There is an idea that is pervasive in American capitalism that entrepreneurs are the great producers, great men who move the Earth through intelligence, perseverance, and creativity. You can hear it echoed from Ayn Rand to Ted Nugent: the executives are the people who produce and keep the world moving, while the knuckle-draggers shuffling to work at 6 in the morning and don’t make enough money to pay taxes are, in fact, parasites.
This is bullshit.
The fact is, those corporations often didn’t get to their billions through wisdom or creativity, or even good luck. They got there through criminal activity, inherited wealth, and ruthless disregard for the value of anything but the stockholders and the corporation’s profit.
Case #1: duPont Chemicals
The duPont corporation is the perfect example of why these global companies think something like a whipping boy is a damn good idea. It’s because these are the same assholes who had whipping boys in feudal Europe. We have this silly idea in America that we are no longer controlled by the monarchs and scoundrels of medieval Europe, but is that really true?
It’s hard to believe that is true when I look at a family like duPont, who were Burgundian nobility who emigrated to the United States to escape the guillotine for their injustices to the lower class during the French Revolution.
If that’s not enough, they were one of the biggest companies accused by Smedley Butler of trying to overthrow the U.S. government to install a fascist dictator, as fascists tend to be more friendly to big, ruthless business. Now, you might not believe in Major General Smedley Butler’s accusations, but that doesn’t clear duPont of dirt. They’ve also been accused of having hemp made illegal to destroy the competition against their new product – Nylon – and they are also responsible for the lovely carcinogen probably in your kitchen right now: Teflon. They’re not even close to the worst.
Case #2: Chiquita
Chiquita weren’t always the non-controversial banana company with the wacky mascot that we all know now. At one time, they had a different name – the United Fruit Company – and a very different business ethos.
You see, rather than grow by producing affordable, delicious fruit… they bribed government officials in third-world countries, amassing enormous power over the politics of these developing nations and using it to exploit the workers in those places, to grow the cheapest fruit known to man (second to slave labor, I guess). Hence the banana republic.
Oh yeah, the guy the U.S. government supposedly sent in to make these banana republics more docile for the companies? None other than Major General Smedley Butler.
Case #3: Ford, GM, IBM and the Nazis
I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem like helping the Nazis massacre millions doesn’t seem like a very American way to make billions, but that’s just what these companies have been accused of. Yet Ford and GM have been accused of not bothering to close shop when fascists took power in Europe; hell, they took the opportunity to borrow some slave labor from the concentration camps.
IBM took it a step further, and actually provided the punch card system the Nazis used to keep track of all those slaves.
Conclusion
That’s not counting the German corporations you buy products from every day who provided such valuable technology as Zyklon B, the gas used to exterminate the Jews. And the horrible and well-documented business practices of Wal-Mart and the Disney Corporation. Or the ruthless monopoly of Standard Oil, and the shady dealings of Microsoft… the list goes on.
These executives are not the benevolent and wise leaders portrayed by people like Rush Limbaugh or Ayn Rand. They are liars, cheats, and ruthless narcissists. Would you give your money to the Nazis? Then why give it to the people who enabled them?
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Modern history of American Corporatism: Halliburton. KBR. Blackwater. Lockheed Martin, AIG, Bear Stearns, Bank of America, Citibank…
These people couldn’t produce their own cock without the parasites. I would love to see a coordinated effort where all the parasites just say fuck-it and stop going to work(except essential services) until they see significant change. I’m not just talking about more money/benefits (although many are indeed deserving), I’m talking about the blatant lies and deception which many people are basing life changing decisions on.
“American Corporatism” is just another way of saying greedy SOBs and goes way beyond large corporations. It goes all the way down(and further) to the local mechanic who tells you your engine is blown, when you really need spark plugs. The ratio of fuckwades to kind, caring, respectable people has gone to far out of wack.
Oh, if these tough economic times got you down, no worries. Tomorrow on GMA, they’re going to show you how to make an umbrella stand out of used toilet rolls. Righteous!
You’re not describing capitalism here, or a free market. Rather, you’re describing fascism: an economic system where the means of production are privately owned, but publicly controlled. So, if you want to be against something, be against fascism, which is essentially what America is today with its mixed economy, and be for capitalism, where there’s a separation of government and business. That is, incidentally, what Ayn Rand advocated.
