“If you investigate further into Rand’s moral system, you will see the full grandeur of her project: of tracing capitalist politics down to egoistic moral ethics, then down to objective epistemology, then down to rational and volitional human nature, and finally all the way to objective metaphysics.”

Sounds like the rise of die Ubermann or something from a fateful speech at Nuremberg.
I *can* comment on this next one.

“All trade is a collaboration, between two individuals or corporations to *mutual* benefit, provided both are well-informed and honest.”

Fair enough. Agreed, with the constraint that “well informed and honest” means this rarely occurs in the real world. If the author was “well informed and honest”, he would acknowledge a high level of extortion exits in practice. If he does not possess these two attributes, then there is no “mutual benefit” to be had in trading with him.

“It may not take a lot to be a janitor, or a 16-year-old student working at McDonald’s, but both are able to make money, and even a living, because the hiring company has a use for them. And still, both parties benefit! And, your property (money) is not taken to support them.”

Everybody’s property is taken to support businesses and corporations, however. Capitalism treats our common heritage, the gifts of nature, providence and culture, as if they are a private creation, a personal property belonging to very few. Natural resources include not only every material and energy input used to satisfy human needs, but also the wastes polluting, despoiling and corrupting the living and geophysical systems of our unique planet.
“Any government intervention in that relationship necessarily undermines it. Minimum wage laws, for example, make it more difficult for the company to hire such people and they may assign the work to an existing employee. This shuts out the very people capitalism could most help.”

When “industry” pays every person for their share of sustainably managed natural resources used in conducting their business, every person will receive a basic income, or minimum wage providing a minimal ration of the necessities of life. Given a basic income means that workers are no longer enslaved to buy back the resources stolen from them, I would concede that there should be no requirement for minimum wage laws. Indeed, people should be allowed to work voluntarily for non-monetary reward, if they so desire.

“Let me give you an example of capitalism at play in China. Are you aware that China is the largest consumer and producer of tobacco. More than 70% of its economy depends on tobacco, not withstanding its huge exports. Chinese government does not want to ban cigarettes or any regulation what so ever on the tobacco industry because it will destabilize its economy. As a result, china is heading towards a huge health crisis. This is what I can unfettered capitalism at its worse.”

I can’t believe that 70% figure. It is insanely impossible. It totally destroys the credibility of this anti-capitalist commentator.

“You are wrong in calling China an unfettered capitalist state. In fact, it is diametrically the opposite. It’s a State corporation–a command economy, with a small but powerful group of Party bureaucrats taking the major national decisions.”

So China has already reached the pinnacle of corporate capitalism! Did these guys never play Monopoly? The biggest corporation always wins. China Inc hopes to beat the other command economies, er, transnational corporations, at their own game. It would be a hopeless dream for any individual starting this late in the game. By failing to heed the warnings of Adam Smith and others, we are at the stage where the individual is being assimilated into the global corporate collective.

“As far as a health crisis goes, usually the problem is that the government is left footing the bill, and therefore it deems it necessary to control people’s lives in order to reduce its costs. But government should not be in the health care business any more than it should be in the tobacco business, and should not be telling people what to do to avert a crisis of its own making (because it should not be providing health care in the first place). So really, the problem is not capitalism, but the areas where capitalism is *not* in operation, such as government-provided health care.”

This guy has fully rationalised his drug dealing enterprises. If people are stupid then let them all die! Plenty more suckers where they came from. The Nanny State should get out of the road traffic business too. No traffic lights, stop signs, pedestrian crossings, speed restrictions nor road rules, for that matter. It is a basic violation of human rights to tell people what side of the road to drive on or how fast. In fact there should be no public roads, they should all be private property with “keep out” signs and automated machine guns for those who don’t pay the demanded fees. Road maintenance will be unnecessary because most vehicles will evolve quite naturally into military tanks, to help drivers resolve disputes such as who goes first. If its not already private property, its mine, or it doesn’t exist!

“In fact, under true capitalism, the pollution of rivers and air that is now commonly cited as a failure of capitalism would have never occurred, because there would be laws to properly protect private property (and most or all property would be privately owned).

If damage due to global warming can be scientifically proven in a court of law, then damages should be awarded to the plaintiff to compensate for it. On a global scale, governments should permit such lawsuits to be filed by foreigners. The problem as I see it is that most societies have totally lost sight of a just notion of what such damage means, are either beholden to corporations or are hostile to the, and would therefore either be too lenient or too harsh, for example by awarding damages where no real damage had actually occurred. But, that’s the risk. That is the method that would be applied under laissez-faire.”

