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Question: How can a trial be conducted fairly if one party can afford a much better lawyer than the other? In many countries, the state provides lawyers to the poor; in partially socialized Britain where I am from, the state will provide a lawyer if the defendant can prove he cannot afford one himself. I am aware that these lawyers are paid through taxation, which is initiation of force. I am fairly new to Objectivism and was caught out recently in an argument about whether or not out of court settlements were just if the one side won or lost depending on the amount of money they were able to pay to lawyers. This of course applies to the entire criminal justice system if the quality of defense one gets is dependant on ability to pay. Do you have an answer to this? Answer: There is no settled Objectivist view on whether there should be public defense funds or not. This is a matter for a developed Objectivist legal philosophy, which does not exist yet. Moreover, it is also a matter of determining the practical consequences of a state institution in the context of a free society. This might require more evidence and experience with a free society before it could be definitively settled. At our 2002 Advanced Seminar, we discussed a paper by Christopher Robinson arguing that state-funded legal defense was as justifiable as state-funded prosecution.

ספט 29, 2010

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Question: How does Objectivism view the concept of "public health services"? I'm aware that, largely, the concept of a "right to health care" is rejected, however there are health issues that are larger than individuals; with epidemics, for example, an individual who chooses to not seek treatment can threaten a population (a "typhoid Mary"). Public health departments have been highly successful in protecting populations in the past century through monitoring and managing health risks. The departments are more cost-effective than individual physicians, preventing illness before it occurs and treating large numbers of people with each policy. This service has historically been governmental, and required a coercive component, such as forcing restaurants to be clean, individuals to vaccinate, etc. I was curious, given that Objectivism values life and detests coercive government, what would be an Objectivist opinon on the necessity (or lack of) governmental public health? To what degree does an individual have a right to be a risk to themselves and others? Answer: We can answer your question by working backwards from the purpose of government, rights, and morality, and where physical safety threats such as disease work into this equation.? Ayn Rand said that morality stems from the need to make decisions in order to live. One's life is the standard of value.?Since the free use of one's mind and body is essential to the life of a thinking being, one needs rights to pursue life, free from the initiation of force.? Knowingly exposing others to one's disease is initiating force against them, and hence in violation of their rights.?Such a person could be punished by the state or in a civil suit.The state would also be justified in preventing the introduction of the disease in the first place, if it had reasonable cause that the person had the disease.?

ספט 29, 2010

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Question: I've read most of Ayn Rand's work, and aside from her views on theism [which in my view, can be a rational belief] and abortion, I am in total agreement with her philosophy (I am still a Christian). Would the Objectivist movement be welcoming of people like me? And, would it be acceptable for me to refer to myself as an Objectivist or, at the very least, a quasi-Objectivist? Answer: The extent to which you agree or do not agree with the ideas of Objectivism is ultimately a fact you must evaluate for yourself. There are a variety of levels on which one might consider oneself an Objectivist, from the brief description of Objectivism (from the appendix to Atlas Shrugged) that appears on our "About Objectivism" page, to the sketch of distinctive positions in Objectivism that David Kelley describes in The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand. At an extreme, one might be in lockstep with all and only what Ayn Rand said and wrote, but this would probably reflect such a lack of independent thought—because it would at least fail to integrate one's own context and current events with Rand's ideas—that one would not deserve the appellation "Objectivist" in that case.

ספט 29, 2010

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Question: According to Objectivism , am I being rational by putting nothing above the judgment of my own mind? Or (according to Objectivism), am I being irrational by rejecting the authority of an MD? Answer: Objectivism holds that one key element of the virtue of independence is thinking for yourself. Ultimately, no matter what anyone tells you, you have to decide what is true based on your own context of knowledge. Only you can judge for yourself the objectivity of your reasoning. Only when you think something through do you know fully that the conclusion is logically derived from the facts. However, it is a fact that on any given topic there are usually others who know a heck of a lot more than most of us do. If we have very good reasons to think that they are not lying and have been objective in their reasoning, then we have good reason to incorporate their information into our knowledge (provided, of course, that we can integrate it with what we already know and with our own experience). You can get news of the world from a newspaper. You can learn science by testing the theories in a textbook. You can take medicines based on the advice of doctors, pharmacists, and medical researchers. And those are just a few examples of rational ways in which we use the information of reliable experts.

ספט 29, 2010

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Question: Is Objectivism bound to what Ayn Rand said, or can certain parts of it be further developed by other philosophers? Answer: This is an issue that has divided the Objectivist movement. The Atlas Society is founded on the principle that Objectivism is an open system of ideas, founded by Ayn Rand but open to further development, revision, and extension by rational thinkers with a solid understanding of her ideas. In The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand (available to students for free), TAS founder and executive director David Kelley outlines the key ideas that make Objectivism distinctive as a system, and discusses the reasons for regarding Objectivism as an open system. Those remarks were composed in response to an attack on Kelley by Leonard Peikoff, Ayn Rand's heir, in which Peikoff attempted to defend the principle that Objectivism is simply the brand name for whatever philosophical thought of Ayn Rand's that has been recorded.

