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"Francisco's Money Speech" by Ayn Rand

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Re: "Francisco's Money Speech" by Ayn Rand

#101

Post by randallsquared »

maxharris wrote: post #32
jacoblyles wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discuss morality with intelligent people, and study evolutionary psychology, and it will not take you long to realize that every moral system has some edge cases where obeying it will lead to stomach-turning results. Our moral intuitions are lumpy, inconsistent, and contradictory. This is to be expected because we were designed by blind evolution, and not by any sort of logical process. Ethical systems serve as great…

What about Objectivism leads to "stomach-turning results"? (Remember, I don't think we shouldn't worry about what the "average person feels is right"; we should worry about what is actually right.)

Even Ayn Rand didn't think that Objectivism was applicable to all situations; she said somewhere that lifeboat situations didn't count, and I think this applies more generally to all extreme situations: neither reason nor evolutionary psychology is guaranteed to help you decipher the ethics of actions in situations which are extremely unlikely to occur.

Re: "Francisco's Money Speech" by Ayn Rand

#102

Post by randallsquared »

turkishrevenge wrote: post #92
jfarmer wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ayn Rand was opposed to the labor theory of value, which is a central tenant of Marxism.

I would like to see how she would explain commodity valorization. If she does not subscribe to the Labor Theory of Value, how is that extra value imparted, if not from the labor (variable) acting on constant capital? It's a mistake to attribute it all to money. Even she say money is an expression of this value.

> how is that extra value imparted, if not from the labor (variable) acting on constant capital?

It depends on the value and the valuer. A thing's value and the labor spent on it are not intrinsically related at all: a wild flower may be very valuable to someone while having required no labor at all. Similarly, digging a hole in your back yard does not automatically increase the value of your property; the labor has no value of its own.

Value is entirely subjective, and can only be measured or assigned by people.

Re: "Francisco's Money Speech" by Ayn Rand

#103

Post by dualogy »

niv wrote: post #86

THE STRENGTH OF THE STRONG by Jack London http://www.trussel.com/prehist/strength.htm Basically, the story tells that a tribe figured out that the basic "law" was that no man should use his strength to abuse others, so whenever one would abuse his strength, the others would kill him as to not weaken the tribe. Much later in the story, they figured out that money (among other things) also was a strength that you can u…

How so? 'Abusing others' was certainly nothing she was advocating. Her point was that simply earning money or being good ('strong') is not at all an abuse of poorer or 'weaker' people. While one may get 'rich' by abusing 'weaker' people (i.e. robbers or slave drivers), that is exactly the kind of person she is up against. More specifically, against the kind of robber or potential slave driver who seeks to gain support and assistence of one group to rob or enslave another -- by denouncing the latters as the 'actual robbers and slave drivers' when all they did was voluntary exchanges and independent creation etc etc. Now, that I'm sure we can agree on, does exist and did happen in reality and history. Anything I'm missing?

Re: "Francisco's Money Speech" by Ayn Rand

#104

Post by jibiki »

unalone wrote: post #66
andreyf wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would not be so sad if he said that his goal was producing something of value, which often results in making money. If one's goal is to maximize the value humanity creates, she should probably become an elementary school teacher. If one's goal is to make money, she should get an MBA or financial degree. The former, to me, is significantly nobler.

The book specifically mentions making money, not earning it. The difference is that I can earn money by creating something that lacks value, and by having money change hands. If I create something of meaning, then by giving it to other people I lose nothing, and the money I earn is money made by the creation of value for reward. "significantly nobler" is a means-nothing phrase. Nobility as a word is meaningless witho…

Interesting. Maybe it's a dialect distinction, but to my ear, you have reversed the meanings of make and earn. A counterfeiter makes money, but a laborer earns it.

Re: "Francisco's Money Speech" by Ayn Rand

#105

Post by jibiki »

dualogy wrote: post #103
niv wrote: post #86

THE STRENGTH OF THE STRONG by Jack London http://www.trussel.com/prehist/strength.htm Basically, the story tells that a tribe figured out that the basic "law" was that no man should use his strength to abuse others, so whenever one would abuse his strength, the others would kill him as to not weaken the tribe. Much later in the story, they figured out that money (among other things) also was a strength that you can u…

How so? 'Abusing others' was certainly nothing she was advocating. Her point was that simply earning money or being good ('strong') is not at all an abuse of poorer or 'weaker' people. While one may get 'rich' by abusing 'weaker' people (i.e. robbers or slave drivers), that is exactly the kind of person she is up against. More specifically, against the kind of robber or potential slave driver who seeks to gain suppor…

How do you feel about things like sweatshops and sharecropping? (Personally, I'd rather be a debt slave than starve to death, but many people see these sorts of businesses as abusive.)

