Ayn Rand's Objectivism

The_Fragile
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Ayn Rand's Objectivism

I've been reading some on Ayn Rand's Objectivism. I'm finding it interesting for the most part if not a little misguided, at least in my opinion. Her total rejection of altruism for instance bothers me. I think altrusim has its place in society, but find the importance of self-interest. I think the two can be balanced quite easily. Plus, her assertion that one needs a moral code to know good from evil. I think this little better than theists asserting thesim for the same reason. Simply following the Golden Rule and realizing if one's actions or choices cause mental or physical suffering, then refraining from doing those actions and making those choices. Anyway, I'm curious about everyone's opinion on Ayn Rand and her philosophy. Perhaps some links to good critizisms of her work would also be helpful. Basically I'm looking for a "other-side of the story" perspective, if you will. Thanks.

In reason,

The_Fragile 

 

I hope they cannot see
the limitless potential
living inside of me
to murder everything.
I hope they cannot see
I am the great destroyer.


cheezues
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Quote:

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In fact, at www.aynrand.org they have a tab called "volunteer." How the fuck is that not a blatent contradiction of Rand's lasse faire capitalist nonsense? So people should strive to make money...except when it comes to my organization.

For the definitive presentation of Objectivist economics, I refer you to The Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Bernstein. It's the most in depth presentation thats been offered to date. Since you didn't actually bring up any points to address I will just refer you this book.

Perhaps a discussion on the idea of value as it relates to money would be in order here to help you understand the possible motivation an Objectivist might have for supporting an organization dedicated to the spread of said ideas...

Francisco's Money Speech would be a good read for you to clarify this. For most Objectivists communicating the ideas and the philosophy to others because we can think of no world that could be greater. Those that don't have the time, or are otherwise involved in a career distinct and seperate from philosophy, might choose to donate time, money, effort, or anything else to support a cause they believe in.

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ARI relies on volunteers to assist us with departmental projects and with the running of special events. While we have a wonderful and very capable staff, we can always use additional help at peak times.

There are a variety of ways in which volunteers can assist ARI:

  • Coming into our offices in Irvine, California, to help with a variety of tasks
  • Assisting ARI staff members at special events held in various cities
  • Completing projects from home for our various departments

It also provides a community of like-minded people which I think is something that people on a forum filled with atheists can appreciate.

Why Contribute? WHY should anyone GIVE money to the ARI?

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"Anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today."

—Ayn Rand

ARI is your agent. It's the division of labor: if you want to promote Ayn Rand's ideas, ARI gives you greater efficiency at that task. ARI achieves "economics of scale" by combining the resources of many Objectivist activists into one permanent organization engaged, in effect, in mass production. ARI staff and the writers and lecturers it hires have specialized expertise in doing for you the promotional activities you would otherwise have to do yourself. So, any money you contribute to ARI is a productive expenditure, an investment in changing our culture's mindset.

Ten Selfish Reasons to Give

How Contributions Help ARI 

You have quite a few misconceptions it seems about Objectivism. I don't think it's constructive for your understanding or for any discussion to sling mud, so raise some more points without doing so in the future, and I'll continue delivering explainations.

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Are you really that fucking stupid that you can't see contradictions in your beliefs?

I don't appreciate your many insults, and I think they are a discredit to the way you respond to perfect strangers on a forum filled with Atheists looking for a community in a world of superstition and supernatural beliefs.


Chaoslord2004
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cheezues wrote: For the

cheezues wrote:
For the definitive presentation of Objectivist economics, I refer you to The Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Bernstein. It's the most in depth presentation thats been offered to date. Since you didn't actually bring up any points to address I will just refer you this book.

I already know about Objectivist economics.  I was an objectivist all throughout high school.  I read many objectivist articles, and read both of Rands seminal works.   I don't speak on matters I know nothing about.

 

cheezues wrote:
Perhaps a discussion on the idea of value as it relates to money would be in order here to help you understand the possible motivation an Objectivist might have for supporting an organization dedicated to the spread of said ideas...

I understand why an objectivist would want to give money.  This is irrelevant.  My point was that it was inconsistent with Rands ideas.  

cheezues wrote:
Those that don't have the time, or are otherwise involved in a career distinct and seperate from philosophy, might choose to donate time, money, effort, or anything else to support a cause they believe in.

I thought the cause they believed in was making money?  Isn't that the supreme virtue?  Here is what Rand says:

"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to become the means by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of other men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other." ~Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.

Money, according to Rand, is the root of all good...the supreme virtue.  This is also shown in Roarkes speech.  Money, according to Rand, is the end all.  The symbol of achievement.  So, any talk of some virtue, over and above money, is nonsense according to Rand.  Moreover, this quotation is directly contradictory with "volunteering" or "working for a cause" when money is not involved.

 

cheezues wrote:
You have quite a few misconceptions it seems about Objectivism.

No, actually I don't.  "donating" or "volunteering" is nonsense on Rands view.  If you disagree, prove me wrong.  I gave you a quote by Rand demonstrating this.  If Objectivists argue against this quote, they are no different that apologist who try an "make rational" parts of the bible that are incoherent.  

Rands philosophy is incoherent.  If pressed, it will implode on itself.  Objectivists see this, so they try and "re-interpret" Rands ideas.

 

cheezues wrote:
I don't think it's constructive for your understanding or for any discussion to sling mud, so raise some more points without doing so in the future, and I'll continue delivering explainations.

My point was that her philosophy is contradictory. period.

 

cheezues wrote:
I don't appreciate your many insults

Do I care?

 

cheezues wrote:
and I think they are a discredit to the way you respond to perfect strangers

I was responding to the Philosophy of Ayn Rand, not anyone on this board.  I respond to her views this way, because I find it absolutely perpexing how she could believe what she wrote.  I respond the way I did, because he views can be kicked down by a third grader.  I respond the way I do, because she trumps rationality as the highest virtue, but if anyone questions her, she calls them irrational.

 

cheezues wrote:
on a forum filled with Atheists looking for a community in a world of superstition and supernatural beliefs.

Please, we can all do without the patronizing lectures. 

 

"In the high school halls, in the shopping malls, conform or be cast out" ~ Rush, from Subdivisions


Chaoslord2004
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perhaps your still not

perhaps your still not convinced about Rands views on money:

"Money is the barometer of a society's virtue." ~Ayn Rand, Issue #62 of The Objectivist Newsletter

 


 

"In the high school halls, in the shopping malls, conform or be cast out" ~ Rush, from Subdivisions


Strafio
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Hehe! You really hate her

Hehe! You really hate her with a passion, don't you! Laughing


cheezues
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You're really not even

You're really not even attempting to be personable about this.

cheezues wrote:
I already know about Objectivist economics. I was an objectivist all throughout high school. I read many objectivist articles, and read both of Rands seminal works. I don't speak on matters I know nothing about.

All highschool students afterall, know everything.. amirite? How long has it been since you've been in highschool? Do you think you might possibly could have read ANYTHING wrong, or might possibly slightly have a less than comprehensive understanding of the entirity of the philosophy?

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I understand why an objectivist would want to give money. This is irrelevant. My point was that it was inconsistent with Rands ideas.

I don't think that it's irrelevant in the slightest. I will demonstrate how these ideas aren't inconsistent for you then.

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I thought the cause they believed in was making money? Isn't that the supreme virtue?

This only shows exactly how much you don't understand. "Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value."

It is only the concept of Value here that makes money a virtuous endeavor. "Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor--your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money."

A few virtues that I've come across in Objectivism:

Honesty

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"Honesty is the recognition of the fact that the unreal is unreal and can have no value, that neither love nor fame nor cash is a value if obtained by fraud - that an attempt to gain a value by deceiving the mind of others is an act of raising your victims to a position higher than reality, where you become a pawn of their blindness, a slave of their non-thinking and their evasions, while their intelligence, their rationality, their perceptiveness become the enemies you have to dread and flee - that you do not care to live as a dependant, least of all a dependant on the stupidity of others, or as a fool who's source of values is the fools he succeeds in fooling - that honesty is not a social duty, not a sacrifice for the sake of others, but the most profoundly selfish virtue man can practice: his refusal to sacrifice the reality of his own existence to the deluded consciousness of others."

Justice

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"Justice is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake the character of men as you cannot fake the character of nature, that you must judge all men as conscientiously as you judge inanimate objects, with the same respect for truth, with the same incorruptible vision by as pure and as rational a process of identification - that every man must be judged for what he is and treated accordingly, that just as you do not pay a higher price for a rusty chunk of scrap than for a piece of shining metal, so you do not value a rotter above a hero - that your moral appraisal is the coin paying men for their virtues or vices, and this payment demands of you as scrupulous an honor as you bring to financial transactions - that to withhold your contempt from men's vices is an act of moral counterfeiting, and to withhold your admiration from their virtues is an act of moral embezzlement - that to place any other concern higher than justice is to devaluate your moral currency and defraud the good in favor of the evil, since only the good can loose by default of justice and only the evil can profit - and that the bottom of the pit at the end of that road, the act of moral bankruptcy, is to punish men for their virtues and reward them for their vices, that that is the full collapse to full depravity, the Black Mass of the worship of death, the dedication of your consciousness to the destruction of existence."

Productiveness

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"Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live - that productive work is the process by which mans consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit one's purpose, or translating an idea into physical form, or remaking the earth in the image of one's values - that all work is creative work if done by a thinking mind, and no work is creative if done by a blank who repeats in uncritical stupor a routine he has learned from others - that your work is yours to choose, and the choice is as wide as your mind, that nothing more is possible to you and nothing less is human - that to cheat your way into a job bigger than your mind can handle is to become a fear-corroded ape on borrowed motions and borrowed time, and to settle down into a job that requires less than your minds full capacity is to cut your motor and sentence yourself to another kind of motion: decay - that your work is the process of achieving your values, and to lose your ambition for values is to lose your ambition to live - that your body is a machine, but your mind is its driver, and you must drive as far as your will take you, with achievement as the goal of your road - that the man who has no purpose is a machine that coasts downhill at the mercy of any boulder to crash in the first chance ditch, that the man who stifles his mind is a stalled machine slowly going to rust, that the man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap, and the man that makes another man his goal is a hitchhiker no driver should ever pick up - that your work is the purpose of your life, and you must speed past any killer who assumes the right to stop you, that any value you might find outside your work, any other loyalty or love, can be only travelers you chose to share your journey and must be travelers going on their own power in the same direction."

Integrity

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Integrity is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake your consciousness, just as honesty is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake existence - that man is an indivisible entity, an integrated unit of two attributes: of matter and consciousness, and that he may permit no breach between body and mind, between action and thought, between his life and his convictions - that, like a judge impervious to public opinion, he may not sacrifice his convictions to the wishes of others, be it the whole of mankind shouting pleas or threats against him - that courage and confidence are practical necessities, that courage is the practical form of being true to existence, of being true to truth, and confidence is the practical form of being true to one's own consciousness."

Independance

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Indepencance is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgement and nothing can help you escape it - that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life - that the vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence.

Pride

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Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man's values, it has to be earned - that of any achievements open to you, the one that makes all others possible is the creation of your own character - that your character, your actions, your desires, your emotions are the products of the premises held by your mind - that as man must produce the physical values he needs to sustain his life, so he must aquire the values of character to make his life worth sustaining - that as man is a being of self-made wealth, so he is a being of self-made soul - that to live requires a sense of self-value, but man, who has no automatic values, has no automatic sense of self-esteem and must earn it by shaping his soul in the image of his moral ideal, in the image of man, the rational being he is born able to create, but must create by choice - that the first precondition of self-esteem is that radiant selfishness of soul which desires the best in all things, in values of matter and spirit, a soul that seeks above all else to achieve its own moral perfection, valuing nothing higher than itself - and that the proof of an achieved self esteem is your soul's shudder of contempt and rebellion against the role of a sacrificial animal, against the vile impertinence of any creed that proposes to immolate the irreplaceable value which is your consciousness and the incomparable glory which is your existence to the blind evasions and the stagnant decay of others.

Back to your post now...

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Here is what Rand says:

"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction."

And you're treating this quote as if spoken in this context money were not representative of common value to be voluntarily exchanged. That the mere pursuit of and possession of money no matter what, and no matter from whom, or by what means is what the goal of Objectivism is, and it isn't. This once again just demonstrates either your complete willingness to ignore what you've studied about Objectivism, or is evidence that you aren't the expert you're claiming to be.

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Money, according to Rand, is the root of all good...the supreme virtue. This is also shown in Roarkes speech.

Interesting how you offer no quotation here so I'll help. [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc7oZ9yWqO4Roark's speech]Howard Roark's Speech on Youtube[/url]

"I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life, nor to any part of my energy, nor to any achievement of mine."

Now I wonder why Roark wasn't just saying "money" in place of "life" "energy" or "achievement" could it be because the possession of money isn't an end in itself for objectivism. Money is just an agreed upon currency, a standard of translating achievement and values into a transferable medium, money is worthless without the people who create the value. Because money is a representation of the fair exchange of value between men, it is said in a fictious novel to be "the root of all good", the language is used to counter the claim that "money is the root of all evil". It's just the maniluation of language for effect in FICTION, this is not the formal delivery of the philsophy and why you've chosen to pluck a sentence among a library to make a judgement on is completely beyond me. The fact that you haven't grasped this in your "extensive highschool study" of Objectivism is only proof that your criticisms are emotionally charged morso than intellectually.

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Money, according to Rand, is the end all.

This is completely untrue, and I've already shown you this. "Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money?" ~Francisco's speech.

Here's another little Gem dug up from the formal presentation of Objectivism prepared by Leonard Peikoff and approved by Ayn Rand titled Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand..

"An ultimate value, Ayn Rand observes, is the end-in-itself "which sets the standard by which all lesser goals are evaluated. An Organism's life is it's standard of value: that which furthers its life is the good, that which threatens it is the evil." (212)

That is a direct quote, completely refuting your point, and I've given supporting points.

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The symbol of achievement.

It isn't the only sign of Achievement, and what is it that you're achieving.. Values. What are values?

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So, any talk of some virtue, over and above money, is nonsense according to Rand.

A Completely false statement. Money is only given a Value by the people who produce and achieve their values, life is a precondition of said value, without your own life, no values would be possible to you, thus life is the standard of value. Virtue or morality, the code by which people live is the system that enables them to best achieve said values. "Obtaining money by any means necessary" has never been one of them. (sounds like someone in the hip-hop industry might say "Git Muney Yall" haha!)

To expand for you the context with which "money is the root of all good" was used, it was referring to how people regard money. Explained in yet another quotation refuting your arguement below..

"Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion--when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing--when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors--when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you--when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice--you may know that your society is doomed." ~ Francisco's speech.

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Moreover, this quotation is directly contradictory with "volunteering" or "working for a cause" when money is not involved.

Only becuase you've ignored the actual understanding of money for Objectivists. You've divorced money from value, and I've given you quotes, and referenced you to the difinitive work on the subject by Andrew Bernstein. Only when you IGNORE the connection that Objectivists draw between value and money can you pretend these statements are contradictory in any sense, and I've already explained why they would want to donate.

cheezues wrote:
You have quite a few misconceptions it seems about Objectivism.

Quote:
No, actually I don't. "donating" or "volunteering" is nonsense on Rands view.

Unless, the donation we're talking about is actually an exchange. I exchange a sum of money, or an amount of time volunteering with the aformentioned programs for the satisfaction of knowing that an established and well organized voice for my belief system is spreading the word in constructive ways, helping to create the world in which I want to live.

So again the only way this is possible is for you to..

1) ignore that money is based on value's created by human beings.

2) ignore that value's can be attained, expressed, achieved, in more ways than monetary gain.

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If you disagree, prove me wrong.

Check, and Mate.

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I gave you a quote by Rand demonstrating this.

You gave me a quote by Rand and then ignored the philosophy in which it rests, you ignored the entire underpinnings and logical extensions of value and money to create an illusory contradiction.

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If Objectivists argue against this quote, they are no different that apologist who try an "make rational" parts of the bible that are incoherent.

Unless the counter quotes offered EXPAND your understanding and come from the same source, Ayn Rand in both Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead.

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Rands philosophy is incoherent. If pressed, it will implode on itself.

Here "pressed" means swarmed and question begged until the person ignores you. It doesn't seem to me like you're even trying to debate intelligible points, you're grabbing a quote and ignoring the rest.

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Objectivists see this, so they try and "re-interpret" Rands ideas.

"Re-interpret" here means show you more texts and more passages that expand the understanding of money from how it was used IN A WORK OF FICTION into the formal understanding of it in the formally presented philosophy, in Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.

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My point was that her philosophy is contradictory. period.

I've shown you otherwise. Only through a constriction of awareness and of the magnitude in which these one-liners you're pulling up exist can you create these illusory contradictions.

cheezues wrote:
I don't appreciate your many insults

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Do I care?

Is there any need to be rude?

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I was responding to the Philosophy of Ayn Rand, not anyone on this board. I respond to her views this way, because I find it absolutely perpexing how she could believe what she wrote. I respond the way I did, because the views can be kicked down by a third grader. I respond the way I do, because she trumps rationality as the highest virtue, but if anyone questions her, she calls them irrational.

You were addressing me and quoting me. 1) I have already demonstrated that you're understanding of the philosophy is lacking. and 2) there's no reason for you to sterotype a self-proclaimed student of Objectivism based on Ayn Rand's life and lastly 3) I think it's generally acceptable that if you want to criticize something you need more than a few quotes with your own spin on them. I've give you some counter quotes from the same books you used, and pointed out where your reasoning has failed in this criticism.

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Please, we can all do without the patronizing lectures.

I supposed I should just resort to direct insults as you've done? right? becuase those are always constructive when debating topics?


Chaoslord2004
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Strafio wrote: Hehe! You

Strafio wrote:
Hehe! You really hate her with a passion, don't you! Laughing

No, I just think shes a moron and that her ideas are half-backed.  Just consider her views on things.  Lassie Faire capitalism, for example.  Rand supported UNRESTRICTED business.  According to Rand, the government was not to interfer with business.  This is idea is very dangerious.  Anyone who supports this idea, is either an asshole or is ignorant of American history.  I can understand why someone would support capitalism, BEFORE it was tested.  It does sound very appealing.  Work hard, and get ahead.  Free markets.  It sounds very good.  However, in practice it fails.  We see that we cannot trust companies to act decently on their own volition.  They have to be forced to act in a way conducive to humanity.  

Consider, just a few things unrestricted business produces:  Sweatshops, low pay, reduced benefits, and lets not forget the disregard for the enviornment; go to south america.  No regulations down their regarding the enviornment.  Companies dump waste into the drinking water.  They simply don't fucking care.  If Lasse Faire Capitalism is so great, why the hell did Karl Marx feel the need to develop socialism?  Capitalism may be good in theory, but in action, it fails.  Rand should have know this.  She knew about sweatshops, the disregard for the enviornment, the low pay.  So, she was just deluding herself...or she was intellectually dishonest, which is probably more accurate.  Objectivism, is nothing more than a highly idealistic philosophy.  It cannot work.  Objectivists are simply living in the past.  I admit...the speeches in both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountianhead were moving.  But, it is hard to deny that even though they are moving, pretty much everything in those speeches is wrong.

I really don't think she believed what she preached.  Look at the way she behaved.  She sure didn't like in accordance with her philosophy. 

