What is the Objectivist alternative to the Federal Reserve?


Derek McGowan

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A person's behavior can be reasonable and logical and efficient, and yet they can still operate on a foundation of lies of an immoral ideology.

Greg

That is absolutely not true. You have fallen into the error of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy as applied to ethics. No distinction exists between the moral and the practical. You grant to the looters the "practical" ends of taking someone else's productive effort, but deny the foundation from which that lootable stuff derives.

First of all, just with individuals making personal choices, it is historically true that when looters dominate, producers go into hiding. Everyone knows the "Dark Ages". Similar events are known from the long history of China. It is not "practical" (beyond the range of the moment) to loot from producers.

Secondarily, as Ayn Rand quipped, the definition of "practical" depends on what it is you intend to practice. That speaks to your deeper assumption - perhaps your personal deepest. You seem to accept Machiavelli's The Prince and Plato's The Republic. Do you really think that such constructs are workable in the real world? How long could you get away with killing the friends and relatives of the previous ruler (The Prince) or forcing everyone to eat at the same table and allowing sons to anonymously have sexual relations with their own fathers? (The Republic)?

The specifics do not matter. The broad theory that you apparently accept is that you can get away with anything. Objectivism teaches that ideas have consequences and that actions have consequences.

Wait, what? How can a son anonymously have sex with their fathers? Wouldn't they know them?

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... no one here (including me) has any power to change what is being discussed. ... everyone here is utterly powerless to actually do anything that could effect banking policy even one whit.

Greg

Greg, self-liberation is a significant rubric among "objectivish" innovators. Do you not hold silver and gold coins?

I have some, Michael... but only for diversification.

They're just one among many other means of wealth storage. I also use a number of others. A business is an excellent store of wealth because it creates more wealth. And so is land, because you can grow food on it. Other practical useful stores are in homes, vehicles, tools, clothing, even shoes.

That is your response and your anticipation in creating for yourself "the Objectivist alternative to the Federal Reserve."

It's how I already operate with the present Federal Reserve. I'm happy to utilize the convenience of their perishable products for transient business transactions, and then when its appropriate to convert to an array of other alternatives that have a longer "shelf life".

Have you never bought or sold goods or services for hard money?

Yes... and barter, too. And while they're certainly don't constitute the norm in business transactions, they do take place because I'm open to them.

Many of us have and do. As for the service of a "clearinghouse" do you not know providers by their reputation. Liberty Coin Service in Lansing, Michigan, is highly regarded. They are award-winning numismatists and longtime friends of freedom known to many.

Thank you for the suggestion. :smile: I live on the other side of the country and enjoy dealing directly and locally with people face to face.

You should articulate for us just what it is you expect of an "objectivist federal reserve."

I expect nothing.

There's no need for an "objectivist federal reserve" when I've already learned how to enjoy a productive and meaningful life in this world just as it is right now.

Then explain why you do not want to go into just that business.

I'm already in that business... for myself. I am my own bank. As my own bank, I grant myself business loans, construction loans, mortgages, car loans, and loans for business ventures.

There is neither friction nor attrition when you do business with yourself.

Of course, your aversion to the work does not prevent someone else from doing it.

Why would I need anyone else to do my work when I can do it for myself?

Truth to tell, you are singing an old song...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aahtK6W7l78

I'm not a victim, Michael. :smile:

It's possible you misunderstood my comment about not being able to change the banking system to mean that I'm a helpless victim of the "injustices" of the Federal Reserve. I'm actually quite content to use their products when it suits my purpose... because I don't have to when it doesn't.

Greg

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Being wrong still isn't necessarily the same thing as self-contradictory and they're not contradicting themselves in any of that.

Then they failed to achieve what they wanted to achieve. Again, no internally inconsistent beliefs.

No disagreement here, but for someone to be guilty of theft, then they have to be aware that taking it is wrong. If I mistakenly take your yearbook instead of mine, then I haven't stolen it from you.

Keyword: rightful. If it doesn't rightfully belong to you, then the taxes you pay aren't theft. And theft doesn't require force to be theft.

A case of two drunk lovers I think blows this apart. Though I think exceptions to this are very rare.

Calling it "defensive force" is just an attempt to sneak your conclusions in unnoticed.

Fine, the trespasser may not have the right to be on that property, but they still aren't using force.

Right, damage. Not necessarily force.