Of course. I see. All natural resources would be privately owned. Like I said, if its not already private property, its mine! The atmosphere, the oceans, the sun, moon and stars, all mine, mine, mine – or else you will all get nuked! So shut up. I’m the craziest bastard the planet has ever known. It is all mine, mine mine – or I’ll blow it all up! – so you can’t have any of it. I will do it too – I will – just try me.

Sign all the legal stuff by 5pm on Friday or there’ll be no more weekends for anybody. Yep. Private property is the way to go – for everything. Suits me just fine.

OK. Well, thank you governments of the world. I knew you’d see sense. As owner of the atmosphere, I instruct you to cease dumping your waste into my property forthwith. You can expect to be sued for past pollution and, not only that, I demand restitution. You will remove the last 150 years of accumulated greenhouse gas emissions over the period of the next ten years, otherwise you will forfeit all your lands as well as the planets oceans. As you can see, by serving my own interest, I am promoting interests of society in general.

Oh no! Now I read that same old climate change denial claptrap. Must have got a high score in catechism class, this one. Another borg assimilated into the corporate collective.

R2
(beware of imitations)

That means if I’m interested in writing poetry or playing music or building kites or gardening, then there should be nobody impeding the pursuit of my interest.

Note that Smith also say “frequently” not “always”, because some people, unfortunately, have interests which interfere with the rights and freedoms of others. Capitalists, for example, “who affect trade for the public good” belong to the category described as “I have never known much good done.”

Quoting Smith as if he supported the “privatisation”, appropriation and control of natural resources by force, and the subsequent establishment of corrupt property rights designed to maintain the power and privilege of thieves, is an abomination comparable with using Jesus Christ as an incitement to hatred, war and violence.

Rather than maximising competition, capitalism constantly works to eliminate it by concentrating wealth and power, working ever onwards towards monopoly. “Ownership” of the gifts of nature bestows the right to deny access to those “resources” and therefore brings the power to extort the rest of the population who may need to access the resource. The game of 100% capitalism would have to start every newborn with an identical share of equally accessible natural resources – air, water, minerals, energy and land of equivalent productive capacity – but the idea of imposing any rules destroys the very notion of 100% capitalism. Any system of rules would mean the game requires a government. The system would need a state to protect the collective interest of the people – at the very least, to prevent the “winner takes all” dynamic of capitalism, running too fast towards its logical conclusion of “game over”.

R2

These two beliefs are apparently incompatible. If “self-interest in economics translates into widespread societal benefits” then it cannot be true that societal benefits are being undermined by as self-interest induced ecological crisis.

“http://www.aynrandbookstore2.com/prodinfo.asp?number=AR21B” without the double quote marks/

R

The key is to distinguish the fundamental (what really matters) from the derivative (what contributes little or nothing, as against the fundamental). BTW that is an important aspect of Ayn Rand’s epistemology.

Yet another fundamental is that 1000 years ago the climate of Scotland was the same as that of Southern France. Think about that! Scotland had vineyards, and produced wine. The Norwegians (Eric the Red, and Leif Erickson) sailed to Greenland and found verdant valleys and shorelines that were suitable for habitation. Imagine how far back the Glaciers must have melted. Imagine how little ice there must have been in the Arctic Ocean… certainly far less than there is today. Heck, the Polar Bears made it through the whole thing!

Archana, my dear, none of your concerns about Laissez Faire (there is no other kind) Capitalism and Global Warming are not well founded. They are echoes of the politiks of Karl Marx and the evil view of Man, (altruist) morality, and subjectivism (irrational epistemology) of Immanuel Kant. Kant and Hume still dominate University schools of thought, to the intellectual destruction of students around the World.

Although reading Ayn Rand’s works can be trying for some, she offers the only true antidote to the poison Kant and his ilk promulgate. Start with the key fiction works (The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged) then delve into the non-fiction. I suggest “Philosophy: Who Needs It?”, then “Capitalism The Unknown Ideal” and “For the New Intellectual”. The latter is awesome because Galt’s Speech (from Atlas Shrugged) is presented apart from the plot of Atlas. Suddenly it is a statement of fact, that cannot be denied. That separation, from Plot, enables one’s mind to actually face the ideas as matters of reality, rather than as matters of the storyline. It was, to me, stunning.

I hope that you, Archana, experience the same impact. You are clearly, to me, a bright mind and honest thinker. If you take the route I suggest, you will have an opportunity to use your mind, in an introspective sense, that you have never previously experienced.

How much I wish you the best in that particular endeavor. I hope you will post new and profound thoughts in the near future. Great minds, over all of the trillion(s) of humans who have existed are rare. May you be one of them.

I think I will throw in a couple more points, now that I am here.

