Ayn Rand speaks to Mike Wallace, 1959

[ponderingturtle]

That's EXACTLY her point, actually- that's why she doesn't think that charity is a moral duty. In a society, though, where your need automatically becomes a claim on other people, not only is it considered good to rely on other people, but government will actively insist that those with ability provide services to those with need.

So you get to shaft society and get its benefits? That is the hight of morality. Of course EMS can do wonderful things like force you to sign your house over to them, as they have no requirement to treat you so don't get seriously sick you will lose everything.

Actually, no, that's the best position to be in a socialist society. As long as you claim a great need, you can take all you want from the able in society. Screw those dumb enough to produce- just seize all you can from the producers!

Wrong. You see you do not have to claim it, society has to recognize it. But that is obviously to complex. If people can't support themselves and no one wants to pay for them they deserve to die. That is the philosophy, period.

Life has no value, only property has value and no one can force anyone to do anything preserve someone else's life. So you can not force treatment for people who can not pay, that would be the hight of immorality, much more so than watching someone die when you can treat them. That is not a fundamentally immoral action, by Ayn is it?

Say, for example, that after many years of difficult research I come across a cure for cancer, free of side effects. I then charge a few thousand dollars for each dose. You would probably claim I was an evil, greedy capitalist, and you want to nationalize the drug, providing it for free for everyone that couldn't afford it.

No no no, you have to charge each person everything they have, as you have the cure and they need it. Supply and demand dictates that, you have the only supply and they have all the demand.

Here's my question, though. I produced that drug for profit, I put that work into it- what right do you have to seize it? You're effectively saying that all the work and money I had put into it was rightfully yours. Now, in a society that can do this, only the suckers would produce anything. By far, the best thing to be is a leech. Like I said, screw those dumb enough to produce.

You are so right we need hospitals in this country to wait until they verify the bank accounts of everyone before treatment, then toss the bastards who do not have enough resources to make it sufficiently profitable.

 

[Earthborn]

Make sense?

No. Does everyone need to take the pill in order for one of them to die and save two others? Or does everyone who takes the pill die and save two others?

 

[Admiral]

So you get to shaft society and get its benefits? That is the hight of morality. Of course EMS can do wonderful things like force you to sign your house over to them, as they have no requirement to treat you so don't get seriously sick you will lose everything.




Wrong. You see you do not have to claim it, society has to recognize it. But that is obviously to complex. If people can't support themselves and no one wants to pay for them they deserve to die. That is the philosophy, period.

Life has no value, only property has value and no one can force anyone to do anything preserve someone else's life. So you can not force treatment for people who can not pay, that would be the hight of immorality, much more so than watching someone die when you can treat them. That is not a fundamentally immoral action, by Ayn is it?


No no no, you have to charge each person everything they have, as you have the cure and they need it. Supply and demand dictates that, you have the only supply and they have all the demand.

How'd I get the supply, ponderingturtle? You seem to believe it appeared from some miracle.

You are so right we need hospitals in this country to wait until they verify the bank accounts of everyone before treatment, then toss the bastards who do not have enough resources to make it sufficiently profitable.

Here's a question- which system would you prefer, one in which everyone was guaranteed health care, or one in which only people who could afford health care got it?

You'd answer, in a heartbeat, "one in which everyone was guaranteed health care." It seems like the obvious choice.

But what does that actually mean, everyone's guaranteed health care regardless of their ability to pay? From the doctor's perspective, it means that whatever he charges, he'll get the same number of patients.

Imagine you ran a steakhouse. Like steakhouses today, you provide steak for people that can afford it, and don't to people that can't afford it. However, imagine there were a government program that stated that if someone couldn't afford steak, the government would pay for whatever the price of the steak was. What would you do?