"In the high school halls, in the shopping malls, conform or be cast out" ~ Rush, from Subdivisions


Chaoslord2004
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cheezues, you have proven me

cheezues, you have proven me wrong with regards to Rands view of money.  I was mistaken.  I learn something new today.  Thanks.

"In the high school halls, in the shopping malls, conform or be cast out" ~ Rush, from Subdivisions


Strafio
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Chaoslord2004

Chaoslord2004 wrote:

Strafio wrote:
Hehe! You really hate her with a passion, don't you! Laughing

No, I just think shes a moron and that her ideas are half-backed.


This is kind of what I meant.
I wasn't accusing you of bias or anything! Smile
I think I'm with you for most of it.


cheezues
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Chaoslord2004 wrote:

Quote:

No, I just think shes a moron and that her ideas are half-backed.

Even after I've demonstrated that you don't even understand the ideas you're criticizing?

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Just consider her views on things. Lassie Faire capitalism, for example. Rand supported UNRESTRICTED business. According to Rand, the government was not to interfere with business.

I agree with you completely here.

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This is idea is very dangerious.

A lot of libertarians will take issue with you on this one, Knight_of_BAAWA is one of my favorite posters here, and on www.atheistforums.com.

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Anyone who supports this idea, is either an asshole or is ignorant of American history.

Here's a history lesson for you, only to the extent that government involve itself in economics do any monopolies exist.

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I can understand why someone would support capitalism, BEFORE it was tested. It does sound very appealing. Work hard, and get ahead. Free markets. It sounds very good.

It hasn't been just tested partner, it's been proven superior in the West. Does the term "super power" mean anything to you? Maybe that will be the next history lesson.

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However, in practice it fails. We see that we cannot trust companies to act decently on their own volition. They have to be forced to act in a way conducive to humanity.

To critique Lazzie Faire Capitalism even though it's never existed in it's purest form seems a little odd. Odd because you're judging it in practice, even though it's never been in practice.. history lesson time.. Mixed economies have existed with strong capitalist foundations, but none that were Lazzie Faire. Andrew Bernstein's book The Capitalist Manifesto goes into great detail about this, for a less than complete outline check out Ayn Rand's Captialism: The Unknown Ideal. A lot of history in those books supporting Capitalism.

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Consider, just a few things unrestricted business produces: Sweatshops, low pay, reduced benefits, and lets not forget the disregard for the enviornment;

Lazzie Faire Capitalism requires self governing Citizens with the balls to pull the plug on companies that they disagree with, by not buying their products or investing in their company. To much freedom can be a bad thing though amirite? Some decisions are best left up to big brother, amirite? Companies know that if you mistreat your workers they won't stay becaues competition is looking to hire and they have better working conditions... that mentality keeps sweat shops extinct, or if they crop up, they exist for a short amount of time. Please don't equate modern factories with hot machinery and average temperatures pushing 100 degrees like it's a sweatshop. Benefits are purchased through a company just like they would be from an insurance company, only the money comes out of your check so the illusion of not spending any money for it creeps up. You're paying for it, benefits can be privatized and made more efficient and more beneficial if companies didn't have to deal with them. I work part time in a bakery in the IT department, I'm not offered coverage, so I buy it myself from an insurance company. My coverage is better than my fellow emoployees, and in a cost/benefit analysis they pay less, but I get way more. Thats that concept of value again there.

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go to south america. No regulations down their regarding the enviornment. Companies dump waste into the drinking water. They simply don't fucking care. If Lasse Faire Capitalism is so great, why the hell did Karl Marx feel the need to develop socialism?

WoW great arguement. *taps out*

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Capitalism may be good in theory, but in action, it fails. Rand should have know this. She knew about sweatshops, the disregard for the enviornment, the low pay. So, she was just deluding herself...or she was intellectually dishonest, which is probably more accurate.

So now we're criticizing just "capitalism" and not "lazzie faire capitalism?" Objectivism isn't an advocate of watered down capitalism.

What about sweatshops, they aren't slaveryshops and they aren't the only options availble? Conditions have improved STOP USING STRAW MEN PLZ. Disregard for the environment was a product of the engineering that took place when these places were constructed, as we are modernizing industry environmentally conscious practices are instituted VOLUNTARILY for the most part.

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Objectivism, is nothing more than a highly idealistic philosophy. It cannot work. Objectivists are simply living in the past.

Prove them wrong. Thats why I'm here defending it, I want someone presenting arguements about this philosophy. Arguements, not ad hominems, debating points and not slinging mud.

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I admit...the speeches in both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountianhead were moving. But, it is hard to deny that even though they are moving, pretty much everything in those speeches is wrong.

You've failed thusfar to prove ANY of the points wrong, unless you consider reality by assertion an arguement.

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I really don't think she believed what she preached. Look at the way she behaved. She sure didn't like in accordance with her philosophy.

"Look at the way she behaved." as though direct and immediate awareness were available in such a quantity that would qualify you to judge her. Is this, pretending to be smart?

The kicker, omniscience of her private and otherwise tabloided life. I'll admit, and have already several posts earlier, that this woman made what I would consider some mistakes, but the ideas within the philosophy are unaffected. I study very little of Ayn Rands life anymore. No one studies the life of Aristotle specifically to criticize his behavior relative to his philosophy, and very few philosophers recieve that treatment. Not because their lives were in contradiction with their pronounced beliefs, but because they didn't attract the attention that Ayn Rand did.

You have to remember that her fiction came first, best sellers, and voted by readers, Atlas Shrugged, as the second most influential novel of the 20th century, 2nd only to the bible. Her popularity was immediate, with popularity comes criticism even before her philosophy was documented in formal arguement. EVEN then her entire philosophy was presented in a single unit until 1991 with the release of Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.

The point is that It is a strawman arguement to dismiss Objectivism on the percieved inconsistancies of Ayn Rands behavior.


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cheezues wrote:

cheezues wrote:
Objectivism for me, as an Atheist, represented a break from the dogmatism of religion and gave me what I have reason to believe to be a philosophy that has i the past, and will again reject parts of itself that become inconsistent with living as a rational animal. Objectivism I believe represents an attempt to unite ideas from every branch of philosophy and present them in a logically cohesive and complimentary way, and apply them today to mankind for the purpose of understanding.

Honestly, I do have a certain admiration for her attempt to make a cohesive philosophy as opposed to focusing on one branch. This is one of the reasons I don't discourage people from reading her stuff. I'm glad you made the distinction between being a stiudent of Rand and a student of Objectivism.


cheezues wrote:
It basically works like this for most people and in the book, Ayn Rand is a straw man. By pointing out flaws in Ayn Rand, this book and many people I know fancy themselves to have disposed of Objectivism.

I see your point. And I don't intend to mention Rand's personal flaws and pretend I'm dismantling her ideas. My whole problem is that I'm not sure of what use ideas such as these are if they cannot be put into practice. One of the things I try to hint at is that these idealistic notions are nice, but I'm unsure as to how they would work in the world once the butt up against the human element. I simply am not very optimistic about humanity in general and the ability to reach the psychological, intellectual, and ethical levels needed for such a world to exist in particular. Granted, I'd love to be-- I'm I'm willing to consider any point you want to toss my way-- but at this point in my life I cannot. Does this make sence?

cheezues wrote:
Criticizing Ted haggart for any longer than a moment if ever will suffice but will ultimately not advance the arguement against christainity or for Atheism.

I agree. But that was not my point. My point was that Haggard's gay affair should be harshly judged because of the effort he put into judging gays. I find my doing this much more fair than Haggard's judging as I'm simply judging him by his own standards. Much like I was directly doing with Rand. Again, I understand I am not countering her philosophy in any way. I am trying to point toward how she practiced her philosophy in the world. I'm sorry if I'm not expressing this particularly well...

cheezues wrote:
As Leonard Peikoff has inherited the estate he, in collaboration with Ayn Rand, has written the definitive treatise on Objectivism which reads in detail explicitly everything about the philosophy.

I'm not trying to be rude here, but do you know how much of this treatise is Peikoff's own work and how much of it is rehashing Rand? Does he add anything new?

cheezues wrote:
To address something I read about voluntary taxation being unrealistic. However unrealistic you might think it is, I think that you will agree some taxes are beneficial to pay. If that can be communicated from one person to another with respect to each tax that one may or may not choose to pay, it doesn't seem that unrealistic.

Weeeell... Maybe in some future. It seems to me as though that day is sometime off. I know I'm not really presenting an argument. I simply don't buy that in the current social and ethical climate. Do you have any idea how we could arrive at this societal mentality?

cheezues wrote:
When you think about how wide-spread religion is, and how it's been swallowed whole-heartedly by the majority of the people that inhabit this planet without the slightest piece of evidence, how could you think it's "unrealistic" that a demonstrable fact like "some taxes are beneficial to pay" is so unrealistic?

I don't see the connection between the extent of theism and taxes. Religion plays much more on fear and emotion, two things that seem to me to be more motivating forces for most people than reason. Could you please develop this a bit more?

It was not my point that demonstrating that "some taxes are benefical to pay" is unrealistic. I'm saying I honestly believe that people actually paying them might well be, at least in society as it now exists.

cheezues wrote:
It's a simple culture change, ...

Simple? On paper or in practice?

cheezues wrote:
...thats what everyone here at RSS is hoping to accomplish anyway amirite? Think about the magnitude of the change we're working toward here, thousands and thousands of yeras of faith based religions saturate history and we're hoping to stamp that out by exposing how irrational it is.

"Stamp out"? As to totally remove from existence? I'm not sure we'll ever reach a point where theists are in the minority let alone obsolete...

"The obedient always think of themselves as virtuous rather than cowardly."
-- Robert Anton Wilson (1932-2007; R.I.S.)

"Don't fuck with the Jesus because the Jesus will fuck you up!"
-- The Jesus


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rickcopeland648 wrote:

rickcopeland648 wrote:

Honestly, I do have a certain admiration for her attempt to make a cohesive philosophy as opposed to focusing on one branch. This is one of the reasons I don't discourage people from reading her stuff. I'm glad you made the distinction between being a stiudent of Rand and a student of Objectivism.

Thank you, I think this is a distinction that more students of Objectivism need to make. 


Quote:
I see your point. And I don't intend to mention Rand's personal flaws and pretend I'm dismantling her ideas. My whole problem is that I'm not sure of what use ideas such as these are if they cannot be put into practice. One of the things I try to hint at is that these idealistic notions are nice, but I'm unsure as to how they would work in the world once the butt up against the human element. I simply am not very optimistic about humanity in general and the ability to reach the psychological, intellectual, and ethical levels needed for such a world to exist in particular. Granted, I'd love to be-- I'm I'm willing to consider any point you want to toss my way-- but at this point in my life I cannot. Does this make sence?

 The nice thing about the "human element" is that, as thousands of years of dogma have demonstrated, culture and religion (or philosophy) once learned remain as very strong and motivating forces for individuals.  Replacing meme's like "judge not lest ye be judged" with a meme more like "judge (in the sense of using your mind to understand) and be prepared to be judged" (taking responsibility for your own actions -individualism-) would be some good ways to start.  It's definitely not going to happen over night, but some promising figures that I find comfort in are the sustained increase in the number of copies sold per year of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.  If objectivism had a gateway these are that gateway and more people every year are exposing themselves and probably their friends to these ideas.

About implimentation, a society that accepts certain cultural norms to be norms creates an atmosphere where those norms are  phsychologically easier to find motivation for.  The highly respectable virtues that I listed in a previous post are basic goals intertwined and thoroughly defined as a goal.  100% consistency is not the goal of Objectivism.  Human beings are completely fallable, for sure, but with an explicit acceptance, and even more importantly an understanding, of a philosophy that helps you identify your own behavior in the context of not only your own potential but of the entire world increases your ability to achieve these things.  Another important thing about them is that they aren't impossible, lapses or failings are made apparent through introspection, the feeling of inconsistency.

Bottom line I guess is that I don't have a master plan for some kind of global conversion to any particular philosophy, I do as I feel any individual should and that is, whatever they choose, I choose to do all I can.  Grass Roots type stuff.  I give speeches at my college, I talk to christians daily (I live in Kentucky, how could I not) I'm openly atheistic and cordial about it in the work place, and I generally understand the big questions in life a little more than average people because we're such a faith entrenched culture right now.  Most of the paper work I do in college entails this philosophy in some way, and I've recieved some feedback about it from professors who know it's nothing new.  The only example I have is that human beings are all-in-all a lot more alike than they are different, in their wants and their means, and myself and a close knit network of friends that believe in this philosophy and live it as best we can.

Religions start off just the way philosophies do, whether it's Jesus or Ayn Rand.  No Originator is perfect, nor original, but they leave behind a little something special that acts as a vehicle for the spread of ideas, a glimpse into the world they feel ought to be, they vision of the world as they feel it should be.  I just think Objectivism has a lot of things going for it, Book Sales being number 1, The Ayn Rand Institute, The Nathaniel Branden Institute, and just the power these ideas carry.

 

Quote:
I agree. But that was not my point. My point was that Haggard's gay affair should be harshly judged because of the effort he put into judging gays. I find my doing this much more fair than Haggard's judging as I'm simply judging him by his own standards. Much like I was directly doing with Rand. Again, I understand I am not countering her philosophy in any way. I am trying to point toward how she practiced her philosophy in the world. I'm sorry if I'm not expressing this particularly well...

I understand. 

Quote:
I'm not trying to be rude here, but do you know how much of this treatise is Peikoff's own work and how much of it is rehashing Rand? Does he add anything new?

Throughout the book he references a lot of Ayn Rands work through direct quotation.  The only differences are in communication and organization really, Peikoff as a Doctor of Philosophy and a native English speaker can expand on the ideas Ayn matched together in ways that she just linguistically could not.  Language limited her in a lot of ways, she knew this and hated it, but was unable to overcome it.  The importance is that this book, while nuances may be improved, was based on a lecture series by Dr. Peikoff that Ayn herself attended and critiqued.  At the end of Peikoff's course Ayn wrote, "Until or Unless I write a comprehensive treatise on my philosophy, Dr. Peikoff's course is the only authorized presentation of the entire theoretical structure of Objectivism - that is, the only one that I know of my own knowledge to be fully accurate."  As I said before though I've been a student of Objectivism for nearly a decade now and I've read everything there is to be read but continue to study because I feel that no time is being wasted in solidifying my understanding of this philosophy.

Quote:
Weeeell... Maybe in some future. It seems to me as though that day is sometime off. I know I'm not really presenting an argument. I simply don't buy that in the current social and ethical climate. Do you have any idea how we could arrive at this societal mentality?

You're absolutely right that it cannot exist with the current social and ethical climate, no objection from me on that one.  No, once again here, I don't have some master plan laid out, this is a long term goal that really can only begin once reason is accepted over faith, I think religion is the best place to start in moving toward a society more ideal as it is directly tracable to a good share of the injustice, cruelty and unreason in our world.

Quote:
I don't see the connection between the extent of theism and taxes. Religion plays much more on fear and emotion, two things that seem to me to be more motivating forces for most people than reason. Could you please develop this a bit more?

This was just an allusion and a very indirect comparison.  phrased another way it might have said, "People will believe how they're conditioned to believe, or to think how they're conditioned to think, rationally or otherwise.  They believe in some crazy shit now, like god, so instilling a belief of beneficial taxation, something thats actually true and directly percievable isn't as far fetched as it's being made out to seem."   This was strictly about conditioning people to believer certain things, some starters would be independance, and reason, instead of filling a childs head with bullshit we could be doing so much better for them, and for ourselves.

Quote:
It was not my point that demonstrating that "some taxes are benefical to pay" is unrealistic. I'm saying I honestly believe that people actually paying them might well be, at least in society as it now exists.

No arguement, "society as it now exists" would crumble if we were to shift into voluntary taxes.  Laws, or repealing laws, that help us move in one direction or another is where a good focal point would be, and replicating better memes.  "Freedom is only possible with a self-governing citizenship." something like that, a thomas jefferson paraphrase.

cheezues wrote:
It's a simple culture change, ...

Simple? On paper or in practice?

Simple but slow, in practice.  Simple on paper but constant.  We're already doing it, I mean the consciousness of Americans in general is being raise day by day about Atheism, we're getting media exposure, and it's happening slowly but surely.  My little brother is a physics major and the flying spaghetti monster is a favorite topic in the physics department in our local college WKU, the funny thing is that he didn't know the history or purpose of what the FSM represents, when I explained it to him - relating it to atheism - and revealing it as a parody religion to point out burtrand russels celestial teapot arguement - he told everyone in the physics department (it's a small department here).  Some of them already knew, some of them didn't, but they were talking about the FSM either way, now it's meaning will at least have a chance to stick in a few more minds, which is just a few more replica's.  Steps toward a more ideal state of the world.  Simple things like that Add up.

In addition to little memes like "Terrorists flying planes into our skyscrapers was a faith-based initiative" work well too. 

Quote:
"Stamp out"? As to totally remove from existence? I'm not sure we'll ever reach a point where theists are in the minority let alone obsolete...

Maybe not the rational response squad specifically, but we're all backing a secular, rational worldview, and that can be manifest and promoted in more ways than just this.  Theism as a minority is inevitable because as time moves on reason will continue successfully and faith will continue to fail, when is just a matter of how much each of us does.  Here is An interesting talk about how  evolution of technology is exponential in growth http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/38  The point of that talk is just to point out how fast things are moving, as opposed to 300, 500, 1000, 2000 years ago the transfer of idaes is lightyears above and beyond what it was, that is a strong case for the desmination of the truth about religion.


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cheezues wrote:A lot of

cheezues wrote:

A lot of libertarians will take issue with you on this one, Knight_of_BAAWA is one of my favorite posters here, and on www.atheistforums.com.

How is Knight? I should take a look over at atheistforums, I miss seeing his posts.

 

Quote:
Here's a history lesson for you, only to the extent that government involve itself in economics do any monopolies exist.

Are you interested in going into this further, or does Knight already have a post on this that I can read? I don't reject the claim, but I'd like to see more on it.

 

Quote:
To critique Lazzie Faire Capitalism even though it's never existed in it's purest form seems a little odd. Odd because you're judging it in practice, even though it's never been in practice.. history lesson time.. Mixed economies have existed with strong capitalist foundations, but none that were Lazzie Faire. Andrew Bernstein's book The Capitalist Manifesto goes into great detail about this, for a less than complete outline check out Ayn Rand's Captialism: The Unknown Ideal. A lot of history in those books supporting Capitalism.

Well, there is no government in Somolia, so they must have laize' faire capitalism - granted they are starting with a country in disaray, but I think that would be an opportunity to at least explore the issue in vivo.

I've heard both good and bad things there, economically.... what do you know of the situation?

 

Quote:
Lazzie Faire Capitalism requires self governing Citizens with the balls to pull the plug on companies that they disagree with, by not buying their products or investing in their company.

This is where I think supporters of laissez faire capitalism get a bit too idealistic: I'm not so sure that many people would disagree with it... I'm not so sure that a mixed system isn't required (some government intervention.)

Quote:

To much freedom can be a bad thing though amirite? Some decisions are best left up to big brother, amirite?

Well... maybe some are....

Quote:

Companies know that if you mistreat your workers they won't stay because competition is looking to hire and they have better working conditions...

Well then, if this is true, then why do companies screw over their employees now? Is it entirely because we don't have laissez faire capitalism?

To me, it seems that what matters more than being a fair employer is being seen as a fair employer. Or at least being seen as the 'only' employer.

