The Troubled Economics of Ayn Rand

Economics Economics Questions
41

Replace “Rand’s novels” in your remarks with “the Holy Scripture,” and notice how disturbingly religious you sound. Ponder that.

In any case, Rand doesn’t understand railroading, and neither I’m afraid do you.

First, knowing whether one signal is faulty tells you nothing about whether another is faulty, any more than having my car inspected will tell whether yours is sound.

Second, redundant railway signals are somewhere between rare and nonexistent. You’re supposing that they can proceed from a “stop” signal to another “stop” signal, and if that signal is green, they can proceed. But that isn’t true: the next thing after an absolute signal is the switch, bridge or other track segment protected by the signal. If the Canonball were to pass another signal before encountering the danger point, then the signal in question would have been a permissive signal (i.e., “prepare to stop”), not an absolute signal (i.e., “stop”).

–Len.

42

I suppose that prima donnas going out of business is perfectly consistent with Mises’ view of the marketplace, though I don’t understand how anyone can make that into a moral example.

43

Stranger, I don’t see how you can win this one. There are plenty of cases of successful “prima donnas.” Obviously, either that behavior actually appeals to the target market, or else the goods on offer are so excellent as to overcome the disutility of putting up with their crap. Actors, athletes and doctors are famous for it. They make millions anyway, because box-office sales are high enough to pay them millions and pay people to put up with their crap.

You can object to novels as a medium (as I happen to), and you can criticize points in the novels (as I happen to), but trying to argue that nobody can ever turn a profit while irritating his customers is a non-starter.

–Len.

44

I don’t accept anyone on faith, even, or especially Ayn Rand and your assertion that it sounds like faith is just another silly argument.

“First, knowing whether one signal is faulty tells you nothing about whether another is faulty, any more than having my car inspected will tell whether yours is sound.”

That’s exactly my point.

45

Then why do you make the irrational assumption that Rand couldn’t have made factual errors? And why do you defend that assumption so vehemently? I’m a Bible believer, and I wouldn’t speak of scripture the way you’re speaking of Rand.

Again, the vehemence gives you away. I’m much less afraid to admit that God’s book has typos, than you are to consider that Rand might have made mistakes. In this context, that she might not be an expert on railroad operations.

If that were your point, you’d be admitting that Daggert’s demand was a stupid thing to try, and a good way to get killed. Proceeding from a signal showing a stop aspect would take them directly to the danger point, with no way to determine whether the risk is real except to try it and see whether they die.

–Len.

46

I’d like to point out that Rand didn’t write historical fiction, nor technical fiction. She wrote epic myths. Romantic fables. The protagonists are gods or Herculean demi-gods, and the villains are completely depraved. When one reads them as such, it doesn’t tend to matter that she made a few historical or technical errors - because that’s not what the books were about.

47

Quite agreed. So there’s no point even sweating whether she got the details right.

My point in mentioning the error is that fiction is systematically vulnerable to selling false premises by begging the question. In the context of the novel, Taggert’s orders were brilliant, and proved that she was an Objective intellect surrounded by puny subjectivists. Rand made the point successfully, even to me for example who knew better in this specific instance.

Other novels use identical techniques to convince that socialism is the moral way, by showing people rolling up their sleeves, submitting to the common good and ushering in Utopia. The post-capitalism in Star Trek actually persuades people. By nature, fiction combines argument and propaganda, and it’s a rare individual who successfully filters out all the propaganda, preserving only the argument.

Matter of fact I secretly aspire to write the Great Anarcho-Capitalist Novel™, wherein I show the world Libertopia. In that world, BTW, terms referring to government are synonymous with crimes. Early on, we see someone convicted of first-degree legislating. But if I ever write it, I’ll fully realize that I’m writing pure propaganda. The fact that I, unlike Rand, will also be right about everything, is tangential. [:D]

–Len.

48

Interesting; the very first time I checked out Libertarianism, or discovered it as a term, was when I was trying to write a book of my own back in 9th grade. I was trying to invent a Government that would be created in the event of a national catastrophe; something along the lines of a meteor hitting the USA, but not being big enough to destory the entire world, just the continent.

My grasp of politics was naive at best back then, but I remember previously coming across the term “statism” while I was at the public library one time. I looked that up, and decided that well, obviously, in an event like that, statism wouldn’t happen instantly, so i remember looking up the opposite of statism.

I came across the terms libertarianism & anarchy, but I think I didn’t read too much into, as I was just trying to see if it was possible for the opposite of statism to occur. I don’t remember what the previous storyline was, as over the years I’ve revised & revised again (it’s now looking to be 3 to 5 books instead of just one).

Fast forward a few years, just past the 06 elections, and I suddenlly remember seeing the term libertarianism before reading it in various articles I read that year. The rest I suppose is history.

But yes, on topic, that does seem to be problem with fiction regarding the use of propoganda. Interestingly, I remember one of the points Rand made, in art of fiction (i read the wikipedia entry, so maybe this doesn’t count lol), was to more or less be subtle with such political views, or else you would sound like a screaming propoganda poster :).

As for me, I might consider writing a noval based on something more along the lines of post-statism…

49

Yes, generally those who are too propagandistic in their fiction tend to subordinate the art to the politics and the result is the litarary quality of their story will suffer.

50

I do not make an irrational assumption that Ayn Rand could not be wrong. That is the first thing someone who hates Rand would say when someone defends her. Rand was human and every human is capable of making errors of fact. I just think that your particular statements of mistakes that Rand supposedly made are wrong. Regarding the signal, as I said before, a stop signal does not mean that there is necessarily a problem on the system. If there is a problem on the system then the stop signal would be system wide and there would be no problem with slowly going to the next signal. So the logical thing to do is go to the next signal to see if it is also a stop signal. This is perfectly logical and is not dangerous in the least as you say. Also, I wonder if you have ever found a valid error that Rand has made since you haven’t discussed one yet. In fact, I think you should try to improve your own mind rather than try to discredit an accomplished person like Ayn Rand, who certainly has accomplished more than you. Frankly, I think you are merely revealing your state of envy of a greater mind than yours.

