Why Unregulated Capitalism Is Moral 3 - Ayn Rand Institute

[melskilove]

this guy sounds nice on paper but when man is at the helm become greedy and need to be checked if not the massive would become at the mercy of the few...

[TheDestroyerCrom]

@jrmsher33: pimp her out? Do you mean force her to be a prostitute? Of course not. That's slavery. If she wants to be a prostitute, then yes, she would be allowed to. But why do you even bring this up? It is very telling that the only arguments against capitalism are hypothetical, far-fetched apocalyptic scenarios where every one is a crack additced prostitute. The underlying implication is that most people are horrible people and they need threats of force to be kept in line.

[JP2times2007]

He says Buh-wak-wis-see instead of bureaucracy. Donkies can't pronounce R! Gweight duh-pwessun!

compare communist Poland to some latin american capitalist paradises after the 1950s

[deflep116]

@JP2times2007

Classy. What are you, 12?

[Pseudologic]

Regulation benefits all citizens, while lack of regulation benefits only the owner of the company affected. So I'll take regulation benefit for me VS a million dollar in someone else's pocket any day.

[jemremyc]

Is he supporting completely unregulated capitalism here, or the mixed economy we have now? He keeps on talking about modern technology, like cell phones, and somehow attributing them to unregulated capitalism, when clearly they were developed under the mixed economy we have now. I believe in the mixed economic system. Almost noone believes pure socialism will work. That's not what he needs to be arguing against. I wish he would address the mixed economic system more.

[Soupflakez]

The idea didn't create anything. Mixed economy-ism cannot create anything any more than unregulated capitalism. The individual mind creates things, and lassiez-faire capitalism gives the individual absolute freedom. Mixed-economy-ism is only a mixture of socialism and capitalism...a mixture of freedom vs. slavery...tell me which system gives people more incentive to go out and build their own business..or invent their new technology...ect.

[pr0gm3r]

how come he does not explain exploitation?

Worker exploitation?

[waterstrike08]

There is no worker exploitations. If there is then you can also say employer exploitations. workers want to get paid as much money as possible, and employers want to pay as least as possible. Wages are not dictated on the employer/worker. They are set by the market value of the labor.

If Employers offer wages too small they won't get workers and lose business, if they offer too much they'll go bankrupt. To put a min. wage would cause major unemployment or production loss; both kill economy.

[Bigturns33]

Correct and well said. This is what the one tract type socialist mind doesnt understand. This is why unions if they get to strong actually kill the production of industry's. Labor wages kill the production of the goods, less goods it also kills the consumer of the goods because less goods on an item that is needed then causes prices to go up. You do one of 2 things, have other wages go up in other industrys which then causes inflation. Or you let the market do its thing and set the prices

[pr0gm3r]

Henry Paulson is one of the elite American who work directly in secret with big corporations to produce more profits.

[9432bce6]

1. Goodness is an aspect of reality. It is objective and absolute. Only beings capable of conceptualization, reason, using logic, and of making a commitment to rationality can experience goodness or exert moral values.

[9432bce6]

2. Goodness occurs when a human being uses her ability to form concepts to reason using logic in a commitment to rationality to cognitively understand what she must value for the purpose of ascertaining how she can manipulate the environment to bring about a beneficial set of circumstances that will ensure the continuation and enhancement of her individual life. Animals cannot do those things. Consequently neither animals or their actions can be good or evil.

[9432bce6]

3. Neither goodness nor evil is an emotional state or feeling. Things in an of their instantiations apart from individual human beings are neither good nor evil. Only human beings can access the moral aspect of reality. Only human beings can be good and then only by living with a primary moral purpose of improving and furthering their own personal rational self-interest. Evil happens when a human being fails to recognize the good or to try to improve their own rational self-interest.

[Bigmartinno1]

Yawn. Heard it all before saw through it aged bout 14-15. Enough of this shit better things to do with my time. High on polemics low on substance and facts but that's about par for the course with ideologies involving conveniently disembowelled economics and political philosophy. Liberalism and ontological poverty.....

[NivoUF]

I'm from Poland, and this man is right about my country, but we still struggle with a government regulation programs and some post-communists thieves among us. Hope freedom will prevail one day.

[Bigturns33]

Yes the problem with Poland is that they are dealing and in around the Eruopean Union which is just that a Union. Its not free its regulated. This is clearly why Eruope is struggling ecomomically its literally socialist. It kills production. People dont understand this most espically in America and we are on our way as eruope soon.

[NivoUF]

That's why am afraid even more. Almost all previous century, USA was (for Poles and most of the middle-east Europeans) a sign of true freedom. Masses were running there from the tyranny of state, hoping that their skills and hard work may bring prosperity. And now, when socialist is running in White House, the symbol is fading away. Soon there will be no place on earth to defect to.

[Pseudologic]

That's why productivity in Europe is higher and people are happier.

[ZakeD3]

The so-cawed fwee mawket...

[NivoUF]

You chose the easiest way to attack the man, I don't think you will be so tough in a matter of true subject of this lecture.

[IlyZor]

Disgusting opinions. Work is the only thing that leads to wealth and production, not ownership. I can own, but if I don't make people work for me no wealth will be created. That kind of people get paid less than the values they produce. That's profit.

The free market has ruined the economies of the east and south, and now west too.

[IlyZor]

Of course, capitalism won't work without capitalists. But I'm no proponent of capitalism.

[a0eoj]

It would seem that unregulated capitalism allows greedy capitalists to exploit the resources that really should belong to everyone. Please correct me if I'm wrong; maybe I don't quite understand something.

