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[Capntastic]

Players at home can apply the above lines of thought to figure out how Objectivism/Libertarianism would take care of important things like global warming, the homeless, endangered species, etc.    Or orphaned children.

An interesting point, is that Murray Rothbard, Arch-Libertarian, and founder of a lot of the ideology within the Austrian school of thought, feels that the free market will take care of orphans because people that want kids will just adopt them without any sort of other incentive.  History has not borne this out.  The modern era has not borne this out.  The Austrian school of economics denies empirical evidence, of course, so that "this hasn't worked in the past, it won't work in the future" becomes false because "it wasn't libertarian enough!!".  Even societies like Somalia or Pinochet's Chile or similar entirely bootstrap freemarkets are simply too constricted by regulation and impositions on freedom to function like true ideal pure magical dreamworld free market.

Rothbard has a lot to say about children and libertarian rights.  Parents can't outright kill their children, but they shouldn't be forced to feed, educate, clothe, or interact with them in any ways.  He argues that such things simply should not be enforced, and that, yes, those children should be allowed to be seriously damaged or outright let to die.  This is different than simply killing them because of philosophical semantics.  He admits that to harm or let a child die in such a way would be ethically bad, but it isn't for someone to judge.  It's moral relativism, despite being based in so called 'objective' thought.

Edit:  So as to not triple post: 

I think this thread could use some stronger term definitions, since in any philosophical discussion, meanings can be skewed based on colloquially usages, etc.

For Example:  I am a philosophical objectivist of the original, 19th century definition, in that I believe in objective truth and objective ethics.  Ayn Rand's 'Objectivism' really has nothing to do with this, beyond a few baseline platitudes of "A=A" and "there are right actions and wrong ones", etc.  It does not follow that believing in those things would intrinsically lead to beliefs that one is not required to help another, even against their own will, or similar.  If anything, a true objectivist would see that there are many routes to workable outcomes.  There is no single right answer to, say, create a working government, or even on a smaller scale, there is no one true correct way to tie your shoes.  There are objective facts about different shoelacing methods that would each have their own distinct qualities that could be sorted into pros and cons, and depending on different values, a 'best' method might be derived.  To say that Ayn Rand's Objectivism leads, through superlogic, to the one true path to economic and ethical purity, is absurd.

Full disclosure:  I've spent almost the entirety of the year, in my spare time, cataloging arguments against libertarianism and Randian objectivism.  In this time I've come to empathize deeply with those who believe in it all, solely because I can see exactly why it would be appealing to think the world is a true meritocracy, or similar.  But at the same time, I've seen many people who willfully deny plentiful evidence, cast aside history, and want to cut the hard fought safety nets many governments provide to let the 'undeserving' die just to roll the dice one more time. 

[Neonivek]

Well ignoring everything else

The concept of being Objective falls under the assumption that there is an objective truth out there

Trying to be Objective is taking an objective truth, filtering it through subjective senses, and making sense of it through our subjective minds.

Thus the ultimate goal of objectivity, I don't know what Objectivism is, is for the difference between the objective truth and subjective one to approach zero.

[Reelya]

That's not really correct, Objectivism and Objectivity of thought aren't really the same thing.

Pre-Randian Philosophical Objectivism is the basic idea that reality is an external thing that will keep existing if you look away or die. The opposite of this is Solipsism, the idea that YOU are the only thing sure to exist, and reality could be just a dream you are having. Objectivism allows you to rationalize that if you leave a room, the things in the room will still exist when you come back. Non-Objectivism would imply that it's possible that things could cease existing, or randomly come into existence or change form without any logic.

"Things exist without me thinking about them" is Philosophical Objectivism. Most philosophies have tacit acceptance of this basic Objectivism. It makes no claims on "truths" which are a logical construct, not a physical construct.

Objectivity on the other hand is about the concious mind absorbing information and analyzing it in a non-biased way. Philosophical Objectivism makes no such claims about how people process external information.

Randian Objectivism fails the test of Objectivity because she claimed that certain things are morally superior, which of course is a subjective judgement. Think about eating animals. Rand thought it should be unregulated because Humans like eating the animals, so it "objectively" maximizes freedom. But consider it from the animal's point of view. Saying "human freedom matters, animal freedom doesn't" isn't an objectively provable point of view.

[Leafsnail]

An interesting point, is that Murray Rothbard, Arch-Libertarian, and founder of a lot of the ideology within the Austrian school of thought, feels that the free market will take care of orphans because people that want kids will just adopt them without any sort of other incentive.  History has not borne this out.  The modern era has not borne this out.  The Austrian school of economics denies empirical evidence, of course, so that "this hasn't worked in the past, it won't work in the future" becomes false because "it wasn't libertarian enough!!".

Hey now, be fair.  if you were allowed to force your adopted orphans to work in your sweatshop I'm sure we'd have a lot more people willing to adopt.

