Capitalist Philosophers And Fundamentalist Protestants

[MidGe]

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WB would likely have done similarly well in an AC society and would still give the money away.

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Probably, altough I doubt that an AC society would be nurturing enough. But, all that being said, at least, WB had the modeststy, common sense and honesty not to claim inherent rights to his wealth, something sorely lacking in AC'ers and Galt's wish to be clones.

It is a refreshing recognition of luck that I can only think of Nassim Nicholas Taleb has having articulated properly and comprehensively, especially in economic terms, in recent times.

[chezlaw]

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WB would likely have done similarly well in an AC society and would still give the money away.

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Probably, altough I doubt that an AC society would be nurturing enough. But, all that being said, at least, WB had the modeststy, common sense and honesty not to claim inherent rights to his wealth, something sorely lacking in AC'ers and Galt's wish to be clones.

It is a refreshing recognition of luck that I can only think of Nassim Nicholas Taleb has having articulated properly and comprehensively, especially in economic terms, in recent times.

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I suspent its that's recognition of his luck that's partly responsible for him doing so well.

People who believe they deserve all their success tend to be poor at seperating their good/bad investments from their lucky/unlucky ones and are doomed to repeat the wrong ones.

chez

[Ayn Rand]

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On an aside, it is interesting that a model for AC'ers, fundamentalist protestants (of the life wasn't meant to be easy outlook) and John Galt's wish to be clones, that one of their model or idol, Warren Buffet, in this case, is on record as saying that his success was not attributable to the sweat of his brow, personal exertion or developped skills but to a certain psychological profile (with regard risk aversion) that he has, that would not have been so succesful in any other time but the one in lived in. He thus had the honesty and modesty to attribure his success to luck, and further decided to give most of it away.

This was stated by Buffet in an interview following his examplary donation to the Gates foundation.

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Warren Buffet as an Objectivist's Idol? You must be joking. If I were still alive, I would write a novel with the antagonist modelled after him.

[Borodog]

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On an aside, it is interesting that a model for AC'ers, fundamentalist protestants (of the life wasn't meant to be easy outlook) and John Galt's wish to be clones, that one of their model or idol, Warren Buffet, in this case, is on record as saying that his success was not attributable to the sweat of his brow, personal exertion or developped skills but to a certain psychological profile (with regard risk aversion) that he has, that would not have been so succesful in any other time but the one in lived in. He thus had the honesty and modesty to attribure his success to luck, and further decided to give most of it away.

This was stated by Buffet in an interview following his examplary donation to the Gates foundation.

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Warren Buffet is not a "model" or "idol" for any anarchist I know of, including myself.

I am a much bigger fan of his may-or-may-not-be cousin, Jimmy.

I'll taking making $70M/year Jimmy's way than a billion a year Warren's way anytime.

[West]

Well said. I grow up at the beach, you grow up in the country, all other things being equal, which is better? This is likely subjective. Of course, all other things aren't equal. I could grow up at the beach with alcoholic abusive parents, whereas you could grow up in the country with well adjusted parents, etc. There are a million variables to our lives.

But I think we can agree that, all other things being equal (or unknown), someone would prefer to be born in the United States than in say, Sudan. And I think we can objectively state that, all other things being equal, one person "deserves" the same "level" of happiness, quality of life, etc. as the next guy.

[Borodog]

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WB would likely have done similarly well in an AC society and would still give the money away.

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Probably, altough I doubt that an AC society would be nurturing enough.

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I get so exasperated reading flip little baseless assumptions like this. "Nurturing?" In what possible way can a state, by definition an institution based on systematized violent coercion, be "nurturing"? And what exactly is the likely result of such "nurturing"?

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[Borodog]

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Ok. So it is your contention that "obviously" everyone should objectively agree that everyone deserves to have a physical impossibility.

Have a nice life.

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I didn't use "obviously" in that context. I said that identical and equal obviously don't mean the same thing.

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You didn't use "obviously" at all, it was implied by your contention that you couldn't imagine anyone could disagree with you.

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Dismissing the contention that it makes sense objectively that all people "deserve" equal opportunities for happiness/quality of life because they can't live identical lives is just absurd.

