/lit/ - Literature

Aside from being
>female
>Jewish
>spent the last years of her life on welfare
Her philosophy is cringe. Advocating for everyone to be a sociopath who only looks out for their interests is a recipe for a dysfunctional society. Her books aren't even well-written: John Galt rants for pages on end.

>>16638448
Why does she make current year leftists seethe so much?

Her philosophy is shit and her writing is shit. She claims the law of identity immediately implies determinism, and then claims special exception for human free will. It's undergrad tier, bafflingly incompetent.

The adult characters in her novels unironically talk like the 13 year old from Mishima's The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea, except she thinks these are literal geniuses rather than children with perversely destructive ideas about idealism.

>>16638448
She is shit. Kys

>>16638448
Libertarianism is the most godless ideology, but it doesn't even have all of the fun and cool parts of being godless.

>>16638448
>2020
>Rand-posting
Are we at the farce stage of shilling pseud-authors yet?
This was babby's first /pol/-can-read book before you all got hijacked by Trump's PR department

>>16638529
Not really. Rand's been a laughing stock for as long as 4chan has been around. You've only been here a few months, so you wouldn't know that. We used to encourage you guys to lurk moar, but no one does that anymore.

>>16638485
Because
>jewish
>woman
so why is she an evil KKK Nazi Libertarian DRUMPFFFF Paul Ryan? Oh, but even worse
>russian
So she's responsible for SUBVERTING DEMOCRACY.

No one on the Left knows, or really cares, about her """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""thought"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""". She's a boogeyman, and maybe more.

>>16638570
>maybe
this should have been "nothing". Hurrr durr.

>>16638448
>let woman write book on philosophical human ideal
>extreme narcissism, greed, selfishness, egoism, hedonism, vanity, sociopathy, and solipism are actually a good thing
>t. XX Walking Vagina

Her books are interesting not for the prose or the surface level Libertarian ideology, but as a dark and terrifying insight into the Machiavellian female mind. Her books are a powerful case for Redpill and Blackpill social sexual theory.

All her books are about a Dark Triad hyper-ambitious Chad. The female love interests are always hypergamous and calculating. Look at the Fountainhead for example. Roark rapes Dominique but it’s ok because most women secretly have a rape fantasy as long as the man is tall, handsome, and masculine enough. Dominique also branch swings from man to man whenever one loses their social standing or another one reaches success. She literally sleeps around with rich men to social climb and secure resources with her pussy, and ends relationships whenever a richer man comes along that she thinks she has a chance with.

Female brains like to hamster away and create constructs and spooks to justify their actions, “I cheated because he wasn’t giving me enough attention, it’s not my fault, he is the bad guy and we had that one fight 3 months ago about which restaurant to eat at for our anniversary so actually he is emotionally abusive too.” This is because despite their solipsism, the average women might feel guilt on their conscience without such justifications, which they only care about because it is an uncomfortable feeling.

Ayn Rand is rare because she cuts away the bullshit and provides the naked truth of what is going on at the base level of a roastie’s mind.

>>16638448
>People like Paul Ryan talked about how much her books changed his life and inspired his ideology
Too bad Ayn Rand would be disgusted with him and he would've known that very well if he really read her books.

>>16638448
The political elite and rich love her because the core of her message is the rich and powerful are rich and powerful because they are superior. It makes them feel special.

>>16638655
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/what-ayn-rand-says-about-paul-ryan/2012/08/13/fd40d574-e56d-11e1-8741-940e3f6dbf48_blog.html

>Ryan has referenced Rand repeatedly over the course of her career, saying her writings got him into economics and policy. Ryan told the New Yorker recently that he has been reading Rand since high school; it was “Atlas Shrugged” that got him interested in economics. In March of 2003, Ryan told the Weekly Standard he was still a huge fan.

>“I give out ‘Atlas Shrugged’ as Christmas presents, and I make all my interns read it,” he said. “Well... I try to make my interns read it.”

> Ryan spoke to the Atlas Society, a Rand-devoted group, in 2005, telling the group that Rand was “the reason I got involved in public service, by and large.” He cited two excerpts from “Atlas Shrugged” that he goes back to frequently: “Francisco d’Anconia’s speech ... on money” and “the 64-page John Galt speech.”

>The Galt speech is a summary of Objectivism (here’s an Atlas Society outline). Slate’s Dave Weigel has a deep dive into the other speech, in which a copper mine owner rails against the end of the gold standard and the use of paper money to help “legal looters.”

>And in a 2009 video series, Ryan added: “I think Ayn Rand did the best job of anybody to build a moral case of capitalism, and that morality of capitalism is under assault.”

>He declared that Rand’s thinking is “sorely needed right now” because we are “living in an Ayn Rand novel” and that “Ayn Rand, more than anyone else, did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism, the morality of individualism, and this, to me, is what is [sic] matters most. Her philosophy continues to inspire “almost every fight we are involved in here, on Capitol Hill.”

>But Ryan has distanced himself from Rand in recent years, for obvious reasons. While she provides a sweeping justification for capitalism and the free market, many of her positions give Republicans pause. Rand supported abortion, opposed religion and was for the most part anti-war. She hated the idea of “duty.” She did not like Ronald Reagan.

>“I, like millions of young people in America, read Rand’s novels when I was young. I enjoyed them,” he told National Review earlier this year. But, Ryan added: “I reject her philosophy. It’s an atheist philosophy.”

>In his New Yorker interview, Ryan emphasized that he rejected Rand’s atheism; presumably that includes all her social views. Whether he rejects any of her economic philosophy is still unclear.

>>16638503
It's a barebones shallow ideology made even worse somehow by its degenerate followers.

>>16638474
I believe the justification she made for going on welfare was that she was just taking the money back that was thieved from from her by the government and that she wouldn’t need welfare if it wasn’t for how much money was stolen from her through taxes backed by the violence of the state.

>>16638651
I already know what this book is going to be about by virtue of the author being a woman

>>16638651
Or perhaps it is a 4d chess elaborate hamster wheel justification for Dominique’s actions.

Dominique constantly branch swinging and sleeping around, leaving the protagonist whenever things start to look bad for him, only coming back to him at the end when he has succeeded and becomes fabulously rich and successful is presented as a good thing.

She is acting sociopathically in her best interest, which is presented by Ayn Rand as the highest virtue.

The factory scenes from Atlas Shrugged are the best way to illustrate why the marxist dogma "from each according to his ability to each according to his need" is disastrous and outright evil.

>>16638503
retard wants more gay pride parades

>>16638928
Atlas Shrugged was great.

The people that don't enjoy it are the kind of people that sit through movies pointing and complaining at all the stupid parts. Atlas Shrugged has lots of unrealistic, silly and sometimes contradictory bits, but you have to suspend your disbelief.

It's a bit rudimentary, but it gets the key points across. It's also a pretty fun adventure story.

>>16638474
She didn't advocate for everyone to be a sociopath.

>>16638692
Not remotely accurate interpretation of her work.

I enjoyed The Virtue of Selfishness and The Fountainhead. They aren't perfect but they do have some interesting entry level ideas. The quality of the writing is poor, but I can put up with it.

I tried to read Atlas Shrugged, but it was a real bore so I gave up. I can't believe anybody with any self b respect would read through all of it.

Rand and her philosophy are just a product of her hatred of the Soviet Union. It's not great, but beneath the surface, it's an outlet for pure rage.

She did write strong female characters, which is alright I guess. She liked rough sex so wrote female characters who did as well, which is pretty cool.

>>16640046
Atlas Shrugged was fun. I didn't read John Galt's speech cause it was just a recap of everything in the book so far.

>>16640046
It's also not just an outlet for pure rage, there's a lot about appreciating beauty, amongst other things.

>>16638448
The greatest failing of the USSR was its ability to turn all of its dissenters that move to the USA into dumb right wing libertarians

>now that the dust has settled
Kek

They’re written horribly, they prove nothing, they mean nothing. Perfect for rightists

sartre never said anything intelligent aside this:
>the only thing the Bolsheviks did wrong was give Ayn Rand an education

>>16640230
seething incel

>>16638448
The biggest testament to her greatness is the kind of criticism that is directed at her. I mean just look at the form of how people try to critique her.

In regard to her influence most libertarians and objectivists don't actually understand her, they're pathetic compared to Rand's conceived ideal of what they should do. The kind of pill she created in Atlas Shrugged was too big for herself to fully swallow.

I haven't received a good answer as to which book, if any, is better than The Fountainhead and for what reason. You can give your picks below, if you have any. I'm curious what you can come up with.

As a libertarian I don't agree on her stand on intelectual property, but other than that yeah, she was extremely BASED.

>>16638448
I'm curious, for those who don't like ayn rand,
who is a good female philosopher?

>>16640427
There are none. The vast majority of female philosophers are shit. They talk about the following:
>Muh vagina
>Muh men bad
>Muh oppression
>Muh feminism
In fact, I think I can give credit to Rand for not implementing the retarded feminist rethoric shit in her works. Regardless of that, her works are still bad.

ITT:
>NOOO ATHEISM BAD NOOOOOOOO
>NOOO BEING HONEST ABOUT WHAT YOU WANT NOOOOO

One could cavil about the details of her thought, but her atheism together with her right-leaning worldview automatically put her above most humans by default. It's such a sadness that these two aspects of the accurate perception of reality are so seldom found together in an individual.

She got easily rebuked by Stirner before she was even born. Even Nietzsche fucked her up.

None of the rightoids will reply to me >>16638491 because they know she's a fucking moron

>>16640644

That's fine but she's still better than you for the reasons given above >>16640494

>>16638448

Ayn Rand isn't a great writer, and she isn't a great thinker. But her thoughts are provocative, and sometimes that alone makes something worth reading. And, to be fair, she offers a pretty decent counter-point to a lot of fluffy unmotivated nonsense. I've known a lot of people that read Rand's work and it snapped them out of a trance. None of them ended up as "Objectivists" or whatever the fuck they call themselves, but I think many credit her for giving them a pretty useful jolt.

