Then I’m lost as to what his point is.
I mean, it sounds like he’s just talking about an an-cap system where everybody agrees on the basic laws and procedures.
Ancap is not a zero sum system. Minarchy is. Big difference.
Really? This may but true in the short run, but what about the long run? What evidence is there to suggest that your “government” would operate within the constraints of objective law which you posit, as opposed to those states of today which clearly do not, despite attempts to limit their authority via written constitutions? As Hobbes noted, the central authority has a tendency to root out “worms in the commonwealth.” You’re saying this wouldn’t happen…?
On “arbitrary” force you define it as:
What if the use of force by your government is “subject” to consistency verification but it is repeatedly determined by the high council of objectivists to be consistent with the great objective law, despite it being clearly tyrannical? Does such force fail to meet the criterion for being arbitrary?
I’m beginning to see why you’re ignoring liberty student’s questions concerning objective value, because your entire definition of the word “arbitrary” depends upon your belief in “objective” law, which in turn must necessarily depend upon the idea of objective value.
If you cannot show how value can be objective, your definition of what is arbitrary fails, and so does your argument:
Even if you are correct and that would really be the result, it doesn’t follow from this that your objectiveist government doesn’t apply coercion to achieve its monopoly. This is the problem with only you Randians. You trapped yourself in a paradox by asserting that coercion is never acceptable, yet you are unwilling to let go of the mother of all such evil.
(1): Is this “Objectivist government” made up of real mortal men providing real economic services subject to the laws of Human action?
If (no), then Goto Exit.
else goto (2)
(2): How does a service provider of real economic goods and services establish a territorial monopoly?
if (force used to drive out competitors) then goto (3)
else
if (all consumers in a given territory voluntarily patronize only one such service provider) then goto (4)
else
if (Michael asserts that a service provider of real economic goods can acquire a territorial monopoly by a mysterious unexplained phenomenon) then goto Exit.
(3) Print: “Coercion! Coercion!”
(4) Print: "Service provider is so incredibly efficient that no competitor has yet succeeded in providing any alternatives, thus creating an illusion of a government in a market economy. Amazing! "
(Exit): Print: “I’m afraid we can no longer resort to reason in order to settle this dispute. good day.”
.
But there is a fundamental difference between your position and Michael’s. You don’t deny that the above is tyranny of the majority and not coercion. You fully acknowledge it, although you argue that some degree of such tyranny is a necessary evil. In this respect, although I am convinced of your faulty reasoning, you are in a far more “reasonable” position to argue from.
Lewis S.,
You have arrived late to this thread, so if you want to discuss this with me, it would be helpful if you would go to my first post about 13 down from the top of page 1 for at least a little of the groundwork under my comments. You are also hindered by your unfamiliarity with Objectivism that thoroughly explains values, their source, purpose, and the objectivity thereof. Best source for that would be Leonard Peikoff’s easy to digest “Objectivism:The Philosophy of Ayn Rand”. For an immediate shortcut, go to http://aynrandlexicon.com for excerpts from Objectivist writings on over 200 indexed subjects. As Rand’s influence continues to rise, the thinking of those who are not familiar with her explanations will be increasingly marginalized.
The primary problem with your question about the ability of an Objectivist government to avoid violating rights is an attempt to establish infallibility as a minimum requirement of a valid institution of defense. But the very basis for individual rights in the first place derives in part from the recognition that all men are fallible and therefore need autonomy to protect against the fallibility of others.
It is precisely the incompatibility of autonomy with arbitrary force that is the motive for establishing a system to objectify the use of defensive force. There is nothing in defining or implementing that system that ignores the potential errors those fallible men may make. The entire concept of checks and balances arises from the recognition of human fallibility.
Note: do not confuse “objective law” in the sense that it is objectively true with “objectified law” meaning that whether it is objectively true or in error, it and its alleged proofs have been documented and institutionalized and are therefore known or knowable to all persons subject to them in advance.
A valid/moral/just government is one that can deliver both of those. It is at the very least possible for an Objectivist government to deliver both. Anarchy could conceivably deliver the first, but is inherently unable to deliver the second.
But no matter what system one proposes, it will not be immune from that fallibility. Therefore you implicit demand that an Objectivist government be infallible or it will be invalid is nonsense.
DD5,
My position is the same as z’s.
See my post above to Lewis S. We are both saying that the majority will establish and sustain the government and admitting the objective fact of reality that they will be fallible men and their government will not be any better than the validity of their principles and implementation—as no government ever could be.
DD5
“(1): Is this “Objectivist government” made up of real mortal men providing real economic services subject to the laws of Human action?”
Yes, they are men and women who are part of the general population (workforce).
" (2): How does a service provider of real economic goods and services establish a territorial monopoly? "
By offering them to a public who chooses their service over all others. [caveat: force is not an “economic good.”]
