I totally agree. My comment would have been better phrased as, "While I disagree with many of the tenants that are labeled as egalitarianism, we have to acknowledge that it provides basic knowledge and upward mobility." I was addressing the fact that lack of equal rights and basic tools limit the population from which we draw our genuineness and innovators.

I agree with the statement, "Equal and Alike are not the same." We can be equal; we are not alike. If someone tries to make us alike you end up with the communist dystopia you cite.

Jan

Hello, jlc,

I would like to urge you to be careful with egalitarianism.

I think that all humans are entitled to equal rights. To freedom: from political coercion and force, by government or another individual. To private property, but mot equal values of individual owners' properties. To pursuit of their own happiness. To equally just treatment under the laws.

There is vast range of individual abilities and thus in outcomes of productive efforts. Equality of outcomes is version of communist utopia.

Just my opinions.

War is the result, not the cause.

Atlas is not merely burdened by holding the world on his shoulders. He is doing so while chained to a chair. The chains are rules, regulations, religion, laws, coercion, and more. You probably can name many more. The moment a chain is broken, as they were in the 19th century, more are installed take its place. Atlas not only needs to shrug but break the chains. As to K's final question, so long as people refuse to do the work necessary for them to think for themselves and to worship the true invisible god called freedom, no meaningful, lasting progress can be made.

There's actually very simple reason: war. War is the single largest destroyer of people and productivity and it has been the harbinger of mankind since time immemorial. Find a way to get rid of envy, greed, jealousy, etc. and you can get rid of war. Then people can focus on being productive.

Look at any time in history. Look at the Greeks. They became huge traders and inventors back centuries before the Romans. Their own arrogance eventually brought them down. The Romans exemplify why war is not a sustainable strategy for politics: they relied on the spoils of war to fuel their economy instead of relying on the marvelous innovations such as aqueducts, etc. Examine the Goths, the Gaels, or the Huns to see why infighting for power retards civilizations for centuries.

Then we have the mystery civilizations like the ancient Egyptians or the Mayans, who obviously studied astronomy, geometry, and mathematics long ago, but which ultimately fell. China is somewhat in this, but they have always had a restricted hegemony - whether it be militaristic empires or communism - to hold them back.

In short, man is its own worst enemy. We do more to shoot ourselves in the foot than any other single force.

Cement is a durable invention <joke>.

Roman cement was lost, but not some of the other forms. One of the points that can be made of the technology of the Dark Ages is that Roman knowledge continued - but here and there, in different aspects in different places. For example, good glass continued to be made in Murano...but almost nowhere else. Merging these technologies back together into a common pool of knowledge was crucial to the Renaissance.

Jan

yes, they did not acknowledge that men own themselves.

This is a pertinent truth. If you eliminate 80% of the minds in a country, you take your geniuses pot luck from the remaining 20%.

Let's take a look at that 80%: All of the women were in that class; all of the blacks; all of the subsistence poor. How many Mozarts died plowing a field in the rain, humming brilliant tunes to themselves? How many Burbanks died treading flax in pits in the American South? How many Curies were sent to a convent because there was no place for them in society?

One of the benefits of egalitarianism that we need to acknowledge is that it provides basic tools for all of the population and a philosophical structure for upward mobility. Where it fails is to try to claim that the people do not move upward are the same as the people who do.

Jan

If Edison had been born in Africa, he would have accomplished something. He would have been sold into slavery, where all the boat-rockers were sent.

Approximately 150=200 bce, Hero created a prototype steam engine. People knew at that time that they could have had an industrial revolution, but they decided against it, because they'd have to give up their slaves. If we'd had an industrial system for 2,000 years, rather than 300, we'd probably be on other stars by now. Whenever I think about it my mind's fuses blow. What that episode proves is that technology is a necessary, but not sufficient, prerequisite to development. A logical system of thought must also be present, as happened during the enlightenment, leading to "we hold these truths to be self evident..." Two millennia ago, the technology was ready, but men's minds weren't.

Good points. If Edison had been born in India or Africa he would never have accomplished anything.

Not a huge fan of the Bell Curve, I think it has a lot of half truths. I cannot completely prove it, but there are a lot of inconsistencies when you look across history.