>>16640707
I'm already an atheist. I don't even know what the second point is supposed to mean. Communists and fascists and homeless drug addicts can all be honest about what they want. It hardly means any of their ideas are thoughtfully considered.

>>16640383
>The kind of pill she created in Atlas Shrugged was too big for herself to fully swallow.

That’s the biggest problem I have with Rand. Early in her career, she wrote a play called “Ideal” about how hard it is for the female lead to be a perfect human. Everything that comes after is basically an elaboration on that theme. But nobody is really perfect — least of all those who think they are. The endless social climbing and wealth hoarding is meaningless, and doesn’t even make the rich and powerful happy.

True human flourishing, as Rand’s idol Aristotle recognized, comes not from passing given milestones, but from community and introspection — the two things Rand rails hardest against. A virtue ethicist understands that growth is context-sensitive, requires mentors and mentees, and ultimately humbles us. It is, in short, not a competition. Rand believes the opposite: competition for competition’s sake, treading on friends and family to eke our greater profits. This is a life incompatible with virtue as the Greeks, and most living men, understand it.

>>16640644
>>16640494
Ayn Rand is not a "Right Winger" by any stretch of the imagination. She's pretty open about being a Liberal, which makes her a Leftist.

>>16640935
I've always found the influences Communism had on Rand to be interesting. Her ideal man is, after all, a Stahknovite. I feel that she pretty clearly hated Communism (entirely understandably) and as such latched onto the Communist idea of what a Capitalist is, and then tried to create a philosophy to defend that strawman that her enemies created.

>>16638448
>Ayn Rand, Paul Ryan, Ron Paul, Rand Paul
Why are all their names so similar

the fact that a dumbass like paul ryan is king of shit mountain while any NEET brainlet on /lit/ can read a little bit and see how dumb she is, is proof that this world is a tragicomedy. at the same time, people who dismiss her aesthetics are also brainlets. what she lacks in ideas she makes up for with style, which is why despite being an autistic pseudointellectual harpie jew with a chip on her shoulder, she still manages to influence the politics of one of the greatest powers of all time and makes people seethe to this day, which is all that matters.

one amusing thing people aren't aware enough of though is how her followers used to literally dress like her and defend cigarettes even after it became indisputable that they fucking kill you. randroids really used to wear this type of hat (I forget what it's called) and chain smoke to be more like their laissez-faire grifter queen. they quit doing this in the 90s.

>>16640971
>She's pretty open about being a Liberal, which makes her a Leftist.

>>16641343
>what she lacks in ideas she makes up for with style, which is why despite being an autistic pseudointellectual harpie jew with a chip on her shoulder, she still manages to influence the politics of one of the greatest powers of all time and makes people seethe to this day, which is all that matters.

Twitters lib politics is also full of Harry Potter references, and it speaks far more to people's intellectual capacities than it does to aesthetic vision of JK Rowling. Rand is influential precisely because she is incredibly easy to digest and tells a certain kind of person exactly what they want to hear.

>>16641074
Autism
>>16641343
Yeah, but half of /lit/ will also defend their snus to the death so what does that tell ya.

>>16641360
rowling is based too. deal with it.

>>16641371
Even if might is right, Rowling is based in the same way the plague is based--it shows us what we really deserve.

i used to hate rand because i wanted to fit it but now that i've gotten older i have to admit she's not that bad. not top-tier but pretty decent.

>>16641377
no arguments from me, i have come to realize in my 30 year old boomerdom that all the horrors of this world, even the ones i have suffered as a thirdie, are nothing less than people fucking deserve. to embrace empathy is to embrace weakness and then you ironically just create more suffering as a result. delusional westoid twitter liberalism results in mass brutality , when they would have been better off just embracing the minor brutalities of every day life. personal strength and even sadism have more utility for a better world than the fake, effete politics of the benefactors of a consumerist economy.

>>16641403
god you sound like a total faggot, i bet you have never even been in a fight

>>16641411
is am a pacific island nigger and my family were murdered by gang retards 20 years ago. this made me a bitch and sympathetic to america tier garbage about equality because i had the dumb belief, in my pain, that they had some correct ideas and the people around me were barbarians. but now i see that their societies are just based on sucking money from the third world and they create more industrial suffering that dwarfs the idiot behavior of my stupid kin. you can only be a twitter liberal if you have the benefit of sucking other peoples' wealth dry.

>>16638448
I enjoyed Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead when I was 18 and going through my libertarian phase but I eventually grew out of it

>>16641456

Just as one does not grow out of atheism, one does not grow out of libertarianism, in the sense of knowing better ideas. It isn't a maturation into truth, or into knowledge. Rather, it is a maturation into "the done thing", tradition: god, government control, and so on. The is is confounded with the ought and the adult thereby deludes himself.

>>16641436
>pacific island nigger
you might be a descendant of vikings. does that cheer you up a little at least?

>>16640971
>She's pretty open about being a Liberal, which makes her a Leftist.

>>16641477
trannies cannot be illiberal

>>16641474
no

>>16638749
Holy cope

Imagine if Schindler just let his employees die because it wasn't profitable to him. If sacrifice and selflessness disappear the whole world would go to shit. Her brain was subscribed to anti romantic capitalist thought, it's almost sad. It isn't even like being a realist as that's still somewhat beautiful, she was just so focused on her stupid face and reason theory, she couldn't understand it was all her perception drawn by her experiences thus the more she insisted on following reason, the more the abstract become stronger to anyone sensible and intelligent. Also her writing is fucking terrible. She is the exact opposite of what this board likes.

no one in this thread has argued against the moral signaling of markets -- the moral information system that converges upon true value. this is the essence of her thought; capitalism is the largest process by which morality is created at scale

have you ever given thought to the meaning of the word objectivism? it is the worship of any abstract objective that man can conjure for himself. rand herself misunderstood the word religion.

>>16638448
I take issue with the issue of Ayn rand.

Hitherto characterized by supporters as champion of rationalistic American ideals but by detractors as shallow rhetorician for self-serving neo-conservatives, the result is the same dead end. The result of these portraits is that Ayn Rand's legacy is buried in the world of ideas, when she isn't a character of intellectual history but rather of anthropology. She isn't Aristotle or Locke (her self-claimed heroes), nor is she a literary figure. Rather I would place her next to De Beauvoir and Elizabeth Holmes, women of this brave, new, and modern era. She is an instance of a new type of woman; the androgynous, brow-beaten, and nervous woman academic misled into the realm and traditions of men. She deserves study not as a thinker, but as a historical precedent representing the contemporary ranks of humourless and unimaginative women in public life. They are on campuses, in journalism, and the surest progenitors of moral topics in the Twitterverse, a thankless and undoubtedly important civic duty.

I can go on if you like.

It's a defense of gold digging. Think about all the welfare she collected in her life.

She died as she lived: a parasite

>from The Virtue of Selfishness, chapter 15 called ‘Government Financing in a Free Society’
> As an illustration (and only as an illustration), consider the following possibility. One of the most vitally needed services, which only a government can render, is the protection of contractual agreements among citizens. Suppose that the government were to protect—i.e., to recognize as legally valid and enforceable—only those contracts which had been insured by the payment, to the government, of a premium in the amount of a legally fixed percentage of the sums involved in the contractual transaction. Such an insurance would not be compulsory; there would be no legal penalty
110

Ayn Rand – THE VIRTUE OF SELFISHNESS
imposed on those who did not choose to take it—they would be free to make verbal agreements or to sign uninsured contracts, if they so wished. The only consequence would be that such agreements or contracts would not be legally enforceable; if they were broken, the injured party would not be able to seek redress in a court of law.
>literally proposing that protection under the law should only apply to those who can afford it
Wow that doesn’t sound like recipe for a violent revolution at all. I’m sure the poor would happily accept a government that outright admits that it actively hates them and is brutally oppressive towards them.

>>16638735
>>In his New Yorker interview, Ryan emphasized that he rejected Rand’s atheism; presumably that includes all her social views. Whether he rejects any of her economic philosophy is still unclear.
kek, this is the funniest thing about conservatives today in America loving her. If she was a hardcore religious evangelist, her philosophy wouldn't exist.
Yet all of the people that supposedly adore her are religious. Curious!

>>16643375
Fucked up the formatting, sorry

>>16638474
This, even if her philosophy wasn't worthless, being those three attributes automatically invalidates her and places her as queen of psud traps

her thinking routinely produces soulless bugmen like Yaron "iphone is beautiful" Brooks, chairman of the Ayn Rand Institute

https://youtu.be/x4eodXmFTvY

https://youtu.be/7U0N7tVcy5s

>>16638474
>Advocating for everyone to be a sociopath
What a fucking idiot. Objectivist ethics have solid arguments about how lying, stole and parasite someone is immoral and coercive. The first thing that you're ignoring is that in Objectivism, the reality is the main standard. Lying, stealing, fraud someone are necessarily based on distortion of the facts of reality.

>>16638448
>now that the dust has settled
>make thread
>dust unsettled again
>bruh.jpeg

>>16644475
how does rand account for the fact her ethics can't be anything but invidiual in nature? in a social context, given the epistemology rand lays out, there doesn't seem to be any surefire way to establish 'morality', let alone guarantee the objectivity of reality?

i'm lacking a fair bit of knowledge here, i'm sure rand addresses the issue of "solipsism" somewhere but i can't be bothered with her books so i'll ask here instead

>>16638474
>welfare
The government took money from her at gunpoint - what the reffer to as Taxation. Why is it wrong to use the services her money went to?

>>16640971
She is a capitalist and a libertarian. I'm not sure where you find this "she's a Liberal" bullshit

>>16638735

>>16644747
hehe

>>16638448
My opinion went from good to bad to very bad to mixed.

>>16638474
Well her argument is that egoism is inevitable not favorable

>>16645244
That moment when you realize that liberalism is the ideology of capital and that American libertarianism is just an expression of liberalism.