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I do not think that word means what you think it means, "opportunity." People cannot have equal opportunities without leading identical lives. For example, I do no have the opportunity to grow up in a beach house if my parents do not live at the beach. Yet you would claim that everyone "deserves" the opportunity to grow up at the beach.

I.e.,

Some have the opportunity to grow up at the beach.
Everyone "deserves" equal opportunities.
Therefore everyone "deserves" to grow up at the beach.

Of course, a little thought makes clear that if this is true, everyone "deserves" everything. Hence this concept of "deserves" is utterly meaningless.

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You make an interesting point, but the theory as presented can be salvaged. (I am not arguing whether one should or should not accept the revised version below, only that you can modify his proposal to avoid your problem.)

We agree that not everyone can have the same life-pattern, so in some they cannot have the same opportunities. Still we could (in theory) come up with a measure of level of opportunity. In practice, nobody has proposed a cardinal theory of levels of opportunity, nor is there a compelling argument that one exists. Indeed, most people have a fairly limited understanding of an ordinal theory. That is, they can identify extreme differences in levels of opportunity -- a man who grows up in a nice resort town and inherits a large estate has a much greater level of opportunity than one who grows up in extreme poverty and constantly exposed to lethal diseases in a rural village in Africa. Of course, they don't have the same opportunities. The rich man does not have the opportunity to raise himself from extreme poverty and achieve world success starting from nothing. Nevertheless, the intuition is that the opportunities available to the rich man have (considerably) more value than those available to the poor man.

One can argue that people deserve the same levels of opportunity, not necessarily in some exact quantitative sense but in a general qualitative sense. Levels of opportunity should be of the same order of magnitude for everyone, even though no two people will have the same exact opportunities.

In terms of public policy, this might imply that governmental policies should not increase discrepancies in levels of opportunity, or (in a more extreme form) that certain government policies should be implemented in order to actively decrease discrepancies in levels of opportunity.

There are lots of grounds to object to these arguments, based on moral skepticism, practical considerations, or an analysis of some of the steps in the argument (which I am sure could be improved, and might lead to different conclusions).

However, I don't think the objection that people cannot have the same exact opportunities is particularly damaging. The intuition behind the argument relies on the fact that people can reliably distinguish between levels of opportunity in extreme cases. (People as a whole can agree that the wealthy man had more opportunities in his life than the poor man.) Whether the conclusions that I subsequently drew using this intuition are correct is highly debatable (and I am not particularly arguing for them). But I think that it is an objective fact that people can grasp the concept of level of opportunity (maybe there's a better term for this concept?) and can identify extreme discrepancies.

Just my two cents. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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The only way to secure equal "levels" of opportunity would be to return all of civilization to prehuman barbarism. Although any system put in place to enforce such a system would be both morally equivalent to, and would result in, the same.

Differences in "levels of opportunity" are the accumulated result of voluntary decisions by individual human beings. Even though there is luck involved, much like poker, the results of these decisions acrue over time. There is nothing unnatural or evil about this. Luckily, unlike poker, civilization is not zero sum. Human beings do not fight like animals in competition to consume finite resources. Rather, their self-interest drives them to use their reason to expand the supply of goods to others, benefitting everyone. One man's gain is positively other men's gain.

Attacking the accumulated capital that underlies the productivity of civilization and provides the demand for labor, in some misguided attempt to redistribute "opportunity" in the short term must result in a geometrically compounded loss of opportunity in the long term.

Imagine that the capital stock of society produces a profit of 10%. Assume that 20% of this profit is consumed in orgies, hookers and blow by evil capitalists. The other 80% is reinvested, because evil capitalists like to make money. This vast bulk of this productive capacity is aimed, inarguably, at the masses. For example, far more productive capacity and labor is employed creating Fords and Toyotas than Bugattis and Ferraris.

The capital stock grows at a rate of 8% per annum. After 10 years, the productive capacity of society will have grown by almost 116%.

Now imagine that in an attempt to redistribute the opportunities for hookers and blow, 25% of what would have been reinvested is diverted into public hookers and blow programs for the masses. This leaves the capital stock growing at a rate of 6% per year. After ten years, the capital stock has only grown by 79%. That is almost a 70% loss of accumulated capital, i.e. productive capacity. Society is drastically poorer. The general public is drastically poorer, in absolute terms of standard of living.