Obviously, you'd set the price of the steak as high as you wanted- say $10,000. After all, you were keeping the price low so that people would come to the restaurant, but the government has the mantra that "Regardless of cost, everyone deserves a steak." Everyone could still afford steak, since the government was picking up the tab, but you've just taken millions from taxpayers. Plans to provide something universally cause prices to rise.

There are other variations of plans, and each backfires in its own special way. Maybe you force doctors to keep their prices low (and therefore discourage doctors from entering the business, causing a shortage). Maybe you force hospitals to take people regardless of their ability to pay (meaning no one would want to build a hospital in a poor neighborhood- you're hurting the people you wanted to help). What exactly is your plan?

 

[Earthborn]

As long as you claim a great need, you can take all you want from the able in society.

More like: as long as you can convince others that you have a great need. It is not enough to just claim it; if no one believes you, you would get nothing.

Say, for example, that after many years of difficult research I come across a cure for cancer, free of side effects. I then charge a few thousand dollars for each dose. You would probably claim I was an evil, greedy capitalist, and you want to nationalize the drug, providing it for free for everyone that couldn't afford it.

Far more likely (as that's the kind of thing that actually happens) is that governments all over the world will fall over themselves trying to buy it from you for a few thousand dollars for each dose, to provide it for free to their populations, and you would be more than happy to sell it to those governments as you know that if you need to sell it directly to patients who can afford it, you'll sell a whole heck of a lot less.

 

[Admiral]

More like: as long as you can convince others that you have a great need. It is not enough to just claim it; if no one believes you, you would get nothing.

That's still a serious problem. Socialists reward people for how good a liar they are, and (most importantly) how much "pull" you have in the government.

Look at Robert Byrd, the "King of Pork" senator from West Virginia. He's very good at what he does, which is steer federal money towards his state by whatever means he can. Is this the great hero of leftism, men who can seize money in backroom deals and graft?

Far more likely (as that's the kind of thing that actually happens) is that governments all over the world will fall over themselves trying to buy it from you for a few thousand dollars for each dose, to provide it for free to their populations, and you would be more than happy to sell it to those governments as you know that if you need to sell it directly to patients who can afford it, you'll sell a whole heck of a lot less.

Actually, that's true. Where'd that money come from?

 

[Earthborn]

Obviously, you'd set the price of the steak as high as you wanted- say $10,000.

That of course assumes that the government will continue to cover the costs for your steaks no matter how high the price, but that is of course silly. One would expect that there will be more than enough other steakhouses that demand less money from the government.

Plans to provide something universally cause prices to rise.

If that was true, then it is a mystery why countries with universal healthcare consistently provide cheaper healthcare at similar or better quality.

Maybe you force doctors to keep their prices low (and therefore discourage doctors from entering the business, causing a shortage).

Maybe they are 'forced' to keep their prices low (actually, "their unions negotiate lower prices with the health insurance system" would be a better description) but they would also have more patients.

Maybe you force hospitals to take people regardless of their ability to pay (meaning no one would want to build a hospital in a poor neighborhood- you're hurting the people you wanted to help).

So according to you poor neighbourhoods have lots of hospitals that no one in those neighbourhoods can afford to go to, and those hospitals will close when everyone in those neighbourhoods is insured and the hospitals guaranteed their pay?

 

[Admiral]

That of course assumes that the government will continue to cover the costs for your steaks no matter how high the price, but that is of course silly. One would expect that there will be more than enough other steakhouses that demand less money from the government.

So you're agreeing that competition is good for the health care industry. That's true.

If that was true, then it is a mystery why countries with universal healthcare consistently provide cheaper healthcare at similar or better quality.

I guess you're ignoring the long waitlists for doctors in Canada. Or the ridiculously high tax rates that support European health care.

Maybe they are 'forced' to keep their prices low (actually, "their unions negotiate lower prices with the health insurance system" would be a better description) but they would also have more patients.

