Remember, Rand and Mises were very good friends and respected each other. Rand believed that businessmen build for there own self esteem. There action is based on there values. Not the values of others. This is what I believe she means here. Meaning its not at the base of things creating a product because the consumer likes it. This is the difference. Rand is arguing a individuals values and ethic.
Hank Reardon was "serving" the consumer by making a product cheaper, stronger, and lighter than steal. But the important part had everything to do with his idea of why he produced it. He was not forced to make the product, nor anyone to buy it. Compared to the villains who served public opinion, which was governed by non other than the villains who would use force. It's good for businessmen to esteem themselves over the consumer, lest they sacrifice their own values for false superficial gains.
Rand was a differnent type of intellectual than Mises. Instead of the praxealogy behind Ludwig's analisys of Capitalism and the Free Market, Ayn says basicly the same thing in paperback noval style. Add to that, Ms Rand was a bit more steeped in whole Objectivist theory than Mises was. I can see how Ayn could be missing Ludwig's point. He is somewhat slow and dileberate, while Ms Rand struck me as being rather lacking in patience.
For someone who emphasizes the specific meaning of words Rand do seem to have some trouble paying attention to words. "In his capacity as a businessman" is kinda of important part of Mises statement. The entrepreneur does not have serve everyone, but he have to serve those he chooses to do business (where he chooses to act in his businessman capacity) with or they will go elsewhere...
@EscapingLeviathan Yeah I don't know how she can disagree with this. Making your products or services attractive to consumers is the only way to get them to buy them, who could dispute that?
Good video thanks for sharing your thoughts. One quick comment in defense of Rand: In "The Virtue of Selfishness," there is a chapter (I believe it's actually written by Nathaniel Brandon and not Rand, but I'm not positive) called "Isn't everyone selfish?" in which she addresses and makes a rebuttal to the type of selfishness that Mises was talking about, differentiating it from her definition of selfishness. Rand is one to sometimes use misleading language and this is one of those cases. Thanks
I have never liked rand because I always felt she tried to portray altruism as un-human while Mises shows that altruism is in a way being selfish. I like Mises' definition of Selfishness. Advances in evolutionary biology have shown us that humans are inherently altruistic and the survival of the fittest is a wrong interpretation of evolution. While I'm a libertarian and pro free-market, i think free markets is not about establishing inequality, it is about serving one another in a better way!
YOU'RE NOT UNDERSTANDING RAND'S COMMENTS....SHE'S SAYING THERE IS AN INTERPLAY OBVIOUSLY, IF YOU'RE AN ARTIST YOU DICTATE THE TRANSACTION, IF YOU'RE A SCHLUB THE CONSUMER DOES...AYN WAS INTO POWERFUL WINNERS...SO YOU'RE JUST NOT UNDERSTANDING WHERE SHE'S COMING FROM...THAT SAID, I'M NOT INTO CELEBRITY WORSHIP OF EITHER OF THESE TWO...MISES WAS A FOLLOWER OF MENGER...AYN WAS MORE INDEPENDENT AS I UNDERSTAND IT....THEY BOTHE MADE CONTRIBUTIONS AND THEY BOTH HAD THEIR LIMITATIONS
To be honest, what I know of Rand, which is quite a bit, I don't see her disagreeing with Mises here. I think you have to take these notes with a grain of salt. It could just be her jotting down her ideas to further look into them and evaluate them later. Frankly, if they were never published, and they were spoken by her in an interview or with friends and what not, then I find it really difficult to condemn a person's thinking. In a way, those notes are just thoughts she had in that moment.
I like your train of thought I am a Mises fangirl myself and a devotee of Rand. You should look into Isabel Paterson as well if you haven't already. I think her relationship to Mises was best illustrated in the fountainhead between Roark and waynand. Roark was like Rand who insisted that the mountain come to him. Waynand while still an honorable business man the end always justified the means. He gave them the banner even though he himself thought it contemptable. She probably put a lot of Mise
Rand was good friends with Mises. She respected him very well and he respected her. Rand loved that he was almost a lone wolf in europe and loved his story of a shining light for Capitalism in Europe.
I have to say that this is a bit stupid. These margin notes were, as you yourself pointed out, not meant for publication, but were notes for Rand herself highlighting thoughts she had on certain parts of certain books. Generally when we're making notes for ourselves you don't write a full treatise on the subject every time to fully explain your thoughts.
An actual refutation would require that you read her actual texts on the subjects, not just a marginal note in a book.
If it takes you 10 hours to paint a shitty picture, it is still a shitty picture. Just because you feel it increases the price to $100, doesn't mean people are going to buy it. You are shit out of luck either way...
YOU STUPID CAPITALIST PIGS. YOU MIGHT TRY TO FIGHT THE REVOLUTION, BUT THE COMMUNISTS WILL WIN. VIVA LA REVOLUTION! VIVA CHE GUEVARA! VIVA LENIN! DOWN WITH CAPITALISM! DOWN WITH THE USA! DOWN WITH NATO! DOWN WITH AYN RAND! DOWN WITH MISES AND HIS LUNATIC FOLLOWERS! VICTORY TO THE REVOLUTION! VICTORY TO COMMUNISM! VICTORY TO THE OCCUPANTS OF WALL STREET! VICTORY TO DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM! DOWN WITH ISRAEL! DOWN WITH BUSH! DON'T FIGHT WHAT YOU KNOW YOU WILL WIN! REVOLUTION!
Also... the only real defense of freedom and capitalism is a moral one.... altruist philosophy has always defeated efficacy or fuctionality arguments, and always will. Rand saw this, and identified the MORAL defense of capitalism.