These particular numbers are aribtrary. I made them up. The time frame does not matter. The point is that eventually, by attacking the accumulation of capital that forms the basis of productivity, society must inevitably suffer drastic material privation in comparison to what might have been.

[West]

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The only way to secure equal "levels" of opportunity would be to return all of civilization to prehuman barbarism.

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Not to agree or disagree with your statement, but I wasn't suggesting that we do this. I simply said that:

"I'd argue that all things being equal, each person on the planet "deserves" the same opportunities and considerations as everyone else."

and you said:

"I'd [subjectively assert] that all things being equal, each person on the planet "deserves" the same opportunities and considerations as everyone else . . ."

And I said, no, that is not just a subjective assertion.

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Differences in "levels of opportunity" are the accumulated result of voluntary decisions by individual human beings.

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Are you suggesting that it doesn't matter where your born, who your parents are, etc. etc. etc.?? To quote the "philosopher" Everlast, "You know where it ends, it usually depends on where you start."

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Luckily, unlike poker, civilization is not zero sum. Human beings do not fight like animals in competition to consume finite resources. Rather, their self-interest drives them to use their reason to expand the supply of goods to others, benefitting everyone. One man's gain is positively other men's gain.

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To whatever degree this is true, I would just say that sometimes one man's gain is other men's loss as well.

The rest of your post I have no desire to debate. I didn't think I was "attacking the accumulated capital that underlies the productivity of civilization". I'm not an economist, but it sounds to me like another overly simplistic sales pitch for trickle down economics.

[Borodog]

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The only way to secure equal "levels" of opportunity would be to return all of civilization to prehuman barbarism.

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Not to agree or disagree with your statement, but I wasn't suggesting that we do this.

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That was not in response to you. It was addressed to sweetjazz.

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I simply said that:

"I'd argue that all things being equal, each person on the planet "deserves" the same opportunities and considerations as everyone else."

and you said:

"I'd [subjectively assert] that all things being equal, each person on the planet "deserves" the same opportunities and considerations as everyone else . . ."

And I said, no, that is not just a subjective assertion.

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And I explained why, of course, it is.

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Differences in "levels of opportunity" are the accumulated result of voluntary decisions by individual human beings.

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Are you suggesting that it doesn't matter where your born, who your parents are, etc. etc. etc.?? To quote the "philosopher" Everlast, "You know where it ends, it usually depends on where you start."

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No. Are you being deliberately obtuse? I made it explicitly clear that it does matter, which is why the idea that everyone "deserves equal opportunity," a physical impossibility, is meaningless.

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Luckily, unlike poker, civilization is not zero sum. Human beings do not fight like animals in competition to consume finite resources. Rather, their self-interest drives them to use their reason to expand the supply of goods to others, benefitting everyone. One man's gain is positively other men's gain.

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To whatever degree this is true, I would just say that sometimes one man's gain is other men's loss as well.

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Of course. But human beings can use their reason to determine (if one's time horizon is long enough) that cooperation is in almost all cases the superior strategy. Conflict is costly (as much as Sklansky likes to postulate hyperbolic hypothetical cases of costless conflict and their obvious incentive to conflict), and social structures evolve to minimize costs.

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The rest of your post I have no desire to debate. I didn't think I was "attacking the accumulated capital that underlies the productivity of civilization". I'm not an economist, but it sounds to me like another overly simplistic sales pitch for trickle down economics.

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Typical. Can't rebutt an argument? Give it a pejorative name and dismiss it.

[West]

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And I explained why, of course, it is.


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No, you sure didn't.

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Differences in "levels of opportunity" are the accumulated result of voluntary decisions by individual human beings.

[/ QUOTE ] Are you suggesting that it doesn't matter where your born, who your parents are, etc. etc. etc.?? To quote the "philosopher" Everlast, "You know where it ends, it usually depends on where you start."

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No. Are you being deliberately obtuse? I made it explicitly clear that it does matter, which is why the idea that everyone "deserves equal opportunity," a physical impossibility, is meaningless.

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I think you are being deliberately obtuse. This stuff about receiving equal "opportunity" or whatever we want to call it being a physical impossibility is ridiculous, and there probably aren't two people on this forum who can't see what sweetjazz tried to explain to you.

As to the rest, I'm not trying to "rebutt" it because it has nothing specifically to do with what I was talking about.