I'm not so sure it's accurate to say that they're involvement is not voluntary, but rather that they simply are incapable of understanding what they're doing. If they're younger, then it might be appropriate to say that, but I still think voluntary/coercive is the wrong way to describe it.

And I disagree with you. I don't that they should be able to do either.

No, but I don't think that invalidates criminalizing/tortifying traumatizing someone in other circumstances.

There is no force involved and it's not assault. It is its own separate charge. You're getting really desperate trying to cast criminal transmission of HIV as assault.

So?

I'm sure there are exceptions. If there aren't, then it needs to be changed.

The Nazis claimed to be furthering the "Aryan" race and yet took actions that accomplished just the opposite. That's not merely being wrong; that's a self-contradiction.

If you pick up a yearbook under the impression that it is your own, you can be forgiven this mistake--one time. If you are in the habit of walking around the campus gathering yearbooks that are not your own, it is no mistake. If an IRS agent accidentally withdraws money from a stranger's bank account instead of his own, he can be forgiven perhaps the first time for his mistake. When he does this repeatedly there is no mistake. And just because IRS collections are legal does not remove them from the category of theft. Nazi killings of certain ethnic groups were legal under German law; they were murders nonetheless.

If a man's income is not rightfully his, then that should be established first in a court of law with evidence and cross-examination of witnesses and a jury of one's peers. That, however, is not how taxes are collected on April 15.

We do not conclude that force is offensive or defensive until we examine the circumstances. So, if X has acquired his income by his own labor, then he may safely conclude that it is his by right and that Y, who attempts to take a portion of it under threat of force is a thief, and may be properly resisted by all means including deadly force.

Intoxication is not always accepted as a defense in sexual offense cases.

Force is "violence, compulsion, or constraint exerted upon or against a person or thing." If you are occupying part of my property, you are limiting or constraining my ability to use that property and in violation of my rights. See also http://thelawdictionary.org/force/

So with regard to pollution, if you spew toxic smoke into the air above my property, I am no longer able to use it as I was before, and you are liable for damages.

Sex may not be performed with a child because the child is not morally or legally able to give consent. Thus sex with a child involves a party who is acting involuntarily. Thus, force or "unlawful or wrongful action" is involved.

As for nudity on one's own property, thank you for making your disagreement clear. Now all you have to is provide a rational defense for that opinion and we'll be getting somewhere. You want to make the psychological trauma of one's neighbors a reason for regulating the behavior of a person on his own property. But you refuse to follow the logic of your argument: that if one is traumatized by the sight of Jews, blacks, or Hispanics, those ethnic groups my be legally excluded from one's neighbor's property. Or less controversially: My psychologist has sworn in an affidavit that I am traumatized by the color yellow. Therefore I may legally require you to repaint your yellow house and trade in your yellow car.

Criminal HIV infection constitutes force by the fact that potentially lethal pathogens are released into one's sex partner's body. It is a form of violence no different than a blow to the back of the skull. Force: "Unlawful or wrongful action is meant." Saying there is no force involved is equivalent to claiming that there is no force involved in poisoning a partner's drink or releasing killer bees into his house.

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...merely the velvet glove that conceals the armored fist.

It's not denied, but openly acknowledged, no fraud or hypocrisy involved. It's the law of the land, duly constituted, widely supported.

The government poses as the defender of rights. This, for example, is what the United States Senate says...

The mild claim you quoted, widely taught and widely accepted as true across the country, was not an Act of Congress (although it could have been I suppose). It was attributed to "the Office of the Secretary of the Senate with the assistance of Johnny H. Killian of the Library of Congress." What do you suppose US bureaucrats or legislators or school teachers should say? That the U.S. Constitution, every voter and every state and Federal employee is evil? -- which is an infinitely worse form of distortion.

By and large, we do a pretty good job of electing people who more or less exhibit the basic values on which there is a broad consensus... American society is tolerant, sensitive to minority rights, quite wonderful when it comes to even-handed treatment of our neighbors... The case for anarchy turns on whether no government is better than good government... [Laissez Faire Law, p.29]

It is not wrong to be an American patriot, if your love of country pertains, not to the present, but to the historic achievement of the Founding Fathers, who fought for justice and freed themselves from tyranny. I am humbled to be an American patriot, and I hope I have the wit and courage that patriotism requires, because Jefferson and Madison were animated by a lifelong passion for justice. [COGIGG, p.98]

I've spent some time searching for a .gov website that does not deny but openly acknowledges that the Constitution is merely the velvet glove that conceals the armored fist.