@nathanreinhardt "altruist philosophy has always defeated efficacy or fuctionality arguments"
Going by your other comment, the fact that you have ReasonTV as a friend, and "Liked" several videos about Ron Paul, I'm going to assume you have no qualms with Ayn Rand or Capitalism.
Which makes me curious. What do you mean by "efficiency" and "functionality"? I can see how a Dictatorship can be more "efficient" than a Democracy or a Republic... even if the results aren't desirable.
@JMG9519 You are never getting more for less, it is almost always the other way around. The private sector is more efficient than the federal government, or any government for that matter, because it has to be by design. They always have a limited amount of capital, and receive their revenues voluntarily..
@JMG9519 What I mean is, capitalism is moral, and deserves a moral defense. The ship has sailed on which system produces the best results. Everyone already knows capitalism works the best. But they don't care what *works* the best, if they are convinced that it is immoral(if they're convinced of altruism). That is why you see capitalism eroding and giving way to socialism. It has been since the creation of the U.S.
@nathanreinhardt Yea, there are always two avenues to pursue this. The constitutionally moral side, and the practical side. Both win, but for arguments sake everyone always sticks to the practical side of the argument "what works better".
re: selfishness. Rand just realizes that even if people think they're acting selfishly, they can be wrong, because of bad philosophy(altruist philosophy). They have different definitions of the word selfish. Rand is concerned with what is ACTUALLY selfish, while Mises was talking about INTENTION. Rand is right -- just because you have the intention to be selfish, doesn't mean you ARE being selfish. Or at least not "rationally selfish," which is the only real / true selfishness.
the very title of this video is erroneous. Rand and Mises were ardent proponents of laissez-faire. The only difference between them is that Rand built her defense on the foundation of morality, whereas Mises constructed his defense of capitalism on its ultimately superior functionality i.e, no other system could solve the coordination problem: signaling consumer desires and preferences and communicating them so as to allocate capital where it most efficiently meets these desires/demands.
I don't think Rand was suggesting that the businessman doesn't ultimately do a service for the consumer, she believes that capitalism is moral and right. But Rand takes these ideas to the extreme and therefore a man looking to run a business should not set out to serve people, that his main goal is the perfection of his craft and that if that is your goal you will, even if inadvertently serve your clients better than your competitors. What was hard for her to stomach was the wording and i getit
Rand obviously changed her mind later on. If you look through some videos of her, you will see that she uses those very arguments when defending laissez-faire capitalism, and that she even adopts Mises' understanding of selfishness.
Rand's grounds for disputing Mises on these issues can be found in Virtue Of Selfishness. At least if you take this as a snapshot argument and not based on Rand's full reading of Mises. In fact, it's predictable. Any use of "selfish" that has even a hint of being whim based (irrational) will raise Rand's ire. Selfishness has to be determined by humankind's real needs in the real world. A is A, in other words. Any appeal outside of that realm is irrational and therefore not truly "selfish."
@jjenson2006 Our defenses must be iron, because we are besieged on all sides by statists. Everyone who works toward maximum human freedom can expect to be vigorously attacked by Democrats, Republicans, Socialists, Fascists, Conservatives, Progressives, Pietists, Bible thumpers...you name it. They all have an excuse, and angle, a reason why they think that men can and ought to be coerced, and we must answer them all, clearly and universally. That's why we sweat the details.
They were both geniuses and would've made a great couple.
She essentially admits that the public controls business in one of her Donahue interviews, so that was probably just an initial reaction without the benefit of a complete context. Her ideas on selfishness were more in depth and refine, but ultimately these are small issues pertaining to subtle nuances that don't really matter much. Both were arguing for the same thing, fundamentally.
Businesses that tailor their products or services to the preferences of consumers are a businesses that fail? lolwut
Last time I checked, businesses that provide products that people want to buy are more successful simply because their products are more desirable, thus people buy more of that product, thus that business yields higher profits
Actually, the producer-consumer relationship is one of the central themes of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. (Rearden... Rearden Metal... Howard Roark... Cortlandt...) So it's not like she labeled Mises' contention about the businessman being the servant of the customer, for no reason. You can't expect her to write another Atlas Shrugged in the margin of a book, especially when it's her own private musings.
Great Video. I knew Rand would hate that part about business existing to give the consumer what they want regardless of how the business man behind that business felt about it. Nothing would bother her more than someone simply serving someone else to get money, even if they disagreed with it.
@shadowgeyser Sure. Given that the guy blamed Capitalism for societies problems, it is not an unreasonable to ask him to define it in his own terms at least!
Capitalism not working for you ? The right wing would offer you the cold comfort of blaming the government. which is ultimately to blame you the voter. Or how about we just blame each other, ourselves or even "human nature". After all isn't it "human nature" that prompted slave holders to import 9 million Africans as slaves in order to make cotton really profitable? Isn't "human nature" to blame for womens pay differential of 3/5 ? Why not blame poverty on the laziness of "human nature" too?
Political ideology is manufactured in a vacuum. History abhors a vacuum. Capitalism seems to be going the way of other Utopian systems. What people will demand in the near future capitalism cannot provide. We really are facing the historical outcome of a conflict between means & ends. If capitalism would have been successful in determining the reach of human aspirations by subverting majority rule it might have held up better. Mises & Rand shared similar illusions & both lacked imagination
I appreciate the predicament of those who feel they must defend Capitalism as a set of Utopian abstractions. The right must reinvent a perception of capitalism somehow being linked to liberty and virtue while ignoring the reality of millions unemployed, sleeping in cardboard boxes and abandoned cars Under the circumstances of pervasive poverty it becomes useful to insist that Capitalism does not exist because it follows that Utopia would be realized? Or else blame liberals..