I don't exactly understand. If keeping prices low gets companies more profits, they're going to do it anyway and government is irrelevant. (One thing we don't disagree on is that these hospitals really want to make money). If you're holding the price lower than the hospital would set it, you're lowering the profit they're making. (To claim otherwise is to claim that the hospitals aren't interested in making money, and that government has to force them to. I don't think you're making that claim).

So according to you poor neighbourhoods have lots of hospitals that no one in those neighbourhoods can afford to go to, and those hospitals will close when everyone in those neighbourhoods is insured and the hospitals guaranteed their pay?

You're mixing up the plans I was talking about. I was referring to any sort of system that mandates hospitals provide free health care to people that can't afford it, NOT systems that insure them. (Those have different problems).

For example, laws requiring hospitals to provide free clinics sound great, but they do discourage building hospitals in areas where people would use these free clinics.

 

[Earthborn]

Socialists reward people for how good a liar they are,

After all, if someone claims to be in great need, no one in the government ever checks whether that is true...

and (most importantly) how much "pull" you have in the government.

Now you are talking about another group of people entirely. And this is hardly unique of "Socialism" or whatever Libertarians like to claim is socialism. It is an integral part of every political system. Can you envision a system where a one's influence in the government is unrelated to a one's influence in the government? I can't.

Look at Robert Byrd, the "King of Pork" senator from West Virginia. He's very good at what he does, which is steer federal money towards his state by whatever means he can. Is this the great hero of leftism, men who can seize money in backroom deals and graft?

If you what you say is true, then no. "Leftists" generally hate that sort of thing. Of course it seems to me that he manage to steer federal money towards his state for public works, and "leftists" certainly love public works. Everybody loves public works.

Actually, that's true. Where'd that money come from?

From taxes or from mandatory insurance premiums.

 

[mumblethrax]

No. Does everyone need to take the pill in order for one of them to die and save two others? Or does everyone who takes the pill die and save two others?

The latter, provided that such a situation arises.

 

[Earthborn]

Or the ridiculously high tax rates that support European health care.

Of course those European countries spend less tax money on healthcare than the United States does.

I don't exactly understand. If keeping prices low gets companies more profits, they're going to do it anyway and government is irrelevant.

But they may not be able to keep the prices low enough that everyone can afford it.

If you're holding the price lower than the hospital would set it, you're lowering the profit they're making.

Only if the number of patients remains the same, but that is not the case. If more patients can afford to be treated by the hospital because they are covered by the healthsystem, the hospital will get more patients and the hospital may make more 'profit' than if it had to sell its services at the higher price to fewer patients.

You're mixing up the plans I was talking about. I was referring to any sort of system that mandates hospitals provide free health care to people that can't afford it, NOT systems that insure them.

Universal healthcare is the system that insures them. Nobody in their right mind would mandate hospitals to provide free healthcare to people who can't afford it and not pay those hospitals for the healthcare provided.

 

[Admiral]

After all, if someone claims to be in great need, no one in the government ever checks whether that is true...

You've never heard of welfare fraud?


How much money you get depends on how good you are at faking your need by whatever standard the government demands. Or, better yet, actually BE in need. That's what we should encourage in society.

I'm not one of those jerks who complains about how lucky people on welfare are, or makes generalizations about poor people being lazy. I do know, on the other hand, that if you provide incentives, people tend to respond to them.

Now you are talking about another group of people entirely. And this is hardly unique of "Socialism" or whatever Libertarians like to claim is socialism. It is an integral part of every political system. Can you envision a system where a one's influence in the government is unrelated to a one's influence in the government? I can't.

That's an interesting attitude. "Corruption is an integral part of any government." I wholeheartedly agree.

That's why I'm pushing towards a system where government has LESS power! The best way to make influence in government irrelevant is to make government (nearly) irrelevant! As soon as you say that government should be able to subsidize private companies, you create whole lobbying industries that efficiently suck money into their special interests.

The more focused the government's roles (in my view, on justice and national defense alone), the less ability people have to abuse it.

