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Venezuela is collapsing.

Posted by Dobrien 5 years, 2 months ago to History
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Statement from President Donald J. Trump Recognizing Venezuelan National Assembly President Juan Guaido as the Interim President of Venezuela
FOREIGN POLICY
Issued on: January 23, 2019
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Today, I am officially recognizing the President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Juan Guaido, as the Interim President of Venezuela. In its role as the only legitimate branch of government duly elected by the Venezuelan people, the National Assembly invoked the country’s constitution to declare Nicolas Maduro illegitimate, and the office of the presidency therefore vacant. The people of Venezuela have courageously spoken out against Maduro and his regime and demanded freedom and the rule of law.

I will continue to use the full weight of United States economic and diplomatic power to press for the restoration of Venezuelan democracy. We encourage other Western Hemisphere governments to recognize National Assembly President Guaido as the Interim President of Venezuela, and we will work constructively with them in support of his efforts to restore constitutional legitimacy. We continue to hold the illegitimate Maduro regime directly responsible for any threats it may pose to the safety of the Venezuelan people. As Interim President Guaido noted yesterday: “Violence is the usurper’s weapon; we only have one clear action: to remain united and firm for a democratic and free Venezuela.”
J
SOURCE URL: https://youtu.be/enjq6ZxgBMU


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  • Posted by $ blarman 5 years, 2 months ago
    When anyone tells me they want socialism, I just point at Venezuela. There is no better example of the end-game of socialism than that - everything else is still in its mid-stages.
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    • Posted by mccannon01 5 years, 2 months ago
      I've tried the same thing, blarman, but I often get a blank stare. Apparently a lot of leftists don't even know what Venezuela is. Must be a salad, I guess.
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      • Posted by fosterj717 5 years, 2 months ago
        Most of them don't even know WHERE it is located let alone what it is.........Products of a corrupted and dysfunctional national educational system. One designed to create automatons that will blindly and without thinking follow the orders of their masters! Unfortunately, they all subscribe to what they believe Socialism is as opposed to what it really represents. Generation after generation, blindly following a propaganda driven agenda created by an oligarchy bent on creating a three tiered society (peasants, bureaucrats and oligarchs). That is the NWO in a nutshell.......
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        • Posted by mccannon01 5 years, 2 months ago
          It seems the recent HS graduates can paraphrase Karl Marx and quote the latest PC bromides, but can't balance a check book or turn a screwdriver. Not entirely true, I know, but it's looking like that.
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    • Posted by Solver 5 years, 2 months ago
      That’s not real socialism. Real socialism has never been tried. Only if we have real socialism will we bring forward our Utopian dream. Same thing with real fascism.
      /s
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      • Posted by fosterj717 5 years, 2 months ago
        That has been the mantra of the left for 100 years now! Unfortunately, they usually finish with "We have always had the wrong leaders and with the RIGHT leadership, Socialism (actually Communism) will succeed".

        That is patently incorrect! There is now such thing as a "Democratically" elected leader that would succeed. Socialism (or more realistically, Communism) will only succeed for a period of time under the "benign" rule of a dictator/tyrant.

        In addition, Socialism (lets take the way station to Communism first) can only work as long as there is someone who can or will pay for it. Afterall, there is no such thing as "free" because everything in life has an associated cost. Even the air that we breath if you ask an environmentalist. These two simple facts highlight what can only be described as "insurmountable" flaws in the Socialist design.

        I guess my question to all who subscribe to Socialism, Democrat Socialists or outright Communists (and everything in between) who is the tyrant that you want to surrender your freedom and opportunity to that you would trust with your life, your family's lives and those of your fellow citizens?

        In closing, even those places that have been held up as "models" of modern socialism are in retreat because now (Europe, etc.) they must pay more of their own way since the US has been withdrawing its financial support (NATO, World Bank, etc) and those Socialist democracies must now take on that burden. Things are no longer quite so free and are getting more expensive by the day. How is that working out? Just a rhetorical question.......
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      • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
        I think that small family units are run as socialist regimes. Most young people finally figure out they dont even want the freebies and controls from the family, while the older producers grow tired of the young mooching off them.
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      • Posted by $ pixelate 5 years, 2 months ago
        Essentially, the smaller the tribe or "collective" the more effective Socialism can be implemented. This is why Socialism can work in the context of a family . . . because the Adults have a certain control over the Children and that is generally accepted. And I think that is why so-called Socialism can appear to work in those Scandinavian countries with populations of around 10 million ... a small number when compared to the United States and larger countries... and in particular, where you have a homogeneous population with a common culture (which is being rotted out through coerced immigration). In the USA, where the Children can consist of a million or more persons with lower ambition and intelligence in the inner cities, that are then supported by The State, you find that Socialism fails catastrophically. From Each according to his Ability, to Each according to his Need feeds the dependent children at the expense of the adults and none of the exchanges are exacted by choice, rather by force. The Adults shrug and then pandemonium, riots and starvation become the norm.
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        • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
          Socialism does not work in smaller societies and families are not socialism. Scandinavian countries were collapsing under socialism and reverted to welfare statism to survive.
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          • Posted by $ pixelate 5 years, 2 months ago
            It only 'appears' to work until it doesn't. How is welfare statism <> socialism? Sounds like a violation of the first order corollary to the identity axiom. (I am a math guy ;))
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            • Posted by Lucky 5 years, 1 month ago
              welfare statism is not equal to socialism
              because the latter implies state/community ownership of big industry - or in some interpretations, everything. The former requires the state/community to pay money to those not earning, to pay for universal education and health care, it is equally consistent with fascism as socialism. Another good term used is 'the corporate state'. In this, the state intervenes and controls but does not necessarily own.
              What we called the Swedish Model which used welfare statism, looked good for the first few years before inevitable economic decline.
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    • Posted by dukem 5 years, 2 months ago
      No, no, no! It's just that the right people haven't put in charge if the socialist country. If we would only elect them, then it would all turn out rainbows and unicorns
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      • Posted by $ blarman 5 years, 2 months ago
        Absolutely!

        The thing I don't think they realize is that they are living a contradiction. On the one hand they claim to be the most intelligent people, yet they openly embrace the worst hypocrisy in existence. True intelligence is recognizing that truth exists independently of people's desires. You have to conform to it - not the other way around.
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  • Posted by GaryL 5 years, 2 months ago
    I see the pictures of hundreds of thousands in the streets and kind of wish that could be here in DC and every other metro city in this country. In a socialist nation the folks have already been disarmed and believe me, our elected officials want us in the same defenseless position.
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  • Posted by exceller 5 years, 2 months ago
    As I said:

    https://www.foxnews.com/world/venezue...

