You might as well have linked to the bible. Immediately we see her three categories are strawmen, and then we later see that her entire construction relies upon the notion of free will, which is not established (rendering it at the least question begging) but more entirely an illusion. What then? Her entire "demonstrably true" construction falls right back into one of her two other categories--God-given or "natural," both of which she debunks herself. You'll notice that Rand identifies three categories of rights being "given," by God, by government, and by "nature" as her three strawmen.

The "government-granted" strawman is pretty close to reality but isn't it. It's actually a societal agreement among its members that is secured and enforced by the government as an extension of the people (at least in democratic governments). Your links demonstrate for me that you actually do not get the reason and have redefined it according to a strawman. Would you like to elaborate on your own position, or will you just post more links now?

For future reference, so long as you see government as a "them" instead of as a willful extension of "us," then you'll never, ever understand any of this.

Your links demonstrate for me that you actually do not get the reason and have redefined it according to a strawman.

Strawman? How so?

Pardon my lack of precision there. You have redefined the concepts of rights according to an argument that proceeded from a strawman. I already explained that Rand's view concerning the role of government in the rights of people is a strawman of the real way in which those rights come into existence and are secured.

Then we will remain in disagreement about rights, role of government, and morality then.

They certainly are entitled to their money, unless they stole the money, fraud, etc.

You forgot one. Undue leverage. Which is what I've been trying to tell you is just as immoral as the other methods you mention. When someone uses their position to leverage compensation away from another person in a legal manner, that is unethical. Yet we see it everywhere, at all levels of society. Objectivism would open the floodgates for this method.

What it looks like in practice is a person busting their butts for minimum wage, while their direct supervisor sits at a computer doing very little and making 3 times as much.

Objectivism protects the "right" of using leverage against one another by doing nothing to offset the leverage on behalf of the working class. The class rift would widen drastically in lock-step with inequality, and society would fall apart. The answer to Communism isn't the opposite extreme MrA. The extremes, on both ends of the spectrum, have their evils. As usual, the best path is somewhere in the middle.


I've wanted to get into a discussion about pollution. Perhaps another thread?

Interbane, specifically Objectivists have an oversimplified definition of coercion (usu. limited only to physical force or any actions they don't like when performed by the government--even though that's a mistake as in a democratic society, government action, however much we might disagree with it, is the collective action of the will of the people in that society and thus a mutual agreement that one is beholden to simply for being a member of that society, not a form of coercion from an external entity). Particularly, they don't see wage-slavery as a form of coercion, nor do they see misleading marketing endeavors as coercion.

As I pointed out before, it is primarily because they operate from an incomplete understanding of "liberty," however useful that misunderstanding is to their philosophy. As Mr. A just pointed out, they also operate from a fundamentally flawed understanding of what rights are, where they come from, and how and why they are secured.

You are completely right, though--the environment is absolutely incapable of defending itself against misuse, in the sense we all mean when we say that, and short-term profit motive would break the system long before any "natural" (read: profit-motivated or market-motivated) behavior-corrective phenomena (if they exist) would be able to correct the problem. Indeed, even without Objectivist psychosis in place, we're likely to have already valued short term over long term too significantly. NASA predicts a global economic collapse by around 2030 due to the estimated $180T in damages that global warming will produce, and a more recent study by an arctic ice (and methane) team is predicting a high likelihood of a global extinction exceeding 95% of species by 2050 if we don't take extremely drastic measures very, very soon. Individualist philosophies cannot, absolutely cannot, deal with that.

I wonder if Objectivists and Libertarians generally understand that socialism and communism were only pushed for as hard as they were as a knee-jerk against the (obvious) abuses of laissez-faire capitalism. If purely capitalist models in the early Industrial Age (and into the Gilded Age) hadn't been so overwhelmingly abusive to most of humanity, it is unlikely that the communist revolutions ever would have happened and equally unlikely any of us today would know who Eugene Debs and Karl Marx are.

This undue leverage is what i was calling the glitch in the simplistic idea of un controlled free markets.

I wonder if Objectivists and Libertarians generally understand that socialism and communism were only pushed for as hard as they were as a knee-jerk against the (obvious) abuses of laissez-faire capitalism.

Centuries long ping-pong matches from one extreme to the other, and back again. Reactionary and all too human. It's sad that advocates are so vocal in their extremism. I didn't know that about the roots of communism, thanks.

Indeed, even without Objectivist psychosis in place, we're likely to have already valued short term over long term too significantly. NASA predicts a global economic collapse by around 2030 due to the estimated $180T in damages that global warming will produce, and a more recent study by an arctic ice (and methane) team is predicting a high likelihood of a global extinction exceeding 95% of species by 2050 if we don't take extremely drastic measures very, very soon.

This is scary. A wisdom of addiction applies here I think; the downward spiral is too weak to be seen before it's too strong to be stopped. Our massive population seems to be near the crest of a cycle that is about to regress to the means.

This undue leverage is what i was calling the glitch in the simplistic idea of un controlled free markets.

Yeah, and I'm not sure if it's even the right term, but it seems to fit. In the category of undue leverage are rents and monopolies, but also less obvious things such as hefty interest rates and part-time only workforces(to fall below insurance requirements). I'm sure the list would fill a book.

Interbane wrote:

They certainly are entitled to their money, unless they stole the money, fraud, etc.

You forgot one. Undue leverage.

No, I didn't forget one, as that is not one in laissez-faire capitalim.

Again, we continue to remain in disagreement.

What it looks like in practice is a person busting their butts for minimum wage, while their direct supervisor sits at a computer doing very little and making 3 times as much.

Absolutely nothing wrong with that. If they have a problem with their pay scale, they can try to seek employment elsewhere. In laissez-faire capitalism, the government would not be allowed to use force against the employer to raise or lower anyones wage/salary, create a minimum wage, or maximum wage/salary, force employers to 'negotiate' with unions, etc. The use of force is barred from human relationships. Force cannot be used against employees either, as in the government could not force them to workfor a minimum amount of pay an hour, an employee can work for 9.00 or for 4.00 an hour for any amount, the government could not change that amount at all.