And as I believe I have clearly demonstrated, such a majority by definition necessitates the existence of a minority, and such a minority is coerced into accepting the “will” of the majority. If it was not the case that the majority applies coercion, then no distinction between majority and minority would exist in the first place, and you would have a unanimous consent (which even you do not pretend to ever exist). Do you see the paradox yet?
Z does not deny that your (objectivist) government relies on coercion to exist. You do! There is a radical difference between both positions.
The public chooses. Great! And when some of the public (the minority you acknowledge that must exist) choose to withdraw their support from “Government A” and patronize “Government B”, and “Government A” does not resort to violence to crush any such attempt by “government B” to offer competition. How can all this be reconciled with your theory of “Majority establishes one government” without contradicting your initial premise of “no coercion allowed”? There are now clearly two governments being formed and you must allow it in order to avoid contradicting yourself. This is a paradox which you have created for yourself, and the only way to resolve it is by either
- acknowledge coercion is part of your “objectivist” political framework?
or
- acknowledge that only the ancap “political” framework offers a system free of coercion.
LS,
I don’t know much about Objectivism. You also mention ‘value scales’ in one of your previous replies. Do you mind explaining this further? (Not meant as an instigation for a debate – just an honest question.)
As for starting a new (PDA related) thread, thx for the invite, but I don’t think I could give it the attention/time it deserves over the next few weeks. Plus, I’m not sure my position has changed much from how I’ve presented it many times here over the past year. (Meaning, I’d have nothing new and groundbreaking to offer on that front.)
Z.
DD5,
As I said before, I don’t know much about Objectivism, but I agree that it is unreasonable to deny the existence of coercion, period, and especially when government is involved.
I’ll rewrite what I recently wrote in a private conversation. Successful negotiation/bargaining/arbitration in ancap relies on strong enough “spirals of expectations”, “public censure”, “public opinion”, and “prominent ethical standards”. My point is that whenever these are, in fact, strong enough to be meaningful (toward stabilizing the bargaining/negotiation process) then they are indistinguishable from a law/force monopoly, i.e. majority’s tyranny over the individual, i.e. a state. Ancaps need these forces to be strong enough to prevent (non-productive and property-destroying) chaos (via providing stabilization to the bargaining/negotiation process) but not so strong as to turn into a majority’s monopoly (coercion) over the individual. I claim that such (Goldilocks) optimal uniformity level in law/force simply does not exist. Ancaps want to have the cake and eat it too. Hence, minarchy as a blatant yet honest, controlled, and minimal, surrender to the majority’s power.
Z.
i’m not sure how my thread about citizen militias and local justice is irrelevant because it seems to me one of the key points about objectivism’s differences with anarchocapitalism has to do with the idea of how force to restrain antisocial force is organised. since the state is generally a monopoly on force anywhere it crops up, and everything it does is backed up by force, is this not a key element of the discussion of statism and the basis upon which the state has the tendency to extend beyond limiting criminal/antisocial behaviour and why anarchocapitalism is anti-state where objectivism conjures up apparitions to justify the use of a state?
rather than have to conjure any apparitions i will say it straight out: the only true defense against arbitrary use of force is every individual being aware of the fact that concentrated power and organised force are the enemy of wealth and freedom. of course it may take some time, some millennia, even, for humanity to finally come to this realisation and make it a central element of the accepted laws of social dynamics but it’s the only thing that needs to really be put forward to answer the question of how to once and for all eradicate our species of the limiting and damaging effects of what amounts to criminal, predatory behaviour.
just to clarify: when i say ‘laws of social dynamics’ i mean it in the same way as the laws of praxeology or the laws of physics, natural, self-emergent principles which the violation of which causes destruction to the social group that permits this falsehood of security by organised violence to be accepted as reality as though simply believing in something makes something reality.
Austrianism is NOT anarcho-capitalism. This is a discussion about Austrianism and Objectivism.
Michael’s issue is that Objectivism cannot tolerate praxeology. The discussions about anarchism, anarcho-capitalism, PDAs, force and so on are red herrings. It’s like treating a symptom rather than the underlying cause. Don’t confuse Rothbard on Libertarianism with Mises and Menger on Austrian Economics.
The issue here is whether value is subjective or not.
@liberty student
To be accurate, you are conflating economics and ethics. In the field of ethics, value is only subjective if life and death are equal. The Objectivist ethics of egoism doesn’t really have anything to do with economic values and Objectivism does not dispute the subject-relative nature of economic values, they would just like to call it something else (I have hear them use “socially objective value.” for example, to describe the intersection of various value-judgments involved in price formation.)
Comparing Objectivism with Austrian economics is not really the issue, because Austrian economics is a value-free science that does not make normative claims. The issue is a philosophic issue of Objectivism versus libertarianism, namely about the groundwork of ethics and its implications for political liberty. Thus if you are claiming there is no objective value system, then there is no basis for anarchy, or objective law, or dictatorship, or anything else, and any political system is not rationally validated as better (“better” as a concept has no meaning either) other than each person’s own arbitrary emotional basis. So this doesn’t do much to help disprove Ayn Rand’s claim that anarchists are whim-worshiping subjectivists.
