Objective Demonstration Thread

[Oblimo]

an interesting parallel claim i'd like to get your and Shang's opinion on is: The enlightened, very long-term interests of two persons never conflict. i say, in the usual sense of 'enlightened', not true.

If someone showed up with a limitless power source, then yes, the "enlightened" very-long term interests of two persons would never conflict (and the shor-term wouldn't, either). But as long as resources remain limited, rational economic actor's interests always conflict, even if the resolution of that conflict is a cooperative trade.

After all, in order to make a profit in trade, you have to lie, because profiting from a trade is only possible when at least one side is operating from a position of imperfect information.

 

[Pure]

sounds heretical to me, obl. the archetypal, nonexploitive relation in Rand is the trade. it is alleged to be to the benefit of both. i make a guitar and need money for rent and food, so I put it on sale for a fair price; you need a new guitar, so you pay me that price. Upshot, I have the money, you have the new guitar; everyone is happy.

===
note: this works just as well if you have a side of beef, and it's a trade in kind.

 

[Oblimo]

sounds heretical to me, obl. the archetypal, nonexploitive relation in Rand is the trade. it is alleged to be to the benefit of both. i make a guitar and need money for rent and food, so I put it on sale for a fair price; you need a new guitar, so you pay me that price. Upshot, I have the money, you have the new guitar; everyone is happy.

===
note: this works just as well if you have a side of beef, and it's a trade in kind.

Well, it's not my fault that Rand apparently never read an introductory microeconomics textbook. In order to yield a profit, trade must be exploitive; I must know something you don't, or I must be willing to take a risk that you aren't.

If I knew exactly how much money it cost you to make your guitar (not just raw materials, but time, opporunity costs, yadda yadda), you think I'd pay you a penny more? And if I would, what rational mechanism would we use to determine how much money I should overpay you?

You can only profit if you take a risk. You can only take a risk if there is uncertainty. You can only have uncertainy if you have imperfect knowledge. You can only have imperfect knowledge if something if fundamentally unknowable (so much for objectivity) or someone is being coersive (so much for the Randian moral model).

It's another one of those dilemma thingies.

 

[Pure]

well, i'm no economist, Ob, but I'll take your word. on the face of it, a simple sale of one's selfmade product for a fair price (or trade in kind) seems to benefit both. one evidence for this is that up the road, the exchange is repeated, apparently voluntarily, i.e., i continue to buy eggs from the same farmer. indeed, even were i to see his books, i don't think i'd have a problem. of course there is 5$ of feed for the chicken i paid ten for, but that's for his barn, his labour,and paying his electric bill, and maybe even a mortgage.

so i say, lets grant Ayn her point, FTSOA, about fair trades of own products, in fair circumstances. that leaves a lot of open ground. e.g. in my guitar example, if your side of beef is about to go bad, you have to trade, so therefore i can get more than a fair value.

 

[Oblimo]

so i say, lets grant Ayn her point, FTSOA, about fair trades of own products, in fair circumstances. that leaves a lot of open ground. e.g. in my guitar example, if your side of beef is about to go bad, you have to trade, so therefore i can get more than a fair value.

Again, if I knew it cost you exactly $20 to make your guitar, why would I ever buy it from you for more?

Unless you are suggesting a trade model where the goal is not to make a profit.

 

[Oblimo]

Here's a little thought experiment on the objectivity (or lack thereof) of "fair value:"

Pure's wife is pregnant and in labor in the hospital. Pure is hundreds of miles away at a conference or something, and has been talking to his sister-in-law Roxanne on the cell phone for updates. Roxanne calls, saying "You won't believe what just happened," and the cell batteries go dead.

Pure runs to the nearest payphone, but he's only got a $20 dollar bill (and for the sake of this hypothetical there's no way to activate the phone without first putting a quarter in it. Just go with me on this one). Zeb is there in the room with him.

Pure asks Zeb if he has a quarter.

Zeb says, "Sure."

Pure asks Zeb if he can have the quarter.

Zeb says, "Sure, but it'll cost you that twenty dollar bill."

Pure wants to make the call as soon as freakin possible, so he gives Zeb the twenty. Zeb gives him the quarter, and Pure makes his call so Roxanne can tell him that she just saved a bundle on her car insurance.

Anyway, the question is: was that a "fair" trade?

 

[Pure]

no it's not fair, as i said. undue pressure on either--exploited pressure-- makes it NOT an equal exchange.

the test i proposed generally works; would i do it again that way, having some choice? no.

Again, if I knew it cost you exactly $20 to make your guitar, why would I ever buy it from you for more?

because other guitars cost $30. if you mean $20 for materials, does anyone expect to buy for cost of materials, unless it's your brother?

the fungible item is the cost of labor. is the guitarmaker's labor worth $10/hour or $50/hr.

the market can help determine that.

put it this way; the least a guitar maker can charge, and survive, sets the lower limit, for a series of transactions. what it costs him to live, to feed and shelter his wife and family sets the amount above materials cost (and production cost) he has to charge.

let me ask you this, oblimo, again as a layperson; you're basically saying one or the other gets screwed in any buy or trade situation [where something in the ball park of market value is charged], even those seemingly fair and uncoerced? in that case, i ask my question: why would anyone return to the same seller (if a buyer) or the same buyer (if a seller)?

i will grant you that a third party's assessment is always likely to turn up a descrepancy, even though small: if I swap my guitar for a side of beef, it's possible the guitar is worth 200 and the side of beef 190 dollars. BUT both want the deal to go ahead, and it's not like your 'sell a quarter for $20 example' because of absence of strong pressure.

