syrakusos

Yeah, well, my wife is truly an individualist and truly a libertarian, which means that she can be truly in the dark about the wider world. In particular, I said something about not being able to get in a report to my colleagues while I waited for them to talk about the Superbowl. "I guess it's this Sunday," I said. (I am not a sports guy and football is down there with golf as something they make you do in Hell.) She said, "Next Tuesday."

Not at all, I was greatly impressed with Becker and Locke. Their argumentation was cogent. They did an excellent job of presenting the material and the wording was mainstream Objectivism. When I said, "With friends like these..." I was referring to the other business organization professors. I mean, perhaps we should have a "no retreat; no surrender" policy of engagement on all fronts, but I have pretty much written off sociology as a province of collectivists. I expect more from the business college, though I know better, of course. I retook a semester of economics and then added another for a full year of basic requirements just on my own: micro and macro. The macro econ prof was an avowed socialist who taught Sweden as Utopia. The micro class was more Chicagoan. I had a good time, but was still to the "right" of the prof who advocated pigovian taxes to correct market failures and stuff like that. For my major (police administration), I have to take some management classes. They are more in touch with reality, but still way too deep into "organizations" and almost totally clueless about entrepreneurship. You find business management profs who want to cap executive compensations, and other junk ideas like that in the classroom. I just wish the collectivists would find a department and go work there and leave something unsullied for us.

Well, that was way too much topic. This is only an eight-page paper for a 200-level class. It took me 17 pages to deal with half of it. Below are six paragraphs. The paper has all the footnotes, citations, facts, and figures required. Below is the text only. Morality in Business: The Objectivist Ethics Enron, Martha Stewart, the savings and loan scandal, junk bond raiders, … Over the last 20 years, moral failures in capitalism have paralleled the increasing profits to both the corporations the their chief executive officers. The gap between rich and poor widens. For most people, from 1980 to 2008, wages have risen about two or three times (unadjusted for inflation), while executive compensation has increased 600% over the same period. Since 1980 corporate profits increased over 500%, while taxes on them only tripled. Inequalities in income and wealth represent a grave structural problem in our society for which mere structural solutions may be insufficient. Or so it is claimed. Ed Snider is the Chairman of Comcast-Spectacor, the holding company of the Philadelphia Flyers, the Philadelphia 76ers and the AHL Philadelphia Phantoms. His company also owns the Wachovia Center and the Wachovia Spectrum stadium, the regional sports network Comcast SportsNet and an international facilities management company, Global Spectrum. As he tells the story, he was a meeting of the National Hockey League board, seated next to Peter O’Malley, owner of the NHL Washington Capitols. Incredulous at the proposal on the table, and especially at its positive reception, Snider turned to O’Malley and asked why these men would vote for something so obviously against their self-interest.” O’Malley wrote Atlas Shrugged on a piece of paper and passed it to him, saying “Read this and you’ll understand.” Following long enough – and sometimes not very long at all – ultimately, the discussion ends on the Law of Identity. So it was when the Academy of Management Review published “Integrity in Organizations: Beyond Honesty and Conscientiousness” by Thomas E. Becker of the University of Delaware. Becker’s thesis is that integrity is more than a loose synonym for other virtues. Honesty is a necessary but not sufficient condition for integrity. Conscientiousness is highly regarded in business – and some businesses administer tests to measure it – but it may not correlate to integrity. Becker offers this definition: Integrity is commitment in action to a morally justifiable set of principles and values, where the criterion for moral justification is reality-not merely the acceptance of the values by an individual, group, or society. Because survival and happiness are the ultimate standards of morality, life – not subjective opinion – is the foundation of integrity. Given those precepts, what of Martha Stewart, Michael Milken, Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling? According to Objectivist ethics, Stewart and Milken were blameless while Lay and Skilling were crooks. However, all of them were fallen by a lack of integrity. In the case of the Enron executives, that failure was endemic and systematic. Stewart and Milken betrayed themselves by sacrificing their integrity for a temporary moral compromise with their enemies. The criminals at Enron got what they deserved. Stewart and Milken were placed in the same predicament as a million young African-Americans: they were picked up on a pretext and offered a plea which they took as being preferable to a trial they could not afford.

