Sep
9
Many have told me that it was from Ayn Rand they learnt that Capitalism is not only the most practical, but also the only moral politico-economic system in the whole history of mankind. In my opinion, which I know is true, Rand’s moral defense of capitalism, despite her brilliance & strength of arguments, is really weak. Rand’s arguments overlook one fundamental fact, the initial allocation of land property rights though she expatiates in length on the property status of airwaves. There are further inconsistencies in Rand’s defense, including her belief in territorial integrity, government production of security, opportunistic stances in macro politics, in defining the rights of war and peace, patriotism and lavish praise on the founding fathers, all of which I don’t wish to get into here.
Ayn Rand’s claim to absolute originality in this aspect is rather spurious, all claims and praises to the contrary notwithstanding. It is certainly true that it was Rand, who, for the first time stated a moral defense in so explicit a manner. Herbert Spencer’s ‘Social Statics’ was of course, a notable exception. It must also be said that she had many predecessors who failed to emphasize properly and make a big deal out of the moral aspect. There were always men who clearly sensed right was on their side, which didn’t need so strong an emphasis, especially in the earlier days of statism. There were even men who matched her in brilliance and style-Frederic Bastiat, Lysander Spooner & Etienne de La Boetie, to name a few. It’s only that they weren’t born in the right time, didn’t present a full case or make use of so popular a medium as fiction.
I am only happy that the word Capitalism is identified with Ayn Rand. It makes me, but, a little sad that some other extremely competent men are forgotten. The 19th Century Anarchic Political Theorists Lysander Spooner, Benjamin Tucker, French Economist Gustave de Molinari and the 20th Century Economist Murray Newton Rothbard were some of the men who did present much more consistent views in certain aspects of the issue. Both Spooner and Tucker were market anarchists and advocated the compensation of slaves and serfs and their instant emancipation while some other inconsistent proponents of liberty shied away from these issues. It shocks me that an extremely honest and knowledgeable Economist like Mises dismisses the treatment of slaves in that era as ‘humanitarian’ in most cases. Words could be quoted from Spooner’s works which would put all the professedly consistent advocates of the Free Market to shame, in brilliance, intensity, style and humor. It’s a pity that both remain unknown, even today.
A much more mature, consistent and fully moral case for Capitalism had been presented by the brilliant Economist, Philosopher, Historian, Scholar, Anarchist, Political Theorist, Politician and Satirist, Professor Murray Newton Rothbard through his classic, ‘The Ethics of Liberty’. In the words of Rand, he was a ‘moth-eaten whim worshipper’. Why?-For being consistent all the way through the end. Rand even sued Murray for plagiarism. It’s true that a lot of Murray’s ideas were deeply influenced by ‘Ayn Rand’, which he is said to have never admitted in his post-Randian days. What right, but, could have Rand had to accuse him of borrowing? One could quote line by line from Spencer, Nietzsche, Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke, Spinoza, Mises, Adam Smith and the least acknowledged of all, the French Economist Frederic Bastiat, where all she had borrowed and given her own twists. It was only that Rand was more of an independent thinker, knew well to hide her sources and claimed of an originality she hadn’t. Murray, to be honest, never matched Rand’s popularity, brilliance of style or evocative power. He couldn’t scare the hell out of readers by passing moral judgments like thunder bolts either.
Murray’s works, yet, were far, far ahead of his times and held much more ‘mature’ and ‘sophisticated’ views, in the very literal sense of those terms. He really did dig deep into, and knew what he was talking about. His views were immensely superior to that of Rand’s in the case of big businesses, foreign policy, rights of War & Peace, Security production & territorial integrity. He furthermore, didn’t overlook the issue of the initial assignment of property rights. In essence, there was no hypocrisy in his stance-Let justice be done, no matter what the consequences.
It was only that Rothbard was shadowed by two giants, Rand and Mises. Our society wasn’t, and still isn’t ready for his seemingly eccentric views including market anarchism. Even Rand’s own work sounds like a communist manifesto in the ground of his views. Moreover, Rothbard uses humor in an allegedly inappropriate manner and held intentionally eccentric views in some issues as children’s rights and women’s liberation, which even I can’t really approve of. In some issues, he truly gives out the idea that he shouldn’t be taken seriously at all. If you have sense enough to dismiss it all and get to the root of his arguments, you can see that he was right in most of the issues he set his hands on. His allegedly naïve and immature views were not only sophisticated, but also grounded in an extremely complex knowledge of political theory and economics. It’s only sad that the public would need a long line of ‘experts’ to acknowledge and testify to adhere to those views even when every reason should have told them to do so.
