Sorry, I thought everyone knew about Adam Smith: He was only referring to free people exchanging their goods and services in a free market economy. Whereby each one is trying to do selfishly what gives them the best individual result, but with the overall result that the standard of living in their whole society is improved......as compared to a bunch of central planners trying to make the millions of decisions required to most efficiently allocate the scarce resources of goods and labor. Stosh
One example of millions to choose from to illustrate what Ayn Rand and Adam Smith are talking about: On this forum lots of people are traders. We are SELFISHLY trying to make the most money we can on each trade......nothing is altruistic about. But the bigger picture is that we are providing liquidity to a market which helps other people buy and sell their investments, we give farmers and producers the ability to hedge the risk of price changes that could otherwise wipe them out, and we provide capital to those businesses that are doing the best job in the most needed and desired sectors. In other words, millions of us pursuing our own self interest, UNINTENTIONALLY help to promote the common good. Stosh
Not me. I plan on giving 90% of all my money to the poor. After all, that's the reason I began trading. Then I expect everyone to erect a momument dedicated to my selflessness. Life's not all about making money. It's about being your brothers' keeper.
If I was self-interested enough in my exchanges, I would rob the bank next time I go in for a deal. Screw laws and regulations that keep me from being self-interested. I should be free to rob a bank anytime I want. Or become a predatory lender, securitize everything then rate it AAA , in the hopes it will make me a buck one day. You got to love unregulated capitalism, it reminds me of the innocent and greedy mentality of childhood. And we all know how children behave without rules or boundaries.
Who believes this? Of course, we need a limited gov't (remember the Constitution) and a few basic laws.........that are STRICTLY ENFORCED ON EVERYONE (this will keep new laws to a minimum).
Yes, if only basic laws (whatever that means) could solve or prevent complicated problems. Who believes that? A law that says build a safe house is too vague and relative to keep builders from getting creative or frugal, and build houses that will eventually collapse on the inhabitants. Theres more to life than basic rules.
Axioms: 1) Money is only useful to it's holder insofar as someone else is willing to exchange it for services or goods. 2) A nation cannot function without enforcing its laws. Theorems: 1) The primary aim of government should be to uphold existing laws (hopefully you have a good constitution), and to amend laws as the world becomes more complex. 2) Economics tells you how to allocate resources as cheaply as possible. If a moral philosophy is not overlaid ontop of economics, eventually the world will be full of cyborgs way more efficient than us. If you accept these axioms and theorems, you can prove that Ayn Rand's "philosophy" is unsustainable. But then so is Adams Smith. Ok, I am oversimplifying a bit, but this is all theory anyway. What the founders of the US gave us is an algorithmic government that has positive feedback, all the while putting the well-being of all it's citizens explicitly at the center of it's laws. This they did by enacting a constitution that allowed a people to self correct and overthrow bad leadership. They gave us a very clever set of laws that allow all of us to "hill climb" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_climbing towards higher prosperity [in fact, they understood all to well and expected that certain groups would do better than others, and that embedded in the constitution is the idea of one man one vote - ergo, the poor will can always reboot.] In other words, the founders did not say, we know what the answer is and we are going to impose this philosophy or that. Instead they stayed away from philosophy and they said: give a nation a way to search it's optimal prosperity space. Recessions knock us out of local maxima (interesting that this is an emergent property, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence since there is nothing in the constitution about it.) It is not in any political philosophy that you will find wisdom, but in a moral philosophy. I believe the US constitution to be the supreme example of a moral philosophy implemented in reality. How we have morals, and still allow the exceptional to succeed (money, fame, whatever floats your boat) is very hard. On a final note, Godel proved that the US constitution was logically flawed: http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2005/02/jerry_dworkin_p.html
A small paperback book "For the New Intellectual" takes excerpts from her books to summarize the meat of her philosophy. A much less painful means of reading her work than wading through massive uninspired fictional stories. I personally try to follow the basic principles of her philosophy, but disagree frequently with her own applications (or interpretations) of her philosophy to real life situations. Just 20 or 30 pages from Atlas Shrugged-- "This is John Galt Speaking" (This is the philosophy of Objectivism.) Tells all you need to know to capture her basic philosophy. What would she think of traders? What do they produce? What do they create? Does what they do benefit or contribute to mankind? They live by virtue of their own mind and skill, not dependent on anyone. They are successful only if they are rational and objective. But they survive only if there are weaker traders to prey upon? Interesting.