@anyfekinnamewilldo I am inclined to view Capitalism not as an economy but as a failed system of social provision. But please be my guest, define capitalism in such a way as to make it vanish before our eyes. Make us believe again. Perhaps the world is awaiting the arrival of just such a wizard as you to dispel the history we know, as an hallucination? Can you take us back to the jungle, the plantation or some other golden age either past or to come where the hero is WASP, & we are totally free?
@jazzbo66zz With respect sir, I asked you to define capitalism, not for you to presume my definition of capitalism. So what is capitalism? Are the US/UK capitalist economies? It is an important question given that you claim the free market economy is responsible of poverty! Thanks.
@anyfekinnamewilldo What is this "free market economy" you speak of and offer as interchangeable with "Capitalist economy". In point of fact I have not used either of these terms. I am waiting for you to disabuse your readers of the notion that Capitalism exists. If Capitalism does not exist then we must place the source of the difficulty of manifest material conditions elsewhere I would tend to agree.
@jazzbo66zz With regret, I feel like we're going around in circles here. You stated that Capitalism isn't working. I asked have you to define Capitalism. Can you please define what you meant when you used the term Capitalism (aka the free market). Unless you can define what you mean by Capitalism then I cannot debate with you because you have not stated your position.
Your post states, "Capitalism isn't working". Why don't you explain what you mean by that? You seem like an earnest fellow so if it is your intention to defend the "free market" then please feel free to do so. I must admit to some difficulty with the notion of a free market. I have long held the opinion that nothing is "free", particularly in the market of all places where everything and everyone found therein is commonly understood to be for sale.
@jazzbo66zz Please read the thread..read what you have written. I've not got the time or inclination to have a pointless online argument with you. You criticised Capitalism..all I have asked (repeatedly) is that you define it. You still have not defined what you mean by Capitalism so I give up!
Rand despised any thought of servitude in a capitalist society; she would never favor the reversal or denial of convictions. The second passage would make Rand consider her definition of selfishness a better, more exacting one. The out-of-context consideration of this is, as you've said, absurd. I really enjoyed this comparison. Have you read "The Virtue of Selfishness"?
Rand despised any thought of servitude in a capitalist society; she would never favor the reversal or denial of convictions. The second passage would make Rand consider her definition of selfishness a better, more exacting one. The out-of-context consideration of this is, as you've said, absurd. I really enjoyed this comparison. Have you read "The Virtue of Selfishness"?
Good video. The word selfish is more then often misunderstood. "To thine own self be true." Self love is not so vile a sin as self neglect." Shakespeare played with the word too. Selfless, selfish, self-centered are three terms that describe three different ideas. One gives, one saves, one takes. Some conservatives say self interest to get around selfish. Rand misunderstood and thought selfish was self centered, which describe Lennism. But Mises seemed to be saying what Shakespeare had in mind.
It's telling that the propagandists attack 'selfishness' so much. It's a good way of inducing people to ignore destruction they bring upon themselves, others and society. By propagandists I refer to the 'Intellectuals' on the payroll of the destructive State and the coercers who can remain profitable despite their destruction (taxing authorities, recipients of welfare, bailout recipients, warmongering demagogues etc) many of whom now deify failure to make us subservient to coercion
Thanks so much for posting this excellent, excellent video. very interesting stuff. I'd recommend putting a link to the book in question in the sidebar/description text. Thanks again, AL!
Science may say he's wrong and does. If the man thinks 2+2=10, then he is rational in the sense that he's using his available knowledge and information to achieve whatever end he has in view. So within the context of his own mind, with the flawed knowledge, he is acting rationally. If the man doesn't think 2+2=10 but is acting on the assumption that it is true, he merely has other ends in view, which action on the assumption 2+2=10 allows him to achieve, e.g. he could like being humiliated.
Im not talking about bad or incomplete information. Im talking about willful evasion. Seeing with your eyes and CHOOSING to ignore it.
Evading the fact that what happens in reality can harm you and that ignoring it will hurt you. Dropping context on a massive scale, like wanting to buy an ipod, doing the math, and knowing you cant afford it, buy it anyways. You get the ipod, but you evade how it will harm the rest of your life.
Once again the adjunct market failure school of economics (the Austrian school) does a botch job on Ayn Rand quote 8:52 "cause even if you had money for consumers, you still wouldn't have a market for the means of production. With no pricing system for the means of production there's no way for entrepreneurs to allocate resources to one branch of business to another"
This is exactly the market failure terminology Austrians use.
Umm, no. The key is a rational pricing mechanism. Of course a government could make up prices randomly and assign them to products and services, but that's hardly a rational pricing mechanism. Read Mises on catallactics.
Also, You typed several sentences, many of which seem condescending in tone, yet you didn't produce a real argument.
Oh, my arguments are legitimate, you just haven't been victim to my overwhelming power, dominant battlefield awareness, dominant maneuvers, and spectacular displays of force to paralyze an adversary's perception of the battlefield and destroy its will to fight.
;)
Note: you're saying it's not possible for entrepreneurs to allocate resources to one branch of business to another under a punitive regime, this is blatantly false in the majority of cases, it just becomes harder to make a profit.
Not impossible, but there's no mechanism to ensure that the allocation of additional capital tends to be in the proper areas of production. A captain at sea without a compass may get to his destination, but without a system for direction he's given his success up to chance.
Price controls usually result in shortages, that is all. The market clears the entire time, particularly when participants are forced to do business without being reimbursed, that is without prices.
Markets clear without intervention. Intervention interrupts the market-clearing process. Prices are simply an objective manifestation of the subjective valuations of individuals in an economy. You can have a market in the absence of prices, but the point is such a market would be inferior in terms of the extent to which exchanges can occur. Complex markets, with higher and higher ordered goods, cannot function without prices. Rudimentary ones, on the other hand, certainly can.