If you what you say is true, then no. "Leftists" generally hate that sort of thing. Of course it seems to me that he manage to steer federal money towards his state for public works, and "leftists" certainly love public works. Everybody loves public works.

My apologies for the term "leftist," if you're offended by it. I simply don't like using the word "liberal," since liberal used to mean what libertarianism does today (see the term "classical liberal"). It referred to people that were opposed to the growth of government.

I also don't like the term "statist" which is popular among libertarians. Since I don't like imposing labels on people I'm arguing against. It's like when creationists call evolution believers "Darwinists," as if making it sound like a religion made it a religion.

Anyway, from here on out I'll just say "liberal," if that's what you'd prefer. (Of course, this sometimes leads to the accusation that I'm turning "liberal" into a dirty word or somesuch, which is not my intention).

Back to the topic. "Everybody loves public works?" I certainly don't. You can try to paint me as "being against parks" or somesuch, but that's beside the point. Here's one of my main problems with public works:

Imagine a restaurant (yes, I have a whole slew of "imagine a restaurant" analogies) where each night, the bill is totaled up and divided among everyone.

Now, if I were paying for my own food, I'd probably just have a sandwich and water. That costs me $10. I could have more expensive stuff, but I want to save my money.

However, in this restaurant where the bill is shared, you get rewarded for gluttony. If there are 100 diners, then for each additional dollar you spend, you only lose one cent. Maybe you order the steak. Maybe you order an appetizer. Maybe you get the most expensive champagne on the menu, and maybe it all adds up to $100. Hey, I'm not paying for it!

Now, imagine you're across the restaurant. You're an honest and unselfish person, and it's not as though you need more than your $10 meal... but still, I'm over across the room with the rest of the gluttons, eating huge meals at your expense. You'd be a sucker NOT to get a $100 meal.

So, since everyone in this restaurant is punished if they're frugal, and since getting loads of expensive food is almost costless to them, everyone ends up with a $100 meal, and everyone pays $100. That's fair, right? Except... hold on, all I wanted was a sandwich!

When you have a situation like Congress, where the government freely reallocates money from state to state, you end up with the opposite of the free rider paradox, which is the sucker paradox. Atlanta might not want or need a subway system, but hey, they paid for subway systems in Cleveland, and Houston, and Seattle- they're entitled to their own! Does San Francisco need $200 million to build a new park? Well, Boston, Baltimore, and Miami all got parks, so San Francisco should get its turn at the trough!

What gets forgotten in this process is where all that wealth came from. It came from taxes that prevented people from opening new businesses, and taxes that discouraged people from working for difficult promotions. Liberals don't like to think about where taxes came from- but that's the fallacy of looking at the immediately obvious (we built this public works project) and ignoring the unseen (taxes discouraged growth and development).

Like Bastiat said, "Government is the great fiction by which everybody attempts to live at the expense of everyone else."

From taxes or from mandatory insurance premiums.

Exactly. So you're saying, "It's not that government would seize what you produce, necessarily... they'd just seize what OTHER people produce and pay you with that!"

 

[ponderingturtle]

How'd I get the supply, ponderingturtle? You seem to believe it appeared from some miracle.

Forethought. You see your ability to shop around in a medical emergency is very limited. So if the you have the only supply that the sick person has any access to.

You can not shop around in an emergency. So it restricts the available supply, while increasing the demand. So any drug should cost a massive amount more in an emergency life saving basis than it would in a more long term basis.

Here's a question- which system would you prefer, one in which everyone was guaranteed health care, or one in which only people who could afford health care got it?

You'd answer, in a heartbeat, "one in which everyone was guaranteed health care." It seems like the obvious choice.

But what does that actually mean, everyone's guaranteed health care regardless of their ability to pay? From the doctor's perspective, it means that whatever he charges, he'll get the same number of patients.

Wrong. No system of universal health care works like that. You are making so many assumptions beyond what is needed here that you don't have an idea what you are even doing.