>>16638448
I haven't read her, but from what I have gleaned it seems like, despite basing her philosophy on it, she failed to truly understand the meaning of the Law of Identity (A=A).

I read Atlas Shrugged and I thought that the ideology was a bit forced and the setting/plot a bit sensationalized.
If you pay attention to mainstream media, you will realize that Atlas Shrugged is tame compared to the reality we face today in western society.

>>16640722
>aristotle-bitch.jpg
excuse me?

>>16640000
Quads of truth,

>>16645559
You mean how the world is full of looters and nobody is actually doing any valuable work?

I liked all the stuff about the nobility of money, and where value comes from.

>>16644816
>given the epistemology that rand presents, does there seem to be no infallible way to establish "morality", let alone guarantee the objectivity of reality?
The way that I use to figure out how it's possible is:
Philosophy and its branches to Objectivism are tools as hammers, cars and smartphones. While these objects are concrete tools, philosophical systems are abstract. As you individually have the choice to use or not hammers, cars and smartphones in order to maintain and improve some aspects of your life, you have the choice to use a philosophical system as a guide on how maintain your life properly. The key-factor here is: you observe your individual necessities and buy the assets accordingly, not all assets available in the world, not all categories of assets. Your necessities are be very specific in your personal context and demands, but not subjective -- you can't have something that don't exist. When this occurs, you're certainly victim of scam.

Did you read OPAR by Leonard Peikoff? This is the fundamental book to whom whose want to understand Objectivism fully.

Rand developed the concepts of "primacy of existence" and "primacy of conscious" to understand the metaphysical schools. Primacy of existence means essentially that reality exists external your mind and is independent of your will and is the metaphysical position originated by Aristotle. This simplified in the classical axiom "A is A".

The objectivist epistemology understand that the information provided by our senses aren't contradictory, they simple are what they are. The senses have automatic validity, on the contrary way that Kant and Plato believe. But senses provide to us merely perceptions, and you have to organize the material provided by them mentally and consciously to identify generalizations. And because you have to practice this consciously, you maybe can fail in grasp the proper generalization. But, you can commit mistakes essentially because you have the objective opportunity to be right, as you only can be blind because you have vision or deaf because you hear.

Objectivism don't presume omniscience, by the way. You have to test your premises and check'em observing what if you supposed be right work or not, it's true or not. And detecting a contradiction or a mistake, you have the choice to correct it or evade. Assuming that correspondence with reality is the standard of ethics, evading is a vicious behavior.

>the main hero's lover marries his rival because she's depressed or masochist or whatever
>he (the ideal man) casually accepts getting kekked
What the fuck did she mean by this? Rest of the book is ok I guess, effectively made me hate limousine Socialist types.

>>16638448
What was her view on art? Anyone who doesn't include a thorough emphasis on art when assessing the modern West and capitalism isn't someone I'd be interested in reading.

>>16646157
Atlas Shrugged has lots about art, in particular music.

>>16645254
>>16645254
I seriously don’t understand how people can defend Libertarianism and say that regulation isn’t needed because the invisible hand of the free market will handle it, when the Gilded Age was a thing that existed.

Young oyster shuckers, from left to right, Josie, six years old, Bertha, six years old, Sophie, ten years old, Port Royal, South Carolina, 1912.

Work began at 4 AM and ended a 5 PM, making for a 13 hour workday. During winter when things were even busier, they would often be called in at 3:30 A.M. and have their lunches cut short, for no additional pay.

Notice how mangled their fingers are. It is quite easy to end up accidentally cutting yourself while shucking due to fatique, and losing a finger or two to gangrene was not uncommon.

These girls were obviously not able to go to school due to the hours worked, and when they got home they usually had to spend their little remaining time caring for younger siblings and doing household chores, frequently having to forgo a few hours of sleep to keep up with their workload.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2119875/Lewis-Hine-Child-oyster-shuckers-inhospitable-working-conditions-borne-thousands-children-labour-laws-passed.html

>>16641348
>>16641477
>>16645244
Where exactly do you think the term "Liberalism" comes from? What does it refer to? Where exactly do you think the term "Left Wing" comes from? What does it refer to?

>>16645302
jewish fatalism

>>16646776
People would see oyster shucker girls are being hurt and then feel bad, then they stop buying oysters, the oyster company loses money because of this so oyster company makes sure oyster girls are better treated so people won't feel bad and stop buying their oysters. Free market solves the problem

>>16645845
yes

>>16646814
lmao just how today faggots stopped buying apple products because of chinks committing suicide by the hundreds for sure anon

>>16646887
checked, chinks aren't humans and don't elicit sympathy

>>16646814
Mutilation and death was common among child workers. Chimney sweeps could get caught in a chimney and suffocate or be roasted to death. Girls working in New England textile factories could lose a limb in machines that had no safety guards. Boys working in the coal mines could die from explosions, collapses, crush injuries, or black lung. There were any kind of permanent injury or death from chemicals or other harsh products. "Both boys and girls who worked in factories were subject to beatings and other harsh forms of pain infliction. One common punishment for being late or not working up to quota would be to be "weighted." An overseer would tie a heavy weight to worker's neck, and have them walk up and down the factory aisles so the other children could see them and "take example." This could last up to an hour. Weighting could lead to serious injuries in the back and/or neck."

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, Radium Girls, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair...

OSHA didn’t exist back then because it was muh evil big government burdensome regulations.

And before certain laws were passed and regulatory bodies formed, lying about what you put in your product or accidentally poisoning people with mercury or lead because you were trying to cut costs was common.

Free Market ideology must assume that a consumer who works 13 hours a day has the time and resources to investigate every single product they buy to defend against this, such as shampoo, orange juice, socks, silverware, etc., instead of letting experts who get paid to spend all day investigating this in organizations such as the FDA handle it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_advertising
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_oil

>>16646814
this is retarded but do right-libertarians unironically have an answer to free market profiteering assraping the dignity out of human life?

>>16638448
i grabbed the Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead audiobooks on piratebay. Atlas Shrugged held my attention very well. I really liked it while i was listening. The Fountainhead was boring and ridiculous. After listening to the fountainhead, i realized that Atlas Shrugged was also ridiculous. Parts of these books revealed a lot about emotion to me that I didn't understand. I learned that compassion is pity which is an opposite emotion to admiration. I learned that love is admiration. Here is the best part for me from both of those books. It is a conversation between dominique and gail wynand
>“Or that love is pity.”
>“Oh, keep still. It’s bad enough to hear things like that. To hear them from you is revolting–even as a joke.”
>“What’s your answer?”
>“That love is reverence, and worship, and glory, and the upward glance. Not a bandage for dirty sores. But they don’t know it. Those who speak of love most promiscuously are the ones who’ve never felt it. They make some sort of feeble stew out of sympathy, compassion, contempt and general indifference, and they call it love. Once you’ve felt what it means to love as you and I know it–the total passion for the total height–you’re incapable of anything less.”

>>16646938
Just because some anglo kids died a hundred years ago we shouldn't suffocate small businesses with impossible regulations. The world runs on risk-takers and dream-builders

>>16638474
friendly reminder that only faggots say cr****. It reminds them of the face they make when the dick enters their ass

>>16647071
Cringe

Reading startling shit like this >>16646964 in response to this >>16646938 makes me feel like anything else other than blackpill is impossible.

>>16640383
Well said

>>16646157
Romantic Realism is very developed and pic related is actually my favorite Rand book.

>>16647419
What do you know of Rand's formulation: the malevolent universe premise?

>>16646944
Profiteering unironically is the thing that lends potency to the dignity of human life.

Ayn Rand is a good novelist who is shat on by people who never read her because specifically of her politics and her insufferable autistic personality.

She also had interesting points to make on philosophy and epistemology.

>>16640935
>she wrote a play called “Ideal” about how hard it is for the female lead to be a perfect human

That's not what Ideal is about though. It even got published. The woman protagonist already IS the ideal woman and it comes effortlessly to her; the novel and play are about her male admirers failing to live up to their stated belief in that ideal (and Rand believes that not covering up for a murder counts as failing - or maybe she realized how retarded the premise was since she shelved the manuscript and never published it in life).

>>16646157
Read The Romantic Manifesto and The Art of Fiction.

>>16649152
Honestly her benevolent/malevolent universe distinction feels a lot like some type of secular theodicy. She jumps from "the universe is rationally understandable" to "which means there is always something you can do to triumph over your problems on your own", which is absolutely not true. But again, much of her ehical/political thinking was backwards rationalizing from her childhood fascination with America/her hatred of the USSR/her desire to fuck protagonists from the adventure books she read.

>>16649152
"Malevolent universe" is a dogshit idea no matter who spews it.
That being said, I'm pretty sure it's not what Objectivism preaches, which is honestly the only thing I have to say about Objectivism.

>>16638448
>I think one of the more interesting things is that she is one of the only serious female philosophers outside of MAYBE Hypatia, where she isn’t just a meme who is only known of because academics were desperately searching for a token women to be able to say that femoids are capable of higher level complex abstract thought and innovation too
Why would you need to search desperately when there are plenty of them. Elizabeth Anscombe, Nancy Cathright, Penelope Rush, Eleonore Stump, Susan Haack, Mary Midgley etc.

>>16638474
Every woman has the right to live her life however she wants regardless of how it affects society fuck white men and fuck the patriarchy

Why is egoism wrong when a woman writes about it but good when a man does it (Stirner)?

>>16649204
Hardcore Objectivist who probably wouldn't be able to stand Rand if sent back in time into her presence here. This.

>>16638448
Ayn Rand could probably win the title of most strawmanned thinker in history. It's amazing how shallow of an understanding most people have of her positions.