So far, no success.

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The Supreme Court is a branch of the Federal Government so it is no surprise that it almost invariably decides cases in favor of an expansion of Federal power. It arrogated to itself the authority to make such decisions early in the history of our Republic.

Those beginning with Alexander Hamilton who wanted the central government to have a power not explicitly granted in Article 1 Section 8 found ways of interpreting its clauses to read into the Constitution powers they wished were there in the first place. They have gotten away with this because the masses of people remain ignorant of such matters and have given it no thought. In some cases there are those who benefit from programs which are unconstitutional.

There are books which do address this overreach involving the Supreme Court. These come to mind.

Levy: The Dirty Dozen

Richard H. Timberlake: Constitutional Money: A review of Supreme Court Monetary Decisions

Henry Mark Holzer: The American Constitution and Ayn Rand's "Inner Contradiction"

Tom Wood's: Nullification

If we have enough time upcoming generations, perhaps as yet unborn, will learn the truth about these matters. Unfortunately our current situation has something in common with the situation which led to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Too many people are on the receiving end of a central government handout or paycheck.

Still the numbers of college and high school student activists involved in the pro freedom movement are growing perhaps nearly exponentially via the Students For Liberty and Young Americans for Liberty in addition to the efforts of Hillsdale College, Institute For Humane Studies (www.theihs.org) and others.

gg

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I've spent some time searching for a .gov website that does not deny but openly acknowledges that the Constitution is merely the velvet glove that conceals the armored fist. So far, no success.

Selective Service https://www.sss.gov/PDFs/MSSA-2003.pdf

IRS http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p17.pdf and http://www.irs.gov/irm/part9/irm_09-001-003.html

Treasury http://www.secretservice.gov/money_law.shtml

FDA http://www.fda.gov/regulatoryinformation/legislation/ucm148726.htm

I don't mind you being obtuse about it, but lack imagination why?

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Nazi ideology was inconsistent with reality inasmuch as there is 1. No proof of the existence of an "Aryan" race, and 2. No proof that the supposed members of this race were intellectually or physically superior to the members of other races.

Being wrong still isn't necessarily the same thing as self-contradictory and they're not contradicting themselves in any of that.

Yes.

A person's behavior can be reasonable and logical and efficient, and yet they can still operate on a foundation of lies of an immoral ideology.

Greg

The Nazis were far from reasonable. Although you are correct about efficiency.

Locke expressed the idea better with his definition of a madman: "reasoning correctly from erroneous premises".

Within their evil ideology they functioned reasonably and logically... but because their evil ideology itself was at odds with reality, it is unsustainable and reality always eventually wins out.

Consider the Islamic fascists, it was their reason and logic and efficiency that successfully flew planes through the buildings.

It is absurd, for instance, to believe that only freedom can bring prosperity. China's authoritarianism is making them wealthier (that this only happened after abandoning Maoism is irrelevant), but I would not give up my freedom for riches.

That's right, China's synergy of government and Capitalism is a manufacturing marvel, even though personal freedom is heavily suppressed.

Heck, China is a more successful at Capitalism than we are! :laugh:

Greg

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live a good life in this world...just as it is right now. :smile: No one can change the economic system of this world.

I hope you think "living a good life" means less economic opportunity and higher cost of living, especially in California.

That's the advantage of operating as a sovereign independent individual American Capitalist producer, Wolf...

...when you aren't enslaved to collective trends, you're free to run contrary to them. :smile:

Greg

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I hope you think "living a good life" means less economic opportunity and higher cost of living, especially in California.

That's the advantage of operating as a sovereign independent individual American Capitalist producer, Wolf...

...when you aren't enslaved to collective trends, you're free to run contrary to them.

R-i-i-i-ght.

Independent living without division of labor and access to markets (petroleum products, auto parts, fertilizer, groceries, animal feed) is a giant step backwards, basically medieval living. Only a matter of time before you run afoul of regulatory enforcement, state law, zoning, property taxes, a confrontation with the neighbors, Federal income/self-employment audit. Never need doctors or medicine?

And you're a "capitalist producer" producing what? -- subsistence?