Imagine you ran a steakhouse. Like steakhouses today, you provide steak for people that can afford it, and don't to people that can't afford it. However, imagine there were a government program that stated that if someone couldn't afford steak, the government would pay for whatever the price of the steak was. What would you do?

Wow what a straw man. The system would be more like the government says you must provide steak to everyone at a set rate of reimbursement. You no longer have the ability to set your own prices. Now how many people come to you will depend on other things than money, and that will effect what money you make.

This largely what private insurance does anyway in this country, it is just that instead of the say $800 payment that the insurance companies make if you have no insurance you get to make the $3000 payment. Capitalism at work there.

Obviously, you'd set the price of the steak as high as you wanted- say $10,000. After all, you were keeping the price low so that people would come to the restaurant, but the government has the mantra that "Regardless of cost, everyone deserves a steak." Everyone could still afford steak, since the government was picking up the tab, but you've just taken millions from taxpayers. Plans to provide something universally cause prices to rise.

Ah so this is once again the fact that universal coverage must cost more, even if it does not in the real world. Damn you reality for getting your facts wrong.

There are other variations of plans, and each backfires in its own special way. Maybe you force doctors to keep their prices low (and therefore discourage doctors from entering the business, causing a shortage). Maybe you force hospitals to take people regardless of their ability to pay (meaning no one would want to build a hospital in a poor neighborhood- you're hurting the people you wanted to help). What exactly is your plan?

I see that you live in libertopia and have no connection to the real world other than in internet connection.

 

[Cain]

Actually, what you're offering is similar to a complaint Rand mentions in Atlas Shrugged: to paraphrase, that an altruistic society rewards those who disobey it, and punishes those who obey it.

Which strikes me as empty rhetoric. If an altruistic society rewards those who disobey it, then it seems like an environment hospitable to the selfish as it ripe for exploitation.

In the earlier Infidels post, and I've touched upon it here, I made the further distinction between universal ethical egoism and individual ethical egoism. The universal ethical egoist says everyone should be act in his or her own self-interests, and then this will be to the benefit of everyone (basic Adam Smith). This does not apply in the above thought experiment, which is basically the prisoner's dilemma. The optimal strategy for the group would be for everyone to take the pill. The optimal strategy for the individual would be for everyone else to take the pill. The worst possible outcome for the group is that nobody takes the pill. So there's an inconsistency here where it's in one's narrow self-interests to act against enlightened self-interest.

An individual egoist sheds the veneer of egalitarianism and contends her own self-interests matter more than others. This character makes moral arguments for free-riding, unless free-riding does not personally benefit her. In other words, this person thinks she ought to be the one not to take the pill, as this is the most optimal strategy available to her. This highlights what's philosophically wrong with egoism in general: what makes YOU so special? What kind of neutral, rational disinterested argument can you make to show your interests matter more?

The individual egoist is also spared of adopting Rand's rather nutty view that "rational self-interests" are never in conflict. I think in _VoS_ she gives the example of two men pursuing the same job, and then provides some rationalization for why it's not against the interests of one to be rejected.

Rand would say no.

While I'm not adamantly opposed to it, I would be skeptical of such a tax, for a variety of reasons. One is that foreign aid is inevitably seized by corrupt governments (or, for that matter, by corrupt members of our own government- look at where Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 relief money went). Another reason is that governments always like to declare a state of emergency, or (their favorite) a state of war, in order to infringe on people's rights. The War on Terror is one example, but so is the War on Drugs.

In this case, I have a serious question- how long exactly is this emergency supposed to last? Is there an "exit strategy"?

Those are reasonable concerns, but I think it highlights the difference in moral premises. Of course everyone would be opposed to foreign aid if they believed it did more harm than good. What people often leave out is that your empirical view is crucially influenced by your moral point of view. If you think it's illegitimate for governments to tax or regulate emissions, then you're going to be less likely to believe in global warming. If you're opposed to taxes in general on moral grounds, then you're going to be more likely to think the government spending is wasteful.

