In #Objectivist philosophy, the four main pillars are objective reality, absolute reason, self-interest, and laissez-faire #capitalism.
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In #Objectivist philosophy, the four main pillars are objective reality, absolute reason, self-interest, and laissez-faire #capitalism. That fourth one always seemed to me like it was just tacked onto an otherwise reasonable chain of logic.
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@mcjevans #AynRand’s essay titled “What Is #Capitalism?” (1965) beautifully explains the connection. You can read it for free here: https://ari.AynRand.org/issues/government-and-business/capitalism/pov-what-is-capitalism/
If you prefer listening, that page also links to audio and video presentations of the version she edited down as a lecture.
You can also find it in print in the 1966/67 anthology “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.”
Let me know what you discover!
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Ayn Rand's "moral" defense for #capitalism is complete garbage. She posits that it's the only moral social system because it allows individuals to act according to their rational self-interest, as if that's a good criteria for determining what is and isn't a moral social system, not by whether the social system helps its citizens and ensures they have everything they need to survive, but by whether people can be as selfish as they want and the poor and suffering be damned.
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@Radical_EgoCom @mjgardner @mcjevans Individuals acting according to their rational self-interest is another way of saying "every man for himself".
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@SordidAmok @Radical_EgoCom @mjgardner
Yes and no. In prisoner's dilemma style games, continued cooperation yields a bigger payout than one-off defection. In society, this takes the form of specializing in one type of labor and trading with others. When there are enough players, the players set up systems (like laws, police, and courts) to prevent other players from defecting and thus reducing the cooperative players' share of the payout. Self-interested men play along for the bigger payout.
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Corporations are another way of aggregating specialized labor by cooperating for a bigger payout. But, of course, any bigger payout to the whole is meaningless to the individual unless said individual gets their fair share.
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