| I'm very new to the ideas of Ayn Rand and Objectivism and was hoping for some feedback and insight from those of you out there who consider yourself Objectivists. |
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It's too bad you are not asking me for some feedback and insight, Patrick. I might be able to give you some, but I do not consider myself an Objectivist.
| I find her ideas and school of thought very intriguing, but I'm having some trouble coming to terms with her ideas on capitalism. The idea of a system of complete and open free trade without at least some government regulation seems somewhat unrealistic to me, especially speaking in terms of global trade. |
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Ayn Rand does not endorse complete and open trade without at least some government regulation. She is not an anarchist. She does believe in a role for government. She allows that the government have the monopoly on the use of retalitory force to secure the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. All transactions in a capitalistic system should be mutually voluntary. Nobody has a right to the product of someone else's goods or services. Someone who initiates force against someone else, violates that persons right to do what he or she wants with his or her property, goods or services, and thus violates that person's right to the pursuit of happiness. It is the function of the government to secure those rights, to protect private property rights.
Things are not so simple in real life, but free trade is the ideal worth shooting for, even on the global level. According to the Declaration of Independence, every human has these property rights, not just Americans. It is the function of governments to protect those natural human rights that humans have by virtue of being human. Too often, governments violate those rights.
I have lived in Europe for more than twenty years and seen the difference, back before the wall came down, between generally capitalist countries, West Germany, and non-capitalist countries, East Germany. There was a stark contrast.
I think one of the reasons the wall came down and the Soviet Union collapsed is because of capitalistic behavior. We traded with countries who were also capiatlistic and isolated countries which violated human rights. It isn't this simple. Some countries got around our policies, and some countries, like in the east, used our technology to get oil out of the ground and force us to pay high prices for it, and we are still dealing with these problems.
There are many problems which the invisible hand of economic law may not seem to solve quickly, like business which practice discrimination. We can't always just rely on patrons voluntarily boycotting those businesses. Yes, we have property rights, but how do we deal with rivers running through properties? The capitalistic model is easy to understand, and Atlas Shrugged showed many examples of how unjust things can get if government tries to control the means of production and the distribution of wealth, but there can also be problems with too little government.
This can go on and on. I want to get back to my Alice story.
bis bald,
Nick
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