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Randian Philosophy: Atlas can suck my wang
LibrarianThorne
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This is split off from the gamers don't read thread over in G&T, as there's no reason to argue this there. For those who don't want to peruse that forum nor the thread, poster theroo has questioned my claim that Randian philosophy is "goddamn crazy." As this is not quite the discussion that takes place in either the Ron Paul or Libertarian threads, I've made this one.
Okay, so to put my viewpoint out there, Randian philosophy doesn't work because the "thinkers" rely on the "moochers" for fundamental existance. Yes, things like the internet and computers are great for society and the world would be a poorer place without great minds like Socrates, Einstein, or Edison. However, even great minds have fundamental desires such as eating and shelter. These fundamental desires are taken care of by the moochers, those in the so-called lower class who build our houses, harvest our food, and take care of most things so that great thinkers can, well, think.
Let's take a bigtime example here and say Bill Gates decides to fuck off and leave MS, feeling that for whatever reason his ideas are hampered by American society. Now, Bill's definitely a smart guy but saying that he could handle building and wiring a house, growing his own food, and generally doing the things to continue surviving would take up an incredible amount of time. These things would, in theory, prevent Bill from coming up with great ideas all the time as his mind is much more concerned with basic needs.
It's easy for those of us who've never experienced crushing depression and poverty to discount those who have as somehow inferior. After all, they fucked up right? Well, yeah, and it's our job as a worldly society to help those people, whenever possible, back on their feet. Selfishly claiming that they don't need or deserve assistance is a horriffically bad idea and if you really want to see the fruits of an idea like that, read up on the French Revolution. The truth is that every social class in some way depends on another and thus there should be mutual respect. The idea that moochers carry resentment towards the talented is chock full of misconceptions. As someone who's helped friends through extreme poverty, debilitating work injuries, and one who has worked to feed the hungry I can say that this assumption is not only the height of arrogance but also of ignorance. People are, I find, more concerned with living their own lives to the best of their ability and when one is at the poverty level one has far better things to do with one's time than be jealous of another.
To touch on the idea of "owning one's work" requires a bit of thought as well. How much of your work do you own, in the sense of services the government provides so that you can work. Subsidizing inventions like the car, alternating current, and the internet has certainly helped to create modern life as we know it. But to get it to a more workaday level, these services guarantee safe travel to one's work and home and provide an expectation that one can lead a relatively safe and productive life. "Leeching" is such an arrogant term as without these critical services the thinker would not have the time to think nor invent. "Leeching" allows for the fundamental functions of society.
There, I think that's a good start. Anyone who wants to may, of course, also participate in this discussion/debate.
Okay, so to put my viewpoint out there, Randian philosophy doesn't work because the "thinkers" rely on the "moochers" for fundamental existance. Yes, things like the internet and computers are great for society and the world would be a poorer place without great minds like Socrates, Einstein, or Edison. However, even great minds have fundamental desires such as eating and shelter. These fundamental desires are taken care of by the moochers, those in the so-called lower class who build our houses, harvest our food, and take care of most things so that great thinkers can, well, think.
Let's take a bigtime example here and say Bill Gates decides to fuck off and leave MS, feeling that for whatever reason his ideas are hampered by American society. Now, Bill's definitely a smart guy but saying that he could handle building and wiring a house, growing his own food, and generally doing the things to continue surviving would take up an incredible amount of time. These things would, in theory, prevent Bill from coming up with great ideas all the time as his mind is much more concerned with basic needs.
It's easy for those of us who've never experienced crushing depression and poverty to discount those who have as somehow inferior. After all, they fucked up right? Well, yeah, and it's our job as a worldly society to help those people, whenever possible, back on their feet. Selfishly claiming that they don't need or deserve assistance is a horriffically bad idea and if you really want to see the fruits of an idea like that, read up on the French Revolution. The truth is that every social class in some way depends on another and thus there should be mutual respect. The idea that moochers carry resentment towards the talented is chock full of misconceptions. As someone who's helped friends through extreme poverty, debilitating work injuries, and one who has worked to feed the hungry I can say that this assumption is not only the height of arrogance but also of ignorance. People are, I find, more concerned with living their own lives to the best of their ability and when one is at the poverty level one has far better things to do with one's time than be jealous of another.