Market's clear in the strict sense, even with interventions, but when I say it is interrupted via intervention, I mean it results in an allocation of resources that is less optimal than it otherwise would have been. The satisfaction of wants has been averted through force.
Values are subjective. There are no interpersonal comparisons of utility precisely because values are subjective.
A "consumer" is an individual who expends a good or service to satisfy an end.
Also, stating the truism that markets clear regardless of the consequences does not address the point I was making about capital allocation in the absence of a pricing system. Once an economy becomes so large and complex, it is necessary for its maintenance that every exchange have a common denominator, which allows for a comparison of each good with every other. This, in turn, allows entrepreneurs to compare the relative profitability of various branches of business and act accordingly.
Hmmm... I'm surprised she didn't bitch about chapter 1.4 "Human action is necessarily always rational...". That's a point at which I sometimes run into friction with Randians.
ahhh the sweet sweet sound of economics like silk soothing my sorrowed soul.
i absolutely love mises for the rigorous nature of his arguments, that is what really solidified economics as a science for me.
this seems like a case of someone drawing ethical or philosophic notions from what are meant to be scientific statements. perhaps rand treated HA as something more akin to her writings rather than a straight up corpus of economics.
I agree. It is obvious that a Howard Roark would argue that a moral man is one who would never subjugate his will to the taste or desires of the consumer,but follow his brilliance where ever it leads. Mises,while clearly recognizing Roark's right to do what he wants with his business would also say that whatever his moral values,Roark's survival ultimately depends on satisfying King Consumer.
It's Mises's use of terms like "bound", "cannot", "ultimate law", "necessity", and "must" in the quote that lead Rand to think of such implications. Those are strong words that are often used normatively. Normally in discourse, if I say that you "must" do X, that you are "bound" to do X, this has a normative ethical implication. This is just a matter of Mises's statement being phrased in somewhat akward terms.
I like your explanation that Mises sees EVERYTHING as selfish. I agree that this is obviously true. Our actions display what we value. Rand sees selfishness differently. She wants selfishness not just to be shown in our actions, but in the result of our actions. She wants selfishness to actually be in our own self-interest; to be beneficial to our life. Our actions show our values, but are they objectively beneficial to us? My point - Mises and Rand are speaking a different language.
Regarding the first quote about business men and consumers, have you read 'The Fountainhead'? You kind of have to in order to understand where Rand's coming from here.
For the 1st quote, I think Rand objected to the implication of the buisinessman having an obligation to serve whatever values people demand (because, as an individual, they can stick up for what they actually value), and also the invocation of the term "whims". At root, Rand is objecting to Mises's amoralism that is the result of him sticking purely to an economic perspective. She rejected the idea that the economic perspective precludes you from simultaneously holding to normatives.
For the 2nd quote, Rand is rejecting Mises's hard psychological egoism on the grounds of her *ethical* definition of "selfishness". In a sense, it is a difference between their semantics. Her definition of selfishness is "rational selfishness" - it is normative. From her point of view, one is not "truly selfish" if one is not acting in accordance with the proper norms. So, once again, this is a clash between Rand's normativity and Mises's purely amoral way of speaking.
Remember, Rand and Mises were very good friends and respected each other. Rand believed that businessmen build for there own self esteem. There action is based on there values. Not the values of others. This is what I believe she means here. Meaning its not at the base of things creating a product because the consumer likes it. This is the difference. Rand is arguing a individuals values and ethic.
Bigturns33 6 days ago
Hank Reardon was "serving" the consumer by making a product cheaper, stronger, and lighter than steal. But the important part had everything to do with his idea of why he produced it. He was not forced to make the product, nor anyone to buy it. Compared to the villains who served public opinion, which was governed by non other than the villains who would use force. It's good for businessmen to esteem themselves over the consumer, lest they sacrifice their own values for false superficial gains.
Rbabcock333 1 week ago
this is why you don't posthumously publish a book of someones margin notes, that's just wrong
roman14032 1 week ago
Rand was a differnent type of intellectual than Mises. Instead of the praxealogy behind Ludwig's analisys of Capitalism and the Free Market, Ayn says basicly the same thing in paperback noval style. Add to that, Ms Rand was a bit more steeped in whole Objectivist theory than Mises was. I can see how Ayn could be missing Ludwig's point. He is somewhat slow and dileberate, while Ms Rand struck me as being rather lacking in patience.
rojhoward 1 month ago
For someone who emphasizes the specific meaning of words Rand do seem to have some trouble paying attention to words. "In his capacity as a businessman" is kinda of important part of Mises statement. The entrepreneur does not have serve everyone, but he have to serve those he chooses to do business (where he chooses to act in his businessman capacity) with or they will go elsewhere...
EscapingLeviathan 1 month ago
@EscapingLeviathan Yeah I don't know how she can disagree with this. Making your products or services attractive to consumers is the only way to get them to buy them, who could dispute that?
dubified89 1 month ago
Do Konkin vs Rothbard next
CloverfieldMonster95 2 months ago
Good video thanks for sharing your thoughts. One quick comment in defense of Rand: In "The Virtue of Selfishness," there is a chapter (I believe it's actually written by Nathaniel Brandon and not Rand, but I'm not positive) called "Isn't everyone selfish?" in which she addresses and makes a rebuttal to the type of selfishness that Mises was talking about, differentiating it from her definition of selfishness. Rand is one to sometimes use misleading language and this is one of those cases. Thanks
maynardkeenan11 2 months ago
I find the second quote and note interesting because she in John Galt's speech says the exact same thing.
jasonofcompsci 2 months ago
I have never liked rand because I always felt she tried to portray altruism as un-human while Mises shows that altruism is in a way being selfish. I like Mises' definition of Selfishness. Advances in evolutionary biology have shown us that humans are inherently altruistic and the survival of the fittest is a wrong interpretation of evolution. While I'm a libertarian and pro free-market, i think free markets is not about establishing inequality, it is about serving one another in a better way!
