Ayn Rand - Money and Morality

Ayn Rand on money as a medium of exchange and whether it is a product of man's ability to think and achieve. http://www.LibertyPen.com

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• atlas
• shrugged
• economics
• money
• product
• tool
• think
• achieve
• trade
• America
• medium
• exchange
• politicians
• Washington
• favors
• economy
• rich
• earn
• favor
• privilege
• force
• self-esteem
• self-respect
• Objectivism
• monetary
• spiritualism
• mystic
• mind
• values
• virtue
• morality
• material
• reality
• knowledge
• reward
• benefit
• goods
• services
• capitalism
• need
• liberty
• production
• libertarian
• science
• human
• development

[BrotherWoody1]

"No man is an island unto himself (Donne)." We live & die within the wider community of our fellows. Rand conflates "the natural state (Rousseau)" into an actual state (that never was) as her ideal of utopian economic man. Self interest has its economic limits (Smith) & must never be taken as the sine qua non of capitalism. In Rand's paradigm, predatory self interest is subsumed under "enlightened" self interest, which by its nature is destructive to the Many for the sake of the One (2011 econ).

[GUN1GRAVE]

@BrotherWoody1 Why would an individual have an obligation to the wider community of his fellows? This what Rand addresses in her ethical system. The principles of rationale never change because her philosophy is equipped to explain man's nature objectively. The technological overlay may change, but we're all still human beings and live as such. Any evolving ideas that reflect the modern age have no jurisdiction to contradict the human condition of individual rights.

[Esoparagon]

She's correct. There is no limiting factor to economic growth.

[BrotherWoody1]

The singular problem of all Randian ethics derives from her political activism against Statism & the Collective. In Rand's utopia, she longs for constitutional stasis despite society's evolving concepts of justice & its primary consideration in governance. It's as if the individual's pursuit of complete ownership of his life precludes his duties (pace Kant) to the wider community of his fellows. This is the precise problem of the closed objectivism that Peiko & his crowd espouse.

[bluefootedpig]

@shamgar001 Depends on how it all goes down. Perhaps you are right, but look at the riots across the world because government is cutting healthcare or retirement plans. You think if those people didn't get food, or couldn't afford food, that they would just adjust? The governments are telling the people, there is no possible way to survive at the current spending, and any cuts are met with protest. People will demand what they want, even if it isn't possible. I just hope you are right.

[shamgar001]

@bluefootedpig Humans will learn to either live with less energy or find a new source. Oil used to be a very expensive source of energy, but the market made it cheap. I'm sure the market can make another source cheap too.

Fortunately, humans are smarter than yeast. If oil prices go up, people will learn to use less. Families will likely become too expensive to maintain and reproduction will slow down, bringing us to a population which can be supported without oil.

[bluefootedpig]

@shamgar001 Peak oil, which all but one country has announced as hitting, includes the idea of being able to advance technology as well. But the whole point is what if it we can't. Take yeast. You put them in water with surgar sources, and they multiply, to the point that they kill themselves using the resources. Since oil has been found, the world population has gone up like 10 fold. Our entire society is based on the cheap energy. Odds are, when cheap energy runs out, people will die.

[shamgar001]

@bluefootedpig Again, markets adjust. If people are incapable of leaving the city, that will either further increase incentives to get them food in the city, or provide incentives to find cheaper ways to get them out of the city.

We can't ever know when we've hit peak oil, since new means of extracting and new sources could still be sound. If there really is none left, we'll either find a way to recycle what we have or move on to another energy source.

[bluefootedpig]

@shamgar001 Sure people will move, if they can afford to. Look at san francisco. There is about 850k people, plus another 500k who work in the city, plus all the surround areas, and a good portion of them don't own cars, nor have the capital to move if they wanted to (by national saving average we know this). We might be able to change, but remember that we burn 19 billion barrels a year in teh US alone, and it is increasing while we have already hit peak.