I might suggest that the issue be dealt with on the grounds of whether or not a government or at least a specific territorial monopoly is necessary for objective law to be recognized and enforced on its own logical terms., but this requires getting into a long chain of abstractions dealing with meta-ethical concepts.
Why exactly do subjective values have to be “emotional”?
Can you elaborate?
What is the difference between an economic value and an ethical one?
And yet, that is the topic of this thread. Despite attempts to conflate Austrian economics with libertarianism. Mises was not a libertarian in the “hippy of the right” sense.
Subjective value is not arbitrary. Are you familiar at all with praxeology?
Well, if we assume your and Rand’s premise, that ethical values are objective, then maybe she is right. I’m asking you to validate that ethics are objective. Don’t assume or presume it. Prove it.
Law is not objective. This stuff is fantasy from the mind of Ayn Rand. Law has never been objective, just as ethics have never been objective, and they can’t because humans arrive at the values (supposedly) underpinning law and ethics subjectively.
As I have written to Michael several times, Objectivism makes sense like Communism makes sense. If we perfect man and remove free choice, everything works out hunky-dory.
Objective ethics are utopian fantasy, nothing more.
I suspect the deeper issues Objectivists have with AE, is related to the fact that AE doesn’t make normative claims. This is contrary to a philosophy where reality is defined by ethics. AE gives us a credible insight into human action that makes Objectivism irrelevant.
Are life and death not two possible alternatives that man must constantly choose between? There are thousands of people demonstrating their higher subjective value for death on a daily basis. No? Somebody forgot to tell them that they are out of spec.
Value is a manifestation of human action. Absent human action, the concept is meaningless. Rocks and plants don’t value anything. So how can there be two distinct value systems with respect to human action. Such abstracts as law and order are meaningless absent human action, therefore, they cannot be based on a different value system. I have to agree with the assertion being made here that Objectivism must reject subjectivism completely. Any attempt to have two value systems is nonsensical.
Sure, I can try to elaborate, but I am finding it hard to keep up with all the posts, but I will try.
Objectivist ethics is a naturalist theory of rational ethics. This simply means that it holds that normative propositions can be discovered and validated by logic, and the source of proper moral norms rests in needs dictated by human nature and reality. Value depends on life, and what values the living entity should pursue depend on the reasons which give rise to its need for morality, which determines the purpose of morality, which in turn determines the standard of selection of values, which establishes an objective basis on which to judge good and evil. It’s not really easily capsulatable in a forum post (I can only point you to Rand, e.g. The Virtue of Selfishness for background reading.), but this, in other words, means holding anything other than “man’s life qua man” as the standard of value is a logical contradiction, because anything else would imply an infinite regress.
As to why subjective values have to be emotional: The basic alternative ethics is confronted with is the question of the standard of moral value. The alternative theories are to act in accordance with man’s nature and reality by a process of reason, or to choose ends arbitrarily, meaning without rational basis or apart from or in contradiction to the facts of reality, meaning not according to such an objective standard of value, which means only by appeal to some internal state (subjectivism) or appeal to some transcendent reality (intrinsicism), which means some non-rational process is used, which means feelings, desires, emotions, blind obedience to the decrees of others, etc. end up being the deciding factor. In essence, a subjective standard of value in ethics inevitably holds that feelings are the basis of or creators of “good” or “evil.” On the objective theory, by contrast, holds that “good” and “evil” are determined by the nature of reality in relation to man, by the nature of a living being and its needs for survival and flourishing, and by what is beneficial or detrimental to its life and well-being.
In economics, by contrast, we are not concerned with normative propositions. We are looking on the state of affairs from a third-person point of view and simply describing what is valued by the subjects involved, each person valuing goods according to his own ends (which can be rational or irrational, in accordance with an objective standard of value, or not), thus we get economically subjective value.
My point is that it is folly to equate the subjective theory of value in Austrian economics with ethics and morality, and folly to justify anarchy (or any political philosophy) on the basis of all judgments of valuing being subjective, as this commits the fallacy of self-exclusion (as Rothbard pointed out, in regards to Mises’ disbelief in a rational ethics.)
I am just making a point about this debate, that this thread started out about some differences between Austrian economists and their philosophies versus Rand and other Objectivist philosophers. Then Michael came in and started ranting away at the old anarchy debate, and now it has changed to Objectivism versus anarchy in general. I don’t think the ad hominems and accusations aren’t really conducive to getting to facts of the issue at hand.
The point I am trying to get across, in order to foster greater understanding between the two sides, is that the issue is not about the Austrian school of economics versus Objectivism. It is about libertarianism versus Objectivism and their differing approaches to political liberty. Namely, the issue of the ethical groundworking of libertarianism or the lack thereof, versus the question of whether or not the ethical groundworking of Objectivism is in harmony with or contradicts its own conclusion of an objectively limited government.