393ani 2 months ago
@393ani Yes, the market forces people to serve each other much more so than government which is just a group of bullies.
dubified89 1 month ago
YOU'RE NOT UNDERSTANDING RAND'S COMMENTS....SHE'S SAYING THERE IS AN INTERPLAY OBVIOUSLY, IF YOU'RE AN ARTIST YOU DICTATE THE TRANSACTION, IF YOU'RE A SCHLUB THE CONSUMER DOES...AYN WAS INTO POWERFUL WINNERS...SO YOU'RE JUST NOT UNDERSTANDING WHERE SHE'S COMING FROM...THAT SAID, I'M NOT INTO CELEBRITY WORSHIP OF EITHER OF THESE TWO...MISES WAS A FOLLOWER OF MENGER...AYN WAS MORE INDEPENDENT AS I UNDERSTAND IT....THEY BOTHE MADE CONTRIBUTIONS AND THEY BOTH HAD THEIR LIMITATIONS
RonPaulgirls 2 months ago
To be honest, what I know of Rand, which is quite a bit, I don't see her disagreeing with Mises here. I think you have to take these notes with a grain of salt. It could just be her jotting down her ideas to further look into them and evaluate them later. Frankly, if they were never published, and they were spoken by her in an interview or with friends and what not, then I find it really difficult to condemn a person's thinking. In a way, those notes are just thoughts she had in that moment.
egervari 2 months ago
I like your train of thought I am a Mises fangirl myself and a devotee of Rand. You should look into Isabel Paterson as well if you haven't already. I think her relationship to Mises was best illustrated in the fountainhead between Roark and waynand. Roark was like Rand who insisted that the mountain come to him. Waynand while still an honorable business man the end always justified the means. He gave them the banner even though he himself thought it contemptable. She probably put a lot of Mise
TheApocalypseGirl 3 months ago
Rand was good friends with Mises. She respected him very well and he respected her. Rand loved that he was almost a lone wolf in europe and loved his story of a shining light for Capitalism in Europe.
Bigturns33 3 months ago
I have to say that this is a bit stupid. These margin notes were, as you yourself pointed out, not meant for publication, but were notes for Rand herself highlighting thoughts she had on certain parts of certain books. Generally when we're making notes for ourselves you don't write a full treatise on the subject every time to fully explain your thoughts.
An actual refutation would require that you read her actual texts on the subjects, not just a marginal note in a book.
Locr1an 4 months ago 2
If it takes you 10 hours to paint a shitty picture, it is still a shitty picture. Just because you feel it increases the price to $100, doesn't mean people are going to buy it. You are shit out of luck either way...
AroundSun 4 months ago
Comment removed
kalkbreg 4 months ago
yington 4 months ago
@yington Umad bro?
DigitalShaolin 4 months ago
Also... the only real defense of freedom and capitalism is a moral one.... altruist philosophy has always defeated efficacy or fuctionality arguments, and always will. Rand saw this, and identified the MORAL defense of capitalism.
nathanreinhardt 4 months ago
@nathanreinhardt "altruist philosophy has always defeated efficacy or fuctionality arguments"
Going by your other comment, the fact that you have ReasonTV as a friend, and "Liked" several videos about Ron Paul, I'm going to assume you have no qualms with Ayn Rand or Capitalism.
Which makes me curious. What do you mean by "efficiency" and "functionality"? I can see how a Dictatorship can be more "efficient" than a Democracy or a Republic... even if the results aren't desirable.
JMG9519 4 months ago
@JMG9519 You are never getting more for less, it is almost always the other way around. The private sector is more efficient than the federal government, or any government for that matter, because it has to be by design. They always have a limited amount of capital, and receive their revenues voluntarily..
AroundSun 4 months ago
@AroundSun I know. I was asking nathanreinhardt a question...
JMG9519 4 months ago
@JMG9519 What I mean is, capitalism is moral, and deserves a moral defense. The ship has sailed on which system produces the best results. Everyone already knows capitalism works the best. But they don't care what *works* the best, if they are convinced that it is immoral(if they're convinced of altruism). That is why you see capitalism eroding and giving way to socialism. It has been since the creation of the U.S.
legendzfall 4 months ago
@legendzfall Oh, then I misread your comment. I thought you said Socialism was more efficient.
Now it makes perfect sense, and I agree.
JMG9519 4 months ago
@nathanreinhardt Yea, there are always two avenues to pursue this. The constitutionally moral side, and the practical side. Both win, but for arguments sake everyone always sticks to the practical side of the argument "what works better".
AroundSun 4 months ago
re: selfishness. Rand just realizes that even if people think they're acting selfishly, they can be wrong, because of bad philosophy(altruist philosophy). They have different definitions of the word selfish. Rand is concerned with what is ACTUALLY selfish, while Mises was talking about INTENTION. Rand is right -- just because you have the intention to be selfish, doesn't mean you ARE being selfish. Or at least not "rationally selfish," which is the only real / true selfishness.
nathanreinhardt 4 months ago
the very title of this video is erroneous. Rand and Mises were ardent proponents of laissez-faire. The only difference between them is that Rand built her defense on the foundation of morality, whereas Mises constructed his defense of capitalism on its ultimately superior functionality i.e, no other system could solve the coordination problem: signaling consumer desires and preferences and communicating them so as to allocate capital where it most efficiently meets these desires/demands.
