If that were a fact, your premise would still be wrong because she did not support taxation, and she earned a great deal from book sales....t
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Friday, May 20, 2011
It Began With Ayn Rand
If that were a fact, your premise would still be wrong because she did not support taxation, and she earned a great deal from book sales....t
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Monday, May 09, 2011
A chaos of public administration in NZ
This article by the NZ Herald highlights in NZ how the government is bringing about the failure of state administration. Apart from the prospects of civil unrest, as we have seen in the Middle East, the public system is broke and needs to be dropped.
Of course this type of chaos is occurring in all of the democracies around the world; and understandably so. The US was the base currency which propelled them all to the same ultimate end....an inability to pay their bills.
The question is - will people blame capitalism; or will they recognise the primary role of government in precipitating this state of affairs. It is hard to blame government when you need a hand-out, and no one thinks to blame anyone when the economy 'looks good'. Well, not everyone. We have been blaming govt since we started blogging in 2005.
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Author
Andrew Sheldon
Saturday, May 07, 2011
Ron Paul - presidential candidate
It will be a very different type of America is Ron Paul gets elected. Those Conservatives might have to ask themselves why so many people feel inclined to use drugs given Bush's administration. Bush was of course was an alcoholic, so its apparent he could not even live with his own conscience, and yet he felt compelled to impose it upon a nation. Or was it just a lifestyle decision? He seems to make a big deal about it in his book.
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Author
Andrew Sheldon
Thursday, May 05, 2011
What is wrong with a meritocracy?
Notwithstanding my positive views of Ayn Rand, and the acknowledgement I make to the impact she has had on my life, there were some negatives, and she also displays her share of blunders. Among them are sweeping statements and dubious reasoning.
Someone referred me to her conception of 'meritocracy', offered at the Ayn Rand Institute:
“Meritocracy” is an old anti-concept and one of the most contemptible package deals. By means of nothing more than its last five letters, that word obliterates the difference between mind and force: it equates the men of ability with political rulers, and the power of their creative achievements with political power. There is no difference, the word suggests, between freedom and tyranny: an “aristocracy” is tyranny by a politically established elite, a “democracy” is tyranny by the majority—and when a government protects individual rights, the result is tyranny by talent or “merit” (and since “to merit” means “to deserve,” a free society is ruled by the tyranny of justice).
Philosophy: Who Needs It, pp.105; sourced from The Ayn Rand Lexicon.
The problem I have with this definition is that its too sweeping in its implications. There is a lot of truth in it. A majority of people having authority over the balance is even more threatening than an autocracy because it holds a sanction of being morally legitimate by virtue of embodying the majority. Who could reasonably hold that the majority is a proxy for the truth. I would take the opposite position, that the minority is more likely to comprise discerning thinkers.
Rand assumes that there is a need in a meritocracy to unconditionally sanction the views of some 'meritocrats'. I don't see this as necessarily entailed, and its occurrence will ultimately depend on the underlying theory of values. This of course Rand understood, since her theory of values was her greatest insight. So if meritocrats do not enjoy the unconditional sanction of others, we have a situation where people need to be convinced. This conditionality is a basis for a new respect or empathy for others; and when you have that, the conditions are reciprocated.
The smallest minority is of course the individual. That does not mean to say that any one person should dictate the affairs of others. It means that every individual should have the sovereign right to represent their own interests or assign or withdrawal a proxy at any time, and on any issue.
Rand assumes here that 'merit' is a standard of value merely by assuming it. This of course raises the question of who embodies rational values. The answer is: The person who can withstand critical review. The problem with the world is not that we cannot find the truth; the problem is that people can too easily shirk accountability. The consequence is a great many 'schools of thought', with no inclination among those schools to reconcile their ideas, nor any provision for them to differentiate them from the 'functional society' such that they can prove the practicality of their philosophy or values. The problem for a great many of these 'schools of thought', and the individualist philosophies like Rand's are the exception, is that they depend upon the sanctioning of victims, i.e. They need to extort advantages from people. i.e. Collectivists have to plunder the wealth of the rich in order to sustain themselves. Of course any school needs raw land at the least, and access to resources.