ADDED: Ob, it occurs to me that maybe you are talking about Marx's theory of surplus value. When I buy a manufactured good, like a Ford, there is money taken from me beyond the labor costs, productions costs and materials, AND the salaries of executives; that goes to profits, i.e., to the shareholders [some of whom are execs]

Marx called this 'surplus value,' since every laborer at Ford put in labor hours on materials, and, as it were, sold this labour to the company--it's worth $10,000, say; the company, let's say, spent another $3000 on managers, materials, rent of building.

HOWEVER it puts the car on the market NOT for $13,000, but for $18,000, so as to insure profit, meaning in Marx's terms that a 'surplus value' of $5000 has been skimmed (from company's income, from the the buyers of Fords) for the coupon cutters (rich stockholders).

That is why I used a guitarmaker selling something he made, for his profit--over and above materials and production costs is what he lives on.

If you ask me how I feel about paying Ford's shareholders anything, I admit to some discomfort; many of them never took any particular risk in setting up Ford, or making crucial innovations. But lets say, ftsoa, that I'm willing to see them make 10% return on investment. If I'm purchasing a name brand drug, however, and its company's investors are making 30%, then yes, fuck em for the 20% difference.


----
in any case i want to return to the core claims of 'rational egoism' and ask if it makes sense.

 

[amicus]

Egads!


amicus...

 

[Greg_H]

lazy

I missed something here, and am too lazy to read all the previous posts...

... is infanticide good or bad? I never got the consensus.

As for me, I'd say it depends on the babies. Those whiny, glazed-eyed looking, fat, slothful babies gotta go. Like the ones on my neighbor's porch.

So, I'd say, if I were involved in the selection process, infanticide couldn't be entirely bad, or at least without good purpose. Hence, no moral absolute.

Just my two cents. And, yes, even my daughter agrees with me. But then, she wasn't fat and slow.

 

[Pure]

you didn't miss anything greg. only one person attempted to address infanticide and as far as i could tell, he just said his intuition told him it was wrong.

here's a couple oddities of Rand's objective ethics. she's quite clear there are NO absolute, such as Do not kill, or Do not lie.

On lies, she differs with Kant in allowing some situations of justified lying--the famous, "madman asks you for an ax" sort of thing.

However she rejects the 'white lie,' completely.

She also appears to have as an absolute: The rational person is never first to initiate force. That's because his 'essence' is that of a trader, and rationality dictates mutuality and honesty. Traders just don't work by force, e.g., grab what they want.

She appears to think most interactions of life are analogous to trading, hence follow the same rules (exceptions for children and loved ones).

 

[Pure]

a little example.

I'm drowning, and you a stranger, walk up to the edge of the water. You might walk a few yards and find a pole and extend it to me. But wait! Who the fuck are you? Is your name Lennon or Lenin?

Regarding the criteria below: I think I'd rather hear "I'd rather not help you, I have to go to the hairdresser" than all the excuses and questions "Are you the cause of your suffering? Do you have a police record? What are your future intentions as to virtue or vice?"


Peikoff summarizing Rand. As to helping a stranger in an emergency, this is moral [morally permissible, but never obligatory] under certain conditions. A man may help such a person if the concept 'emergency' is properly delimited; if no sacrifice is involved on the helper's part; if the recipient is not the cause of his own suffering, i.e., the helper is supporting not vices but values, even though it is only the potential value of a fellow human being about whom nothing evil is known; and above all, if the helper remembers the moral status of this action. Extending help to others in such a context is an acct of generosity, not an obligation. Nor is it an act that one may cherish as one's claim to virtue. Virtue consists in creating values, not in giving them away.

 

[rgraham666]

I should read more carefully before I post.

Anyway, virtue has more to do with sacrifice than gain.

For example, you're not going to gain much in the way of material things by raising kids, quite the opposite.

But the real rewards are not 'real'.

And by an objectivist's standards not worth the effort.

I can't recall. Rand didn't have kids, did she?

 

[Pure]

rand had no kids.

it's interesting that for her, the trade was a paradigm of human relations. (except for adult to child).

hayek, similarly a free marketer recognized a private realm where the benefits are not to be measured.

the example given above, of the considerations in rescuing a drowning person, shows a weird attempt to calculate the possible gains and losses for the helper (the latter of which, if the helper stays on land, are unlikely to be large).

as her ex disciple Kelley, a decent philosopher has stated, Rand by design EXcluded benevolence from the virtues (as mistake to which you may be alluding); the drowning man example makes that pretty clear--unless he's Jonas Salk, no need to bother.

 

[Pure]

One final question for our distinguished discussants.

It's been held, by various 'objective moral theorists' and natural law theorists of society and government that the agreed principles of 'human rights' among nations are evidence of 'natural law,' and proof that nature has supplied to each person a means of recognizing what's right. (since persons of all religions or without any religion endorsed the document.)

so here is the famous UN Declaration of Rights (1948) in part. Is it evidence that the rights are objective or natural or universal?
most nations agreed to them, after all.

[Universal Declaration of Human Rights]

[start quote]
Preamble

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, [...]

Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

[...]

The General Assembly,

Proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms [....]

Article 1
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

[...]
Article 3
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8
Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10
Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11
Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.

No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed.

Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article 12
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 13
Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State.
Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 14
Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 15
Everyone has the right to a nationality.
No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Article 16
Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.

The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Article 17
Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 18
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance. [end excerpt][end quote]

 

[cantdog]

The US has neither the balls nor the inclination to place this much limit upon power.

 

[cantdog]

That's why the peoples of the world should look to their future. Power or freedom?