I'm not so sure about the claims made for laissez faire capitalism...

Anyway, enjoyed your posts, I'd like to use some of what you've written for my brief entry on Rand on my site, do you have anything already written on Rand other than what you've posted here and on atheistforums?

 

 

"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'


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The proof of Ayn being

The proof of Ayn being useless for philosophy is in her backing of capitalism, a failed concept. And in quantifying selfishness above all. Society may exist because of the self, but the self must coinhabit society with other selves. Holding the self as more valuable than the collective society is to abandon that which society was created for: Advancement and self defense. Lack of self defense and advancement(which society can provide, the self cannot) = extinction. Rand is a moron.

Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.


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Vastet wrote: The proof of

Vastet wrote:
The proof of Ayn being useless for philosophy is in her backing of capitalism, a failed concept.

It is?

Quote:
And in quantifying selfishness above all.

But it was a refined, health self interest, which actually includes concerns for others because they are something you value and not a hedonistic selfishness. 

Quote:
 

Society may exist because of the self, but the self must coinhabit society with other selves. Holding the self as more valuable than the collective society is to abandon that which society was created for: Advancement and self defense. Lack of self defense and advancement(which society can provide, the self cannot) = extinction. Rand is a moron.

I don't think you really know Rand. She's no moron. Take a look at this interview on youtube if you get a chancd, an interview with her:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wsr768hdk4 

 

"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'


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todangst wrote: Vastet

todangst wrote:

Vastet wrote:
The proof of Ayn being useless for philosophy is in her backing of capitalism, a failed concept.

It is?

I would say so. It's origins come from before recorded history, and it still hasn't managed to achieve prosperity for all. Obviously it doesn't work. Or at the least, it doesn't work with us.

todangst wrote:

Quote:
And in quantifying selfishness above all.

But it was a refined, health self interest, which actually includes concerns for others because they are something you value and not a hedonistic selfishness. 

I don't see any concern for others in the removal of charities and volunteerism, and effectively the worship of material goods above all else.

todangst wrote:

Quote:
 

Society may exist because of the self, but the self must coinhabit society with other selves. Holding the self as more valuable than the collective society is to abandon that which society was created for: Advancement and self defense. Lack of self defense and advancement(which society can provide, the self cannot) = extinction. Rand is a moron.

I don't think you really know Rand. She's no moron. Take a look at this interview on youtube if you get a chancd, an interview with her:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wsr768hdk4 

 

I can't access youtube, google video, or 99% of other video carrying/gaming/etc sites anymore. Some idiots in Montreal were surfing porn too much so they put a net nanny on the whole national system and went overboard with it. *kicks Montreal*

Still, as I haven't read much more than bits here and there about her I must concede that I might not know as much as I think I do. But her economic policy is incompatible with reality as I percieve it. And I have yet to hear anyone speak positively about her either.

Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.


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todangst wrote: How is

todangst wrote:

How is Knight? I should take a look over at atheistforums, I miss seeing his posts.

I don't talk with him privately or anything, so I wouldn't know, I just that he's a lot more patient with people than I am about the subject.  Being a libertarian rather than an Objectivist makes him almost a specialist in that he focuses on economics, instead of the moral defense of capitalism he uses the economic defense of it and his posts for it are more detailed than I care to go into.   

 

Quote:
Well, there is no government in Somolia, so they must have laize' faire capitalism - granted they are starting with a country in disaray, but I think that would be an opportunity to at least explore the issue in vivo.

I've heard both good and bad things there, economically.... what do you know of the situation?

I know Very little, however "no government" is not the same as "limited government that protects individual rights and property."   Thats more of an Anarchy, and for what it's worth the situation  is exactly what libertarians could expect  if granted the fullest extent of their system.

Quote:
Well then, if this is true, then why do companies screw over their employees now? Is it entirely because we don't have laissez faire capitalism?

It's because the average citizen is a moron because public education is terrible because it's excempt from competetition.  Take Belgians for example, a sum of money is attached to a child and the child can attend any school he wants thus creating competition between good schools creating some of the most intelligent people (based on test scores) in the world.  

Check this out.  I'm not advocating this system exactly as far as education is concerned, but it's working out a hellova lot better than what we're doing in America.  Stupid In America

Quote:
To me, it seems that what matters more than being a fair employer is being seen as a fair employer. Or at least being seen as the 'only' employer.

I agree, but what makes an employer capable, ask yourself, of being able to pose as something they are in fact not.  I think our education is one major role, aside from cultural influences.

Quote:
an attempt to gain a value by deceiving the mind of others is an act of raising your victims to a position higher than reality, where you become a pawn of their blindness, a slave of their non-thinking and their evasions, while their intelligence, their rationality, their perceptiveness become the enemies you have to dread and flee - that you do not care to live as a dependent, least of all a dependent on the stupidity of others, or as a fool whose source of values is the fools he succeeds in fooling. ~ Ayn Rand

Citizens incapable of seeing the bullshit are vulnerable to these kinds of deceptions and incapable of correcting it because it would take a degree of understanding they don't have.  This our culture is also a huge factor, faith and consumerism, advertising that shits on your self-esteem, it's fantastic lol.

Quote:
Anyway, enjoyed your posts, I'd like to use some of what you've written for my brief entry on Rand on my site, do you have anything already written on Rand other than what you've posted here and on atheistforums?

I'd rather you not quote me, if you're interested in presenting the philosophy of Objectivism use this link, it's a compact introduction thats fairly comprehensive although not detailed..

The Philosophy of Objectivism: A Brief Summary


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Vastet wrote: I would say

Vastet wrote:
I would say so. It's origins come from before recorded history, and it still hasn't managed to achieve prosperity for all. Obviously it doesn't work. Or at the least, it doesn't work with us.

Even in the beginnings of economic developement, after the agricultural revolution there are tons of examples.  In ancient mesopotamia when tradesmen were actually made possible because of the surplus production of crops, the free trade between people of differing professions enabled more efficient means of specific types of production to ensue.  That is the absolute basic essence of capitalism.  Capitalism is where life began.

Look at systems that have failed since, feudalism, communism, anarchy, all of which entail state seizure of assets whether it's feudal lords or kings demanding tribute.  No different than welfare and social security taxes, government sponsored monopolies and regulations on international trade that do nothing but stagnate the progress and production of wealth for the entire world.

 

Quote:
And in quantifying selfishness above all.

Life is actually the ultimate value and precondition of all values in Objectivism, and an individual has a right to control and do with what he pleases his OWN life.

Quote:
I don't see any concern for others in the removal of charities and volunteerism, and effectively the worship of material goods above all else.

No such "removal" exists, the only things Objectivism objects too are things like welfare which are forms of FORCED charity, which isn't charity at all, it's government redistribution of wealth to those who haven't earned it.

Quote:
 Holding the self as more valuable than the collective society is to abandon that which society was created for: Advancement and self defense.

This begs the question, was society "created" for sustaining some "collective?"  Societies came about through developements by individuals that have improved the health and living conditions of everyone.  Society isn't created, they formed without agenda through a process of  natural selection motivated by the human desire to live, their recognition of that ultimate value, as opposed to death.  Coexisting within groups and communities was never a motivating factor, when it was someone collecting the resources produced for the purpose of redistribution was usually shaving quite a bit off the top or taking the entire thing for themselves.

Quote:
Lack of self defense and advancement(which society can provide, the self cannot) = extinction.

Individuals lack the ability to defend themselves?  I disagree and I don't think you've got any arguement that could support an individuals inability to defend itself.  Again, just another indefensible assertion. 

Quote:
Some idiots in Montreal were surfing porn too much so they put a net nanny on the whole national system and went overboard with it. *kicks Montreal*

Good thing your government makes those decisions for you huh, take that burden off your shoulders.  Who needs freedom anyway? *kicks Montreal*  I mean, the government ought to punish everyone when only some of the people do something they've criminalized through law.  Some people watch pr0n on HBO, no more TV for j000

Quote:
But her economic policy is incompatible with reality as I percieve it.

 But you've just said that you don't percieve her policy as accurately as you thought, so any judgment you make critical or otherwise is unfounded and uninformed, regardless of how you see reality because both of these elements must be considered to make these kinds of statements.

Quote:
And I have yet to hear anyone speak positively about her either.

I'll be the first then. 


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cheezues wrote: Even after

cheezues wrote:
Even after I've demonstrated that you don't even understand the ideas you're criticizing?

You demonstrated that my point on money is incorrect.  I conceeded that.  Other than that, you havn't demonstrated anything.  Don't flatter yourself.

 

cheezues wrote:
A lot of libertarians will take issue with you on this one, Knight_of_BAAWA is one of my favorite posters here,

I am familiar with Knight.  Smart guy, but peddles capitalist nonsense.

 

cheezues wrote:
Here's a history lesson for you, only to the extent that government involve itself in economics do any monopolies exist.

by all means, explain.

 

cheezues wrote:
It hasn't been just tested partner, it's been proven superior in the West.

You have to be delusional.  Just ask any third-world country Capitalism exploits if it is superior.  Ask the people down in South America how they like their enviornment being poisoned by 3M.  Ask the Chinese workers over in the Wal-mart sweatshops if they think capitalism is superior.

Capitalism can ONLY survive if their is economic inequality.  Capitalism is a zero-sum game.  The gains of one, are the benefits of the other.  When a few have money, they have the power.  When they have power, they use it to keep their power and money by any means necessary.  This means explotation.

I really fail to see how this isn't an intuitively obvious fact.

 

cheezues wrote:
Does the term "super power" mean anything to you?

So the measure of a countries success is how much power it wields over others?  Man, if this is true, then Communist Russia use to be excellent.  Which, by your account, proves them superior.

Obviously, I am taking about something a little less superfical than this.  When I say superior, I have in mind a country that actually takes care of its citizens.  You know, a country where everyone has food at night.  All people have a place to sleep.  Everyone, not just the rich, get good health care.  This is how I measure what a successful country is.

You obviously equate a countries success with how much bully-power it has.  

 

cheezues wrote:
Maybe that will be the next history lesson.

Maybe, just maybe, you will close your Ayn Rand propoganda and look at the obvious fact that capitalism = explotation.  Only someone blinded by capitalism could miss this fact.  Only someone blind, could walk down the stree, see homeless children and think "damn, this is one great economic system."

It really is inconcievable to me how anyone could support lasse faire capitalism.  That is, anyone who is not among the elite.

 

cheezues wrote:
To critique Lazzie Faire Capitalism even though it's never existed in it's purest form seems a little odd.

Um, sorry, it has.  Go read a history book.  Look up the early 20th century.  Perhaps you will see pictures of children puting in 18 hour days for 5 cents.  You will see the capitalist pigs beating the workers.  Before government regulations, we had "hands off government."  Contrary to your propaganda, lasse faire capitalism existed.  It existed in America, and before that, over in Europe when they came out of the feudal periods.

You obviously no nothing about what you talk about.  I will admit, lasse faire capitalism didn't last long.  Why?  Because it failed miserably.  Thats why they had to blend socialism with capitalism.  Pure capitalism failed.  

Sorry, but lasse faire capitalism has been tried.  Just because you don't like the results it produced, does not mean you can say "that wasn't REALLY lasse faire capitalism.  This is like me, saying that pure socialism has never been tried.  In a way, its true...it, like capitalism, started out, but failed to achieve its ends.  It failed, because both systems are doomed.

 

cheezues wrote:
history lesson time

Sorry, but I don't trust history lessons from a propogandist.

 

cheezues wrote:
Lazzie Faire Capitalism requires self governing Citizens with the balls to pull the plug on companies that they disagree with, by not buying their products or investing in their company.

Very idealistic...sadly, this doesn't work.  Capitalism is based on competition.  If one person has the balls to "boycott" others will simply work for the company...you, people called "scabs."  You ought to know this, if you studied history.

In a society, whos very structure is to cause competition, to demand that they "pull the plug" is nonsense.  Its like trying to heard cats.  Look at how hard the unions had to work.

 

cheezues wrote:
Companies know that if you mistreat your workers they won't stay becaues competition is looking to hire and they have better working conditions...

Where are you getting these false ideas?  The fact is, companies have, and still do mistreat their employees.  They can do this, because if you quite, their will be 100 new people waiting in line.  I bring up the example of scabs.  Have you ever heard of a scab?

It seems like your being willfully ignorant.  Companies DO mistreat their employees.  So your whole point is null.

 

cheezues wrote:
Please don't equate modern factories with hot machinery and average temperatures pushing 100 degrees like it's a sweatshop.

Are you really that fucking myopic?  Are you so moronic, that you actually think "sweatshop" is equated with tempetures?  Obviousy...and everyone knows this, that sweatshops denote a very poor working conditions, almost no worker rights, and slave wages.

sweatshops exist, look up Nike, Liz Claborne, and Wal-Mart, to name a few.

 

cheezues wrote:
WoW great arguement. *taps out*

Good, stop wasting my time.  Come back when you have something either true, or intellegent to say.

 

cheezues wrote:
So now we're criticizing just "capitalism" and not "lazzie faire capitalism?"

Wow, it was almost as if I said "lasse faire capitalism" so many times, I assume just plain "capitalism" would work just as well.  Do you have any points that are not absolutely moronic?

 

cheezues wrote:
Objectivism isn't an advocate of watered down capitalism.

Obviously, which is why I said over and over that it advocates lasse faire capitalism.

 

cheezues wrote:
What about sweatshops, they aren't slaveryshops and they aren't the only options availble? Conditions have improved STOP USING STRAW MEN PLZ.

In america, not in other parts of the world.  Consult:  http://www.sweatshopwatch.org/ for more information.  (A) conditions have no improved, and (B) learn what a strawman is.

 

cheezues wrote:
Prove them wrong. Thats why I'm here defending it, I want someone presenting arguements about this philosophy.

You have presented incoherent babble.  Thats about it.

 

"In the high school halls, in the shopping malls, conform or be cast out" ~ Rush, from Subdivisions


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todangst wrote: Well then,

todangst wrote:
Well then, if this is true, then why do companies screw over their employees now? Is it entirely because we don't have laissez faire capitalism?

It makes no sense, I know.

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It's just amazing how you

It's just amazing how you can't respond without coming right out and insulting someone.  I'll respond to your post tomorrow, I just can't get over how you seize every opportunity you can to just sling mud.


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cheezues wrote: It's just

cheezues wrote:
It's just amazing how you can't respond without coming right out and insulting someone.

Perhaps I would stop insulting you if you stopped acting like a moron.  However, when you equate "sweatshops" with the heat of the building and machines, well, its kinda hard NOT to call you a moron.

 You have provided no evidence for why lasse faire capitalism is good.  I explained, and provided evidence, for why it is nothing more than explotation.

All you could counter with was that monopoly's are the result of government interference.  This is not just plain false, it is absolutely moronic.  Anti-trust laws were put in place, percisely to stop monopolies.  Not potential monopolies...monopolies already in business.  do either Carnegie Steel Company or Standard Oil ring any bells?

I don't know what you base your claims on.  Perhaps, your just pulling shit out of your ass.

 

cheezues wrote:
I'll respond to your post tomorrow

I hope you say something intelligent than.

 

cheezues wrote:
I just can't get over how you seize every opportunity you can to just sling mud.

Stop winning.  I don't really give a shit if you think im a prick.  Make a point or shut the fuck up.  Please, do one of these two options.

"In the high school halls, in the shopping malls, conform or be cast out" ~ Rush, from Subdivisions


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cheezues wrote: Vastet

cheezues wrote:

Vastet wrote:
I would say so. It's origins come from before recorded history, and it still hasn't managed to achieve prosperity for all. Obviously it doesn't work. Or at the least, it doesn't work with us.

Even in the beginnings of economic developement, after the agricultural revolution there are tons of examples.  In ancient mesopotamia when tradesmen were actually made possible because of the surplus production of crops, the free trade between people of differing professions enabled more efficient means of specific types of production to ensue.  That is the absolute basic essence of capitalism.  Capitalism is where life began.

I don't disagree. I alluded to as much in my previous post. That doesn't mean it's good or the best economic policy. It in fact shows how bad it is, that after 3.5 billion years of evolution it still causes a flawed monarchial society. After 5000 years of civillization an intelligent species can't even make it work. We threw out monarchies for the most part a few hundred years ago. We just didn't think to throw out the equally flawed economic system with it.

cheezues wrote:
Look at systems that have failed since, feudalism, communism, anarchy, all of which entail state seizure of assets whether it's feudal lords or kings demanding tribute.

Communism has never been properly attempted, let alone achieved. Suggesting it failed is ridiculous.

cheezues wrote:
  No different than welfare and social security taxes, government sponsored monopolies and regulations on international trade that do nothing but stagnate the progress and production of wealth for the entire world.

That's flawed economic capitalism mixed with a socially responsible government for you.

cheezues wrote:

Quote:
And in quantifying selfishness above all.

Life is actually the ultimate value and precondition of all values in Objectivism, and an individual has a right to control and do with what he pleases his OWN life.

Every flawed policy can have a few parts of it that look good. Even Hitler made Germany powerful after WWI. Even Napoleon created a code of law used around the world.

cheezues wrote:

Quote:
I don't see any concern for others in the removal of charities and volunteerism, and effectively the worship of material goods above all else.

No such "removal" exists, the only things Objectivism objects too are things like welfare which are forms of FORCED charity, which isn't charity at all, it's government redistribution of wealth to those who haven't earned it.

No, it's a safety net for those who make a mistake or get blind sided. It's valuable because it allows people to get back on their feet and start contributing to society again. Getting rid of it is brainless. Modifying it so it can't be cheated like it is in our societies today is the course to take, not getting rid of it completely.

cheezues wrote:

Quote:
 Holding the self as more valuable than the collective society is to abandon that which society was created for: Advancement and self defense.

This begs the question, was society "created" for sustaining some "collective?"

It is not begging the question, it is observation of history.

cheezues wrote:
  Societies came about through developements by individuals that have improved the health and living conditions of everyone.

Society came about when a few cave men hung together for defense against nature and wildlife and for easier hunting and gathering capacity. Health and living conditions were hardly a factor. The knowledge required to improve them wasn't available for decades or centuries.

cheezues wrote:
  Society isn't created, they formed without agenda through a process of  natural selection motivated by the human desire to live, their recognition of that ultimate value, as opposed to death.

Semantics. Created wasn't the best term to use, but it fits well enough. Things can be created by forming. *Points to diamonds*

cheezues wrote:
  Coexisting within groups and communities was never a motivating factor, when it was someone collecting the resources produced for the purpose of redistribution was usually shaving quite a bit off the top or taking the entire thing for themselves.

If societal cooperation wasn't a motivating factor then morality would not exist. This is a baseless assertion.

cheezues wrote:

Quote:
Lack of self defense and advancement(which society can provide, the self cannot) = extinction.

Individuals lack the ability to defend themselves?  I disagree and I don't think you've got any arguement that could support an individuals inability to defend itself.  Again, just another indefensible assertion. 