Clearly making your own society makes little sense. It would be a tremendous diseconomy for people to go off and do their own thing. And yet a great many people do exactly that. Western societies are increasingly confronting low workforce participation rates. Some of these people are wealthy and think they don't need to work. Some however are so pissed off by governments and the rest of our 'unthinking society', that they decide to go off into the wilderness and grow dope or raise vegetables. They embrace the 'simple life'. Some of them just immigrate to a simpler place like NZ, others shack up with some girl in Thailand or the Philippines and life off investment income. There are many Westerners doing this. I stumble upon them all the time. Society does not talk about these people. Most of them are men, but then women can always find respite by depending on women. That is not so easy for men to justify, or women to accept.
I know a lawyer who did that. He was running a successful business, and he got into drugs, and gave the business to his son. He went off to live in an isolated area of Australia. He came back decades later saying sorry to his children, and regretting his decision. The reality however is that he came back with no greater mental clarity. He was engaging in escapism, as these 'schools of thought' are prone to do. I understood his disdain for his society, but unlike him, I retained a respect for facts, and I sought intellectual coherence and correspondence of facts. It has taken me a long time, but it was not time wasted. It was a source of pride 'in discovery' as well as efficacy, knowing that I could out-debate all takers. The next stage of course is to educate and achieve some practical effect. This is not easy. How do you convince people who are convinced that there is no answer, and that humanity is this way by nature. They don't need to talk to me. They have discounted humanity, so their conception of the 'reasonable', whilst more tragic than mine, serves them...as long as humanity continues to disappoint them.
This leaves little respect for objectivity. Some even proclaim to embody it, but they don't have a causative or intellectual framework for thinking...just a rough correlation between their values and their experience. They don't need causation; they each have their support group of vested interests. This support group is pitted against counterparts of course in our democratic society, and each remains entrenched in conflict, attempting to extort some concession through alliances; not underpin by reasons, but 'numbers'. This does not work intellectually of course, but extortion does achieve 'practical' concrete goals.. Little surprise that people start to find NOT thinking very practical. Whether they are pragmatic, or even evasive/repressed: two things happen:
1. People lose respect for facts - they become sceptical
2. People lose respect for people - they become morally relativists - they start to think humanity is screwed up by nature, they start to dismiss the significance or importance of any one individual, and they start to think that the only way to change the world is by forcing policy down people's throats. So we get police officers saying 'if you don't want a fine, then stop breaking the law'. "You will learn one day!". This is nonsense. The law does not teach anything but obedience, and unless we are prepared to move towards fascism, then this is not the way to go. The reality is that its the police and politicians who don't need to think because either party is accountable. The police protect each other. If they are caught for something, they are simply dismissed, but more commonly given the opportunity to resign.
Its the same for politicians. If the electorate cannot 'tolerate' some indiscretion, they will be given the opportunity to resign, and will probably avoid investigation, so they can keep their lifetime pension. Standards are already pretty low. Politicians right around the globe have been engaged in corruption scandals, from the US, UK, Australia, NZ, Japan, India, the Philippines. What makes it possible is - the governments unconditional right to your money (i.e. taxation). This is why you should simply stop paying tax. Withdrawal your sanction for poor administration and declare this a 'failed state'. All democracies are failed states.
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Author
Andrew Sheldon
Wednesday, May 04, 2011
Syrian military crack down on protesters
There is a massive crackdown occurring in Southern Syria at the moment. It makes one think that the UN Security Council ought to intervene in this country to prevent human rights abuses. There are a number of problems of course:
1. Control of the skies is not going to do much
2. Syria is strongly supported by Iran
3. Support would need to include military arms or a ground force, and I don't see that.
What is the solution to this problem? I think the US needs a biodegradable armaments. i.e. A gun which degrades after 2 years of use. The problem of course is that the Middle East needs to develop a respect for human rights. They are too ready to tolerate autocrats. They need to develop some fighting skills and dig in. You'd think the US could offer some training in Israel. This only works however if:
1. The US offers training in ethics as well - and its a big bridge to cross
2. The US has a consistent foreign policy - seemingly impossible given their moral ambivalence. Just look at their track record in the Middle East.
