“Liberty, property, no stamps!”, cried the colonists .
They were miffed because the bully thug, King George III, was stepping on their capitalistic toes. They got so miffed, in fact, that they precipitated a revolution.
Three days from now, the successors of King George III will impose a new wave of socialist tyranny on the colonists when the people of America will go to the polls to endorse one of the three socialists the media pundits want to see in the White House: Clinton, Obama or McCain. Either the social-welfare socialists, or the military-industrial socialists will win; it will mark the final disconnect between the dollar and any supposed connection it had to gold under Bretton-Woods, and the beginning of a rapid decline for the American Empire. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
The only possible reversal of this trend would take place if there were a massive show of support for Ron Paul on Super Tuesday, but the polls say this is about as likely as that tomorrow everyone in the world will wake up as a vegan. And thus, America is almost certainly doomed.
But whether it happens on Super Tuesday, which is unlikely, or in four or eight years from now after a period of the most painful economic turmoil, which is almost a surety, one thing is certain — that at some point the Capitalist Imperative will make itself felt, and the people will realize that only a system of trade that rewards value for value, and is based on sound money, outside the control of a board of currency manipulators, and founded on the supply and demand requirements of the free market, can meet the people’s requirements for commodities. The pathetic brainwashing that has taken place over so many decades since Roosevelt (Franklin), has left the American body-politic with a horrendous case of economic-Alzheimers. “Rome? I vaguely recall the name. Went bankrupt did they? That’s interesting. You told me why, only yesterday, that’s true, but for some reason I’ve forgotten. Could you please reiterate one more time? Currency debasement? The dole? What are those? Oh yes? Now I understand, as long as I can retain the economics in my mind. But, oh, inspiration and hope are so much more fun than factity.”
Ron Paul, the prophet of Capitalism, preaching in the wilderness of American socialism, to a spendthrift nation that does not want to hear the truth. But the Capitalist Imperative will not be denied. Mankind will learn that there is only one system that guarantees fairness and adequate supplies of commodities for all who truly want them, a system that rewards frugality and punishes wastefulness and profligacy, the only system that can guarantee the lifting of the fardel of earning a living for the mediocre by permitting the mediocre to attain to the rewards of the talented through accumulation of credit units ( saving cash). At least, this was the deal before the Fed was given the greenlight by the Democrats to bail out their wealthy constituents whenever they got themselves into a jam. Now they can devalue the accrued savings of hard-working Americans on any day they so wish. They will always give you a good reason for their actions, and they will always be backed up by the Democrats and Republicans, except Ron Paul.
But whether in a few days, or in almost 5 years from now, the Capitalist Imperative will re-emerge and reassert itself. It’s energy, the energy of trade, is unstoppable. And its antithesis, the politics of disguised theft, will putrefy, rot, and leave a stench so powerful in the nostrils of the body-politic that one day soon it will regard the Democrats and Republicans in the same way as those crowded tram-car passengers regarded Harry Langdon, as he accidentally rubbed Lindberger cheese into his chest, thinking it was salve. Silverwolf is already gagging, but he’s usually ahead of the crowd.
Silverwolf hopes that if Cain McCain is Abel to win on Tuesday, the doughty baby-plucker from Pittsburgh, Ron Paul, will not fold his campaign tent, but set it up once again in the field of Independence. Ron Paul should run as a third party candidate if the pseudo-Republicans who have hijacked that Gross Old Party insist on running another incompetent against any of the Democratic incompetents (and they are all thus).
It is sometimes to be regretted that life is not as perfect as the Novel, and one sometimes wishes that someone like a Ron Paul could take over complete control of the airwaves, just for a few hours, and just as John Galt did in Atlas Shrugged, and force everyone in America to listen to his non-contradictory arguments without interruption for the same length of time as Ayn Rand allowed her hero. (Of course, Rand’s speech, which she puts in the mouth of John Galt, is the height of absurdity, because not only does it go on for over a hundred pages in the novel, which must have required the listeners to sit suspended and spellbound at the radio for at least 25 hours without even micturating once, but it also requires an Ockham’s razor of intellectual sharpness to follow the myriad and confusing philosophical arguments (mostly invalid) with which Rand seeks to justify her pro-capitalist philosophy (mostly valid, when it excludes her idol worship of the corporation). To think that the average country capitalist is going to worry his little ol’ head over such maniloquent sophistry is ludicrousness carried to its ultimate ludare.
