Your boss is a dictator over your life, personal capitalism

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Well, I don't think that Rand has a problem with any of those things being persons. However, I think in the case of the mafia, the clear intention to commit wrongful acts would pose a problem, and in the case of the trade union, the problem is that the employer might refuse to negotiate with such an organization.


Corporate personhood is a legal fiction in order to deal with particular set of agreements efficiently.


Well... the issue here is partially different views of what freedom means. Objectivists will tend to fall in line with the idea of negative rights, with a view to maximize those. As such, they do maximize this sort of freedom by strictly going against interventionism. It is arguable that their view of freedom is somewhat incoherent though, but that is a different manner than describing the idea.

In any case, I am not sure that your view really makes sense even given a view of positive rights. After all, for one, freedom isn't a lump sum, but rather can reasonably be increased or decreased by increasing or reducing restrictive rules on all parties. Note: that rules can emerge through tradition and be repealed through the rejection of traditions. Not only that, but under a positive rights view, where freedom is being enabled to do something, then a system of economic growth can conceivably increase freedom resulting in long-run maximum freedom. Now, of course, whether or not capitalism is the best system for economic growth or whether or not economic growth is or will be egalitarian enough to increase positive freedom for all individuals is another question.

Perhaps I am confusing your ideas somewhat with other ideas or something like that. The rights ideas can be looked at here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_a ... ive_rights and it is usually promoted by libertarians. I apologize for applying the framework to you if it is not ideal for what you seek, however, I did so partially because Rand's views would fit rather firmly as a strong negative rights view.

I like how Cracked.com described Ayn Rand.

To be or not to be, that is the question. The answer is yours and mine. Whatever we choose to do, we are responsible for the choice.

If one finds living too difficult, there is always dying.

ruveyn

Naah! That's a cop out. If you're going to die anyway you might just as well take some of the sons-of-bitches with you that caused your problems. That's where suicide bombers come from.

actually Hamlet was contemplating taking up arms in rebellion against Claudius in the "to be or not to be" soliloquy. It was the Romantics who applied the whole suicidal ideation reading in the 1800's which has unfortunately stuck. Though your invoking it may ring more true than you intended, endamar could give a rendition of the the "to be or not to be" soliloquy then raise the red flag

Under a Rand-inspired system, most people would concentrate on bare survival. That limits options and freedom totally. For instance, pay would be low and there would be no job security. Illness would cause a catastrophic financial burden. A lot of money would have to be saved yet pay is low... you would have to prepare for possible summary dismissal, and so forth. One has not the option really of trying a different line of work as education would be prohibitively expensive... and considering the dangers of gambling in this way considering the low pay... you'd have a world of desperate people willing to do anything to survive.

See, I'm not talking about what some charter or constitution says you can do, but what you can do practically speaking. I also have to assume that corporations would have the right to own the employees in different ways - mandatory drug tests, monitoring the employees so that they conform to moral standards, and don't think of criticising the boss... so even those rights are meaningless.

Hmmm... Sounds pretty much like the USA today.

America's leaders polled reveal that "Atlas Shrugged" is the second most influential book... so this is no shock that this country is sliding towards her "vision" of Hell.

We are more likely to become on of the "People's States" which are demonized in -Atlas Shrugged-.

In point of fact the country is tending more to fascism, then to lassaiz faire capitalism.

ruveyn

Well, right, you are pointing to something more along the line positive rights. The Rand inspired rebuttal would then be an argument that capitalism ultimately increases our self-determination. They will ultimately claim that capitalism increases growth and that the growth attained by capitalism is, in the long-run, egalitarian enough to improve the economic means of individuals and thus increase capabilities. However, the Randian view is that ethics depends upon individualism, and as such, this isn't their thrust even though it is something they believe.

You can refuse to believe this view of the workings of markets, however, economist Peter Leeson seems to basically uphold this view. http://www.peterleeson.com/Two_Cheers_f ... talism.pdf As he argues that capitalism is correlated with various measures of success, such as income, education, and life expectancy. Even if the methodology used by Leeson is questionable (a claim I won't blame you for given that the metrics could perhaps detect for utter failures in a manner that does not rebut the social democracy you favor), Leeson's efforts still can show that the efficacy of the market is *at least* an open question rather than having Randroids utterly bereft of any possible support.

I actually have to disagree, as this country is actually sliding towards her vision of Hell to some extent. Reagan did deregulate some things and reduce marginal tax rates, but at the same time, the size of government and the government deficit is increasing, even under the Republican presidents who like to show themselves as being in favor of a free market, and as such, it is hard to say that Rand would be very happy with such developments.

Indicators like income, education, life span, and contentedness are more closely correlated to social democracy than pure capitalism. Canada, Japan, and Scandinavia beat the US, and they have done so by tempering the excesses of capitalism a bit. At some point, it is less about production and more about distribution.

tell me about it. i've lived with most of that job insecurity, underpayed, over-taxed, completely limited of freedom garbage.

rand isn't libertarian. she was corporatist and, worse so, an aristocratic rubber-head.

agreed but this country is too stupid and too controlled by the media for a social democracy. a more libertarian society would have to emerge first before such people could handle a social democracy properly.

note: libertarian doesn't mean rand corporate state.

I already admitted that Leeson's paper did not address social democracy.

In addition, some of your claims seem wrong, as the US has a higher GDP per capita than the nations you have selected.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_g ... per-capita

The US also has a high level of tertiary education and average years of education for adults.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_e ... t-tertiary
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_a ... ing-adults

I will grant you that the US does do worse at life expectancy. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_l ... population However, one can argue that adjusted life expectancy data do favor the US more so than other nations. http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2007/11/bey ... rs-us.html Then the additional issue becomes how responsible the system should be held for the downward adjustments in the US's health expectancy.

As well, the life satisfaction of Japan is significantly lower than the US, as is the life satisfaction of France, which is also a social democracy.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/lif_l ... tisfaction

In any case, the counter argument to your claim is then that increasing production can in the long-run increase the amount distributed significantly. After all, GDP growth is exponential and thus in the long-run production beats distribution. Is such an argument possibly overly simple? Sure, as one cannot neglect distribution entirely, but given the simple framework, it does not seem like a terrible argument.

Think of it as an absurd game that you have to play.

It is really a very small proportion of the population thati is actually raising food or doing anything remotely productive. All that anyone else is doing is scamming.

In the early years, a lot of Europeans came to the American colonies as indentured servants--they would work as slaves for 7-10 years, and then they would presumably be free to pursue their own interests.

The present paradigm is that you work as a slave until you are 67, and then you can collect social security and do what you want for possibly a few years, while awaiting death.

Or, you can observe how the system works, and see if you can find some means of defeating it.