ספט 28, 2010

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Question: Having studied Objectivism for several years, I see tremendous potential in the ideas contained within the philosophy. It seems to be a system of ideas far more correct and plausible than today's major philosophies/religions/ideologies. Furthermore, it's an optimistic philosophy with a genuinely positive view of life, man, and the world.Is it a problem with the philosophy itself? Is the problem how it is presented and "marketed"? Answer: Objectivism is true, and it does make sense. Because of this, it is easy to understand and to live by. But it also stands against many of the received traditions in philosophy and religion. And because of this, most people find it counter-intuitive and hard to integrate into their existing values and emotional commitments. All people have what Ayn Rand called a "sense of life." A sense of life is an emotional sum, a feeling of how the world is and how it ought to be, that serves as the equivalent of a kind of basic philosophy. If you thrill at the idea of taking responsibility for your life's major problems, or you shrink at it, or you feel wry resignation, or you feel something else, whatever you feel in facing such a big question reflects your sense of life. Like the values that drive all our emotions, we hold our sense of life subconsciously, and it is not always easy to identify its content or judge whether that content really makes sense.

ספט 28, 2010

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Question: What has " Objectivism " got to opine on the outsourcing of American jobs to third world countries? Answer: Objectivism advocates the separation of the state from the economy, for the same basic reason that there should be separation of the state from religion: Both the economic choices of individuals as they trade the goods and services they need, and their choice of groups or belief systems to associate with, are exercises of the individual conscience that only have meaning if undertaken freely.

ספט 28, 2010

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Question: Would an Objectivist be in favor of uniform environmental regulations enforced by law as a compromise between profitability and environmental protections, at least for those resources which nobody owns? Is there any coherent alternative? Answer: The only laws and regulations that are justifiable under a system of laissez-faire capitalism are those that protect individual rights. The goal is to maximize the freedom of each individual to act as he wants, without harming anyone else. Environmental laws as they exist today usually do not protect individual rights, but there can still be reason behind the existence of some of them. If the pollution caused by an individual or corporation physically harms the health of others, then it comprises a violation of the victims' rights. In such a case, if there is evidence to show that pollution above a certain level leads to an established danger level, then the government could legitimately impose restrictions. These laws are only justified when aimed at protecting individual rights. Their motivation should not be reaching a compromise between profitability and the environment. The specifics would be tricky to work out, and would probably lead to some amount of litigation in areas (or cases) in which laws cannot be applied.

ספט 28, 2010

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Larry Ribstein ponders the government’s failure to prosecute some big businessman as the ultimate scapegoat of this financial crisis, in the way that it prosecuted Michael Milken and Jeff Skilling. His conclusion: “Maybe it’s become just too obvious that we created the financial crisis. As even Oliver Stone showed in his movie, we borrowed all that money and thought the housing boom would never end. We saw the risks in the disclosure documents but ignored them, or refused even to look. We heard the doomsayers and preferred to ignore them. We elected the politicians who subsidized the housing bubble, and decided which firms should live and which should die. Maybe we have seen the face of the financial crisis. In the mirror.”

Sep 27, 2010

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Apparently, it is not enough that businessmen are constrained by 10,000 commandments, so that every businessman in American can be nailed for some crime or other whenever a prosecutor decides to go after him. Now, the ferociously anti-capitalist Senator Patrick Leahy (Democrat of Vermont) and the blithely law-defying Obama Justice Department are joining forces to re-broaden the white-collar offense called “honest-services fraud,” which the Supreme Court narrowed last June to something that was borderline intelligible (bribes and kickbacks). According to this report in the Wall Street Journal, by Tom McGinty and Ashby Jones, Leahy said last Friday that he was working with his colleagues "to determine how best to clarify and restore this statute." On Tuesday, September 28, Leahy’s Senate Judiciary Committee will be hearing about the Court ruling's impact from the head of Justice Department's criminal division. (That would be Lanny Breuer, who got his friend Sandy Berger off with a wrist slap after Berger stole documents from the National Archives.)

Sep 26, 2010

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The Fifth Circuit court of Appeals has granted former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling a November 1 hearing in Houston for his bid to win a new trial. His case was sent back to the appeals court by the U.S. Supreme Court after the latter sharply restricted the meaning of "honest-services fraud," one of the principal charges on which Skilling had been convicted.

Sep 25, 2010

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Let me say again that I am not one who believes in an ethics of “no snitching.” Quite the contrary. I believe with Thomas Jefferson that: “A prejudice prevails too extensively among the young that it is dishonorable to bear witness against one another.” I believe that citizens should report to the authorities actions of genuine wrongdoing--actions that are malum in se (wrong in themself), such as subversion, murder, rape, and theft. But what our present government has done is, first, to restrict economic activity by means of 10,000 commandments that range from the merely arbitrary to the absolutely insane. And it now proposes to entice people’s colleagues into becoming bounty hunters by offering them huge sums of money to report any violation of those 10,000 commandments.