beavis408 5 months ago 2
I don't think Rand was suggesting that the businessman doesn't ultimately do a service for the consumer, she believes that capitalism is moral and right. But Rand takes these ideas to the extreme and therefore a man looking to run a business should not set out to serve people, that his main goal is the perfection of his craft and that if that is your goal you will, even if inadvertently serve your clients better than your competitors. What was hard for her to stomach was the wording and i getit
manchieros 6 months ago
Rand obviously changed her mind later on. If you look through some videos of her, you will see that she uses those very arguments when defending laissez-faire capitalism, and that she even adopts Mises' understanding of selfishness.
jacquesantonorsi2 6 months ago
Rand's grounds for disputing Mises on these issues can be found in Virtue Of Selfishness. At least if you take this as a snapshot argument and not based on Rand's full reading of Mises. In fact, it's predictable. Any use of "selfish" that has even a hint of being whim based (irrational) will raise Rand's ire. Selfishness has to be determined by humankind's real needs in the real world. A is A, in other words. Any appeal outside of that realm is irrational and therefore not truly "selfish."
swebbie 6 months ago
I think it's pointless to compare the two considering they were both pretty much on the same side.
jjenson2006 8 months ago
@jjenson2006 Our defenses must be iron, because we are besieged on all sides by statists. Everyone who works toward maximum human freedom can expect to be vigorously attacked by Democrats, Republicans, Socialists, Fascists, Conservatives, Progressives, Pietists, Bible thumpers...you name it. They all have an excuse, and angle, a reason why they think that men can and ought to be coerced, and we must answer them all, clearly and universally. That's why we sweat the details.
032125 7 months ago
Rand is a fucking idiot
iancmcintyre 8 months ago
They were both geniuses and would've made a great couple.
She essentially admits that the public controls business in one of her Donahue interviews, so that was probably just an initial reaction without the benefit of a complete context. Her ideas on selfishness were more in depth and refine, but ultimately these are small issues pertaining to subtle nuances that don't really matter much. Both were arguing for the same thing, fundamentally.
Ataensic 8 months ago
I think Rand was just writing her first impressions and thoughts down.
Esoparagon 9 months ago
Businesses that tailor their products or services to the preferences of consumers are a businesses that fail? lolwut
Last time I checked, businesses that provide products that people want to buy are more successful simply because their products are more desirable, thus people buy more of that product, thus that business yields higher profits
CabbageNappa 11 months ago
Actually, the producer-consumer relationship is one of the central themes of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. (Rearden... Rearden Metal... Howard Roark... Cortlandt...) So it's not like she labeled Mises' contention about the businessman being the servant of the customer, for no reason. You can't expect her to write another Atlas Shrugged in the margin of a book, especially when it's her own private musings.
forgottenbooks 1 year ago
Great Video. I knew Rand would hate that part about business existing to give the consumer what they want regardless of how the business man behind that business felt about it. Nothing would bother her more than someone simply serving someone else to get money, even if they disagreed with it.
NotRadicalLogical 1 year ago
@shadowgeyser Sure. Given that the guy blamed Capitalism for societies problems, it is not an unreasonable to ask him to define it in his own terms at least!
anyfekinnamewilldo 1 year ago
Capitalism not working for you ? The right wing would offer you the cold comfort of blaming the government. which is ultimately to blame you the voter. Or how about we just blame each other, ourselves or even "human nature". After all isn't it "human nature" that prompted slave holders to import 9 million Africans as slaves in order to make cotton really profitable? Isn't "human nature" to blame for womens pay differential of 3/5 ? Why not blame poverty on the laziness of "human nature" too?
jazzbo66zz 1 year ago
Political ideology is manufactured in a vacuum. History abhors a vacuum. Capitalism seems to be going the way of other Utopian systems. What people will demand in the near future capitalism cannot provide. We really are facing the historical outcome of a conflict between means & ends. If capitalism would have been successful in determining the reach of human aspirations by subverting majority rule it might have held up better. Mises & Rand shared similar illusions & both lacked imagination
jazzbo66zz 1 year ago
@jazzbo66zz Capitalism..where is this capitalist system of which you speak?
anyfekinnamewilldo 1 year ago
@anyfekinnamewilldo
I appreciate the predicament of those who feel they must defend Capitalism as a set of Utopian abstractions. The right must reinvent a perception of capitalism somehow being linked to liberty and virtue while ignoring the reality of millions unemployed, sleeping in cardboard boxes and abandoned cars Under the circumstances of pervasive poverty it becomes useful to insist that Capitalism does not exist because it follows that Utopia would be realized? Or else blame liberals..
jazzbo66zz 1 year ago
@jazzbo66zz Right so you claim the USA is a capitalist economy. Define capitalism.
anyfekinnamewilldo 1 year ago
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jazzbo66zz 1 year ago
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jazzbo66zz 1 year ago
@anyfekinnamewilldo I am inclined to view Capitalism not as an economy but as a failed system of social provision. But please be my guest, define capitalism in such a way as to make it vanish before our eyes. Make us believe again. Perhaps the world is awaiting the arrival of just such a wizard as you to dispel the history we know, as an hallucination? Can you take us back to the jungle, the plantation or some other golden age either past or to come where the hero is WASP, & we are totally free?
jazzbo66zz 1 year ago
@jazzbo66zz With respect sir, I asked you to define capitalism, not for you to presume my definition of capitalism. So what is capitalism? Are the US/UK capitalist economies? It is an important question given that you claim the free market economy is responsible of poverty! Thanks.
anyfekinnamewilldo 1 year ago
@anyfekinnamewilldo What is this "free market economy" you speak of and offer as interchangeable with "Capitalist economy". In point of fact I have not used either of these terms. I am waiting for you to disabuse your readers of the notion that Capitalism exists. If Capitalism does not exist then we must place the source of the difficulty of manifest material conditions elsewhere I would tend to agree.
jazzbo66zz 1 year ago
@jazzbo66zz With regret, I feel like we're going around in circles here. You stated that Capitalism isn't working. I asked have you to define Capitalism. Can you please define what you meant when you used the term Capitalism (aka the free market). Unless you can define what you mean by Capitalism then I cannot debate with you because you have not stated your position.