To touch on the idea of "owning one's work" requires a bit of thought as well. How much of your work do you own, in the sense of services the government provides so that you can work. Subsidizing inventions like the car, alternating current, and the internet has certainly helped to create modern life as we know it. But to get it to a more workaday level, these services guarantee safe travel to one's work and home and provide an expectation that one can lead a relatively safe and productive life. "Leeching" is such an arrogant term as without these critical services the thinker would not have the time to think nor invent. "Leeching" allows for the fundamental functions of society.
There, I think that's a good start. Anyone who wants to may, of course, also participate in this discussion/debate.
LibrarianThorne on
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I think that's officially known as the Bob The Angry Flower Argument.
I'd say that Randian philosophy doesn't work because there isn't any clear delineation between "thinkers" and "moochers." Everybody who works contributes some and copies some; we all build off of the foundation laid by the people who came before us. Rand herself admitted to cribbing heavily off of Aristotle (even though she actually got most of Aristotle's philosophy wrong). Pure iconoclasm isn't remotely as productive as Rand thought; shit gets done when people collaborate, not when they go off into isolation and toil alone.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
...
Like a stampede.
The irony of Ayn Rand is that she's for perpetual copyright, but copyright isn't a good nor a service, it only exists by government intervention into the market, the number one thing she's against.
I mean, like, The Beatles?
I do like the idea of trying (to a degree) to reject parasitic happiness based on other people though.
https://medium.com/@alascii
Here's one! I don't have time to go into my arguments right now because I have class in like 10 minutes, but I'll post a response this afternoon.
*eats his own cock*
because only a parasite would rely on others to eat their cock.
https://medium.com/@alascii
There are problems with Rand's philosophy. This is not one of them. Rand would never have called someone who built houses, harvested food, or cleaned airport bathrooms a "moocher." If you build houses for a living, do the best job you possibly can, and expect nothing except what you earn, you're a hero in Rand's eyes.
The fact that the all the protagonists in Rand's fiction are geniuses or industrial giants makes those stories more interesting, but that's a red herring when it comes to her philosophy.
Read my OP.
I warned you.
Okay, then what about a builder who is unable to find work? Like, welfare systems, despite their abuse, exist for people who are productive but for whatever reason are unable to produce. To take this to an anecdotal level, here's something from my own employment history:
I worked organizing a senior citizen food relief program for a local food bank (place that ships food to homeless shelters and churches to help the poor and needy). Now, the vast majority of these people given the data I collected were productive members of society before retirement and, for quite a few, for years after. However, with the rising costs of medicine, gas, and other necessities thousands of people were having trouble just making ends meet. Providing food so that these people could afford to buy medicine would, according to my understanding of Objectivism, make them moochers despite prior productivity. My question to any Objectivist, at that point, is whether or not these people deserve support? Of course I believe that they do, but I'd like to hear opinions to the contrary.
This is very very sick. I do not care how ineffective you think traditional families are at creating rational humans, bringing up children without any love or intrinsic respect for other human beings creates insane psychopaths. In the remotely possible case they grow up to be rational beings, they would never be my friends, or anyone's for that matter, and would most likely not see the need to reproduce, just like Ayn Rand herself.
Reproduction is not rational, the drive to create and give something to the world that lasts beyond your lifetime and without any personal benefit seems totally counter to the objectivist ideal. Isn't this is exactly what reproduction for a rational being would mean?
Man those sex scenes in Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. Real pulp fiction bodice ripper stuff.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
I don't think that's an accurate view of Rand's position on children. From an Objectivist point of view, children are "potential" members of society - they are not independent producers with rights, but they have the ability to become so. As a parent, you would be ethically bound to raise your child in whatever way is most likely to realize that potential.
I think it's safe to assume that someone like Rand would not be interested in fairy tales or Santa Claus. That doesn't mean her ethics require you to raise your children "without any love or intrinsic respect" - as you pointed out, that is not an effective way to raise a happy, healthy person.
Your claim that having children provides "no personal benefit" tells me you haven't thought the phrase through. Although I don't have direct personal experience, I would imagine the experience of caring for an infant, watching a toddler grow, and caring for a young child is one of the most joyful and rewarding experiences someone can have.
"Rational" is not necessarily a synonym for "heartless." Spending time and money on someone you value is a distinctly rational thing for a person to do.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
This might be another one of those short circuit arguments that probably won't hold like my last one, but I'm interested in the answer.
I've got the idea that a moderate objectivist stance, stripped from the idealistic trimmings, isn't that much different from pure economic/capitalistic common sense. Arguing against that is pretty hard.
Not to mention that free time has been a contributing factor to virtually every scientific discovery ever. Free time created by relying on others to provide for basic needs.