    Strongman Maduro is blaming the US for his troubles. The default position of all dictators on the left.
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    • Posted by mshupe 5 years, 2 months ago
      Aren't all dictators leftist? Of course the counterpoint is fascism, but that's an invention.
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      • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
        Only dictators on "the left"? It depends on what 'left' and 'right' mean. In the US 'right' generally means individualist. In 1920s and 30s Germany there was no individualism; the 'right' meant the conservative nationalists in contrast to the communist left. The compromise was National Socialism. But the communists (and the collectivists in general) have been package-dealing capitalism with fascism ever since the breakup of the Hitler-Stalin pact, smearing anything not communist as the fascist 'right'. In fact, fascism is a kind of socialism -- the left. There are no dictators "on the right". But not every dictator is a leftist collectivist -- some can be old fashioned tyrant kings with no collectivist ideology.
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    • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
      Maduro is a copy cat in his breaking diplomatic relations with the US, which is only the latest in recent breaks. He follows the severing of diplomatic relations by Popeye Pelosi, whatsername Cortez and the Democrats.
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      • Posted by dukem 5 years, 2 months ago
        Her true and full name is:
        "Occasional Cortex Cortez"
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        • Posted by fosterj717 5 years, 2 months ago
          AOC (Occasional Cortex) is probably the most maleducated person in Congress! Unfortunately, she is the product of educational malfeasance now systemic in the public educational system. Brainwashed by several generations of totally brainwashed, under educated teachers and professors who know more about arbor day than they do about history.

          As everyone knows (or should know) those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. That is especially true for the brainwashed (light rinse will do!) students that we are turning out. All now believe they understand Socialism (nee Communism) but have no clue! They are the shock troops of Gramsci, Stalin, the Fabians and Saul Allinsky!

          As for AOC and her ilk, she will realize too late that she has been sold a worthless bill of goods and that she is only carrying the water for the 1/10th of 1% who truly rule (or will rule the world). She along with the rest of us peons will be nothing more than a vassal in a modern feudal society where slavery will be the norm. Best of luck to all of the brainwashed Democrat Socialists and their fellow travellers!
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        • Posted by Solver 5 years, 2 months ago
          Just call her, your Moral Highness.
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          • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
            For all the criticism of her "There's a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right”, we not seeing anyone challenge her morality, let alone acknowledge that morality is also supposed to be fact.

            She tells some real whoppers (of both kinds) but tries to finesse it by qualifying: "“Whenever I make a mistake. I say, ‘Okay, this was clumsy,’ and then I restate what my point was." If it were just a "mistake" on minor factual matters that would be a proper answer, but she is covering for reckless major falsehoods chosen to push her morality, as if truth is subordinate to a morality that is assumed to be accepted. Her false philosophy of altruism, collectivism and irrationalism is widely accepted, which is how she is getting away with it and getting sympathy for it.

            She seems to have a sense of that -- it isn't accidental -- which is much more than one can say for the Republicans.
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            • Posted by Solver 5 years, 2 months ago
              History is strewn with graves dug in the name of moral righteousness.
              And that’s a fact.
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              • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                The graves are the result of false morality, not moral integrity. Her philosophy of altruism, collectivism, and irrationalism is false and she is falsely promoting herself as being an admirable moral idealist while not being publicly called on it.
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  • Posted by chad 5 years, 2 months ago
    Ocasio-Cortez and every other leftist should be sent to live there, not as elected officials but as ordinary citizens trying to find work. Let them live there for a couple of years and I bet they would still blame free market capitalism but at least they would be away from here.
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    • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
      I would pay to send them there as long as they agreed NOT to come back. Maybe a GoFundMe page should be set up to export Pelosi, Schumer, AOC, Warren, Waters, and a few others.
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  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    No conception of a "perfect" human could run socialism as an economic utopia. The problem is their moral idea of what utopia would be.
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    • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
      True, and the imperfection of humans would eventually doom essentially any government, in spite of a constitution. That was why the founding fathers here put in so many checks and balances. They knew the USA would falter as a democracy and they were right. But it’s lasted 250 years!
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      • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
        It's not a matter of "imperfection". Perfect by what standard? It doesn't mean that no one can ever make a mistake. Rationality entails self correcting. Without that, bad premises accepted lead in the wrong direction.
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        • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
          What I meant by “bad” and “Imperfect” can be seen in the difference between the us cinstitution and the way the us givernment actually operates today. It is filled with all sorts of self serving bureaucrats cleverly using government powers to satisfy their own agendas. You may say it has abandoned rationality, and that is true., but that is how a government slowly is corrupted in spite of a constitution or galts speech
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          • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
            "Imperfect human beings" is today usually an intrinsicist religious view of human beings as inherently flawed by a mystic standard. The Constitution is largely abandoned because the principle of limited government has been abandoned by choice, not because of some innate "imperfection" of man making him "stray".
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            • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
              I think the founding fathers saw that the ability of people to modify and ignore parts of a constitution through voting will eventually undermine it. And that’s what’s happened here
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  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Atlas Shrugged did relate to reality in mirroring the kind of failures, the excuses given for them, and the moral injunctions demonizing the successful while calling for their control and punishment that we have seen for decades.

    Ayn Rand saw that clearly while she was writing it as she read the latest news. She said that to keep going she told herself that it was to prevent the outcome she saw in progress. It also mirrored reality in abstracting the essence of the best in man -- she wrote it to portray in fiction her idea of the "ideal man".

    What the fictional plot does not do is provide a strategy of a 'strike' by the best producers as a way to cripple the statists, or as a way to institute reform. Producers in fact are much larger in number and much more mixed (or worse) in premises. Even the collapse in the plot was (deliberately by Ayn Rand) artificially speeded up as it abstracted the role of the mind through a relative handful of producers.

    Your dropping out would not "curtail the collectivist control only a tiny degree". It would do it to no degree. It's economic effect would not be noticed, but more, it would do nothing to curtail their control.

    Neither would a 10% reduction in economic output, planned or not. If anything, economic hardship tends to be demagogued by the collectivists to increase their power over people who don't know any better. A failing economy is a failing economy, not a reduction in collectivism and its control.
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    • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
      We agree on a lot of what you say. If a 10% reduction in output was advertised as a goal, the collectivists would use that as an excuse to fight the producers. But I think the 10% reduction would happen by itself because people would just get tired of working so hard. And government collections and their ability to hire people and control things would diminish
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      • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
        With so many producers and quasi-producers having mixed premises or worse, there could not be a "10% strike", and if there were such a consensus on the proper goal, such a strike would not be necessary. That many people speaking out articulately for rational individualism would turn the country.

        As for the "10%" number, it is understated: today's controls keeping people down and discouraging them from producing have caused an unplanned reduction of far more than 10% from what otherwise could be. But when something does not exist it cannot be pointed to as evidence of what has been lost. Understanding the loss requires conceptual, principled understanding.
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        • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
          I certainly agree about the mixed premises. Even trump with his “repeal and replace” plan for Obamacare is a good example. It needed to be REPEAL period.

          I agree that if our govt removed the phony printed money expansion of the economy, we would see how the economy is prevented from expanding. And the real reason would be a combination of inhibiting regulations and the psychological effects of being stolen from.
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      • Posted by CircuitGuy 5 years, 2 months ago
        "I think the 10% reduction would happen by itself because people would just get tired of working so hard. "
        In 1900 Argentina had a similar GDP to the US. Gov't policies led to slower growth. Now US is much wealthier. It's possible the less intrusive/costly gov't could have made US GDP growth even higher, resulting i much more wealth, way more than 10% difference.
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        • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
          I remember a few years ago there was talk that while the unemployment rate in the USA was declining, there seemed to be a lot of workers who dropped out of the workforce. Not employed or unemployed, just sitting around. I wondered at the time if that group was revolting sonehiiw
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          • Posted by ewv 5 years, 1 month ago
            They were 'revolting' against looking for a job that couldn't be found, giving up on the struggle as what they thought was a waste of time. That too is a form of dropping out from what was supposed to be a country of opportunity. I wonder how many of them went back.
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            • Posted by term2 5 years, 1 month ago
              From the figures I have seen there appears to be a stable underclass who have dropped out. I can certainly see why this would happen. Then we have the disaffected millennials who find there are no jobs for lesbian dance graduates who just graduated with huge student loans.