Well show me a baby fighting off a bear then. Go for it. I dare ya. Baby too little? Can still be argued. However, show me a single man fighting off a lion or a bear with his bare hands and a stick. Please.

cheezues wrote:

Quote:
Some idiots in Montreal were surfing porn too much so they put a net nanny on the whole national system and went overboard with it. *kicks Montreal*

Good thing your government makes those decisions for you huh, take that burden off your shoulders.  Who needs freedom anyway? *kicks Montreal*  I mean, the government ought to punish everyone when only some of the people do something they've criminalized through law.  Some people watch pr0n on HBO, no more TV for j000

How about instead of making a complete moron of yourself you become aware of the situation first? News flash: It wasn't the government, it was a corporation. In other words, yet another example of capitalism bullshit. Thank you, come again.

cheezues wrote:

Quote:
But her economic policy is incompatible with reality as I percieve it.

 But you've just said that you don't percieve her policy as accurately as you thought, so any judgment you make critical or otherwise is unfounded and uninformed, regardless of how you see reality because both of these elements must be considered to make these kinds of statements.

Blatant lie. I said I don't know HER as well as I thought. I said nothing about not knowing her foolish capitalism.

cheezues wrote:

Quote:
And I have yet to hear anyone speak positively about her either.

I'll be the first then. 

And you are certainly a winning example.....

Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.


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Vastet wrote: How about

Vastet wrote:
How about instead of making a complete moron of yourself you become aware of the situation first?

Glad to see I am not the only person noticing his idiocy.

 

Vastet wrote:
Blatant lie.

Thats how he works.  Moves from one lie to another.  Persumably to support his moronic capitalist ideology. 

"In the high school halls, in the shopping malls, conform or be cast out" ~ Rush, from Subdivisions


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Chaoslord2004

Chaoslord2004 wrote:

Vastet wrote:
How about instead of making a complete moron of yourself you become aware of the situation first?

Glad to see I am not the only person noticing his idiocy.

Come on guys, this isn't some theist out to castigate us for being atheists, he's here to share his views... can we please drop the personal attacks?   

"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'


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todangst

todangst wrote:
Chaoslord2004 wrote:

Vastet wrote:
How about instead of making a complete moron of yourself you become aware of the situation first?

Glad to see I am not the only person noticing his idiocy.

Come on guys, this isn't some theist out to castigate us for being atheists, he's here to share his views... can we please drop the personal attacks?

 

When someone peddles idiocy, I will call him on it.  I don't care if he is an atheist.  He is making stupid arguments, and we are calling him on it. 

"In the high school halls, in the shopping malls, conform or be cast out" ~ Rush, from Subdivisions


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todangst

todangst wrote:
Chaoslord2004 wrote:

Vastet wrote:
How about instead of making a complete moron of yourself you become aware of the situation first?

Glad to see I am not the only person noticing his idiocy.

Come on guys, this isn't some theist out to castigate us for being atheists, he's here to share his views... can we please drop the personal attacks?   

I'm sorry man, but when someone insults my intelligence with the kind of sardonic, sarcastic, and strawman bullshit he just did, I'm going to slap them for it.

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"Companies know that if you

"Companies know that if you mistreat your workers they won't stay becaues competition is looking to hire and they have better working conditions..."

 

The person who wrote the above statement is a fucking moron.  Basically, he is saying that if companies mistreat their employees, they will go out of business.  Tell me thats not just plain moronic, tod?  The person that said this, either sustained a head injury or is an idiot. 

"In the high school halls, in the shopping malls, conform or be cast out" ~ Rush, from Subdivisions


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Quote: Here's a history

Quote:
Here's a history lesson for you, only to the extent that government involve itself in economics do any monopolies exist.

Sure thing, attempt to name one that wasn't a direct result of Government Sanction. (I'll name one after I shoot several of your potential responses down.)
Standard Oil, not a monopoly.
Wiki- because it's quick and easy.

Quote:
"By 1890, Standard Oil only controlled 88% of the refined oil flows in the United States. In 1904 when the lawsuit began it controlled 91% of production and 85% of final sales. Most of its output was kerosene, of which 55% was exported around the world. In terms of cost efficiency, Standard's plants were about the same as competitors. After 1900 it did not try to force competitors out of business by underpricing them. Beyond question, the federal Commissioner of Corporations concluded, the dominant position in the refining industry was due "to unfair practices, to abuse of the control of pipe-lines, to railroad discriminations, and to unfair methods of competition."

In fact there were TONS of openings for the expansion of existing competition according the the courts own records during the antitrust trial. "
Quote:
"The evidence is, in fact, absolutely conclusive that the Standard Oil Company charges altogether excessive prices where it meets no competition,"

If I were an entreprenuer looking for a way to squeeze into a market, these would be the places I'd start. You can see that from 1904 - 1911 during the time just before this company was broken up it was LOSING market percentage because of its questionable practices. The point is not "whether or not it's practices were questionable", because it was afterall turn of the century and even today some business is bad, the point was it wasn't a monopoly.

Microsoft, not a monopoly. Check out Linux, Unix, Lindows, and a dozen others. No matter what percentage of the market microsoft controls it's not 100%.

Insight Broadband Is a monopoly because it's given permission by the local government to be free from competition in Kentucky. It controls 100% of the market, no other cable internet service is available.

Quote:
You have to be delusional. Just ask any third-world country Capitalism exploits if it is superior.

Ask any starving third word country if they would rather lose economic developement and start, or continue enjoying the benefits (NO MATTER HOW SMALL) of Capitalism invigorating their country.
And refer to the Post Colonialist Famine
Quote:
Ask the people down in South America how they like their enviornment being poisoned by 3M.

Improper Waste Management isn't a product of "capitalism" as such. Any system that produces anything will have waste biproducts, not just a Capitalist system, you're attempt to blame capitalism for poluting the world fails. People that consume what is produced will have waste biproducts. It does provide the freedom to make bad choices, like poluting the world, but the only reason you're able to criticize is because you're judging the past with the knowledge of the present, something historians shouldn't do. My point is this, if we were to hold off production indefinitely until we had every smallest detail worked out including waste management we'd be a lot less developed as a civilization. I'm sure South Americans don't appreciate it, but I also think that when companies make choice like this it's wrong, whether you like to admit it or not we're modernizing and things like this are becoming less and less of a problem. I've never worked for a company that wasn't involved in initiatives toward becoming more environmentally friendly.
Quote:
Ask the Chinese workers over in the Wal-mart sweatshops if they think capitalism is superior.

I guess Wal-Mart's success in China stems from how it enslaves the native people and forces them to work for them. You're absolutely so far out on this one, and on most of these issues. No one is putting a gun to any chinese citizens and saying, "WORK FOR WAL-MART OR DIE." Chinese people work for wal-mart because it provides an improvement over whatever condition they were living in prior. No work and starvation vs. some physical labor, you decide. You'de like to invision these scrawney people in these factories being beaten with whips and told to work harder or some kind of other cartoonish fantasy, but it's a delusion.
When it becomes public news (actual mistreatment and not the bullshit you're "peddling" as such) then Wal-Mart will feel it in a reduction in their market share. I have several readily available alternatives to Wal-Mart here, some are even cheaper, I prefer quality though, so I spend very little money there.
Quote:
Capitalism can ONLY survive if their is economic inequality.

Capitalism can ONLY survive if there is economic freedom. All of your babble about inequality reduces to Slavery. Enslaving certain individuals and rewarding other individuals who either haven't earned what those whom you would inslave have, and providing no incentive for improvement of those individuals you're giving a free-ride too. How Abused the Welfare system is in America is completely demonstrative of this. The government PAYS people monthly for being homeless and addicted to drugs, what assets to society they are. There was a pretty good ABC special on this given by John Stossel. That's not the video (couldn't find it and didn't look long), but look at the projection in this article talking about people living off the government.
Quote:
In 2000, it was 49.4. It seems unbelievable that in 1950, only 28.3 percent of Americans lived off the taxpayers. Shilling projects 60 percent by 2040.

All systems of redistribution raise the value of a position we're attempting to eliminate.
I'll continue looking for that video, it won't make any points that I haven't already, it's just reinforcement, and John Stossel is a good reporter in my opinion.
Quote:
Capitalism is a zero-sum game. The gains of one, are the benefits of the other. When a few have money, they have the power. When they have power, they use it to keep their power and money by any means necessary. This means explotation.I really fail to see how this isn't an intuitively obvious fact.

The gains of one are the benefits not only of the other business partners, but of the citizenship that buys their products, provided such gains are based on increases in efficiency or better production resulting in lower pricing, or whatever. Because Capitalism is a free system if you don't like the product YOU DONT HAVE TO BUY IT. You can always count on some creative entreprenuer to come along and provide what you're looking for... IF NOT.. you're free to do it yourself provided the GOVERNMENT hasn't banned competition in the particular market you're looking to get into in that specific area.
Capitalism provides the potential for exploitation it is not a DIRECT CAUSE OF EXPLOITATION. Thats part he propogand you've swallowed causally relating two concepts that are on coincidentally made possible because freedom entails freedom to do the wrong thing as well as the right thing. Exploitation is hugely overdefined in your worldview, Wal-Mart(and other capitalist influences) moving into China has helped it's economy BOOM to the point where it's said now quite off the cuff that China is going to be THE world power of the future. Exploitation is not an obvious "fact" because you cannot causally relate them, and you've failed to do so in the passage I've quoted.
The part you like to Ignore about Wal-Marts progress in China is that Wal-Mart is basically the same company there that they are here, with different selection. Sanitation is increased significantly from your rice farmer weeding his crop with his nasty ass toes and sold on a street corner packed full of nice little organics that could inflict who knows that diseases on it's consumers. Not to mention the increase in the supply of the food because production is streamlined in "sweatshops" where those same people are employed and made able to afford plenty of food for themselves and thier families causing life expectancy to INCREASE.
Quote:
So the measure of a countries success is how much power it wields over others?

The relevence of the United States success stems from it's economic system and (in the past) it's laws protecting individual freedom. It's success also stems from that fact.
Quote:
Man, if this is true, then Communist Russia use to be excellent. Which, by your account, proves them superior.

You can call it an economic failure during the cold war, or our economic ability, whatever you want, Communist Russia was a failure not because of it's influence and power in the world, but because such a government cannot exist indefinitely without killing off it's population or starving them to death.
Quote:
When I say superior, I have in mind a country that actually takes care of its citizens. You know, a country where everyone has food at night. All people have a place to sleep. Everyone, not just the rich, get good health care. This is how I measure what a successful country is.

A country is a place, not a nanny. How would a country go about feeding people? This is where you ignore the individuals that produce or manage companies that produce the wealth and just insert the word "country" because people that successfully produce a lot of wealth and are awarded for it are evil "businessmen" and should be enslaved by the state like workhose mice powering the country made to run in a little exercize wheel. Good health care? notice what country has the best healthcare? Notice where rich Canadians go to get "good" health care. Why is Healthcare in America superior? Guess we can chalk one up to evil ole Capitalism. Healthcare industry in America is under attack right now and is going down hill. I know two doctors personally, like outside of work, both of them encourage young people not to go into the medical profession because of government involvement in their industry. They provide probably one of the most valuable services and no one wants to pay them for it. It's pretty sad.
A successful country in your view can't exist because you can't enslave individuals forever. You can't tell someone that they're going to do something and just give them a fixed amount of money based on "need" from now until eternity. Such a country stagnates and it's creative spirit dies it's production becomes shitty because there's no incentive to improve, or really to even remain productive, and you're people starve to death. COMMUNIST RUSSIA WAS THE HISTORIC EXAMPLE ON THE LARGEST SCALE.
You should pick up a history book and read about the atmosphere and economic practices of Russia between the Bolshevik revolution and the end of the cold war.
Quote:
You obviously equate a countries success with how much bully-power it has.

I think this applies to you more than me, because you measure a countries success based on how much it BULLIES ITS OWN PEOPLE.
Quote:
Only someone blind, could walk down the stree, see homeless children and think "damn, this is one great economic system."

Once again, Raising the value of a position we want to eliminate. This is the product of a government program, welfare most of the time. Poor ass gutter rats have kids intentionally to exploit the government, just to get government money and then spend it on drugs and alcohol or something besides feeding those kids. This once again could easily be explained by government interference into the economy. You've once again causally related Capitalism and Exploitation and now Poverty without any logic, you just create it, reality by assertion and call someone a dumb ass for not being able to follow your non-existent logic. You should compare poverty rates with communist russian poverty rates when it was on the verge of collapse to figure out just how well your redistribution eutopian bullshit works out.
Quote:
It really is inconcievable to me how anyone could support lasse faire capitalism. That is, anyone who is not among the elite.

Funny you should mention that, because I'm poor as shit. Both of my parents graduated high school with C averages, worked in factories most of their lives and did a damn good job of providing for me. Both of em are ignorant fundy christians, but respectable people because they're not FUCK UPS who destroy their kids. I am not among "the elite" (whatever you mean with that vague ass terminology - I assume anyone with more money than you). I'm a junior in college and I'm 2 semesters away from complete 2 bachelors degrees, afterwards I'm going on to do graduate work toward a PH.D. Did I mention I pay for my school myself with absolutely no help from my parents. I payed for everything I have, and the only reason I've wanted it is because I have the potential to earn it myself. Only in a capitalist system can an individual choose to create his worth. What kind of creativity do you think possible from a child sheltered from competetion would be... but more importantly, sheltered from the possibility of outstanding achievement because that would mean he's evil and exploiting others. THE ANSWER: none
Quote:
Um, sorry, it has. Go read a history book. Look up the early 20th century. Perhaps you will see pictures of children puting in 18 hour days for 5 cents. You will see the capitalist pigs beating the workers. Before government regulations, we had "hands off government." Contrary to your propaganda, lasse faire capitalism existed. It existed in America, and before that, over in Europe when they came out of the feudal periods.

Indeed damn the industrial revolutions damn them both they were evil! It was a system closer to what I'm advocating, but inconsistent.
If you think the economic system I'm (or that Objectivists) advocating is the same that existed in the early 20th century you're close, but it's far from perfect. A philosophy didnt exist at the time to govern behavior like that.
You've again tried to causally relate "beating workers" as a direct result of capitalism when in fact freedom is the atmosphere that allows such behavior, when beating workers is a direct result of slavery. Capitalism is a system of freedom, not the freedome to infringe upon individual freedoms (beating people) but the freedom to leave said job, or sue the shit out of an employer for doing so.
I criticize that behavior right along side of you, agree whole-heartedly that beating workers was wrong and is wrong. We just disagree about how those behaviors came about. Capitalism made it possible by providing an atmosphere of freedom, but only in freedom can anyone choose right over wrong. Because the moral is the chosen, any system other than capitalism is Amoral as far as individuals choice is concerned and Immoral because it doesn't allow for individual freedom.
Quote:
You obviously no nothing about what you talk about. I will admit, lasse faire capitalism didn't last long. Why? Because it failed miserably. Thats why they had to blend socialism with capitalism. Pure capitalism failed.

No amount of saying "pure capitalism failed" is going to make it the truth. Pure capitalism didn't exist, and it didn't fail it was overtaken. No amount of juxtapositions between capitalism and the consequences of freedom will make the choices that individuals made under a free market system the fault of the free market, it is instead the fault of those individuals.
Right now in this country Socialist policies like Welfare are bleeding the life out of our economy, and the remnants of Capitalism that do exist are highly regulated and barily sustaining the country.
Quote:
Just because you don't like the results it produced, does not mean you can say "that wasn't REALLY lasse faire capitalism.

I do like the results it's produced though. You're just looking at most of the nasty things, inventing some, and ignoring the good things like two industrial revolutions and a steadily increasing rise in life expectancy (before healthcare regulations). The entire western world owes a great deal of it's success to Capitalism. You simultaneously ignore the failures of Marxism, Communism, Fascism and all species of Socialism that have failed in the past. A few breif specs of time in the longevity of history that capitalism has been it's strongest brought us out of the dark ages in and into the industrial revolution (the age of englightenment).
Quote:
Very idealistic...sadly, this doesn't work.

Congratulations on once again making a statement without presenting any arguement for it. Why doesn't it work? I've gone into the problems in our GOVERNMENTALLY CONTROLED PUBLIC EDUCATION system already, and with reference to the success of private education in producing citizens intelligent enough to be self-governing. You've given nothing but a reality-by-assertion arguement.
Quote:
Capitalism is based on competition. If one person has the balls to "boycott" others will simply work for the company.

Do you deny that the economic impact on companies who you could take issue with and boycott based on actual reasons wold not feel a financial impact? I think the fact that most companies settle lawsuit cases in court rather than go to trial with them reveals the exact opposite, bad media makes bad profits. Even if said cycle of employees went on for any period of time eventually it will become common knowledge that company XYZ treats it's employees like shit, or isn't as good as company ABC and will feel it financially. Stop pretending that human beings are all mindless drones.
Quote:
In a society, whos very structure is to cause competition, to demand that they "pull the plug" is nonsense.

This is a statement about a capitalist society referencing the atmosphere within a society like america now for an example, with it's heavily mixed economy, this logical fallacy is called dropping the context.. you do it quite often. It's unthinkable that such action is possible now, because we as a culture are becoming too placid to generate enough of a fuss to really smear a company for being shitty to it's people. In a capitalist country I think, although its difficult to predict the exact atmosphere (because it's never existed and even if it did you couldn't apply a 100 year old historic example to present day) but my only point is that it would be drastically different, and so would the mindset of the average citizen.
Quote:
Where are you getting these false ideas? The fact is, companies have, and still do mistreat their employees. They can do this, because if you quite, their will be 100 new people waiting in line.

Your definition of mistreat is probably so inclusive it's meaningless. Regardless, I know this to be true because for every company I've worked for they track retension rates for new-highers and PREFER HIGHER RETENSION RATES BECAUSE THE COST OF TRAINING IS SO EXPENSIVE.
Quote:
Companies DO mistreat their employees.

Congrats on another sweeping statement, made so intensionally because mistreatment to you is really just "hiring someone and expecting them to work." The case can always be made for improved conditions, but the fact is this is not slavery and these people are not forced to work for these companies, if they find it in their interest to stay while acknowledging mistreatment or taking advantage of most companies "open door policy" to express ideas for change and better their own workplace, they can do so freely.
Quote:
(A) conditions have no improved, and (B) learn what a strawman is.

Force labor in a free market is a contradiction in terms. Conditions will improve if competition increases. Just because conditions have not improved (even though they have) for EVERY single workplace in the world in some way does not mean that it won't and it doesnt mean that capitalism is the CAUSE of this stagnant unimproved condition.
Quote:
I don't really give a shit if you think im a prick.

I don't think I'm the only person that thinks that now.
Quote:
Basically, he is saying that if companies mistreat their employees, they will go out of business.

The only idiocy is assuming that I meant instantaneosly. Companies that either do not adapt to changing conditions and changing markets do go out of business. If changing conditions includes the quality of the work environment (mixed with other varialbes always I'm sure) then it's completely applicable.


Chaoslord2004
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cheezues wrote: Standard

cheezues wrote:
Standard Oil, not a monopoly.

Right, it needs to control 100% of the market.  90% isn't good enough, it must control 100%.  We can safely assume that 90% is good enough to be considered a monopoly.

 

cheezues wrote:
Insight Broadband Is a monopoly because it's given permission by the local government to be free from competition in Kentucky. It controls 100% of the market, no other cable internet service is available.

Right, this is what we can expect from a capitalist society.  Why do you think it is given permission?  Why choose one business over another for a monopoly?  It all comes back to money.  Who supports the political campaignes.  Who takes the politicians out to dinner, and lines their pockets.