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Author
Andrew Sheldon
Monday, May 02, 2011
Japanese corruption - worst in the OECD?
When one has the opportunity to live in different countries or merely takes the time to read the political news in different countries, one soon realises that its corruption is not isolated to one's country. It is essentially universal that politicians under democracy are corrupt. I would expect no less under any form of tyranny because, like democracy, they are not relationships based upon respect. The question then is:
1. Why do people tolerate it? Why are they not out in the streets?
2. Why are people not mailing this blog to their friends?
3. Why are people not looking for another way? A different philosophy?
4. Why does it feel like I am the only one?
This blog post is from a Japanese reporter who covers the Japanese political system. The Japanese parliament is arguably one of the dirtiest in the OECD. Of course third world dictators are far more brazen in their corruption.
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Author
Andrew Sheldon
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Extended smear campaign against Rand
I pride myself on being the best critique there is. If I am going to maintain this mantel then I have to demonstrate as much by critiquing the critiquers, who critised the critiquers who criticised Rand, who seemingly everyone loves to hate. Well, someone must be buying her books!
So how does one critique people effectively? Well, what I do is read completely through their commentary and pick out all the arguments that are baseless or inherently contradictory. Here is the YouTube video I will be critiquing:
1. "During hard time people consider more extreme philosophies"
This is a smear job. Extremism is an arbitrary notion. In what sense is principled philosophy any less legitimate than a philosophy based on a compromise between two extremes. If the 'extremes' are wrong, then so is any derivative of them. There is nothing wrong with absolutes per se; it ultimately depends on whether they are consonant with your nature as a human being. For example, we don't drink poison because it is 'extreme', we drink it in moderation (i.e. alcohol) because its benefits are considered to outweigh the effects. The notion of extremism is really an appeal to moral relativism. i.e. An evasion of principles.
2. "Rand wrote about an out-of-control government siphoning the profits of the rich in her book Atlas Shrugged".
Anyone who has honesty read Atlas Shrugged can tell you this is an under-representation of the book. Its not as simple as that, and really is an extension of the commentators intellectual bias, even if the state is not inherently false. He implies that people are desperate by reading this book....as if this was solely a book for comic value, or discredit it by asserting that Americans are so desperate that will accept any argument. This is all intended to discourage you from reading Rand's books.
3. Some critic of Rand went to university and studied philosophy, who now repudiates Rand and her philosophy of self-interest.
It means nothing that he read Rand. I read Rand and meet plenty of supporters and disparagers who wrongly accept or repudiate her. Not everyone gets it. Most people get some of it. Some people like myself, end up developing our own variant on her themes. Such is the nature of philosophical inquiry. Aristotle called it the Fallacy of Appeal to Authority.
4. The author of this video has written a paper critical of Rand at www.tinyurl.com/RandPaper.
This paper is not particularly insightful. quote:
"Of course, when dealing with philosophy, to attack a theory it is not enough to merely show that a certain action may cause large numbers of deaths".
He first accuses Rand of failing to account for the millions who would die if welfare was abolished as she would like. This is not valid because she never dealt with how such matters would be dealt with, though it's logical to assume that she would not advocate pulling the metaphysical rug from under the feat of people. I would however argue that she did not make a virtue of empathy, though it is implicit in her books. I do think there is a flaw here, which both people did not grasp.
He also states that most Americans would prefer a system which skirts the excesses by helping the poor. This is not the standard of value - 'most Americans think', because most Americans might listen to people like this critic who don't understand economics. The 'excesses', which he speaks of, which Rand wrote of 50 years ago, are here again. Protracted recession because of 'quantitative easing'. Then he 'appeals to authority' again by citing Steve Pearlstein.
