Objectivist Essays
Does anyone know if there is still publications like the objectives essays that were captured in books like Capitalism the unknown ideal?
I would love (and pay well) for some research about why Worldcom and Enron failed and why the laws that were put in place to "stop" it from happening again wont work. Or what ahppened with the suit against boing to keep them from moving. Or what Core education guidlines are likely to miss educate our kids on... point is there is a lot out there and little scientific and well researched data to combat it with. Such essays would be very useful knowledge to have at hand when talking with a person who is not yet brain dead, but headed that way in favor of larger government. It would provide very useful talking points backed with good data. Such articles are in dire need of being researched and written. I know of no such publication but would love to buy it if one exists.
I would love (and pay well) for some research about why Worldcom and Enron failed and why the laws that were put in place to "stop" it from happening again wont work. Or what ahppened with the suit against boing to keep them from moving. Or what Core education guidlines are likely to miss educate our kids on... point is there is a lot out there and little scientific and well researched data to combat it with. Such essays would be very useful knowledge to have at hand when talking with a person who is not yet brain dead, but headed that way in favor of larger government. It would provide very useful talking points backed with good data. Such articles are in dire need of being researched and written. I know of no such publication but would love to buy it if one exists.
If this self promotion is too shameless: http://dannesrepossessions.wordpress.com... Feel free to delete this post.
Below are two links to stories updating the Boeing vs. NLRB that should provide the information you are looking for.
Surprisingly enough the NLRB back off which is a major surprise considering the "economic policies" of this administration.
Just click on the links.
http://www.southernstudies.org/2011/06/i...
http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-...
Fred Speckmann
By the way the complaints of Teddy Roosevelt about the trusts were clearly a cry for crony socialism. Every major commodity that TDR complained about dropped by 90% in cost over the decade leading up to the anti-trust legislation. This was not about protecting the consumer, but pure cronyism, not surprising as TDR was a committed socialist.
Although that period had an unprecedented growth in living standard, it was also a period where the difference between the rich and the poor was the greatest. There's something wrong with that.
And, as far as protecting the consumer, Teddy Roosevelt also gave us the FDA and the Pure Food and Drug Act.
All the evils, abuses, and iniquities, popularly ascribed to businessmen and to capitalism, were not caused by an unregulated economy or by a free market, but by government intervention into the economy. The giants of American industry—such as James Jerome Hill or Commodore Vanderbilt or Andrew Carnegie or J. P. Morgan—were self-made men who earned their fortunes by personal ability, by free trade on a free market. But there existed another kind of businessmen, the products of a mixed economy, the men with political pull, who made fortunes by means of special privileges granted to them by the government, such men as the Big Four of the Central Pacific Railroad. It was the political power behind their activities—the power of forced, unearned, economically unjustified privileges—that caused dislocations in the country’s economy, hardships, depressions, and mounting public protests. But it was the free market and the free businessmen that took the blame. “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business,”
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 48
Rand did not condone the actions of these railroad tycoons. This is clear from the essay and clear from AS - see James Taggart. But you have tried to use this example to condemn capitalism. Well this is not Capitalism. You have complained about income inequality. This is fine when it is the result of force (government cronyism as in the US today) but is an outrageous and immoral statement when it is part of a voluntary free market. In the case of government coercion, everybody suffers except a few elite, but in the case of a free market everyone prospers, just some more than others
Ir you want a rational discussion clearly delineate your points. Don't blame capitalism for greedy people, they exist under all forms of government. Don't blame a secondary cause, when there is a primary causes.
If unions keep willing sellers and buyers apart, by the market definition those selling labor are being "overpaid".
I agree with the goal spreading the wealth around. Maybe labor unions could play role. Hank Rearden's factory was a union shop, BTW.
My point is labor unions and progressive policies alone won't solve the problems. I'm fine with progressive taxes and giving money to the poor. We can help people become more productive. The only thing that will make a big difference, though, is when they actually produce something other people value, something people are willing to trade for. The progressive taxes alone hardly put a dent in the problem.
I don't see how anyone can be "fine" with unjust progressive taxes that punish productivity.
