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Libertarianism and Objectivism: Compatible?

Posted by khalling 8 years, 9 months ago to Philosophy
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William Thomas on point. I think this is a pretty companionable piece with some excellent references. Inspired by WilliamShipley's question to me here: http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts...

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  • Posted by khalling 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Again, that rarely happens. Look at history. the chinese were flying their own planes at the same time? The Russians? Technology disseminates. Often stolen by 2nd and third world countries. The minute invention ceases to be protected, it stagnates and all nations suffer. Inventor is a legal term, but it also is not. Inventor is the first one to invent.x. Like the light bulb, various models will be developed. The inventions are somewhat different. I'll see if Dale can dust off his blog piece on the Wright Brothers and post it.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 9 months ago
    Don't ask me if they are compatible. Demonstrate why not? i take this as a way to either prove the usefulness of alike but not exactly and similar in all important respects parts of what could be a coalition. OR use it as a slice and dice tool of divide and conquer. it will be easy to tell from the comments. Lefties over there by Jorge Suarez (I made that up this morning as a code name for Comrade Soros.) and the National Socialist Democrat Labor Party. Along with the RINOs the practioners of Government over citizens.

    As for me I claim the Constitution as the center of political discourse and thought and action.

    The right for 200 years has been the home of divine right or power to rule. Only the occupant has fled and it's now populated by the only valid source of power the citizens over government as temporary employees.

    note to above full title of the Democratic Party. In Minnesota i't's farm-labor.) But then Minni sovieta is also the home of the American Communist Party...(and that's a true fact Jack.)

    But as for me both are part and parcel of the anti-left movement. Unless someone can prove otherwise I'm going to back both and say thank you for serving your country.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Well said. IMHO, the reason libertarianism hasn't gone anywhere is because that philosophy managed to offend both of the other two major parties from which they might glean converts equally. Most people are either conservative or liberal. Libertarianism takes the economic conservatism and tries to match it with liberal social policy, the result being hard for many to swallow.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 8 years, 9 months ago
    Libertarians seem to by and large, promote the idea of not only less government but no government at all. As Shakespeare would say, " 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished." But Rand was right. Government is a necessity. Not for you and me, but for almost everyone else. Why? Because as a race, humanity is not mature enough for Anarchy. There are hundreds of examples where conflicts could be settled without violence, but were settled violently. When the human race can settle differences without lifting a finger in anger or retribution then it will have taken the first step toward a governmentless society. I don't see that happening, even in the far future. Once that difference is resolved, O & L can come much closer to one another.
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  • Posted by wiggys 8 years, 9 months ago
    NO!
    Peter Schwartz wrote an essay several years ago that was in two parts that appeared in the Ojectivist Forum explaining why.
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  • Posted by xthinker88 8 years, 9 months ago
    Interesting to me how the reactions to this question seem to fit neatly with my question to David Kelley posted here a while back in which I asked whether objectivists could have founded the US given their internal disagreements and their propensity to not be willing to compromise or even associate with people with whom they do not have 100% agreement.

    Although to be honest I think I just phrased it better here than in my original question. :)
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  • Posted by xthinker88 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    That's true legally but not in reality. The legal system is full of "legal fictions" that are quite necessary to make a legal system work but that are not literally true in reality.

    Like - you're innocent until proven guilty. Well, no. Actually you are already either innocent or guilty. Regardless of the findings of a jury. And you might be innocent but found guilty or you might be guilty but found innocent.

    Likewise there might legally in the US be a single inventor of a device A protected by patent. That doesn't mean that somebody in Japan or Russia did not invent the same or very similar device in reality at basically the same time.

    I'm not sure how all of this grew out of WilliamShipley's pointing out the very real situation in which there are libertarians that support IP and there are libertarians that do not. That's just a fact. Met some of them at porcfest.
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  • Posted by xthinker88 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Although Shipley above didn't specify simultaneous but independent.

    Were I dropped on a desert island, it might be possible for me to invent something to solve a problem that is also found elsewhere already invented.

    And those examples are great except when both inventors are not in the US and feel no need to file for US patents. Like Popov and Marconi.

    It's frankly an incredulous statement to state that two people could not independently and contemporaneously solve a similar or same problem in the same way.
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  • Posted by xthinker88 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    All Objectivists are humans (ok, ok, i've met some that I had questions about. :) ).
    But not all humans are Objectivists.

    Damn it! I'll have none of that human stuff. Those humans are evil. Don't identify me with them.
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  • Posted by xthinker88 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    That's because all Objectivists are politically libertarians but not all libertarians are Objectivists. This leads some O's to want to vehemently claim that they are not libertarians however, using the definition supplied in the article by William Thomas (taken from Cato Institute I believe), they still are. All A is still C if C is the complete set of A + B.

    In this case A would be objectivists. B would be those who politically hold to the definition of libertarians who are also not objectivists. And C would be the complete set of libertarians.
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  • Posted by Esceptico 8 years, 9 months ago
    I always looked at Libertarianism as a political expression of the philosophical principle one may not initiate the use of force. Nothing else. I never heard anyone claim it is a philosophical system. Well, maybe Rand and some of the Rand cultists, but not others. Nothing more is required to be a member of the Libertarian Party than to agree to the principle one many not initiate the use of force.

