Ayn Rand

[HumbleTangerine]

Sorry for late response. I was at Pride yesterday and just sort of partied all day

My ideal solution for cases like drug policy would be to have the community to decide in a democratic fashion on the limits as to which drugs should be permitted and how the allowed ones should be regulated. Of course, this is just an ideal, and in practice this happens through the institution of representative democracy. Moreover, I do not think of drugs as a matter of individual choice. Our choices are always social. It would be frankly quite ridiculous to say to the families of alcoholics that the only person affected is the individual choosing to drink alcohol. The same goes for alcohol related crime and accidents. (I would not ban alcohol but I do favor government monopoly on it.) In Uneunsae's words: "It is impossible to live in a vacuum, to live only as you see fit and pretend to wash your hands of the effects your way of life has on others."

Taxation is a very poor example for me. One's income is not determined by one's own individual efforts but by one's status in the class hierarchy. Moreover, one's socio-economic status is not chosen by individuals, it is rather determined largely by one's family background (the "inherited" predisposed patterns of behavior etc.), government policies and, most of all, by the structural logic of capitalism, which accumulates wealth to the few at the expense of the majority of population. In other words, meritocracy is an illusion or, rather, . In this light taxation merely redistributes the money unfairly "earned" in the first place.

About schools and segregation. It's not a myth that enabling parents to choose causes or, rather, sustains and strengthens segregation. Moreover, this apparent freedom of choice is usually only granted to the wealthier upper and middle classes (who can afford tuitions and so on). I'm not sure how developed the system of private schools is in Sweden so I can't really say how restricted possibilities there exist for the lower classes to choose a school for their kids. However, in case of, for example, England the freedom of choice is basically denied to working-class families who simply don't have the resources to send their kids to the better (=expensive and bourgeois) schools. And I would like to point out that restricting parents' freedom of choice is merely an attempt to counter-act already prevailing segregation and, as such, does not really affect the root causes of segregation.

I'm very accepting of political ideals that differ from my own, and almost all my friends are left-wingers to different extents. Nonetheless, this kind of thinking usually leaves a pretty sour taste in my mouth.

It's true that your probability of future success, at least financially, depends on the family you're born in. This is especially true in countries where neither education nor health-care are collectively financed, which is why I'll always advocate the necessity of free public schools and hospitals. This doesn't neutralize all the pros and cons you get from having been born into a certain class, but it makes it possible for children of all backgrounds to educate themselves on (almost) the same conditions as everyone else. One's income is, in most cases, decided by the amount of effort one has put in educating oneself and the amount of hard and efficient work one has made. I'm not claiming there aren't exceptions to this rule but generally this is true. If you run your own company and make a worthwhile living in doing so it generally means you're doing a good job; your effort is paying off. If you receive a promotion it generally means your hard work and dedication is being rewarded.

As for schools, education in Sweden, private or non-private, is free. The ability to choose which school to attend applies to everyone, based on the same conditions. If nonexistent social security networks highlight the dangers of overly individualist thinking, proposed policites to have the government choose schools for all children highlight the dangers of overly collectivist thinking. You take away a truly fundamental freedom; choosing where to educate yourself for the greater good of society. A noble cause indeed, but handled in a truly despicable way. I know which school the government would have put me in under this policy. I went there for 2 months, and had I been forced to spend 3 entire years there it would have completely killed my ambition. The government has no idea what I need to stimulate my interests; how I can best fulfill my dreams and ambitions. I'm the only one who truly knows what kind of education I need, and the fact that I got to choose the school that best matched my desires is truly a privilege everyone deserves.

If the more socialist forces in Sweden were in power this is how my life would have looked like:

1. I'm born and my parents are forced to spend an equal amount of time at home taking care of me. This is due to the admittedly noble cause of creating gender equality. Nonetheless, this is not the ideal arrangement at all for my parents, but it IS obligatory.
2. I turn 6 and the government chooses which school I'll attend for me.
3. I turn 15, graduate from primary school and once I've chosen what I'll continue to study, the government once again places me in the school closest to my home.
4. I graduate from upper secondary school at 18 and now it's time for my mandatory military service. Approximately 1 year is spent in training whether I want to or not.
5. Now I want to go to university, and a school is chosen for me for the third time.
6. I graduate and finally it's time to work. More than a third of my income is now taken from me. The money is spent on financing wonderful things like education and health-care, but also some other stuff. I now pay for everyone's right to public transportation; I pay for the removed taxation duties of cultural workers, and I pay for a welfare system so generous that statistically nightmarish amounts of people are retired in advance, choosing not to work. I'm not pulling this out of my ass like some obnoxious American republican, but back in 2006 approximately 15% of the population in Sweden aged 18-65 who weren't studying were pre-retired or on a prolonged leave from work for health-care reasons. In a country with free, qualitative healthcare it's unthinkable that around 10% of the population is deemed too sick to EVER be able to work and an additional 5% are too sick to work in the near future.
7. I choose not to open my own business which I always dreamed of because the insane amount of fees would be too overwhelming. Even hiring someone is expensive as fuck.