              On another subject, I found on YouTube a large number of in depth videos by Stefan molineux that are very interesting. You might find some of them interesting also. Topics are all over the map, from a n extensive discussion on the history of ayn rand to very practical discussions on the effect of genetics on race and immigration
              .
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  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Productive individualists for eons have cut back or dropped out because working for punishment made no sense. But they have not typically thought of it in terms of stopping "supporting" anyone, either morally or economically.

    In the plot of Atlas Shrugged, many dropped out in despair, but Galt and a few others did more than just avoid punishment. They recognized the injustice for what it was -- withdrawing the sanction of the victim -- and actively sought to bring down the corrupt society by "stopping the motor of the world" -- withdrawing the mind

    Outside of that fictional context you can personally reduce your punishment, and you can personally withdraw the sanction of the victim, but you won't stop the motor of the world, let alone create a proper society through a 'strike' alone.
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    • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
      Good points. I never actually thought that Galt would succeed at stopping the motor of the world. It stopped of its own weight by the nature of the effects of collectivism on the human mind. All Galt did is helped the producers to understand what they were facing.

      I can sympathize with the disgust of feeding collectivism. Emotionally I want to stop producing and feeding the collectivists. To actually do this requires that either I accumulate enough wealth to just drop out, or endure the sacrifices of not having money to live like a regular person. I dont think that my actions make one iota of difference in the rest of the world, so whatever I do wont be to change the world.
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      • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
        Galt did more than help the producers understand what they were facing, although he certainly did that. By organizing the strike they accelerated the collapse that was inevitable, emphasizing what happens when "the mind is withdrawn" to illustrate the role of the mind in human existence. But that was the philosophical point illustrated in the fictional plot, not an intended strategy. Likewise for us, disgust for feeding collectivism is a moral reaction, not a strategy.
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        • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
          Absolutely a moral reaction. And it’s about time we stand up and stick up for ourselves. Practically speaking, an armed revolution now would fail, but disgust in propping up an immoral system will slowly weaken the collectivist gramp on us
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  • Posted by $ 25n56il4 5 years, 2 months ago
    Do these crazies really think anyone is going to work their 'beautifuls' off and give 70 cents out of every dollar to the Government? Didn't I read somewhere that the Government isn't supposed to rule in America, but rather the citizens? What in the 'you know what' are these people thinking of? Oh I forgot, thinking is the hard part.
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  • Posted by dukem 5 years, 2 months ago
    My roommate in the first year of college way back in 1960 was from Caracas. He spoke fluent Spanish, English, and German, and had come there with his parents at the end of WW2.
    HIs descriptions of the country made me jealous, as it was wealthy, relatively democratic, and was the shining jewel of South American.
    Now it has come to this, courtesy of socialism. Will we never learn?
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    • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
      The socialists milk the rich countries, and then simply move on to the next rich country to milk it. Californians are leaving the "golden state" and coming to Nevada, Arizone, and Texas for that reason also.
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  • Posted by swmorgan77 5 years, 2 months ago
    Someone needs to tell Trump that democracy and socialism are not mutually exclusive.
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    • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
      Democracy and fascism are not mutually exclusive either. In fact, we have a combination of capitalism, fascism, AND socialism currently in the USA. Capitalism where people generally trade amonst themselves, fascism where people can own businesses so long as they obey the "rules" set by the government (as with banks for example) , and socialism where the government actually owns and runs commerce (as with medicare, the VA hospitals, the post office, the railroads, and many other things).
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    • Posted by 5 years, 2 months ago
      +1 This should not be down voted
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      • Posted by exceller 5 years, 2 months ago
        Why not?

        Democracy and socialism are mutually exclusive terms.

        It is an oxymoron.

        Socialism must perpetuate itself by the support of a one party system, otherwise it would fail.

        It follows that there is no democracy in a one party system
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        • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
          Socialism is accepted, where it is, because people believe it is morally superior. They do vote for it. Socialism was voted into Britain, pushed by the Fabian intellectuals, and is progressively being instituted here in the same manner.

          Trump endorsed the opposition leader in Venezuela, saying only that he was "duly elected", with no mention of what he stands for.
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    • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
      Why was this 'downvoted'? "Democratic socialism" is the latest mantra. Trump knows enough to denounce Venezuelan socialism (which the Democrats have not) but does not generally have a strong grasp of principles.
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      • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
        Democratic socialism is just SOCIALISM that is "voted" in by majority mob rule.

        Theres the democratic republic in North Korea. Its not a republic, and not even democratic. Theres the name they give it, and what it actually IS.
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  • Posted by BCRinFremont 5 years, 2 months ago
    How many will die this time around...
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    • Posted by 5 years, 2 months ago
      This from one year ago. CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela’s infant mortality rose 30 percent last year, maternal mortality shot up 65 percent and cases of malaria jumped 76 percent, according to government data, sharp increases reflecting how the country’s deep economic crisis has hammered at citizens’ health.
      In 2018 this The Venezuelan government has tried to suppress the statistics on the rising levels of malnutrition-driven infant mortality. Public clinics and hospitals are asked not to report the cause of death for babies that die to malnutrition. The Ministry of Health’s 2015 annual report concluded that, “the mortality rate for children under 4 weeks old had increased a hundredfold, from 0.02 percent in 2012 to just over 2 percent.” After this report was released on the ministry’s website, the health minister was fired and the military police took control of the ministry in order to censor any future reports..
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      • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
        One of these days we will just see a news article that Maduro has been captured and killed by "insurgents". It will be a day of celebration for sure.
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  • Posted by Solver 5 years, 2 months ago
    Who else thinks that this one topic should be separated into like three to five other topics?
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    • Posted by 5 years, 2 months ago
      Yes this post has generated a lot of discussion.
      It is one of my most successful threads based on # off comments. I have had more Thumbs up on other topics. There are Many great thoughts , ideas and efforts to convey them. Thanks for all the participation.
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  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    An emotional appeal is "emotional". Emotions are automatic reactions to values. A confirmed altruist-collectivist typically cannot be reached, but those of mixed premises can. Correct the premises and the emotional reactions change.
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    • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
      If you are saying a completely emotionally driven person cannot be reached through reason, I agree. But I say even such a person can begin to start thinking when something just doesn’t work in practice.
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      • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
        People have free will and can choose to focus and think if they want to, but you won't convince them in reason to do that, nor after a lifetime of irrationalism will they be in any kind of shape to know how to think rationally. Depending on factors such as age they may be hopeless after a lifetime of cognitive self destruction.. Someone accustomed to living as a Pragmatist seeking what "works" in an endless sequence of incoherence will have no particular incentive to think rationally or know what that means just because something else "doesn't work".
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        • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
          It is more efficient to develop a philosophy like objectivism which from the outset relies on reality- as opposed to just wander around choosing random philosophies and trying them to see if they work. But in the end the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and objectivism needs to work
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          • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
            It begins with reality and "works" at every stage because it is true at every step. It's not a matter of rationalizing a theory and then going back later to see if it still "works", and it doesn't operate in a vacuum with a criterion for "working" independent of how anyone understands and uses ideas held in his own mind. This isn't the Pragmatist-Positivist 'model mentality' of floating abstractions later hooked up with reality to see if it "works".
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  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Running out of money to take didn't stop the Soviet regime. Their system fell apart because it was unable to function across the board no matter who was there attempting to live that system with or without earning money.