[fomastephanovitch]

I would question you here on what you mean by ownership by everyone and what everyone owning something would imply. Would this mean that every person is a stakeholder in every commodity and natural resource? If this is what you think is the right thing to do then consider some of the problems administering them in such a manner presents.

I'm not an ethicist so I approach libertarianism from a utilitarian point of view - in every scenario I've encountered thus far capitalism has won hands down.

[Ultimafan]

I think that you probably are operating with a cartoonish vison of what a "greedy capitalist" is. If it is the Rockefellers, Carnagies and Morgans of the world, you would be correct in the assumption of greediness but remiss in acknowledging that everything they achieved was aided by government sanctioned monopolies. They were aggrandized and empowered by government lackey's that they controlled with their ever increasing power. A capitalist is the plumber who cleans your drain.

[a0eoj]

This guy talks as if a middle class is a good thing. Why must there be 'classes' at all? Why should one person be of a higher class than another? I guess we're all created equal, but unfortunately we're born into a 'class'.

[WilliamHellmuth]

What's good about a middle class is that it is exactly what every socialist in the world dreams about: wealth spread equally throughout an entire population.

The beauty of an unregulated free market, historically and theoretically, is that it is the only way to boost a nation's middle class. And it's done with zero government regulation. So you get more freedom, and more money. Everyone wins.

[a0eoj]

I'm probably more of a philosopher than an economist; it seems reasonable that a middle class would expand in an unregulated free market. Surely any capitalist, requiring a labor force, would seek to cultivate a working class. The problem I have with capitalism is there seems to be an inherent immorality when one person profits from the labor of others. Anyway, capitalism certainly wouldn't be as profitable if the exploitation of people and resouorces was regulated.

[fomastephanovitch]

We're not born into a class, the use of class terms now are based on the concept of merit ie. the means you're in possession of which are indicative of your ability. A free-marketeer would argue that if you removed coercion from society then money - which has instrumental and not intrinsic value - would actually reflect individual merit. Maybe ideally there should be no classes but if you take a consequentialist view of capitalism vs. egalitarianism, the former returns greater prosperity.

[ngonea]

Who are the hereos of capitialism?

The CIA & Military Industrial Complex stealing land and resources from the rest of the world and now using slave labor in Indonesia . India, Africa, China etc.

PNAC Statment: "We have 6.5% of the worlds pop. and control 50% of the world resources, in order for us to maintain this disparity, we can no longer afford to talk about raising the worlds living stds or human rights"

go read it for yourself

[Nac117]

No, those are not the heroes of capitalism. True heroes of capitalism don't infringe on other people's right to life outside of the realm of honest competition. These men are heroes of destruction and dictatorships, and these are also not people of business, but people of government, who got power not through free trade, nor through competition, nor their minds, but from the barrel of a gun.

And that idea, as it is described, is the opposite of capitalism.

[Psy500]

Actually Marx at the heart of his argument was economic, that capitalism has a tendency of over-production as mass production of reduces their exchange value while demand doesn't increase enough to compensate (as demand for a commodity is finite), while capitalists investing in production while production short term gains in the long run only makes production more costly as the gains to the capitalists is eroded as other competitors invest in their production.

[Psy500]

While protectionist argument is industrialization is impossible without government help as industries require large amount of capital and take years for them to pay for themselves while being a huge risk in the free-market.

They point to economic history showing the major industrial nations subsidized their industrialization and have much stronger economies then those that didn't subsidize their industrialization.

[picapauengracado]

That over-production / under-consumption, and all the rest of the incoherent babble sound more like Keynesian garbage to me. And forcing a lower time preference into people's throats because you think you can spent the resources better than themselves, speaks loudly of your character. Anyway, I'd like to hear your data, since history shows what used to be dumpsters like Hong Kong have developed into prosper economies with very little government.

[Psy500]

The economist Ha-Joon did go through economic data of the USA and Europe for the 1800's.

As for Hong Kong workers there are currently facing declines in living standards as Hong Kong is faced with shrinking rate of profits.

[picapauengracado]

You can always find all range of economic policies, but you have to look at it objectively, looking at how that would impact them (e.g. high tariffs between big countries with lots of resources is more a problem of division of labor, so it couldn't be a big deal then). Compare countries with different economic freedoms. eg: tinyurl(dot)com/5sbhk

With regard to Hong Kong, whatever trouble they may be going through, their insistence to peg their currency to the US Dollar has a lot to do with it...

[natdavi]

And that they're part of China now, instead of a near-independant protectorate of England

[guyusj]

It's amaing how this trend has continued since at least the Great Depression.

[PortfolioManager1987]

This is an excellent video. Observe that all so-called 'credible' arguments against capitalism today are moral, philosophical and not economic.

In the realm of political economy, there's no question that capitalism is not only the only practical economic system, but further demonstrated to be the only moral economic system for reasons of right to private property.

[jrmsher33]

@PortfolioManager1987 So I can pimp your 16 year old daughter out, right? Ayn Rand believed in legalizing prostitution and since government and economics are independent under your system it would be a crime to forbid me to. I'd pay her more than Walmart would pay their prostitutes. I would be living in a home I rented from Walmart since there are no monopoly laws so they'd probably kick me out of there because competition isn't in their best interest.

[RACISTASSHOLE]

@jrmsher33

No you can't pimp her out because the daughter is a minor. Once she turns 18 if prostitution was legal, pimp her out all you want.