Yes, Silverwolf regrets that every American is not forced (even though he doesn’t like force) to have to listen to Dr. Paul’s arguments for a couple of hours straight. He’d bet that, if it were so, Dr. Paul would capture at least 15 % of the vote. And probably a lot more. And the Capitalist Imperative would become clear in the minds of many of the populace. And running as an Independent, this Capitalist Imperative would be championed by a new pro-capitalist outlook, that understands and revels in the truths of the Austrian school of economics, the most pro-mercantilist philosophy ever devised. And Silverwolf thinks that Dr. Paul, with his half-Coolidge, half-McGovern delivery, peppered with an occasional and refreshing dose of righteous anger, is a great candidate to carry this torch of an independent, pro-capitalist, third-party forward.
Give us a choice, not an echo.
Silverwolf says, “Run, Ron Paul, as an independent, if the blind of the Republican party should reject you. Give the people a choice, not an echo!”
“Liberty, property, no stamps!” It sounded good then; it sounds good now.
Silverwolf will howl to that.
Hooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! — Silverwolf
Tags: Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, Capitalist Imperative, Ron Paul, The Stamp Act
February 3, 2008 at 5:04 pm |
Actually, Ayn Rand wasn’t a big fan of the corporation. She has corporations that collude with the government which she despises and corporations run by men of the mind which are libertarian organizations which are her ideal. Also her validation of capitalism fillls in the holes that the enlightenment failed to fill in by providing a moral basis for capitalism without the need for positing a creator and simply saying that rights are “natural”. The lack of a more detailed and complete philosophical explanation of rights made the anti-enlightenment movement of Kant, Hegel, Marx etc. possible which led to the socialist movements of the 19th and 20th centuries leading to so much misery.
February 3, 2008 at 5:07 pm |
Also, her view of fiction was romantic realism so the Galt speech needs to be taken in context of her aims as a writer. She wasn’t try to be extremely realistic. In fact her world was not the world of her time or of the past, but a bleak future world where socialism was in ascendence, where there were heads of State, not presidents, and where men of the mind were very lacking. This was the world of an economic collapse distilled to clarify her ideas. We see some of this happening today.
She also infused science fiction in the book which made it that much more interesting.
February 3, 2008 at 6:35 pm |
Timur — Right. One must take the whole novel with a grain of salt as far as realism. The whole idea of the Remnant colony in Colorado which couldn’t be spotted from the air due to some trick with mirrors is quite enough, so if you’re not prepared to stretch your imagination a bit, you can’t really enjoy the book.
As far as my criticisms of some of her philosophical underpinnings, I think something can be A and non-A at the same time; Rand doesn’t think that is possible. Buddhism, Taoism, and the non-dualistic philosophies understand it, but it seems pretty impossible for someone coming from Ayn Rand’s and Bertrand Russell’s philosophies to ever accept that. In that, I feel they were wrong, and that there are much more profound philosophers, metaphysically speaking, than Rand and Russell and the Logical Empiricists. But as far as practical, everyday American capitalism goes, Atlas Shrugged was a bombshell, and caused a minor revolution. She was definitely a corrective laxative for an America growing constipated and toxic from the socialist bilge building up in its lower colon.
I found “We the Living” much more realistic and chilling. Not only is it a good read, but talk about knowing what it must have been like to live under Stalinism in the 1920’s — just read that book and you can well imagine. Whenever something didn’t work — like most of the matches in a book of matches— they’d refer to it as “Soviet”, like “Soviet matches”. Maybe we ought to do the same in America, as we’re taxed more and more, and less and less works right.— Silverwolf
February 4, 2008 at 8:57 am |
“She was definitely a corrective laxative for an America growing constipated and toxic from the socialist bilge building up in its lower colon.” When is America going to take her big dump? I see no evidence of any movement, so far.