    This is not Venezuela. If we were ruled under censorship and totalitarianism there would be a justification for a revolution overthrowing it, if it could be done at all.

    Attempting to cause chaos, deprivation and destruction for a temporary "relaxation" in collectivist policies is not a solution to anything. Presumably that is not what you expected from Trump. You seem to be looking for any excuse to rationalize an emotional commitment to a collapse as something desirable.
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    • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
      First of all, lack of money resulted in the collapse of the Soviet Union and cut deeply into the states oppressive abilities. Their lack of money was the end result of their collectivist system.

      The USA is going to collapse at some point of its own weight and it’s flawed intellectual base

      The collectivist policies that we are funding are what is creating chaos. Slowing them down, as I hope trump can do, will REDUCE the speed of the chaos.

      I don’t prefer a collapse into chaos at all. But I am tired of propping up a collectivist system that’s trying to enslave me (and you too)
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  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Dagny and Rearden in conflict with the Galt and the strike even though they all agreed on the end goal was a source of tension and suspense in the novel. They believed they could win without giving up everything they had accomplished.

    A fictional plot is not a standard for a political strategy. The goal now is not to create more chaos, deprivation, and destruction, shortening and wrecking all of our lives, for a fantasy belief that collapse would result in fundamental reform in a society driven by altruism and collectivism.
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    • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
      Makes sense but there would be nothing wrong with rebelling from supporting the collectivist system- as Galt and the rest of the gulches. Stopping the motor of the world to get social change isn’t a realistic goal
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      • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
        Rebelling how? Be careful what kind of jobs you take, but most important is to rebel by speaking out in the kind of uncompromising moral approach in Rearden's responses at his trial, plus using whatever knowledge you have to explain further.
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        • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
          I like the argument based on sustainability The first people to adopt collectivism do get advantages. But once it becomes widely accepted, everyone loses and it’s not sustainable.

          An example. The first few aggressive drivers who cut in and out changing lanes do get to their destinations faster. But as more and more people do it, all trips are slowed down.

          I know you dislike pragmatic arguments, but for a lot of people they do more to open up minds than intellectually based philosophy does , at least in the beginning

          People can understand that if everyone gets Welfare and doesn’t work, the system collapses and no one gets welfare. That’s not a philosophical basis that you like, I know
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          • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
            That isn't a basis for anything. Unprincipled, anti-conceptual Pragmatism only leads to endlessly stabbing at something else hoped to "work" in a sequence of failures. "Truth" to Pragmatism is defined to be what "works" in a never ending sequence.

            The first people to adopt collectivism do not get benefits. They steal something temporarily but living as a parasite and condoning subservience of the individual to the group are self destructive, not a benefit. Try to imagine John Galt, Rearden, Dagny or the other heroes of Atlas Shrugged embracing Pragmatism temporarily to be the "first to get benefits". Pragmatism does not work.

            Better to listen to the Leonard Peikoff lectures on the history of philosophy, including Pragmatism, than to pick up fad buzz words like "sustainability" used out of context as a Pragmatist.
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            • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
              James taggart obviously got benefits early on, but lost them as collectivism became more prevalent and the economy collapsed.
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              • Posted by 5 years, 2 months ago
                James Taggart did not get any financial benefits he was already the heir to a railroad fortune. My take was James Taggart was envious of people who could take charge , who could compete and produce. He was a small man mentally, his inherited power and wealth was not valued. He bastardized it. He like many liberals hated the truth. He was jealous of Francisco and Dagney.
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                • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
                  He got advantages from being politically connected The deal eithvorren Boyle fir example
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                  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                    He got no advantage from being "politically connected". He destroyed himself. He didn't even know what to do with what he stole. It didn't help him. Stealing cash for the moment through a "connection" without regard for anything else is an example of range of the moment Pragmatism. Nothing James Taggert did was in his self interest.
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                    • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
                      I said the first at the trough get advantages, as did James taggart. The political deal with Oren Boyle for example helped destroy Reardon metal. In the end everyone lost if course
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                      • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                        Being at a "trough" is not an advantage at all. One's self interest is not determined by Pragmatist range of the moment "what here now works".
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  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Rearden's answers to the court were based on his right to his own property versus the "public good", refusing to grant the sanction of the victim, not a systematic or comprehensive philosophical defense of capitalism. It did not mention egoism versus the altruism that drove his enemies. It had an immediate effect based on sense of life, but aside from the court backing down, was followed by silence until apologetic businessmen denounced his statements.

    Rearden knew it was not enough and that he did not know the answer:

    "They had cheered him today; they had cheered him by the side of the track of the John Galt Line. But tomorrow they would clamor for a new directive from Wesley Mouch and a free housing project from Orren Boyle, while Boyle's girders collapsed upon their heads. They would do it, because they would be told to forget, as a sin, that which had made them cheer Hank Rearden.

    "Why were they ready to renounce their highest moments as a sin? Why were they willing to betray the best within them? What made them believe that this earth was a realm of evil where despair was their natural fate? He could not name the reason, but he knew that it had to be named. He felt it as a huge question mark with
    in the courtroom, which it was now his duty to answer."

    Francisco's money speech at a party addressed a principle of capitalism, but was not public and had no impact on those opposed to him.

    Galt's speech was a philosophic statement but came at the end of the novel as a fundamentally new formulation, not something that was already "there". There was no public intellectual moral argument for capitalism or assumption that one was already "there" as part of the plot action through the novel.
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    • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
      One could put galts speech and i doubt if it would convince many people. Is the person is rational already, it would make sense. Otherwise they would ignore it- which is what most people dud
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      • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
        That speech was written to put the philosophy into a form appropriate for the fiction and it took Ayn Rand two years to write it. It is filled with subtleties, implications, and significance that cannot be understood without more knowledge of the history of philosophy.
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        • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
          I think for most people, the speech went over their Heads. I am not being very clear I know, but the story was very compelling, inspiring and captivating. The speech was dry and I doubt would be understood or listened to by the audience it was delivered to in the story.

          I know you are going to argue this point, but in a book about ordinary people using mathematics to all of a sudden coming upon a chapter delving into the complexities of partial differential calculus

          No wonder the book didn’t have the effect she intended. Maybe it was too much,and too fast
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          • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
            Different people react differently. Those with an interest in ideas and understanding tend to take the speech more seriously and do not find it "dry" (let alone skip it entirely). The same goes for the shorter 'speeches'. Any explicitly principled statement of that kind is necessarily not the action of the rest of the plot, but that is not synonymous with "dry".

            Interest and depth of understanding are two different aspects. The depth of understanding depends on the degree of knowledge of what Ayn Rand was referring to in the history of ideas in a 'speech' that had to be stylized for the drama of the fictional context.

            Galt's speech is not an out of context treatise; the stage was set and the ideas dramatically illustrated throughout the previous action and dialogue of the entire novel. The ideas presented are basic and understandable by anyone; they do not require specialized knowledge (unlike "partial differential calculus", which is mostly not particularly complex in the context of mathematical knowledge at the level of calculus but which specialized knowledge would not belong in something requiring only general knowledge).