Mark’s point is completely accurate. Not only were the disgusting things you describe enabled by the mixed legal & political system in which they occurred, but you are advocating more of that terrible system as the solution!
In Rand’s Capitalist system one’s Individual Rights are respected, the courts actually uphold contracts and impart justice on the basis of those Rights, (bribed) politicians who do ‘favors’ are properly understood to be violating others’ rights. There is a great deal more to Rand’s ideas.
Indeed, ALL I have read by her detractors have, one way or another, have not bothered to think through her ideas, and jump to such false conclusions as that made here. In their failure to understand, they promulgate a host of their own inaccuracies and misinterpretations (i.e. Bullshit) as being Rand’s failures. Their behavior would be funny if it were not so destructive.
Rand is the Winston Churchill of the War on Bullshit.
Genuine request for information here:
If the US adopted a Rand system, who would stop Chiquita from setting up banana republics in other countries? What protection would citizens have against clusterfucks like DDT (“DDT is good for me!”), Love Canal and the Triangle Factory fire?
When I ask these questions of “average” free-market capitalists I get a lot of hemming and hawing because in an unregulated market there IS no protection; personally I want to be able to live and work without worrying about getting cancer or dying because some scumbag is trying to make a quick buck by mistreating their fellow human beings. In my mind, there is no true freedom without personal agency; an economic system that allows for exploitation of the majority deprives them of their agency, just as surely as fascism restricts the liberty of its citizens. Tyranny from the boardroom is still tyranny.
I realize this sounds a bit like a polemic, but that was not my intent. I’m willing to allow that there is an answer, but no one has ever given me one. I have never read Rand, which is why I ask these questions to the Objectivists who are commenting here.
Dan – you say that you’ve never read Rand. If not, then how can you possibly comment on her ideas as you have here? If you want real answers, then you should seek them out by reading Rand yourself–nobody is going to take the time to essentially restate her philosophy here, which is what would be required to answer your questions. Objectivism is a systematic philosophy, meaning that it starts with fundamental principles. It’s not a laundry list of disjointed ideas as are most people’s philosophies today. So, you won’t get pat answers from Objectivists.
In addition, since you don’t understand the philosophy, having never read it, then you should refrain from making such sweeping (and, in the context of the philosophy, incoherent) statements as you make here. They’re completely unrelated to anything that Ayn Rand said, which frankly is the only meaningful answer that one can provide to you in this format.
I haven’t commented on Rand’s ideas. I asked what was different about Objectivism versus free-market capitalists who do not identify as Objectivists. I wouldn’t have asked if I was going to make the “sweeping statements” you’re accusing me of, now would I?
As for me reading Rand, I had to suffer through her atrocious fiction in school, and will avoid reading anything else of hers if it’s at all possible. I was hoping to hear the personal ideas of people who identify as Objectivists, not a regurgitation of everything Rand ever wrote. Have there been no new ideas in Objectivism since her death? If you don’t have any ideas of your own that’s fine, but come clean and say so instead of hiding behind “you should read Rand.”
Wow, I just do not see where you ask such a question. But, the answer would be: Objectivism is an entire philosophy that incorporates metaphysics, epistemology, politics, ethics, and aesthetics. Capitalism, or Objectivism’s politics, is obviously thus only one aspect of the philosophy (and actually derives from the more fundamental metaphysics and epistemology). I’d say, the difference between an Objectivist and someone who “just” supports capitalism is, well, the rest of the philosophy.
Of course there have been new ideas in Objectivism since Ayn Rand’s death. An argument can be made that she covered the most fundamental principles, but in terms of clarifications, expansions, etc., as well as applications, there’s as much material to cover as there is reality. So, although Objectivism is complete as far as those basic principles are concerned, it’s constantly being applied in new and different ways.
So, that’s the best answer I can give, and boy, I have to repeat: I didn’t see you asking any kind of question other than, “What would stop the evil people from doing bad things if Objectivism were the dominant philosophy?” To which I said: I’m not going to repeat the entire philosophy here, which is what would be needed, just about, to answer _that_ question.
Incidentally, you don’t need to say “free-market capitalists.” Capitalism assumes and demands a free market, or else it’s something else entirely. In fact, what you describe regarding the Chiquitas of the world, etc., is fascism, not capitalism.