“I think something can be A and non-A at the same time; Rand doesn’t think that is possible.” Aristotle didn’t, either. Of course, he didn’t have the opportunity of traveling to the far east for his enlightenment like you have.
February 4, 2008 at 4:32 pm |
Of course I agree with you on the politics so there is not much to comment there.
Regarding the metaphysics, let me clarify what she meant: something can’t be both A and non-A at the same time and in the same respect. This is the law of identity, which is axiomatic, meaning it is both fundamental and self-evident. Any attempt to disprove it automatically presupposes it. When we form a sentence, talk about a philosophy or even form a thought, we know that the sentence is the sentence and not something else. We know the thought is a thought and not something else. Our very discussion now would be impossible unless you accept that the words are the words I write and not something else. The Budhist and Taoist philosophies are what they are and mean what they mean (i.e. whatever meaning you believe them to have) and not something else so there is no way to escape the law of identity as it is the underpinning of every action or thought you can take. This is simply what she means by it and it is an Aristotelian concept.
I don’t believe Taoism and Budhism question the law of identity. I think they may have issues with some dualisms which makes sense, but Rand herself was not dualistic in most ways; dualism in the sense that there are opposites that are fundamentally different from each other which cannot be bridged. Also, I don’t know if you meant to imply she was a logicial empiricist, but if you did, let me clarify that she is not. She believed that to be a false dichotomy (a dualism in standard philosophic language).
In fact, one can argue that her philosophy is dialectic because she breaks the many dualisms that were prevalent in philosophy (e.g. rationalism vs. empiricism, theory vs. practice, master vs. slave, reason vs. emotion, etc.)
The idea of dialectical thinking, which was invented by Aristotle, not Marx as some people may believe, is to find common ground in “seeming” opposites, to put them in their proper context and to take what is right on each side and use that to transcend the differences.
This is fundamentally what Rand did in her philosophy, by breaking the barriers between supposed opposites.
As for Taoism, Budhism, etc. I am not that familiar with those philosophies but I am sure that they have many good things to offer, but they can’t be founded on a rejection of the law of identity because then they would be non-sensical and meaningless. It is most likely that they reject other dualisms (although isn’t yin and yang a dualistic concept?), but I can’t comment on them further as I am not as familiar with them.
Regarding the “mirror trick”, I think it had to do with using refractive waves or something like that which was a bit more than a mirror trick if I recall, but in any science fiction, one has to suspend some disbelief and the level of disbelief varies from person to person.
February 4, 2008 at 5:27 pm |
Favela — In point of fact, I’ve never been to the Far East because they like to eat dogs, and as a wolf I would worry. I prefer to let their books travel to me. — Silverwolf
February 4, 2008 at 5:43 pm |
Timur — I suppose I should have actually used the term “Logical positivist” rather than “logical empiricist” to describe Russell, since that is how he defined himself, and I extended that to Rand because she like Russell couldn’t handle something being A and non-A at the same time. But Buddhism or Taosim would say that they arise mutually, are each defined by the other, and could not exist without the other. Existence cannot take place without nothingness, and one could define existence as a place where nothingness is not taking place. So I don’t think yin and yang is a dualistic concept. To the westerner, existence is the important thing, we rarely think about the nothingness surrounding the object we desire. But nothingness and space are just as axiomatic for existence as existence itself.
And of course, physics has thrown another fly into the ointment by showing us that as we get smaller and smaller, and find smaller and smaller “particles”, it seems these “particles” are naught but patterns of energy.
None of this has much to do with everyday practical capitalism, and daily trade on earth delivering commodities to 7 billion human bodies. Philosophical discussions of A and non-A, or the seeming illusion of duality has very little to do with commodities, which definitely are “A”. If they were non-A, they would draw no bids, and it is the bid, not the ask, that defines the value of any commodity under capitalism. — Silverwolf
February 4, 2008 at 6:53 pm |
Rand isn’t a logical positivist. She was diametrically opposed to their viewpoints as they arre opposed to metaphysics and ontology in particular, which she does not oppose. She has a very “frugal” metaphysics, but she doesn’t dispense with it entirely.