We can expect this from a capitalist society...they can be predicted.  When the accumulation of wealth is the societies highest virtue, those who have the most of it, will have the most power.  Thus, those with the most power will use it to their advantage, by influencing the government.  All this crap you're complaining about, is the direct result of capitalism.  It would be even worse if it was lasse faire capitalism.

Hence, the capitalist...whom you love so much, are simply using the government to make more money.  This is how capitalism works.

 

cheezues wrote:
Ask any starving third word country if they would rather lose economic developement and start, or continue enjoying the benefits (NO MATTER HOW SMALL) of Capitalism invigorating their country.

The lesser of two evils, is still an evil.  In any game-theoretic context, conditions get worse and worse.  So you point is that you conceed that capitalism is bad for many companies...but it is still slighly better than the countries own economic system?  Do you not see how moronic this is?

Capitalist companies go into countries, funnels all the resources out of the country, poisons the enviornment, and treats the workers bad.  Who gives a fuck if it was worse before they got there?  Who gives a shit?  

So the people should be greatful that instead of giving them 30 lashings they only give them 20?  The conditions still suck.  Moreover, they suck so bad, I bet you wouldn't work in them.  Tell me right now, would you work in the conditions capitalist countries maintain in third-world countries?  If not, you admit the conditions are terrible.  If you wouldn't put up with these conditions, why expect others to?  Are the people in the third-world not as human as you?

Pointing out an evil and saying that it is less evil in relation to something else, does not mean that both are not evil!  Hitler was worse than Ted Bundy.  So what? 

 

cheezues wrote:
mproper Waste Management isn't a product of "capitalism" as such.

its the product of many other things too.  This is irrelevant.  Companies have to conform to enviornmental laws in America, or they are fined.  When they go to countries that do not have these laws, they dispose of waste the CHEAPEST way possible.  Look up 3M.  They are "enviornmentally concious" in America, but not in South America.  Why?  Because the government is forcing them to act like fucking decent human beings.  Without companies being watched like 5 year old children, they will do whatever they can get away with.  So why not dispose of waste properly?  That costs alot more money then just dumping it in the river.

 

cheezues wrote:
Any system that produces anything will have waste biproducts, not just a Capitalist system.  People that consume what is produced will have waste biproducts.

Right, this is not the issue...obviously.  The issue is how they deal with the waste.

 

cheezues wrote:
but the only reason you're able to criticize is because you're judging the past with the knowledge of the present, something historians shouldn't do.

I am talking about the present also.  3M is STILL dumping waste into the river.  It is not a matter of "oh no, this didn't turn out as we expected."  It wasn't like a failed experiment.  I get that people make mistakes.  I am talking about a blatent disregard for the enviornment, with the knowledge that what they are doing is poisioning the planet, and its people.   This is indefensibe.

 

cheezues wrote:
My point is this, if we were to hold off production indefinitely until we had every smallest detail worked out including waste management we'd be a lot less developed as a civilization.

Its not a matter of an oversight.  People know that it isn't good to dump waste into the river.  5 year olds understand this.  Companies do this, because they just don't fucking care.  Moreover, isn't it just common sense that if you dump waste into drinking water, this isn't good?  I bet they don't drink the water they dump in.  Why?  Because they know its bad, but don't care.

 

cheezues wrote:
I'm sure South Americans don't appreciate it, but I also think that when companies make choice like this it's wrong, whether you like to admit it or not we're modernizing and things like this are becoming less and less of a problem.

Except its not becoming less of a problem.

 

cheezues wrote:
I guess Wal-Mart's success in China stems from how it enslaves the native people and forces them to work for them.

basically.

 

cheezues wrote:
ou're absolutely so far out on this one, and on most of these issues.

No, its you who are so far out on these issues.  Probably because you get your information from the propagandists over at the Ayn Rand Institute.

 

cheezues wrote:
No one is putting a gun to any chinese citizens and saying, "WORK FOR WAL-MART OR DIE."

No, its "work for wal-mart or starve."  You fucking people have the mistaken notion that "force" only comes in the physical form.  It also comes in the implied socio-economic situation.  The situation is "work for a shit wage, or starve...make a choice ya prick."  This is the same nonsense we hear from people who say "if she doesn't like it, she can quit."  Right, because the bills pay themselves while she is looking for another job. 

Do you honestly think these people work at Wal-Mart if they had a better choice?  People do it, because they have to live.  Society is structed in such a way, that people are forced into these situations if they want to live. 

The illusion of choice...is not choice.

 

cheezues wrote:
Chinese people work for wal-mart because it provides an improvement over whatever condition they were living in prior.

so what?  So they are treated as badly as before.  They are still treated badly.  So what the hell is your point?

 

cheezues wrote:
No work and starvation vs. some physical labor, you decide.

Right, be a slave and live, or starve.  Is this really any different that putting a gun to someones head?

 

cheezues wrote:
You'de like to invision these scrawney people in these factories being beaten with whips and told to work harder or some kind of other cartoonish fantasy, but it's a delusion.

Oh really?  Check this out:

"n Honduras, teenage girls and young women were found sewing clothing for TV talk-show host Kathie Lee Gifford's apparel line sold at Wal-Mart. Girls as young as 13 to 15 years old worked long hours, usually from 7:30 am to 9:00 pm, Monday through Friday. Because of forced overtime to meet rush orders, the children were not permitted to attend night school, where from 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm they could have studied to complete their grammar school educations"

 

"According to independent labor rights organizations in Hong Kong, a living wage in China would be about $0.87/hour. Minimum wage rates vary as they are set by each provincial government, however, they do not meet this living wage. Shanghai's minimum is $0.21/hour, and Guangzhou's $0.26/hour. ("Behind the Label: Made in China," March 1998, Charles Kernaghan/National Labor Committee.)"

 

http://www.sweatshopwatch.org/index.php?s=67

 

" By Julie Su, Co-Founder & Board Member of Sweatshop Watch, Litigation Director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center

Published in No Sweat: Fashion, Free Trade and the Rights of Garment Workers, Verso, 1997.
Photo by Phil Bonner.

On August 2, 1995, the American public was horrified by press reports about the discovery at an apartment complex in El Monte, California, of seventy-two Thai garment workers who had been held in slavery for up to seventeen years, sewing clothes for some of the nation's top manufacturers and retailers. The workers labored over eighteen hours a day in a compound enclosed by barbed wire. Armed guards imposed discipline. Crowded eight or ten into bedrooms built for two, rats crawled over them during their few precious hours of sleep. From their homes in impoverished rural Thailand, these women and men had dared to dream the immigrant's dream--a better life for themselves, hard work with just pay, and decent living conditions. What they found instead was an immigrant's nightmare--a garment industry that reaps exorbitant profit from its workers, organized to disclaim any responsibility for the inhumane consequences.

Starvation wages, long hours, and illegal working conditions are standard business practices in the industry, and the El Monte story has helped to dramatize public awareness of these crimes. But the story told here is about how workers have endured, and have mobilized to bring about change.

The Thai workers were industrial homeworkers, forced to eat, sleep, live and work in the place they called "home." The slave labor compound where they were confined was a two-story apartment with seven units, surrounded by a ring of razor wire and iron guardrails with sharp ends pointing inward. Their captors, who supervised garment production and enforced manufacturer specifications and deadlines, ruled through fear and intimidation. Workers were forbidden to make unmonitored phone calls or write uncensored letters, and were forced to purchase goods from their captors, who charged four to five times the market price for food, toiletries, and other daily necessities. Living under the constant threat of harm to themselves and to their families in Thailand, they labored over sewing machines in dark garages and poorly lit rooms, making clothes for brand-name manufacturers sold in some of the biggest retail stores in America: labels like Tomato, Clio, B.U.M., High Sierra, Axle, Cheetah, Anchor Blue, and Airtime. Many of these labels are privately owned and sold by well-known retailers--Mervyn's, Miller's Outpost, and Montgomery Ward. Others are sold on the racks of May department stores, Nordstrom, Sears, Target, and elsewhere.

Immediately following the disclosure of conditions at El Monte, Sweatshop Watch, a coalition of organizations, attorneys, and community members, mobilized to bring support and social and legal services to the Thai workers with the aim of securing their release from further detention at the hands of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Formerly known as the Coalition to Eliminate Sweatshop Conditions, Sweatshop Watch was formed in 1992 as a statewide network. Southern California members include the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles, Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates, Thai Community Development Center, and UNITE. Northern California members include the Asian Immigrant Women Advocates, Asian Law Caucus, and Equal Rights Advocates, among others.

Working around the clock, members of Sweatshop Watch demanded to meet with the Thai workers in INS detention to advise them of their legal rights and to advocate for their release. In detention, the workers were frightened and bewildered. Forced to wear drab yellow prison uniforms, they were shackled by the INS each time they were transported from federal detention at Terminal Island in San Pedro to the downtown Los Angeles facility. Using a makeshift office consisting of the pay phones in the INS basement waiting room, Sweatshop Watch broadcast the message that continued imprisonment of the workers was not only inhumane, but also conveyed the wrong impression about justice in the United States: that workers who have been exploited and abused will be punished further and sent to the INS if they come forward. This practice discourages workers from reporting labor and human rights abuses, and pushes operations like the El Monte slaveshop even further underground.

With the help of the news media, which focused public scrutiny on the inaction of federal agencies, Sweatshop Watch held the INS office open into the wee hours of the morning and refused to accept any bureaucratic excuses for denying the workers their freedom. After meeting with federal prosecutors and public defenders to obtain bail reduction for each worker from $5,000 to $500, an appeal was sent out to the community that bonds were needed. Sweatshop Watch members themselves posted over fifty bonds. Churches, shelters, supermarkets, and hospitals stepped forward to help provide transitional housing, emergency food and clothing, and medical care. One worker, whose teeth had rotted from long neglect and who had extracted eight of his own teeth while confined in El Monte, received a brand new set from a generous dentist. Taking the lead from the Thai Community Development Center, Sweatshop Watch conducted a job search on behalf of the workers. This was no mean task in the garment industry, since it meant locating jobs that pay the minimum wage and overtime in shops that comply with health and safety laws. All of the Thai workers were re-employed within two months, a testament to the efforts of the community-based organizations working in coalition.

After the August 2 raid, eight of the immediate operators of the slave sweatshop were taken into federal custody, charged with involuntary servitude, kidnapping, conspiracy, smuggling, and harboring of the Thai workers. In February 1996, they pled guilty to--among other charges--criminal counts of involuntary servitude and conspiracy. The courageous testimony of the Thai workers made this criminal case possible, but their legal struggle has not ended there. As heinous as the conduct of the sweatshop operators was, it represents only the outward continuum of abuse in the garment industry. The true culprits responsible for slave labor in California are the retailers and manufacturers.

The El Monte compound was just one unit of a slave sweatshop operation which, as early as 1988, ran various locations in downtown Los Angeles, where Latina and Latino workers toiled long hours seven days a week for subminimum wages in unsanitary and degrading conditions. Each location performed a different role in the garment manufacturing process, together constituting one business operation sharing common ownership, control, coordination, and assets. The Latina workers downtown sewed buttons and buttonholes and performed ironing, finishing, checking, and packaging. The El Monte site was one of the locations where cut cloth was actually sewn into garments. The garment manufacturers employed the Thai and Latino workers' services through enterprises supervised by the sweatshop owners, operating as SK fashions, and D&R Fashions. Their downtown facilities, with fewer than ten sewing machines between them during all of 1995, could not possibly have produced the volume of garments, to the quality and specifications, with the turnaround time demanded by manufacturers. In fact, clothes were sent from these front shops to El Monte and another unregistered production site to be sewn to manufacturers' specifications and patterns. The manufacturers' quality-control inspectors either knew or should have known that the orders they were giving to the sweatshop operators could not possibly have been filled at the downtown front shops. Had manufacturers taken their legal responsibilities seriously, the El Monte slave site would have been discovered and the workers' suffering ended much sooner.

The example of El Monte demonstrates how easily illegal conditions in the garment industry can deteriorate from sweatshop to slaveshop under the existing industrial system. In response to this system, the Thai and Latino workers have filed a landmark civil rights lawsuit in Federal District Court in Los Angeles. Peonage and involuntary servitude violate the U.S. Constitution and many other laws: the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), the minimum wage an overtime compensation requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act and the California Labor Code, federal and state prohibitions on industrial homework, false imprisonment, extortion, and unfair business practices. The lawsuit holds responsible not only individual operators of the slave sweatshop but also the manufacturers and retailers whose profits were secured on the backs of slave labor. In addition to their immediate captors, the Thai and Latino workers have named Mervyn's, Miller's Outpost, B.U.M. International, Montgomery Ward, Tomato, L.F. Sportswear, New Boys, and Bigin in their suit.

The lawsuit strikes at the heart of the so-called subcontracting system endemic to the multibillion dollar garment industry, whereby sweatshop operators act, in effect, as supervisors and managers of labor on behalf of manufacturers and retailers, who exercise all meaningful control over the industry. The lawsuit charges that the latter are actually joint employers of garment workers and as such, bound by all the provisions of federal and state labor laws. Manufacturers counterclaim that sweatshop workers are not employees but, rather, independent contractors. However, nominal contracting relationships are routinely ignored under both federal and state law, where an analysis of the factors underlying the relationship belies the independent contractor status. Thus, manufacturers employed these workers in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the California Labor Code, the Industrial Homework Act's prohibition on homework, and the Garment Manufacturing Registration Act's requirements on wages, hours, safety, and registration. To the response that sweatshop operators were paid the "industry standard" or "fair market value," the lawsuit charges that, in an industry where all prices are substandard and artificially depressed by rampant abuses, the "industry standard" itself is an illegal one. Indeed, this response only highlights workers' points that manufacturers sustain and profit from an industry that operates outside the law.

So far, the workers can claim several victories, including a number of settlements critical in helping them rebuild their lives. In March 1996, the manufacturers and retailers sought to have the case dismissed, claiming the workers had no basis for bringing them to court. The U.S. District Court refused to grant the motion, rejecting the manufacturers' argument that they cannot be deemed joint employers. This decision was a major setback for the manufacturers and retailers, who have hired some of the most upscale law firms in California to defend them, firms that have flooded the workers with endless discovery requests and withheld crucial information on the companies' actual practices. In June 1996, the Latino workers employed at the downtown facilities joined the Thai workers in their legal battle. The inclusion of the Latino workers in this suit sends a broader warning to manufactures and retailers throughout the industry. In March 1997, the trial judge refused to dismiss the workers' claims that violations of the hot goods provision of the FLSA by retailers constitutes negligence: if sweatshop owners are the agents of retailers, then these violations do fall under the contracting relationship. With this important hurdle crossed, the case proceeded to summary judgement in the summer of 1997.

On trial here are not simply the conditions of involuntary servitude behind barbed wire, but all sweatshop conditions throughout the garment industry. In filing this lawsuit, the workers are suing not only to win back wages, but to put the entire industry on notice that this kind of exploitation must stop. While the Thai workers have come a long way in the last year--they have been studying English, taking the bus to work, paying their own bills, buying their own groceries--they have also entered the unenviable world of immigrant garment workers, who toil long hours and struggle to survive on the minimum wage. Their freedom from enslavement has not meant freedom from poverty or a host of other problems stemming from the long years of neglect to their health, physical exhaustion, and psychological abuse. It is difficult to evaluate the emotional costs of their ordeal, and impossible to place a monetary value on each day of freedom from which they were deprived.

In the face of anti-immigrant hysteria, these Thai and Latina workers are defying attempts to divide them along ethnic lines, and are appealing to U.S. law to remedy the kind of labor abuses that permit powerful forces to blame the victim. When workers face retaliation, intimidation, or deportation for standing up for their rights and pursuing legal redress, garment industry giants will continue to exploit them with impunity. With this lawsuit, the Thai and Latina workers say, "no more."

One-time handouts will not change the structure of an industry explicitly organized to protect profit and privilege and to depress wages and working conditions. Government forums and calls for good corporate consciences are not enough. Manufacturers and retailers will continue to flagrantly disregard the law as long as they can get away with it. The workers' lawsuit is a warning that is long overdue. It is high time these corporate employers invested as much in the basic dignity of the workers who make their clothes as they invest in lawsuits to silence workers, creative advertising, and fancy marketing techniques.

Learn more about the El Monte Slave Sweatshop and how it helped to galvanize support for the anti-sweatshop movement:

"Between a Rock & A Hard Place: A History of American Sweatshops, 1820-Present" An interactive web site featuring photos and video clips of the El Monte Slave Sweatshop."

 http://www.sweatshopwatch.org/index.php?s=68

 ---------------

 So...it seems that your wrong...once again...as usual.

 

cheezues wrote:
How Abused the Welfare system is in America is completely demonstrative of this.

This is a pure republican lie.  It is not abused as much as people think.  This is pure nonsense designed to drum up hatred for poor people.  Go study sociology, please.

 

cheezues wrote:
The government PAYS people monthly for being homeless and addicted to drugs, what assets to society they are.

so we should let these people rot and die?  Fuck you.  Think people enjoy being homeless?  You make it sound like its just one big barrol of laughs.  Most people are not homeless due to their own doing.  They are that way for either psychological problems, or they fell into some bad luck.  Homeless people and drug addicts need help, not to be pushed aside as being "of no use."

 

cheezues wrote:
but look at the projection in this article talking about people living off the government.

Right, because SOME people abuse it...we should do away with it.   Give me a break.

cheezues wrote:
but because such a government cannot exist indefinitely without killing off it's population or starving them to death.

I know people who grew up in communist russia.  It wasn't as bad as people thought...atleast after Stalin.  Everyone had a job, everyone got to eat...it took care of its citizens.

 

cheezues wrote:
A country is a place, not a nanny. How would a country go about feeding people?

by structuring a society in such a way that no one went hungry.  How would a charity feed people?  It gives them food you fucking moron.  When people are down on their luck, they would still get feed.  Look how Russia was structured.  In the later parts of communist russia, there wasn't mass starvation like in America.

 

cheezues wrote:
Notice where rich Canadians go to get "good" health care.

Right, if you're rich and want healthcare, come to America.  If you poor, go to Canada.  This was not in dispute.  America has great health care...for the rich.

cheezues wrote:
Why is Healthcare in America superior?

Its not.  Thats why we have 30,000,000 people without any health insurance.  The technology is there...most people can't afford it however.  The wealthy can...the poor cannot.  

 

cheezues wrote:
Guess we can chalk one up to evil ole Capitalism.

Basically.  Capitalism gives good health care to the rich, and shitty health care to the poor.  This was my point.

 

cheezues wrote:
They provide probably one of the most valuable services and no one wants to pay them for it. It's pretty sad.

Bullshit.  No one says they shouldn't be payed well.  You are just lieing about what I am claiming.  I am claiming that everyone has a right to good health care.  They are extremely valuable...no one denies this.  So please, stop lieing.

 

cheezues wrote:
A successful country in your view can't exist because you can't enslave individuals forever. You can't tell someone that they're going to do something and just give them a fixed amount of money based on "need" from now until eternity. Such a country stagnates and it's creative spirit dies it's production becomes shitty because there's no incentive to improve, or really to even remain productive, and you're people starve to death. COMMUNIST RUSSIA WAS THE HISTORIC EXAMPLE ON THE LARGEST SCALE.

When did I say I supported all the tenents of socialism?  Please, stop assuming things about me.

 

cheezues wrote:
I think this applies to you more than me, because you measure a countries success based on how much it BULLIES ITS OWN PEOPLE.