COMING SOON TO A WEBSITE NEAR YOU Morality in Business: Can Objectivist Ethics and Bourgeois Virtues Be Reconciled? by Michael E. Marotta Paper #2 for SOCL 202: Social Problems Winter 2008 Dr. Ron Westrum [For more on Dr. Westrum, click here.]

Completing a bachelor of science degree in criminology this April, I am in my final round of classes in sociology, including one I skipped (Sociology 202: Social Problems) and my first graduate school class (Sociology 640: Advanced Modern Theory). As a dean's list senior, my professors allow me some leeway and I am researching citations about Ayn Rand in the academic journals, primarily in sociology. I happened upon an interesting debate in the journal Academy of Management Review. Running from January through October 1998, this tet-a-tet began with an article by Thomas E. Becker, "Integrity in Organizations: Beyond Honesty and Conscientiousness," AOMR, 23:1 (Jan. 1989) pp 154-161. Becker outlines a theory of ethics quite familiar to all of us here. The editors sent Becker's article to a critics for review and the reply appeared in the same issue, "Objections to an Objectivist Approach to Integrity" by Bruce Barry and Carroll U. Stephens. The reply to the reply "Rebuttal to a Subjectivist Critique..." was co-authored by Edwin A. Locke and Thomas E. Becker. In October AOMR 23:3 carried "Politics and Organizational Science" by Richard M. Weiss. Beginning with a summary of some discussion from the Verein fuer Sozialpolitik convention in Vienna in 1989 about the works of Max Weber and its application to the present schemas, Weiss said: "Although the separation of facts and values seems to be a fairly well established norm, our norns deserve a little re-examination every now and then." Needless to say, this brought a reply from Locke and Becker, also published in the July issue. The replies to the replies continued with "A Candid and Modest Proposal: The Brave New World of Objectivism," by Marc Orlitzky. David Jacobs. AMOR 23:4, pp 656-658 which garnered the final nail in this coffin from Locke & Becker, "Objectivism's Answer to the Sad, Old World of Subjectivism," AMOR 23:4, pp. 658-659. Sort of like here or RoR or SOLO, but that all counts toward publishing in lieu of academically perishing, and none of this does. ... anyway... does anyone here know of any of this? Would you like to know more?

Thanks, Barbara and Laure. I was taken aback there... I mean having come from Solo Passion and all that kick-ass stuff that I was never a part of... then to find the question here... And I thought of Howard Roark, for instance, or any of the heroes and heroines. "The Passing Interests of Ayn Rand" See? That does not exactly cut the mustard, does it? But, I ran through a lot of passions, jilted and unrequited since I was a teenager, passions, mostly for business and technology inspired by Ayn Rand, of course. I threw myself totally and completely into one consuming passion after another: trucking, computer programming, robotics, numismatics. In the 1980s, I lived a cyberpunk fantasy, working on cutting edge technology projects by day and writing about hacking by night. I interviewed Timothy Leary and Mitch Kapor and advocated for Craig Neidorf and Steve Jackson, all of that for Loompanics, as well as for computer magazines and then into robotics for a Japanese firm (Kawasaki). It was like being in a William Gibson story... and then... numismatics, the art and science of the forms and uses of money. I expected the Ferengi Planet, and there were some... but mostly, I found a shuck and jive... It would not be worth my life to expose one of the largest and oldest firms as unabashed hoaxers ... I still honor money. I still write for numismatic magazines... I still wriite computer programs... I have a new career (but not a passsion) in security, and just sent a query letter to a firm that markets security robots, something I know about. Passions? No, not any more... But, maybe again someday... maybe out there is another soul searing time freezing desire and aspiration....

