Ranty McRantypants strikes again
Apr. 4th, 2004 01:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kitchen_kinkLast night I had another opportunity to hang around with Objectivists and libertarians, and, of course, get hanged by them. I'm not a very good verbal debater, mainly because even if I believe something very strongly, I can't formulate arguments on the spot, verbally. I need time, to sit and stew and, usually, write about it. Most of these folks, on the other hand, seem to do this sort of thing semi-professionally. So I just decide to shut up and be angry in a little corner until I can reach some written forum.
So. I had Libertarianism explained to me as follows: the idea that the only thing that government should do is protect life, liberty, and property.
Fine. But Property, I said, that's where I get off the bandwagon.
Here's the argument I heard last night: Property is equal to life.
Ohhhhkay.
So does that mean someone stealing my stereo is tantamount to murder?
Essentially, yes - by degrees. If you steal my Ferrari, I've given up some part of my life for that Ferrari, in order to obtain it. Thus, by taking it from me, you've taken away part of my life.
Right. So what if you got it as a gift? What if your parents gave it to you?
Well, then, that's your parents' Ferrari, and you can do whatever you want with it!
I didn't ask, what about native cultures, who don't believe in property, but instead respect the land and what comes from it, and give back where they have taken away? Did that make the Europeans right, who came in and decimated the original American population, because they believed in property rights and had bigger guns?
Let's not go there for now. But here's another thought. That kid who gets the Ferrari from his parents. Where does that kid learn a sense of work ethic, that from effort comes reward? Maybe his parents teach it to him. Maybe they don't. Maybe he grows up a spoiled, privileged brat who inherits the family business and abuses his workers.
Who's to stop him?
And aren't these essentially monarchies, where a business gets passed down from parent to child? That child didn't expend any effort to deserve that besides being born. Generation after generation, entitled children growing up to run bigger and bigger businesses that get more and more heartless. Not in all cases, perhaps. But history seems to bear it out.
What do you do about monopolies? Is it okay if one business drives out all others and is the only one providing a particular service? Who will stop them from charging more and more for that service? Okay, another business arises, making a similar product but charging less. Drives the market price down. Fine. But big company does everything it can to make sure that smaller company's product doesn't work with the predominant technology. Anybody ever heard of a little thing called Mircosoft?
Who's to stop it?
How do you account for differences in birth, education, social status, opportunity? How can you assume that everyone is born with the same abilities, that everyone, given the liberty to do so, will fulfill his greatest potential? Okay, so what if some people don't, if some people never get beyond working at McDonalds.
I know of a libertarian who said, "If I have an agreement with my migrant worker that he'll shovel shit for fifty cents an hour, than that's a free and open agreement and he should have a right to do that." If there's no such thing as a minimum wage, how can we expect these people to stay alive?
The answer that comes to me is, Survival of the Fittest.
Well that's all well and good. But who's going to shovel your shit?
What about the handicapped? The old? The sick? What about people who work hard all of their lives and end up with nothing? How do you decide that your person-hour of work is worth $100 and your migrant worker's person-hour is worth fifty cents? Well, if he doesn't want to work for fifty cents, he doesn't have to. Well, fine, but someone else will, and the original person, who has some pride in the worth of his work, won't, and the market will bear that a person can be paid fifty cents an hour to do backbreaking labor.
Survival of the fittest.
Isn't this how the animals live?
Aren't we supposed to be better than that?
How many libertarians out there think that Jean Valjean, a downtrodden working class fellow with a family to feed, should be shot when he steals a loaf of bread from the baker? Is there no compassion? Do we think: how did he get to this point?
My major problem with a lot of the Objectivist and Libertarian (they seem to be related fairly often) thinking I have heard is that it fails to take human nature into account. (Phrasing stolen from my good friend and, I think, ex-Objectivist,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hawver.) Not to be harsh, but not everyone is special. Not everyone is a leader. Not everyone is going to be a spectacular success. Now I understand that that's not what Libertarians are after: they just want to live their lives in the way they wish and be mostly left alone by the government to do so.
I think this can work spectacularly on a small scale. Say, a village of 200 people. Everybody pretty much knows everybody, and everybody knows what contribution each person makes to the society. Therefore, there is a personalized stake in the workings of the society. Is there a school? Perhaps not; perhaps people homeschool. Well, what if some of the people aren't educated enough to homeschool their children? Then perhaps there are particular parents in the area who run different classes and teach the neighborhood kids different things. When you look at it this way, it's not all that far from socialism - except that everyone only contributes what they wish to, and nobody is compelled to do anything for the good of the whole. Human nature being basically communal, a town of this size will generally take care of its own without being compelled. Somebody falls on hard times, has a bad crop, or a missed shipment, or their house burns down, or something? The libertarian mindset, as I understand it, is that it's their problem. But in a small community, mostly, people will rally and help out. Thus compassion and respect for hard work balances out liberty and lack of regulations.
