I was wondering when I would get a response from you BS. I have read some of your contributions and have been amused, although calling your fellow socialists in this debating room 'dummies' was not kind but probably true.
You must forgive my lateness of a response I have been vacationing.BS: A new contributor to the Debate Board has made a big noise of late. Using the language of Objectivism, 'capitalist pig' has forwarded classic Right-wing 'libertarian' views. For those unacquainted with Objectivism, a short synopsis follows.
CP:If you are going to label me I supposed that will do.
BS: Objectivism was a popular undergraduate 'philosophy' during the 1964 Barry Goldwater campaign.(1) Although most Right-wing libertarians no longer take Objectivism's founder, novelist Ayn Rand, seriously, the presence of one-time Objectivist newsletter contributor Alan Greenspan in the upper echelons of American finance does prevent her doctrine of extreme laissez-faire from being relegated entirely to the dustbin of history.(2) Quite the contrary, a current push is on to repopularize Rand in our 'free market,' merger-frenzied, stock-market-bubble, ideological climate.
CP:Far from heading to the dustbin, free market capitalism is being shown to be the most successful form of economy. The best economies are thos e that have the most freedom from regulation and taxation. It is any form of socialism whether it be the democratic socialism of western europe ie. France, or its other more virulent forms in Cuba or North Korea have persisted with slow growth, high unemployment and low annual income rates.
BS: Objectivism is a supremacy doctrine, based on the allegation that 'the source of production is manıs mind'(3), i.e. that since only 'smart people' (scientists, entrepreneurs, and artists) invent the technological advancements and comforts enjoyed by civilization the 'stupid people' (wage-workers) should be grateful to receive even the smallest downward trickles of such benevolence.
CP: Your descripitons are so objective and non biased!!
You have as most socialists or whatever you prefer to call yourself ignore the fact that there is movement among the social classes in captitalist countries. You can become more than just a wage earner in a capitalist country. Have you ignored the small entrepeneurial companies that have sprung up in the U.S. over the past decade?
Many of these people are the supposed downsized victimes of capitalism.
I don't believe Ayn Rand ever called wage earners stupid. That might be your description given the Utopia 2000 take on the fact that you can make people happy by influencing their behavior.
BS: Although it is a step up from Nietzsche's somewhat cruder doctrine (might is right), it is steeped in the common 19th century lore that workers should only be paid what they 'would have' produced had no brilliant minds invented anything (i.e. the entire industrial revolution apparatus).
: (Such distinctions, of course, are impossible to make---other than arbitrarily---because the industrial revolution irreversibly merged all relations of labor and technology. To treat them as if they could be separated for individual analysis---one potato for you, five potatoes for me---is as disingenuous as treating food and diamond earrings as being equally 'elastic' market components.)
CP: The free market does this automatically no need for heavy thinking on your part BS. This is the beauty of Capitalism you are paid what the market determines you are worth. Economically speaking of course.
BS: The classic form of this idea (brains is might) was presented in Atlas Shrugged. In this novel, all the inventors and business men decided that they were tired of taking crap from the wage-workers and 'collectivists' so they all went on strike. Needless to say, without all the great minds illuminating life for all the inferior 'brute' laborers, civilization collapsed somewhat in the manner anticipated by Charlie Manson.(4)
CP: A very simplistic and incorrect synopsis of Atlas shrugged.
The business owners were tired not of their workers in fact many of the workers in the book sided with the owners. Hank Reardens steel mill workers for example. The owners gave up after the gov't took virtual control of their businesses, for example production quotas, giving up trade secrets.
You are making the mistake of treating it as a stuggle between bus. and workers when it was a struggle between bus. owners and the elitists who thought they new what was best for the workers and all citizens, like yourself.
BS: Some problems with this assumption. Division of labor (since the Industrial Revolution) has made the production and circulation of goods contingent upon a vast, interconnected workforce predicated upon low- or no-skill laborers (assembly-line productivity) who are, predictably enough, paid 'what theyıre worth.' Without these workers, however, even the most brilliant inventions cannot be produced (crafts-era productivity), distributed, or enjoyed by anyone. If everyone was brilliant, however, then no-one would be 'qualified' for low-skill repetitious work, an essential predicate of mass-production. Therefore, through the mechanism of supply and demand, quality education is put out of the reach of most people, thus providing a low-skill workforce as well as an ideological justification for paying them so little.
CP: In other words capitalists are intentionally keeping everyone dumb so we can have cheap labor???
CP:What planet are you from? Or what Ivory tower do you sit in? Businesses everywhere are training employees to make up for the poor education recieved by public schools. No one benefits by a dumbed down workforce except the elitists who feed them the drivel I see on this debating page.
: Other tenets of Objectivist 'theory' assert the following points:
: 1. People deserve what they get. (Biological determinism.)
:
: 2. If a worker is unhappy with his or her job, then he or she should quit. If a consumer is unhappy with the conditions of a sale, then he or she should refuse to buy it (including food, etc.). All trade is voluntary, therefore equitable.
CP: Competition has given us extremely low food prices in the US and we have choices where to buy food. I a worker is unhappy with their job they can quit thats a free society. Try telling Castro you aren't happy with your work assignment as a cuban worker and would like to find a job in another country I am sure he will be happy to accomodate.
CP: Sorry BS, I have run out of time and must go back to work and do my part to keep this great economy running. I will have to finish answering all your BS another time. And to Sam Fasbinder the mustard gas producer, the debate is not over I am just getting started.
-The Capitalist Pig