Right you are, Michael! About 10 years ago, I heard Alan Greenspan on NPR or PRI saying that there were about 15 kinds of money, but that the Fed had models only for about eight or ten of them. Also, you questioned whether a loan is an asset. Of course, double entry makes all assets liabilities and vice versa. The books have to balance. That said, you are right, commonly, we do not view credit card debt as "money." However, it works like money. Case in point would be the common transaction of goint to Walmart and buying a gift card for someone and putting it on your credit card. To the recipient of the card, it is money. In effect, all you did was lend them money from your own account, basically arbitrage for your Visa people, but the effect is the same as cash and cannot be distinguished from it. I have recommended the ideas of E C RIEGEL here and elsewhere.

I agree. Gold would work just like money... what a concept! It cannot be said often enough, because conservatives are such idiots, but we do have a 100% convertible, gold-backed government currency, called the dollar. The US Mint strikes gold coins which it exchanges for paper dollars openly freely and at the market price. I know that you paranoids all prefer to be persecuted by the Trilateral Commission of Annuit Coeptis, but in this case, at least, you do have the freedoms you claim to dream of.

Never underestimate the willingness of the government to tax, but I am with Michael on this, based on what I know about real estate. One reason that people swap properties is to avoid the taxes. If trade a $10 million mall for a $10 million office building, there is no tax and both parties start over with the depreciations. So, I do not expect a general rule as to whether commodity swaps would or would not be taxable. You would have to read the relevant and applicable laws.

We don't pay that much attention to you. You also have a well established habit of hitting people over the head with your startlingly obvious ideas, like killing all Muslims or discovering that Ayn Rand once said something. So, when you amuse yourself with subtleties, the point is lost on us. I do think that "Trojans" is a pretty dumb name for condoms. A few years back, I was subbing eighth grade science and one of the boys was passing a Trojan to a buddy and I said,"That's a dumb name for a condom because their walls were breached, right?" And there were giggles in the room because they got it. I didn't need to go into an extended monologue.

I highly recommend the works of E. C. Riegel. I wrote about his ideas here. The books were recommended to me by Spencer Heath MacCallum, himself an innovative thinker.

What is your point? I mean, that statement sits without context. I know what you think you mean. You think that a "dollar" cannot be woth a "dollar" unless it is made from a "dollar's" worth of gold or silver or something. You are mistaken. You can read a summary I wrote for RoR by clicking here. Not exactly correct, Michael, or as some Objectivists might say, "wrong." The Mint strikes coins. There are four Mints: the main Mint in Philadelphia and three branch Mints -- San Francisco, Denver and West Point. Paper money -- and other documents -- come from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. They used to print postage stamps, but that has since been contracted out, though they still accept responsibility for it. Also, note that the Fort Worth printing plant is also a contract facility. You can see their work if you look at your paper money and find an FW in the lower right on the face. You can tell which Federal Reserve Bank the money was printed for by the Alphabet Letter in the Serial Number. A = Boston B = New York C = Philadelphia D = Cleveland E = Charlotte F = Atlanta G = Chicago H = St. Louis I = Minneapolis J = Kansas City K = Dallas L = San Francisco Also, there is some internal coding in numbers on the notes that correspond to the letters A=1,...,L=12 On older notes, the letter was in a seal. New designs now have different details. Personally, being an Objectivist, I keep about $20 in New York ones in the section on "Money" in The Ayn Rand Lexicon, just in case, I need some pocket money on my way out the door. I also accumulated a complete set A through L in nearly uncirculated condition just by watching my ones over the course of a year. If you have any preferences for Secretaries of the Treasury or Treasusers, you can collect signatures. The first woman to serve as Treasurer of the United States was Georgia Neese Clark Gray, actress, bank president and Democratic Party stalwart. Following her every Treasurer of the United State has been a woman. Nellie Tayloe Ross was both the first woman to serve as a state governor and the first woman to serve as director of the U.S. Mint (1933-1953). During Nellie Tayloe Ross’s tenure the gold depository at Fort Knox was built. “She was born when U.S. Grant was President, and passed away when Jimmy Carter was in the White House... from the horse and buggy to men on the moon.” After Ross, there were ten more Directors of the Mint; five of them were women. To learn more about the Federal Reserve, go their website: www.federalreserve.gov You can also find a fairly objective overview on Wikipedia (Click here.) Remeber: the US Dollar is directly convertible into gold via authorized agents of the US Mint at the current market price for gold. The US Mint strikes and sells an array of gold (and silver) coins.

