From: siphon@momad.li.ny.us (Stimpson J. Katz)
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
Subject: Failures of Objectivism -- A rebuttal
Date: Tue, 05 Jan 93 05:16:43 EST
Reply-To: siphon@Momad.LI.NY.US (Stimpson J. Katz)
Organization: Modem Madness BBS    1+516-295-9435

Michael Ward's "Failures of Objectivism" were posted here. My responses
to each claim are preceded by a ";" I have been waiting for a reasoned, 
rational criticism of Objectivism for me to address, but since it seems 
that there will not be one, this will have to do.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-==--=-=

------------I------------

Objectivism is a philosophy built on moral principles, but those moral
principles themselves have no foundation.  

; This is an absolutely false claim and demonstrates the author is
; completely ignorant of the method by which Objectivism is developed.
;
; Objectivism begins with non-moral axioms, that is, the facts of reality 
; and the methods of reason and logic. This is the only proper foundation 
; for moral principles. The very concept of morality needs definition 
; before any specific moral principles can be considered.

Religions can build their morality on divine inspiration, science builds 
precepts on what is proven to work; but philosophies such as Objectivism 
stand on nothing other than the very shaky grounds that "it sounds right 
to me". People join religions on the basis of such inner resonance, and
rightly so.  

; Religions can only validly build their morality on divine inspiration
; if they can prove that they in fact have such a thing. Worse, religions
; are free to build whatever morality they claim divinely inspired with
; no check in reality or reason. If you find this comfortable, by all
; means live that way.
;
; Objectivism stands on reality. But, in a fundamental sense, when persuading
; people, there is nothing they can do to indicate acceptance other than to
; say, "that sounds right to me". Even if I prove something to you, you must
; accept the proof yourself. Mr. Ward here is criticizing reality. He wants
; there to be some way to get ideas into people's heads without them
; agreeing to them.
;
; People accept all their ideas based on them sounding "right to them"
; whether they are in fact right or wrong, whatever the method of persuasion.

National policy should be based on something a little
more solid.

; Alas, without a god to give us our policies directly, divine inspiration 
; is not available to us, and we must reason them out for ourselves. Nothing 
; is more dangerous than a politician who can freely claim divine inspiration 
; for any policy he concocts with no rational base for a check.
 
A moral code that leads to an absolute assertion of property rights
seems especially shaky.  "What's mine is mine because I possess it,
and nobody can tell me what I can do with it!"  would seem to require
a considerable amount of justification from more basic principles,
since arguments about our common heritage from the Earth are pretty
strong (we'll put aside any arguments that everything a European,
African or Asian American owns in the USA was ultimately stolen from
the indigenous folk here).  On the other hand, some scientific proof
that such a code would lead to some ultimate good would be nice to see
-- but has so far been lacking.

; It is not fair for you to cricize property rights as an Objectivist
; "absolute assertion" when you admit that they rest on a moral code.
; You must criticize either the code or the process of deriving property
; right from it. You are in the position of saying you disagree with our
; conclusion without discussing either our axioms or the methods by which
; we derive the conclusions.
;
; When you dispute a conclusion that you admit is based on a moral code,
; all we need say is that it is based validly on that moral code. If you
; wish to attack the moral code, that is another issue, and one that you,
; conspicuously, do not even attempt to address.
;
; You are free to disagree with a conclusion arbitrarily. But it is not
; rational to dispute a conclusion without addressing the concepts on which
; it is based or its method of derivation. Objectivism clearly presents
; both of these.
 
--------------II------------

Objectivism springs from works of fiction about people who were, to
say the least, not fully fleshed out.  John Galt was not an idealist,
he was an idealization.  John Galt was clearly who Ayn Rand wanted to
be, rather than a portrayal of any real person.  Real people are just
not like that, or at least I have neither met nor heard of anyone like
him.  If Objectivism were put forth as something people could live by
if people were ideal entities, it might have some validity.  But as a
philosophy for real people in the real world, it falls short.

; This criticism is in fact not a criticism at all. Ayn Rand's fictional
; works presented heroes to demonstrate what a person living his life
; according to her principles would be like. There is no point in Ayn
; Rand showing her heroes tying their shoes and making their beds.
; These fictional works are crystallizations of her values. They show what
; is possible for man, man at his best.
;
; Again, you assert that "it falls short" without defending this assertion
; or specifying how it falls short.

-------------III------------

Objectivism claims to be a rational approach to the world.  But the
world is a complex place, and human society is a complex system.  Like
all complex systems, societies evolve to reach a stable dynamic right
at the border between order and chaos.  Reason can somewhat handle the
orderly part,  but fails when things slip over to the chaotic.  Even
in the orderly part, there are way too many variables to be rationally
handled.  