Judging form the posts so far I'm guessing, for the most part, no.
I've read Atlas Shrugged, Fountainhead, Anthem, and several of her essays. The philosophy appealed to me when I was a naive college student. Now that I'm less retarded, not so much.
I still don't really understand the Randian concept of love though. Its pretty weird.
https://medium.com/@alascii
I read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and although her prose can get a bit turgid at times I enjoyed them both. Her philosophy was pretty good for fiction, not so good for real life.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
No, she exactly would have, because she fails to understand the basic concepts of value. Its no coincidence that the protagonists are the great magnates being held back by others incompetences, thefts, and regulations and the villians are the shiftless people trying to make ends meet.
The phrase as you say "expect nothing except what you earn" is the key. Because earning depends on value, and value has pretty much nothing to do with the quality of character or work that a person does. Baseball players do not make the big bucks because of their contributions to society. In fact, most of the people at the top produce very little but services. And farther up, even the heroes, the industiral giants do not produce based on ingenuity, but produce based on capital. I.E. they provide no service and produce no good, they make money because they own stuff.
A carpenter who demanded higher wages? Looter. He is only entitled to the sweat of his brow and that stops at the wage he is given.
Unions? Moochers[but companies of course, not moochers]
My advice when interpreting Rand is to put aside all the weird personal and social hang ups she insisted on(or perhaps couldn't help) putting in her books. Try and read them as a kind of social policy analysis. I always felt she was pretty good at diagnosing problems. Her solutions, however, would always get tangled up in her very strange way of looking at things (especially personal relationships). Which I believe, is what people get hung up on. The result being they throw the baby out with the bathwater.
That and she was a pretty poor writer to boot.
Really? Because the intro that I read on the Ayn Rand institute site was pretty crazy and shitty.
You are grossly misinterpreting that phrase. It simply means your work should get you only the money others are willing to give you for said work. And that it would be wrong to expect more just cause you think you should be given more.
Baseball players earn what they earn because people value watching them play. That's their contribution to society. They fufill a need. You may not think it's a very important need or that they should earn so much, but that is what society values and is willing to pay for.
Yeah, I had the same experience. To be fair, though, her philosophy sounded a lot more appealing after a half dozen other philosophers obsessed with metaphysics and how love is complete altruistic. "Yeah, self-interest matters" sounds pretty good by comparison.
I think I'm not understanding what your examples are supposed to prove. Your average Joe values, and is willing to pay a certain dollar amount, for the entertainment of watching a baseball game. The owner of a baseball team is willing to pay big bucks to a baseball player because they offer value - the draw for the $$$ of millions of fans. Everything here is a fair trade, and has nothing to do with "contribution to society."
Walk onto any construction site, and you've got a variety of people with a variety of skills. Some of these people get paid more than others. Unless the company is massively mismanaged, the people getting paid more are the people who offer more value - perhaps because they increase productivity overall (foremen) or offer specific skills (registered electricians).
Rand was quite happy (especially in Atlas) to label companies as moochers or thugs (tarifs, political deals, etc.) - I don't think "companies good workers bad" is a valid criticism.
The union thing is another ball of wax altogether. However, regardless of your opinion on unions, they aren't condemned by Objectivists. A collection of individuals that forms a group in order to get more leverage for each member of the group, and that bargains as a whole with a company, is really no different than two companies haggling with each other. Specific governmental regulation regarding unions (or forbidding them) is where you would run into opposition from Objectivists.
But one janitor is out of work and the other is not. OR, both janitors are payed to little for their work to survive.
Both janitors are hard working. The value of the janitor is irrespective of what they get payed, because what they get payed as nothing to do with their value and everything to do with power.
Both of your responses have made it absolutly clear to me that you, as well as Rand, havent a clue about this basic component of value which drives society.
Think about value in another way, the value that an employee provides to an employer. You have two items.
Item one is produced for 5 dollars every 1 hour and makes 10 dollars every hour. Not including labor.
Item two is produced for 5 dollars every 1 hour and makes 20 dollars every hour. Not including labor.
Labor on both is exactly the same, its just as easy to make one or the other.
Does the person who make item two get payed 3 times as much as the person who makes item 1? Is the person who makes item two three times as valuable as the person who makes item 1? Well, if not the product of their work, then what is their time valued on? If the cost of their work is not higher than the money they need to survive, then who absorbs those costs?