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Nazi ideology was inconsistent with reality inasmuch as there is 1. No proof of the existence of an "Aryan" race, and 2. No proof that the supposed members of this race were intellectually or physically superior to the members of other races.

Being wrong still isn't necessarily the same thing as self-contradictory and they're not contradicting themselves in any of that.

Yes.

A person's behavior can be reasonable and logical and efficient, and yet they can still operate on a foundation of lies of an immoral ideology.

Greg

The Nazis were far from reasonable. Although you are correct about efficiency.

Locke expressed the idea better with his definition of a madman: "reasoning correctly from erroneous premises".

Within their evil ideology they functioned reasonably and logically... but because their evil ideology itself was at odds with reality, it is unsustainable and reality always eventually wins out.

Good does not always triumph.

Consider the Islamic fascists, it was their reason and logic and efficiency that successfully flew planes through the buildings.

LOL. I suggest you research fascism and Islamic fundamentalism before you start throwing snarl words around. Islamic fundamentalism isn't nice, but it's got nothing in common with fascism. You might as well be comparing Christian Reconstructionists with animal rights activists.

It is absurd, for instance, to believe that only freedom can bring prosperity. China's authoritarianism is making them wealthier (that this only happened after abandoning Maoism is irrelevant), but I would not give up my freedom for riches.

That's right, China's synergy of government and Capitalism is a manufacturing marvel, even though personal freedom is heavily suppressed.

Heck, China is a more successful at Capitalism than we are! :laugh:

I don't use the terms "capitalism", "socialism", or "free market(s)". China's not doing what we do better than us. It has its own approach, a sort of technocratic nationalism, and they are getting wealthy from it.

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... I dealt with concrete exegencies and tried to wrangle a passel of anarchists into a corral of reasonable conduct for their own good, like herding feral tomcats. How smart was that?

Wolf,

I think that would make one hell of a book.

I only know of about this attempt in fleeting glimpses from afar, but, from my perspective, it has all the elements of a great story.

And what is the Achilles Heel that could run through the story that resulted in the collapse?

I'm sure you could phrase it more eloquently than I since you were there, but it seems to me there was little or no thought given to how to keep the participants committed to being good.

In my current understanding of human nature, this commitment has to be voluntary and it can only be maintained by periodic refreshers (sort of like eating). Otherwise, people end up giving in to temptations that lead to catastrophic results for the social environment they live in.

You can't force people to want to be good. You can only force them to obey. And if they don't want to be good, but are forced into it, they will be bad just as soon as they think they can get away with it. Hell, they even do that when they want to be good, which is why they have to keep reminding themselves and keep recommitting.

Also, you cannot manipulate them into being good. Oh, you can for a short time, but not for long. And the backlash can get real ugly when people figure out they have been manipulated. This means you have to attract people into this wanting.

So how do you get people to commit to being good on purpose, resist toxic temptations and keep coming back over and over to remind themselves and develop good perspective habits?

That's what churches are for.

But with atheists, there has to be some kind of alternative.

So let's see where religion gets it right. Religion is a great draw in terms of how the human mind exists. It doesn't force people to participate. It attracts people because of the following.

1. It deals directly with people's universal fear of death with hope for an alternative.

2. Lots of great stories to convey it's moral messages.

3. Generally good public presentation training for holy men to preach sermons.

4. Different kinds of social activity and community building, thus opportunities for social proof and peer pressure.

5. Music related to the commitment, generally with participation of all.

6. Constant promises of improvement of life (inner spiritual life and sometimes even outer goodies).

7. How-to instruction for such improvement with lots of real-life case studies.

8. Comforting rituals that give people the sense of the right thing to do during milestone times when they get confused (marriages, funerals, baptism of newborns, etc.)

9. Encouragement of quiet times for people to feel gratitude and hope (prayer and meditation).

10. A sense of large-scale mission people are proud to perform for giving them big-picture direction in their lives.

I could probably go on and on up to a hundred or more and not repeat.

The point is, the mind inherently comes with a lot of things it needs, meaning there are a lot of things that will attract it to fill those needs. Organized religion does that. And it carries the message--both covertly in a million different ways and overtly--that people need to embrace being good and continue that way.

We can argue about the nature of that good and so on, but that's not my point. The fact is organized religion satisfies deep human needs. If it didn't, it would not have been part of the human species since the beginning. I have not come up with anything for atheists that hits as many mental need points that religion does. Rand tried to replace religion with art, lectures and essays, and they do work up to a point, but they leave out so much of what the mind inherently seeks, I don't see them replacing religion for keeping people good anytime soon.

