rh@mit-eddie.UUCP (Randy Haskins) (08/11/83)
I thought I should add my two sense...
I had a little taste of Objectivism when I first came to school
(4 yrs. ago). There was a rag on campus (called ERGO) that
claimed to be Objectivist. I was told by some Randians that I
knew that they weren't really that close to Rand's philosophy.
Anyway, I did read the Objectivist's statement of belief, and I
think that it is supposed to be accurate. It basically states
that everyone should be rational, the best economic system is
laissez-faire capitalism, and that the reason the world is a mess
is that not everyone is rational. Well, I find two problems with
this:
1) You can't expect everyone to be rational, just like you can't
expect everyone to be Einstein's. Reasoning power is not
something that everyone has. I'm sorry, but that's the way
it is. It's probably because of the way they have been
brought up, and there's not much you can do about having
all children brought up to be rational. Just face that.
2) Laissez-faire capitalism (in it's purest form) would give
us all cancer. Even with the current form of govt. reguation,
some company managed to make babies's pajamas out of Tryst,
which was found to be carcinogenic. Then, when the government
said, "You can't make them anymore," the company said, "Well,
at least let us get rid of our current stock." So, what is
the consumers recourse, burn down the company?
My basic gripe is that to think people are going to be rational and
that LF capitalism is going to work is entirely too optimistic.
People (except for altruists, but that's another debate) are basically
going to look out for themselves, and that's the way it is. To expect
any other behavior on the basis of rational thinking is ridiculous.
<is this long enough>
--
Randwulf
(Randy Haskins); Path= genrad!mit-eddie!rh or... rh@mit-ee (via mit-mc)