            The same kind of difference in reaction among different kinds of readers occurs for those who having finished the novel hunger for more understanding, in contrast to those who only emotionally attach whatever they liked about the novel to whatever conventional beliefs they already hold, without regard to consistency. The latter kind of reader represents a sense of life appeal in some respect, but without the desire to understand it.
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            • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
              Imagine how John galts speech would be received if televised today. It would be out of context, and it wouldn’t address people where they live. AS is a really good story, and galts speech is something that would not address the average citizen’s life. At that stage of economic destruction about the only thing that would grab people’s sttention is that collectivism didn’t work and specifically why in terms they could relate to. That would have been more effective in THAT speech. Only later should the philosophical roots be dealt with to get maximum impact
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              • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                The speech was written for the context of the plot, not arbitrary broadcast. In the plot, Galt already had the public's attention and so did the economic failures. The events in the novel already illustrated why altruism and collectivism were failing. He gave the reasons why they had to and what is required. He addressed anyone open to reason, and in particular that part of the public that had disgust for the political leaders and their propaganda but didn't understand the ideas, like Rearden knowing his court room statements were not enough. https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

                But the whole novel, including its speeches, was written for its readers. There is no "later" in the novel after Galt's speech. The philosophy was illustrated and stated with full impact in terms anyone can understand because those ideas are what is needed, and she did not write a detailed explanation of the history of philosophy or the technical development in the novel. Wanting to perpetually put off Galt's speech as 'unnecessary philosophy' misses the whole point.
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                • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
                  Well aren’t you granting my hypothesis that collapse is needed to get the attention of the populace so they can consider non-collectivism?
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                  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                    No. I described the context in Atlas Shrugged. Disaster is not required as a motive to think, those who wait that long are unlikely to be good thinkers, and in disaster people have immediate survival concerns necessarily relying on what they already know. At that point of moment to moment survivial it isn't the time for theoretical discussions. You have circled through this previously in search of rationalizations for fostering a collapse.
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        • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
          It is complete, and I have to comment it’s not very interesting compared with the rest of the book
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          • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
            It's doesn't have the interest of the action and suspense of the plot, but it does have interest of explanation both in the context of the novel and to go back and re-read. The meaning and significance -- and the interest -- are fuller when you know more about the history of philosophy. The best source for that, especially in this context, is Leonard Peikoff's lecture series. It doesn't compare everything with Galt's speech, but it does show the comparisons with Ayn Rand's philosophy. Reading Galt's speech after that results in a lot more jumping off the page at you.
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            • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
              Probably true. But I am more if a practical person. Objectivism is practical , consistent, and sustainable. It works. Isn’t that the real test of philosophy?
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              • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                No, reducing it to a test of "what works" is the philosophy of Pragmatism that has dominated and poisoned this country for over a century. If you lack conceptual understanding you don't know what the goals are and don't have a standard of how to know when something "works". Pragmatism doesn't even have consistent principles: "what is true today may not be true tomorrow", "what works today may not work tomorrow". It redefines truth to be what "works". It is against principle on principle. Pragmatism is a thoroughly parasitic philosophy that depends on your implicitly already having principles for goals and standards of what "works". Pragmatism doesn't work. What works in a reality is a consequence of having a rational, conceptual philosophy. The philosophy of Pragmatism does not mean the practical common sense of "old fashioned American know-how" in dealing with reality (which is why I capitalize 'Pragmatism' as the name of the philosophy to emphasize the distinction).
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                • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
                  I knew you would object to any reference to what works. But the real test of the usefulness of a philosophical thought IS IF IT WORKS IN PRACTICE. If it doesn’t actually work, if what use is it?
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                  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                    "Works" for what by what standard? Ayn Rand's philosophy is a "philosophy for living on earth". It does "work" -- for human life here on earth. "What works" is not the starting point. Contrasting "practical" with understanding Galt's speech as if it were an alternative makes no sense.
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                    • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
                      What works is not starting point because the starting point is no philosophy at all. But the final check had to be something that “works” for a civilization of humans. Defining that would take awhile
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                      • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                        "What works" is not the proper first principle for a philosophy. Statements, including philosophical principles, are true or false. Pragmatism redefines truth in terms of the "cash value" of "what works". You can't plunge into philosophy with a quest for "what works" without regard to everything needed to know goals and standards for determining success. And there is no "final check". No body of knowledge is developed in a vacuum waiting for a "final check", and contextual applications of ideas are always subject to confirming truth.
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                        • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
                          How do you know that a given philosophy IS consistent with reality? It has to be tested and corrected if necessary.
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                          • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                            If you aren't aware of reality and have concepts you have no way to begin philosophy and don't even know what a test is. Philosophy does not pop out Descartes' head and then suddenly become "tested". Pragmatism beginning with what "works" as if a "test" is the first contact with reality is not a rational approach to anything.

                            If you want to understand this then learn what Ayn Rand's philosophy is and how it differs from traditional approaches throughout history. Galt's speech was in the novel for a reason. Pragmatism is not an answer.
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                  • Posted by Solver 5 years, 2 months ago
                    It’s too bad that big governments do not let people live their own lives so people could try out little areas practicing their own philosophies.
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                    • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                      It's not a matter of establishing an official Chinese menu approach. A proper philosophy of government depends on a proper philosophy. Without that, no one will be left alone to try anything, and those preventing it aren't about to establish a government that does anything but enforce their own view of what is proper. This is not a matter of "it's too bad" they won't. They don't allow freedom because of their philosophical premises.
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  • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
    Interesting. Its good that Trump says these things, but it really ISNT any of our business what happens in Venezuela and what the people there choose as their government. I think Trump is trying to protect OUR interests there, and to make sure the oil reserves dont get into bad hands, like Russia and China, which is I suppose a good goa in a way.
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  • Posted by exceller 5 years, 2 months ago
    Venezuela will not fall on its own.

    Countries under Soviet occupation revolted but I don't see the same spirit in the Southern hemisphere.

    People from countries with dire conditions come here (Honduras, Guatemala etc) rather than fighting for freedom and better conditions at home.

    They have gotten used to handouts for many generations.
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    • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
      They will look to the next "leader" to give them stuff. I agree. Its up to the producers just NOT to agree to be looted. I dont know exactly how that will happen openly, but I do think it will happen quietly where the producers just decide one by one to produce LESS.
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    • Posted by $ jbrenner 5 years, 2 months ago
      "People from countries with dire conditions come here (Honduras, Guatemala etc) rather than fighting for freedom and better conditions at home." This is why the idea of Galt's Gulch is so appealing. The biggest (and perhaps only) mistake in Atlas Shrugged was the idea that the Gulchers would ever return at the end of the book.
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      • Posted by $ Radio_Randy 5 years, 2 months ago
        The country still held immense natural resources for industrialists and probably a few starving people willing to work to survive. All, or most, of the looters would have died off once they bled everything that could be bled. It would have been like discovering the Americas, all over again.
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      • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
        Very interesting point. I mean WHY would they come back to a country destroyed by the collectivist thinking that had spread to nearly everyone. The alternative would be to just build up Galts Gulch and live out their lives happily.
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      • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
        They hadn't expected to be able to return so soon, but did when they could because they could be much more productive in a civilized country and economy than holing up in the Valley forever. It represented their full success.
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        • Posted by $ jbrenner 5 years, 2 months ago
          What I disagree with you and AR on is that the country that they would be returning to would be "civilized". I reject your premise.

