If a natural food supply cannot feed the people/animals that live on it, then it makes sense that giving the animals/people on the land food only delays the inevitable and causes more suffering. Why are the people who live in countries like that starving? The reason is because there are more people than the land there can support. It isn't exactly like they are exporting food from countries like Somalia and the like. Sometimes it is economic and political, but mostly it is just because there are too many people. Giving them birth control at least would help their problems. Or you can just let the population die off on its own.
eCONOMIC THEORY
- Thread starter lifegoesonbrah
- Start date
abandonconflict
Well-Known Member
"Capitalism and altruism are incompatible; they are philosophical opposites" ~ Ayn Rand
I agree with her on this one.
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
Then why are history's mightiest philanthropists also the top of the capitalist heap? cn
abandonconflict
Well-Known Member
They are faking it. Also, what seems a morsel of kindness for them, is only possible for them.
I would be a far greater philanthropist than all of history's philanthropists combined, if I had the means.
abandonconflict
Well-Known Member
Philanthropist.
Committed to putting inner city kids through college.
Committed to putting inner city kids through college.
That made me laugh. Thanks.
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
I must say ... me too. cn
abandonconflict
Well-Known Member
Well then, we ought to have a few more gazillionaires hoarding the world's wealth in the hopes that they toss a morsel down and call it "philanthropy".
Hey UncleBuck, I think I found the definition for Trickle Down!
Hey UncleBuck, I think I found the definition for Trickle Down!
abandonconflict
Well-Known Member
That just isn't true. We have gone into so many countries to "open up their resources to trade" and "spread democracy". "Spreading democracy" is especially deceitful, as the media would have us believe that we have to remove fascists, communists and other sorts of vile sorcery as part of our cold war when in actuality our western forces are going in and removing leaders that are widely supported in their countries. What the fuck is democratic about that? "Opening them up to trade" is also deceitful but it tells wwhat the real motives are, to have our corporations exploit resources. We put in puppet regimes who support our UN resolutions and never help their people get a better life. Then at home all you read about them is that they are communists or genocidal maniacs and that America is on a crusade to save the world from bad guys.
I won't bother with the rest of your abortion of a post since it was basically "nu uh." However, you are saying a moral system and a economic system are incompatible. This is retarded at best. You realize that forced altruism isn't really altruism.
Your entire philosophy as your present it seems to be that a person has no right to exist for his own sake.
¶
From her start, America was torn by the clash of her political system with the altruist morality. Capitalism and altruism are incompatible; they are philosophical opposites; they cannot co-exist in the same man or in the same society. Today, the conflict has reached its ultimate climax; the choice is clear-cut: either a new morality of rational self-interest, with its consequences of freedom, justice, progress and mans happiness on earthor the primordial morality of altruism, with its consequences of slavery, brute force, stagnant terror and sacrificial furnaces.
The whole quote. Just because Ayn Rand says it doesn't mean it is true.
I do like this one though:
Why is it moral to serve the happiness of others, but not your own? If enjoyment is a value, why is it moral when experienced by others, but immoral when experienced by you? If the sensation of eating a cake is a value, why is it an immoral indulgence in your stomach, but a moral goal for you to achieve in the stomach of others? Why is it immoral for you to desire, but moral for others to do so? Why is it immoral to produce a value and keep it, but moral to give it away? And if it is not moral for you to keep a value, why is it moral for others to accept it? If you are selfless and virtuous when you give it, are they not selfish and vicious when they take it? Does virtue consist of serving vice? Is the moral purpose of those who are good, self-immolation for the sake of those who are evil?
The answer you evade, the monstrous answer is: No, the takers are not evil, provided they did not earn the value you gave them. It is not immoral for them to accept it, provided they are unable to produce it, unable to deserve it, unable to give you any value in return. It is not immoral for them to enjoy it, provided they do not obtain it by right.
Such is the secret core of your creed, the other half of your double standard: it is immoral to live by your own effort, but moral to live by the effort of othersit is immoral to consume your own product, but moral to consume the products of othersit is immoral to earn, but moral to moochit is the parasites who are the moral justification for the existence of the producers, but the existence of the parasites is an end in itselfit is evil to profit by achievement, but good to profit by sacrificeit is evil to create your own happiness, but good to enjoy it at the price of the blood of others.
Your code divides mankind into two castes and commands them to live by opposite rules: those who may desire anything and those who may desire nothing, the chosen and the damned, the riders and the carriers, the eaters and the eaten. What standard determines your caste? What passkey admits you to the moral elite? The passkey is lack of value.
Whatever the value involved, it is your lack of it that gives you a claim upon those who dont lack it. It is your need that gives you a claim to rewards. If you are able to satisfy your need, your ability annuls your right to satisfy it. But a need you are unable to satisfy gives you first right to the lives of mankind.
If you succeed, any man who fails is your master; if you fail, any man who succeeds is your serf. Whether your failure is just or not, whether your wishes are rational or not, whether your misfortune is undeserved or the result of your vices, it is misfortune that gives you a right to rewards. It is pain, regardless of its nature or cause, pain as a primary absolute, that gives you a mortgage on all of existence.
If you heal your pain by your own effort, you receive no moral credit: your code regards it scornfully as an act of self-interest. Whatever value you seek to acquire, be it wealth or food or love or rights, if you acquire it by means of your virtue, your code does not regard it as a moral acquisition: you occasion no loss to anyone, it is a trade, not alms; a payment, not a sacrifice. The deserved belongs in the selfish, commercial realm of mutual profit; it is only the undeserved that calls for that moral transaction which consists of profit to one at the price of disaster to the other. To demand rewards for your virtue is selfish and immoral; it is your lack of virtue that transforms your demand into a moral right.
A morality that holds need as a claim, holds emptinessnon-existenceas its standard of value; it rewards an absence, a defect: weakness, inability, incompetence, suffering, disease, disaster, the lack, the fault, the flawthe zero.
The Morality of Altruism:
What is the moral code of altruism? The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value.
Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrificewhich means; self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destructionwhich means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good.
Do not hide behind such superficialities as whether you should or should not give a dime to a beggar. That is not the issue. The issue is whether you do or do not have the right to exist without giving him that dime. The issue is whether you must keep buying your life, dime by dime, from any beggar who might choose to approach you. The issue is whether the need of others is the first mortgage on your life and the moral purpose of your existence. The issue is whether man is to be regarded as a sacrificial animal. Any man of self-esteem will answer: No. Altruism says: Yes.
I think the last is important.
I think you are applying an incorrect definition to altruism. The origin of the word was with Auguste Comte, and he created it to mean something other than "being nice to people." His definition was something along the lines of 'sacrificing yourself completely for the needs of others.' Auguste Comte, the person who created the idea of altruism, tried to commit suicide repeatedly and was right up there with Karl Marx in being a socialist/commie nutbag. He even started his own nutbag religion. She was speaking of altruism in this sense of the term. Living as a sacrifice is bullshit, and shouldn't be forced on anyone.
There is no way our benevolent government would ever harm a soul, the real reason we do it is because all those leaders are pure evil and are working on taking away OUR freedoms. Plus, weapons of mass destruction.
abandonconflict
Well-Known Member
But you'll quote a bunch of Ayn Rand. Cool story bro. TL;DR.
I actually did read some of her book, but I stopped when she redefined altruism as something evil. That was about the point I stopped reading your post. Like you said though, you don't want to retort to mine, because it is basically contradicting yours. Just to remind you, altruism is constitutional. Capitalism is never mentioned in the constitution.