Are there any grounds on which one can defend the initial assignment of property rights other than the utilitarian one? There are the extremely convoluted cases of forceful appropriation of land for government projects. There are cases of undeserved grant of privileges, as happened in Nandi gram. And the most complicated of all, we have the issues of slavery and feudalism. It was the above facts that made me uncomfortable and tortured in formulating my own moral defense of Capitalism. Yet, these obvious facts are seldom discussed by the opponents of Capitalism. At most it is argued that it breeds war, imperialism, inequalities & monopolies and might even lead to depressions-all of which can be crushed by the very fundamentals. I have always wondered why these air-heads are hell-bent on picking up all such fallacies from their musty old books, when they could have made a much more sharp and understandable case against it.
It is possible to go through works of extremely competent defenders of the market too, finding no discussion of it at all. This is one more stark case of the defenders of the free market digging their own grave. It’s one more reason why so many sided with the ‘left’ in many parts of the world as they thought they would have a better chance with them. Reasons could be various-Utilitarianism of Bentham, Mill’s & Mises, Social Darwinism of Spencer, Immanuel Kant’s Anti-reason epistemology and irrational skepticism. Stockjobber ethics and skepticism can’t fully account for this fact, though.
How this issue is to be resolved? The land should be handed back to the victims or their descendants wherever they could be identified and tracked down. In cases of slavery and feudalism, the land should be divided among the serfs equally. Murray says so, following the tradition of Spooner & Tucker. This is a view I most emphatically agree to and had come to, even before reading their works. It is of course, a curious fact that most men were figuring out how to compensate the slave owners and feudal lords for their losses at the emancipation of slaves in the days of Spooner and Tucker. It’s a very good demonstration of how apparently smart men can get their perceptions muddled and be the defenders of the status quo.
I have also heard many say it was only when they read Ayn Rand they came to the truth that ‘moral’ and ‘practical’ aren’t the opposites. I had come to this too much earlier, as long as I can remember, but it was only when I read her that I noticed the shark contrast between morality and practicality in this particular issue. How would we go about it? Let’s leave aside the fact that in most cases the descendants of victims can’t be tracked down. What if they could be? It would certainly be a horrible scene and even the ones on the receiving end, if sane and smart enough wouldn’t want it that way.
A fully moral defense of capitalism can’t be formulated keeping this issue out of sight. The usual argument is that the feudal era is long gone by and we are all now living in an industrial age. Some would argue that the current owner was acting on it for so long a time and according to the homesteading principle it can only be his. All such arguments are to be dismissed. Surely one wouldn’t argue that stolen or rented land is his own if he acts on it for long. What if a sky scraper stands on the land which is to be handed out to one utterly incapable of handling it at all? The building should be crushed, swept down and handled back to him if the current owner feels it that way. Either way, it would immeasurably reduce the advantages we have now in living in a division of labor society. It could be argued that the advantages in preserving the status quo would be much greater than otherwise for every one of us involved, but such an argument would certainly be utilitarian and not moral. The most practical solution which could be put forth is to compensate the victims monetarily reaching a settlement to this issue through privately run courts. This is the reason I believe why many self-proclaimed moralists paid only lip-service to this issue, if at all. Their answer is, to paraphrase John Galt, ‘blank out’.
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11 Responses to “Morality And Capitalism”
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Richard Says:
September 9th, 2008 at 9:17 pmYour post is quite well written, as blogs go. Your blog is the best looking one I have encountered… well done. As usual, comments pick on wrongs more than rights, and this is true of the following.
First, Murray Newton Rothbard ‘glommed’ onto a few of Rand’s ideas, never grasped how they were derived or integrated (those were vital steps he “blanked out”), then ‘ran’ with the pieces. He was an idea theif at the start, then much of what he developed was as unoriginal as the gibberish produced by philosopy professors echoing -or rewording- men like Kant & Hegel. Even you describe him as an anarchist, which is an insane politico-economic ideal. That should point alone should cause you to throw up some serious, red, warning flags that something is wrong with his structure of ideas and the arguments he used to support them. <i>E.g.,</i>laissez-faire capitalism is not “market anarchy”, it depends on contract enforcement in terms of individual rights.