          From AS, "But you expect industrial giants-who plan in terms of decades ... to continue to function and produce, not knowing what random caprice in the skull of what random official will descend upon them at what moment to demolish the whole of their effort." If you are going to plan in terms of decades, you would be foolish to return to the cesspool described in Atlas Shrugged so quickly.

          Their "full success" would consist of the entire population respecting their productivity properly. Just because they toppled the Mouches and Thompsons of their country does not mean that the looters (and more importantly, their successors) would not revert the country back toward where it was.
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          • Posted by mccannon01 5 years, 2 months ago
            I was always amazed that Dagny could walk the streets of a collapsing NYC without an armed escort and not be abused in some way. I just figured AR put enough on the AS plate without having to explore that alleyway as well.
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            • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
              As a work of romantic fiction it dealt with essentials required for the plot-theme. It wasn't intended to mean the back alleys of NYC were (or are) safe. The characters weren't shown catching colds or getting sick or all kinds of other things not essential to the plot-theme. The Rearden trial and the "rescue" at the end was also very abstract, not intended to be "realistic" -- neither could happen in today's world the way they were portrayed (the bureaucracy proves that every day). The same can be said about the heroic westerns of the 1950s that were on TV every night. Ayn Rand discussed this in The Romantic Manifesto.
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              • Posted by $ jbrenner 5 years, 2 months ago
                The History Channel's portrayal of the Rockefeller trial looks remarkably similar to the Hank Rearden trial:

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlTX6...
                starting at 1:45

                I think this could happen again.
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                • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                  It could, but not under the progressively increasing socialist mentality.
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                  • Posted by $ jbrenner 5 years, 2 months ago
                    The progressively socialist mentality actually makes a Hank Rearden trial even more likely, but it would have to be a company with the inventor (ex. Rearden) and/or his family in charge (the D'Anconia lineage). There are a few companies like that left such as Huntsman.
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                    • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                      Egoistic producers are on kangaroo trial of that kind in the media and in politics every day now, exemplified by whatsername Cortez and Milli Pocahontas, but no one is speaking in defense the way Rearden (or Roark) did. It would not require an inventor (like you) to do that, only a rational, productive person who "did built that". But business is the last to defend freedom, let alone egoistic ethics.
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                      • Posted by $ jbrenner 5 years, 2 months ago
                        It was pleasant today to get past a major sticking point in my project toward making a higher resolution 3D printer. I plan to make as much money off of that as possible when it is ready. If I get sued for having a monopoly, it will be an honor to be the next Roark. It would be a tribute to my success. I can hope, but that will take a few years.
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                        • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                          It would be a "badge of honor" but I don't think that in this culture and legal system a Rearden defense would succeed in stopping a tribunal.
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                    • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
                      I have yet convince someone to drop collectivism ( not that I claim to be particularly effective at that). What’s going to accomplish that I think is the producers ceasing to fund collectivism. Wasn’t that the point of AS?
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                      • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                        No, ceasing to fund collectivism was not the point of Atlas Shrugged. With collectivist ideas dominant throughout society, including producers and semi-producers, there is no way to cease to fund it, nor would withholding funding change what people already believe. The point of Atlas Shrugged was to portray the role of the mind in human life by showing in a fictional plot what happens when the mind is withdrawn.
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                        • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
                          Ceasing funding collectivism doesn’t change people’s philosophy, but it does curtail their ability to get away with collectivism
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                          • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                            No, it doesn't. The collectivism continues.
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                            • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
                              The desire for collectivism continues, you are right. But as they say”socialism only works until the other guys money runs out”. John Galt made that money run out
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                              • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                                The "desire" for collectivism is not all that continues; collectivist premises ensure that collectivist control continues with or without any semblance of a functioning economy. Money running out didn't stop the collectivism in the Soviet Union for over half a century or since, and hasn't stopped it in Venezuela. The economy and the regimes collapsed in both but that didn't stop the collectivism. Individualism did not reign in Russia and there is no sign of it being advocated in Venezuela even as the interim leader may take over.
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                                • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
                                  collectivist principles survive the failure of a particular collectivist regime. I agree with that. BUT, running out of money DID stop the Soviet Union and its horror show, and it will stop the Maduro experiment in Venezuela. But icollectivismstarted up again in Russia, and will undoubtedly start again in Venezuela without massive change in philosophical orientation of the citizens. BUT, there is some relaxation in collectivist policies for a time. Thats what I wanted from Trump, although I suspect there wont be as much slowing as I had hoped, given the attitude of the RINOs and the Dems.
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                                  • ewv replied 5 years, 2 months ago
                        • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
                          May not be the main purpose if AS, but she specifically portrayed a collapse and only then the subsequent rise of capitalism even though the ideas behind capitalism were there all the time in restdens speech
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                          • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                            In the novel there had been capitalism from the 19th century (e.g., Nat Taggert) prior to the plot. During the period of the plot the ideas were not "there all the time". Where is "there"? Ideas do not sit around in the ether waiting to express themselves. They are held in the minds of people and most did not understand them.

                            Some people had a better sense of life and rejected the government leadership, and no more. Only a few knew the right ideas, having extended and formulated a philosophical basis for the first time in the explicit form required.

                            The plot was not about a "rise of capitalism" following a collapse and described nothing of the kind. The novel ended with the protagonists on an airplane headed back to the Valley, anticipating a return to the world at an unspecified time and manner. The characters had previousl referred only to the ideas that would be required.

                            If you want to know what Ayn Rand thought was required for reform and the role of fundamental ideas in that, she wrote a lot about it subsequent to the novel, which we have discussed here previously. She rejected the anti-intellectual notion of a "strike" or a collapse as the means to reform and rejected the notion that a disaster is even required for it.

                            Imagining a "rise of capitalism" by no means simply by projecting a fictional followup to the fiction in the plot of a novel is wishful thinking simultaneously misrepresenting "the point of Atlas Shrugged". It is not an understanding of what is required for fundamental reform or a strategy for achieving it.
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                            • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                              Correction: the intent to return and rebuild the world was after returning to the Valley, not in the airplane, where Galt ended the strike at the bottom of the last page.
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                            • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
                              The ideas of capitalism were there, resident in the producers during the period of the plot. Anyone could see what those ideas were, but the masses specifically rejected them, preferring instead receiving the “freebies” offered by collectivism. When those freebies were no longer available, the freeloaders were forced to look elsewhere for freebies. Not to say they would select capitalism automatically, as you have mentioned
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                              • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                                Producers like Dagny and Rearden were not espousing the moral principles on which capitalism is based, nor in their situation would it have stopped the others. All the rest could see is that people like Dagny and Rearden were "somehow" succeeding. When they finally left near the end, the economy was already over the edge and there was no one else left to take their place either for production, even with mediocrity, or to loot.
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                                • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
                                  What about Rearden in his court case. Sure sounded like moral principles to me. Dagny and Rearden actually helped the collectivists to survive longer, even when they were told what the results of their work actually were.
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                        • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
                          I think I see more utility in not funding or helping collectivism like John Galt
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                          • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                            How? In a fictional world? What utility? If you stopped producing few would notice, let alone the world. It would do nothing to stop or reverse the spread of collectivism.