This is more an attack on Swedish socialism than the ideology in general. What you see above is a society that destroys ambition. A society where the government's belief in my capabilities to choose for myself are non-existent and where they plan out many aspects of my life for me. In a society where I'm constantly told that I'm too irresponsible for freedom, how could I ever aspire to anything ambitious?

[Virge]

Bravo Tangerine.

[HumbleTangerine]

In an attempt to get back on topic; in the first interview I saw with Mrs. Rand she claimed that monopolies cannot possibly exist in a free market, because sooner or later a competitor will always come forth. Instinctively I called bullshit. I haven't studied enonomics, but I believe monopolies CAN occur in a free market if a sole company gets hold of a particular and rare resource, or if all competitors are simply bought up by a huge corporation.

I would love to get some insight on this from someone who has actually studied the subject. And does anyone have any example of a monopoly that occurred on a relatively free market?

[Aike]

I'll just respond to this because I think this is a crucial difference in our presuppositions about capitalism.

One's income is, in most cases, decided by the amount of effort one has put in educating oneself and the amount of hard and efficient work one has made. I'm not claiming there aren't exceptions to this rule but generally this is true. If you run your own company and make a worthwhile living in doing so it generally means you're doing a good job; your effort is paying off. If you receive a promotion it generally means your hard work and dedication is being rewarded.

Capitalism does not work this way. I'm not sure whether this is the right thread or forum to pour a lot of Marxist economic theory onto so let's just focus on the cases of individual earnings and unemployment.

First, the level of one's income does not correlate with the amount of your work. Your wage is not dependent on the amount of value you produce to the company you work for but on the value of your so called means of subsistence. Left to their own "natural" development, the wages of workers tend to gravitate to the minimum enough to keep them alive. In developed countries the value of the means of subsistence has generally been jacked up a little by the collective efforts of the labor movement but, today more than ever, in the Third World one can see this law operating full scale. Even in OECD countries the average hourly wage in a certain region correlates negatively with the average length of the working day. In other words, the longer the working day, the less you get paid by the hour. (This culminates in the case of USA where we have working-class people overworking themselves to exhaustion and getting paid very little in return). I'm bringing this up because it contradicts the claim that the more you work, the bigger are the rewards. In capitalism it goes more like this: the more you work, the more you produce for the company (and no, what's best for the company is not, as a rule, best for its employees).

Second, the demand of labor is not dependent on its supply. In capitalism we have two contradictory tendencies operating simultaneously: on the one hand companies are dependent on employees to do the work (to provide the products to the market and generate profits for the company), on the other hand there exists a constant tendency to replace labor with machines and to drive down the aggregate costs (wages) of workers by firing the redundant ones. Moreover, capitalism always generates its own pool of unemployed people (or its own surplus population to use Marxist terms) as it leaves people out of work for the above said reasons and, on the other hand, always needs a pool of potential workers in times of cyclical prosperity. Moreover, mass unemployment is beneficial for companies insofar as the increased demand for jobs tends to reduce the costs of hiring people (people will accept anything in times of crisis and employers can force worse conditions on the people they've hired). I'm bringing this up because many libertarians or people leaning on the right tend to think that unemployment is simply a result of one's lack of effort. No, unemployment is a structural feature of the capitalist economic system (even if this is temporarily not always visible in times of economic growth).

[Uneunsae]

In an attempt to get back on topic; in the first interview I saw with Mrs. Rand she claimed that monopolies cannot possibly exist in a free market, because sooner or later a competitor will always come forth. Instinctively I called bullshit. I haven't studied enonomics, but I believe monopolies CAN occur in a free market if a sole company gets hold of a particular and rare resource, or if all competitors are simply bought up by a huge corporation.


I would love to get some insight on this from someone who has actually studied the subject. And does anyone have any example of a monopoly that occurred on a relatively free market?

I have a degree in Business so I'll just make a brief response. The only thing that prevents monopolies in a capitalist system is government regulation. The "free market" is a complete illusion. It requires a ton of government intervention to keep it from falling apart.

Keynesian economics assumes that consumers are intelligent and always make rational decisions. I don't think I need to write a 1,000 word essay here to prove this is not true. Most of what you hear about economics outside an academic setting that truly puts a microscope on the subject is total and utter BS (especially from politicians running for office). And that's the way the government and businesses like it!

[Uneunsae]

OMG... must resist urge to write controversial things.... resisting... resisting. *exhale*

[HumbleTangerine]

I'll just respond to this because I think this is a crucial difference in our presuppositions about capitalism.

Capitalism does not work this way. I'm not sure whether this is the right thread or forum to pour a lot of Marxist economic theory onto so let's just focus on the cases of individual earnings and unemployment.