>>16641797
man, read the fucking books before commenting

reminder that ayn rand died on benefits

>>16647071
seething cringcel

>>16638749
>just taking the money back that was thieved from from her by the government
THAT'S LITERALLY THE POINT OF TAXATION

>>16638474
>fountainhead was good as fuck

>>16650449
I was thinking of writing a response like yours.
When you get your money ""stolen"" by taxation, live a life enjoying the vast benefits of the collective usage of the ""stolen"" money, and top it off by finishing your life by living off money ""stolen"" from younger, working people the same intended way...
Yeah, sorry Ayn, you're not "settling the score" by "taking back what's yours" or whatever other bullshit cope. You're just using the system and reaping its benefits in the way it was intended all along.

Anyone who doubts her brilliance and prognostication should just read this book. She analyzed the issues of her day with great accuracy. Every essay she wrote is relevant and accurate now. She also had the balls to write what her ideal world would look like in fiction. Where are the unironic deontological or utilitarian worlds in fiction? They're always portrayed ironically do demonstrate them as actually being anti-human shit hells.

>>16646814
People don't act rationally and even if they do their convenience matters to them more than doing something risky for ethical reasons.

>>16650593
I'd like to see a talk between Rand and Ted.

>>16649213
That’s what I mean — the lead is perfect, and being perfect makes her life hard. It’s Mary Sue whinging about how nobody is good enough for her, in spite of the fact that everyone else onstage is also a remarkable person in their own way.

>>16649157
You're conflating "profiteering by any means" with ethical profiteering.
Fucking randroid.

>>16646964
Kek

>>16638485
Undue influence in American rightwing politics. She's used as a totem to signify the smarts or wonkiness of people like Paul Ryan and George Will, people who fancy themselves far smarter than they actually are. In her function as a totem, she's become somewhat emblematic of what the left sees as the rank psychopathy and anti-intellectualism of the right.

>>16650913
She's been politically irrelevant since 2012.

>>16641474
>we wuz
Kill your self you mental gymnastics nigger

>>16642048
The world would be a better place if you killed all women or killed your self.
But it isn't because you're incapable of either.

>>16649720
Rand's egoism is quite different from Stirner's egoism. Also, the former died like a hypocritical rightoid parasite whilst the latter ran a milk shop into the ground after blowing his wife's inheritance money and then died to a badass bug infection.

>>16650860
>You're conflating "profiteering by any means" with ethical profiteering.
>Fucking randroid.
Randian heroes actually never display any of the pitfalls of unscrupulous greed. They are principled and virtuous. Rand's world works in her imagination, because she has a naive view of human nature.

>>16651444
Rand's egosim is far superior to Stirner's

>>16651739
Are ideal hero's not supposed to be among the 0.000001% of practitioners of virtue that walk the walk so potently that they never allow it. Why would they display any of the pitfalls of unscrupulous greed? You have others in those novels displaying them. They aren't unscrupulous, by the care they pay to the maintenance of their character.

>>16651444
>>16650176
This is line that of argument that the collection of social securtity by Rand is; contradictory to her philosophy, hypocritical of her personally, and aesthecally incongruous to Objectivsm's cultural thrust, I presume?
Would you like to know why it is none of these three?

>>16652982
>MUH PROPERTY RIGHTS
Spooked. Looting is the true path to freedom.

>>16653085
Yes, I would like to know.

>>16638735
why are their names so similar

>>16653432
Unlike Libertarians who are philosophically unsophisticated enough to see some kind of virtue being praticed in the act of refusing ss as some kind of protest to taxation for others to emulate. Objectivism cuts out the chaff and takes an objective approach to the issue. Being a compulsory law, there is no choice but to participate in it. Any clever and conceptually inventive way to get around it punished as tax fraud and evasion. THIS is what one with a developed Ego and the will to deploy it's fruits would choose. Since this is removed from him, the Egoist must assess his options. Doubtless, at all times he must philosophically and politically argue for this imposition on his interests to end. The imposition itself needs mitigating in the meantime. Sure he could simply excercise his capacities further, and signal to the like minded that he has the ability, due to the practice Objectivism, to easily mitigate the crime. But what does this tell the Statist? That other Objectivists, some even of a lower station that very well could use the money, will emualte and reduce their financial footprint in order to pay some misguided lip service to an action that is in reality inimical to the virtue they wish to propound. Many rich make it a point to collect as much ss as they can at all times, and they should. The law is compulsory, it is irrelevant to it if it is protested in that manner. A (somewhat) effective manner is instead the current exodus of the wealthy from NYC.
Rand remains unmolested and I would suggest you form your own critiques of her instead of parroting sjw publications and reddit stirnerfaggot.

>>16646785
you are very confused, please do some more reading

>>16638448
Thinking the only female philosophers of note are Ayn Rand and Hypatia. The absolute state of philosophy on this board.

>>16653757
You really really really really shouldn't take Stirnerfags this seriously.

>>16638503
Ayn Rand is not a libertarian.

>>16640211
MY FUCKING SIDES

>>16653757
>Ends up making an argument that also defends champagne socialism
Played, you have been. Superior, I remain.

Remember when /lit/ would laught at those that enjoyed Ayn Rand? I remember. I might as well go back to /a/ and cease to lurk /lit/ for a while.

>>16653765
In your own words, please.

>>16646126
>Did you read
Did not, obviously. I'm just as much a pseud as anyone. Just asking out of vague intuition and skimming the stanford page on rand.
Thanks for the elaborative reply, though. Rare to see anyone on this board take anything seriously, let alone Rand.
On another note it's hard for me to grapple with how philosophy can range from the obscure of obscurantist thought to what's basically just a rational foundation for common sense (re your exposition)

>>16653757
Stirner isn't a political theorist and neither a prescriptivist philosopher
Both of you have failed to grasp the essence of Stirner, or rather lack thereof

>>16655554
Make your meaning explicit pseud, define your terms. I do not even grasp what the fuck your on about.
Which argument and intersects with "champagne socialism" in what manner.

>>16655644
And has nothing worthwhile to say about what it takes to actually develope the potency of an Ego.

>>16646785
where it "comes from" and what it "refers to" are a totally different box of frogs. Currently, liberalism is a general reference to anyone towards the centre of the mainstream spectrum, maybe with an underlying suggestion of a slight left leaning. Leftist, on the other hand, refers to the supposed hard left who hold views which would be considered somewhat radical or fanciful by the average Joe

>>16655661
But I don't want to be Rand's ego anon
I want to be me, and I want Stirner to be this fat fucking cock of mine
Is that too much to ask

>>16655607
Maymay parroting always loses it's sauce against honest conversation eventually anon.You DO go and retreat to the weeb cave.

>>16655666
Fail to make yourself cognizant of what fat-cockness actually requires in reality and you'l be getting nothing Stirnerfag.

>>16655676
Ok this got me

>>16655676
all things are nothing to me randlet

>>16655687
I knew that champ, your ego included.

>>16655697
And on that note you've hit upon the non-point of Stirner

>>16655703
>wojack AND pepe

>>16638448
>161 posts
I don't know what I think about her, but I guarantee you some Stirner loving dipshit is bringing him up right about now

Lmao nailed it.

>>16646954
>They make some sort of feeble stew out of sympathy, compassion, contempt and general indifference, and they call it love.
Soccies btfo for all time holy shit, fuck me Rand is quotable.

i liked the fountainhead

>>16653757
Pretty good, people always think "hurr I going to take a STAND and protest this INJUSTICE" when all they do is martyr themselves for nothing.

>>16638448
She was right about everything but people don't like the conclusions so they just resort to the closest available ad hominem - for stormfags it's that she was jewish, for incels - that she was a woman, for redditors - that she's right wing and so on

I've heard We the Living is actually ok, was thinking of picking it up since I've never read her before and I generally am open to reading lots of ideas. Thoughts on We the Living?

>>16657555
checked

>>16650561
>live a life enjoying the vast benefits of the collective usage of the ""stolen"" money
its almost as if the government has a monopoly on those benefits

>>16659267
You have to be in deep as a commie to not start to hate collectivists while reading it.

>>16638448
>Hypatia
Refuted by St. Cyril (pbuh). She wasn't serious at all either, midwit.

>>16653765
Jesus Christ, you people really are braindead. So much for reading theory/speculation.

>>16655710
Stumped

>>16646814
>People would see oyster shucker girls are being hurt and then feel bad, then they stop buying oysters
Sure

>>16659267
It's pretty great and her least autistic novel.

>>16646814
>slavery is still a thing in the third world
>rich westerners dont give a fuck and buy all the products made from slave labor in third world
>even liberals do this
>no one gives a fuck
Why do you libertarian faggots always link moralism and economics, when it has been obvious for 200 years that economic motivation and moral imperatives do NOT follow each other and have absolutely no correlation? This has been known for over 2000 years, fuck even religions acknowledged this shit with Judas betraying Jesus for 30 silver coins or whatever.

>>16640419
Nice blog post faggot

>>16641436
Read "Capitalism realsim: Is there no alternative?" by Mark Fisher.
Its not that long and I think you will like it.

>>16645244
What do you think liberalism is retard?
The american education system is failing. I think children in India and China are getting better education than ameriburgers.

>>16661583
If getting the man to admit Stirner makes no worthwhile point at all, sure means "stumped" sure.

>>16638448
Extremely spooked. I have no obligation to anything, morality is subjective and I own it, not the other way around. I act, I feel, and I react. I need no reason to do these things.