Re: "Francisco's Money Speech" by Ayn Rand

#107

Post by ojbyrne »

dualogy wrote: post #87
ojbyrne wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does he "lack their talent?" I see little talent on display. Though perhaps that's Rand's poor writing ability - not much is ever described to the reader, she just says "talented" or "great" about her protagonists, and expects us to accept it.

It's a work of fiction, by the way. But each of the characters has their own sets of talents and strengths and they are described rather than asserted throughout the book. The question of whether these descriptions are 'true' is quite pointless in an entirely fictional setting. > not much is ever described to the reader > she just says "talented" or "great" about > her protagonists It's only fair to say you failed to…

It's not the best written work of fiction, by the way. I'm around page 900 or so, and most of it seems to be thinly disguised rants by the author, interspersed with laughable descriptions of sex, and a really nasty strain of Social Darwinism. If this had been written by a German in 1934 it would probably be recognized as thinly disguised National Socialist Party propaganda.

Re: "Francisco's Money Speech" by Ayn Rand

#108

Post by Radix »

sethg wrote: post #91
ojbyrne wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that he inherited his wealth. And pissed it away. Objectively that's what happens.

Worse, he didn't just piss away his own wealth. By running D'Anconia Copper into the ground, he violated his fiduciary responsibility to the company's investors.

That is beside the point. He is protecting the wealth from the looters. He uses his family's fame to bring in looting investors to his mine in Mexico, then it is revealed that there isn't anything of value there. The investors were looters, so D'Anconia succeeds with his goal.

Re: "Francisco's Money Speech" by Ayn Rand

#109

Post by dualogy »

ojbyrne wrote: post #107
dualogy wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a work of fiction, by the way. But each of the characters has their own sets of talents and strengths and they are described rather than asserted throughout the book. The question of whether these descriptions are 'true' is quite pointless in an entirely fictional setting. > not much is ever described to the reader > she just says "talented" or "great" about > her protagonists It's only fair to say you failed to…

It's not the best written work of fiction, by the way. I'm around page 900 or so, and most of it seems to be thinly disguised rants by the author, interspersed with laughable descriptions of sex, and a really nasty strain of Social Darwinism. If this had been written by a German in 1934 it would probably be recognized as thinly disguised National Socialist Party propaganda.

That's a pretty silly thing to say. The prose may not suit your literary tastes, fine. But you will still agree that the Nazis and the Soviets were both the real templates for her 'evil collectivists'.

And collectivists they were, not just in their party name ('national socialists'). They more or less nationalized most of Germany's industrial private properties, some of it sooner, the rest of it later. They implemented most bullet points of the Communist Manifesto, only in a brown flavour and with a lot of add-on horrors on top of it.

Yeah, her 'heroic romanticism' style may resemble some of the red and brown 'romantic' literature. But her content is vastly opposed to theirs. If anything, she took a style that appealed to the masses in the 30s and 40s (including America) and showed that the same devices can be used to convey the opposite message, radical individualism and libertarian capitalism.

Re: "Francisco's Money Speech" by Ayn Rand

#110

Post by Ein2015 »

Avshalom wrote: post #60
maxharris wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"None of these systems is better than the others." Not if your standard of value is your life, lived as well and for as long as possible. I have not yet come across an ethical dilemma that would trouble an Objectivist that really knew and understood the philosophy. I can't count the number of times I've heard questions about whether or not you should try to rescue people drowning in a river during your trip to visit…

"Not if your standard of value is your life, lived as well and for as long as possible." Please define 'lived as well as possible' with out reference to objectivist concepts or philosophies. Also please demonstrate objectively which is better, a life well lived or a one lived as long as possible, and in the the situation which maximizing both are impossible, the ratio which maximizes the value of life. Alternatively…

That's for you to decide, based on your other values.

Some people value adventure and risk-taking in order to bring about new rewards and feel proud of them. They accept the risks which could shorten their life.

Other people want to live a long time and see a lot of things. They would not be risk-takers and thus would be happier with a longer life.

Does this make sense?

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