[Montague]

Historically, government environmental regulatory bodies have never been particularly effective. It is still the firm's responsibility, the FDA can't be everywhere. Rand didn't exactly object to pollution laws either, she thought of them as apolitical, like air space regulations, but thought they should not be aimed at scapegoats or demand the impossible or shut down industries, industries being required to preserve human life and shutting them down causing more harm then good. An anti-industrial revolution, in her words.

As for global warming, the homeless, endangered species, or orphaned children, there are very few decent solutions for any of these anyways. Rand could care less about the homeless, she believed in individual responsibility after all. Who's fault is it that there is a bum sleeping on the sidewalk? Is this a real problem? Should the homeless be treated any differently then any other citizen? Given special rights or subject to special punishments? Charities take care of such things if people want to volunteer their time money on them, she believes there is no moral justification to officially take money from productive people and give it to people who refuse to work. It's not the government's job.

Naturally, she blamed organized labor and things like minimum wage laws for unemployment. Gov't meddling with economic matters is the cause of such problems in the first place.

[Reelya]

"Homeless" = "People who refuse to work"? It's that sort of simplistic bullshit that makes sensible people not listen to Objectivists or Libertarians, and regard them as cranks instead. Refusal to deal with actual evidence as opposed to simplistic fantasies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness#Twenty-first_century

In 2002, research showed that children and families were the largest growing segment of the homeless population in the United States, and this has presented new challenges, especially in services, to agencies.

All those lazy homeless children who refuse to work.

Mental disorder, where mental health services are unavailable or difficult to access. A United States Federal survey done in 2005 indicated that at least one-third of homeless men and women have serious psychiatric disorders or problems

Who hires the clinically insane? And you can't really expect seriously insane people to start a business.

===

BTW if you removed minimum wage, you would NOT help homelessness. A lot of full-time working people in America are already struggling to pay rent right now. Dropping minimum wage would increase the pool of those who work, but still can't afford a place to live. Nobodies talking about dropping "minimum rent". The same people who decry minimum wage also want an end to rent control and affordable housing initiatives.

[Montague]

"Homeless" = "People who refuse to work"? It's that sort of simplistic bullshit that makes sensible people not listen to Objectivists or Libertarians, and regard them as cranks instead. Refusal to deal with actual evidence as opposed to simplistic fantasies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness#Twenty-first_century

In 2002, research showed that children and families were the largest growing segment of the homeless population in the United States, and this has presented new challenges, especially in services, to agencies.

All those lazy homeless children who refuse to work.

It's a growing segment because the breadwinners of the family were put out of work for so long. Children rely on other people to work for them and if they become homeless, so do they. I don't think anybody is saying kids need to work or be put out on the street. Anyways, it's not like any leftist or gov't solution to the problem ever worked either. Some are homeless out of choice, if they really cared so much about living on the gov't dime for 3 hots and a cot, they could always go live in a prison, right?

[Eagleon]

Mental disorder, where mental health services are unavailable or difficult to access. A United States Federal survey done in 2005 indicated that at least one-third of homeless men and women have serious psychiatric disorders or problems

Who hires the clinically insane? And you can't really expect seriously insane people to start a business.

Serious psychiatric disorders/problems does not necessarily and usually does not mean frothing at the mouth sociopath. Just saying.

[Reelya]

@montague: So you're saying the breadwinners who have been put out of work during the recession are the "lazy" ones now? Because a minute ago you were saying homelessness is 100% out of laziness. Now you're saying "unless you're a helpless dependent on someone 'put' out of work". That's already eating into the laziness argument.

Dude you say no government solution "ever worked", what about the millions of mouths fed with school lunch programs and food stamps (almost all of which goes to families). Think of the millions extra children with malnutrition and lower literacy (because you don't learn so much on an empty stomach). It's easy to say "nothings ever worked" and ignore all the evidence of programs which make a real difference in people's lives.

@Eagleon: you don't have to be very insane for it to torpedo your job prospects. Think of someone with Aspberger's who's not also a math genius. Not all aspberger's sufferers have "savant" level skills. Doesn't sound like a good hire does it?

[Eagleon]

@Eagleon: you don't have to be very insane for it to torpedo your job prospects. Think of someone with Aspberger's who's not also a math genius. Doesn't sound like a good hire does it?

That post was a little reactionary, my bad. You should know that 'insane' is a very strong word when you've been there. It has certain very close connotations to 'evil' or 'criminal', and definitely implies 'untreatable'. I had to drop out of college because of problems with emerging bipolar, and I only barely avoided jailtime when I finally snapped on my father afterwards. I like to think I'm a pretty good person.

[Montague]

@montague: So you're saying the breadwinners who have been put out of work during the recession are the "lazy" ones now? Because a minute ago you were saying homelessness is 100% out of laziness. Now you're saying "unless you're a helpless dependent on someone 'put' out of work".