>>16663018
You have an obligation to not contradict the requirements of reality lest you burn however.
>I act, I feel, and I react.
Sounds like whim worship. Such a man has no compass, ingenuity, or frame of reference by which to operate. Rote impotence is all Stirnerfaggotry will ever bring you.
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/whims-whim-worship.html
>What is the nature of that superior world to which they sacrifice the world that exists? The mystics of spirit curse matter, the mystics of muscle curse profit. The first wish men to profit by renouncing the earth, the second wish men to inherit the earth by renouncing all profit. Their non-material, non-profit worlds are realms where rivers run with milk and coffee, where wine spurts from rocks at their command, where pastry drops on them from clouds at the price of opening their mouth. On this material, profit-chasing earth, an enormous investment of virtue—of intelligence, integrity, energy, skill—is required to construct a railroad to carry them the distance of one mile; in their non-material, nonprofit world, they travel from planet to planet at the cost of a wish. If an honest person asks them: “How?”—they answer with righteous scorn that a “how” is the concept of vulgar realists; the concept of superior spirits is “Somehow.” On this earth restricted by matter and profit, rewards are achieved by thought; in a world set free of such restrictions, rewards are achieved by wishing. And that is the whole of their shabby secret. The secret of all their esoteric philosophies, of all their dialectics and super-senses, of their evasive eyes and snarling words, the secret for which they destroy civilization, language, industries and lives, the secret for which they pierce their own eyes and eardrums, grind out their senses, blank out their minds, the purpose for which they dissolve the absolutes of reason, logic, matter, existence, reality—is to erect upon that plastic fog a single holy absolute: their Wish.
Stirner does not survive this.

>>16646776
Well they could always just choose to, y'know, not work there.

>>16663091
Filtered. Stirner addresses this.
>I will answer Pilate’s question, What is truth? Truth is the free thought, the free idea, the freespirit; truth is what is free from you, what is not your own, what is not in your power. But truthis also the completely unindependent, impersonal, unreal, and incorporeal; truth cannot stepforward as you do, cannot move, change, develop; truth awaits and receives everything fromyou, and itself is only through you; for it exists only — in your head. You concede that the truthis a thought, but say that not every thought is a true one, or, as you are also likely to expressit, not every thought is truly and really a thought. And by what do you measure and recognizethe thought? Byyour impotence, to wit, by your being no longer able to make any successfulassault on it! When it overpowers you, inspires you, and carries you away, then you hold it tobe the true one. Its dominion over you certifies to you its truth; and, when it possesses you, andyou are possessed by it, then you feel well with it, for then you have found your —lord andmaster. When you were seeking the truth, what did your heart then long for? For your master!
Ego and Its Own

>>16663635
Continuing on;
>As long as you believe in the truth, you do not believe in yourself, and you are a —servant, a —religious man. You alone are the truth, or rather, you are more than the truth, which is nothing atall before you. You too do assuredly ask about the truth, you too do assuredly “criticize,” but youdo not ask about a “higher truth” — to wit, one that should be higher than you — nor criticizeaccording to the criterion of such a truth. You address yourself to thoughts and notions, as youdo to the appearances of things, only for the purpose of making them palatable to you, enjoyableto you, and your own: you want only to subdue them and become theirowner, you want to orientyourself and feel at home in them, and you find them true, or see them in their true light, whenthey can no longer slip away from you, no longer have any unseized or uncomprehended place,or when they areright for you, when they are yourproperty. If afterward they become heavieragain, if they wriggle themselves out of your power again, then that is just their untruth — towit, your impotence. Your impotence is their power, your humility their exaltation. Their truth,therefore, is you, or is the nothing which you are for them and in which they dissolve: their truthis theirnothingness.
Can't be fucked to fix the formatting, it's readable enough

>>16663635
>>16663648
>As long as you believe in the truth, you do not believe in yourself
Redflag already, correctly-ish defining the nature of Truth then immediately going on to contradict it's nature does not a reality coherent philosophy make. Rand would argue that the potency of one's Ego is adherence-to-truth dependent. Rand actually has a robust theory of concepts than make Stirner's subjectivist stance look feeble and unintegrated. Even more she coined an original too by which to assess the interplay of one's opperant philosophy and the automatizing functions of the subconcious: psycho-epistemology. The spook is a comparatively useless "tool".
Your secong post *really* doesn't make your case well. Makes my argument for me.

>>16642048
lol based

>>16663897
>coined an original too
*tool

>>16661777
You're unironically correct

>>16663897
>Rand would argue that the potency of one's Ego is adherence-to-truth dependent.
I'll give you a QRD. The key is that Stirner lays out a schematic that realizes both 'truth', and the fallibility of 'belief in truth'. It's an anti-nominalist, negative claim, rather than a positive one. He gives a definition of truth, and as you've seen what he gives isn't too far off from Rand's definition. Where you seem to trip up is the part where Stirner tries to move beyond it. He makes the claim that the *belief* in truth is an unnecessary subjugation of oneself to a 'spook' -- an inconsequential idea -- as the essential nature of the unique doesn't change. It remains finite and bounded by its impotence. Stirner's contention with Rand isn't so much the gist of her conception of the "real" -- at that level of analysis they're essentially making the same claims -- it's that recognizing an ideology of the kind as "true" deprives oneself of one's epistemological supremacy as the subject. I guess it's sorta like the difference between negative and positive theology.

I felt inclined to shitpost but seeing as you're addressing me seriously at this point feel free to ask questions if you want further elaboration.

>>16663995
Rand addressed why Libertarians are so aphilosophic herself.

>>16663995
i beg to differ. your picrel seems to be confusing faux libertarians with true libertarians. true libertarians (Rothbard, etc.) aren't able to make normative claims on account of their autism and radically rationalist approach to politics and economics (see praxeology). congealed to this centerpoint of ideologically generative autism, as with any ideology, is a mass of normalfaggotry. this mass constitutes the faux libertarians. faux libertarians fall into the same camp as most liberals and conservatives, utilizing a moral highground to make their political claims.

both of these groups are unable to learn but for differing reasons, one on account of their turbo-autism, the other on account of their moralistic and fallacious thinking. i'm not sure what contention the author has with libertarians but it's clear he makes an unfounded and sweeping claim here.

>>16664015
Thanks for abstaining. What I see needs addressing is the phrase 'belief in truth' itself. What is meant by this? The objective truth simply is. There is no fallibility in the adherence nor psychological comitment to the concept as such. I suspect Stirner is conflating truth and the means by which it can be defined, related extrinsically, and contextualized to the self.
What IS meant by that, explicitly?

>>16664132
>What I see needs addressing is the phrase 'belief in truth' itself. What is meant by this?
We're venturing into territory where I don't feel comfortable calling my interpretation complete in any sense, so take what I say with a grain of salt. "Belief in truth" means "thinking you need to believe in a concept of truth for it to be the case". This is the crux of the matter:
>The objective truth simply is.
And so laying claim to an objective truth never was, never is, and never will be necessary. The "goal" of Stirner is to have you realize that nominalisms and essentialisms in line with the christian, socialist, whatever truth are "nothings" that you summon at your own beck and call. There is no qualitative difference between the Stirnerite egoist and spooked egoist save the fact that the latter considers his spooks to be inviolable concepts. What does it mean for a 'concept' to be 'inviolable'? Nothing, Stirner would say -- mere thoughts and words, which are also nothingnesses in their own right; The right of which exists in accordance with my decree. What is always is and can't not be. What I think is but that couldn't be is simply outside of my power to grasp for.

>>16663995
>>16664017 (me)
Furthermore I'd like to point out an inaccuracy present in our culture in the use of the very term 'libertarian'. Libertarian is precisely what believers in Libertarianism should not be allowed to call themselves nor what weshould term them. Libertarian properly should be used as only a rough technical classifier as distinct from authoritarian. This is why I make it a point to call the sort of people which we are addressing 'Libertarianists'. The term "Big-L Libertarians" is almost sufficient but this has political party connotations.

>>16664241
i think the point of labels gets kinda pointless if we have to have discourse about whether so-and-so is a libertarian or a Libertarian or a right-libertarian, socdem lib or whatever flavor
it'd be much simpler and not to mention better if people said they're "inspired by rand/hayek/rothbard/etc" but given fucking nobody reads or wants to give up their social association i cant see this happening any time soon

>>16664241
>>16664258
dude its literally an autogenerated philosopher ai response. I just posted it because its funny

>>16664395
guess thats what i get for heavily skimming posts and inferring their content
my enthusiasm for posting my opinion is beyond reasonable

>>16638448
>government steals money from you all your life
>have to go on social services because of it
>dislike both the government and social services
how is that contradictory?

>>16664219
>thinking you need to believe in a concept of truth for it to be the case
that would be an example of what Rand called "the primacy of consciousness" against her stance "the primacy of existence. There is no issue whatsoever psychologically commiting oneself to the properly defined and potently applied conception of the truth.
Forgive me I'm at work, I'll address the rest of your post at lunch .

>>16665360
Ok im giving thread a bump in the meantime awaiting the reply

>>16638928
Maximise your needs, minimise your ability.

>>16640722
>I've known a lot of people that read Rand's work and it snapped them out of a trance.
For me it solidified views that had been bubbling in my mind as a teenager regarding hard work and parasitic people. When you're surrounded by mediocrity you feel pretty alone with your views and then I read AS and felt vindicated.

>>16666152
bump

>>16664258
A good and apt label is is contextual and multi-level correspondent. I dislike people who bemoan labeling as such.

>>16666178
I read Atlas for the first time while working in audiobook form. Christopher Hurt's performance narrating John Galt's Speech shook me to my core. And had me pacing around for hours afterwards.

>>16666666

>>16653757
tl;dr no moral backbone, wastes everyone's time sharing stupid ideas before backpedaling completely with a weak justification in "mitigating" some perceived injustice that hasn't been counted or valued to any specific dollar amount, because of course it hasn't - the justification is blatantly post hoc. get fucked faggot, your ideas are for gays, and if you believed any of them with any conviction, you'd be somewhere making millions and fucking models right now instead of shitposting with high school aged brainlets on 4chan.

>>16664219
>>16666152
"Laying claim to" Meaning what? Laying claim to being one who has properly defined truth philosophically? Or laying claim to being of developed enough characterologically to always/consistently living by it? Or something else?
>The "goal" of Stirner is to have you realize that nominalisms and essentialisms in line with the christian, socialist, whatever truth are "nothings" that you summon at your own beck and call.
Certain concepts are different from other concepts in how they are treated, what they logically depend on, what subsume them and in what way, and by what means they can be applied. You CAN summon CERTAIN concepts at your beck and call and still then only in particular relational contexts. This sounds like a very aphilosophic stance of Stirners. He is all at once a subjectivist, epistemic nihilist, and indeterminist. As well as what seems to be some kind of ego-hedonist.