Second, your issue with land for slaves and feudal servants: instant emancipation would have been disastrous for slaves in most regions of the world, given the cultural attitudes of the time (say, early 1800s). Even once freed a slave would have worked his plot of land from dawn till dusk to feed his family, acquiring only a tiny amount of tradeable goods (&/or cash) for obtaining salt and a few other necessities. He faced racism whereever he turned.
Slaves were property to be cared for, and their owners provided room, board and clothing. A fool does not look after his property. Those fools are used to paint the standard (false) view of slavery in the Southern States. The economic difference between a slave and a freed Black man was not that great. While the moral difference, in being free to choose one’s location, work and family is huge. Many freed slaves remained with the men who had been their owners, because that was truly where they were better off, especially economically.
In fact. modern N. Americans are in worse shape now than the slaves were. Although we are free to move, we cannot escape taxation that, for most people, amounts to nearly half of every day’s productive effort. We are able to sustain ourselves through having enough freedom to innovate, enough technology to be vastly more productive, and enough income to live well on what is left. It remains that without that taxation, even though we would incur other expenses for services —but at lower cost to us— that the government has assumed, our standard of living would be enormously better. That is, in the context of the 1800s, the slave had much of what was available at the time whereas, in our modern context, we are much worse off than we could be.
I totally support the idea of distributing government lands to a body of people who were victims of slavery or feudalism. In applying that practice, it would be wrong to go to more than one generation past the enslaved generation. This principle should also be applied to aboriginal reservation lands, whereupon they would also assume the same rights and become subject to the same laws as non-aboriginals. Anything else is racism.
In a nation of “rags to riches to rags in three generations”, there is no justification in punishing someone who is one or more generations descending from an ancestor who engaged in wrongful behavior. In the same way, such 2nd generation descendants, or later, should not receive special benefits for deprivations experienced by their ancestors. The lives of the 1st generation can be said to have suffered for their parents’ deprivations, but after that, in freedom, a man chooses his own course.
All of the above is, I think, consistent with Ayn Rand’s ideas. Her task as a philosopher was not to answer to every detail that someone such as yourself might be concerned with. Instead, it is your job to work with proper principles, which she truly has identified, to apply them to such details. That is, she laid out distinct fundamentals, many of which were either completely original or were more precisely elucidated versions of existing principles.
I should add, Rand did not need to reference most of her sources because they were either obvious or were so cultural in nature that others could detail the origin. Those she did idenfify were often the progenitors of ideas that were revised somewhat by more recent minds. The latter did not deserve special mention.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
September 9th, 2008 at 11:17 pmIt’s nothing but inconsistency in your understanding which is forcing you to keep Rand and Rothbard on same plane.
Rothbard remained inconsistent about Capitalism throughout his life time, yet he was consistent about anarchy always.
Rand always remained consistently strenghtening Capitalism, yet she was never a supporter of ‘Anarchy in Air’. She was a philosophical anarchist with a stern outlook towards the process of “freedom” and that process she named Objectivism.
She wasn’t the only Philosophical anarchist, there were many like Henry David Thoreau”.
The basic idea of philosophical anarchist or Objectivist remains consistent, i.e, government is ”necessary evil” but argue that citizens do not have a moral obligation to obey the state when its laws conflict with individual autonomy.
Rather than throwing bombs or taking up arms to bring down the state, philosophical anarchists “have worked for a gradual change to free the individual from what they thought were the oppressive laws and social constraints of the modern state and allow all individuals to become self-determining and value-creating.
About Rothbard, he was a well-known anarchist and a timely colleague of Ayn Rand for a period. With Rothbard, the problem which arises is he is not “so clear” about the violent streams of Anarchism. Rothbard talks of “How it would be, when it will be anarchism”? Rand talks about how it should be right now, and how to reach Capitalistic Anarchism or better say free-market.
Richard Says:
September 10th, 2008 at 6:25 pmThat’s a great name there Unpretentious Diva, one would not want to come across as a self-contradiction!
Your wrote, Rand “was a philosophical anarchist…”. Please explain what you mean by philosophical anarchist.
Rand was very literal with language, and understood every term she used with stunning depth. She was explicitly opposed to anarchism however anyone warped the term. Anarchism was & is an instant indicator of insufficient thought &/or subjectivism.