Sep 22, 2010

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Question: On the topic of the Second Amendment to the Constitution, Objectivism , as I understand it, holds that the citizen delegates to the government have a monopoly on the use of force. If this is the case, then does Objectivism support the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and if so, how is this apparent contradiction resolved? Answer: Objectivism does not hold that government should be the only armed institution. It does hold that, for the government to function properly, it must be in a position to defeat any challenges to its power. That said, private security agencies, private arbitration boards, and an armed citizenry are not contradictory to the kind of limited government that Objectivism envisions.

Sep 20, 2010

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I remarked a while back that, so far during the financial collapse, I had not seen anyone call for business executives to be put to death. Now I have. A blogger named Howie Klein, who posts at “DownWithTyranny,” was reviewing the forthcoming anti-capitalist film Inside Job , by Charles Ferguson, and in the course of his comments , Klein wrote: “As a firm believer in the death penalty, I heartily disagree with Ferguson that any of these crooks belong in prison.” Hyperbole? Maybe. But it has a tradition.

Sep 20, 2010

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It is always gratifying to find a prominent pro-business blogger, not obviously an Objectivist, who feels that he cannot adequately express his revulsion for the government persecution of businessmen except through the words of Ayn Rand. Today’s example comes from the estimable Tom Kirkendall of Houston’s Clear Thinkers .

Sep 17, 2010

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March 2005 -- President Bush's recent emphasis on reforming Social Security to include personal retirement accounts has been welcomed by free market advocates as a needed step toward giving people more control over their own lives. So far, much of the debate has focused on issues affecting individuals as participants in Social Security, such as what portion of their payroll taxes people should be allowed to invest in personal retirement accounts, how much the government should restrict investment choices in those accounts, and the extent to which Social Security should provide a minimum benefit relating to personal retirement accounts. Most current reform proposals provide that investment choices would not include individual stocks and bonds selected by the holders of personal accounts, but would be limited to diversified funds that invest in a broad range of stocks, bonds, or both. For example, under the Cato Institute proposal, employees would initially have three investment choices. An employee's contributions would be deposited in one of three balanced funds, each highly diversified and invested in thousands of securities. The default portfolio, where one's money would be invested if no choice were made, would have 60 percent stocks and 40 percent bonds. The two other funds would have the same asset classes but with different weights. (See Michael Tanner, " The 6.2 Percent Solution: A Plan for Reforming Social Security. ")

ספט 15, 2010

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It seems that the political Left’s criminalization of business will be debated this autumn via movies. And given the cultural Left’s dominance of the film industry, that is not encouraging. I have mentioned earlier the hard-hitting “exposé” about the financial crisis: “ Inside Job .” And I have mentioned the apparently pathetic right-wing alternative “ I Want Your Money .” Now I hear that a film is due out on November 1st dealing with the rise and fall of Eliot Spitzer: “ Client 9 .”

ספט 15, 2010

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March 2005 -- Many people seem to sense it. The debate over whether to reform Social Security by allowing individuals to divert some of their payments into personal retirement accounts reflects a much deeper battle, one literally for the soul of the Republic. It pits those who would take the first small steps in restoring the morality necessary to sustain a free society against those who have undermined that ethos and who would perpetuate a system of servitude. To appreciate the nature of the battle it's necessary to recognize that true individualists, like the ones who created this country, are autonomous and independent. What does that mean? It means that they pursue their own goals in life by right, not by permission of "society," their neighbors, or elected officials—indeed, the purpose of government is to protect their lives, liberty, and property. It means that they rely on their own efforts to secure the means to their material survival. They don't beg government bureaucrats for alms or kiss the feet of feudal lords for handouts. Rather, through their own efforts they produce goods and services that they exchange with willing customers based on mutual consent. They are independent individuals in control of their own lives, dealing freely with one another.

ספט 15, 2010

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אדוארד הדג'ינס

The word “tragedy” is generally misused, referring to everything from an act of war (9/11) to an act of God (the earthquake in Haiti). But today the word does apply: to the fall of Robert Moffat, formerly a senior vice president in charge of IBM’s hardware division and a good contender for becoming the company’s CEO. Today, he was sentenced to six months in prison for leaking confidential information to Danielle Chiesi, a consultant for the hedge fund New Castle, and, not coincidentally, Moffat’s mistress.

Sep 13, 2010

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Greg Reyes was scheduled to enter prison today, for eighteen months. But whether he did or did not, I have been unable to learn. I could find no stories about it in the national newspapers. I could find no stories about it in Google News. I could find no stories in Dow Jones’s Factiva database, with its 17,000 business sources. Finally, I called the San Francisco office of Bloomberg News, and they did not know.

Sep 11, 2010

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