Thanks, Michael. Befor the invention (or discover?) of Objectivism by Ayn Rand, this was called "rational-empricism." Rational-empiricism is to "democracy" (so-called; a republic, really) as idealism is to fascism and as dialectic materialism is to communism. In the real world of workable ideas, the scientific method is just common sense, formalized and self-identified. And yet it can be so rare. My degree in criminology will be a bachelor of science. Yet, what we learn in sociology and cirminoloogy is mired in dichotomized philosophy, the worst of which is post-modernism. Even the classes that are nominally hopeful (research methods) teach that ultimate causes are unknowable, truth does not exist, and findings are speculative; reason and logic are arbitrary conventions. It is painful sometimes.

... and the tavern keeper asked Descartes if he wanted one more for the road. Descartes said, "I think not" and ceased to exist.

Click here to go directly to the control page for the PDFs of the newsletters in question. It is not all that surprising. While I object to parts of the article, some of the spins on this and that aspect of conservative ideology, the article is not surprising and neither are Ron Paul's views. On the other hand, I for one would not like to be quoted in the national media from some of my posts on OL or RoR. On The Well (click here) we have a rule: YOYOW="You own your own words." Nothing can be quoted off the Well without express consent of the writer. This allows everyone some freedom to philosophize with half-baked ideas until they can be fully baked. In a community of writers and artists, technologists and scientists, this is critical to intellectual engagement. You get to see the weak points before you go into print, and you can abandon a dumb idea. Ron Paul's situation is different in many ways, but basically, he was writing for his conservative constituents -- national as well as local -- and telling them what he knew they wanted to hear. How much of that stuff he actually "believes" is impossible to parse, but the worst of it to come to light is not congruent with Objectivism or even libertarianism. Dr. King's short-comings (including his "doctorate") are all well known and non-issues. Jefferson had his inability to manage his own consuming passions, the first of which was Sally Hemings. Which brings up the fact that I am sorry that Ron Paul did not like Barbara Jordan. "Don't call for black power or green power. Call for brain power." -- Barbara Jordan "It is reason, and not passion, which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision." -- Barbara Jordan. They should have made a great couple... oh, but, there was that gender thing... maybe she broke his heart and Ron Paul is still carrying a torch and that explains his homophobia...

I highly recommend Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life by Sissela Bok. She dissects the problem quite well. Julian Jaynes in explaining the creation of consciousness in the collapse of the bicameral mind points out that in the Illiad, men speak of outside spirits that motivate them or of inner expressions, but never of "mind." On the other hand, in the Odyssey, our hero keeps a hidden agenda in order achieve a long-range goal, "clever Odysseus" is a liar. Long ago, in those famous "Basic Principles" lectures, Nathaniel Branden said on the subject of honesty: When asked by the police of a dictatorship what your political views are, you have the right to lie your head off. (Well, I guess, if you lie well, you don't really lie it off, but get to keep it. ) On the matter of evasion, the theory is that starting as evasion, the habit becomes blanking out. Suppression become repression. Discussions of family dysfunctions -- an alcoholic parent or spouse -- use the image of the elephant in the living room that no one wants to acknowledge. Beginning with denial as a premise, the logic demands that obvious facts be reinterpreted into acceptable meanings. I believe that we see a lot of this in Objectivism. (Not that we are so special -- this is just human action -- but being close to it, we can examine it within our closed and established context of discussion.) Of all the many issues (painting, music, etc.) I believe that it is easiest to demonstrate in politics. People have emotional reactions to current events and then use Objectivist discourse to justiify their feelings to themselves first and then in discussion on boards to others. We argue meta-ontology or whatever, but we are really arguing feelings... which no one will acknowledge to themselves first and certainly not to others. This is especially important to us who define feelings as the effect of thoughts. If you have the wrong feelings, then you must have the wrong thoughts. Some Objectivist cannot admit to that, so we go around and around.

Yup. In every frame you'll measure the same speed of light, no matter what the relative speeds of the frames is. You may think that the addition of velocities, as in the example of the two cars, may "stand to reason", but it is only approximately true for speeds that are small compared to the speed of light. It is a good example of a situation in which your intuition has been formed by your experience in daily life, and your intuition may tell you that it's "obvious" or "self-evident", but your intuition may be wrong, as in this case. You did not answer his question. You only asserted the hypothesis, which is a known (and obvious) logical fallacy. He asked why the speeds do not add up to something more than the speed of light and you said that they do not. Why not?

I agree that there are many kinds of money. In my essay "What is the Root of Money" for the MSNS MichMatist, appearing here in the "50th Anniversary Essay" topic under Objectivism/Objectivism, I point out that a Visa Card is a better way to spend money. Elsewhere I point to "degree cooling days" a new derivative that is money, one of about a dozen or more that the Federal Reserve has identified but has no models for. Almost ten years ago, in a Loompanics essay that was chosen by the State of Kansas for its high school literacy test, I acknowledged the superiority of electronic transfers ("The Future of Money"). In an economics class last year, I presented a term paper on why M-zero (coins and banknotes) is no longer a useful measure. The Fed itself dropped M3 entirely and has questioned M2. Yet, of course, credit cards are not "money" even though you can monetize the debt many ways, among them to buy a cash gift card with your credit card: the person who gets it gets a form of money, effectively. My first publications in numismatics (1992) were specifically about tokens, "good fors" that monetize beer. As a numismatist and an Objectivist, I have been on this problem for about 15 years. So, I am aware of all that and more. That said, my investigation into Crusoe's problems are a search to derive "money" from individual human action. As long as money is a social convention, then those who control society might as well control money on the same theory that they control the speed limits and the drinking age. If you, as an isolated individual need money on the same basis that you need morality, to assure your own life, then money begins with you. Given that, if two such individuals meet, and wish to trade, they must establish some agreement between them, even as they have the right to their own personal choices. Acknowledging the wider consideration, nominal Austrians cite the classic three uses of money: medium of exchange, store of value, unit of account. However, as I said elsewhere, those three have been decoupled. Here and now in our world, we spend FRNs, save a wide range (gold, etc.), trade a wider range (the derivatives you and I like), and yet, you can keep your books in some third medium. I know of multinationals (ABB for sure, if I am not wrong, but others, too) that keep their books in dollars, even though they are not "American" companies. I worked for Securitas, which keeps its books in Swedish Kroner (anachronistically enough) even though (perhaps because) it has businesses in 30 nations, and even though American markets eclipse all the others. So, your unit of account does not need to be your store of value or medium of exchange. Again, by analogy, what is the origin of language? Your mother taught you language even before you were born. You grew up with it in a social context. Alone on an island, would Robinson Crusoe need language? For the epistemological individualist, the primary purpose of language is to think. Secondarily, we use language to communicate. Language needs an individualist foundation, lest we be controlled by the socialists who say that words have no meaning or any meaning... or any meaning they give them... How do you prove the Pythagorean Theorem? You do not measure a million triangles -- even though that is how it started -- you reason from first principles. So, too, with money as a Crusoe Concept.

... all of which brings us back to a few points that Leonard Peikoff made about objectivism on the web... This was a discussion about Money. Then, the topic was hijacked. "Money as a Crusoe Concept" was 1. patently obvious 2. clearly beneath contempt 3. too difficult to understand 4. something else.

Well, OK, this is off the top of my head, but for myself, I often write offline and then post. Also, Ayn Rand said that the way to write is directly from the subconscious. Let it flow. Discussion and debate demand something deeper. Again, for myself, when someone disagrees with me here or on RoR, I do not reply right awa, but sleep on it. So, there is that.