>>16666866
>A good and apt label is is contextual and multi-level correspondent. I dislike people who bemoan labeling as such.
elaborate if you dont mind

>>16667086
ahh shit i probably got memed on again

>>16638735
>“I think Ayn Rand did the best job of anybody to build a moral case of capitalism, and that morality of capitalism is under assault.”
That in and of itself is an indictment of capitalism

>>16640230
based

>>16645254
Ayn Rand, Rand Paul, and Paul Ryan all decide to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get jobs painting watch dials. They all get cancer and die because the paint is radioactive and there are no regulations. oops

>>16667097
explain

>>16646814
>so oyster company makes sure oyster girls are better treated
It's much cheaper just to hide the slave labor far enough from the customer that the customer won't care

>>16646938
Marx's writings were explicitly in response to these conditions, yet most people get all bent out of shape against Marx, not against how the free market treats human life.

>>16667023
I'll have to cut you off there, I don't think I can give you a more elucidatory rundown of Stirner than I've already given. I'd urge you to read him for yourself and see if something clicks down the line; as with any philosophy you either intuit the meaning at some point or it remains meaningless pseudery.

>>16667255
I've abstained for long enough, I will.

>>16667086
Ok, get me a couple hurs though I'm busy

>>16638448
>>16638448
>>16638448
this uptight bitch really needed some bbc desu

>>16668177
Christ...
*give
*hours

>>16667227
How does it treat human life?

>>16645244
Lockean liberal dipshit

>>16666998
(You)

>>16666998
Brainlet was so asshurt his pet smear might be challanged he tl;dr'd it. Many such cases.

>>16668277
As an expendable resource/an exploitable resource

>>16668353
Really? And how is one expended in the free market exactly?

>>16668510
If I have a factory in China which has horrific safety standards resulting in many deaths, I can sell whatever cheap product I am producing and be rewarded by the free market.

In fact, it can become well known that my workers are routinely killed on the job or commit suicide on the job and I will still be able to sell my products in a ridiculously profitable manner.

She was a brilliant writer, thinker, and activist.

Her books were inventive and original, and occasionally humorous.

All of the clowns who complain about some of her characters do not recognize the romantic style that they are written in. It's intentional that they are in situ for ideas.

She has inspired about as much jealousy as admiration, without which I'd have doubted her effectiveness. Nobody gets much upset about inert matter, and she is C4 lodged into her detractors brain stems.

>>16638448
>she is one of the only serious female philosophers outside of MAYBE Hypatia
This nigga has never heard of Simone Weil and Hildegarde of Bingen and probably never read mystical literature or Christian apologetics in his entire life. Heck if you like Anglo autistry Anscombe and Nussbaum are both more rigorous and more erudite. If anything Hypatia and (especially) Rand are the meme ones.

>>16641343
>randroids really used to wear this type of hat (I forget what it's called) and chain smoke to be more like their laissez-faire grifter queen.
I knew Rand inspired something of a cult following, but I had no idea it was this hilarious. So she was basically an intellectual rockstar for rebellious nerd types?

>>16643375
The amusing thing is that in a sense what she describes is already happening.
People who are in control of their own forms of organized violence (the mob and similar groups) already make their livelihood from illegal transactions and insure their own protection. And many small scale transactions don't involve the government except in the exchange of government-backed currency (when I was tutoring highschool students the parents just gave me cash, so technically I was a unregistered employee, and nobody cared).
Meanwhile most people who complain about taxes aren't ready to abandon the idea of law enforcement.

>>16645233
>The government took money from her at gunpoint
Not really, if she really was as smart and rich as the people who like her she could have gotten away with barely paying any taxes while raking in massive government favors.

>>16645254
You should look into the practice of mafia-run pubs during the prohibition.

>>16646954
Compassion isn't pity though, one is considering and the other isn't.
Pity = "the poor guy, his life must suck, he's a sore thing to look at"
Compassion = "I feel you, I am touched by your pain, because I have experienced something similar or can imagine experiencing something similar"

One is is merely moral shock, often a simple reflect of one's upbringing and prejudice, the other is an act of moral imagination that often stems from maturity and experience with life.

>>16668568
It's almost like something pernicious is going on philosophically in that country. How individualist is China again? Collectivism is operant there from the root, THAT is where humanity is expendable.
Objective law addresses what you speak of perfectly well. In a proper robust system, the unsafe workplace may not be regulated, but would be made to bear the full cost of the investigation the police would launch for every death. If they insited on continuing cutting corners, they would be required to inform every applicant that they are purposefully neglecting standards to save cost, and new applicants would have to sign waivers not only to the company, but on a visit to the local police agency. Who would do their best to to convince the applicant to go elsewhere.
I am in favor of government inspectors, this falls under the purview of proper prevatative law, like how the government has the right to quarantine contagion. Regulation would be barred from them however.

Shill here.
Them top lads just uploaded.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Hu4JPNwG1w

>>16646954
A pretty bland view of love honesty. Admiration and love are very different thing, not least because the former can exist and even thrive in the total absence of understanding.
You might be swayed by Rand's rhetoric here but ask yourself: what makes the upward glance intrinsically better than the downward glance or the glance at one's equal and companion?
For instance Christian charity precludes looking down on people (even though rich Christians often abuse it this way), it's a recognition of human fellowship and shared reliance on God. Some would say its acknowledgement and reverence towards a shared mystery.

>>16667255
You made it look you had no rebuttal to his post my dude. Take what you DO know about Stirner's thought, apply it, and answer his contentions.

>>16668815
>or the glance at one's equal and companion
Is still an "upward glance" in the manner Rand means it.
>what makes the upward glance intrinsically better
She would rebuke you even asking her to define a principle in philosophy on intrinsic grounds. She would instead do it objectively, i.e. contextually.

>>16668802
The concentration of capital will result in a state of affairs where people without capital, who only have their labor to sell, will have to sell it in those conditions or starve. Not to mention the absolute economic law that states wages always trend towards the level of bare subsistence. Where there is a free market in terms of healthcare, this means the working majority cannot afford basic medical procedures. This is why healthcare is such an ongoing political issue.

The entire framework of the system acts towards human beings as simple deposits of extractable labor, to be used up and tossed aside as soon as they reach an age where the labor available no longer offsets the cost of subsistence. This also means, as the population increases, their very lives are expendable to capital, and as you mention, it necessarily requires the intervention of the state to prevent this. The free market rewards it otherwise.

>>16650593
>Where are the unironic deontological or utilitarian worlds in fiction?
This is not a philosophical issue but a matter of autistry. Rand's immense advantage in that department is that she was her own autistic nerd fan, therefore she was all the better able to write her own fanfiction. In fact Rand embodies a peculiar situation in the history of literature: someone whose canonical, original fiction is also its own fanfiction. Even more uniquely so, her own life was modeled in fanfictional fashion after her writings.

So your question should be reworded as: can you find someone who will be to Kant or Mills what an autistic sci-fi nerd is to Star Trek? Find those people and you'll have your utopian fictions.

>>16653476
Badly programmed random-word generator. Also the reason for the name of the RAND corporation.

>>16653757
>Being a compulsory law, there is no choice but to participate in it. Any clever and conceptually inventive way to get around it punished as tax fraud and evasion.
>inventive way to evade taxation being effectively countered
Four sentences in and we're already in unicorn land.

>>16655670
What would Mises answer to the factual observations that his ideas on free market where only ever implemented in dictatorships, and always lead to catastrophic results?
Remember there were actual Chicago school grads in the advising boards of South American military juntas, so the "it wasn't real Chicago economics" card cannot be used here.

>>16655626
Anon's exposition is reminding of Epicurus, I wonder what about it is specifically Randian.

>>16660340
It's almost as if those benefits have historically never been guaranteed without the government.

>>16663091
>You have an obligation to not contradict the requirements of reality
Not really, the "requirements of reality" enforce themselves, they need no deference or recognition, hence why they're reality.
And there are very little absolute requirement in life, most apparent obligations and duties can be cir-convened with ingenuity and luck.
Rand's autistic commitment to bowing down before "reality" (without really looking into how it is made) seems to rest on a excessive willingness to congratulate oneself on having recognized that "existence exists" (a truism in almost any doctrine, apparently a great discovery for Rand) and is entirely unimpressive as a result.
This is why she made no contribution to science and epistemology and instead founded a modern-day cult. The separation of personality and doctrine is illusory in the case of Rand (as in so many others). It is precisely her emphasis on simple principles taken at face value, without much inquiring into their ramifications and difficulties, that lead her to being unable to do anything else than utter ex cathedra pronouncements to a crowd of awed followers. The Christians of the Middle Age have unironically (or rather ironically) been better rationalists than she has.

>>16668851
>will have to sell it in those conditions or starve
Charity is robust enough to account for emergency. In critiqing laissez faire I notice people always just up and leave out details of civilization. Always for the purposes of painting the most cartoonishly bleak picture possible.
>Not to mention the absolute economic law that states wages always trend towards the level of bare subsistence
If he wants more than that level, he should assess his options and either sell better labor, or sell more than it
A quote.
>Every achievement of man is a value in itself, but it is also a stepping-
stone to greater achievements and values. Life is growth; not to move
forward, is to fall backward; life remains life, only so long as it advances.
Every step upward opens to man a wider range of action and achievement —
and creates the need for that action and achievement. There is no final,
permanent “plateau.” The problem of survival is never “solved,” once and
for all, with no further thought or motion required. More precisely, the prob-
lem of survival is solved, by recognizing that survival demands constant
growth and creativeness.
>Constant growth is, further, a psychological need of man. It is a condition
of his mental well-being. His mental well-being requires that he possess a
firm sense of control over reality, of control over his existence — the
conviction that he is competent to live. And this requires, not omniscience or
omnipotence, but the knowledge that one’s methods of dealing with
reality — the principles by which one functions — are right. Passivity is
incompatible with this state. Self-esteem is not a value that, once achieved,
is maintained automatically thereafter; like every other human value,
including life itself, it can be maintained only by action. Self-esteem, the
basic conviction that one is competent to live, can be maintained only so
long as one is engaged in a process of growth, only so long as one is
committed to the task of increasing one’s efficacy. In living entities, nature
does not permit stillness: when one ceases to grow, one proceeds to disinte-
grate — in the mental realm no less than in the physical.
>The great merit of capitalism is its unique appropriateness to the
requirements of human survival and to man’s need to grow. Leaving men
free to think, to act, to produce, to attempt the untried and the new, its principles operate in a way that rewards effort and achievement, and
penalizes passivity. This is one of the chief reasons for which it is denounced.