But what happens to this when you put it on a larger scale?
Beggars in the streets. Old folks abandoned by their families. Orphans, single teenage mothers, battered wives, street gangs - whatever social problem we have right now, multiply it. I'm not saying that our current system of dealing with things like this is flawless, by any means. But what if there are no systems to deal with it?
Well, then. Perhaps a few of the more fortunate help out a few of the less fortunate, here and there, by free will only. The rest of them? Well, I imagine they die, or kill each other.
Hope you have enough entrepreneurial mortuary types to handle the bodies.
I have had libertarians argue to me that if Walmart, acknowledged by nearly everyone I know to be an evil megalith that destroys small towns and businesses, can provide more products for cheaper, than they have every right to do so, and if that means that small family-run businesses get run out of business, then that's just the way of the market.
I don't understand how you could be so vehement about not wanting big government, but you allow big corporations to thrive. Don't you understand that right now, in this country, the big corporations are the ones running it? Their campaign contributions keep the same assholes, the ones that want to restrict our freedoms - and I value many of the same freedoms that you do - in office year after year after year. The people don't elect officials - it's a sham, you know it and I know it.
What makes you think that getting rid of big government, but letting corporations run amok, would change that in any way?
Sure, it might work for a little while, and again, it would probably work quite well on a small scale. But once again, you fail to take human nature into account: Sooner or later, greed takes hold. The desire for more money, more power, makes corporations bigger and bigger, until there's nothing left for the little guy but sameness, and lack of diverse opportunity, and fifty cents an hour, forever. And unless you have an organized, violent revolution every twenty years or so, you can't win against big money any more than you can win against big government.
Where does that leave his kids? Do they have the same liberty that the head of Walmart has? The same opportunity? You can't possibly look at a big factory farm owner and his Mexican migrant worker and say that they have the same exact liberties and opportunities. Nor can you truly say, in every case, that the factory farmer obtained his land, his crops and animals, his money, his power - through basic, just hard work.
Removing big government, regulations, and social programs won't make people free. It'll make them bigger slaves than they already are.
Check your history, under feudalism, indentured servitude, and oh yeah - communism. Out of a group of animals, where the leaders rise to the top and and the weaker ones fall into line, a central authority will always emerge.
All that's really in question is how cruel, or how just, or how compassionate it will be.
And if that doesn't matter to you...well then, my point is proven.
So. I had Libertarianism explained to me as follows: the idea that the only thing that government should do is protect life, liberty, and property.
Fine. But Property, I said, that's where I get off the bandwagon.
Here's the argument I heard last night: Property is equal to life.
Ohhhhkay.
So does that mean someone stealing my stereo is tantamount to murder?
Essentially, yes - by degrees. If you steal my Ferrari, I've given up some part of my life for that Ferrari, in order to obtain it. Thus, by taking it from me, you've taken away part of my life.
Right. So what if you got it as a gift? What if your parents gave it to you?
Well, then, that's your parents' Ferrari, and you can do whatever you want with it!
I didn't ask, what about native cultures, who don't believe in property, but instead respect the land and what comes from it, and give back where they have taken away? Did that make the Europeans right, who came in and decimated the original American population, because they believed in property rights and had bigger guns?
Let's not go there for now. But here's another thought. That kid who gets the Ferrari from his parents. Where does that kid learn a sense of work ethic, that from effort comes reward? Maybe his parents teach it to him. Maybe they don't. Maybe he grows up a spoiled, privileged brat who inherits the family business and abuses his workers.
Who's to stop him?
And aren't these essentially monarchies, where a business gets passed down from parent to child? That child didn't expend any effort to deserve that besides being born. Generation after generation, entitled children growing up to run bigger and bigger businesses that get more and more heartless. Not in all cases, perhaps. But history seems to bear it out.
What do you do about monopolies? Is it okay if one business drives out all others and is the only one providing a particular service? Who will stop them from charging more and more for that service? Okay, another business arises, making a similar product but charging less. Drives the market price down. Fine. But big company does everything it can to make sure that smaller company's product doesn't work with the predominant technology. Anybody ever heard of a little thing called Mircosoft?
Who's to stop it?
