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TheBigDog said:

Cool! Instead of just disdainfully calling it bile and marching off in a huff, why don't you take issue with my specific points?

It's literature: by definition its open to interpretation!

Calling someone's opinion bile without any associated explanation is not what I'd call literary criticism....it is though of course an excellent example of Egoism!

By the way for those of you who are interested, there have been a couple of good biographies of Ayn Rand out recently:

Amazon.com: Ayn Rand and the World She Made (9780385513999): Anne Conover Heller: Books http://www.amazon.co...e/dp/0385513992

Amazon.com: Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right… http://www.amazon.co...t/dp/0195324870

What may be disturbing about my post above is that what I'm really pointing out is the uncritical attitude of many Randians: as The Economist said in a review of the two books, "many of her readers reacted to her writings in much the same way that leftists reacted to reading Marx." Too much blind devotion without objective analysis (and thus the irony of the term Objectivism!). That's where my complaints come in: I actually agree with much of her general pro-market, pro-meritocracy positions, but both she and her followers have the tendency to uncritically take these positions to their absurd conclusions. Both books go into these contradictions in her life and work in some detail.

The Economist, Capitalism said:

So if you are interested in this debate, please do open a new thread!

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.
Buffy

Baldershymn said:

Kumbaya, dude.

Who's "we"? Me and you certainly. Sarah Palin? Not so much.

The trick here is to stop thinking in the theoretical and abstract, and MOST importantly, stop doing the *exact* same thing that those who *usually* trash your opinion do: "if you'd all just think the same way I do, the world would be beautiful."

Sure it would, but the fact of the matter is that a minority--your tribe--thinks the way you do. If you want to make the world better, you're going to have to find *compromises* with people whose worldview is radically different than yours.

And it's not just a matter of convincing them you're right: "compromise" does not mean "everyone has a right to my opinion."

While admirable, most would call your argument here "naive". Don't worry, it's common among the young and--to bring in Mr. Fresco--the young at heart.

Being old makes you cynical, true, but it does not always make you think that the goal is pointless and impossible. It just adjusts your expectations.

Nonetheless, we old folks get called names for not "opening our eyes to the possibilities."

Boy the crap I get for being a Berkeley radical. Does my honorary membership in the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade not count for anything any more?

Baldershymn said:

Wow! Abstract philosophy! My fave!

Actually this is exactly my point: power is NOT equivalent to money. Power is power. In Mexico and Columbia, power is access to drugs and having the muscle to protect it.

Is money the intermediary for easing the trade of goods and services? Certainly.

Is it necessary to maintain power? Shirley, you jest.

Maintaining the personal relationships that are necessary to match the providers--say the assassins needed to intimidate the police--with the goods that motivate them--the safehouses, food, access to stolen cars. Communists always laughed at the "pointlessness of the middlemen" and then found everything from the politburos to the village committees dominated by them because, well, they held the power because they knew all the right people. No different than in "money-driven" capitalist societies.

Baldershymn said:

Apparently. Wouldn't be a bad idea to learn what hasn't worked before calling people idiots for pointing out possible flaws in a particular argument you're making.

Baldershymn said:

Yes, so reading some Ayn Rand would be appropriate. While some disagree (see my previous post), Rand was all about some people being more deserving of success/power/money/worship than others.

It is a philosophy that is completely at odds with the worldview that you're espousing here.

Perhaps there is a possible route of compromise between these two worldviews. I dunno. Worth looking in to, but not "simple" and not possible to dismiss with a "My heart cannot fathom."

Sorry!

Baldershymn said:

Contradicted by endless facts. The twins argument you use has many many counterexamples.

Another area of study I'd recommend to you before you make absolute statements of "fact."

Baldershymn said:

Honest, go back and read all the posts in the thread.

One of the most amusing aspects is the evolution of the Moneyless argument from "it simple" (cf. your first post), to "sure it will be difficult but we must" (cf. your last post).