Stop lieing.  I know its hard for a propagandist to do, but please try.

 

cheezues wrote:
Poor ass gutter rats have kids intentionally to exploit the government

wrong, as usual.  Stop acting like an asshole.  This is nothing more than capitalist propoganda.  There is no evidence that this is a wide spread phenomena.  Please, stop your lieing.

They are called people, not gutter rats, you stupid fuck.  Show some godamn respect.  These people deserve more then to be labeled "gutter rats."  They are people, you stupid fuck. 

 

cheezues wrote:
just to get government money and then spend it on drugs and alcohol or something besides feeding those kids.

You really think thats how it works?  Do you know how hard it is to apply for these programs?  Very.  You obviously know nothing of what you talk about.  

 

cheezues wrote:
Indeed damn the industrial revolutions damn them both they were evil!

When did I blame the industrial revolution?  Stop ladeling me as anti-technology.  This is false, and you are simply lieing now!  

 

------------

 

Im done with you.  I have neither the time nor energy to deal with a propogandist and a liar.  Your a liar pushing an ideological adjenda.  We all see it.    

"In the high school halls, in the shopping malls, conform or be cast out" ~ Rush, from Subdivisions


cheezues
cheezues's picture
Posts: 54
Joined: 2007-05-09
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Quote: Right, it needs to

Quote:
Right, it needs to control 100% of the market.  90% isn't good enough, it must control 100%.

Did you miss the part where I mentioned the companies decline in the preceding decade leading up to the antitrust trial? 

Quote:
We can safely assume that 90% is good enough to be considered a monopoly.

Safely? As in... misdefine what something is to make your arguement valid?  Try again. 

Quote:
Right, this is what we can expect from a capitalist society.

Thanks for clarifying LOL, A capitalist society uses government power to limit free trade everyone, you heard it from chaoslord.  Get real buddy.  The moment government interfers in the economy to limit free trade capitalism is GONE because the government's only role is to PROTECT INDIVIDUAL FREEDOMS.

Quote:
Why do you think it is given permission?  Why choose one business over another for a monopoly?

It's irrelevant because at that point it's no longer capitalism. 

Quote:
It all comes back to money.  Who supports the political campaignes.  Who takes the politicians out to dinner, and lines their pockets.

Why shouldn't an individual be allowed to monetarily fund the candidate he wants to win?  The only reason it really makes a difference in America is because there isn't a dime's difference between our political parties, and our citizens are too stupid to educate themselves on which platform cares about anything.  Prayer in School is the biggest issue here in my hometown for the next governor election, to give you an idea of how mindless they've become.  Regardless under a capitalist systems as I've said earlier the environment and culture would be as well.

 

Quote:
When the accumulation of wealth is the societies highest virtue, those who have the most of it, will have the most power.

This goes back to me explaining to you what the value in Capitalism is, and what money represents.  Capitalism doesn't exist as some abstract economic system disconnected from ethics, epistemology and metaphysics, no branch of philosophy exists in a vacuum.  Under a Capitalist society the accumulation of wealth would be a sign of virtue, not slavery or extortion or abuse or any of the other bullshit you've vomited. The accumulation of Wealth is an expression of virtue, not a direct result, and it's only one such expession.  Wealth is not always an expression of virtue, but it would be more often under a system where cut-throat competition demanded the best from individuals.  It's a corny saying, but it's aboslutely the truth, "you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."

I don't see anything wrong when an individual invests money into a political candidate, it doesn't make their idea's coherant and it doesn't make them immune to criticism.  It doesn't ensure a win.  If you can explain why an individual doesn't have the right to spend his money in any way he see's fit I'm all ears.

Quote:
Thus, those with the most power will use it to their advantage, by influencing the government.

You don't realize how impossible it would be to influence a LIMITED GOVERNMENT with the sole purpose of protecting INDIVIDUAL FREEDOMS AND NOTHING ELSE.  The only way these pay-offs and buyouts are occuring now is because our government is becoming huge, new laws passed every day, constitution in shambles, and these Businessmen have adapted themselves to this environment so they've become accustomed to playing this kind of game.  It only exists because our economy is mixed.  In a Lazzie Faire Capitalist Government there would be nothing to influence.  The Constitution of the United States and it's subsequent Bill of Rights could be given simpler language and more bold language and be self sufficient without the need of so many of these new superfluous laws, and these businesses that play this game you're talking about would have no game to play.   Big Government and Capitalism are not compatible, Government intervention in the economy and Capitalism are not compatible ANY TIME GOVERNMENT INTERVENES INTO THE ECONOMY CAPITALISM SUFFERS.

Quote:
All this crap you're complaining about, is the direct result of capitalism.  It would be even worse if it was lasse faire capitalism.

Way to sum up everything and dismiss it without arguementation.  Listen, Capitalism is the only economic system that allows for individual freedom, and economic freedom.  When individuals infringe upon human rights secured in the constitution and the bill of rights they are criminals, capitalism is not to blame but free individuals who make bad decisions.  They should be held accountable and punished, it's not capitalism's fault that free individuals attempt fraud, murder, slave labor, these are the individual choices of these individuals they should be held accountable, Not capitalism.

 

Quote:
Hence, the capitalist...whom you love so much, are simply using the oversized and mixed-economic government to make more money through fraudulently.

Fixed, to highlight where the problems are occuring.  Big Government exists with partially free citizens, some of them figure out hwo to take advantage of the governments role playing in our ecnomic system... Problem: Big Government.

Quote:
This is how capitalism works.

This is perfect evidence of how much you DON'T know about capitalism.  Capitalism is only possible with very limited government who's sole purpose is to protect and enforce individual freedoms and property rights.

Quote:
The lesser of two evils, is still an evil.

I never called it an evil, I see economic developement and I think it's positive.

Quote:
In any game-theoretic context, conditions get worse and worse.

When companies  

Quote:
So you point is that you conceed that capitalism is bad for many companies...

Nope Never did. 

Quote:
but it is still slighly better than the countries own economic system?

Always a lot better if implimented correctly, thats what seldomly occurs, but you're all willing to chalk it up to another "capitalist failure" instead of looking at the damn problem and understanding it.

 

Quote:
Capitalist companies go into countries, funnels all the resources out of the country, poisons the enviornment, and treats the workers bad.  Who gives a fuck if it was worse before they got there?  Who gives a shit?

Capitalist Companies go into countries, and allows for the creation of ways to harness resources that didn't previously exist in those countries.  To say they "funnel them out" is just a broad brush stroke assertion you've made to pretty up your arguement.  Companies that poison the environment, I'll assume you mean any companies that create waste biproducts, which really means all companies everywhere, are necessarily bad even if the benefits outweigh the costs.  I think that poisoning the environment is terrible, but look at what we're talking about, third world countries with no waste management (Oportunity for industry btw..) and companies don't always go in with it all "figured out." They do improve themselves even though you're stubbornishly refusing to admit that.  Companies are becoming globally aware, and environmentally conscious.. it would have happened a lot sooner had America been left in it's freer form.  Regardless, living standards increase, and it's completely you're opinion whether or not those companies treat their workers bad.  You can and have pointed out single examples, and when you take in the scope, the magnitude of capitalisms reach these are isolated incidents that can be directly traced to the bad decision making of a free individual in this market.  You ask who cares, I'd say that the starving children who've been allowed better living conditions because of industrialization don't care about the consequences, I care and the businesses care, but you try to take Wal-Mart out of china, or the Nike "sweatshop" out of the third world country starving to death and you'll do nothing but kill those people faster.

 

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So the people should be greatful that instead of giving them 30 lashings they only give them 20?  The conditions still suck.

Any interaction where lashings and slave labor is involved is NOT a capitalistic enterprise.  Capitalism is based on individual rights and property rights, once slavery is introduced you've got nothing more than slavery.  Regardless of the conditions, an improvement over starving to death I'd seize in a hearts beat, you would too.  Fact is every other system throughout history has scarcely been able to feed it's own citizens let-alone think about global-industrialization.  I think that I ought to say before you come off with a smug remark that Welfare Statism in America isn't attempting to feed kids in third world nations, the Corporations are because it's profitable for everyone.

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Tell me right now, would you work in the conditions capitalist countries maintain in third-world countries?  If not, you admit the conditions are terrible.  If you wouldn't put up with these conditions, why expect others to?  Are the people in the third-world not as human as you?

This is where you expose your ignorance in its fullest.  1) Considering the conditions pre-capitalist countries are in (starvation) you bet your ass I would work to stay alive if working for wal-mark/nike/whoever was more profitable than dirt-farming. 2) I already admit the conditions are terrible, YOU'VE ADMITED THAT CAPITALISM IMPROVES THEM.  You just don't admit that starvation is worse then capitalism.  I would tolerate those conditions as long as my stomach was full.  The people in the third-word are JUST AS HUMAN as I am, they're just accustomed to sub-standard living conditions.  Capitalism, and indeed no system, is capable of providing instantaneous modernziation or some kind of eutopia you seem to be measuring your idea of "success" against, the fact is the strides that are being made in the Third-World to bring it's standard of living up out of the gutter are being resisted by assholes like YOU because you're demanding that everything happen perfectly.  No economic system you could propose, since you reject capitalism, can even come close to doing in the third word what capitalism has made possible.  You never hear of a governmentally funded monopoly crusading over into the third world with the sole purpose of saving the lives of those people, because government funded monopolies are geographically confined usually.  It's the private companies that are looking to expand their market and bring the level of comfort we enjoy in the western world into the third world slowly.  It didn't happen for us over night and it will only happen for them at the pace.  These third world people never had their European Enlightenment they never had Ancient Greece they scarcely ever had their own economy because of their mysticism and tribalism, there a lot of cultural differences between the western world and those who're starving in the third.  You're expecting a miracle and anything less is just unacceptable for you.  Wake up.

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Pointing out an evil and saying that it is less evil in relation to something else, does not mean that both are not evil!  Hitler was worse than Ted Bundy.  So what?

Living conditions are not evil, in fact I didnt use that word when describing their current system, and I seldom use that word period.  Living conditions are what they are, better is better, worse is worse... this comparison you've made with hitler and ted bundy shows how desperate you are to make a point, because yours are failing.

 

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ts the product of many other things too.  This is irrelevant.  Companies have to conform to enviornmental laws in America, or they are fined.  When they go to countries that do not have these laws, they dispose of waste the CHEAPEST way possible.  Look up 3M.  They are "enviornmentally concious" in America, but not in South America.  Why?  Because the government is forcing them to act like fucking decent human beings.  Without companies being watched like 5 year old children, they will do whatever they can get away with.  So why not dispose of waste properly?  That costs alot more money then just dumping it in the river.

Here again you've created these causal relationship directly between capitalism and wrong-doing, when it only creates the freedom for individuals to choose whichever they want, if they choose wrong then they as individuals are wrong, not the system.  I think the fact that we even have to make environmental laws is evidence of how placid the citizens of this country have become.  I'm as enraged as you are about 3M, but it's not a direct product of Capitalism nor is it directly causal.  Keep in mind that in America these companies exist in a mixed economy and that how their behavior is reacted to from the citizens is much different than how it would be in a purely capitalist country, you can't draw a comparison because companies have been conditioned to obey the government because the citizens have been conditioned to not make a fuss.  You can't even speculate as to how violently an informed public would react if a company was misbehaving like that, I tend to think the backlash would be felt financially and through bad press here in America and the company would either shape up or some other company would visualize an opening for a "3M environmentally conscious company" and advertise themselves thusly.  Free markets allow for competition like that to crop of quickly.

All that aside, regardless of the polution, having that aside as a seperate issue, the benefits outweigh the costs as far as human lives are concerned here.  You have to look at standard of living before and after and pressure this company to stop shitting on the world.

 

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Right, this is not the issue...obviously.  The issue is how they deal with the waste.

The point wasn't about the waste, its about your completely unrealistic idea of how global improvement is going to occur.  The issue here is your criticism of imperfection using the standard of perfection.  Partially I agree with you about 3M I think they're handling themselves very irresponsibly, but who's to say they're supposed to have all the answers before they freely move into that country and freely begin taking applications, and those africans freely filling them out and working.

 

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  3M is STILL dumping waste into the river.  It is not a matter of "oh no, this didn't turn out as we expected."  It wasn't like a failed experiment.  I get that people make mistakes.  I am talking about a blatent disregard for the enviornment, with the knowledge that what they are doing is poisioning the planet, and its people.   This is indefensibe.

But is Capitalism itself to blame, or the irresponsible business practices of this company?  It's clearly the ladder.  I agree with you that it's wrong, but say if some companies were to work with each other to cooperatively move into an area like(like a waste management company), more jobs would be available and conditions would increase... Oh but wait... thats against the law cause its wrong when companies work together to give one another support they don't give other companies, because it "limits" competition.. lol  So in a direct way, all the bullshit you're talking about capitalism being evil, bad corporations is responsible for many of the laws that keep waste management out of Africa because ITS NOT ECONIMCALLY FEASABLE unless they "coercively" cooperate.  lol

 

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Except its not becoming less of a problem.

Of course not, the American market remains untouched because placid citizens are used to having the government do their thinking for them.

 

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No, its "work for wal-mart or starve."

And without Wal-Mart it's Starve or Starve.  I think I see benefits outweighing the costs again. 

 

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You fucking people have the mistaken notion that "force" only comes in the physical form.

Not true, there's fraud and coersion.  Neither of those apply the China.

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It also comes in the implied socio-economic situation.  The situation is "work for a shit wage, or starve...make a choice ya prick." 

They usually leave out the prick part, I've been in wal-mart training centers, trust me on this one.  Wages are relative to the cost of living, in a nation becoming industrialized the biggest cost will always initially be on the corporations bringing commerce or the individuals investing in corporations.  A shit wage on the news might be what we consider "working class" here in America but look like something straight out of the great derpression, it's a great media technique called, BLOWING SMOKE UP YOUR ASS. 

These people, by your own admission, are being paid not to starve thanks to Wal-Mart.  You of course ignore when you say things like that, because that might expose a glimmer of light on the desolate wastes that are "capitalist exploitation" lololol

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This is the same nonsense we hear from people who say "if she doesn't like it, she can quit."

Sexual discrimination is not the same thing, its a violation of individual rights.  Employer and Employee agree on certain conditions prior to employment, then employment ensues, if an employee becomes unhappy with those conditions and feels that he/she can't stand them, conversation can take place between employer and employee and change has the potential to occur, if they can't mutually decide on an outcome then they should part ways. 

 

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Right, because the bills pay themselves while she is looking for another job.

 Since when do an Employee's bills become the responsibility of her Employer?  Do you value individuality or independance at all?  How does this even relate to Wal-Mart in china?  They have very few bills, in fact as we're creeping in more industry on em they're wanting more luxuries, and luxuries = bills + more work, and cars too from what I've heard.

 

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Do you honestly think these people work at Wal-Mart if they had a better choice?

Become an investor and compete with walmart in China, campaign on some grounds that would make you a better choice. 

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People do it, because they have to live.

More importantly because they WANT to live, people don't have to anything, including live... seem em die first hand.

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Society is structed in such a way, that people are forced into these situations if they want to live.

Life's full of little obstacles and choices isn't it.  Good thing some of them are as easy as this one.  "hmm, starvation .... or working toward self improvement..." 

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The illusion of choice...is not choice.

I understand where you're coming from here but you're full of shit completely.  People make negative decisions by choice every day and the choice to live or not is included in those decisions, not all of them are as clear cut as "starvation or work" some of them realize they've fucked up and choose to hold "will work for food signs"  Everything is open to choice and could be otherwise, in China and African they would be otherwise if our "terribly conditioned" "sweatshops" weren't saving lives.

 

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so what?  So they are treated as badly as before.  They are still treated badly.  So what the hell is your point?

That you're expectations and understanding of "badly" are unrealistic, and unreasonable. 

 

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Right, be a slave and live, or starve.  Is this really any different that putting a gun to someones head?

1) they're not slaves when they choose to work.  2) Ask any African American, it's the POLAR OPPOSITE.  Getting your ass beat for belittling their history might do you some good.  Slavery is a lot uglier than the beauty and freedom of a verbal agreement to work for a benefit.  Evidence again for the extent of your delusion, because you're so intellectually vacuous that you could even equate the two.

 

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"n Honduras, teenage girls and young women were found sewing clothing for TV talk-show host Kathie Lee Gifford's apparel line sold at Wal-Mart. Girls as young as 13 to 15 years old worked long hours, usually from 7:30 am to 9:00 pm, Monday through Friday. Because of forced overtime to meet rush orders, the children were not permitted to attend night school, where from 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm they could have studied to complete their grammar school educations"

Forced?  This is supposed to be an example of Lazzie faire Capitalism?  I've highlighted everything that is incompatible with Captilism in the article you've posted.  Possible is a different issue, free men and women can act freely, that doesn't immunize the them from the consequences.  The moment individual rights are infringed upon this does not become indicative of inevitable Capitalist practice, it is indicative of bad business practices commited by companies immune from the placid American publics backlash. 

 I remember that story from 95, it was very sad.  Some saving points here though now that I'm rehashing it.

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Starvation wages, long hours, and illegal working conditions are standard business practices in the industry, and the El Monte story has helped to dramatize public awareness of these crimes. But the story told here is about how workers have endured, and have mobilized to bring about change."

Readily available example of the power of exposure.  The "neive" or "idealistic" power that revealed poor working conditions reveal.  this was an extreme case, but the impact is whats important.

 

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With the help of the news media, which focused public scrutiny on the inaction of federal agencies, Sweatshop Watch held the INS office open into the wee hours of the morning and refused to accept any bureaucratic excuses for denying the workers their freedom.

Same example. 

 

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After the August 2 raid, eight of the immediate operators of the slave sweatshop were taken into federal custody, charged with involuntary servitude, kidnapping, conspiracy, smuggling, and harboring of the Thai workers.

Notice how none of the charges are "being a capitalist," because criminals are who they are regardless of the economic system they exist in.

 

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The true culprits responsible for slave labor in California are the retailers and manufacturers.

Fuck limiting the share of responsibility to these few, every individual who bought the involved name brands is involved.  If you give citizens a sense of responsibility for something like this the companies are gonna take a hit, if you shunt the responsibility on "retailers and manufacturers" no one's gonna give a shit.  After reading the list of clothing name brands that were being produced, if I had owned any of them (I never did, still don't) I would have felt guilty as shit about it, and would have felt the need to impact the companies involved in some way negatively by not buying their products.  I would have probably donate the clothing they potentially made to those workers, if possible.

 

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The example of El Monte demonstrates how easily illegal conditions in the garment industry can deteriorate from sweatshop to slaveshop under the existing industrial system.

I agree, mixed economies are fucked up.

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It is difficult to evaluate the emotional costs of their ordeal, and impossible to place a monetary value on each day of freedom from which they were deprived.

Exactly.  These guys took a risk and got burned, simple as that, they were in the country illegally HOPING to escape into a better world ( a more capitalist world) but it turned against them.  Regardless of how you reduce this it comes back to illegal immigration and the blackmale of individual employers.  Bad deicisions made initially by the immigrants were the fundamental cause of all of this greif, they could have prepared themselves a little better before attempting to come over, like learning english, understanding our laws, etc...  Completely blaming "capitalism" doesnt solve anything, and I'm not completely blaming "illegal immigrants" I'm just trying to poitn out ant reducing the conclusion to something simple in this complex situation is unreasonable.