To get back to your experience, I believe any social experiment is doomed that does not include some kind of provision for attracting people so they will voluntarily commit to being good and maintain that commitment. When people get to the point where they don't want to be good, they destroy they structures the live in. That's simple human nature. Weeds grow and destroy a garden if it is not cultivated with ongoing periods of attention. In fact, in a story of a failed social attempt, that lack of moral cultivation makes one hell of a great abstract villain.

Maybe I shouldn't say the following due to the pain I imagine you feel about what happened, but the comedic potential of an abstract villain like that is huge, especially the clash of capers of people claiming to be right where mankind got it wrong, but trying to screw over each other at the same time. Also, for some of the villain characters, the descent from sincere intentions to sleaze makes for great character arcs.

Michael

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The Nazis claimed to be furthering the "Aryan" race and yet took actions that accomplished just the opposite. That's not merely being wrong; that's a self-contradiction.

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

If you pick up a yearbook under the impression that it is your own, you can be forgiven this mistake--one time. If you are in the habit of walking around the campus gathering yearbooks that are not your own, it is no mistake.

I have to come up with some incredibly stupid circumstances, but it still could be a mistake.

If an IRS agent accidentally withdraws money from a stranger's bank account instead of his own, he can be forgiven perhaps the first time for his mistake. When he does this repeatedly there is no mistake. And just because IRS collections are legal does not remove them from the category of theft. Nazi killings of certain ethnic groups were legal under German law; they were murders nonetheless.

No, no, no. You don't get it. If all an aboriginal knows is his or her tribal customs and these customs include something like "Indian giving" (I'm not sure that's the right word, then he has committed no theft. If fails to get this and still does it, then he has still not committed any theft.

If a man's income is not rightfully his, then that should be established first in a court of law with evidence and cross-examination of witnesses and a jury of one's peers.

Doesn't need to be.

Intoxication is not always accepted as a defense in sexual offense cases.

I know that, but there are obviously going to be cases of gray where both participants are intoxicated.

Force is "violence, compulsion, or constraint exerted upon or against a person or thing." If you are occupying part of my property, you are limiting or constraining my ability to use that property and in violation of my rights. See also http://thelawdictionary.org/force/

Bullshit. That definition agrees with me, not with you. Did you not notice the "exerted" after "constraint".

So with regard to pollution, if you spew toxic smoke into the air above my property, I am no longer able to use it as I was before, and you are liable for damages.

How would you be unable to use it?

Sex may not be performed with a child because the child is not morally or legally able to give consent. Thus sex with a child involves a party who is acting involuntarily. Thus, force or "unlawful or wrongful action" is involved.

¬∀("force"="unlawful or wrongful action")

As for nudity on one's own property, thank you for making your disagreement clear. Now all you have to is provide a rational defense for that opinion and we'll be getting somewhere. You want to make the psychological trauma of one's neighbors a reason for regulating the behavior of a person on his own property. But you refuse to follow the logic of your argument: that if one is traumatized by the sight of Jews, blacks, or Hispanics, those ethnic groups my be legally excluded from one's neighbor's property. Or less controversially: My psychologist has sworn in an affidavit that I am traumatized by the color yellow. Therefore I may legally require you to repaint your yellow house and trade in your yellow car.

Not that they'd be used for your idiotic counter-examples, but there are restraining orders.

Criminal HIV infection constitutes force by the fact that potentially lethal pathogens are released into one's sex partner's body. It is a form of violence no different than a blow to the back of the skull.

My God. You seriously fucking believe this.

Saying there is no force involved is equivalent to claiming that there is no force involved in poisoning a partner's drink or releasing killer bees into his house.

No, it's not equivalent to saying either of those, but they don't involve force either.

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I do like one tenet of Christianity.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. There is power in kindness.

On the flip side I like the Jewish approach.

" if someone wants to murder you wake up earlier in the morning and kill him first."

That whole christian "turn the other cheek" thing just doesn't cut it.

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... I dealt with concrete exegencies and tried to wrangle a passel of anarchists into a corral of reasonable conduct for their own good, like herding feral tomcats. How smart was that?

Wolf,

I think that would make one hell of a book.