Rand did not view government as a necessary evil. She took pains to make it clear that government was an absolute positive requirement for ensuring every citizen had a rational recourse in the event of being subjected to force initiated by others. That force may be domestic, hence police and courts, or foreign, hence the military. Of course, those three —police, courts and military— also needed administration. Courts would also track ownership of certain properties etc. as part of ensuring individual rights to same.
The epistemic status of “Capitalistic Anarchism” is remarkably similar to the epistemic status of “Unpretentious Diva”,
[The ABOUT page of this site does little to explain who blogs here. Knowing these things can influence how one responds.]
Unpretentious Diva Says:
September 10th, 2008 at 6:47 pm@Richard
Well, I don’t know about you and your ou some qknowledge regarding Ayn Rand or objectivism or subjectivism.
For your type of games, I would like to mention you some quotes by Ayn rand herself.
1>
A government is the most dangerous threat to man’s rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.
Ayn Rand
2>
Government “help” to business is just as disastrous as government persecution… the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off.
Ayn Rand
3>
The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
Ayn Rand
4>
When man learns to understand and control his own behavior as well as he is learning to understand and control the behavior of crop plants and domestic animals, he may be justified in believing that he has become civilized.
Ayn Rand
These are Ayn Rand’s words about government which clearly indicates her idea matching with the philosophy of philosophical anarchism.
Anyways, that is not a point of contention, Objectivism itself is the means of Individual Liberty, which ultimately leads to the denial of any majority rule on any individual which is the “Smallest Minority”.
Richard Says:
September 11th, 2008 at 12:32 amEach of the 4 quotations must be read integratively , in context, & with more attention to meaning. ( The link is to the lexicon, which does not really provide adequate context.)
With respect to each of your quotations:
1> Rand’s point concerns the threat, and acknowledges that gov’t “holds a legal monopoly” on the use of force against disarmed victims. That is, if gov’t goes beyond its constitutional role by initiating force —when its citizens have no legal or rational right to retaliate against those who initiate force— then it is a true threat. This is absolutely not an advocacy of political and economic anarchism.
2> Here she is speaking of the harm to prosperity (that is, the economy) that results when a government interferes in supporting or inhibiting consensual (non-fraudulent) trade. See #1.
3> Here she is speaking of the manner in which politicians propose violations of individual rights in order to obtain voter support to obtain greater un-constitutional political power. Again, see #1.
4> This is a general statement about a culture, however there will a) always be individuals who violate others’ rights, and there will b) always be borderline issues that are more a matter of the Philosophy of Law and that require a civilized reconciliation by an outside arbiter, namely the courts. This is anti-anarchism placed on an individual basis. N.B. This line of reasoning leads to an understanding as to why a crime is both a crime against both the victim and against society as a whole.
In conclusion, not one of these quotes suggests that Rand supports anarchism, philosophical (so far as I can grasp your meaning of the term via your usage) or otherwise. Those quotations you provided did, indeed, address the point of contention, but your final point is completely correct.
[There is no need for snotty remarks that spin a comment into being some sort of “game”? Brevity can leave openings in an argument, but such openings in no way mean the writer is ignorant of what would fill the gaps. They are justification for questioning.]
renegade_division Says:
September 11th, 2008 at 1:24 amAnd the Superman vs Batman wars continue.
renegade_division Says:
September 11th, 2008 at 4:26 amI take strong exceptions to the usage of the term “idea theif”, its as lousy as calling you “word butcher”, “serial misspeller”.
Ayn Rand DOES claims that Rothbard stole her work, but then if that is to be accepted, then the whole money speech of Francisco is stolen from Carl Manger(the founder of Austrian School of Economics).
Also “Who is John Galt?” is a stolen line from “Who is Henry Galt?” by Garrett Garrett in his novel “The Driver”[insert Unpretentious diva’s strong rebuttal of how lousy that novel is here]
Secondly, Rothbard was an economist, and it doesn’t strike to me that you have read his work. Sometimes it becomes too irritating to hear people thrashing him when they haven’t even read his work in economics. Rothbard and Rand both fight on the common platform, Rand arrived at it from philosophy, Rothbard from Economics. If you read the Subjectivist approach of Mises onto Economics, you will realize that Rothbard simply tried to create an Objectivist version of Misesian economics.
Again you believe in “Utilitarian Libertarianism” where Liberty should be only embraced if it offers more utility to maximum people rather than based on their natural right?