 

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This is a pure republican lie.  It is not abused as much as people think.  This is pure nonsense designed to drum up hatred for poor people.  Go study sociology, please.

My best friend just graduated with a degree in sociology, and we talk about it quite often, I don't plan on studying it in detail.  Did you read that article I linked you, did you read the projections for how much of the American population IS currently on welfare and how much is going to be?  You can't ignore it.  It's not hatred for poor people, its hatred of statism that steals my money and uses it to buy drugs for people in society that are better off DEAD.  I believe in an aid program, privatized and highly regulated of coures, privately owned and funded through donation to help out some, but the extent to which our government is giving hand outs is rediculous and it does exactly what I said it does, exacerbate the problem by raising the value of a position we want to eliminate.  The problem also lies in where the government draws the line, and as you can read for yourself in the article, it draws a very vague one.

It's also how you say "republican lie" I bet you get as upset when someone says something like "liberal media."  Yea?  Either way I'm neither so bitch at either you like, both parties suck completely.

 

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so we should let these people rot and die?  Fuck you.

Yes, yes I do.

 

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Think people enjoy being homeless?

Yes, yes I do. Well, not so much being homeless but they really enjoy the free ride and are very reluctant to give up a "pay for your life" card if it means working a minimum wage job.

 

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Most people are not homeless due to their own doing.

You make it sound like no one is.  Once again where do we draw the line, how many years of a persons life should I support REGARDLESS of the reasoning they are there.  People that are capable (like Doctor Phil for example) of rising out of the gutter will do so, the ones that aren't aren't worth my hard earned dollar simply because assholes like you think they're entitled to it.  If given the choice I wouldn't give them shit JUST BECAUSE I've been forced my entire life.

 

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They are that way for either psychological problems, or they fell into some bad luck.

You know they classify Drug Addiction under that broad category of "psychological problems."  Seriously though, I think mental people ought to be taken care of and if my money were going solely to that I'd pay greatfully and willfully, people that fall into bad luck can rely on their relatives and friends and leave me the fuck alone.  I've got my own relatives and friends who consider me a dependable friend, and I feel the same toward them.  If you're just "in a rut of bad luck" and you've got no friends and your family won't bail you out of it, there's probably a good reason, either way you ought to be fucked.

 

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Homeless people and drug addicts need help, not to be pushed aside as being "of no use."

Oh I don't think they are of no use..  Poor people do work that I don't want to do, providing an instant low-cost labor pool.  No one is pushing them anywhere simply by not stuffing wads of cash in their face... haha.

 

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Right, because SOME people abuse it...we should do away with it.   Give me a break.

No, we should privatize it and that private company should regulate the shit out of who they give benefits too.  The government just doesn't know where to draw the line, they've got to much other shit on their plate right now (wrongfully so) to worry about poverty.

Half of the time you're talking about comparative poverty anyway, and I'm talking about biological.

Because we are raising the value of a position we want to eliminate (poverty) William Isaac Thomas said it best, "What men percieve as real is real in its consequences."  You've got so many borderline people who could exert a little effort and earn an honest living vs. welfare and they choose that which will give them the most bang for the buck.. Draw welfare, work part time (if even that) and do whatever.

Charles Murray is probably the best sociological critic of poverty you'll find.  Here's Charles Murray on the Katrina situation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKo1HtcHSUA

 

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I know people who grew up in communist russia.  It wasn't as bad as people thought...atleast after Stalin.  Everyone had a job, everyone got to eat...it took care of its citizens.

It just magically collapsed for no reason.

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by structuring a society in such a way that no one went hungry.  How would a charity feed people?  It gives them food you fucking moron.

WE"RE TALKING ABOUT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CHARITY(CHOICE) AND GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION(FORCE) YOU DUMBSHIT YOU CANNOT DROP THAT CONTEXT AND PRETEND LIKE I WAS COMARING THE TWO.   Who will structure a society and how? the government, who will create ways of providing for it's citizens, the government, who will produce what is consumed, the government...  You want nothing but to surrender every decision in your life to the government.  By what means does a government under your ideal system provide food for its citizens?  Somehow?

Not only are you completely full of shit factually, but you're intellectually dishonest for asserting that such was the truth WHEN YOU DIDNT KNOW IT TO BE THE TRUTH. 

 

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Thats why we have 30,000,000 people without any health insurance

So there's a problem with people thinking they need insurance?  This is obviously the case, insurance is affordable, people just don't buy it because most of them are ignorant.  I've been hit twice by people without Car insurance, it's the same deal, assholes riding chromed out rims and blasting their 1000$ stereo's talking on two cell phones and driving with thier knees, guys wearing name brand clothing and putting superficial metals on their teeth.  You're BLANKING OUT these people who choose willfully not to purchase insurance and then complain at the same time because they don't have it.  You have no inherant right to health, it's something YOu have to work to maintain.  You have no inherant right on the labor produced by a doctor.  The system you'de like to advocate is one in which they were enslaved like the sweatshop workers in your article, not mass producing shirts, but saving lives that aren't worth saving.  Why aren't they worth saving? because they'd rather buy some fucking rims or a new car instead of an economically sound car with a few miles on it, an A to B car, than buy something that could save their lives like insurance becuase they KNOW deep down that assholes like you are fighting to give them free healthcare that they DONT WANT TO PAY FOR.  Such people have ZERO concept of value.

 

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I am claiming that everyone has a right to good health care.

They don't.  By what right could you claim such a thing? 

You just pretend that that standard of value is set by the patient and not the man who spent years of his life in med school dedicating his life to the profession. 

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When did I say I supported all the tenents of socialism?  Please, stop assuming things about me.

Calls em like I sees em, you want to enslave doctors to care for those that haven't the long range planning skills to know its value until they're in need of it, and then their need you assert as a claim on any doctors time, his life.

 

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Stop lieing.  I know its hard for a propagandist to do, but please try.

Then go into detail about how you think this country ought to provide healthcare, and we'll see who's lieing.

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They are people, you stupid fuck.

They don't act like it. 

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There is no evidence that this is a wide spread phenomena.

Whatever "widespread" means, whatever percentage you're looking for to qualify for the label.  Doesn't matter, it's a problem made possible because we've raised the value of a position we want to eliminate and the uneducated working class will ABUSE IT.  Same as the corporations do other laws..

Funny thing is, corporations are guilty in your view, but "gutte rats" aren't..  And yet another DOUBLE STANDARD I've exposed.  Maybe it is just a lack of any standard at all. /shrug

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You really think thats how it works?  Do you know how hard it is to apply for these programs?  Very.  You obviously know nothing of what you talk about.

The question is only one of scale, how many people are doing this shit? Who knows, plenty, TO MANY IF ANY.  I'm actually related to someone who does this, so yea, that is how it works, some of the time.  Great job with yet another Reality-by-assertion arguement.

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When did I blame the industrial revolution?  Stop ladeling me as anti-technology.

You didn't, that was sarcasm, and I was citing the Industrial Revolution as a product of freer markets, both the european and the american.  you're not anti-technology, you're just pro-slavery. 

 

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I have neither the time nor energy..

nor the intellect, nor the education...

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to deal with a propogandist and a liar. 
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evidenced by your quaint little summation of my viewpoint.

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Your a liar pushing an ideological adjenda.

Thats been expressed explicitly by me several times, I am a student of Objectivism, I advance and defend the philsophy that I have concluded is the most rational. 


Chaoslord2004
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Why did you respond?  I

Why did you respond?  I told you I am done with you.  I am not wasting anymore of my time with your lies, falsehoods and propoganda.  Go sell your bullshit elsewhere, we are all stocked up here.

"In the high school halls, in the shopping malls, conform or be cast out" ~ Rush, from Subdivisions


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Such an angry thread!The

Such an angry thread!
The only discussions more intense than religious ones are politics! Laughing


cheezues
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Chaoslord2004 wrote: Why

Chaoslord2004 wrote:
Why did you respond? I told you I am done with you. I am not wasting anymore of my time with your lies, falsehoods and propoganda. Go sell your bullshit elsewhere, we are all stocked up here.

Becaues your arguements are easily dismantled, but I told everyone already that I'm in this thread to defend and help everyone understand Objectivism, that means explaining your bullshit too regardless of whether or not you choose to continue. 

By "done with you" you mean fresh out of insults I'm assuming, because thats all you've done.

Not to be outdone by a post that dismantled your arguements, you got some nice last second jabs in before CONCEEDING, calling me names...  as if you did anything else previously.

Quote:
angry thread

Not until chaoslord jumped in slinging mud, now that he's decided not to participate it should shape up to be the kind of atmosphere where rational individuals can actually communicate.


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I just wanted to add this

I just wanted to add this as reference material to show you how anti-human your anti-capitalism is.

Skip to the last 15 minutes, or watch the whole thing if you, it's a good film.

The Great Global Warming Swindle 


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cheezues wrote: Becaues

cheezues wrote:
Becaues your arguements are easily dismantled

No, because I don't want to waste anymore time on dipshits like you.

 

cheezues wrote:
By "done with you" you mean fresh out of insults I'm assuming, because thats all you've done.

Do you ever stop lying?  I gave arguments and links.  I may not like you, but at least I am not lying about you.

 

cheezues wrote:
Not until chaoslord jumped in slinging mud, now that he's decided not to participate it should shape up to be the kind of atmosphere where rational individuals can actually communicate

Sorry, but Randians are worse than fundies when it comes to reason.  Don't hid behind reason, you don't trump reason.  I would rather deal with a fundie than some piece of shit Randian any day of the week.

"In the high school halls, in the shopping malls, conform or be cast out" ~ Rush, from Subdivisions


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cheezues wrote: I just

cheezues wrote:
I just wanted to add this as reference material to show you how anti-human your anti-capitalism is.

I hope everyone sees the sophistry taking place in this sentence.  My anti-capitalism is not anti-human, please stop the propoganda.  My anti-capitalism is percisly because I care about human beings. 

"In the high school halls, in the shopping malls, conform or be cast out" ~ Rush, from Subdivisions


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for the record, I never

for the record, I never claimed I said Global Warming was caused by humans.  I have rejected this nonsense for years.  You can ask todangst or hillbillyatheist.  I have argued against it over on IG.

Don't equate my "enviornmentalism" with supporting global warming. 

"In the high school halls, in the shopping malls, conform or be cast out" ~ Rush, from Subdivisions


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so far the video is pretty

so far the video is pretty good.  I apologise for the way I treated you.  You didn't deserve it.

"In the high school halls, in the shopping malls, conform or be cast out" ~ Rush, from Subdivisions


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Chaoslord2004 wrote:

Chaoslord2004 wrote:

for the record, I never claimed I said Global Warming was caused by humans. I have rejected this nonsense for years. You can ask todangst or hillbillyatheist. I have argued against it over on IG.

Don't equate my "enviornmentalism" with supporting global warming.

The point of me referencing this video was about resisting America's attempts to develope the undeveloped world. Resistance to Capitalism is made here through the vehicle of environmentalism... Africa has oil and coal that the world pressures them to leave alone. As the movie says, forcing the Africans to only use wind and solar power, is to deny them the luxury of electricity. You know capitalism would have oil pumping and coal mines and power plants going in no time, africa would be a 100 years away from developing if only people would let capitalism do it's thing.

no insinuations were made regarding your stance on environmentalism or global warming, this just highlights what the product is, the end result of keeping capitalism out of Africa... denying Africans a decent life.

It's in the last 15 minutes of the vid.


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Although I agree the

Although I agree the capitalism is the right structure for a society, that it seems to fit human nature nicely and mostly run itself, to let it go absolutely freely (the other extreme) would be disasterous. The libertarians seem to think that we naturally have rights until someone takes them away. However, if you think about many of the things we consider a 'right', like education and security, it requires

Cheezues, I've not read these posts in detail but I got the impression that your argument for pure capitalism was along the lines of "If people were completely rational and completely informed then we could look after ourselves without a government interferring."
Even if that was true, (which I'm not convinced it is) then it's still like saying: "If people were completely honest then there'd be no need for law enforcement"

On the topic of environment, maybe I've just been brainwashed by the propaganda and smear campaigns, but people who argue against global warming tend to have motives and agenda. Here's the Wiki Article of the program you linked to. There's a several criticisms of it, ranging from biased sources, misuse of data, skewing of evidence...
Ofcourse, it could be that these criticisms are the result of an overwhelming prejudice because global warming recognition has become the politically correct position.

In the meantime, I'm going to believe the 'majority' on this one.
Partly because that's the established view and the sceptics come across as conspiracy theorists, and partly because there are large financial motives for people to see an end to the environmental policies, wheras the closest we have to a motive for the other side is band-wagoning. Not that this proves the case, just gives me a good reason to presume the 'environmentalists' until clear evidence/reason settles the issue once and for all.


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Strafio wrote: Although I

Strafio wrote:
Although I agree the capitalism is the right structure for a society, that it seems to fit human nature nicely

But their are many, ipso facto, more societies structured similar to socialism/anarchism that function just fine.  Look at many tribal societies.  Many of them do not have leaders that force people to listen to them.  The people work for the benefit of the tribe...and oddly enough, they have lower rates of crime, poverty and mental illness.

It is simply a capitalist lie that people are naturally greedy.  Tribal societies act as a reductio against this claim.  Moreover, these societies function just fine.  If someone doesn't do their fair share, well, they are black-balled.  Moreover, it isn't "dog-eat-dog."  If someone fucks up and doesn't catch a hog one day, no big deal.  They still get feed.  There is a nice social net, with mutal cooperation.

 

Strafio wrote:
Cheezues, I've not read these posts in detail but I got the impression that your argument for pure capitalism was along the lines of "If people were completely rational and completely informed then we could look after ourselves without a government interferring."
Even if that was true, (which I'm not convinced it is) then it's still like saying: "If people were completely honest then there'd be no need for law enforcement"

Right, and this was my point.  lasse faire capitalism, right or wrong, is idealistic.  This is the poin that Cheezues doesn't get.  When I point out various things wrong with capitalism, Cheezues says "ah, but thats not how lasse faire capitalism works!"  Correct, but this is irrelevant.  When put into practice, lasse faire capitalism morphs into something else...it evolves shall we say.  For the same reason that socialism, when implemented, evolves into something else.  To focus on the idealization, even after the implementation failed, is to be blinded by ideology; one is letting their politics cloud their judgement.

I will once again use socialism to illustrate this point.  Marx wanted to create a utopian society, when everone worked for the equal amount of money.  A preliminary government would be set up, and over time it would dissolved, and we would all live in a society of science, reason, equality and so forth.  Religion would go away, and we would have heaven on earth.  Sounds good eh?

Sadly, when this was implemented, we got a distorted version of marxism.  Now, I could say "ah!  This isn't REALLY socialism...Lenin bastardized it, it was more of a dictatorship."  But this is irrelevant.  This is what it evolved into.  The idealization can never be achieved, for persisely this reason.  What works "in theory" does not always work "in practice."  To deny the effects of a political theory by hiding behind the idealization nothing more than wishful thinking.

This is what Cheezues is doing.  I bring up government controlled monopolies, and he says "ah!  But this is not how capitalism works...it contradicts the very notion of no government interference in business."  Correct, it contradicts the idealization.  We don't live in an idealization...so, sorry Cheezues.  This is why I gave up on him.  He wasn't seeing this.

Strafio wrote:
On the topic of environment, maybe I've just been brainwashed by the propaganda and smear campaigns, but people who argue against global warming tend to have motives and agenda.

You have it backwards.  You have supporters of global warming using it for political purposes.  If you look at the science of "global warming" you will see it is, ipso facto, real.  However, the cause is not humans.  Watch the documentry, it said many of the same things I was saying over on IG.

Global Warming is a scientific issue, to be settled by scientists.  Not a political one.

 

Strafio wrote:
In the meantime, I'm going to believe the 'majority' on this one.

The majority of earth scientists believe that the cause of global warming is not due to humans.  So you can believe scientists, or Al Gore who has a political adjenda.  Hard choice?

 

Strafio wrote:
Partly because that's the established view

This is a lie.  It is the established view among politically correct liberals.  Not among scientists.

 

Strafio wrote:
and the sceptics come across as conspiracy theorists, and partly because there are large financial motives for people to see an end to the environmental policies

This is a scientific issue, not a political one.

 

Strafio wrote:
Not that this proves the case, just gives me a good reason to presume the 'environmentalists' until clear evidence/reason settles the issue once and for all.

So you're saying people who are against the claim that humans caused global warming are for raping the earth?  Im against it, but im still an enviornmentalist.  This is like saying people who are skeptical of UFO's are against the search for life on other planets.  It makes no sense.  Global Warming is a scientific issue...period, end of the fucking discussion. 

"In the high school halls, in the shopping malls, conform or be cast out" ~ Rush, from Subdivisions


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Chaoslord2004 wrote:

Chaoslord2004 wrote:
It is simply a capitalist lie that people are naturally greedy. Tribal societies act as a reductio against this claim. Moreover, these societies function just fine. If someone doesn't do their fair share, well, they are black-balled. Moreover, it isn't "dog-eat-dog." If someone fucks up and doesn't catch a hog one day, no big deal. They still get feed. There is a nice social net, with mutal cooperation.

I didn't mean greedy, but we work for reward and harder work requires a better reward. I think that capitalism should be run by the government, ensuring that the 'gap' doesn't become ridiculous and that the poor don't get trampled on, but it should still have a capitalist skeleton.

My knowledge of politics is limited:
As I understand it, classic liberalism advocates lasse faire capitalism and modern liberalism advocates a more moderates capitalism. I'm not quite sure where socialism stands on all of this. I think that extreme socialism where everyone gets the same reward is a bit silly. The way I see it, modern liberalism (as described by the politics book I read) seems to incoporate the best of both worlds.

Chaoslord2004 wrote:
The majority of earth scientists believe that the cause of global warming is not due to humans. So you can believe scientists, or Al Gore who has a political adjenda. Hard choice?

My source for the views of the Scientific Community has always been the New Scientist Magazine and they always left me with the impression that the scientists, bar a couple of mavericks, were warning the world but the governments weren't listening. If it becomes clear to me that it's not the view of the scientific community then I'll change my mind on it.


Chaoslord wrote:
So you're saying people who are against the claim that humans caused global warming are for raping the earth?
Lol. That's why I put 'environmentalist' in the quotation marks... it was for want of a better word. I wasn't trying to imply that the 'sceptics' have it in for the world.


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I'm going to respond to a

I'm going to respond to a few things you've said strafio, but I think you ought to read the earlier posts. 

Quote:
The libertarians seem to think that we naturally have rights until someone takes them away.

Everyone has an idea of who has rights to what, Objectivism and indeed libertarians believe that individuals have a right to their own life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Having the right to your own life entails having the right to the fruits of your own effort, unlike anyone who endorses any concept of forced siezure of assets for the purpose of redistribution.  You can't take away someone's right to their own life, you can only violate that right.

Quote:
However, if you think about many of the things we consider a 'right', like education and security, it requires

I don't think anyone has a "right" to an education, I know fewer people than we like to think certainly don't exercise that "right."  Most of the kids I knew in highschool didn't give a shit, the one's that understood it's worth took advantage of the opportunity.  I think as a civilization education should be a very high value shared by everyone, but it's not a fundamental right.  The right exists in a persons ability to freely pursue the end of educating their kids, and themselves if they so choose.  Pressures of course will exist in a Capitalistic civilization to make the value in education more apparent than this faith-laden American environment does.