51

I’ve set you straight twice. If you’re at a STOP signal, there IS NO NEXT SIGNAL. The next thing down the track is the switch, bridge or track segment where flaming death awaits you. Only ONE signal says STOP: the one RIGHT BEFORE THE DANGER. All preceding signals say SLOW, not STOP. If they’ve reached the stop signal, there are NO MORE SIGNALS before the danger. If they proceed past that point, they will discover whether the signal was right only in ONE way: by either having, or not having, an accident.

Do you get it now?

Note: That’s my main problem with Randroids. Along with the good aspects of Rand’s philosophy, they also usually imbibe the thick-headed insistance that they’re right even when they don’t know what they’re talking about. Reason, good. Arrogance bad. Worse, arrogance is irrational–so it’s impossible to be both arrogant and rational.

–Len.

52

I assume you use the definition of propaganda that defines it as wrong ideas professed in such a way that they deceive others as in “political propaganda.” Rand knew that she was a propagandist of a different kind, which is a person who propagates a certain view or set of ideas without the connotation that the ideas are wrong. So, I disagree with the idea that propaganda is an indication of poor fiction. Begging the question is a logical fallacy and propaganda need not be begging the question. A novelist creates his/her own universe and the rules of that universe need not be the rules of our universe, such as in science fiction. Much of great literature is propagandistic (read Hugo, Dostoyevsky and others) and there is nothing about Hugo’s propaganda for sacrifice and religion in Les Miserable that makes it a poor novel. In fact, it is regarding far and wide as a great novel. It is your premise that is false. You are generalizing specifically about Ayn Rand as a propagandist and your criticism is not even true of Rand, let alone every other great novelist. I think you are mixing politics with philosophy and assuming that Rand was only about her political views. If you even read the titles of each section, you will see that the novel is much broader in scope and much more philosophical.

Also, if there is no point of sweating the details, why are you sweating the details since your point about the error is wrong.

53

The detail itself is completely unimportant. But rest assured, I’m telling you correctly about railroad operations. Which is where the interesting point comes in: your dogged refusal to admit your mistake is completely irrational, and proves that your thinking in this area is religious, not objective. And funny thing, but that’s my objection to Randism in the first place.

How could I possibly pass up such a perfect object lesson?

That’s a most irrational assumption, since I professed a secret aspiration to create propaganda myself someday. Weren’t you paying attention?

–Len.

54

“I’ve set you straight twice. If you’re at a STOP signal, there IS NO NEXT SIGNAL. The next thing down the track is the switch, bridge or track segment where flaming death awaits you. Only ONE signal says STOP: the one RIGHT BEFORE THE DANGER. All preceding signals say SLOW, not STOP. If they’ve reached the stop signal, there are NO MORE SIGNALS before the danger. If they proceed past that point, they will discover whether the signal was right only in ONE way: by either having, or not having, an accident.”

What is your source for this information?

In fact, you are clearly wrong. In the novel, they knew that both the switch and the signal were not working:

"The conductor spoke up. “I don’t think we had any business being sent off on a siding, that switch wasn’t working right, and this thing’s not working at all.” He jerked his head up at the red light. “I don’t think the signal’s going to change. I think it’s busted.”

Dagny next asked him what he was going to do about it. I did some checking and there is a procedure that allows the conductor to proceed with restricted speed. Rule 291 for a stop signal is “STOP, then proceed at Restricted Speed” And as for your statement that there is no next signal, why does Rule 281(b) for “Approach Limited” say “Proceed to next signal at limited speed.”?

So I ask again, what is your source for railroad procedures that say that it is wrong to say that a train should not proceed to the next signal and that after every signal there is a switch?

55

"The detail itself is completely unimportant. But rest assured, I’m telling you correctly about railroad operations. Which is where the interesting point comes in: your dogged refusal to admit it is irrational, and proves that your thinking in this area is religious, not objective. And funny thing, but that’s my objection to Randism in the first place.

How could I possibly pass up such a perfect object lesson?"

Heh, heh, heh, you thought I’d accept your assertion on faith didn’t you? Check railroad procedures and you’ll see you were totally wrong on that point. So much for my religious thinking.

56

Oh, come on. If you’re going to be objective, you’d admit that this is a problem with all types of people from all types of philosophies and ideologies. It’s rather prejudiced to be singling out Objectivists, and rather telling to be using the term Randroids.

57

I think you missed the point, or at least the point I was making about writing fiction, and it is a point Rand herself made and agrees with - all too often writers create bad fiction by focusing too much on hammering home their political message rather than in making a work of literature, making art.

58

You seem to have a prejudicial ax to grind, Len. He doesn’t have any proof of your expertise in this matter, other than your claims to it, so it is hardly evidence of religious and irrational thought to be skeptical of your claims. Maybe you’re right. I could care less. Science fiction writers, even ones with advanced degrees in hard sciences, often get details wrong in their fiction. It’s no great mark against Rand if she did on trains.

59

But I proved that Len was wrong by quoting railroad rules showing that Dagny did exactly the right thing according to established procedures and that Len was wrong about signals and their placement. This invalidates his criticism of Rand and any conclusion he has drawn about my religiousity or anything else.

60

I’m trying to weave a libertarian viewpoint into the fantasy world I’m creating, but very subtly. I will not pass up the opportunity to portray collectivist societies as realistically as possible though. :wink: