Anarcho-Capitalism: A Branden ‘Blast from the Past’

[Brant Gaede]

Of course, it might be said that, in the passage I quoted from VOS, Rand speaks of a "society," whereas she denies that Galt's Gulch is a society. Rand sometimes used "society" in a peculiar manner; certainly a community of 1000 people who interact on a regular basis would qualify as a "society" by every standard I know of. Calling it a "private estate" is merely to call it a private -- i.e., a nongovernmental, or anarchistic -- society, if a relatively small one.

Rather than engage is a fruitless debate over the meaning of "society," I am willing to grant Rand's premises for the sake of argument. Say 1000 people are invited by the owner of an estate to live on his land, but that this land legally falls within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S. government. May this "private estate" then secede from the United States, in effect, by ignoring laws they disapprove of and appointing their own arbiter to resolve disputes?

If the O'ist answer is Yes, then the O'ist already has one foot in the anarchistic grave and his other foot on a banana peel.

I think you are correct in your assessment that a Yes would get too close to anarchy.

What would you reply to an Objectivist who answered with No?

They can suceed to the extent neither they nor the U.S. initiates force. However, if A murders B the state of, say, Colorado sends in the law. You cannot stand at the gate and claim no admittance--that yours is a soverign state even if your soverign state hanged A yesterday, which would be another murder, BTW. Your own "law" must be conguent and ultimately subservient to the law of the state and country.

--Brant

remember Jim Jones?

[caroljane]

I think Roark bombing that building shows precisely where Ayn Rand would initiate force.

And call it valid.

Or better, say validity no longer had any meaning at that point.

Michael

There was no Objectivist philosophy when she wrote that novel, especially the apropos parts. Again, she initiated no force. She wrote a novel.

--Brant

Yes, she did with Fountainhead. But with Atlas Shrugged she sweated blood for years, to ensure that her heroes acted out the philosophy/

And Dagny shot the guard.

[caroljane]

Woo hoo! Only one quote for one quote push! The Force is with me again!

[Brant Gaede]

I think Roark bombing that building shows precisely where Ayn Rand would initiate force.

And call it valid.

Or better, say validity no longer had any meaning at that point.

Michael

There was no Objectivist philosophy when she wrote that novel, especially the apropos parts. Again, she initiated no force. She wrote a novel.

--Brant

Yes, she did with Fountainhead. But with Atlas Shrugged she sweated blood for years, to ensure that her heroes acted out the philosophy/

And Dagny shot the guard.

Please read me a little more closely. Ayn Rand did not initiate force. Roark did--at least for the sake of this discussion.

--Brant

[George H. Smith]

Some brief selections from Auberon Herbert (1838-1906), The Principles of Voluntaryism:

We hold that the one and only true basis of every society is the frank recognition of these rights of self-ownership; that is to say, of the rights of control and direction by the individual, as he himself chooses, over his own mind, his own body, and his own property, always provided, that he respects the same universal rights in others. We hold that so long as he lives within the sphere of his own rights, so long as he respects these rights in others, not aggressing by force or fraud upon the person or property of his neightbors, he cannot be made subject, apart from his own consent, to the control and direction of others, and he cannot be rightfully compelled, under any public pretext, by force of others, to perform any services, to pay any contributions, or to act or not to act in any manner contrary to his own desires or to his own sense of right. He is by moral right a free man, self-owning and self-directing; and has done nothing which justifies others, for any convenience of their own, in taking from him any part, small or great of his self-ownership.

...

We hold that what one man cannot morally do, a million of men cannot morally do, and government, representing millions of men, cannot do. Governments are only machines, created by the individuals of a nation for their own convenience; they are only designated bodies, delegated by the individuals, and therefore they cannot possibly have larger moral rights of using force, or, indeed, larger moral rights of any kind. We may reasonably believe that an individual, as a self-owner, is morally justified in defending the rights he possesses in himself and in his own property -- by force, if necessary, against force (and fraud)*....

*The ordinary coarse forms of fraud are the moral equivalents of force. By force the consent of the self-owner is virtually set aside; by fraud it is evaded. Consent as regards his own actions and the free disposition of his own property is the distinguishing mark of the self-owner. Take consent away from any person as regards these matters, and he ceases to be a self-owner.

...

Once again, in distinguishing between the illegitimate and the legitimate forms of government, we wish to point out that the forces of government can only be rightly directed against one class of persons; that is against those who are "aggressives" upon others, never against the "nonagressives." We ought not to direct our attacks -- as the anarchists do -- against all government, against government in itself, as the national force machine, against government strictly limited to its legitimate duties in defense of self-ownership and individual rights, but only against the overgrown, the exaggerated, the insolent, unreasonable, and indefensible forms of government, which are found everywhere today, and under which, those who govern, usurp powers of all kinds, that do not and cannot belong to them, laboring under the ludicrous mistake that they are owners of the nation, owners of the bodies and minds of those very individuals, who called them into existence.

From The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State, and Other Essays by Auberon Herbert, ed. Eric Mack, Liberty Fund, 1978, pp. 370-76.) http://www.amazon.co...34868122&sr=1-3

Ghs

[caroljane]

I think Roark bombing that building shows precisely where Ayn Rand would initiate force.

And call it valid.

Or better, say validity no longer had any meaning at that point.

Michael

There was no Objectivist philosophy when she wrote that novel, especially the apropos parts. Again, she initiated no force. She wrote a novel.

--Brant

Yes, she did with Fountainhead. But with Atlas Shrugged she sweated blood for years, to ensure that her heroes acted out the philosophy/

And Dagny shot the guard.

Please read me a little more closely. Ayn Rand did not initiate force. Roark did--at least for the sake of this discussion.

--Brant

Tendentious. She had the choice to shoot or not, and her life was not in danger.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

She also approved of the Boston Tea Party. (At least I remember reading something to that effect.)

Maybe Rand did not physically initiate force--but I say she portrayed the initiation of force with total approval.

If the incongruence is bothersome, I think looking at what is--at reality as it is--works a hell of a lot better than twisting my perception and words to fit what I think it should be. Incongruence will still bother me, but at least I will give up the unintended consequences of sabotaging my perception.

And it's funny, when I start seeing a view from a higher altitude so I can see the forest and not just the trees, I start to understand the forest is not called NIOF. But NIOF is an excellent species of tree instead.

Michael

EDIT: I want to add to my comment about Roark blowing up the building. I would need to check the laws to be 100% sure, but what he did might legally be an act of terrorism. Nowadays almost certainly. I'm not sure how major sabotage was labeled in the laws back then.

btw - If I were Roark in the same situation, I would have done the same thing he did, although I might not stick around to grandstand in court. I've always had trouble with technicality-freaks, so when I reach the "Well, fuck it then," point in trying to build something against the kind of resistance he had, I generally make sure the parasites sucking my blood don't profit very much from what gets left behind. I don't have much use for laws and the inalienable rights of parasites at that point. So I'm not saying this to bash Rand. I just like to be cognitively clear.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Woo hoo! Only one quote for one quote push! The Force is with me again!

Carol,

In compensation, you left in 4 quotes in the following post (quoted below for identification, not substance). I fixed it, though.

Tendentious. She had the choice to shoot or not, and her life was not in danger.

Never sing victory until the game is over.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

People need to get a grip on the differences between art and philosophy. I admit Ayn really mixed them up, especially in AS. One thing I hope I never see again is an Internet debate on Dagny shooting the guard.

--Brant

[caroljane]

Michael, I am completely spooked from quoting now. You know I know how to do it correctly, --and I swear, I haven't developed any kind of repetitive hand syndrome. My wretched computer now will not register edits either. I am starting to get superstitious. If I just disappear altogether, I won't be surprised.

[Dglgmut]

Just a thought on gun control laws and such:

It shouldn't be the government's job to prevent accidents, but only to prevent crimes.

Should carrying a gun be considered a crime?

People argue that some laws have nothing to do with morality: Milton Friedman used the example of speeding. You don't refrain from speeding because it would be immoral, but because you don't want to get a ticket.

However, there is a moral reason not to speed... if it is reasonable to assume that by speeding you are increasing the chance of you having an accident and hurting someone else or yourself.

Carrying a gun does not increase the risk of an accidental death from an individual's point of view, unless they really don't trust themselves. It is much more likely that you would get in a car accident while speeding than you would accidentally shoot someone just because you have a gun.

A speed limit is imposed for safety and it applies to everyone. The only time emergency vehicles get to speed legitimately is when their sirens are on and traffic is pulling to the side to clear their way.

There's a big difference between saying driving fast in certain areas is dangerous and saying carrying a gun is dangerous. Recklessness should be considered initiation of force, while carrying a gun is not necessarily reckless.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

People need to get a grip on the differences between art and philosophy.

Brant,

I am well aware of the difference. I am both a real person and an artist. And the situations I talked about apply both to reality and art.

As Rand would say, "And I mean it."

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Should carrying a gun be considered a crime?

You mean a government agent carrying a gun?

Hell yeah. I do wish I could call that a crime.

But back to reality. Thank God government people and politicians are more intelligent, more emotionally mature and have higher integrity than normal citizens, huh?

They'll take care of us, that way we don't need to. They even promise they'll do that. So that they will do. I'm so glad they have guns.

Gosh. It's so stomp down nice to be cared for by a superior sort of person.

(These last three paragraphs are irony for anyone who knows my views and is having a senior moment. )

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Michael, is the "blood of tyrants" necessarily consequent to an initiation of force?

--Brant

[Dglgmut]

(These last three paragraphs are irony for anyone who knows my views and is having a senior moment. )

The irony is quite apparent, the reason for it isn't. I'm not sure why you're bringing up your stance on big government when it's quite obvious that nobody here is in favor of that.

Are you under the impression that my post was an argument for gun control laws?

I think differentiating between the prevention of accidents and crimes (initiation of some kind of force) is important, and that government should have no authority to engage in the former.

[anthony]

"THE FOUNTAINHEAD" Media Interview.

Ayn Rand takes questions :

(A sweet, wide-eyed number at the front, waving her notebook)

"Miss Rand, Miss Rand!"

(AR swings her cigarette holder in her direction, and locks her gimlet gaze on her)

AR: (gravel-toned) "Yes, my dear, you haff a qvestion?"

Ms. Earnest: " Miss Rand, may I please, please, please ask why Howard Roark had to dynamite that building?

AR: (with grim smile) "Certainly, my dear: For zhe vairy reason zhat it offends you."

[No YouTube or link, but this really, truly took place.]

[i swear...]

[Would I ever lie?]

[anthony]

Moral outrage is always interesting/amusing (even when I'm the one

experiencing it...)

For instance, one can speculate about the reaction if the building

Roark designed, Keating screwed up, and Roark demolished, had been

a wealthy industrialist's mansion, or skyscraper. Who cares, right?

What about if it'd been a church, a synagogue (or a mosque, in today's context).

No difference, Roark would have done the same -

BOOM! Who'd get pissed off then? Only difference, varying special-interest groups.

But here, it was a dwelling for the poor: gosh, how nasty of him.

Leave aside that Roark had created a solution for the best, most dignified and aesthetic

living conditions, at the lowest cost - what right did he have to eliminate

their future home?

Here one sees the flaws in 'blanket' Rules, like NIOF.

Individual rights have the major purpose of defending the weak from the powerful

bullies, the single person from the many - the moral individual from the immoral.

NOT, the immoral, from the moral.

There are real-life scenarios in which an action may be moral, but illegal; or may be

immoral, but legal.

Rand showed that 1. a man's work is his own, not a "due" to society. 2. an objective

morality precedes objective legality.

Certainly, Roark should have gone to prison. Obviously, he was prepared to do so from the start,as the cost he must pay for his creative principles.

With dramatic impact and some poetic licence, Rand rolled individualism vs collectivism, the integrity to truth of the creator, and a subtle message - when you feel morally outraged, check your premises - all into one.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Are you under the impression that my post was an argument for gun control laws?

Calvin,

You're right. Sorry.

I didn't read the rest of your post. (I am a bit gun-shy from having read several and realizing you are generally not familiar with stuff you want to comment on, but that's no excuse for not reading a post I comment on. I just now made the same error.)

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michael, is the "blood of tyrants" necessarily consequent to an initiation of force?

Brant,

I don't know what you mean by "blood of tyrants" here. Is it the blood that tyrants spill when they kill others or their blood from being killed?

At any rate, it would depend on the person spilling the blood. Does he hold NIOF as a sacred always-to-be-obeyed commandment or not? That would influence his actions, but there is no metaphysical meaning to be had here. No cause and effect.

I hold that NIOF is neither cause nor effect. I hold that a rule of human conduct, especially one that has to be taken on faith to be a primary, is not a causal agent.

People spill blood. Not principles or rules.

You make rules like NIOF to try to keep them from spilling so much.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I want to add to my endorsement of Roark's actions.

His context was turning his work over to progressive slave-drivers and allowing it to be used for people like the grungy Occupy Wall Street crowd.

Within that context, I am fully with Roark.

However, over the years, my view of humanity has broadened and become more benevolent. I don't believe in a world divided only into two classes. And I believe there is good in almost anyone--until they cross a line and commit themselves to evil, like serial killers or destructive cult leaders, for example. But those people are in the minority.

So I believe a situation like the one that developed with Roark would not happen in today's world, simply because he wouldn't make a deal like that in the first place. There's too much wealth floating around. Too many venture capitalists. Too many private institutions providing grants (since his project was for poor people). Too many people who strive for excellence and reward it in others. Basically, there's too much goodness in today's culture for Roark to feel the need to cheat--although if you follow the news, you get the exact opposite impression.

But when I am faced with a limited context with true creeps confiscating my work, I do react (and have) like Roark and just destroy the stuff I created,

One of the reasons I am going into Internet marketing is that I can easily offer my stuff to the world at large and not have to deal with committees and regulations (for the most part) and people who tell my what I can and can't do and demand I obey their whims and fantasies. And I can attract (and ultimately establish relationships with) good people by offering free value to the Great Out There while getting rid of any jerks who show up. I love acting from an abundance mentality and this process allows me to do it.

Not one of us controls the narrative of our lives completely since we all swim in the culture we are born into (or where we migrate to), like a fish swims in the water. But within that culture, once I become aware of the bad guys and why they do what they do, I can control my narrative enough to exclude them as much as humanly possible--and that means exclude them in my soul.

Michael

[anthony]

Michael,

I agree. But isn't it the very fact of drawing the parameters,

by objective morality - or with individual rights - that makes

real benevolence possible?

When it comes down to it, I'm saying that understanding of others, tolerance

-and empathy - flourish best and most honestly within a climate of individualism. Personally, or in a general Society. Outside of it, quite ironically, I feel they have less support.

It is our rationality that 'secures' our good feelings and our 'better nature'

- that allows for a fully human life.

Rand drew the parameters, that's all.

[Dglgmut]

I can't find it now, but George argued that in the situation of "saving someone from themselves," it is at the actors discretion, as the party being forced always has the right to sue.

This applies to the "rape" scene in The Fountainhead. The law cannot prohibit all immoral behavior, but also it cannot permit all moral behavior. Even though Dominique wanted it, she did not give her consent in any legal way. When Peikoff talked about women consenting by simply entering the bedroom and the stuff about Kobe Bryant, it seemed to me he was trying to find a way to legally justify what Roark did, while there's no rational way of doing that. Dominique had the legal right-of-way to have Roark arrested and sue him, but the point is she didn't want that.

With the Cortland building, weren't new architects added to the designing against Keating's will? I think the contract between Keating and the people in charge of the project was broken, and so Roark had every right to do what he did.

[Dglgmut]

I think the type of anarchism George advocates is our eventual future. It's linked to the free market, which incorporates a complex type of democracy; one in which there is not one vote per person, but rather each person has equal opportunity to earn more votes (from others). Also, with multiple protection agencies upholding a similar form of law, it is much harder to establish a law that inherently violates individual rights (like taxation).

Rand was averse the majority, when there was an opposition. Overall, though, she targeted the lowest common denominator: our underlying humanity.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

But isn't it the very fact of drawing the parameters,

by objective morality - or with individual rights - that makes

real benevolence possible?

Tony,

I believe it's the inverse.

I believe when a person actively chooses to become a benevolent person, this--added to reason--are what make individual rights possible.

Individual rights don't mean a damn thing to a people balanced toward bad vibes, anger, contempt and destruction.

There are some interesting anthropological studies that tend to back this up.

This is one of the reasons I believe people in society need periodic tune-ups with morality (the churches do this real well) and that the prevailing morality needs to include benevolence along with reason.

To me, reason and benevolence are Brother Sun and Sister Moon.

(All right, all right, I hear the groaning... )

But the fact remains that when people lose benevolence as a virtue to aspire to, as a cornerstone of what living a good life means, gangs tend to take over and grow into dictatorships, even when reason is held up as a virtue. Communist dictatorships attest to this.

Michael

[George H. Smith]

But isn't it the very fact of drawing the parameters,

by objective morality - or with individual rights - that makes

real benevolence possible?

Tony,

I believe it's the inverse.

I believe when a person actively chooses to become a benevolent person, this--added to reason--are what make individual rights possible.

Individual rights don't mean a damn thing to a people balanced toward bad vibes, anger, contempt and destruction.

There are some interesting anthropological studies that tend to back this up.

This is one of the reasons I believe people in society need periodic tune-ups with morality (the churches do this real well) and that the prevailing morality needs to include benevolence along with reason.

To me, reason and benevolence are Brother Sun and Sister Moon.

(All right, all right, I hear the groaning... )

But the fact remains that when people lose benevolence as a virtue to aspire to, as a cornerstone of what living a good life means, gangs tend to take over and grow into dictatorships, even when reason is held up as a virtue. Communist dictatorships attest to this.

Michael

There is nothing wrong with benevolence, so long as it respects the moral autonomy of individuals, as defined by rights. Augustine called his defense of punishing heretics "righteous persecution," because the punishment was inflicted for a righteous cause, i.e., for the good of the victims.

Augustine asked: If you could save a person's life, even against his will, would you not do so for his sake? Of course, he answered. He went on to argue how much more benevolent it is to save people from the eternal torments of hell, even if this entails persecuting them as a means of convincing them to reconsider their beliefs. These people will later thank you profusely, after they see the light.

Thus did Augusine maintain that religious persecution is an implementation of the biblical maxim, Love thy neighbor. This Augustinian doctrine remained a dominant theme in Christianity for many centuries.

You will no doubt reply that you meant voluntary benevolence. Fine, but this presupposes a theory of rights by which we distinguish between the voluntary and the coercive.

As Adam Smith, Herbert Spencer and many other individualists argued, benevolence does not make rights possible; rather, rights make benevolence possible.

Ghs