Not quite. A bad idea is internally inconsistent and is not supported by the facts of reality. Following a bad idea inhibit clear thinking and prevents the actions sought. Some newer government housing has improved designs, but the fact is that the mainstream of subsidized housing ("the projects" as they are called hereabouts) was designed carelessly, which is typical of any government project. One my professors last semester was a federal probation officer he hates those long hallways in highrises. They are traps. And he doesn't have to live there, just get in and get out and not only is he armed (of course) but he is a combat instructor -- and he hates those buildings. Rape, robbery, murder and worse take place because the physical environment encourages predation. Newer designs mitigate violence: open plazas, direct accesses, the designs are now all known. Also, crime can be fought on a "broken windows" theory of keeping the neighborhood up. The people who live there are generally disenfranchised and not empowered. Making them into a community is a tough row to hoe, but the cops on the beat can identify the abandoned houses and being in and of city hall they can get them condemned. If that does not get the landlord's attention, the houses are torn down and the lot sold. As for those community groups, they exist, but they often need help that does not come from rolling past them in a squad car. Drug dealers spread money in the community because they know everyone hates them for their drugs and the violence that kills innocents, often children. (See Freakonomics by Steven Levitt.) Crime is a small part of what happens in a poor neighborhood, but it gets a lot of attention -- and no real remediation -- and certainly no prevention. Government is about changing the past. Business is about making the future. So, the cops deal with crimes after the fact instead of preventing them. That is chaning... or was... the "community policing" initiative of the 1970s fell apart under the "war on drugs" of the 1980s and here we are. It gets reinvented in this town or that because it is the only thing that works, government policing being what it is. Given the context, cops walking beats and being social workers (with guns) does prevent crime. Most people on welfare are white. Most people on welfare are single mothers with small families (1,2,3 kids... not 5 or 10) who are on family assistance for about three to five years until they get their lives back in order after getting rid of an abusive "other." We all suffer from free education. Even parochial schools typically have state-certified teachers and public schooling sets the pace and defines the playing field. In 100 years we have gone from the steamship to the spaceship and education still consists of a teacher standing in front of a blackboard lecturing to a passive array of listeners. It so happens I have a "computer based" class now. It totally sucks. These people have no idea how people learn because they lack an objective epistemology. Free education has poisoned the business community, the scientific establishment, and every other sector of the economy by stunting our ability to perceive and solve new problems. The classroom is designed to train people to work in 19th century offices. That changed. Education did not. Now, it has dragged us back... back before 1930... maybe farther... But do not blame people on "welfare" except as millions of middle class Americans are lined up at the public trough. Right now, today, the "economic growth" (so-called) is in Washington DC. Read this. I confess, I am going to a public university with tons of federal aid and government-subsidized loans. My only claim to morality is that my career is the sine qua non of government. I argued against this, actually, but my Objectivist friends on SOLO cum RoR argued me down and convinced me that Ayn Rand wanted me to do this. It was for me a convenient truth. My point is only that there is hardly a free market sector left. For 25 years I worked in computering. I didn't need a degree or certification; all I needed was to work hard and be smart. After the Dot Com meltdown, I could hardly complain that I had right to a career, so I looked around and am trying to make myself socially useful at a level of trade equal to my mind. In a perfect world, I would have applied to the Pinkerton Academy or Tannehelp or something else that does not exist in our collectivized society. Don't blame the victims. Get the government out of our lives and their lives will improve.

Your confession of faith shows that you are deeply committed to your beliefs.

I am not sure that this is true. This is a choice with some consequence for me because in 2006, I was elected to be a Republican Party precinct delegate and I have a state convention coming up. This George Will TownHall.com column about the rift between religionists and economists is an old story to Objectivists. The recent revelations via New Republic about memoranda from his office just reminds me that you get racism on the right all too easily. Dr. Paul is not a racist. I accept that readily. However, he cannot ferret out the traditionalists for whom Ayn Rand's atheism and advocacy for abortion as a choice are just the beginning of the problems. Just by comparison, Newt Gingrich has a yarn about being at a Georgia barbeque where he asked some guys in bib overalls in front a pickup truck with a shotgun in the rack what they thought about Clarence Thomas and they were happy that President Bush had nominated a fellow Georgian. It's not the truth of the story that matters, any more than it is with Dr. Paul's problem. What matters is what stories come out of the candidate's office. Can the man manage public relations or not? If he were a physicist, it would be one thing, but he claims to be a politician. The thing with the Federal Reserve is another indicator of the attachment with and for right wing populism. Click here to see why gold was never illegal in the United States. I owned gold coins legally even before President Ford lifted all restrictions on it, via Executive Order 11825 December 31st, 1974. The United States Mint resumed minting gold coins and selling them at market prices in 1987. So, from that point on, there has always been gold currency in America. The dollar is freely convertible to gold at the market rate via (authorized sellers for) the US Mint. That the US government is running a horrific deficit certainly devalues its "greenback" dollars. But so, what? We all have credit ratings. Equifax, Experian and TransUnion tally mine. Anti-semitic, anti-capitalist rightwing populists are too easily accepted in Objectivist circles. (On the other front, we have the neo-conservatives whom Dr. Paul has bravely taken on in opposing the war in Iraq. They also hold social capital within Objectivism.) Conservatives are the cross that Objectivists bear. Myself, I shrugged it off. I agree with much of his rhetoric, but I really cannot support Ron Paul's bid for the presidency.

Well, you have said more than once that you are not an Objectivist, so I am not surpised that you do not see this. In several classes, when I said this, my classmates and professors disagreed, as you did. Being limited by their mystical ideas, altruistic ethics and collectivist politics, they have very weak senses of self. Constantly bombarded with the message that selfishness is bad, that reason is not enough, that the senses deceive us, that reality is a social construct, they cannot imagine that choice is the sine qua non of humanity, and that all choices are moral choices... except, as you (and Nathaniel Branden) note, the choice of vanilla for dessert. Though some choices are ethically inconsequential, the fact of choice is essential to morality. I have been reading some philosophers on ethical egoism. They are flummoxed by the "problem" that someone who acts in their own self-interest may not be acting "morally." They assume altruism and try to reconcile egoism to it. They never get to the question that Ayn Rand asked explicity: what are values and why do you need them? "The purpose of morality to define man's proper values and interests." (VOS, Intro). If you have not read "The Objectivist Ethics" in The Virtue of Selfishness, then it will be hard for us to be on the same wavelength here. Rand's focus was explicitly on those proper values. As she pointed out that a robber acts in his "interest" is not what makes him immoral: it is what he makes his interest that defines him so -- and the answer is not that he "hurts other people" (though there is that), but that he cannot live without victims, he cannot live by his own effort, but must have others around him. Further, he engages them in violation of their choice -- assuming they prefer not to be robbed. That is the secondary evil, but it derives from the first. You mentioned arithmetic. In one passage of Atlas Shrugged, Rand waxes poetic about the morality inherent in the geometrical patterns of steel mill structures, each one of which was placed in answer to a single question: "right or wrong?" The purpose of morality is to enhance your life. Alone on an island, every choice you make is moral choice with life-and-death consequences. If you found that you could ferment fruits and get drunk and then did so even beyond some most minimal level, you would be committing suicide. Watch Zemeckis film Cast Away starring Tom Hanks. It rains every day and he is always thirsty ... until he solves the problem. Every action is the result of an answer to a single question: Right or wrong?

Thanks for the reminder. If Korzybski first announced this insight then we all owe him a large debt. It is an accepted article of fact that time is money. For some Objectivists, theft is analogous to attempted murder because it takes the time of your life to produce that which was stolen. This idea shows up often in Rand's works, so often, that I glossed over it and went with value. I wasn't thinking. "Value" is that which you wish to gain and/or keep, and it is also a tenet that values must be produced. As I formalize this paper, I will devote the required time to develop better that money is store of your time.