And how did these slave owners ended up becoming the owner of the body of the slaves? Lemme remind you in a just society, there is a consistent way by which you can become owner of a property without using physical coercion. That is “homesteading principle”.
Slave owners have not homesteaded the bodies of the slaves. Slaves themselves are the just owner of their bodies. So any kind of ownership by the slave owners on the slaves is as much void as the ownership of a stolen property by a thief.
You keep on talking about their current situation and situation back then, but you are missing out the point. There is NO MORAL justification for the slavery.
Yeah, so voluntarily choosing, many slaves chose to remain with their owners. So what is the big problem here?
Set them free, if you are right as you say, then they would choose to remain with the owners. If not then they will leave them, which proves you are wrong.
Now lets see what happened really? None of the slaves remained with their owners after abolition.
renegade_division Says:
September 11th, 2008 at 4:57 am@Unpretentious Diva
What the hell is Philosophical Anarchist Unpretentious? She clearly support govt aggression in military, police and judiciary. She clearly wanted only and only a group of people to have all the power to punish and seek justice, and supported their monopoly.
In fact all the quotes you gave in response to Richard’s similar question, it just seems like “philosophical anarchist” is another word for inconsistent anarchist, or “Can’t really oppose anarchism completely”, or “Can’t embrace the govt that much or moral grounds”.
Then why do you support the govt if nobody is obliged to obey the state when their laws conflict with individual autonomy.
Isn’t an individual free to NOT obliged to obey any private organization if its policies do not agree to individual autonomy.
In fact disobeying the state, and disobeying a private organization, you know it well which would be more easier to do. If you disagree with an organization you run to a competitor’s organization. If you disagree with the state, you run to……..
When you go to a private competitor DRO(Dispute Resolution Organization), they will do a simple profit-loss calculation whether its profitable to support you or not. If the actions of rogue DRO are invading the private rights of enough number of people that spending money on fighting the rogue DRO will result in profit, then the DROs will fight the rogue DRO.
On the other hand, by establishing a monopoly of the govt in defence, judiciary and defense, you are strengthening the Govt to be such a HUGE monolithic organization that you CANNOT FIGHT against the GOVT!
I mean Unpretentious, support the govt all you want, oppose anarchy all you want, but don’t bullshit about fighting the govt in a State society. Can anyone fight the American govt right now? Try smoking weed in America nd see what happens to your Liberties.
Richard Says:
September 11th, 2008 at 7:34 amr_d
Fisking without understanding is quite absurd.
* On “idea thief”, you should discover the Stolen Concept.
* Claiming I am any kind of Libertarian is an astonishing presumption, quite ignoring the objective situation of the slaves.
* You claimed that, “None of the slaves remained with their owners after abolition.” Prove your point. All of Thomas Jefferson’s slaves stayed with him even though he was opposed to slavery. Ask yourself why.
* The rest of your comments on slavery are an anachronistic attempt to impose today’s values on the people of the 17 & 1800’s, which is patently irrational. Men have to learn.
Even Ayn Rand admitted that without the Industrial Revolution she could not have understood, with certainty, the true nature of Capitalism.
Your remarks are fatuous poppycock.
Richard Says:
September 11th, 2008 at 7:48 amr_d
Your comments to the dear Diva are virtually incoherent. What on Earth is the meaning of this: “[Rand] clearly support govt aggression in military, police and judiciary.”?
Had you been reading properly, you would know that Rand supported a state monopoly on the use of retaliatory force via the military, police and judiciary. Knowing that a thinking person would never consider that to be “aggression”, your comment makes no sense whatsoever.
“A DRO (Dispute Resolution Organization) is a Libertarian Anarchist piece of nonsense, which fails to grasp that “Competing Governments” is a ticket to dictatorship.
Finally, r_d, please take the time form sentences that are coherent and complete thoughts, in many cases they are gibberish.
Richard Says:
September 11th, 2008 at 7:53 amWhat the heck, why did all that html pop up??
Who is Whiskey, and what is the php and html background for this blog. The editor is a nice touch, but a bunch of things do not seem to work properly.
And, hey, is there one person here, or several? I think you have a lot of great ideas, but oddities keep cropping up. Maybe there is an issue of cost, and this is the development so far, but gosh, squish in some instructive statements we visitors can use so as to make the most of what is available. (I thought this was WordPress at first, but who is “Whiskey”?)