soreff (02/24/83)
In response to Tom Cramer: Ayn Rand and fellow thinkers make a number of extreme simplifications in their views of the world. 1) They do not admit that there is any use of force in the free market. If an employer threatens to fire an employee when the economic conditions are such that the employee will starve, they do not consider this "force". As a result, they see the extraction of any concession by the use of such a threat as a bargain struck between the employer and employee (no matter how disparate their positions), while any taxation is seen as the use of force. 2) They have a very simple view of what property is: they seem to view it as something that an individual can use to promote their "values" (preferences? interests?) without any restrictions. There are a wide variety of situations where the use of property creates major effects on nearby individuals without their consent. That is why there are zoning laws, land use regulations, pollution control laws, noise control laws etc. Rand's model of ownership considers possesion and use of an object but not side effects. It also has no way of treating collective goods like clean air. 3) The claim that property rights are valid because life is valuable is a bizarre deduction. One could equally well claim that since life is valuable, the community must provide all its members with protection against potentially lethal hazards as a natural right. I don't claim that this is true, but it is an EQUALLY reasonable conclusion. -Jeffrey Soreff (hplabsb!soreff)