The idea that: 'We can moderate the ups and downs' is nonsense. The governments use their arbitrary laws to create excesses. If you remove their capacity to create excesses, then there is no need for stimulus because there is no excess debt.
He then suggests this safety net is worth it because 'you give up a tidy bit of GDP growth'. He cites this falsely as a Conservative argument....when it hardly sits as everyone's arguments, so its a case of shooting down straw men. Rand was not a Conservative. The argument is flawed because the cost of government intervention is VERY HIGH. Not just a 'little GDP', it's huge. Consider China, which does not have the West's minimum wages, which has a structural distortion created by leaving communist (yes the same coercive powers these gentlemen want to embrace - just a different variant - so not to scare you, but same in principle, and same principle as Hitler). If poorly regulated China with scant regard for rights can grow at 10% per annum; how fast could the US grow if it did not have the same restrictions. I think 16% because that is the average growth rate of most business; and if government functioned as a business we might expect such a rate. Personally, I differ from Rand, so I would argue that the West ought to be a meritocracy, not a democracy. By not having a centralised economy ought to result in additional growth. Central decision making might affect 20% of what you do, so we might be looking at up to 20% faster growth.
Worried about the environment? Using up oil reserves faster would actually prompt more innovation, so there would be a technology boom to reduce energy consumption. At present government softens growth, so oil prices are relatively flat...until they artificially stimulate the economy. He argues in support of welfare that:
"There is nothing communist about preferring mixed capitalism to pure capitalism".
The problem is that people clearly give preference to altruism as a virtue when they support the needs of others. Why? Because they don't invite people to make discretionary donations to support others; they use their coercive powers to force people to give. If people are not interested or cynical about the benefits, then proponents of welfare will soon be praising the virtues of atruism, which does lead to 100% collectivism. Why? Well, the reason is evident enough today. Collectivists don't understand, and supported by the state, they lobby government for ever-more concessions because they argue need is caused by capitalism, when its in fact causes by collectivism. So the arguments change accordingly:
1. Small govt - people would prefer some security so we should have some welfare
2. Medium govt - capitalism is hurting people so we need to praise the virtues of altruism to guilt people into welfare, or we need to raise taxes. At this point, capitalism is, far from being the source of wealth, it is identified as the cause of suffering.
3. Big govt - We need complete socialism or fascism because capitalism does not work. In truth, we never had pure capitalism, and anything we had was guttered by altruism.
In conclusion, you are not 'self-absorbed' to support capitalism (at least not necessarily), it is just that it's the only system compatible with human nature. The problem is not markets, it's the values of the people who participate in the market. Clearly the efficiency and outcomes in the market can only be as good as the values of the people who participate in it, whether as consumers, regulators or producers. Personally, I have yet to meet anyone who is not 'self-absorbed', and I would hope that everyone is honest enough to admit it. If collectivists were honest, rather than argue the capitalists are greedy materialists, it would be helpful that most of them only want money. Some want jobs; but far from being a question of equity, that strikes one as a question of dependence, and people are two proud to concede that. It's difficult to have contempt for the people you depend on. This never stopped the collectivist. No one ever got rich stealing from the poor. The wealthy are creators - the dependents rely on extortion. But the critiques do not want to consider the morality of the issue. They want to focus on the 'practicality' or 'perceptions' of fairness. The reality is that collectivist is not practical, and it's the reason why Western economies stumble along at 2-4% - they are constrained by excessive statutory regulation, democratic PC, under-funded justice, centralised bureaucracy and of course minimum wages and intervention on monetary policy.
The final smear is that pure capitalism has never existed, so it never should. A very anti-intellectual thing to say. Clearly they would never have got us to the moon. The final statement that the justification for "placing yourself first for economic efficiency" is not a accurate representation of Rand. Certainly she acknowledged and lauded the economic efficiency of capitalism, but it was not the justification. It's compatibility with human nature as the primary issue.
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Author
Andrew Sheldon
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