Dan, DDT was banned to protect a few thousands of birds from what appeared to be egg-shell thinning caused by break-down products of DDT. Now, 1.5 million people, mostly children, die every year from Malaria. Malaria is the disease that is spread by the Anopheles mosquito, which normally succumbs to DDT. With the banning of DDT misanthropic environmentalists succeeded in implementing their most despicable campaign to date… a genocide that dwarfs that of Hitler’s concentration camps.
Some environmentalists poo-poo the above, but the facts speak for themselves.
Dan,
Some free-market capitalists who do NOT support the Objectivist view, believe that laissez-faire capitalism (LFC) is morally good because it provides for the ‘greater good’ for the greatest number (Utilitarianism).
Utilitarianism is premised on the idea that an individual who is acting for the common good is a moral person and a moral capitalist. But that is a twisted subscription towards the immorality of altruism —that ideal achievement is that which serves others to the detriment of the Server. That last, italicized point is important. If the man who serves others is not suffering in some way, if he is not truly suffering financially, then his actions are superficial, not morally valueable. Consider how despicable that is. Unless your benevolence is harmful to you, you are immoral! On a Planet wide scale, the moral are only those who ruin their lives by altruism. On such a policy the entire human world should starve and die.
Other non-Objectivist capitalists are religious. They believe that truly important actions on Earth are those that lead to Heaven. This leaves every man the choice as to how to live his life, so long as he generously supports the less fortunate Children of God. This too is altruism: enslaving oneself to others.
Both views (which I’ve chosen for their prominence, not for exhaustiveness) place self-sacrifice to ‘others’ as the moral ideal. That means, those who do not do the work, who are not productive, have an overarching free right to food, clothing, or wealth, the capitalist may have created. That is, their NEED justifies robbing (parasitizing) the productive man’s achievements.
When this becomes political practice, the Wealthy become the slaves of the Poor, regardless of the reason the Poor are poor! “Need”, alone, becomes sufficient justification to tax, control, or take the money or business, of the wealthy. These are precisely the actions of the Obama administration (Bush did it too).
The honest wealthy are presumed guilty of some immorality (of being wealthier than the envious majority) and are lumped in with the few dishonest wealthy.
True capitalism is not founded in any form of altruism. It is founded on the natural principle that a man must produce and live off the products of his effort. To tax his product is to reduce his chance to live, or at least to live happily. He becomes a pawn of the state and of the Poor.
@Richard – “The honest wealthy are presumed guilty of some immorality (of being wealthier than the envious majority) and are lumped in with the few dishonest wealthy.”
I agree, and that’s unfortunate.
Are you saying: 1) The wealthy are victims of the poor?
2) Altruism is a bad thing?
To both of Rick’s questions: Yes, absolutely.
One is not born to support others, who were born on the same terms. Those who (honestly) determine a way to wealth owe nothing to those who failed to determine such a way. One of the greater evils promulgated today, is the notion of “giving something back”. What, when someone agreed to a fee for some service or product, was the fee too small?? No way. Once the trade was done, the person selling owed nothing to society, any more than did the purchaser of that product. That entire view is one of looting the productive for nothing more than the fact that the unproductive ARE unproductive.
@Richard – “To tax his product is to reduce his chance to live, or at least to live happily. He becomes a pawn of the state and of the Poor.”
I find this hard to believe, yet it’s difficult to dispute without clearly defining what “live happily” means. I guess that’s the rub, since it naturally means different things to different people.
“One is not born to support others, who were born on the same terms. Those who (honestly) determine a way to wealth owe nothing to those who failed to determine such a way. One of the greater evils promulgated today, is the notion of “giving something back”. What, when someone agreed to a fee for some service or product, was the fee too small?? No way. Once the trade was done, the person selling owed nothing to society, any more than did the purchaser of that product. That entire view is one of looting the productive for nothing more than the fact that the unproductive ARE unproductive.”
Conceptually, I agree with most of your statements; and yet, realistically, whether it be a religious, political or individual application, (imo) it seems callous, egocentric, pious.
“what, when someone agreed to a fee for some service or product, was the fee too small?? No way. Once the trade was done, the person selling owed nothing to society, any more than did the purchaser of that product.”
This is where it seems many people lack the balls, brains, and/or resources to leverage a fair deal.
Rick – “This is where it seems many people lack…”
In this sense, you sound a bit like my teenage daughter: you want the freedom to make your own decisions, but you want others to bear the consequences should your decisions turn out poorly.
