roosevelt.

The great wonder stories of post WWII are Germany and Japan; likewise quite mixed, the former having 'socialized medicine' and the latter having firm national trade and corporate policies (which is why there aren't many Fords and Chevies in Japan).

It takes a good many twists and turns a la amicus to argue that Bill Gates and Morita have been terribly oppressed, their genius hamstrung by bumbling Stalinist bureaucrats, their deserved wealth halved, pillaged, by leechlike 'welfare' for the undeserving.

Mixed economies work. The people like them. Having chosen them, they *maintain* them by democratic means.

So why not argue from 'nature' here also: It's 'man's' nature to develop mixed economies, which serve 'him' very well-- further, the departing from these, in the manner of Ami ---disband all gov function except military and policing-- would lead to disaster as varying from 'nature.'
---

One might add that this neglects the billion of so Chinese. They like entrepreneurship, but under dictatorial political conditions (a la Malaysia).

Their 'nature' is apparently somewhat different from ours.

 

[Pure]

reply to SD

Given that all positions begin with an unprovable first premise...

they do?

i said the first premise was false.

what is yours?)

This is a Rand thread: Don't you think it a somewhat unfair burden to say 'Don't criticize Rand unless you can show us a better system of your own design.'

My views have been outlined in a number of threads, and don't seem to be a mystery to most. You might drop in on the Nietzsche thread that sev and I are trying to get going.

Incidentally, the posting just above--on mixed economies-- outlines my views on the issue at hand. Is that good enough for you?

 

[amicus]

"...unfortunately, Rand, like Thomas Aquinas, has a kind of 'natural law' approach, purporting to derive shoulds and oughts from nature:

Rand says living things by nature seek to survive, and 'man', by nature, has the capacity to reason about 'his' means of survival 'qua man'.

From those slender premises, the first one false, she purports to derive her entire ethical system...."

The above, Pure, your statement was the object of my disaffection, in that you paraphrased a so called premise, set it up and then simply stated it was false.

Sophomoric at best, but I guess you usually get away with such things.

Secondly, Sex & Death called you out, in that you criticize any attempt to conceptualize and 'proof' by logic any premise or axiom, and you answer by saying this is a "Rand" theme and you shouldn't be called upon to prove any of your points.

Which was my point earlier, that you never, ever offer solid ground, only criticism of others.

Your 'so called' mixed economies in Europe all have high unemployment, high taxes, they did not have to foot the bill for defense against the Soviets, (we did), those former colonial nations are barely third world and people to not migrate to America only because they are forbidden to.

Middle and lower class Europeans cannot afford to own a home or property, drive around silly little toy cars, ride bicycles to work and reproduce at such a low rate they import former colony citizens for a work force and to keep the population up.

A measure of the productiveness and happines of a society is judged by the quantity and quality of art and music it produces. Look at the best selling books, movies and music in the world, not one in a hundred comes from Europe.

However, I am tempted, at some later date, to take on your concept of society and by Marxist dialectic and Kantian aversion, I will defend the existence of your command economy and a controlled environment wherein the government owns all the means of production.

Just to prove to you that such a position could be defended, as you just don't know how to do it and don't have the intellectual courage to even try.

amicus...

 

[amicus]

(after waiting 10 minutes for the silly assed thing to take, I clicked, 'submit' again and got a double post, which I forthwith deleted)

amicus...

 

[rgraham666]

The wise and virtuous man is at all times willing to place the common good above his own. Adam Smith - The Theory of Moral Sentiments

I wonder why so many people overlook this little piece of Smith's writing?

 

[rgraham666]

I'm going to post my personal philosophy, just to make clear where I stand and where I'm going.

Ahem.

There's enough pain in the universe without me adding to the sum total.

Err, that's it.

 

[Pure]

ami, you might note that once you click 'submit', there may be things happening at literotica that don't show-- i.e., it's complete, though your little graph doesn't show it.

i have found that in the majority of cases where 'submit' is clicked [leaving aside cases of forgetting], it does go through, provided I give it a couple mins.

there is also a matter of time delay. it may go through but not show up for 5-10 mins if you go to the forum.

so my procedure is simply to 'select' and 'copy' a posting that's in doubt.
put it somewhere. then, if the posting hasn't shown up in ten mins, post the copy.

ADDED: when the whole process is gummed up, sometimes it's lit's fault. But--working on the assumption that it's not-- my procedure is first to go back to lit.com, home page and re enter the forums. If that fails, it can be due to Internet Explorer; so I leave lit and IE and re launch IE.


----

PS. I thought it would be obvious to all why "All living things, by nature, seek to survive" is false.

 

[amicus]

Pure]ami, you might note that once you click 'submit', there may be things happening at literotica that don't show-- i.e., it's complete, though your little graph doesn't show it.

i have found that in the majority of cases where 'submit' is clicked [leaving aside cases of forgetting], it does go through, provided I give it a couple mins.

there is also a matter of time delay. it may go through but not show up for 5-10 mins in you go to the forum.

so my procedure is simply to 'select' and 'copy' a posting that's in doubt.
put it somewhere. then, if the posting hasn't shown up in ten mins, post the copy.

----

PS. I thought it would be obvious to all why "All living things, by nature, seek to survive" is false.

[/I]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have been having trouble for several days with very slow navigation, usually the procedure works efficiently and I have posted enough to learn the ropes, thank you.

PS. I thought it was manifestly self evident to all, why, "All living things, by nature, seek to survive is patently true.

Even that poor little spermatozoa, one in many thousands, wiggles his little tail off, until death, just to survive and fulfill his destiny...destiny...to live.

egads, buy you books and buy you books and all you do is lick the cover and eat the pages, kinky.

amicus...