A cannot be non-A at the same time. If something is A, it is by definition, not non-A, otherwise it is meaningless. Take the statement “A is non-A”. If A is non-A then it is not A. It’s like saying a circle is a square or something non-sensical like that. If something is to have meaning, it cannot be a contradiction. A contradiction has no meaning. Saying A is non-A is a contradiction and meaningless. It’s like me saying I am Timur and not Timur. Well, if I am Timur, I am not not-Timur. It doesn’t mean that I can’t be Timur and human, or Timur and living. The law of identity means that you cannot be A and non-A at the same time and in the same respect.
Any attempt to say A is non-A assumes that what you are saying is what you are saying and not the opposite. When you make a statement to me, you are saying “A is A”. You statement is your statement. You are not saying, “Maybe what I am saying is what I am saying, but maybe what I am saying is not what I am saying.” If you believe that, then truth, knowledge, language and frankly existence would not be possible. Your description of the content of taoism presupposes that your description is your description and not the opposite, that taoism and budhism say something about the world and not the opposite, etc. This is what I mean by axiomatic. It can’t be escaped. Every statement or every thought ever stated presupposes the law of identity.
As for existence and nothingness, Nothingness is not something that exists. It is the absence of existence. Nothingness is not another kind of something, it is nothing. That is what it means. Keep in mind that Existents are metaphysical entities. Nothing is a concept that our minds use to understand the absence of existence. It is not something that exists. It is the absence of existence, which is a concept, not an entity. Existence is the primary, nothingness is the absence of it.
Nothingness is not axiomatic, but derived from existence. Without existence, we would be nothing and could not talk about “nothing”. It is only because we exist that we can talk about its absence. Nothing is a conceptual instrument to help us understand when something does not exist. To say nothing is an entity is a contradiction and meaningless because if you say that nothing is really another kind of something which means it would be existence, in which case it would be pointless to call it nothing.
Nothing should be not be taken to be synonymous with vaccum or anything like that. Nothing really means the absence of something.
If commodities are definitely “A”, then they definitely cannot be “non-A” which is just a reaffirmation of the law of identity.
I really do believe that if Taoism and Budhism really believe what you say they believe, then they believe in nothing in particular and therefore there is no content to their belief. Since I do believe that there is content to the belief of Taoism and Budhism and the content is what it is and not the opposite, Taoism and Budhism espouse something that doesn’t violate the law of identity.
However, I really don’t think they are saying this. What I think they are saying is that things that we believe to be dualistic are often related or two sides of the same coin. That is a meaningful point of view and jives with dialectical thought to some degree. But they have to accept the law of identity.
Regarding physics, it too presupposes the law of identity. A thing is what it is, whether it is a bundle of energy, a widget, a superstring. Metaphysics is very basic and Rand rejected cosmology which tells what kinds of things exist and their specific nature and left that to physics. She only has ontology in her metaphysics which is just the very basic understanding of the fundamentals of the universe. Unlike many other philosophers, she left ontology to be very simple: Existence Exists. To exist is to be something in particular. Consciousness is awareness of that which exists. There really is not that much more. The nature of existence is for physics and the other sciences to describe and explain, but these sciences all accept the premise that a thing is what it is, whatever that may be. They have to in order to make any sense whatsoever.
Hopefully, I haven’t rambled on too much…
February 4, 2008 at 8:01 pm |
Favela,
The far east may provide true enlightenment in many areas, but rejecting the law of identity isn’t one of them.
February 4, 2008 at 8:09 pm |
Timur — I wasn’t saying Rand was a logical positivist, but that Russell defined himself thus. But I do see Rand as someone who built her system on logical bits, and had no truck with the contradiction, as you point out. The Aristotelian non-contradictory principle is one of the cornerstones of this logical system. However, I question that principle, even though I understand your incomprehension at how such questioning is possible. Perhaps it depends on whether one sees everything as engaged in a distinguishless continuum, which is one unity. Within it, there is no separation into A and non-A except through consciousness; outside it nothing exists.