I only know of about this attempt in fleeting glimpses from afar, but, from my perspective, it has all the elements of a great story.

And what is the Achilles Heel that could run through the story that resulted in the collapse?

I'm sure you could phrase it more eloquently than I since you were there, but it seems to me there was little or no thought given to how to keep the participants committed to being good.

In my current understanding of human nature, this commitment has to be voluntary and it can only be maintained by periodic refreshers (sort of like eating). Otherwise, people end up giving in to temptations that lead to catastrophic results for the social environment they live in.

You can't force people to want to be good. You can only force them to obey. And if they don't want to be good, but are forced into it, they will be bad just as soon as they think they can get away with it. Hell, they even do that when they want to be good, which is why they have to keep reminding themselves and keep recommitting.

Also, you cannot manipulate them into being good. Oh, you can for a short time, but not for long. And the backlash can get real ugly when people figure out they have been manipulated. This means you have to attract people into this wanting.

So how do you get people to commit to being good on purpose, resist toxic temptations and keep coming back over and over to remind themselves and develop good perspective habits?

That's what churches are for.

But with atheists, there has to be some kind of alternative.

So let's see where religion gets it right. Religion is a great draw in terms of how the human mind exists. It doesn't force people to participate. It attracts people because of the following.

1. It deals directly with people's universal fear of death with hope for an alternative.

2. Lots of great stories to convey it's moral messages.

3. Generally good public presentation training for holy men to preach sermons.

4. Different kinds of social activity and community building, thus opportunities for social proof and peer pressure.

5. Music related to the commitment, generally with participation of all.

6. Constant promises of improvement of life (inner spiritual life and sometimes even outer goodies).

7. How-to instruction for such improvement with lots of real-life case studies.

8. Comforting rituals that give people the sense of the right thing to do during milestone times when they get confused (marriages, funerals, baptism of newborns, etc.)

9. Encouragement of quiet times for people to feel gratitude and hope (prayer and meditation).

10. A sense of large-scale mission people are proud to perform for giving them big-picture direction in their lives.

I could probably go on and on up to a hundred or more and not repeat.

The point is, the mind inherently comes with a lot of things it needs, meaning there are a lot of things that will attract it to fill those needs. Organized religion does that. And it carries the message--both covertly in a million different ways and overtly--that people need to embrace being good and continue that way.

We can argue about the nature of that good and so on, but that's not my point. The fact is organized religion satisfies deep human needs. If it didn't, it would not have been part of the human species since the beginning. I have not come up with anything for atheists that hits as many mental need points that religion does. Rand tried to replace religion with art, lectures and essays, and they do work up to a point, but they leave out so much of what the mind inherently seeks, I don't see them replacing religion for keeping people good anytime soon.

To get back to your experience, I believe any social experiment is doomed that does not include some kind of provision for attracting people so they will voluntarily commit to being good and maintain that commitment. When people get to the point where they don't want to be good, they destroy the structures they live in. That's simple human nature. Weeds grow and destroy a garden if it is not cultivated with ongoing periods of attention. In fact, in a story of a failed social attempt, that lack of moral cultivation makes one hell of a great abstract villain.

Maybe I shouldn't say the following due to the pain I imagine you feel about what happened, but the comedic potential of an abstract villain like that is huge, especially the clash of capers of people claiming to be right where mankind got it wrong, but trying to screw over each other at the same time. Also, for some of the villain characters, the descent from sincere intentions to sleaze makes for great character arcs.

Michael

I agree with a lot of what you said above, Michael.

Laissez Faire City was populated with ~30% Objectivists, 60% Rothbard anarcho-capitalists, and 10% ex-military, CIA, KGB, Red Army pirates. It's hard to say which group was worse. O'ists had spectacular romances, dramas, and children. The pirates were generally well behaved, but heavily armed and prone to fistfights. Anarchists resisted the rule of law, wrote complicated "protocols" about arbitration, and lost the most money. I don't think I should publish a detailed account of what happened, but I hinted at key themes in OL posts and other writing. I acknowledged my depth of involvement. Professional ethics and common sense keep me from spilling more. A lot of prominent people were involved, names you'd recognize. I didn't have much sadness about what happened or why. Freedom is exhilarating.