I'm glad you're fine with giving money to the poor; I'll take all you have, thanks.
This is mostly an issue I don't worry about b/c I believe gov't has limited ability help the needy and limited ability to stifle growth. Politicians will tell you they have a good job-growth policies, but I think most of it is individuals finding solutions to problems. Those people will get the job done regardless of what gov't does. Gov't and bankers are two fields that act as if they are totally behind everything in the economy; they're wrong about that.
I agree with the tenor of what you're saying, but more and more I see gov't not doing the job it sets out to do. Once you start a spending program, it's hard to stop it. The inertia doesn't come from ideology; that would be better; it comes from all the people in the bureaucracy who are resistant to change.
I truly believe you're on the right track in saying you won't apply one model alone to any real-world system.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm6DO_7px...
How does that mean she faked reality?
You gotta warn me before saying stuff like that... now I gotta go take a cold shower...
Laissez faire wasn't Rand's idea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-fai...
Do you know of a better economic system?
The best mixed economies that has ever existed have been the one built by the German Socialist National Workers Party. The result was one of two that a mixed economy will always eventually achieve.
The US did not experience a financial collapse until after we started the move to mixed economies. Before that we were the phenom that changed the world. Why did we change it in so many ways? The answer is simple, freedom and free agency were available in greater quantities than it had been ever before or since in the world.
Consider the two systems in a simpler light from the philosophy it has at its core.
Mixed Economy
With a core principle that states in action if not in word: You can achieve to much, have to much, be to rich, be to good at what you do.
Free Market
You can be as good at something as you mind and actions allow you to be.
In the first system your punished for greatness in the second you simply have property rights.
Before you respond consider a few things.
1. You own a house, a farm... and you have to pay a lease to the government every year or they come take it away. In a free market economy this tax is reprehensible and could not be put in place. In a mixed economy your land you paid for is leased, and if the lease is not paid you loose your land. Do you really own it?
You build up a company and dominate your market because your that much better than the rest in your field. The government steps in and breaks you up, and tells you to sell of some of the pieces or you have to let others run parts of it.... do you really own your business if the government can do this to it?
You have an Inn and restaurant next to a national park. You have a lease to use some of the land in the national park for recreation (ATVing, hiking, horseback ridding....) and the lodge and restaurant are on property you own. The government shuts down and they decide that since you operate on government property you must shut down. When you refuse they put a full force of federal forest and law enforcement on your parking lot turning your customers away. Do you own the lodge or does the government? Who controls the property and who does not?
Property rights and a mixed economy cannot exist together. Without property rights you own nothing, not even yourself.
When you say a mixed economy seems to work lets just to where it eventually leads as it did in the case of the Nazi. You will eventually become a slave under the government that operates it, as nearly every person in the world is today, to some degree, of the government under which they live.
So ultimately if you opt for the mixed economy you opt for slavery under the government. You opt for a return, with some variations, to the dark ages with feudal lords (bureaucrats who set policy in different areas) and an arching roman catholic church that is beyond reproach, not because its god this time around but because its the will of the people. Governments all over the world are moving to the very model that provided the dark ages to us. Some deviation is there, but at its heart is a mixed economy between freedom and some form of collectivism.
“When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter" - Ayn Rand
One issue we may be having is what "better" means. Not everyone agrees what working better looks like.
I agree with not applying Ayn Rand's theories blindly. Have you read Fountainhead?
Here is an example of where Ayn Rand fell short. I have always felt that the movie The Fouintainhead is one of the worst movies I have ever watched - and the reason why is because Ayn Rand herself wrote the screenplay. Anyone who would watch the movie and not have read the novel would be totally lost as to the motivations of the main actors because a movie can only portray pictures and expressions. But a novel can express the inner thoughts and feeling of the protagonists. Rand's screenplay does not express this inner life - as a screenplay, it is impossible, so the movie fails. Ayn Rand herself violated the rule that Howard Roark expressed in the first chapter of the Fountainhead:
"Here are my rules: what can be done with one substance must never be done with another. No two materials are alike. No two sites on earth are alike. No two buildings have the same purpose."