First, the level of one's income does not correlate with the amount of your work. Your wage is not dependent on the amount of value you produce to the company you work for but on the value of your so called means of subsistence. Left to their own "natural" development, the wages of workers tend to gravitate to the minimum enough to keep them alive. In developed countries the value of the means of subsistence has generally been jacked up a little by the collective efforts of the labor movement but, today more than ever, in the Third World one can see this law operating full scale. Even in OECD countries the average hourly wage in a certain region correlates negatively with the average length of the working day. In other words, the longer the working day, the less you get paid by the hour. (This culminates in the case of USA where we have working-class people overworking themselves to exhaustion and getting paid very little in return). I'm bringing this up because it contradicts the claim that the more you work, the bigger are the rewards. In capitalism it goes more like this: the more you work, the more you produce for the company (and no, what's best for the company is not, as a rule, best for its employees).

Second, the demand of labor is not dependent on its supply. In capitalism we have two contradictory tendencies operating simultaneously: on the one hand companies are dependent on employees to do the work (to provide the products to the market and generate profits for the company), on the other hand there exists a constant tendency to replace labor with machines and to drive down the aggregate costs (wages) of workers by firing the redundant ones. Moreover, capitalism always generates its own pool of unemployed people (or its own surplus population to use Marxist terms) as it leaves people out of work for the above said reasons and, on the other hand, always needs a pool of potential workers in times of cyclical prosperity. Moreover, mass unemployment is beneficial for companies insofar as the increased demand for jobs tends to reduce the costs of hiring people (people will accept anything in times of crisis and employers can force worse conditions on the people they've hired). I'm bringing this up because many libertarians or people leaning on the right tend to think that unemployment is simply a result of one's lack of effort. No, unemployment is a structural feature of the capitalist economic system (even if this is temporarily not always visible in times of economic growth).

I have never really bothered delving very deeply into marxist theory. I need only look at the surface to deduce that it's not part of my own philosophy and I have yet to muster the dedication to deeply explore something I know I'll disagree with. In other words I acknowledge that you know a lot more about the subject than I do.

I agree with most of the problems you emphasize in capitalism though. I advocate proper governmental legislation to ensure that employees can't be fired on whims as well as humane compensation that won't force workers to live on an existential minimum. I'm not saying this is how it necessarily works practically at the moment, I'm saying this is what I'd advocate.

Second of all, I still feel like you underestimate the effort it generally takes to increase one's position and income. It's not a matter of mere working hours, but a matter of how these are spent. When I had a part-time job I started out doing the simplest tasks nobody else bothered doing. Eventually as I showed my dedication I was allowed to move upwards with increased salary. I had a fair minimum salary and an additional income directly tied to my achievements. If I managed to pack 1000 boxes of goods during the time it averagely takes to pack 800, whilst still living up to the standards of quality, I got paid more. One of my collegaues who spent his time taking breaks twice as long as permitted and working truly inefficiently naturally didn't get as much compensation as me and one of my friends whose innovations made the work process considerably more efficient was even promoted to a kind of project leader for his good work. Everything was based around the principles of meritocracy. You could say I received medium compensation as an efficient worker, my lazy co-worker received the minimum salary for his lack of dedication and my friend rose higher than me because his innovations and efficiency were worth more to the company than my efficiency alone.

I see these same principles applied in most companies. Sadly, many jobs go severely under-appreciated, but we must have wildly different perceptions of reality because, to me, most companies function the way the one I worked for did.

[HumbleTangerine]

OMG... must resist urge to write controversial things.... resisting... resisting. *exhale*

Write controversial things! Write controversial things!

[Virge]

In an attempt to get back on topic; in the first interview I saw with Mrs. Rand she claimed that monopolies cannot possibly exist in a free market, because sooner or later a competitor will always come forth. Instinctively I called bullshit. I haven't studied enonomics, but I believe monopolies CAN occur in a free market if a sole company gets hold of a particular and rare resource, or if all competitors are simply bought up by a huge corporation.

I would love to get some insight on this from someone who has actually studied the subject. And does anyone have any example of a monopoly that occurred on a relatively free market?

I think if you go back to the 1st interview with Ayn Rand you'll hear that she says Monopolies cannot exist long in a free market --- without the use of force. I got a confirmation no something I said earlier about monopolies. Going back to the Roman Empire it's safe to say there has never been a successful monopoly that has not had government approval, protection and cooperation.

Even in a situation of a monopolist gaining control of a single valuable resource there are things to consider. Just his control of that single rare resource does not automatically mean he is going to exploit it beyond its market value. As long as he doesn't not raise prices to exploit the consumers there will be no incentive for others to attempt to compete with him through alternate resources. ONCE he begins to raise prices (in the manner most people assume monopolists all will) he provides motive and opportunity for competitors to provide alternate products on the consumer market. Once that begins, the monopoly is doomed from its loss of revenue, possession of ONLY a single monopolized resource that has been replaced in the market and the growing market strength of its competitors.
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On another subject,
having read Aike's attempt to explain an economic system he has no actual experience with it's obvious he either doesn't mind embarrassing himself by showing how little he understands about capitalism or is unaware how embarrassed he should be for knowing so little and acting otherwise.

[Uneunsae]

No, I'd prefer not to have the CIA show up at my door accusing me of being a terrorist all because I gave my opinions. There are other people, like MikeW, who are more confident and will post thoughts similar to mine sooner or later anyways.