Buddhism and Taoism are not systems of belief, I’d gauge, but systems designed to rid the brain of all beliefs, or conditionings that cause it to see reality is certain ways. We almost always look at an object, not at the space around it. I will look at the face of the woman, not the airspace two feet above her head.
And they’re pretty realistic, practical philosophies. Look at how those old Taoists and Buddhists, when they got too old to live alone like hermits in the woods, would get young fit men to come up to their camps, do all the cooking and cleaning, and keep them hanging around for months and years by giving them koans to try to figure out mentally, things like how can something be A and non-A at the same time. The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi racket has been going on since time immemorial.
Course, these are massive religions, with large numbers of different sects and viewpoints, and I certainly can’t claim to speak for them, since I don’t define myself as belonging to their traditional systems. But I do think they have a fundamentally sound outlook, and have hit on the point that the conditioning of the mind cannot be ignored if you want to find ultimate reality.
But Rand seemed pretty argumentative. It sounds like she was always “breaking” with people over some philosophical dispute; frankly, it sounds like if you didn’t think or see things her way, she didn’t have much time for you. But perhaps that is a wrong impression. — Silverwolf
February 4, 2008 at 10:53 pm |
Rand built her system inductively based on the evidence of the senses. The evidence of the senses is also axiomatic in that any attempt to disprove the use of the senses presupposes their use. Everything we know about the world is based on our senses. When you use the terms unity, A, non-A, consciousness, continuity, they all presuppose existence, identity and consciousness. Since we know consciousness exists, consciousness needs to be conscious of something. If there is nothing to be conscious of, then what we are describing is not consciousness. Concepts of unity and continuity all come from the evidence of the senses and they are concepts, which are a combination of the mind interacting with reality. They presuppose that there is a reality out there that we are aware of and that we are taking entities and grouping them into concepts.
My point, which I am probably not making clear, is that when you question the non-contradictory principle, you are first assuming that what you are thinking has identity and means something. If you don’t think so, then you are admitting to having meaningless content. If you do admit that you are actually thinking about something in particular, then you are using the law of identity and non-contradiction while attempting to argue it doesn’t exist.
Regarding Budhism and Taoism, you are echoing my precise points. Those systems help you change your paradigm and look at things outside the box. But they presuppose that they are saying one thing and not the opposite, that what they are saying has identity (i.e. means something in particular), whatever it is, etc. The fundamentality of the law of identity (and its corrollary, the law of non-contradiction) is what I am trying to clarify. There can be no thought, action or statement without first accepting that axiom.
I do not believe they are actually saying something can be A and non-A at the same time in the literal fundamental sense, because as I described, such a statement has no meaning. What I do think they are trying to do is, as I described above, to get you out of a narrow mindset and to reconcile “apparent” contradictions. Because there are a lot of things in life that are apparent contradictions, but are really not. This is the goal of dialectical thinking as well.
It is far too literal to really think that they would mean that A is non-A because then what they are saying may not be what they are saying and there is nothing to learn because knowledge is impossible, since there is no foundation to knowledge. And enlightenment means knowledge of something, even if the knowledge says you don’t know what you think you know or you know less than you think you do.
Regarding Rand, your impression of Rand is correct. She was argumentative and angry, partly because of her Soviet upbringing and partly for the same reason we are angry at the socialists etc. She saw in real life what you and I only talk about. The times were also socialistic and she was fighting against two thousand years of thinking on ethics and one hundred years of backwards thinking on politics, as well as thinking on metaphysics and epistemology (in the latter where she made some important contributions). But she was angry and her anger made her be very intolerant and moralistic, particularly in her later years.
February 4, 2008 at 11:44 pm |
Timur — I wanted to add, but forgot, that I am a Cartesian, and I do agree with you that “something exists”. “I think, therefore I am” (Cogito, ergo sum) is fine with me; I do think it proves that something, whatever you want to label it, exists or is going on. I seem to recall this was expanded on by Edmund Husserl, and the Phenomenologists with their “bracketing” of phenomena. I agree with them; the only sound basis for epistemology is the phenomena of the senses, and it sure shows you that “something” definitely exists. — Silverwolf
February 5, 2008 at 4:27 pm |
Speaking of existence, Ron Paul exists and I am voting for him today in NJ.