The men who suffered most in the collapse of Laissez Faire City were its original founders and investors. Two died in prison. Three others died before they could be captured and interrogated by authorities. It's all very well to vilify Midas and Galt — both of whom are dead. They gambled their lives, their fortunes, and their honor to establish a virtual Gulch beyond the reach of government. I knew those men personally and did everything in my power to help them. Most of the men and women who lived and worked at Laissez Faire City gave up professional careers to share the risk of disaster if we failed.

The chief difference between Rand's fictional Gulch and its realisation at Laissez Faire City was chastity. In a utopian world of Objectivist perfection, there is no cocaine, no scantily-clad house maids, no hard drinking or coarse language. Rand's fictional Gulch was isolated from the outside world — not surrounded by lawless armed marauders and defended by gated walls, 24-hour guards, and Rottweilers. Surely you must be aware that Ayn Rand's personal life was far from perfectly chaste.

[COGGIG, p.6]

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I hope you think "living a good life" means less economic opportunity and higher cost of living, especially in California.

That's the advantage of operating as a sovereign independent individual American Capitalist producer, Wolf...

...when you aren't enslaved to collective trends, you're free to run contrary to them.

R-i-i-i-ght.

Independent living without division of labor and access to markets (petroleum products, auto parts, fertilizer, groceries, animal feed) is a giant step backwards, basically medieval living. Only a matter of time before you run afoul of regulatory enforcement, state law, zoning, property taxes, a confrontation with the neighbors, Federal income/self-employment audit. Never need doctors or medicine?

You're inferring that operating as an independent individual can only be done in total isolation or outright rebellion, which is silly. I'm operating in this world just as it is right now. My responses to the world are just different, and those different responses set into motion different consequences which run contrary to the collective economic trends on your charts.

Every chart portrays a majority and a minority...

...I'm the minority.

(By the way, I thoroughly enjoy those charts because one picture is literally worth at least a thousand words. :smile:)

Greg

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A lot of prominent people were involved, names you'd recognize.

Wolf,

To me that's an invitation to dig.

:smile:

I had to stop with the very first name that caught my fancy, James Ray Huston. That guy must have been a hoot. Man, did digging on him take me down some rabbit holes and there was just too much stuff to read.

I don't know why characters like that attract me, but unlike Rand, I like my villains more alpha than downer, i.e., ballsy, good looking, a charmer, slick and shameless.

:smile:

Michael

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I don't know why characters like that attract me, but unlike Rand, I like my villains more alpha than downer, i.e., ballsy, good looking, a charmer, slick and shameless.

Gee... that sounds a lot like Brant :laugh:

Greg

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Another chart for Greg. We're riding on fumes. Central bank stimulus doesn't work any more.

global%20CBs_0.jpg

Unemployed in L.A. turn to unlicensed street vending http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-street-vendors-20140907-story.html#page=1

We still have another year to go before the next 7 year crash cycle occurs.

1973

1980

1987

1994

2001

2008

2015

Oddly enough, these can be timed almost to the day using a Jewish lunar calendar.

Greg

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I had to stop with the very first name that caught my fancy... That guy must have been a hoot.

He invited me, gave me a generous salary and a hilltop mansion, the freedom to write what I wished, published every word of it, included me at the top of the inner circle, deflected criticism, put up with a lot of grief, and subsequently appointed me to the Board of Governors as his proxy and general counsel.

Without him, there would have been no Laissez Faire City. He backed it with $5 million of his own money and seven years of his life.

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Heck, China is a more successful at Capitalism than we are! :laugh:

Greg

Would you put Chinese drywall in your child's room?

A...

Successful? Not at all.

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I had to stop with the very first name that caught my fancy... That guy must have been a hoot.

He invited me, gave me a generous salary and a hilltop mansion, the freedom to write what I wished, published every word of it, included me at the top of the inner circle, deflected criticism, put up with a lot of grief, and subsequently appointed me to the Board of Governors as his proxy and general counsel.

Without him, there would have been no Laissez Faire City. He backed it with $5 million of his own money and seven years of his life.

Wolf,

I've met people like him.

Like I said, for some damn reason I'm attracted to them.

:)

Michael

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I don't know why characters like that attract me, but unlike Rand, I like my villains more alpha than downer, i.e., ballsy, good looking, a charmer, slick and shameless.

Gee... that sounds a lot like Brant :laugh:

Greg

I do prefer the villain mode; it's more fun, but the transformation scares the horses.

--Brant

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