Well she violated her own rule by doing in a movie what she did in a novel.
I don't mind Ayn Rand her failures. She was human and fallible like the rest of us. What I do not like is that she has been turned into a God.
I have not seen the Fountainhead, but I loved the book. I was less interested in Roark than the villains: Peter Keeting, Ellsworth Toohey, Gail Wynand in the beginning, and Peter's g/f at the end. I couldn't tell what she was getting at with Peter's g/f. It was like Toohey did something that sucked the life out of her.
It goes back before written history. There are always among us, others who would like to lie around and still look fancy without having to work for or be responsible for the right to do so. There is no ethnicity, gendral or religious reason for it, save that every religion condemns it. At the companies you've mentioned, certain senior managers did whatever was necessary to line their own pockets, without thought about who would be hurt. They didn't care. Don't know if Jeff Skilling is still in jail, but if you look at his face during the trial you'll see no remorse, he was sad because he'd be ripped for a small share of what he'd stolen, but I'd bet he has at least 50 B stashed somewhere, so doing the time doesn't bother him a bit. The same thing occurred with the Housing/Mortgage Bubble and will happen again. Can you tell me why speculation (Gambling) has driven the value of many listed companies, on the exchanges, to share prices that are a hundred times any realistic evaluation of their actual assets? Now, what was that Gecko quote, ah yes, "Greed is Good!" But he only neglected to say honestly earned greed, and it would also be nice if there were a public ethic in there somewhere.
http://www.aim.org/special-report/terror... - by Mary Grabar, "Terrorist Bill Ayers and Obama's Federal School Curriculum".
You are right about miseducation and CC. First, a Federal curriculum will always serve political goals, especially with Marxists in charge. The idea is to dumb down, until all kids are equally uneducated. History will be rewritten to glorify socialists, and delete mention of military heroes.
Math and health will continue to include values clarification instead of hard academics. Parents will be brainwashed into thinking schools are doing a great thing. And bottom line, customer service will get worse and worse, as attitudes and abilities of students devolve. The good part, they will no longer be able to use cursive, so it will be like a code language for the rest of us, like Navajo during the war. Remember development was funded by Bill Gates, who has called for the reduction of millions from the population, saying during a taped talk, "Vaccines are the way to go." It just is really bad all around, and that is not even wit the kids learning to embrace UN Agenda 21 (for pseudo-environmentatl reasons), which will end property rights in the US, and completely change how we live. Obama has given support to that as well. Jobs will be lost when the Agenda bans A/C, refrigeration, autos, etc. Check out the American Policy Center, www.Americanpolicy.org for more details.
Fighting the status quo as our daughter overcame the mediocre experience of public education, several of us saw that education was not really the goal .A desire to keep people stupid seemed to be. Knowing of the One World bunch, we assumed that was the source. It was obvious the ones implementing the programs did not have a clue. The schools are filled with self-proclaimed, usually destructive psychologists. One can see the methods described in "Brainwashing in Red China", a book now out of print. I had not considered Foucault, even though one of my majors, a while back, was philosophy. Back then focus was on the older established philosophers, which thankfully included Rand.
Reviewing Foucault, I see the easy transition from prisons to schools - which know resemble gulags to conceal their experimentation. Criminology was not a field of study for me, however, I did discover two statistics a while back which support Foucault's claims. There is a high incidence of uncorrected illiteracy among prison populations, perhaps an initial cause of incarceration but certainly not one the system wishes to correct. The other untreated and ignored statistic is that a high incidence of untreated allergies can be found in that population, which leads to both violent behavior and problems learning. If they wanted to reform the populations, both issued would be addressed and attempts to correct them made. Therefore, they obviously just warehouse, and Foucault's theories are proven. Thank you for another source beyond leftist Dewey and Bill Ayers, to explain what is going wrong with schools, while sleeping parents counter-productively pass levy after levy to keep it all going.,
As for Foucault he did not pose theories. He did not claim anything. Statistics have nothing to do with his work. That is all the Dominating Discourse which you have been trained to write, think and speak in.