@Mark – Not sure I understand your correlation. Your daughters mind set sounds (and probably seems) completely self-serving. Not out of the ordinary for a teenager.
My statement has nothing to do with my situation personally. It’s about some people entering into a arrangement out of desperation/ self preservation. They have no leverage to negotiate, so they blindly follow.
As for me, I’ve experienced and forgotten more of life’s success and failures then most people would experience if they lived two lifetimes, and I’m just getting fuckin started. If you knew anything about me, you’d know I except the responsibilities for my actions. I guess that’s because I can’t find anyone willing to do it for me.
On a side note, humans are notoriously bad mind readers.
Rick – Okay, then I’ll word it differently: you think that people should have the right to make their own decisions, but not necessarily to bear the consequences of them. That is, you say that because of _some people’s_ lacking, they might not get a “fair deal.” You thus imply that there’s something wrong with a system that leaves people free to make whatever deal they can.
Note that there’s all sorts of practical problems with this position. For example, who’s to define how much “balls, brains, and/or resources” is sufficient to bind a person to their decisions, and how much is insufficient? And then, there’s the definition of “fair deal” itself–who’s to decide what defines it, other than the individual himself?
Now, certainly, there is a place for such decisions in extreme cases in a free society, specifically, in the courts as they evaluate contracts. For example, if one party to a contract withheld information from the other, say, that a car had been in a serious accident and was fundamentally unsound, then the contract could be made null and void.
As a _general_ rule, though, in a moral sense you are placing the burden of a person’s decision, forcibly (or else, it’s a meaningless sentiment) on someone else. To Objectivism, which seems to be what this thread has been about (at least my portion), this is an immoral position because it infringes upon individual rights.
@Mark – Sorry, I think maybe I missed your point a bit. I can see where the fact a person doesn’t have the balls, brains, resources to negotiate is a result of their own decisions.
@Mark – Sorry, just noticed your new comment, reading now.
@Mark – “you think that people should have the right to make their own decisions, but not necessarily to bear the consequences of them.”
I don’t believe that. I believe a person absolutely must bear the consequences of their decisions. That’s everyone!
Do you think the person with a MBA , flipping burgers, is completely culpable for their situation. Many people have made decision because they thought their knowledge was “reliably” based observed objects and events. The problem is, those objects and events were a facade.
I guess you could say it was their own fault for not seeing that.
The guy with the MBA who is flipping burgers may know what he is doing. But if he is there with no further plan, and can’t “get a better job”, then it is entirely his fault. We would have to examine his resume, his bearing in job interviews, his inventiveness (for starting his own business), his earlier degree(s) and so forth. Technically there is no such entity as the stereotypical “MBA burger flipper”, just as there is no actual “average man”.
@Richard: it’s naive to assume that an individual has as much control over their lives as you think they do. Every person is at the mercy of genetics, environment, and chance. Every person can only make the choices available to them, and as a finite being that means that sometimes there will be no good choice. There can be no meritocracy unless everyone begins with the same financial, social, and educational situation; until that happens (probably never), what we have is a lottery. You get to pick your own numbers, but you won’t know what the winning combination was until afterward.
Further, I can’t speak for all critics of capitalism but I personally hold no ill will towards an individual who takes care of their own affairs. In fact I believe every individual who wants to be part of society has an obligation to put their own affairs in order as best they can. However, I have lived among humans too long to be foolish enough to think that self-interest always leads to the greater good. In fact the self-interest of a finite being will often lead to a worse situation for said being, as they will make mistakes (or not be lucky enough to pick the right choice, as stated above).
My personal economic philosophy is this: you cannot trust people. People are in government and in large economic entities. Therefore, you cannot trust people to self-govern OR govern morally. All power bases – regardless of type – must be kept in check to maximize liberty for all citizens. I do not believe in capitalism, socialism, communism, or any other economic model. They all have their flaws, and how well they work is determined mainly by the people within the economy itself. Instead of arguing about which model is best, we would be better served by analyzing the resources, society, geographic location, and profit opportunities of each situation, and using that information to determine what sort of economy would be best. Idolization of any one economic type above all others is nothing short of blind dogma.