; Other than rationally handling whatever can be so handled, what 
; alternative would you suggest? Guessing? Mystic insight? Force?
;
; If you insist on arguing without proof that there are things reason can't
; handle, I sure would like to here your unreasonable method for dealing
; with them.

While a free market is the best way we have yet found to deal with the 
overwhelming complexity of an economy, experience has taught us that some 
regulation is needed to keep that market from plunging into chaos.  An 
ideology driven attempt to remove that regulation could be disastrous.

; Unless the ideology was right! To what experience are you referring?

--------------IV------------

A reading of history indicates that when people are allowed to
accumulate wealth without any regard for their fellows, the result is
tyranny.  

; What about when people are allowed to PRODUCE wealth. You also erroneously 
; equate a mere lack of regard with, presumably, forceful repression. These 
; two are quite different. Tyranny by definition requires the use of force 
; to gain values. Objectivists do not permit this.
;
; By the way, I am puzzled about something. You defend the value of a free
; economy, but you talk about the "accumulation" of wealth. Usually those
; who endorse even a partially free market admit that to get wealth by
; capitalist methods you must *produce* it. I suggest you rethink your
; understanding of what constitutes wealth and where it comes from. You
; are endorsing the Marxists by default. If the only issue were who would
; accumulate wealth and how it would be distributed, what do we need a free
; market for?

What is to keep people from enslaving their fellows after
Objectivism allows them to accumulate enough wealth to overcome any
opposition?  

; What is to keep people from doing so under any system? You are making
; here an invalid pragmatic argument. You need to demonstrate that 
; widespread adoption of Objectivist principles increases the risk of any 
; one entity both accumulating enough wealth and employing it effectively 
; to support a takeover.
;
; Surely the establishment of a government free to regulate trade and collect
; taxes with no reality based limitations increases this risk. In every 
; historical example of forceful imposition of tyranny, it was a
; government free of restrictions against the initiation of coercion that
; supported the takeover. Objectivism specifically prohibits this.
;
; More importantly, perhaps, Objectivism morally condemns those who attempt
; to enslave their fellows and most other systems do not have any principled
; opposition to this use of force.

; At least, in an Objectivist society, as soon as such an entity made
; its coercive tendencies known, all the rest of society would oppose
; it. At present, when governments usurp power there is no ideological
; base for opposition. They can always claim that what they do they do for
; your benefit. This they always claim.

Laissez-faire economics is not exactly a new concept.  It
has been abandoned every time it has been tried, not because of any
idealism but because it just doesn't work.  It would seem no matter
how often or how thoroughly an idea is discredited, there is always
someone willing to resurrect it.

; It has been rejected because it was never accepted ideologically.
; It never had a fair chance. As soon as the wealth appeared, so did the
; predators and without an ideological defense, the predators have succeeded
; in grabbing wealth without effort. They still do today.
;
; What historical evidence do you present of laissez-faire economics being
; tried and not working? I am sure that the facts of history will clearly
; refute your claim no matter what period or country you view as definitive.
;
; The closest historical example I can think of is the United Stated during
; its industrialization in the nineteenth century, the period in which the 
; standard of living, and life expectancy advanced more rapidly than any 
; other. This period is an example of near laissez-faire capitalism.

---------------V--------------

Those societies best able to achieve a widely based prosperity --
bringing great wealth for the few, modest prosperity for the many, and
extreme poverty for only a very few -- seem to be those who have
established a well regulated free enterprise system.  This, by the
way, includes our own society.  The main argument between liberals and
conservatives should be over how much regulation makes an economy well
regulated.  Let the left and the right fight over whether it should be
total or totally absent.

; In other words, no principles should be involved in the field of politics.
; The only decision is how much theft and how much force shall be used
; and accepted to accomplish whatever goals the current power structure
; considers important.
;
; This is what Ayn Rand meant when she asserted that philosophers have
; forgotten that politics is a branch of philosophy.
;
; One more thing, do not ever use the phrase "well regulated free enterprise"
; again, it is clearly an oxymoron. Regulation is coercion, period. All 
; laws are ultimately enforced at the point of a gun, and I don't think
; that you are talking about prohibition of coercive crimes here. Force
; and freedom are opposites.

--------------VI--------------

"Atlas Shrugged" portrays people who, by the sweat of their brows and
their own ingenuity create new enterprises and new resources.  In the
real world, the people who end up in control are, more often then not,
totally incapable of doing any creative or constructive work
themselves.  This is becoming more and more true as manipulators of
organizations are taking over and engineers, scientists and
manufacturers are becoming ever more rare in the halls of the
executive wing.