How do you account for differences in birth, education, social status, opportunity? How can you assume that everyone is born with the same abilities, that everyone, given the liberty to do so, will fulfill his greatest potential? Okay, so what if some people don't, if some people never get beyond working at McDonalds.
I know of a libertarian who said, "If I have an agreement with my migrant worker that he'll shovel shit for fifty cents an hour, than that's a free and open agreement and he should have a right to do that." If there's no such thing as a minimum wage, how can we expect these people to stay alive?
The answer that comes to me is, Survival of the Fittest.
Well that's all well and good. But who's going to shovel your shit?
What about the handicapped? The old? The sick? What about people who work hard all of their lives and end up with nothing? How do you decide that your person-hour of work is worth $100 and your migrant worker's person-hour is worth fifty cents? Well, if he doesn't want to work for fifty cents, he doesn't have to. Well, fine, but someone else will, and the original person, who has some pride in the worth of his work, won't, and the market will bear that a person can be paid fifty cents an hour to do backbreaking labor.
Survival of the fittest.
Isn't this how the animals live?
Aren't we supposed to be better than that?
How many libertarians out there think that Jean Valjean, a downtrodden working class fellow with a family to feed, should be shot when he steals a loaf of bread from the baker? Is there no compassion? Do we think: how did he get to this point?
My major problem with a lot of the Objectivist and Libertarian (they seem to be related fairly often) thinking I have heard is that it fails to take human nature into account. (Phrasing stolen from my good friend and, I think, ex-Objectivist,
hawver.) Not to be harsh, but not everyone is special. Not everyone is a leader. Not everyone is going to be a spectacular success. Now I understand that that's not what Libertarians are after: they just want to live their lives in the way they wish and be mostly left alone by the government to do so.I think this can work spectacularly on a small scale. Say, a village of 200 people. Everybody pretty much knows everybody, and everybody knows what contribution each person makes to the society. Therefore, there is a personalized stake in the workings of the society. Is there a school? Perhaps not; perhaps people homeschool. Well, what if some of the people aren't educated enough to homeschool their children? Then perhaps there are particular parents in the area who run different classes and teach the neighborhood kids different things. When you look at it this way, it's not all that far from socialism - except that everyone only contributes what they wish to, and nobody is compelled to do anything for the good of the whole. Human nature being basically communal, a town of this size will generally take care of its own without being compelled. Somebody falls on hard times, has a bad crop, or a missed shipment, or their house burns down, or something? The libertarian mindset, as I understand it, is that it's their problem. But in a small community, mostly, people will rally and help out. Thus compassion and respect for hard work balances out liberty and lack of regulations.
But what happens to this when you put it on a larger scale?
Beggars in the streets. Old folks abandoned by their families. Orphans, single teenage mothers, battered wives, street gangs - whatever social problem we have right now, multiply it. I'm not saying that our current system of dealing with things like this is flawless, by any means. But what if there are no systems to deal with it?
Well, then. Perhaps a few of the more fortunate help out a few of the less fortunate, here and there, by free will only. The rest of them? Well, I imagine they die, or kill each other.
Hope you have enough entrepreneurial mortuary types to handle the bodies.
I have had libertarians argue to me that if Walmart, acknowledged by nearly everyone I know to be an evil megalith that destroys small towns and businesses, can provide more products for cheaper, than they have every right to do so, and if that means that small family-run businesses get run out of business, then that's just the way of the market.
I don't understand how you could be so vehement about not wanting big government, but you allow big corporations to thrive. Don't you understand that right now, in this country, the big corporations are the ones running it? Their campaign contributions keep the same assholes, the ones that want to restrict our freedoms - and I value many of the same freedoms that you do - in office year after year after year. The people don't elect officials - it's a sham, you know it and I know it.
What makes you think that getting rid of big government, but letting corporations run amok, would change that in any way?
Sure, it might work for a little while, and again, it would probably work quite well on a small scale. But once again, you fail to take human nature into account: Sooner or later, greed takes hold. The desire for more money, more power, makes corporations bigger and bigger, until there's nothing left for the little guy but sameness, and lack of diverse opportunity, and fifty cents an hour, forever. And unless you have an organized, violent revolution every twenty years or so, you can't win against big money any more than you can win against big government.
Where does that leave his kids? Do they have the same liberty that the head of Walmart has? The same opportunity? You can't possibly look at a big factory farm owner and his Mexican migrant worker and say that they have the same exact liberties and opportunities. Nor can you truly say, in every case, that the factory farmer obtained his land, his crops and animals, his money, his power - through basic, just hard work.
Removing big government, regulations, and social programs won't make people free. It'll make them bigger slaves than they already are.