If you don't pose a theories then they cannot be proven. Foucault, as he has said, leaves a tool chest, a different way of thinking. And he got this from Nietzsche, NIetzsche's genealogy in which in his Genealogy of Morals takes apart the religious belief in God. Nietzsche does not say God is dead, "he challenges God to appear" which is something quite different. And he does say that God's ghost will be around for a long long time.
As I hope you know, Rand was an avid student, disciple of Nietzsche from age 16, through the writing of Fountainhead, until she learned to be quiet about him as Hitler praised him and we were at war.She read him on the sly from school mandated studies.Her cousin had told her Nietzsche beat you to your ideas and she found that he had. She bought her first English book in the US Beyond Good and Evil and told Barbara she had underlined all her favorite passages. So that is how we know she learned English. Through Nietzsche. This is the way William Burroughs suggests anyone learn a foreign language, your favorite book in yours and the language you want to learn.
Nietzsche's advice to writers: "Words written in blood are not to be read but learnt by heart." And much more. Rand took him very very seriously and her style reflects her seriousness with Nietzsche. He is embedded in her style. Read him then read Rand and it becomes obvious. As to education I recommend Hesse's Beneath the Wheel. Still relevant. Public education is to produce - PRODUCE - normal, disciplined, obedient members of the society it is an institution of.
As a philosopher, Rand is very great. Her philosophy is not Objectivism however, as she thought. It is all in her fiction, as in Bataille's, and its bedrock is Nietzsche.Great minds have floundered there as Heidegger attests. Hers did not. She is completely post modern in her thinking. You need to read Zizek on Rand in Journal of Ayn Rand Studies.
Well, we do not share a love of Nietzsche. Rand may have read his works, as have many of us, they are interesting, if depressing. However, Rand wrote "Anthem" with a setting of a world without any "I" in it. Nietzsche would have seen that as good, as only will exists.
Marilyn Manson is a fan of Nietzsche, but I am not. One of our daughter's three degrees is in criminology, where she also has a Masters. She said they classify Foucault under the ethical category, but not as as research in the field. Perhaps his desire to not posit theories is the reason.
As to Dewey, he is the beginning of the end of any chance academic education in this country. Humanism and manipulation are what we have seen. Yes, I have his books which I have read. Just as I have read Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" and Mao's Little Red Book, but do not embrace the ideas of any of them. I can admire some things in each, but must dismiss them all as wrong for the world where freedom and responsibility come from the person. Dewey promoted children who would end up socialists, altruists, and without an inner compass.
I object to the term "normal" in describing the outcome of the schools, not too crazy about "obedient" either. That would suggest living for the interest of another, and not being self directed. It would suggest being labeled by others as normal or not normal, which is exactly what the communists do in controlling people. They are considered sane if they walk in lockstep, but worthy of institutionalizing if not.
I am smart enough to know that not everyone interprets every philosopher exactly the same, nor should I expect it.As Sartre wrote, it is the writer's responsibility to write but not overwrite, and the reader then has a responsibility of interpretation. I make value judgements based on what philosophers offers in creating the world in which I want to live.I find both the early writings of Sartre and then Rand fill those requirements, although someone else might reach the same goal via some other philosophers. Also, the writings of John Stuart Mill and Bastiat say what needs to be said to enlighten people to the path of freedom.. For me, philosophy has to be useable, something that the common man can grasp and use daily, Some of the darker writings are great for considering on the side.There are a few areas of writing that say all that needs to be said to keep the engines running and Atlas from Shrugging. Does the philosopher's writing tell man he has always a choice?. Second does it inform him he is responsible for those choices? Does it teach him that socialism and altruism are not compatible with freedom and capitalism. Does the system of philosophy (or education theory) teach that there are no free lunches (yeah some economist got it right too), and that there must be equal trade? People have enough trouble grasping things this simple, albeit difficult to live by. They do not have time, nor usually understanding, to go through the philosophers who base their theories on math, or go so deep and dark that people never come back into the light of trying to live by a philosophy.