    This is one of the places I think Rand was wrong when she said one cannot be an Objectivist and a Libertarian. For example, one can be a godist and a Libertarian, but one cannot be an Objectivist and a godist. I suppose, technically, one could be a Libertarian and a communist so long as the form of communism advocated did not involve the initiation of the use of force. But, a person cannot be a communist and an Objectivist. I see that as the difference between a philosophical system and people uniting around a single principle.
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  • Posted by xthinker88 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Tell that to Leibnitz and Newton. They both invented the calculus. Independently. Using different terms and ways of describing essentially the same mathematical processes.

    I think there are also examples of independent and contemporaneous (if not simultaneous) inventions. There can be plenty of argument over who flew the first airplane for example. Some have argued quite well that it wasn't the Wright brothers (I forget the name of the guy that might have flown but I believe he was in CT). Or who invented the radio? Marconi who filed the patent in 1897 or Popov who had a similar device a couple years before?

    I completely disagree that contemporaneous invention cannot happen.
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  • Posted by $ Snezzy 8 years, 9 months ago
    Sometimes a contradiction is very easy to see. Thomas's own words: “Objectivism is a libertarian philosophy”

    Sorry, Mr. Thomas, it is not. The term Libertarian is not well defined, and can include pretty much whatever a speaker wants to put into it. I have known libertarian Objectivists, libertarian Marxists and libertarian thugs.

    Anyone who wants to can proclaim himself a libertarian. Only those who agree fundamentally with the philosophy of Ayn Rand can be considered Objectivists.

    During her lifetime Rand indicated (or suggested?) that there was ONE Objectivist. No, I don't have a reference for that, but I do know that we went out of our way to be known as "Students of Objectivism" rather than Objectivists.

    Libertarianism can be construed as containing parts of the philosophy of Objectivism, even though libertarians usually take whatever pieces they want and ignore others. Objectivism is certainly NOT part of Libertarianism!
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  • Posted by khalling 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    by definition, there is only the one (or collaboratively more) inventor. What is the dissemination of technology if not for the recognition of that. let's all invent the wheel!
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  • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 8 years, 9 months ago
    The inventor is someone who creates something new. Clearly they should own the ability to use their creation and should not have it taken by someone who copies their work.

    My problem, as I've said, is with them telling someone who didn't copy them but independently invented the thing themselves that they cannot use the fruits of their labor.

    By defining the rules of what can and cannot be protected we influence how often this can happen.
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  • Posted by khalling 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    How about because their is a target on the back of independent inventors. Patent Reform is patent death to them. I am fighting for a profession and have few friends in the Libertarian party or the democratic party. Like Salon attacks Rand 3 plus times a week, patent owners are attacked that many times and more by CATO, Wired, Geek, etc. IT is a war. I am not calm about it, because those rights are being taken away. It is only a matter of time. and your life will be affected negatively because of it. so I fight for you too. yo are welcome
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  • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    My firm position is this: The concept of the creator of intellectual property owning the results of his work is morally justified only so long as he does not thereby seize the results of someone else's independent work.
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  • -2
    Posted by dbhalling 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Arguing out of both sides of your mouth - never take a firm position, ignore the facts, change the subject. You are a sophist not at thinker.
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  • Posted by dbhalling 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Until libertarians consistently support property rights, and come from a perspective of reason and reality, not only will objectivists be luke warm toward their political movement, they will continue to lose to conservatives and socialists.
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  • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I comment on liberal blogs frequently and get called names but never so bitterly as on this subject.

    The amazing thing is that we almost completely agree. Of course it's well known that the most vitriol is saved for the people with a slight variation in doctrine.

    I actually tossed the IP in to show that even in a libertarian group many of them where committed to some form of IP protection -- you chose to consider it a dig and we were off to the races.
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  • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Do you even read what I write? I never said that I didn't believe anyone invents anything, of course I do. Can't really remember reading any David Hume, my ideas come from myself -- wait is that independent invention? (Actually there is probably casual influence from reading). I have one serious concern which you avoid answering by declaring that that independent invention doesn't occur or by being insulting -- usually both.
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  • Posted by khalling 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I suggest we move on from this discussion to other areas where libertarianism and Objectivism either mesh or don't. the IP arguments are well laid in many posts on this site
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  • Posted by dbhalling 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    No it has not. This post confuses many points. First of all it is about science not inventions. Second of all I have shown over and over again that the US had a system for this exact thing, called an interference proceeding. The whole argument for going to first to file instead of first to invent is that these rarely occur. Those are hard facts. Third, even in interferences the inventors often were awarded different counts (inventions) - see the whole Bell, Edison and Elisha Gray interference over the telephone patent interference.
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  • Posted by khalling 8 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    of COURSE we are self-interested! What site do you think you are on?! You give no consideration to the scholarship Dale puts into this subject. He walks the walk. You give no consideration to the 100s of inventors-who are heroes which make your world a better place- you just see them as copiers. Rand mentions invention 200 times in Atlas Shrugged. She holds the inventor-John Galt- as the hero of her novel. This post was not supposed to be about IP. but typically, with a libertarian, you have to plead for your right to property.
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