Laws against monopolistic practices. Or cartels.
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A Philosophy Professor Discusses Ayn Rand in his Ethics Class
- Thread starter Sword of Apollo
- Start date
Laws against monopolistic practices. Or cartels.
And when monopolies or cartels occur, then what does the customer do?
You would have far more rights and opportunities to be a sociopathic bastard and force other people to suffer the consequences of Hobson's choice.
Pay the inflated price. Or start a competing company. Or do without whatever the monopoly/cartel is selling. Or (if the monopoly/cartel is not global) move to an area where there is no monopoly/cartel. Or (again, if the monopoly/cartel is not global) import the commodity from elsewhere.
It depends on the specifics of the scenario.
Often the option is pay, or starve.
And where would one go where there would be no cartels? They'd be everywhere.
Not really. Because everyone else has those same opportunities.
None of these lines of questioning actually provide any information about Objectivism. I've already conceaded that if you wanted to spend your time thinking about ways to harm people you will be able to. That said, this holds true for all systems, and with equal ease when you bother to put the same amount of effort into it. This is nothing more than you applying different rules to Objectivism.
Why would they be everywhere? Any time a cartel appeared a greedy merchant could make a killing by undercutting said cartel. Are are we assuming that merchants can be greedy enough to screw over poor people, but not greedy enough to screw over each other?
Kevin_Lowe
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You act like it's a surprise for a discussion with an Objectivist to turn into a "no it doesn't"/"yes it does" scenario, which is weird.
It's how it always goes. The Objectivist unloads their cargo of bizarre defensive assertions, which collectively assert that absolutely all social mechanisms to prevent or deter the abuse of economic power have utterly failed to work despite the plain evidence of history, and then refuses to budge.
At that point you can try to educate someone who has an enormous emotional investment in not being educated about, say, the history of the labour movement, or you can make fun of them for a while and walk away.
Dinwar has made arguments that it doesn't increase risks - unfortunately there are plenty of examples throughout history with systems that were *more* objectivist than now. Just asking "what would I do in an objectivist society if I were an amoral sociopath with a lot of money?" also suggests loads of problems that are recognised and controlled (albeit with differing levels of success) in modern western countries.
Do tell.
Debt bondage in India
Truck acts in the UK (see associated truck systems)
Factory acts in the UK
are three that spring immediately to mind.
Many of the robber baron industrialists tended to use illegal methods as well as legal, so I am not counting them.
Truck acts in the UK (see associated truck systems)
Factory acts in the UK
are three that spring immediately to mind.
Many of the robber baron industrialists tended to use illegal methods as well as legal, so I am not counting them.
In what way are/were those cultures "more Objectivist"?
What situation made it so that the only other option was starvation?
They were poor
Humans have been poor for most of history, so I'm not sure how "they were poor" answer the question of "why was their only other option starvation"?
Because other people owned the land. Tenant farmers who were evicted had little option but to look for work and take whatever was offered.
"Little option"? I thought they had no option?
And how were they evicted? If they were tenants then they should have had some rights too (unless we're talking about a system that isn't all THAT close to Objectivism).
Is it the case then that the objectivist solution to local monopolies, wage slavery, debt bondage and so forth is that people should run away from their debts, take their no money, and family and try and start again somewhere else?
It might help if you read the thread.