Sadly, even Sartre gave up the hard existential dogma and fell into Marxism, but, given more time, would he have come back - one can only speculate. Nietzsche went mad from a brain tumor, so one cannot be sure where his thought would have gone if he had not suffered so .Teachers love to try to apply Maslow, and tinker with his group therapy - yet not one I have met knew that as he watched his system in place, he renounced group therapy in any but the licensed professional's office. Still, teachers are applying it, poorly trained as they are, right in public grade school classrooms. Yet Maslow called such practice "dangerous" - poor students.
Rand made her writing clear and fairly direct."Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal" makes you crave real capitalism, not the sad remnants under which we now live. Kid's should read Rand in school, instead of the nonsense they now assign. By high school, the world I envision (yes, naively) would graduate students who were able to read "Atlas Shrugged" and understand it. They should think, I am, therefore I think - good motto to live by.
I detect that you have an issue with Objectivism. In what way? What is the world you envision? Are you satisfied with broken systems that do not work, and are not meant to work? We live in a dumbed down world where most teachers asked a year ago, did not know the Federal Reserve was not a government agency. Practically no one knew about the bankers' meeting in Basil, Switzerland back when the Fanny Mae scandal hit - yet if lowed interest rates on all our IRAs and pensions. People think the Federal government has a "stash" as one person put it, to get them what they want. No clue it was the tax dollars paid by less than half the population now. Is this good enough to keep Atlas from Shrugging, do you think?. Should we not want better, if only for our own good?
I wanted to thank you for this post. Particularly it gave me a few people i have not read that I can not look up some books from and read.
I just finished Capitalism, the unknown Ideal for the second time. Incidentally that is what made me post this thread. I craved more essays like those in that book.
I attempt to educate my kids well here at my house. I think its a parents responsibility not a teachers. I want teachers to present material to my kids from all walks of life, governments philosophies.... and them, sometimes on there own and sometimes with my help, to determine which they like, do not like, believe and do not believe.
My oldest son is a senior in high school. His AP US history teacher has been being schooled by him quite often. Thus far this year he had corrected the teacher (according to him) 217 times, and the first 20 or so come to me asking where X is in a book or reference, put together a small essay and taken it back to prove he was right. I think the teacher stopped asking for evidence. I brought this up only because one of those early points he brought in to me to get evidence was the federal reserve not being a government agency. This is the advanced placement US history teacher. His 8th grade US history teacher was much better.
Very good! I hope to read more of your thoughts.
Regards,
O.A.
The word is... "Context".
To which God might reply, "It's not My fault you're blind to what's right in front of you."
"Ayn Rand and Objectivism" on Amazon.
check out the Atlas Society's Business Rights Center-
http://www.atlassociety.org/brc
As well, my husband wrote a book that deals in part with what happened in the case of WorldCom and the unintended consequences of the laws passed that have not stopped fraud but have stopped businesses from going public. there are always huge unintended consequences in the passage of laws hastily written in reaction to business fraud. In the end, like murder, there are sufficient laws in place. It does not stop all murder or fraud.
http://www.amazon.com/Decline-Fall-Ameri...
thanks for the response. I knew there had to be some stuff out there, and would normally just start searching. I was being lazy and wanted to save some time - get ideas. I need to start reading more again as I miss it.
For the last 13 years I have been managing customer service centers, before that I did consulting, customer support, System Engineer and a 6 month stent in testing. I like fixing things not breaking them :) testing was not for me.
I found your background interesting, especially the management of customer service centers.
I would be interested in your philosophy and management style regarding customer service.
My own feeling is that very few businesses and people even understand the words "customer service."
Several years ago I was in the process of starting up a company that would teach "real customer service" with the emphasis on service.
Perhaps, it's again time to look into this situation.
I would be interested in learning more about your resume.
Sincerely yours,
Fred Speckmann
775-378-5023
We can and will do better.
Fred Speckmann
I finally got out of the hospital about an hour ago and am just settling in. I'm in Reno, so thee may be a time difference depending on where you live.
I'm in the process of catching up to over a dozen calls, so I'll be in touch tomorrow. Do you have a preference on when to call you. Let me know if were talking your time zone or mine,
Fred
I called and left a message with I think a nephew with my number.