Baldershymn said:

Now *there's* how you convince people! Obviously I don't understand why we must because I don't understand why the profit motive has negative aspects! Whoa! You're saying it has *negative* aspects? Really? And they all have no countervailing aspects? Really?

Baldershymn said:

Okay!

Baldershymn said:

Yep. There's an abundance of cattle manure because we all like hamburger. There is a scarcity of cattle manure taker-awayers, because the manure is so, um, odorific. If there is no profit in taking manure away, who is going to take it away?

No you're right, scarcity is an evil plot by the greedy. Has nothing to do with natural causes whatsoever. Nope.

Baldershymn said:

Yes, imagine when we can afford to just throw things away before their useful life has expired, because some other part in the machine failed...

Henry Ford came up with this concept. He sent his designers to the junk yard and they figured out which parts failed last, and then figured out how to make them so they didn't last as long, which meant that they cost less to make, which meant that he could lower the price of a Model-T, which meant that more people could afford to buy cars.

Oh but in a moneyless society everyone would understand that cars were selfish and bad for the environment and naturally would no longer want them....

Baldershymn said:

You should! Knowledge is power!

Oh. Wait. That's right, I've been arguing that it's not Money, it's Power, so you should hate that too.

Let's all destroy knowledge! Don't worry your little heads about this. If you just believe it will all work out.

That, my friend, is what you get out of a Pentecostal Revival Meeting....

But honest, it's worth Googling!

Baldershymn said:

I wouldn't argue against that in the abstract.

There's a little problem though: it's not *accessible* now. Nor is it likely to be in the near future: that's why a bunch of us are pointing out the "limitless energy"/"breaking the Law of Thermodynamics".

While there's an inability to *deliver it*--AKA "scarcity"--you are not going to be able to do this, which means:

Baldershymn said:

...is an entirely unsupported argument.

Money does nothing to "create scarcity." Money is a mechanism for defining abstract value, which allows scarce resources to be traded indirectly.

Let me repeat that, because this is the central fallacy of the Moneyless Society:

Money does nothing to "create scarcity." Money is a mechanism for defining abstract value, which allows scarce resources to be traded indirectly.

It does not matter whether there is money or barter, scarcity is what creates "evil profit."

But as I mentioned earlier, the notion that "profit is evil" is just as fallacious.

Profit is necessary to eliminate scarcity because in most cases scarcity is simply because a lot of work--sometimes manure hauling work--is involved that discourages delivery of the goods or services.

So if you want to eliminate profit and *still* provide even "necessities"--not even talking about "luxuries"--you're going to have to not only have limitless energy, but limitless technology to ensure that the scarcity is not even possible.

That is, until we have Star Trek replicators, we're still gonna have scarcity and we're still gonna have to have to have profit to deal with it.

And eliminating money does nothing but mean that you've got to drag all your cows along with you and trade one cow for 57 palettes of toilet paper when you need some.

Gee that's an arrangement I'd *really* enjoy!

Baldershymn said:

Well, one can hope.

I think that indeed our reaction to war has changed somewhat radically in a few generations, but unfortunately a lot less than you'd imagine. Most of it had to do with the increase in communications allowing average folks to see the results of their bloodthirsty hatred of "the other."

But again, I think you've blinded yourself to how little a very large number of non-liberal-thinkers have changed their attitudes on this front:

YouTube - Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran

But to be fair, I'd like to call attention to the fact that this is not a left or right issue:

Baldershymn said:

That's conflation, dude: Profit is not Corruption. This is the same theme as all the rest of the arguments: taking away money does not eliminate corruption, and profit can indeed exist--especially when everyone *knows* what's right and what's wrong--without causing corruption.

Indeed, I'd argue that to get to where you and I would like us all to be, we need to figure out a way to do so.

Baldershymn said:

First, you ought to look up what I was quoting. And maybe understand where the sentiment comes from.

Then maybe think about the possibility that there are many reasons why people would choose violent repression, even without the existence of money. Not recognizing this fact might be considered ignorant as well....

The alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind,
Buffy

An appropriate and timely explanation for new members: is known in this author's posts as Buffy's Asterisk, which behooves the reader to it, and maybe even research it a bit for full edification.

TheBigDog said:

Of course you do, dear.

So do all the Randians who take her seriously (you too Pyro!)...

Yes, I read a lot of Ayn in high school, because at that time *everyone* did (boy, does that date me?). What set me rolling in the aisles--and accusing of my dreamy eyed intellectual friends of rank stupidity--was sitting down and reading her essays on objectivism. Ever since then I find it very difficult not to break out in laughter when people start talking about it, because to me, the lack of self-awareness that is so evident in the conflict between what she says she *means* versus what she actually *says* in her stories is just so stark that it's, well, laughable!

My favorite Rand is The Fountainhead, and I think the conflict shown in it is lost on men. It's clear that Howard Roark is a classic "bad boy" and she puts him up on a pedestal: he *is* The Fountainhead. But while he's the only one who doesn't "sell out", he's the bad boy, the screw up, the one who is so into self-sabotage that he's unintentionally shown to be the one you do NOT want to emulate.

As much as Ayn tries to make him the hero, it's obvious that quite frankly the one she'd actually want to marry is Ellsworth Toohey, who while a total sellout (but only known to us and the omniscient author) is the only one who in the end is a continued success and ultimately destroys Roarke.

Read her work on objectivism and the cream that rises is certainly the Ellsworth Tooheys whose ego wins out over any supposed "lack of talent."

Success is its own reward in Ayn's book.

So sorry guys, my personal opinion is that Randians are willfully clueless about the contradictions and intellectual weakness of Randism...

It doesn't help these days that the "intellectual tea baggers" (an oxymoron in itself) treat her as some sort of demi-god....

I play the stock market of the spirit and I sell short ,
Buffy

coberst said:

You obviously have not owned enough dogs....

...I once had a miniature pinscher--a tiny dog only slightly larger than a chihuahua. He would eat until he could eat no more and then growl and bark at my australian and sheltie who were four to five times his size to keep them away from whatever was left in his dish. I owned him from puppyhood, and he never had less then more than he could possibly eat, but he pulled this routine until the day he died.

Don't try to tell me that only humans demonstrate greed....

My dog is worried about the economy because Alpo is up to 99 cents a can. That's almost $7.00 in dog money,
Buffy

[quote name='Eclogite']Thank you for clarifying your position. I am puzzled that you equate 'something that humans are born with' with an emotion. That is a false equality. Humans are doubtless born with emotions, but they are also born with other things as well. I doubt that Greenspan meant that greed was an emotion - an instinct, perhaps, one that could give rise to emotions, but not of itself an emotion.[/quote]

[quote name='coberst']Emotions equal instinct. First, there is emotion, then comes feeling, then comes consciousness of feeling. [/quote]
Maybe from a touchy-feely philosophical viewpoint, but not insofar as the terms are used in the relevant sciences.
[quote name='coberst']The biological function of emotions is to produce an automatic action in certain situations and to regulate the internal processes so that the creature is able to support the action dictated by the situation. The biological purpose of emotions are clear, they are not a luxury but a necessity for survival.[/quote]
But this in no way supports your prior quoted statement. As Eclogite is pointing out, it's necessary, but not sufficient.

I agree with Greenspan's meaning: Greed is instinctual, a point I'm making over in the [thread=3799]Moneyless Society[/quote] thread. It is essential to survival in a world with limited resources.

Can innate "greed" be intensified to be sociopathic? Certainly.

Is the desire to "hoard" food when it is scarce completely unrelated to greed? Not so much.

What you seem to be arguing is the same as the Greed=Money folks: take money away and there will be no environmental reinforcement to allow people to "practice being greedy."

I find such an argument to be a gross oversimplification of a complex and nuanced issue.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt though and just argue that you have insufficiently defined greed for this discussion to continue further in a useful manner.

We are born brave, trusting and greedy, and most of us remain greedy,
Buffy