@the Objectivists: I will have to make do with reading *about* Objectivism, unless you are willing to swear on a copy of Atlas Shrugged that Rand’s philosophy is not as mind-numbingly stupid as her novels. I’m very sorry she had to suffer through the hardships of living under the shitheels of the USSR but that’s no reason for the rest of us to be tortured.
@dan
“it’s naive to assume that an individual has as much control over their lives as you think they do” —actually dan you do not know what I think, so here: I think it indisputable that NOT taking control of what you can control is more likely to be damaging than taking control. The more one learns how to control the better off one can be. Arguing that it is naive to think people are in control of their lives is a recipe for giving up entirely. Sure, hurricanes rip roofs off houses, but ardox nails liberally used can make all the difference. Sure then a tornado comes along, but your house did survive the hurricane, and you had installed a secure seller so YOU survived the tornado!
Your opening error is simply repeated with respect to meritocracy: “There can be no meritocracy unless everyone begins with the same financial, social, and educational situation; until that happens (probably never), what we have is a lottery.” Essentially then, life with other humans is a competition, and anyone who might be called a winner makes the rest unjust victims of circumstance. Never mind those who land in America with a dollar and poor English, and by 50 yrs of age have considerable wealth, a good home, a happy family etc. Everyone’s circumstances are different, and some struggle harder because they do not buy into your kind of fatalism. Some do, of course, struggle hard, and get wiped out. That is a tragedy of course, but it is NOT proper to adopt the fatalism and injustice, you presume, to the nature of human existence. If everyone did, we would still be living as cavemen, or even have gone extinct.
@dan
“However, I have lived among humans too long to be foolish enough to think that self-interest always leads to the greater good.”
That view was Adam Smith’s mistake and has been adopted by many other economists and conservatives. That self-interest generally leads to the greater good is quite true, but it is not a moral justification for self-interest. Personal sovereignty is the only moral justification.
In fact justifying self interest because it contributes to the common good is a ridiculous attempt to justify egoism on altruistic principles. Self Interest is good because each self, who takes interest in his own prosperity, health and happiness, and is independently productive. When two such people trade &/or work together, both benefit. Multiply that across a society and yes, all of society benefits… but that is a secondary benefit of secondary moral value. Attack the principle of individual self-interest and individuals who buy into the attack become less likely to engage in such productivity and more likely to believe they have a right to the avails of someone else. They also lose a certain pride in the nature of their own lives, because they know they are not productive.
It is only Capitalism that has the moral foundation to work to promote the greatest success among all men. Some will suffer and lose, but far less than in any other system. In fact, the other systems entrench failure and mutual parasitism as the norm. Time and again this has been demonstrated in history, and it is also observable simply by comparing various nations of today’s world. The more laissez-faire a nation is the wealthier, healthier and happier the citizens. Keep in mind that GDP can be influenced by unusual resources that raise GDP without raising economic freedom, therefore a regression analysis would indicate considerable variation. Nonetheless, the factual evidence is as glaring as the moral evidence.
@dan
I rather sympathize with this, “Idolization of any one economic type above all others is nothing short of blind dogma.” because there are some pretty awful economic models out there. Unfortunately, it too is fatalistic, though in a different manner. It more explicitly rejects abstract principles and their connection to Reality!!! Principles that match reality DO work. The U.S. grew to become the World’s most economically powerful nation because it adopted the political principles of Individual Rights & limited government by a (somewhat) firm Constitution. The U.S. does not have some massive resource or climate advantage over many other nations, it had right political principles.
Ayn Rand did not name her book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal for no reason! The book does not deal only with the moral principles of Capitalism, but also with the political principles that are needed for Capitalism to work fairly and effectively for all citizens. This is no more “blind dogma” than is “F=ma” or the use of vaccination against Polio. Both can be complicated by details, but the principles are valid.
I suggest that Rand’s novels are mind-numbing to many readers because, thanks to public/unionized education and anti-conceptual university academics, they do not readily read to mentally assemble facts and their relationships into applicable principles (a process of mental integration). Her two larger novels provide a wealth of concretes, tied together by a plot, that demonstrate the principles that operate in her plot-World. That plot-World is intended to parallel the real world, philosophically. For minds that do not readily see relationships between the concrete and the abstract, or do not like to, or who hate the outcome, Rand’s non-fiction will be no improvement. They will not grasp the parallels between the novels’ plot-Worlds and Reality.
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