                            Even in the fictional plot John Galt did much more than stop funding collectivism. He used his mind to formulate proper philosophical ideas required in place of it, and rationally communicated them to those who could understand.

                            People have always cut back or stopped producing for punishment, but it does nothing to change the cause of the punishment.
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                            • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
                              But in AS the withdrawal of a few did make a difference. Giving the fruits of your labor to collectivists just perpetuates it. Therefore withdrawing support hinders it
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                              • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                                Withdrawing support does not hinder the collectivist control. It only limits, if at all, what they spend. If you disappeared from the face of the earth and there was nothing more to take from you, it wouldn't make blip in what they do. With borrowing even a large scale reduction in taxes taken doesn't curtail the spending. Regardless of the spending they continue to control people.

                                The few in Atlas Shrugged made a difference because the novel was an abstraction in fiction focusing on the key producers as individuals. That represented, in fiction, the withdrawal of the mind from human society, leading, in fiction, to a collapse showing, in fiction, the role of the mind in human life. You continue to confuse a theme in romantic fiction with a strategy, let alone your ability to cause a crash or anything else by stopping. That is not rational.
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                                • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
                                  I think AS has much more to do with practical reality than you are giving it credit for. So many things in AS are coming true today

                                  I agree that me dropping out will curtail the collectivist control only a tiny degree. But if the producers , thru being tired of working and having their work given to other people, cut back their work output by 10%, don’t you think that would create a recession and substantially cut the take of the collectivists? Less money to collectivists means less control over the producers- don’t you think?
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                                  • ewv replied 5 years, 2 months ago
                      • Posted by Solver 5 years, 2 months ago
                        Funding collectivism is what mandatory progressive taxation is all about. All the average person can do is resist supporting it.
                        But like a psychotropic drug, it is so addictive once taken, to the point you believe you are entitled to it.
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                        • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
                          You are right, and it seems to be basic hunan nature to accept and become addicted to freebies. I have to specifically reject them if they are forcibly obtained from someone else. This is made very difficult if I am being stolen from by an amorphous government to pay for someone else’s freebies, and then I get a chance to have some of my stolen money returned by accepting some other freebie offered by that amorphous government.
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                      • Posted by $ jbrenner 5 years, 2 months ago
                        The altruism of producers is a point in AS, but ewv nails it with regard to the point of AS.
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                        • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
                          Doesn’t it sound like that’s why AS FAILED to educate people into not being collectivists. Not intending any disrespect to ewv, but his arguments miss the appeal of collectivism, and therefore will fail to stem the tide during any of our lives. And he misses the power of removing the fruits of producers from the grasp of collectivists to enact real changer. Collectivists CANT collect what isn’t there
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                          • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                            Ayn Rand was dismayed when the novel did not have the immediate effect she anticipated. She came to see that it is a much longer process and that is requires non-fiction intellectual battles. She did not (and I do not) "miss the appeal of collectivism" -- it is based on the false premises widely accepted, and the lack of knowledge of what is right.

                            She has had an effect on the culture, but it has not yet "stemmed the tide" and will not any time soon.

                            Collectivists don't have to collect what isn't there to remain collectivists in power, just like the Church could remain in power for over a thousand years along with and following the collapse into the Dark Ages.
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                            • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
                              AR wrote a great and inspiring story. If a story like that can’t change peoples minds, intellectual talk about premises will just not work
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                              • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                                It has changed people, but is not enough without non-fiction explanation. The place to start is with those who have a positive sense of life reaction to Atlas Shrugged and want to know more.
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                                • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
                                  The fiction part really helps get people interested by appealing to them where “they live”. It engages both thinking and emotions. I postulate that the appeal of collectivism is basically emotional and it’s very difficult to counter this appeal just with intellectual arguments alone
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                                  • ewv replied 5 years, 2 months ago
                          • Posted by $ jbrenner 5 years, 2 months ago
                            One or two bad choices allow an Ellsworth Toohey to "own" a Peter Keating. Being a Howard Roark is the effort of a lifetime. d(looters)/d(time) and d(moochers)/d(time) = very positive.
                            d(producers)/d(time), even when it was positive, was not sufficiently positive to forever enshrine production in the society.
                            Looting and mooching are such easy choices.
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                            • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
                              I agree that looting and mooching are easier choices, and that probably accounts for the prevalence of both of those things. One would have to at least think of why it was a better idea to adopt calitalism in the long run. If all one wants is to feed off other people, eventually everyone will be feeding off everyone else and the net gain is less than zero
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                              • Posted by $ jbrenner 5 years, 2 months ago
                                Such people do not think beyond that particular day. By stark contrast, Rand correctly describes industrialists as "planning in terms of decades". We need to co-opt the millenials' idea of sustainability so as to refer to financial sustainability.
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              • Posted by mccannon01 5 years, 2 months ago
                Agreed. That is why I included the second sentence with the word "alleyway" as a reference to a branch of story that would move away from the main theme. Sorry if you picked up on that as a place where Dagny was going to get mugged. I should have been more clear.
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          • Posted by exceller 5 years, 2 months ago
            "Their "full success" would consist of the entire population respecting their productivity properly."

            Yes, and therein lies the problem of impossibility.

            There is no such thing as the "entire population" acting as one and what's more, intelligently.

            Look what we have now: there are always those who want what you have and find the necessary vehicles to make it a driving force for many.

            That is why I have an issue with the Gulchers returning to society.
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            • Posted by $ jbrenner 5 years, 2 months ago
              "Look what we have now: there are always those who want what you have and find the necessary vehicles to make it a driving force for many." - You have encapsulated looters and moochers' motivations in one sentence. I will encapsulate it one word - ENVY.
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              • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                "Today, we live in the Age of Envy. 'Envy' is not the emotion I have in mind, but it is the clearest manifestation of an emotion that has remained nameless... That emotion is: hatred of the good for being the good." Ayn Rand, "The Age of Envy" in The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution. She also referred to it in other articles such "Epitaph for a Culture".
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                • Posted by $ jbrenner 5 years, 2 months ago
                  That is my favorite of AR's non-fiction works. It is far more valid now than it has ever been.
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                  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                    It terms of non-fiction criticism it is one of the best, along with "Global Balkanization", "The Anti-Industrial Revolution" and others. On the positive side my favorite is Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.
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            • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
              A civililized society does not require that everyone properly respect all aspects of productiveness with maximum possible intelligence. It requires that most people accept reason and individualism sufficiently to maintain reasonably rational and productive lives and a proper government to protect it. Those who can't even do that much behave as criminals and are treated accordingly.

              That is why political reform requires the proper basic philosophical ideas, which is not what we have now.

              The projected return to the world at the end of Atlas Shrugged was not a return to the same society, it was projected as a return replacing the collapsed society helpless to stop them. This was in the context of romantic fiction, not a political blueprint. https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
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          • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
            The novel wasn't about what happened after the collapse and it didn't describe what would be required in a return. The whole plot was artificially accelerated in showing the role of rational thought in human society and what happens when it is withdrawn. It wasn't intended to advocate a "strike" as a solution at all, let alone instantaneous recovery after a collapse.