There are some examples of better support out there. Zippo lighters has the highest Net Promoter Score in its sector. They use no scripts, they empower people by telling them to use their brain, come up with solutions and make the customer happy. They have much lower turn over rate than the others and pay 50 cents an hour on average lower than there competitors. People want to go home feeling like they have done a job, not read scripts all day. Customers want to call a place where people are doing a job rather than the job being to read scrips all day. Both are more satisfied when the support rep is allowed to use there mind, then when everything is scripted.
In my view if your getting calls that can be easily scripted you have one more more the following problems:
1. Product is not intuitive in its use.
2. Documentation is poorly done. Either not concise and simple so that it gets used, or simply does not cover it.
3. Your online knowledge-base and community is poorly done.
4. You are helping customers without using the KB articles from #3 above as a guide. Show customers the answers are there and easy to find and follow and they will go get them.
Scripted calls are simply something that should not be done in a call. I want my support reps (in my career usually very technical support engineers) to handle real problems that we have not seen and do not know the answers to.
Anything we have seen three times with the same solution to the problem better be well documents on our KB for the short term, and have a plan from either software or documentation changes to make it go away in the long term.
You do not control costs by pushing customers off from the people who can solve the problems you control costs by working in a way that allows the efforts of 1 engineer to reach multiple customers and feeding information back to development and product management that will allow for the issues to be addressed so that you no longer get calls on them.
that is it in a nutshell.
Tween 2004 and 2008 I was a dispatcher for a delivery service. They were out of Tulsa, and had just opened a branch in OKC. We weren't supposed to make a profit for 3 years; we made a profit the 1st year.
Our primary service was delivering delayed luggage (never "lost"!). As the six airlines we serviced were our customers, we of course could never badmouth them.
Once we had processed a piece of luggage, the dispatcher had to call the airline customer to confirm the address and arrange a delivery time, plus get directions if necessary.
Did I mention that we had to call the airline *customer* who had delayed luggage? These are not happy people.
Even though I'm not comfortable dealing with people, I took great pride in how I handled our customers' customers. Passengers would be angry when the conversation began, and, if I did my job right, content or even happy by the time I hung up. Most of them didn't need their luggage right away; they just needed reassurance that someone knew where it was and was taking responsibility for its safe return to them.
My favorite case was a passenger whose luggage, through a miscommunication with the airline, was delayed longer than necessary. Oh he was *pist*. He wanted to know where our office was; our policy is that passengers don't come to our office, with rare exceptions. No matter what I said, I couldn't calm him down. So, I told him our address, told him I'd be there by the door with his luggage, and if he wanted to pop me in the nose I'd be available.
He came in under a thundercloud, his wife behind him more nervous than upset. I had his luggage right there, I explained to him the cause of the snafu, took responsibility for it... and before he left he shook my hand, thanked me, and apologized for his rudeness. That turnaround I'm proud of.
I tried teaching it to the other dispatchers, but they couldn't seem to understand. Like in "Roadhouse", when a customer is raging at you, it's not *personal*. They're tired, frustrated, aggravated, distracted. Emotions need an outlet. If you can get their info and get off the phone, I would tell the dispatchers I was training, you win. If you can turn it around and make them happy, you win big. The only way you lose is if you take it personal and rage back at them.
I find it amusing, even though I'm half a step above untouchables, that customers most often turn or come to me for help or answers, at Walmart. At first I thought it was my age, skin color, or hat. Now, I think it's because I'm one of the few employees who follows the 10 foot rule; making eye contact and speaking with anyone who gets within 10 feet of me. Again, they're looking for reassurance as much as anything.
People ask me for directions too. They shouldn't do that...
There's a new support manager, btw (thanks for the opportunity to bring this up). She keeps calling me "John"... I'm guessing it's because on the 30th and 31st I wore my "John Galt" name badge (along with my 20th century motor corp hat). I haven't corrected her yet.
But, yes, make eye contact with a Walmart customer who's looking for something and they will glom onto you like a drowning man grabbing a rubber raft...
Fred Speckmann