>>16668920
>cir-convened with ingenuity and luck.
Thats not cir-convening anything, practicing ingenuity is precisely adhering the requirments of reality.

>>16668928
>Charity is robust enough to account for emergency
You realize most modern charities are literal scams, right? They have become money making schemes in and of themselves

>>16663091
Wow, Rand did really know nothing about esoteric philosophies. They're mostly about autistic recipes to achieve power (not merely worldly power, but worldly power is supposed to be a reliable byproduct). And they're often adopted by powerful and well-connected people.

I suppose it makes sense for someone raised in atheistic, pseudo-rationalist, materiliastic Soviet Union to instinctively, almost unthinkingly imagine "spiritual" doctrines as ineffectual or unconcerned with effective results. The entire religious history of Europe proves otherwise, however.
That said her points applies to some mystics, in a narrow sense, but not all of them. She seems to be almost confusing mystics with quietists.

>>16668851
>will have to sell it in those conditions or starve
Charity is robust enough to account for emergency. In critiqing laissez faire I notice people always just up and leave out details of civilization. Always for the purposes of painting the most cartoonishly bleak picture possible.
>Not to mention the absolute economic law that states wages always trend towards the level of bare subsistence
If he wants more than that level, he should assess his options and either sell better labor, or sell more than it.
A quote.
>Every achievement of man is a value in itself, but it is also a stepping-stone to greater achievements and values. Life is growth; not to move forward, is to fall backward; life remains life, only so long as it advances. Every step upward opens to man a wider range of action and achievement — and creates the need for that action and achievement. There is no final, permanent “plateau.” The problem of survival is never “solved,” once and for all, with no further thought or motion required. More precisely, the problem of survival is solved, by recognizing that survival demands constant growth and creativeness.
>Constant growth is, further, a psychological need of man. It is a condition of his mental well-being. His mental well-being requires that he possess a firm sense of control over reality, of control over his existence — theconviction that he is competent to live. And this requires, not omniscience or omnipotence, but the knowledge that one’s methods of dealing with
reality — the principles by which one functions — are right. Passivity is incompatible with this state. Self-esteem is not a value that, once achieved, is maintained automatically thereafter; like every other human value, including life itself, it can be maintained only by action. Self-esteem, the basic conviction that one is competent to live, can be maintained only so long as one is engaged in a process of growth, only so long as one is committed to the task of increasing one’s efficacy. In living entities, nature does not permit stillness: when one ceases to grow, one proceeds to disintegrate — in the mental realm no less than in the physical.
>The great merit of capitalism is its unique appropriateness to the requirements of human survival and to man’s need to grow. Leaving men free to think, to act, to produce, to attempt the untried and the new, its principles operate in a way that rewards effort and achievement, and penalizes passivity. This is one of the chief reasons for which it is denounced.

>>16664110
It's a bot-generated text, you can see it almost contradicting itself near the end.

>>16668948
>If he wants more than that level, he should assess his options
The consolidation of capital explicitly and deliberately narrows those options through union busting and anti-competitive practices. Amazon, for example, is notorious for both. Just search up what they did to DiapersDotCom

>>16668939
Scams are supposed to be outlawed anon.

>>16668954
Since the early 2000s, Amazon has received more than $1.5 billion in government subsidies.
>The consolidation of capital explicitly and deliberately narrows those options
Says who?

>>16664449
She didn't have to go on health services because of taxes, but because she got smoke cancer as a heavy smoker. In fact she had the taxpayer shoulder the price of the consequences of her bad decisions in life. Whether her contributions to taxation in her working life make up for the cost of her treatment is a matter of calculation.

>>16668641
>She has inspired about as much jealousy as admiration, without which I'd have doubted her effectiveness.
This is an all-too-common brainlet argument. "People passionately about her therefore she must be doing something important". The same argument applies to any movie star, especially overrated ones.
See for instance
>Nobody gets much upset about inert matter
how low must your standard be that "not being inert" and "producing agitation" is enough to be considered success?

The particularity of Rand is how a certain category of persons can't shut up about her, this is what makes her a heated topic, that and the fact that she has indirectly inspired disastrous policies. In those sense she's not too dissimilar to Marx.

>>16668963
It's obviously in the interest of business to have as little competition as possible. Adam Smith pointed this out like 250 years ago, businesses have opposed interests to that of the public. The public benefits from competition by having more choice, and lowering prices. Business hate it as they would prefer to be able to set their prices as they wish and inflate profit above what it would naturally be. Had Amazon not gotten subsidies, they likely would have risen to prominence anyway, or another company would have. (Wal-Mart did similar things to smaller retail stores back in the day)

>>16668834
>Is still an "upward glance" in the manner Rand means it.
She might have wanted to include it in that formulation, but then she made the wrong choice of words. Admiration is different from solidarity, respect, compassion and understanding, although those things can often lead to it (but the reverse is rarer).

>She would rebuke you even asking her to define a principle in philosophy on intrinsic grounds.
Yet she he is valuing it intrinsically at least from what I can judge of your extract. There's no justification, only an unstated assumption that the upward glance is better. Probably it's more clear in the entire scene.

>>16668965
>Whether her contributions to taxation in her working life make up for the cost of her treatment is a matter of calculation
The sum of a person's taxed income is astronomical anon.
>smoke cancer as a heavy smoker
And? A person's stolen wealth is more validly used for even their bad decsions. Just impugns their character is all.

>>16668938
I'm talking specifically about the requirements whose reality is illusory, which is most of them.
Also Rand seems to be ignoring that in practice a slight dose of self-delusion can (and often) do wonder for one's personal success. She is herself an example of it, after all.

>>16669000
It is, you should judge it in that context. Also look into her 'trichotomy'.

>>16638735
how can someone be so much of a simp for such a ridiculous ideology is beyond my reason

>>16669016
I'm talking specifically about the requirements whose reality is illusory. Then we've departed talking about anything real and concrete.

>Also Rand seems to be ignoring that in practice a slight dose of self-delusion can (and often) do wonder for one's personal success.
"But you cannot succeed with it for long." Discovering one's exact relation to every relevant fact makes for a more potent kind of success, and faster besides. The only thing faster is luck.

>>16669009
>"Okay, so, she totally did take government assistance, which is totally hypocritical considering her entire life philosophy, but how can we spin this and rehabilitate it so it doesn't look so horrendous?"
wow is that image ever a stretch

>>16669030
By not caricaturizing it, and reading the relevant nonficiton.

>>16669063
I, irrefutably, prove otherwise >>16653757

>>16669076
anon, do not quote your own post, it shows how desperate and tenuous you feel your own position is

>>16669063
Also

>>16669082
Or confident.

>>16669009
>The sum of a person's taxed income is astronomical anon.
A short calculation, in my country (one of the most heavily taxed of Western Europe), gives me a bit less than 44k in taxes for someone who contributed for 45 years, at median salary. That's about two years of average lung cancer care in my country.

A richer person will pay more taxes but also benefit much more massively by all the enrichment schemes provided by my country (for instance the state-sponsored education system that at high level regularly churns out very competent financial advisors and traders, the high quality and reliability of communications technology ensured by engineers whose education was paid by the state, etc.)

>>16669087
I can assure you, it does not

>>16669092
Take a wild guess on in what esteem I keep the assurance of those who cannot form a rebuttal. Forcing you to lock eyes with it only for you to whine about me doing so and pull some characterological indictments out of your ass heavily does not impress.

>>16669130
oof buddy, are you like this in real life?

>>16669139
Lmao no. Should I be outside the Columbian basket weaving forum? Banter is for the banter cave (4chan), don't ask dumb questions.

>>16669153
Dumb questions are for the dumb question cave (4chan)

>>16669052
>"But you cannot succeed with it for long."
Many people do it fine their entire lives.

>Discovering one's exact relation to every relevant fact
It is
1. impossible to truly achieve
2. often too costly (in time, money, risk and other resources) to satisfactorily achieve
3. error-prone and liable to produce confusion, frequent reversal of opinion and resolution
4. ultimately always reliant on a manifold of unconscious acts of faith anyway

People who succeed never try to discover their exact relation to every relevant fact (and Rand certainly didn't), they act out some strong personal conviction with improvised methods that in the best of cases they refine with experience and reading. As with most things luck always get the lion's share, though it does not mean that success is entirely random.

>a more potent kind of success, and faster besides
Only in very good conditions, ie when you are lucky in the first place. Thoughtful people losing to idiots is not a rare or even uncommon occurrence. We all have examples of people who succeeded by being smart and doing the right thing, but they almost always had the right cards in hand from the start or can be regarded as exceptional in their own rights.

> The only thing faster is luck.
Luck is inescapable and ever acting. The smart successful one get circumstances they can act on and in the best of cases they keep making the right decisions ("right" being an a posteriori qualifier, it is what turned out to work even though reasonably it perhaps shouldn't have). But those are the best of cases, it is already luck to even start there, and those decisions always rely on gusto, intuitions unaccounted for, and qualities you can seldom change. Character also is a circumstance.

Delusion still works extremely well in practice, just not any kind of delusion (and I'm not meaning "the delusion that happens to coincide with reality", "the delusion that happens to be close to people's wishes" is closer to it, read Pascal).