Thank you!
anyfekinnamewilldo 1 year ago
@anyfekinnamewilldo
Your post states, "Capitalism isn't working". Why don't you explain what you mean by that? You seem like an earnest fellow so if it is your intention to defend the "free market" then please feel free to do so. I must admit to some difficulty with the notion of a free market. I have long held the opinion that nothing is "free", particularly in the market of all places where everything and everyone found therein is commonly understood to be for sale.
jazzbo66zz 1 year ago
@jazzbo66zz Please read the thread..read what you have written. I've not got the time or inclination to have a pointless online argument with you. You criticised Capitalism..all I have asked (repeatedly) is that you define it. You still have not defined what you mean by Capitalism so I give up!
anyfekinnamewilldo 1 year ago
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jazzbo66zz 1 year ago
@jazzbo66zz I have never claimed capitalism doesn't exist. I simply asked you to define capitalism and you didn't so there's nothing else to say!
anyfekinnamewilldo 1 year ago
objectivism is stupid... supporting war in the middle east is not credible. Austrian economics is awesome...
cobracarg 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Rand despised any thought of servitude in a capitalist society; she would never favor the reversal or denial of convictions. The second passage would make Rand consider her definition of selfishness a better, more exacting one. The out-of-context consideration of this is, as you've said, absurd. I really enjoyed this comparison. Have you read "The Virtue of Selfishness"?
sapidpersona 1 year ago
Rand despised any thought of servitude in a capitalist society; she would never favor the reversal or denial of convictions. The second passage would make Rand consider her definition of selfishness a better, more exacting one. The out-of-context consideration of this is, as you've said, absurd. I really enjoyed this comparison. Have you read "The Virtue of Selfishness"?
sapidpersona 1 year ago
good video.
CommSense 1 year ago
AustroLibertarian: Do you have this book?
qtronman 2 years ago
No audio, damn :\
seigneurvoland666 2 years ago
Good video. The word selfish is more then often misunderstood. "To thine own self be true." Self love is not so vile a sin as self neglect." Shakespeare played with the word too. Selfless, selfish, self-centered are three terms that describe three different ideas. One gives, one saves, one takes. Some conservatives say self interest to get around selfish. Rand misunderstood and thought selfish was self centered, which describe Lennism. But Mises seemed to be saying what Shakespeare had in mind.
dons123111 2 years ago
@dons123111
It's telling that the propagandists attack 'selfishness' so much. It's a good way of inducing people to ignore destruction they bring upon themselves, others and society. By propagandists I refer to the 'Intellectuals' on the payroll of the destructive State and the coercers who can remain profitable despite their destruction (taxing authorities, recipients of welfare, bailout recipients, warmongering demagogues etc) many of whom now deify failure to make us subservient to coercion
Nintendomanwill 1 year ago
@Nintendomanwill very well said, and insightful..this is why you are my friend!
dons123111 1 year ago
Thanks so much for posting this excellent, excellent video. very interesting stuff. I'd recommend putting a link to the book in question in the sidebar/description text. Thanks again, AL!
lukeev 2 years ago
Mises is my hero!
velation 2 years ago
wasn't rand the champion of selfishness?
i don't get how she can critique that second quote at all...
tpsisokayiguess 2 years ago
The 2nd quote is promoting psychological egoism, while rand was a proponent of ethical egoism.
brainpolice2 2 years ago
What do you call someone who says that 2+2=10 ? Would you say he is selfish in misses terms?
WarVideo 2 years ago
Science may say he's wrong and does. If the man thinks 2+2=10, then he is rational in the sense that he's using his available knowledge and information to achieve whatever end he has in view. So within the context of his own mind, with the flawed knowledge, he is acting rationally. If the man doesn't think 2+2=10 but is acting on the assumption that it is true, he merely has other ends in view, which action on the assumption 2+2=10 allows him to achieve, e.g. he could like being humiliated.
Austrolibertarian 2 years ago
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WarVideo 2 years ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Im not talking about bad or incomplete information. Im talking about willful evasion. Seeing with your eyes and CHOOSING to ignore it.
Evading the fact that what happens in reality can harm you and that ignoring it will hurt you. Dropping context on a massive scale, like wanting to buy an ipod, doing the math, and knowing you cant afford it, buy it anyways. You get the ipod, but you evade how it will harm the rest of your life.
Is the act of evasion egoistic in mises terms?
WarVideo 2 years ago
In *Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal*, Rand praised Mises. So she did not regard him as an enemy.
qtronman 2 years ago 2
Interesting. I should do a video response with everything Rand said.
qtronman 2 years ago
Once again the adjunct market failure school of economics (the Austrian school) does a botch job on Ayn Rand quote 8:52 "cause even if you had money for consumers, you still wouldn't have a market for the means of production. With no pricing system for the means of production there's no way for entrepreneurs to allocate resources to one branch of business to another"
This is exactly the market failure terminology Austrians use.
"allocating resources"
Aren't price controls a price system?
PortfolioManager1987 2 years ago
Umm, no. The key is a rational pricing mechanism. Of course a government could make up prices randomly and assign them to products and services, but that's hardly a rational pricing mechanism. Read Mises on catallactics.
Also, You typed several sentences, many of which seem condescending in tone, yet you didn't produce a real argument.
Austrolibertarian 2 years ago
Oh, my arguments are legitimate, you just haven't been victim to my overwhelming power, dominant battlefield awareness, dominant maneuvers, and spectacular displays of force to paralyze an adversary's perception of the battlefield and destroy its will to fight.