I don't think Rand cared all that much about those issues. For Rand, value is freedom. She was not a utilitarian. I think she hated people like Hayek, whose rationale for individual freedom was that it had the effect of making things better for everyone. Rand tried very hard to ensure that her philosophical system was not going to run into any refutability problems.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
False. "Value" doesn't mean anything unless you talk about value to whom - in this case, the employer. If I'm paying an employee, what I pay them has everything to do with how much I value them - that is, how much value they offer to me.
If your argument is that some guy with no particular skills or abilities (other than a few years scrubbing floors with a mop) has less leverage than the gas station owner hiring him, well, yeah - there a lot fewer gas station owners than there are people with no skills.
It sounds to me like you're describing a position where ability is completely meaningless - maybe a job where you sit and stare at an assembly line for 8 hours a day and push a button if it stops moving? If that's the case, it's not worth much - I'm probably going to pay them as little as possible. Of course, with minimum wage what it is, it would actually cost me money to produce item #1.
By this logic all jobs should be paid the same regardless of actual performance. This means all baseball players are paid the same regarldess of how important they are to the team winning. All attorney's would be paid the same regardless of how successful their clients think they are. All doctor's would be paid the same whether they were a neurosurgeon or a pediatrist.
Just cause you have the same occupation as someone does not mean you are equally productive. If I can do twice the work you can do in an hour why is it wrong for me to have twice the compensation?
Let's say both janitors are equally productive. Does one work longer hours? Does one do a more professional job than the other? Is one willing to work odd shifts? Is one more reliable than the other? These are all reasons there may be a difference in pay. And why one has a job and the other doesn't. One is creating more value out of his labor (or providing it more reliably) than the other.
Again Rand was stating that the harder or more productive worker should be able to get compensation according to his performance without others demanding a share of his earnings.
Perfect. Lets now look at value to the employer. Lets say this employer runs a profitable business, but he must keep the floors clean or he goes out of business because no one comes.
If he cleans the floors he doesnt have time to run his business. If someone else cleans his floors, he does. The value then, of the floor cleaner, would be the entirety of the work the guy can get done when not being a janitor.
But the janitor does not get payed the same amount of money that the store owner makes, because even though the janitors services are valued by the store owner to the extent he can keep running, that there are more people able to be janitors, and only one person owns that store, the janitor gets payed less than he is valued.
This high value on the janitor is the entire reason that trade of services works, because each partner values what they trade, less than what they recieve. But the low pay is a result of power differentials and not of the true values that each recieves, as we had just seen, the store does not function without the janitor. But the janitor must accept the negotiated wage and cannot get the value he brings to the store or the owner because other people would also willingly take the position. And since eating less than what he ought is better than starving to death, he has no negotating power with which to demand a real wage, nor ability to train and get another job. So he works as a janitor, the owner of the store, by virtue of owning it, makes a significant sum. The janitor, by viture of owning nothing, makes nothing and saves nothing.
End result. Low wage workers are severly underpayed for the value they bring to society.
It sounds to me like you are dodging the question because you cannot produce a satisfactory answer that co-insides with the Randian philosophy. Which one is more valuable?
Then she really sucked at what she did.
Doing a quick skim, I see nothing approaching the sort., and certainly not in comparison to so many other philosophical theories, like Spinoza's long exposition on how we and the world are all modes or attributes of God and the proof of God's existence that follows.
If both workers are equally productive the answer to all the other quetsions is "Both workers are equally productive"
No, what i said in the above post would mean that all people would ideally get payed at the value they bring to their employer[but they dont, and cant, for good reason]. Nothing i have said would mean that all people would ideally get payed the same amount of money.
Its not. But we arent talking about people who are twice as good. The world is not made up of people who are O.K. and people who are twice as good, the world is made up of people who are about as good as everyone else at the majority of tasks. They get specialized via various means and training which has very little to do with their aptitudes for said specializations. And then you have the stuff that needs to get done that doesnt require specialization. Farms need farm hands, you cant grow food without them. But anyone can be a farm hand. Because anyone can be a farm hand, the actual cost of the service, especially in comparison to the work put in, is very low.
Again, this might be what she was saying in la-la-land, but in "reality land" she was saying that the privledged are better than those not. That ownership is the most valued quality of a person. And by ownership i mean, "how much stuff they own"
Just because something/someone is more crazy doesn't make her any less crazy.
*edit* Also, I feel compelled to point out that all people possess essentially equal capabilities, and it's usually situation/luck that results in what they do. The guy making 3mil is not working 100 times as hard or contributing 100 times as much as the guy making 30k. It's simply impossible.