>>16669139
Newfag detected

>>16669163
Ah, I almost forgot, the user base here is more autistic than I am, sometimes slips my mind

>>16638491
this

>>16669083
This is economically delusional. Most government expenditures is spend in facilities, projects, services, maintenance, research, and welfare for the already or formerly working (people whose salary don't cover living expenses, retired people, people with disabilities acquired from work). That is to say most of it is spent to facilitate the growth or the economy or to relieve people who objectively contributed to it.

Whether this is a more efficient system than entirely private allocation of resources is irrelevant to Ayn Rand's morality claim here, what matters is that wealth is created collectively by the workers, and the taxes on wealth are for the most part redistributed among the workers (which includes CEOs as much as construction workers) or to bolster their work.

Rand is forgetting the objective reality of this state of affairs due to her fetishization of the heroic entrepreneur/lonely wealth creator, but her romantic sensibilities have no bearing on the reality of the matter. If she held fast to her own principles she could have easily recognized this.

>>16669233
based

>>16669162
>Many people do it fine their entire lives.
>press X to doubt
What kind of delusion to what kind of success?

>>Discovering one's exact relation to every relevant fact.
Let me amend that: *Sufficiently discovering one's relation to every relevant fact in a novel and inovative manner.
>1
see amendment
>2
No, cost effectiveness is part of the program. Managerial acumen consists largely of this.
>3
Same as 2 for error-mitigation
>4
A professional going at life with a surgeons scalpel with out compete a peppy hotshot gliding through the motions every time.

>People who succeed never try to discover their exact relation to every relevant fact.
The successful just collectively chuckled. Bankers alone are some of the most conceptually potent people on earth.
>Only in very good conditions, ie when you are lucky in the first place.
Finding or making the right conditions is part of the program, and we needn't even refer this to the most extreme cases of success. A trucker figuring out how to better budget his wealth, or harassing management until the improvements he proposes are made counts. VERY much so if he explicitly holds and leverages some contextuality stressing philosophy we've all heard of.
>Thoughtful people losing to idiots is not a rare or even uncommon
Irrelevant really, the range of things of which you speak is far too wide.
>Luck is inescapable and ever acting. The smart successful one get circumstances they can act on and in the best of cases they keep making the right decisions
You can most certainly (effectively) corner in out however. You can't get a grip on an object paranormally too slippery to hold but you can fling it out of your vicinity for a time.
>intuitions unaccounted for
Bad automatized philosophy is to blame for that
>the delusion that happens to be close to people's wishes

I'm going to need you to state in explict terms what you mean by delusion.

>>16669233
It is not relevant what stolen wealth is used for, against the claim being made here.
Sorry to sunder your post so unglamorously but there it is.

>>16669301
>with out compete
*will out-compete

>>16669315
But the wealth isn't stolen, it comes from the workers (from Joe the carpenter to Jeff Bezos) and the technological apparatus, and is given back to the workers and to the maintenance of the technological apparatus. Unless you believe the profit-allocation systems of the market are entirely fair and the people getting most of the profit are always those who did most of the works, a form of redistribution (through taxes or other means) is necessary. And even if you think the profit are well-allocated, what worth it is if the price for it is bad management and the deterioration of infrastructure? So you have to renounce that moral high-ground and look at how things are in a way.

Yes there is an element of coercion in it, but that is also the case in private dealings, it that constitutes stealing, then stealing is a universal necessity across the board even in healthy economies and the word has been rendered meaningless. If my employer lowers my salary and I'm powerless to effectively protest because of a precarious situation and a lack of non-violent alternatives, is he not stealing from me? Those kinds of phenomena are endemic throughout the entire industrial age. This might be a unfortunate reality but it is reality all the same: people are constantly pressuring one another for money. The solution is not to close your eyes and pretend we can be atomized innovators with no relationship or debt to one another when the very essence of the economy is exchange and mutual dependency. It is also not to pretend that things even out by themselves "in the absence of state intervention" (or whatever fictional state of the economy your personal theory favors). Money is the creation and the tool of the state, an economy with money means an economy with a state, and a state that never intervenes is a state that doesn't exist.

You want to escape "government theft" ? Create your own autonomous community in some semi-isolated regions and deal only in your own currency (or better yet, barter and exchange favors, as people did during most of history). It's not a non-sequitur, people have done it, keep doing it (amish, German radical Christian communities, radical ecologists, etc.) and for the most part they are unbothered by the state. And I entirely agree that if then the government invades you and takes you land (as it has indeed happened many times in history) then that is a textbook case of theft.

>>16669441
2/2

But government taking a share of the profit created using its infrastructures, by company that couldn't exist without them, in order to to keep those infrastructures running and guarantee a decent living for those companies' workers, that's not theft, that's resource management. Remove it and the management happens nonetheless, only through more chaotic and violent means, and with worse results (see: Somalia).

This is why Rand's moral claim is empty, it assume somehow wealth created in a vaccum, without support on an existing society (because whether it's the government taxing you or your workers asking for a raise, it's in both cases a part of the support system of wealth creation asking for its share back), yet it lavishes praises on precisely the kind of achievement that require an advanced, labor-specialized, highly-connected and ressource-able society to create.
This is also why her novels contain fantasies like superhuman entrepreneurs running facilites entirely by themselves. The point is not the exaggeration of human faculties, but the conjuring away of the masses of people who make things work (and not only own them). Thus the collapse of the entire workforce into the inventor, and of the inventor into the owner, thus the irrational belief (always asserted, never supported by more than handwavy parables about hard work) that taxes must necessarily end up to "parasites". Again, delusional economics, willful ignorance of reality.

A much better point would be how even rational taxation is used by interest groups (that is, everyone) to further their own interests against those of others. Thus of rich against poor, old against young, demographic against demographic. But that's more of a practical pitfall than a moral one, and here taxes are merely one instrument in a more general dynamic.
Now the specifics of taxation (or wealth redistribution in general) are up to debate, that's for sure, but that's another issue entirely.

>>16669441
>>16669442
Btw, since the post is long, the TL;DR is the first sentence:
>But the wealth isn't stolen, it comes from the workers (from Joe the carpenter to Jeff Bezos) and the technological apparatus, and is given back to the workers and to the maintenance of the technological apparatus.

>>16669441
>But the wealth isn't stolen, it comes from the workers (from Joe the carpenter to Jeff Bezos) and the technological apparatus, and is given back to the workers and to the maintenance of the technological apparatus.
Regardless of consent.
>You want to escape "government theft" ? Create your own autonomous community in some semi-isolated regions and deal only in your own currency
Or. Before the abolition of coercive taxation is acheived we settle for the decriminalization of tax evasion. Not overnight, Rand validly argued that any kind of at-once reversal of something so culturally and institutionally ingrained is irrational. And they is the lens by which you bemoan the separation of State and Economics. As if my camp were talking about at-once measures. Innovation and parallel structures need to be constructed so carefully and related culturally so methodically even I doubt it can be done without the collapse of the world first. (Which if you will notice it is doing to itself under collectivism and altruism) Even I doubt the military/courts/police taxation (the only defensible taxation) can be replaced. Possibly a failure of imagination on my part, maybe.
>Yes there is an element of coercion in it, but that is also the case in private dealings
>also the case in private dealings
How so?
>If my employer lowers my salary and I'm powerless to effectively protest because of a precarious situation and a lack of non-violent alternatives, is he not stealing from me?
No, precarious enough of a situation and fleeing to another line of work is your only valid option. If that option is removed from you you A. have bigger things to worry about concerning the state of affairs that caused that and B. it isn't his fault.
All assuming his reason for the pay cut is defensible and objectively unassailable.
>Those kinds of phenomena are endemic throughout the entire industrial age.
The interplay of the mixed economy's effects cannot be ignored here. The most potent form of Capitalism, LfCap, requires a developed operant philosophy in a culture and education system. Failures of the industrial age, even if we assume no fault of the mixed economy, are MUCH more the fault of wrong applications of a wrong philosophic ethos and means of assessment pregnant in the culture. Not an indictment on Capitalism as-such. Soccies/statists love to oversimplify the issue and assert ad nauseum that bad things that occur in what people term a capitalist context are the fault of capitalism. Merely because they occur within it.
The potent usefulness and damning implications for soccie argument of Rand coining the term 'mixed-economy' cannot be understated.
>Money is the creation and the tool of the state, an economy with money means an economy with a state, and a state that never intervenes is a state that doesn't exist.
It's as if fiat is all you can conceive of and don't know the Gold Standard was once supreme.

part2 incoming btw

>>16669442
>>16669442
>guarantee a decent living for those companies' workers
Let me show you what comittiment to a moral principle looks like: The GUARANTEE of a decent living for a companies' workers is unironically, totally, utterly, evil.
Extra spaces so you can digest that.
>Thus the collapse of the entire workforce into the inventor, and of the inventor into the owner, thus the irrational belief (always asserted, never supported by more than handwavy parables about hard work) that taxes must necessarily end up to "parasites". Again, delusional economics, willful ignorance of reality.
Though you wouldn't know about it, occurances of government failure, self bailout, and malfiesance outnumber tales of private impotence.
A trillion dollar debt itself alone is literally enough to blast every argument you've made about the viability of interventionism besides. A fact I'm sure you've never actually factored, honestly.
You keep bringing up economics as if that weren't an applied science to work out the details of on it's own terms after the philosophic concepts that undergird it have been understood and societally applied. You consider it delusional because you won't entertian any context other than one where the mixed economy has already set the terms.
I advocate no less than an Objectivist revolution.
What I speak of is not some question of efficiency of an economic system but of whether the Totalitarian New Left will be allowed to, literally, incinerate the world or not.

>Now the specifics of taxation (or wealth redistribution in general) are up to debate, that's for sure, but that's another issue entirely.
Now you admit this, didn't stop you when you wanted to bring up economics unappropriately.