Dude you say no government solution "ever worked", what about the millions of mouths fed with school lunch programs and food stamps. Think of the millions extra children with malnutrition and lower literacy (because you don't learn so much on an empty stomach). It's easy to say "nothings ever worked" and ignore all the evidence of programs which make a real difference in people's lives.

I never I said that unemployment is 100% due to laziness. I said Objectivism says it's immoral to force people to give their money away to people that didn't work for it, or refuse to work for it. As for homeless children, they are still the responsibility of their parents. Would you rather have the gov't forcibly take them away? Put them in a camp or something?

Personally, food stamps and school lunches are good ideas that pay for themselves, same way with compulsory education. Rand disagreed with these things, but the reason 1st world countries are as productive as they are is because they have comparatively educated, healthy people. I think a lot of these no-government types fail to realize that society would probably end up with a malnourished, illiterate peasant underclass without these government programs and that would not be in the best interests for anybody else.

But yes, Rand would put the blame for homeless people directly on the homeless person themselves, kids being the responsibility of their parent. Your fault, no excuses. A lot of homeless have psychological problems, so obviously wouldn't work out so great in a job, so they really have nowhere else to be anyways. Some people are homeless out of choice even. So even then, it's nobody else's responsible for making them homeless, it's not their problem to feed and clothe them either.

[Reelya]

Well homelessness actually does cause or exacerbate a lot of problems, e.g:

- crime problems, rising costs of crime prevention, it's an interpersonal problem, and just arresting homeless after the crime is more expensive and less effective than prevention

- a criminal underclass of homeless people, kids born as "street kids"

- disease problems. You can say "joe on the corner getting tuberculosis isn't my problem. it was his choice." But it'll soon spread.

In Switzerland in the 1990's they implemented a heroin control program which gave controlled-amounts of the drug to long-term addicts (about 30,000 of them) who were all homeless and unemployed, and provided counseling. Totally wasteful spending of other peoples money, right?

They now all have houses, most have a job, property crime fell by 40%, it put the heroin trade in Switzerland virtually out of business, and the Swiss government estimates the saved $7 on various other costs for each $1 they actually spent. Never would have happened if they followed Randland logic.

===

Letting the law of the jungle determine who ends up homeless, and only using government / police powers to exclude non-propertied people, is already a biased towards those who own property and against those who don't. Everyone pays taxes through various means, sales tax, income tax, etc, but those who own property under the Randian system receive almost all the "protection".

If you want full fairness then only property taxes should be used to pay to protect property. But those people tend to say they shouldn't pay taxes for something they own, but expect the entire legal system to be centred on protecting their rights, and only their rights. They expect their rights to be enforced by the government for free.

[Leafsnail]

I find it odd how a philosophy supposedly based on objective principles has to keep going back to the subjective and vaguely defined "fairness" to defend its outcomes.

[kaijyuu]

One thing about the "wasteful" thing:

We live in a consumerist society. To keep everyone alive and relatively happy, only a tiny fraction of people would actually have to work. We've an excess of food, an excess of housing, lots and lots of excess. So then, if we don't have all the "useless" employment, how is everyone going to gain the capital necessary to survive in a capitalist society? There are less "useful" jobs than people.

Nowadays we solve it by making useless crap. I've got a bunch of novelty mugs on my desk, given to me by people as gifts. I don't really care for them. Is this sort of junk better than the junk the Soviets made? Yes, because they're not weapons, but it's pretty much equally useless employment. We're making tacky luxuries, and forcing people to make them just so they can survive.

So then, if we have so much excess, why not hand it out? Let people sit and be painters or whatever, giving them their necessities for free, and those who want extra luxuries can work for them by doing the actually "useful" employment.

[Eagleon]

One thing about the "wasteful" thing:

We live in a consumerist society. To keep everyone alive and relatively happy, only a tiny fraction of people would actually have to work. We've an excess of food, an excess of housing, lots and lots of excess. So then, if we don't have all the "useless" employment, how is everyone going to gain the capital necessary to survive in a capitalist society? There are less "useful" jobs than people.

Nowadays we solve it by making useless crap. I've got a bunch of novelty mugs on my desk, given to me by people as gifts. I don't really care for them. Is this sort of junk better than the junk the Soviets made? Yes, because they're not weapons, but it's pretty much equally useless employment. We're making tacky luxuries, and forcing people to make them just so they can survive.

So then, if we have so much excess, why not hand it out? Let people sit and be painters or whatever, giving them their necessities for free, and those who want extra luxuries can work for them by doing the actually "useful" employment.

Because there will always be salesmen. People intent on convincing you that your greeting card, or thirtieth coffee mug, or throw pillow, taco, bottled water, etc etc is what you need to improve your life and be successful. Pretty much the only way to get rid of salesmen is to make what they're selling free, because there's also always going to be gullible, unhappy people. The closest we can possibly come is complete personal manufacturing, which would just shift the onus onto materials supply companies to push their plastic harder and cheaper than their competitors.