February 5, 2008 at 5:44 pm |
Timur — Good for you! and thank you for your service to the country by going out to vote for Ron Paul, and in the death-penalty-free state of New Jersey. I will have to wait a couple of months, by which time it will probably be too late. Ron Paul may well be the only politician in America who cannot be both “A” and non-A at the same time, i.e., the only consistent candidate with no contradictions in his philosophy (though those of us who disagree with him on a few issues do see contradictions in those areas). But in his mind, I don’t think he is living in “Sartrean bad faith” like all the other candidates, who are liars, and who know it sub-consciously but can’t bring themselves to face the fact that they are some of the lowest caitiffs in America still walking around outside of jail cells. The adoration of the mob takes their minds off the fact. — Silverwolf
February 5, 2008 at 7:30 pm |
Most people are lemmings and will do what others do and will follow whoever has the loudest voice. The loudest voices have been saying Ron Paul is unelectable, he is a kook, he is fringe, he is a longshot, etc. and people believe it because it is being said. Only until our voices become louder will anything change. It will probably be at the point when the country completely collapses and then people will say, “Gee.. that Ron Paul guy was talking about that, wasn’t he?” or they may not even remember at all.
February 5, 2008 at 9:54 pm |
Timur — Judging by the vast number of callers to talk radio who have no awareness of economic realities, I’d say it will take the rude awakening of a financial knee up into their marriage prospects for most people to understand that you can’t have guns and butter and not expect to soon be living off buns in the gutter. I watched an Obama speech the other night all the way through for the first time, and it was a massive array of massive spending plans, but not a word of closing all our bases around the world and letting the wealthy foreigners pay for their own damned defense. I did hear the usual and tired calls for “sacrifice” — we know what that means — and hope. Well, what about instead having a capitalist revolution under Ron Paul. Something that would work, built on a non-contradictory basis. America seems intent on failure when it could have virtue and excellence.
Perhaps todays 300 point drop in the Dow had less to do with bad service sector figures, and more to do with the fact that Ron Paul is polling 4 to 6% in one of the two major parties in America on Super Tuesday, meaning that about 3% of the electorate is sane. Today’s price action may have been the world bond markets’ realization that America is the Lemming, going off the cliff.
So I think they will still remember Ron Paul’s name when the collapse comes.
Anyway, as Meher Baba said, “Don’t worry. Be happy.” — Silverwolf
February 6, 2008 at 12:17 am |
Timur — By the way, did you notice I mentioned the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi yesterday in my comment to you on Feb. 4th at 8:09pm? I see the breaking news just now on the BBC that the Maharishi has just died. Another eldritch concatenation. — Silverwolf
February 6, 2008 at 12:23 am |
Timur — And another thing that is gnawing at my conscience: I feel I have been unjustly censorious concerning Ayn Rand when I say her philosophical arguments are mostly invalid. I think I should be more generous and say they are usually valid. I am being too hard on the old girl. Forgive me. — Silverwolf
February 25, 2008 at 1:41 pm |
Sorry, I didn’t have a chance to read these comments until now. I have been very busy watching our country choose between Hitler, Ayotollah Khomenei, Stalin and FDR.
February 25, 2008 at 4:19 pm |
Timur — There’s another choice — Thom Jefferson — i.e. Ron Paul.—Silverwolf.
February 25, 2008 at 7:04 pm |
Timur — By the way, what do you think will be the effect of Nader’s announced candidacy? Do you think it will tend to help Dr. Paul’s chances? — Silverwolf
April 1, 2008 at 10:27 pm |
I think it will have no effect (having responded a month later)….
April 1, 2008 at 11:24 pm |
Yes, Timur, it has had no effect. Haven’t even heard it mentioned since then. Political memories are Alzheimer memories. — Silverwolf