In the moral sphere the more interesting arguments assume otherwise in order to thunder a principle of morality. In the above quote I cited against BPSCG, Rand essentially said let's assume other systems are more efficient. It doesn't matter because they're still unjust. So in the case of foreign aid, can we consider transfers illegitimate? I agree Rand would probably say that they are but it's difficult to think of a more pressing humanitarian concern.

The philosopher Peter Unger has some famously provocative examples indicating our morality says we should contribute to famine relief even though we do not. We're essentially tribal, glorified apes, and so our brains are not trained to respond to things happening far, far away.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I guess you're ignoring the long waitlists for doctors in Canada. Or the ridiculously high tax rates that support European health care.

But Americans pay more on a per capita basis for health care. That is a simple fact. So why is it that these systems that must be more expensive are not in the real world? Where is the savings our capitalistic system gives us?

 

[ponderingturtle]

Universal healthcare is the system that insures them. Nobody in their right mind would mandate hospitals to provide free healthcare to people who can't afford it and not pay those hospitals for the healthcare provided.

Well no one ever claimed that the US government was in its right mind. And you have the funny bankrupsies because people can not afford their health care bills, those are always good for a laugh.

 

[mhaze]

I read Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead. I watched the Fountainhead movie. My dog's name is Cooper because I let my dad name him and he named him after his favorite movie actor. Ayn Rand is brilliant, but her writing is stilted.

I watched the Mike Wallace interview that started this thread. I believe Ayn Rand is brilliant but I don't agree with much of what she says. I do believe she would have been the Holy Grail of a naughty woman who needed a spanking. She is exponentially smarter than I am. She would have been indignent while over my knee. Naughty Ayn over my knee. It might have happened

hehehehehehe....

the Holy Grail of a naughty woman who needed a spanking.

that should be investigated by skeptics.

 

[mhaze]

I
---
As for Rand on emergency situations, consider the fact that some 50,000 people will die today from malnourishment and poverty related diseases. Can we justifiably impose a tax on people in rich countries to stave off death (that is, until those countries get enough laissez-faire capitalism ). This seems to constitute an emergency.

No, Rand would argue the corruption and imprecision from the tax would be far worse than the deaths. She would probably have gone further and argued that if you go down that road, the 50k goes up, not down. (More typos from tablet pc!)

 

[ponderingturtle]

Anyone have an idea about what she would actualy have thought about using emergencies to extort people?

 

[hgc]

That's still a serious problem. Socialists reward people for how good a liar they are, and (most importantly) how much "pull" you have in the government.

Look at Robert Byrd, the "King of Pork" senator from West Virginia. He's very good at what he does, which is steer federal money towards his state by whatever means he can. Is this the great hero of leftism, men who can seize money in backroom deals and graft?

Government collects money and re-distributes it through spending. In the US, all domestic spending lands in one of 50 states (+ some other territories). Byrd is good at getting some decent portion of that into West Virginia. That's what all 535 of them are supposed to do. That's what their constituents elect them for. Is Byrd corrupt? Perhaps, and if so, he should be hectored for that specifically (with evidence).

But what you really don't like is the role of government, period. That goes for all the Randians, libertarians and other flavors of right-wing anarchism. You just label it "Socialist" or "leftist" because that must get the blood flowing, or something. Does Socialism reward liars any more than any other socio-political ideology? Do leftists like to get their hands on government spending any more than rightists do? Poppycock!

 

[mhaze]

Anyone have an idea about what she would actualy have thought about using emergencies to extort people?

The question seems unclear. Is the issue of an ambulance driver-capitalist who would charge ripoff sums to take a person to the hospital, or of a society that would extort taxes on the basis of some emergency the solution of which was alleged to be for the common good (eg., say global warming)?