I think the US almost everything to Locke. I think it owes almost nothing to Smith. Smith was part of the Scottish Enlightenment and I am pretty sure (going by memory) a fan of David Hume. Hume was responsible for the is-ought problem in ethics, which was a direct attack on Locke and Natural Rights. Smith was at least in partial agreement, because his book on Moral Sentiments is based on the idea that ethics is perceptual - you are born with it and reason tells you little about ethics.

A real and scary prospect

Hello, K,
"If an Edison were plopped ... "
Galileo was "plopped" and look what happened to him.
I think that there are more bright minds born than "surface" in any time frame you pick. Whether they "surface" is mostly dependent on how much bright minds (i.e. superior reasoning abilities) are valued by their surroundings, from parents on. Powers to be often perceive them as threats. Low cognitive capability masses ("uninformed voters" anyone?) are easily led to believe that the bright minds have made a "deal" with the devil and cheer watching them burned on the stake. The egalitarians even today forbid taking into account measured cognitive ability in choosing students or employees. Have you read the "The Bell Curve"? Interesting insights there.

Bravo, Greek metallurgy and ship building were not duplicated until the US and the US was the conscious work of the admirers of John Locke who tried to correct the errors of the parliamentary system but keep the principles of Locke. James Monroe in "The People the Sovereigns" writes of their conscious experiment with inveting a new form of government based on Locke. At his death he believed they had done it. Then came the steam engine which without Locke and Smith would have been used for fountains at palaces.

When the lights are going out is the tie of maximum demand for light bulbs and power. John, Dagny, and Hank knew it and set out to bring light at a profit. Every field of business, philosophy, and science is dominated by regulation and false premises. Regulation increases demand for the non-regulated product and its profitability. Every false premise can be corrected by the use of reason to identify the correct premise and restructure the field with new product. BB&T is a brilliant example with it's teaching of the ethics of Objectivism as a part of employee training. Honest reasoning employees deliver higher quality service at lower costs than competitors. When philosophy fails, as it has, that is time of maximum demand for philosophy and why I have started a philosophy business. Knowing objectivism in this time is the greatest opportunity in history because there are only a few of us and lots of them who need us. Its not easy. I started in 1997 a company with a product that because of regulation could only be sold in four states but that meant all of the pent up demand in the US was concentrated at my locations. t me its not the time to withdraw but in the dark be the first to sell candles.

Excellent post!
Those who in this Republic lusted for power and control over others have over the years slowly sucked away our freedoms like so many mythical vampires.
I don't think we have what could be correctly defined as a Republic anymore.
It's more like some tragic raggedy worn-out play-toy kicked around by Animal Farm more than equal elite betters, who smirk down with disdain upon the rest of us from their ivory towers.

Don't forget the loss of the invention of cement.

yes, a very sad period in History. I cannot ignore that certain individuals come along when they do and that jump starts progress. But to think that a Socrates is closely followed by a Plato, Alexander and Aristotle gives me pause that the environment was conducive to accept and encourage great minds. If an Edison was plopped in the middle ages (term used loosely as it always is) would he have thrived? after all, we lost the technology of cement from the romans and the architecture of the Egyptians (there's a cool Stone Henge video on point)- even to this day.

If we had just 1% growth per capita since 800 AD, instead of 0% we would be 21,000 times wealthier today - In other words the average person in the US would be worth around 100 million dollars. And this person would be infinitely wealthier than Bill Gates today, because the technology would be so much more advanced. Think about the difference of being a multi-millionaire in 1850 versus today.

Are you kidding? Most of my life I have thought about what it would be like in this country if we had embraced freedom and property rights. If we just removed the chains from Atlas there is no limit to how high we would soar! Every day I long for what was lost; no, what was stolen from all of us.
So I can't even imagine if this was the norm for humans going all the way back. Wow.

I think the only thing that could have been affected is our generational path to further technology, science, and the scariest part-government and politics. But imagining what it would be like for me personally to experience what life might be like in a 1000 yrs or so--well, wow.

One of the topics that has always interested me about the dark ages was the loss of the Library at Alexandria and the work done by some Irish priests to save all the writings they could find and try to keep safe.

You might enjoy "Agora". Man was on the verge of harnessing steam power until.


http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=agor...