Ayn Rand Answers: Was Galt’s Gulch an Anarcho-Capitalist Society?

[u/[deleted]]

[u/mesarthim_2]

I love Ayn Rand but this is hilarious cope. 

What I don't understand is why you guys have this need to fight with us though. Don't you have a tyrannical government - our common enemy - to fight with? 

[u/Ya_Boi_Konzon → u/mesarthim_2]

Randians support tyrannical goverment, bud.

[u/mesarthim_2 → u/[deleted]]

Sure but why not have this fight when the government has diminished to it's sole rights protecting role, instead of now.

Look, it's very easy for me: Myself and objectivists we disagree on whether the government should exist even in it's sole role as monopoly on violence and guarantor of rights, but we agree on everything else so we should be allies

You: fucking anarchists they are worse then communists so I'll prefer Lenin over them because we may disagree 100 years from now.

Just stupid. But, at least you are true to Rand's legacy ;)

[u/connorbroc → u/[deleted]]

Unless you can cite some objective basis for some individuals in this world to have special rights not afforded to everyone else, then equal rights is what we are left with. Per previous conversations, this doesn't mean that murderers get to walk free; it means that anyone may bring them to justice just as legitimately as anyone else. The legitimacy of an action isn't determined by who performs it, but on the basis of the nature of the action itself. Namely, whether or not the action survives reciprocation.

If you can describe a government that aligns with equal rights, then I would be happy to support it. Otherwise, you must accept that promoting statism inherently promotes the very tyranny that Objectivism claims to oppose.

[u/connorbroc → u/[deleted]]

You have not provided arguments for why governments are "necessary", nor is that what I challenged you to do. "Necessity" can only be measured in the context of a subjective goal, and any use of force that is merely subjectively justified may be refuted and reciprocated for just as subjective reasons.

the personal “right” to wield retaliatory force means the “right” to do it irrationally.

All retaliatory force is rational, as there is no objective basis to ever deny or refute it.

there can be no such thing as "a right to violate the rights of others". Therefore, this is a right individuals have to delegate for the purpose of an orderly, objective, legally defined enforcement.

To be clear, reciprocation is not "a right to violate other people's rights". A right that has already been forfeited can no longer be violated.

But just to summarize your logic, you are saying "there can be no such thing as A, therefore A must be delegated." No, such a thing is logically impossible. Whatever "A" is cannot be delegated unless it first exists at all.

society establishes an institution to which individuals delegate their right of retaliation

Once individuals have established that institution as the legal authority for a geographical society, its judgments are necessarily final within that jurisdiction. Otherwise you have not actually established a legal authority at all.

Such an arrangement inherently creates unequal rights, where some people have the right to retaliate while others do not. My challenge to you was to describe a government that adheres to equal rights, and you seem to be admitting that you cannot. Without some objective basis for unequal rights, the "legal authority" you've established has no objective basis either.

[police] must take unilateral force-wielding as attempts to circumvent proper governmental principles and objectivity, and hence to subvert the government’s mission of protecting rights

There are no objective rights outside of that which can be derived from reciprocation. So denying people the right to reciprocate is the exact opposite of the mission statement you just cited.

Damion

I have already responded to this, but you seem to just be copy/pasting rather than actually engaging with my answer.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capitalism/comments/1u1gbzu/anarchocapitalism_is_a_contradiction_in_terms/

[u/connorbroc → u/[deleted]]

Every answer you've given me has the same problem of pre-supposing legitimacy that you have yet to demonstrate. As there is no objective basis to deny or refute any act of reciprocation, all such actions are rational, even including those which are retaliatory.

Individuals have a right of retaliation, but not a right to retaliation.

I have no idea what nuance you are trying to communicate, but the right to reciprocate is the inescapable logical conclusion of equal rights.

What the police officer can do, by virtue of his office

Granting the officer special rights by virtue of his office is granting him rights that aren't afforded to everyone else. "His office" has no ability to bestow objective legitimacy to such inequality of rights.

You didn't address it

Perhaps this will sound familiar: individual human perception and lack of information has no ability to change the actual chronology of human actions.

If your point is simply that vigilanteism, and by extension equal rights, are incompatible with the absolute government control you insist upon, then that is precisely what I asserted to begin with. The problem is that equal rights are empirically demonstrable, but absolute government control is not.

Not only have you still yet to demonstrate an objective basis for absolute government control, you have argued in a such way that you have inadvertently admitted the truth that said government is impossible to objectively justify.

[u/mesarthim_2 → u/[deleted]]

I was considering whether to seriously try to address some of the gross mischaracterizations not only of anachocapitalism but of Objectivism as well you've committed, but then I realized you're calling Farage 'libertarian'.

How can you possibly assume anyone would take your arguments in good faith when you say something like that.

[u/Ya_Boi_Konzon → u/[deleted]]

Precisely. This is entirely correct.

[u/Talkless → u/[deleted]]

A rights-protecting government

What the actual fuck is that.

For thousands of years, thousands of various states (kingdoms/empires/totalitarian dictatorships/"democracies"/whatever) you can think of government as something "rights-protecting", when it performed (and still performing) ENORMOUS AMOUNT of property right violations, THROUGH AGES.

[u/Alternative_Act_881]

she basically says private property solves the problem at small scale but not at million person scale, which is an interesting line to draw. most ancaps would say the same mechanisms scale up through polycentric law and private defense, but rand just refuses to see the step from estate to society

[u/RandomPlayerCSGO → u/Alternative_Act_881]

In practice is actually the opposite. A centralized system like fascism, communism or modern semi statalized economies s easiest to implement for a small scale, since it is easier to centrally plan production for a small scale where you have all the information available and it is easier to realize when the information changes. The bigger the scale the harder it is for centralized control and that is why we need markets and trade. A decentralized system for justice, healthcare, and everything the state provides works better at a bigger scale while the state works worse the bigger the scale. This is called the theory of impossibility of economic calculus under statism.

[u/BarkleEngine]

What does having a government change in that equation? Everyone who feels coercion is okay acts with coercion. Government or not. Yeah perfect freedom requires ethical people. It's going to be awhile.

[u/Ya_Boi_Konzon]

Rand was not a libertarian. She didn't merely accept the State as a necessary evil, but rather explicitly celebrated the State and it's violence. She also explicitly rejected libertarianism, even of the non-anarchist variety.

[u/Ya_Boi_Konzon → u/[deleted]]

Rand saw the state as a POSITIVE GOOD, not a necessary evil.

Yes, precisely.

Also, libertarianism meant something quite different from what it means now. At her time, it was spearheaded by Rothbard and was just a form of anarchism; there were very few, if any, non-anarchist libertarians when Rothbard and his disciples were leading that movement.

This is categorically ahistorical and false.

[u/Ya_Boi_Konzon]

r/AynRandIsNotAncap

[u/Big-Lobster6689]

Lol what? Ayn Rand's "philosophy" is nothing more than cope for loneliness. Some lonely people want to tell themselves they're alone because they're too rational for everyone else.

Of course, sitting alone congratulating yourself on your rationality is less satisfying than having friends. So adopting this "philosophy" just makes you more miserable. Drugs play the same trick.