; Did you ever wonder why it is the case that it is the plunderers and
; predators who get into power? Why is it that the men of ability do not
; find themselves able to use their ability, except under the terms of those
; "totally incapable of doing any creative or constructive work themselves."
; Power in government means ability to exert coercion, to force. Men of
; ability have no need for force, they function as traders exchanging the
; products of their ability for the products of others.
;
; A business that exists in a mixed economy, unfortunately, needs leaders who 
; can seduce government to get them unearned breaks. The people who can do
; this are the ass-kissers, the parasites, the threatening, and the slimy. In 
; a free market, management had better respect the engineers, scientists, 
; and creative personnel who create their products or they will not be in 
; business long. Your criticism here is actually a profound endorsement.
;
; You last claim is false. More and more scientists, engineers, and
; manufacturing experts are appearing in upper management. Even in our 
; mixed economy, the increase in technologically driven companies has 
; caused corporations to bump engineers into higher levels of management at
; an accelerating rate. 
;
; This is partially because technology also reduces the power of 
; government. After all, what the East Germans really wanted, when they 
; finally could cross the former Berlin Wall, were CD's and blue jeans.
; Also information, an increasingly important commodity is notoriously
; difficult to regulate since it does not respect physical borders.

----------------VII-------------
 
The nearest we have gotten to an experiment in the value of Objectivism 
was the era of Reaganomics.  The eighties were the triumph of objectivism, 
as the virtues of selfishness led directly to the wholesale looting of the 
economy and the treasury.   

; Reagan increased government spending faster than any of his recent 
; predecessors. As far as the "wholesale looting of the economy and the 
; treasury" other than the large deficit from increased government spending, 
; and a concurrent increase in government power, I do not know what you are 
; referring to.

Massive debt was incurred, not to increase productivity, but to funnel 
personal wealth into individual pockets.  

; If this was done by government endorsed force, then what you have is
; not anything close to what Objectivism promotes. Where does Objectivism
; endorse the use of the government to take wealth from one person or
; group of pople and give it to another who has not earned it?

This debt was incurred without regard to any ability to repay it, and the 
wealth that individuals accrued was kept in spite of severe and predictable 
inability to repay.  

; What entity had the power to incur this debt? Does Objectivism claim
; that this entity should have that power?

Property prices were artificially ballooned to extreme levels by a cynical 
and criminal manipulation of the Savings and Loan and banking industries,
making those who understood what was happening fantastically wealthy
and those who were marginally surviving homeless.  And the poor saps
who just wanted to buy a home have been left holding the bag.
 
; This "looting" was made possible by government allowing S&L's to be
; exempt from the consequences of their actions. The government agreed,
; through the FSLIC, to insulate the S&L's from the consequences of their
; failures; saying, in effect, go ahead and take big risks, if you lose,
; we will cover the losses. The results were predicted by Objectivists and
; Libertarians years ago. We wanted a free market for S&L's with no such
; artificial protection. No one listened. We pay for the damage done by
; this idiotic regulation of free enterprise to this day.

It might be argued that this looting was not performed by
Objectivists.  I suppose that all true Objectivists are safe and
secure academics who would never dream of actually doing anything.
Reaganomics was driven by people who were happy to take the precepts
of Objectivism to their logical conclusion.  The looting of the nation
in the eighties was performed by people looking out for number one,
and it's a small semantic leap from "the virtue of selfishness" to
"greed is good".  The result is immediately visible.  We are all now
suffering from its damage.
 
; To this vague smear I can only respond, see all of the above.
;
; Objectivism in no way endorses 'selfishness' when it involves the use
; of force to gain wealth. The damage was done under government auspices,
; as you point out. The government was unrestricted by any objective code
; of morality. What happened was the left and the right fought over how
; much looting would be done, and how to divide the spoils. I thought that
; was what you endorsed?

It might also be argued that Objectivism was not truly unleashed in
the eighties, that it was still restrained by some regulation.  Still,
what little we did see of this way of thought was sobering enough.  If
this experiment is to be continued, I very selfishly hope that it is
conducted on someone else's economy.  The Russians have recently lost
an ideology and have shown themselves capable of withstanding almost
infinite misery.  Maybe it could be tried there.

; Do you oppose ANY ideology just on the grounds that it IS an ideology?
;
; Other than the savings and loan crisis and increases in government 
; spending, I don't know what else in the eighties bothers you. I have 
; demonstrated that your two specific examples have no grounding whatsoever 
; in Objectivist principles. Reagan was no Objectivist.
;
; By the way, Reagan-bashing, for some reason, has become fashionable again.
; The facts are seldom acknowledged. If you are really intersted in 
; discovering what the economy was like throughout his presidency, there are
; several interesting articles in Reason magazine.
;
; It is important to point out that the argument that Reagan is
; pseudo-Objectivist and Reagan led to misery, thus Objectivism leads to
; more misery is specious. It must first be demonstrated that those
; aspects of Reagan that caused the misery are his pseudo-Objectivist
; aspects. This demonstration is clearly missing in Ward's work.

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Stimpson J. Katz

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