Check your history, under feudalism, indentured servitude, and oh yeah - communism. Out of a group of animals, where the leaders rise to the top and and the weaker ones fall into line, a central authority will always emerge.
All that's really in question is how cruel, or how just, or how compassionate it will be.
And if that doesn't matter to you...well then, my point is proven.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-04-04 04:11 pm (UTC)Check your history...
Exactly. You don't even has to look at feudalism or communism; check out the "robber barons" and the history behind "the company store" for examples of this kind of attitude run amok. For each type of regulation, there is an example in our history of why that regulation was necessary to have a reasonably "free" country. We've just seen yet another example of what those in power will do if their own benefit is their only concern.
In the end, Adam Smith's "invisible hand" only produces an optimal system when viewed from outside; the effects on those inside the system is often quite non-optimal. Yes, capital moves around to where it is needed, but it can often run over people who are in the way; if you are one of those people, it sucks.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-04 05:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-05 06:18 am (UTC)At which point, you write down a perfect argument that sums up your position excellently. Now, if I might make a suggestion, print it up and use it as a hand-out the next time some Ayn Rand wannabe starts pontifimicating? That way, you can respond, and you don't even have to waste any breath on them. :)
what an excellent posting!!!
Date: 2004-04-05 06:24 am (UTC)bingo. the problem with such a system would be its total lack of accountability, which seems nearer to reality with every passing year.
compassion seems to be out of fashion. libertarianism is too full of holes to float. while i don't agree with everything the man ever said, Karl Marx was right about one thing: if the wealth only tends to go upwards, then there is less for those at the bottom of the social ladder, and sooner or later revolution is inevitable.
that's the genius of having an extended middle class: it keeps people in debt and therefore dependent on maintaining a steady reliable income, which deters many people of good conscience from risking everything to revolt, even in causes that are in thier own interest.
Re: what an excellent posting!!!
Date: 2004-04-05 11:10 am (UTC)If only I were a LiveJournal user
Date: 2004-04-05 09:00 am (UTC)I talked to one Libertarian/Objectivist who was too cute to completely disagree with, but I really wanted to. Of course I'm an anarchist socialist buddhist, so I am sympathetic to having views that the mainstream thinks are totally nuts. Bonkers. I mean, like, what the hell are you talking about? How is forcing yourself to live in New Hampshire freeing you, never mind all the poor people you are basically asking to agree with you or move out? Ahhhh!!!!
At any rate. Nice rant. IMHO, life is life; stuff is stuff; I'd rather have the former; individual freedom is always an illusion and overrated anyway.
Re: If only I were a LiveJournal user
Date: 2004-04-18 08:42 am (UTC)Don't waste too much breath
Date: 2004-04-06 01:03 pm (UTC)On another note, liberal though I am, i'm not sure I agree with you on the Walmart example. I personally find Walmart distasteful, on many different levels, but I'm not at all sure I'd want the government shutting them down for that. Soullessness isn't illegal in this country, and it really shouldn't be.
Re: Don't waste too much breath
Date: 2004-04-18 08:51 am (UTC)But yeah, I know - there's no arguing. Click on all comments to see the latest exchange. :)
no subject
Date: 2004-04-16 12:21 pm (UTC)To respond, rather obliquely, to your rant :
Imagine you keep hearing about this great Doctor Socia Lism. Dr Lism has a reputation for his compassion and skill. He delivers babies for free. The mothers are never charged anything for his services. Everyone thinks he is a saint. So you start doing a little research into this great man. You track down the last 100 maternity patients he helped. It turns out that 10 of the women are dead. In fact 30 of the babies are dead too. Of the 70 surviving babies, 60 have severe health problems. When you check his financial affairs, you find he actually makes 10 times what a normal maternity doctor makes, because he gets massive donations funneled through his charity.
Now you go to a party and someone praises Dr. Lism for his COMPASSION ...
Obliquely indeed.
Date: 2004-04-18 08:50 am (UTC)If you want to live in a modern country like the States, which is huge, diverse, and possessing of many different types of people and opportunities, you have to have some kind of centralized government that at least makes sure the whole thing doesn't fall apart, and by some means ensures that those people who don't succeed for one reason or another don't simply starve - that is, unless pure Darwinism is in fact what you're after. (Solves the overpopulation problem, anyway.)
If you want to live in a small, interlinked society where the intent of the community is to advance individual freedoms, but there is enough compassion (or at least, self-interest, given that every person in the community would contribute something essential to it) to allow for failures without catastrophe, then I'm all for it. But I think even the state of New Hampshire is too big for that.