;)
Note: you're saying it's not possible for entrepreneurs to allocate resources to one branch of business to another under a punitive regime, this is blatantly false in the majority of cases, it just becomes harder to make a profit.
PortfolioManager1987 2 years ago
*designed to paralyze
PortfolioManager1987 2 years ago
Not impossible, but there's no mechanism to ensure that the allocation of additional capital tends to be in the proper areas of production. A captain at sea without a compass may get to his destination, but without a system for direction he's given his success up to chance.
Austrolibertarian 2 years ago
Price controls usually result in shortages, that is all. The market clears the entire time, particularly when participants are forced to do business without being reimbursed, that is without prices.
PortfolioManager1987 2 years ago
Or surpluses.
Markets clear without intervention. Intervention interrupts the market-clearing process. Prices are simply an objective manifestation of the subjective valuations of individuals in an economy. You can have a market in the absence of prices, but the point is such a market would be inferior in terms of the extent to which exchanges can occur. Complex markets, with higher and higher ordered goods, cannot function without prices. Rudimentary ones, on the other hand, certainly can.
Austrolibertarian 2 years ago
The market clearing process isn't interrupted when there's intervention, that's how you get the shortage.
The value an individual ascribes to a stock, for example, in bidding for it at auction, is objective.
The price is the objective social value of the stock.
PortfolioManager1987 2 years ago
Market's clear in the strict sense, even with interventions, but when I say it is interrupted via intervention, I mean it results in an allocation of resources that is less optimal than it otherwise would have been. The satisfaction of wants has been averted through force.
Values are subjective. There are no interpersonal comparisons of utility precisely because values are subjective.
A "consumer" is an individual who expends a good or service to satisfy an end.
Austrolibertarian 2 years ago
By the way, what is a "Consumer"?
Google "Consumerism Ayn Rand Lexicon" and read what she said in this regard.
PortfolioManager1987 2 years ago
Also, stating the truism that markets clear regardless of the consequences does not address the point I was making about capital allocation in the absence of a pricing system. Once an economy becomes so large and complex, it is necessary for its maintenance that every exchange have a common denominator, which allows for a comparison of each good with every other. This, in turn, allows entrepreneurs to compare the relative profitability of various branches of business and act accordingly.
Austrolibertarian 2 years ago
Hmmm... I'm surprised she didn't bitch about chapter 1.4 "Human action is necessarily always rational...". That's a point at which I sometimes run into friction with Randians.
gunsandbullhorns 2 years ago
Wonderful critique. :D
Anon1696 2 years ago
ahhh the sweet sweet sound of economics like silk soothing my sorrowed soul.
i absolutely love mises for the rigorous nature of his arguments, that is what really solidified economics as a science for me.
this seems like a case of someone drawing ethical or philosophic notions from what are meant to be scientific statements. perhaps rand treated HA as something more akin to her writings rather than a straight up corpus of economics.
good shit tho dude, keep posting!
junior00bacon00chee 2 years ago
Two Mathematical illiterates--
kitycalifornia 2 years ago
Mises' economic philisop???
philosophwhat?
lol i just found it funny that you cut it short like that.
LiberalofLiberty 2 years ago
I agree. It is obvious that a Howard Roark would argue that a moral man is one who would never subjugate his will to the taste or desires of the consumer,but follow his brilliance where ever it leads. Mises,while clearly recognizing Roark's right to do what he wants with his business would also say that whatever his moral values,Roark's survival ultimately depends on satisfying King Consumer.
sleedolfine15 2 years ago
It's Mises's use of terms like "bound", "cannot", "ultimate law", "necessity", and "must" in the quote that lead Rand to think of such implications. Those are strong words that are often used normatively. Normally in discourse, if I say that you "must" do X, that you are "bound" to do X, this has a normative ethical implication. This is just a matter of Mises's statement being phrased in somewhat akward terms.
brainpolice2 2 years ago
In short, Mises may not have intended it as an ethical obligation, but I can see why Rand balked at it that way.
brainpolice2 2 years ago
I can't help but agree with everything you said.
eurohim 2 years ago
I like your explanation that Mises sees EVERYTHING as selfish. I agree that this is obviously true. Our actions display what we value. Rand sees selfishness differently. She wants selfishness not just to be shown in our actions, but in the result of our actions. She wants selfishness to actually be in our own self-interest; to be beneficial to our life. Our actions show our values, but are they objectively beneficial to us? My point - Mises and Rand are speaking a different language.
freefallin002 2 years ago 2
Regarding the first quote about business men and consumers, have you read 'The Fountainhead'? You kind of have to in order to understand where Rand's coming from here.
Rorshak1313 2 years ago 2
For the 1st quote, I think Rand objected to the implication of the buisinessman having an obligation to serve whatever values people demand (because, as an individual, they can stick up for what they actually value), and also the invocation of the term "whims". At root, Rand is objecting to Mises's amoralism that is the result of him sticking purely to an economic perspective. She rejected the idea that the economic perspective precludes you from simultaneously holding to normatives.
brainpolice2 2 years ago 2
For the 2nd quote, Rand is rejecting Mises's hard psychological egoism on the grounds of her *ethical* definition of "selfishness". In a sense, it is a difference between their semantics. Her definition of selfishness is "rational selfishness" - it is normative. From her point of view, one is not "truly selfish" if one is not acting in accordance with the proper norms. So, once again, this is a clash between Rand's normativity and Mises's purely amoral way of speaking.
brainpolice2 2 years ago 2
"In a sense, it is a difference between their semantics. Her definition of selfishness is "rational selfishness" - it is normative."
This is true, and it came up in a debate between brainpolice2 and myself.
qtronman 2 years ago
LOL. True enough.
brainpolice2 2 years ago