            It is romantic fiction dealing in essential ideas abstractly. It is not a literal blueprint for politics, let alone politics without regard for anything else. In that context of romantic fiction the anticipated return represented the fulfillment of achieving (beyond the time span of the plot) a much more productive civilized country and economy than hiding in the Valley forever. It represented their full success as the ideal.
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            • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
              Once again we see a coward engaging in bulk 'downvoting' in his irrational emotional outbursts without even an attempt at discussion. There are a couple of real jerks here who don't belong on this forum at all. Others can read what is written here in spite of the antics.
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      • Posted by exceller 5 years, 2 months ago
        Yes, I am glad someone brought that up, e.g. the Gulchers returning.

        I was thinking at the time when I read the book: why would they return?

        Chances are they would encounter the very same conditions after a while. Unfortunately that is in the human DNA. The role of a super talented leader would make a difference, but only temporarily. If history is a guide, we have a great leader only once in a century.
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        • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
          Atlas Shrugged was about the role of the mind in human life, not great political leaders. Ideas are not innate in DNA; they are learned.
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          • Posted by $ jbrenner 5 years, 2 months ago
            While ideas are learned, the wrong ideas must be unlearned by an overwhelming majority of the population. That doesn't happen quickly enough for it to make sense for the producers to return. Producers will go somewhere else where a particular country's ideas are sufficiently unpolluted, and if there is no such place, they will either start their own such place (i.e. Galt's Gulch, although this is highly unlikely) or just shrug.
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            • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
              Yes bad ideas must be unlearned and replaced ("a much more meaningful "repeal and replace"), but the bad ideas were learned; they weren't innate in dna.

              And yes it takes time to go through the whole intellectual establishment and through the educational system, but there is no substitute in order to achieve fundamental change.

              In mixed economies the producers can at least function at some level, but can't go somewhere else to produce unless there is such a place (which now there is not). They can leave Venezuela for improvement, but not the relatively civilized countries. Starting a utopian enclave is not realistic, but the best people do "shrug" by dropping out or cutting back even in mixed economies. Why work for punishment? Even when economic conditions cyclically vary, we often don't trust it because know the trend: "fool me once, ..."

              In more extreme cases like communism, including Venezuela, they have no choice but to drop out, escape somewhere, or be killed. It's how collectivist economies decline and collapse.
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              • Posted by $ jbrenner 5 years, 2 months ago
                Very true. The Venezuelan case is particularly sad because they once knew prosperity and voted for its disappearance in less than a generation. It's very much like Atlas Shrugged.
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                • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                  It is like the plot of Atlas Shrugged in the sense that it's another example of the collapse when the human mind is not left free to operate and withdraws, but all we see is the destruction, with no one emphasizing the role of rational thought and the egoistic ethics of exercising it the way Atlas Shrugged did. The most we're being told is "socialism did it".
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    • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
      The Soviet Union "fell on its own" from internal collapse, not from internal revolt. It was propped up for nearly 3/4 of a century by the US and other countries providing it with food. Some of the satellites had tried to revolt, especially towards the end, but for the most part the prisoners accepted their fate even though they didn't like it -- they didn't know what to replace it with and feared the freedom of the west. The Russians wound up with fascism and the Russian mafia replacing communism and still don't know what to replace it with.

      Venezuela will fall on its own if it is not propped up, but will be replaced by some other statism, not become a free nation as long as most of the populace remains altruist/collectivist. Being against something does not say what one is for and there is no evidence that Venezuelans are for freedom, missing the "spirit" you refer to.
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      • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
        I would agree that both Russian and Venezuelan people have no idea that capitalism should replace their various collectivist plans. They have no intellectual grounding to permit a switch to capitalism, except perhaps when the collectivist government fails and for awhile nothing replaces it (in which case capitalism is the default system)
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        • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
          Capitalism is not a default: it requires protection of the rights of the individual. People bartering in chaos only because no one is stopping them at the moment is not capitalism.
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          • Posted by $ jbrenner 5 years, 2 months ago
            Quite correct. "Capitalism is not a default." In fact, the default is much like "Lord of the Flies." It took reason to overcome instincts.
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            • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
              It takes reason to overcome the lack of rational thought, not "instincts". Proper ideas and principles take work to achieve, but it doesn't mean that primitive societies act only on instinct as opposed to bad ideas learned. An example of the Lord of the Flies syndrome is the atmosphere at Google -- they learned that behavior in their education, reinforced from each other; it isn't instinct.
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          • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
            I should have been more specific. When there is no -ism forced by government, people just trade amongst themselves in as capitalistic way as they can (given that there would be no enforcement of private property. People would have to be very careful to make sure that they protected themselves in what would be essentially anarchy.
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            • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
              They can't simultaneously protect themselves and condone anarchy. Government is not the only violator of rights. Without an "ism" -- some kind of coherent acceptance of rational individualism -- they can't even count on simple peaceful trade. There was some "trade" and barter thousands of years ago but the tribalism was not capitalism.
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              • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
                I agree in principle.
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                • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
                  A person can protect himself AND live in anarchy. Not as efficiently as under an objectivist enforced set of rules. The default "system" is for people to trade amongst themselves while protecting their interests.
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                  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                    People "trading among themselves while protecting their interests" is not a "default". People who don't know any better routinely savage each other with or without mixing it with primitive barter and trade. They don't know what is in fact in their "interest". Rational self interest with peaceful exchange of value for value must be discovered as rational behavior. It is not a "default".

                    You can try to physically defend yourself at the last minute under any attack, with or without understanding the principle of rights, including tribal slaughter, a back alley, or anything else. Anarchism does not allow for the protection of rights in principle. This is not a matter of degrees of efficiency. It is not a system at all, let alone capitalism. When a "collectivist government fails for awhile and nothing replaces it" capitalism is not "the default system". There is no system. Nor is rational behavior of any kind the "default".
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                    • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
                      what I meant by capitalism is the default system is that people will naturally trade with each other so that each of them is happy in the end. That means that each side thinks they are happy with the result. In practical terms, that would essentially be an elementary form of capitalism.
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                      • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                        Peaceful trade is not a "natural" "default". Capitalism is an advanced social concept based on rational egoism and the rights of the individual. It took thousands of years to evolve and achieve. Primitive barter in ancient tribalism was not an "elementary form of capitalism". Tribal savagery -- not "peaceful trade", private property, and rational egoism with individual happiness as a moral goal -- was "natural" to them. Nor is the morality of capitalism "natural" to those voted for socialism that collapses.

                        Chaos and death are the "natural" state of those without civilized concepts, principles, and the integrity to follow them. Capitalism is "natural", but not in that way -- it is based on "natural rights" as what should be protected as required for human life, not a "default" state.
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                        • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
                          How do you explain how humans advanced from cave dwelling to high rise living except through cooperative trading? Pure capitalism as you describe it has never existed and probably never will , yet some elements of it must have been around to explain the advances in human life
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                          • Posted by ewv 5 years, 2 months ago
                            People formulated, learned and accumulated better ideas over time as they became more civilized. Sometimes there was major regression, such as the Dark Ages, and much of the previous progress had to be started over. The less brutal people were, the more they were able to be productive. The Enlightenment emphasis on reason and individualism made capitalism possible as a social system. It was never fully adopted, but in the 19th century freedom dominated. Reread "What is Capitalism" and "The Roots of War".
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