You wrote:
the manufacturers did not pass on the benefit to the customers and instead chose to increase their profit margins.

Think what that decision by the auto manufacturers actually means. They decided that they had an opportunity to pass on their gains to their investors. Were it not for their investors they could not survive very long. Their investors a) serve as a buffer between good and bad times, and b) as a warning if the company is really doing something unproductive. Thousands of investors benefit from choosing the most rational and productive, in a monetary sense, company. The company is not in the business of charity. Charity is something a rational person does, with money (time etc) one has, that does not incur personal harm. The same is true of corporations. By maximizing profits, and by benefiting their investors, the auto companies are ensuring their ability to continue producing vehicles through the support of their investors. If their cars are still selling, then that is the right, morally right, decision.

The principle is: “the best way to help the poor is to not be one of them!” One’s economic actions in that respect accomplishes two things in a truly free market. First, it constitutes not make the choices that lead to failure and poverty. Second, it enables survival of a business that provides considerable value to its customers. In the latter case it enhances their lives. To enhance lives sacrificially is to ruin one/s own life and, subsequently, the lives of others.

On minimum wage, put yourself in the position of the employer, then think through how such a law forces his hand to alter his decisions. Aside from the obvious denial of liberty, consider the full consequences. What I have described is exactly what does happen, and is not a matter of idle opinion. When minimum wages are broadly applied to an economy the only consequence is harm to all concerned, with the greatest harm being done to those it seeks to help. Jobs become less available AND the cost of living goes up because employers must sell the services at higher prices. It’s basic.
One does not have a right to a job, or a right to some arbitrary pay scale. One only has a Right to Life, Liberty, Property and Pursuit of Happiness, Rights give a man freedom to act as he chooses so long as he does not undermine or take away the rights of others. The instant a government passes a law that favors one group of individuals, it reduces the Rights of those not so favored (who are taxed &/or limited in their actions). When that Pandora’s Box is opened Both sides of that zero-sum game ultimately lose, because no neither one is safe from the next state intervention.

The slave labor in China is not a consequence of capitalism, but of state requirement. Chinese struggle to get work with muli-national companies because the pay was/is so much better than is available anywhere else in their country. Only those families leeching off citizens via its privileged government bureaucracy did better. The privileged I refer to are those running the nation, its provinces, its counties, its cities, its towns and industries.

In fact, the removal of 1/3 or 1/2 of a man’s pay by taxation today is a more severe form of enslavement (in terms of economic theft) than was experienced by the slaves of the Southern States of America. The Black Slave family, freed, would have had to work all day on their little farm, to make food and clothes, and would have little else. As slaves they worked all day and were provided with food, clothing and shelter. Their ‘tax’ was less than an ordinary worker faces today. Slaves who had non-violent owners often preferred to stay with the owner!

Your tobacco statistics are wildly misleading. The 70% figure refers to the little South-west China province of Yunnan only. It is by far the poorest province of China, with a GDP per capita of only US$1,160. By comparison, Taiwan’s is ~US$25,000. Yes, the Chinese government cooperates with that industry otherwise the above stats would be even worse. But it does not signal the health costs you infer because a) much of the tobacco is traded to nearby countries such as Myanmar and, b) the Chinese, especially in such outlying areas, hardly get the kind of health care you are imagining.

Heed Jeff Montgomery, and also read some serious work on the nature of capitalism: Capitalism: the Unknown Idea by Ayn Rand is a great primer. Also, be a bit more skeptical of, and careful with, the facts and arguments you pick up from the media, and the Internet. Always ask, what contextual information may have been ignored? what if the opposite were true, how would things pan out? etc. Quite often the most emotional sounding issues, like slave labor, are quite the opposite of the activist mouthpieces claim & the media uncrtically accept as newsworthy.

Tort law.

There is already a considerable body of law devoted to how to compensate people for damages done to them, and this is another such case. Pollution and any ill effects of global warming (assuming the unlikely event that such damage can be proven) is no more permissible under capitalism than dumping garbage in front of someone’s home or taking an axe and ruining the outside of their house. In fact, under true capitalism, the pollution of rivers and air that is now commonly cited as a failure of capitalism would have never occurred, because there would be laws to properly protect private property (and most or all property would be privately owned).

If damage due to global warming can be scientifically proven in a court of law, then damages should be awarded to the plaintiff to compensate for it. On a global scale, governments should permit such lawsuits to be filed by foreigners. The problem as I see it is that most societies have totally lost sight of a just notion of what such damage means, are either beholden to corporations or are hostile to the, and would therefore either be too lenient or too harsh, for example by awarding damages where no real damage had actually occurred. But, that’s the risk. That is the method that would be applied under laissez-faire.