 

Quote:
"If people were completely rational and completely informed then we could look after ourselves without a government interferring."

Even if that is true, it's not my arguement, that's just a prediction, a statement that rests on more fundamental prerequisites.  That kind of atmosphere is unthinkable given our current state, we've got a lot of things keeping us back intellectually as a human race.  My arguement is both difficult to form and difficult to grasp at the same time, because it's so hard to compare the masses of ignorant citizens as they exist now to what Objectivism projects as an ideal world because of the difference in atmosphere.  A lot of our stunted growth morally can easily be attributed to religion, so I'll leave that at that because Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins have shown it to be true very eloquently.  I especially like Sam Harris pointing toward the more secular nations in the world, Australia, Norway, Sweden, and talking about their crime rates, their education levels and how they provide a really nice light for Atheists to project positive atheism, they are the living breathing example of more Atheistic nations with less theistic governments.  Australia is an especially funny example, because it began with NOTHING BUT CRIMINALS, and aborignals, and the crime rate is lower than ours, lol! Just think about the small differences between our country and European, and those other places.  Think about the progress the human race has made since the European Enlightenment and it's not difficult to fathom that such a world can exist eventually.

 A good way to put potential progress into perspective might be to check out Ray Kurzweil's Ted Talk about the exponential nature of progress, because he relates the ideas to things beyond technology. 

It's happening all around us and people are still calling it "naive."  I don't think idealism like that is overly naive, and I think it's a good selling point for atheism for inspiring people.  Either way, I'm not saying it's easy.

 

Quote:
"If people were completely honest then there'd be no need for law enforcement"

Law Enforcement is a must for any society.  Lazzie Faire Capitalism can only exist where individual rights are enforced by Law Enforcement. It doesn't exist to instill fear into potential law breakers it need not be overbearing, but as a body that provides justice and recompensation for those who've had their rights violated.

 

Quote:
On the topic of environment, maybe I've just been brainwashed by the propaganda and smear campaigns, but people who argue against global warming tend to have motives and agenda. Here's the Wiki Article of the program you linked to. There's a several criticisms of it, ranging from biased sources, misuse of data, skewing of evidence...
Ofcourse, it could be that these criticisms are the result of an overwhelming prejudice because global warming recognition has become the politically correct position.

I'm not saying global warming is a lie, I just think the theory behind it is flawed or at least incomplete, and if nothing else more evidence is needed.  We're launching a satelite in 2009 CryoSat and in 2012 we're launching Sentinel-3.  Both of these satelites are going to really make the case one way or the other.  Until then the Jury is out no matter how many zealots storm the streets preaching against "climate crimes."

None of the criticisms offered even if proven to be absolute fact (which they haven't been yet btw) should prevent the developement of the third world, both because it's profitable, and because those people are in terrible condition.  Watch the end of that video I linked. Developing technologies like solar power to actually be efficient could be funded paritially by investors from these companies while developing the third world.  Profits that companies would make would be tremendous, and since they know the public would be pressuring them and criticizing them they might make some investing decisions to increase their PR and contribute to developing these kinds of technologies to eventually be implimented first in the countries that produce the most polution...  Instead of penalizing starving Africans.

A few points here...

1) Capitalism moving into third world countries would be tremendously profitable.

2) Capitalism moving into third world countries would create polution, but relative the amount of polution first world countries produce it's going to be minimal.

3) Nature heals itself and the damage done in Africa by business would be minimal and relatively quickly recouped, the biggest problem (if one exists) is first world countries.

4) The only acceptable, feasable, and reasonable answer is to continue as we are now watching the exponential growth of technology until things like Solar and wind power actually become more cost-effective than other means.

Thats just one potential, but once we get this technology developed to the point where it's more cost effective than anything competing with it, it will take hold, getting it to that point is the problem at this point.

Quote:
In the meantime, I'm going to believe the 'majority' on this one.
Partly because that's the established view and the sceptics come across as conspiracy theorists[/quote

I prefer the strength of reason over the strength in numbers.  Since when have the majority of any public had a clue?  The view is not "established" unless you mean repeated everywhere.  Thats like saying theism is "established."  Although Globwal Warming theory is much better than the god theory, I'll give them that, but the science is still incomplete.

Quote:
partly because there are large financial motives for people to see an end to the environmental policies, wheras the closest we have to a motive for the other side is band-wagoning.

The financial motives exist both ways equally, no doubt if the theory of global warming didnt exist business could progress more quickly, thats half the point, but think about the thousands of thousands of people who's jobs depend on the fact that global warming exists?  When research projects are funded by private individuals that WANT their beliefs legitimized they come to those who do the science and tell them to basically make it happen.  Scientists don't come right out and say, hey this is pretty much bullshit, because the funding has increased so drastically because of this climate panic attack inspired.  The actions of Margaret Thatcher in the video are just one easy example.

I compare the belief in global warming to theistic belief in scientists the way Richard Dawkins spoke about it in The God Delusion.  Nothing but lip service to those who grant the funds for research.

It's really sad for a few reasons.  Scientists have to be dishonest to people to get funding, and people pay scientists to legitimize their own preconceived notions regardless of the facts. 

Quote:
Not that this proves the case, just gives me a good reason to presume the 'environmentalists' until clear evidence/reason settles the issue once and for all.

Meanwhile the third world starves and the American economy heads downhill.  I think more skepticism is necessary on your behalf, and more perspective. 


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Chaoslord2004

Chaoslord2004 wrote:

Strafio wrote:
On the topic of environment, maybe I've just been brainwashed by the propaganda and smear campaigns, but people who argue against global warming tend to have motives and agenda.

You have it backwards. You have supporters of global warming using it for political purposes.

Sure. Such as saving future generations of humanity from the ravages of global warming. You use the term 'political purposes' here as if all political purpose is inherently negative.

Strafio wrote:
In the meantime, I'm going to believe the 'majority' on this one.

Quote:

The majority of earth scientists believe that the cause of global warming is not due to humans. So you can believe scientists, or Al Gore who has a political adjenda. Hard choice?

Can you cite a source? 

By the way, Al Gore's 'political agenda' is not a popular one with the American Oligarchy. 

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"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'


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Quote: Look at many tribal

Quote:
Look at many tribal societies.  Many of them do not have leaders that force people to listen to them.  The people work for the benefit of the tribe...and oddly enough, they have lower rates of crime, poverty and mental illness.

Tribes are tight knit, you recieve benefits from this kind of collective effort.  Societies as fast as the American society don't allow for the same return on an investment of the same type.  The failed welfare system is the easiest example, drug addicts do not deserve a free ride.  In a tribe though, these people depend explicitly without intermediaries upon one another for survival, it's not a comparable example to civilization.  The introduction of massive numbers invalidates the comparison between crime rates, poverty and mental illness.

Quote:
It is simply a capitalist lie that people are naturally greedy.

Greedy in the sense that you want more.  Not in a gluttonous fashion, but in a progressive one.  I think it's undeniable.

 

Quote:
Tribal societies act as a reductio against this claim.

I think any individual "tribesman" participates in the societal practices of his tribe because it's been culturally engrained into him that this leads to prosperity.  Of himself and his tribe, not just his tribe.  That is also to ignore that they are tribal people, and their system gives them exactly what it's been worth, illiteracy.

 

Quote:
Moreover, these societies function just fine.

If you completely ignore scale, sure.

 

Quote:
If someone fucks up and doesn't catch a hog one day, no big deal.  They still get feed.  There is a nice social net, with mutal cooperation.

Family and friends serve this function, not to mention the ability to actually stockpile resources in Capitalism.  You can't do that in tribal societies,  spoilage and decay, no technology no food preservation or sanitary technique, you're much more likely to contract a disease and live a short life in a tribal society.  The medicine man isn't really pulling anything out of your stomach, it's just fake blood and dead animal flesh.

Quote:
If someone doesn't do their fair share, well, they are black-balled.  Moreover, it isn't "dog-eat-dog."

 

Quote:
It is simply a capitalist lie that people are naturally greedy.

I guess they are at least greedy enough that they won't tolerate people who don't "do their fair share."  A lot of people like are in our welfare system now, calling hard working citizens "suckaz."

 

Quote:
lasse faire capitalism, right or wrong, is idealistic.  This is the poin that Cheezues doesn't get.  When I point out various things wrong with capitalism, Cheezues says "ah, but thats not how lasse faire capitalism works!"

Idealism is a beautiful thaaaang. 

Quote:
When put into practice, lasse faire capitalism morphs into something else...it evolves shall we say.

Quote:
To focus on the idealization, even after the implementation failed, is to be blinded by ideology; one is letting their politics cloud their judgement.

The counter point obviously, is that implementation of the ideal ends when the change occurs and whatever fails or begins failing later on down the road isn't the ideal.  Thus judging the outcome even though things in the experiment that weren't meant to be controls, changed and in doing so invalidated the experiment, means you're judgment is inaplicable and misdirected.

Compare it to a scientific experiment, we want to find the boiling point of liquid X.  We begin applying heat and time passes, as time passes we mix in some of liquid Y and it becomes a solution.  The boiling point of liquid X and liquid Y differs greatly.  So then when the liquid boils, we record the temperature and call it the boiling point of liquid X?

The answer is no.  The boiling point of Capitalism has been distilled with socialism and other forms of statism forever, countries based on explicit statism in it's purest forms have failed.  You don't know the boiling point of liquid X.

 

Quote:
Sounds good eh?

Even the ideal is bad, it doesn't even sound good ideally.  Working explicitly for the benefit of strangers does not provide anyone any emotional return.  The only outcome of such a society is stagnation.  Did you read the link I provided about the history of famine in statist countries?  Compare that to America's track record.

Quote:
What works "in theory" does not always work "in practice."

I'm not saying it "always" does, I'm saying Capitalism does/has in practice and in theory worked to create the most prosperous societies in existence.

There's actually a lot in Objectivism about the seperation between Theory and Practice, it's generally thought that if something fails in practice the theory is just as bad.  Capitalism 1) hasn't failed even in it's deluted form here in America and 2) Would only be More successful if stripped of it's baggage.  You're judging theory based on the tainted experiment.

 

Quote:
To deny the effects of a political theory by hiding behind the idealization nothing more than wishful thinking.

The theory was diluted, so it's effects were tainted.  I've been explaining to you how you misassociate cause and effect for 3 pages now.

 

Quote:
I bring up government controlled monopolies, and he says "ah!  But this is not how capitalism works...it contradicts the very notion of no government interference in business."

when you say "Capitalism allows for monopolies to take over everything" (paraphrasing)  and simultaneously bring up monopolies controlled by the government in a mixed economy what do you expect?

Fact 1) No monopolies have ever existed without the government's sanction.  No amount of redefining the term "monopoly" will allow you to escape that fact.

Fact 2) Using a Government controlled monopoly as evidence for the existence of monopolies in an ideal capitalist society isn't an accurate criticism.  The culprit you lay the blame on doesn't even exist in the scenario because "big government" is doing the dirty work that you would like to blame "capitalism" for.

Quote:
Correct, it contradicts the idealization.  We don't live in an idealization...so, sorry Cheezues.  This is why I gave up on him.  He wasn't seeing this.

You're the one confusing the two.  You use real world examples of "government controlled monopolies" to attempt to refute the philosophy behind "limited government" politics.

Yesterdays paradise is todays poverty.  By that I'm comparing ancient civilizations to current day.  Time progresses and people evolve, idealism provides the inspiration for working toward a long term goal.  America's founding father were the product of an idealistic era, the European Enlightenment and they clearly demonstrated the power of idealism, leading rag-tag rebels against the largest army in the world and winning because they believed in something and then creating the greatest nation to have ever existed up to that point.

Your criticism of "idealism" as such only shows me you've got a broken spirit and you've lost what I consider to be the great fire of being human.

 


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todangst wrote:

Quote:

The majority of earth scientists believe that the cause of global warming is not due to humans. So you can believe scientists, or Al Gore who has a political adjenda. Hard choice?

Can you cite a source?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_petition

Quote:
We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.

I think it's more important to point out that most scientists believe that it's not a closed case at this point, meaning all this fanaticism is a political left-wing and anti-capitalist agenda.

This is just the most current version of two previous documents, only this one is by far the largest.

The criticism of this document has been a symbol of how fierce and physical the global warming crazies are.  Some of the names on it are probably bullshit, but big numbers of people don't make good science, I think it's more reasonable to at least maintain a healthy skepticism until crysat 2 is launched in 2009 and we begin recieving data from it.  The criminalization of every day people for commiting "climate crimes" is garbage.


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todangst wrote: Sure. Such

todangst wrote:
Sure. Such as saving future generations of humanity from the ravages of global warming. You use the term 'political purposes' here as if all political purpose is inherently negative.

No, it just indicates the the motives might be not be pure.  Politicians are in the business of getting re-elected.  This means, using issues that appeal to their fan base.  Why do you think "abortion" gets brought up all the time?  Roe v. Wade is never going to get over-turned, but trumping this issue appeals to christians.

Even better, look at Karl Rove.  Rove is a man who basically (as far as I know) helped Bush appeal to the evangelical Christians, subsequently leading to his getting elected.  It turns out, he is an atheist.

Most politicians care about one thing: keeping their power.  The issues they support, may or may not have any credibility.  It is literally a coin-toss.  The truth of an issue, is irrelevant to most politicians.  What matters, is simply:  What opinion of this issue is likely to get me re-elected?  Truth is irrelevant. 

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cheezues wrote:todangst

cheezues wrote:
todangst wrote:

Quote:

The majority of earth scientists believe that the cause of global warming is not due to humans. So you can believe scientists, or Al Gore who has a political adjenda. Hard choice?

Can you cite a source?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_petition

Quote:
We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.

I think it's more important to point out that most scientists believe that it's not a closed case at this point, meaning all this fanaticism is a political left-wing and anti-capitalist agenda.

I actually think it's more important to represent the Oregon petition accurately. You've not cited anything that demonstrates that a majority of scientists reject the hypothesis that humans are a key cause of global warming.

Here's what follows what you cited from wiki:

The text of the petition is often misrepresented: for example, the petition's website states that "scientists declare that global warming is a lie with no scientific basis."[2] The two-paragraph petition used the terms catastrophic heating and disruption, not "global warming.


Quote:

The criticism of this document has been a symbol of how fierce and physical the global warming crazies are.

The petition is not about global warming per se, it was created in response to concerns regarding the Kyoto protocol and it dispells concerns about catastrophic heating in the forseeable future. What you have cited is not actually responsive to my challenge. 

Wiki has a specific page dedicated to discussing the views of scientists on global warming. I would think citing this would be more pertinent:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

 

The most recent survey taken:

Oreskes, 2004

A 2004 article by geologist and historian of science Naomi Oreskes summarized a study of the scientific literature on climate change.[7] The essay concluded that there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change. The author analyzed 928 abstracts of papers from refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, listed with the keywords "global climate change". Oreskes divided the abstracts into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. 75% of the abstracts were placed in the first three categories, thus either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, thus taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change; none of the abstracts disagreed with the consensus position, which the author found to be "remarkable". It was also pointed out, "authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate change is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point."

 

 

 

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Chaoslord2004 wrote:

todangst wrote:
Sure. Such as saving future generations of humanity from the ravages of global warming. You use the term 'political purposes' here as if all political purpose is inherently negative.

No, it just indicates the the motives might be not be pure.

What does it matter if the fellow offering to help you also has ulterior motives? Some political purposes, whatever their motives, lead to actions with beneficial outcomes.  If what you imply is true: that all politicians have ulterior motives, then a concern about ulterior motives appears moot. One should ignore them and simply focus on which political purposes potentially serve the greatest common good.

"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'


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 I preface this by saying

 I preface this by saying I apologise for my uncouth behavior before. 

 

cheezues wrote:
Tribes are tight knit, you recieve benefits from this kind of collective effort.  Societies as fast as the American society don't allow for the same return on an investment of the same type.  The failed welfare system is the easiest example, drug addicts do not deserve a free ride.  In a tribe though, these people depend explicitly without intermediaries upon one another for survival, it's not a comparable example to civilization.  The introduction of massive numbers invalidates the comparison between crime rates, poverty and mental illness.

The point, however, is that a sort of quasi-anarchism has been actualized.  Anarchism, in essence, is nothing more than large scale tribal societies.  The question is simply:  Will it succeed on the large scale?  No one knows...it hasn't been tested yet.  It may succeed, it may not, but it has yet to be tested.

moreover, it must be noted that tribalism is not to be confused with the pejoritive usage of "primitivism."  When I say tribalism, I am focusing on the structure of the society, not the details.  Ararchism, which Marx thought was the next step after socialism, is simply large scale tribalism.

I don't know if Anarchism will work, and neither do you.  To say either way would be to speculate.

 

cheezues wrote:
Greedy in the sense that you want more.  Not in a gluttonous fashion, but in a progressive one.  I think it's undeniable.

In this sense, perhaps.  I was refering to the accusition of material objects.  In your sense, all of us are greedy.  We all long for more of something.  I long to understand the world better...to have more sex, ect.  

 

cheezues wrote:
I think any individual "tribesman" participates in the societal practices of his tribe because it's been culturally engrained into him that this leads to prosperity.  Of himself and his tribe, not just his tribe.

this is obviously part of it.  However, as Stephen Pinker notes, we must not forget another part of human nature: genetics.

 

cheezues wrote:
That is also to ignore that they are tribal people, and their system gives them exactly what it's been worth, illiteracy.

Look beyond this superficialities.  Look at the structure.

 

cheezues wrote:
If you completely ignore scale, sure.

We don't know about the large scale, for it has never been tried.

 

cheezues wrote:
Family and friends serve this function, not to mention the ability to actually stockpile resources in Capitalism.  You can't do that in tribal societies,  spoilage and decay, no technology no food preservation or sanitary technique, you're much more likely to contract a disease and live a short life in a tribal society.  The medicine man isn't really pulling anything out of your stomach, it's just fake blood and dead animal flesh.

Once again, look beyond this.  Look at the structure of the society.

 

cheezues wrote:
I guess they are at least greedy enough that they won't tolerate people who don't "do their fair share."

Fair enough.

 

cheezues wrote:
The counter point obviously, is that implementation of the ideal ends when the change occurs and whatever fails or begins failing later on down the road isn't the ideal.  Thus judging the outcome even though things in the experiment that weren't meant to be controls, changed and in doing so invalidated the experiment, means you're judgment is inaplicable and misdirected.

The experiment was stopped because of the results.  Do you need to let the kitchen fire destroy the whole house to test whether fire is destructive?  No, you stop it once you realize the results.  The same is true with lasse faire capitalism.  It was implemented in America...for a brief time.  It was stopped when children were exploited.

 

cheezues wrote:
Working explicitly for the benefit of strangers does not provide anyone any emotional return.

Really?  Inform all who do altruistic acts of this.  I guess a mother working for the benefit of her child doesn't give her an emotional reward.  Why does she do it?  Beats me...

Why do people volunteer at homeless shelters?  Beats me.  Oh wait, not it doesn't.  Its because working for others DOES give people an emotional reward.

 

cheezues wrote:
a broken spirit and you've lost what I consider to be the great fire of being human.

Oh, pray tell.  What is this "great fire" you think I have lost? 

 

 

"In the high school halls, in the shopping malls, conform or be cast out" ~ Rush, from Subdivisions