Atlas Shrugged

Permabear · 17-09-2014 6:00pm

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Permabear · 17-09-2014 6:02pm

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Turtwig · 17-09-2014 6:05pm

I wonder if it's anything to do with many filling stations also operating as garages that repair cars.

Having said all that the countries with the cheapest price of buying petrol don't exactly inspire me with confidence.

robindch · 17-09-2014 6:05pm

Yes, the phrase has far more basis in political mud-slinging than in fact.

One of the things that I find curious about the Randian/libertarian thing as a whole is how the movement does so much of its thinking in cliches, but cliches which derive from such dreadful prose.

A quick google of "Ayn Rand Quotes" and I get this, this and this - they remind me of nothing so much as what Deepak Chopra would say if his twin, and sole, obsessions were money and government.

robindch · 17-09-2014 6:08pm

Ah, so you now accept that the market must be externally regulated because the suppliers can't be trusted to self-regulate?

This is progress indeed.

Permabear · 17-09-2014 6:12pm

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Permabear · 17-09-2014 6:21pm

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robindch · 17-09-2014 6:42pm

But I thought your belief was that the market will always self-regulate and that the profit motive won't ever get in the way of providing a safe product?

Or are you now backtracking and saying, as you appear to be, that the market can't be trusted?

And in any case, where the state is applying a constant level of tax at the point of entry to all market players, then the level of state tax is irrelevant to this - it could be zero or zillions and so long as all petrol pump owners must pay it equally per unit product sold. State tax doesn't even come into this issue. This is an issue where market suppliers can't be trusted to supply a safe product.

Karl Stein · 17-09-2014 6:54pm

Lol. I don't think you could have chosen a worse/better example of a good that underscores the symbiosis of Capitalism and the state.

As for taxation, well, oil companies ain't going to build those roads, bridges, and tunnels - virtuous Capitalist cars need evil socialist roads. Expensive oil isn't such a bad thing because it helps investment flow toward R&D'ing cleaner more sustainable energy sources that will help with the transition to them when oil extraction reaches its peak (if it already hasn't).

robindch · 17-09-2014 6:57pm

Just to clarify my last post, the issue you have is purely with the different rates of tax applied to different products, but your basic premise is that the market and market players will always be right. Whereas this example shows that they can't be trusted to supply safe product.

Yes, there will be a motivation upon the part of the corrupt which derives from the tax differential, but the corruption starts and ends at the people who wash the petrol with kerosene - proving the point that market players can't be trusted.

Which is really the point of this discussion.

Permabear · 17-09-2014 7:19pm

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Valmont · 17-09-2014 7:39pm

Land-based oil spills are not only much less likely to occur but they are much easier to clean up and not nearly as damaging to the environment. At sea the oil can travel for miles as a slick and poses a far greater threat to wildlife. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a misnomer anyway as most Alaskans can fly in to hunt or set trap lines. A small refinery and drilling operation would hardly be noticed by the grizzly bears given they would have the rest of the 78,000 sq/km to roam in.

I would like to point out that the NHS must also make these considerations in deciding how to spend their budget.

marienbad · 17-09-2014 7:42pm

No not another one line dismissal , a legitimate one question in reply to your one line dismissal of an answer.

I will ask you again - if your philosophy can change nothing in such cases as Bhopal Thalidomide The gulf oil spill , then who needs you ?

What exactly do you have to offer ? Would your philosophy have prevented or mitigated such disasters ?

And on a separate issue - you seem to be very fond of France as your favourite bête noire , but try asking the right questions , for example
Are the French of 2014 better off that those of 1914 or 1814,1714,1614 etc.

Articles cherry picked from current publications are meaningless over time.

oscarBravo · 17-09-2014 7:46pm

The NHS has to decide whether to prioritise profit motive over the lives of its employees?

magicbastarder · 17-09-2014 8:27pm

i know i'm conflating two ends of your post together - but it's known that people are not ultra rational automatons.
if the laws of economics cannot take that into consideration, then economics is great as a thought experiment, not much more.

magicbastarder · 17-09-2014 8:29pm

i assume Valmont meant that the NHS has to calculate where to spend money, knowing that it will almost certainly result in some patients not receiving optimal treatment.
e.g. in the 'we can spend £1m treating 60 patients with disease X, or £1m treating 10 patients with disease Y' - and that sort of budgetary decision is commonplace.

oscarBravo · 17-09-2014 8:35pm

I got that; I was expressing my incredulity that it was somehow being held up as the same thing.

In one case, scarce resources have to be allocated between various medical requirements. In the other, it's a choice between employees' lives and shareholders' profits.

I can't quite believe anyone would conflate the two.

Permabear · 17-09-2014 9:15pm

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Permabear · 17-09-2014 9:25pm

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marienbad · 17-09-2014 9:37pm

so what do you suggest then ? And for just once can you put your case instead of finding fault with everybody else .

Permabear · 17-09-2014 9:48pm

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5uspect · 17-09-2014 9:53pm

So the state attempts to regulate access to addictive and harmful substances produced by industry and the response of the addicted is rational?

Permabear · 17-09-2014 10:01pm

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5uspect · 17-09-2014 10:29pm

Even if that decision leads to addiction resulting in significant health problems? Is it not more the case the the manufacturer is producing a product that removes the ability of the individual to act rationally resulting in a economic servitude?

If I sell you a product, a product I tell you will have nothing but beneficial effects, but instead it results in addiction requiring you purchase it at every increasing cost, who then is acting rationally? Shouldn't there be some sort of regulation to prevent this kind of behaviour?

robindch · 17-09-2014 10:34pm

So your basic premise, as well as your ultimate conclusion, is exactly what I've said it is above - that the only thing that matters in the world are assets. And that people, aside from them as holders of assets, are simply irrelevant.

I'm truly glad that Rand's weird and autistic world is confined to her dreadful, paranoid prose.

robindch · 17-09-2014 10:37pm

In a world where people don't matter, the answer is a resounding "Of course not!"

Money talks, but it doesn't listen very well.

Permabear · 17-09-2014 10:39pm

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Permabear · 17-09-2014 10:45pm

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robindch · 17-09-2014 10:57pm

That was a conclusion based upon what you've written.

So that conclusion is wrong and you do -- for example -- believe that people do owe a duty of care and a duty of trust to others? If so, then that's not very Randian of you, but I do approve.

Permabear · 17-09-2014 11:03pm

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marienbad · 17-09-2014 11:03pm

So what does this mean it specific terms ? Say with cigarettes as that has already been raised ?

5uspect · 18-09-2014 12:24am

So we're using different definitions of rational. Murphy and Becker refer to the maximisation of utility, a somewhat nebulous economic term, as a definition of rational behaviour, which they refer to as 'a weak concept'. They also define addiction as an increase in something resulting in future consumption of said item rather than a dependency as I postulated in my previous post. Most smokers and drinkers maintain a pretty stable consumption throughout their lives

Their model appears to be effectively a toy model with only tangental empirical data to support it. Inviscid theory and potential flow are great if you ignore viscosity and turbulence, silly things just keep getting in the way.
In all it's an interesting model but it fails to capture the reality of addiction and longer term health issues, particularly those deliberately hidden by the manufacturers.

So to go back to my initial point.

A cigarette company produces a product that they know to be bad for the health of their customers but also everyone in the same environment. The cigarette company lies about all of this. The consumer attempts to maximises their utility based on a false premise, not only becoming addicted but also terminally ill.

The consumer has been duped, they have not achieved the 'optimum benefit', in fact the outcome could not be much worse. The public is also adversely affected by secondhand smoking.

I see no reason to adopt a libertarian ideological position based on research such as this paper.

jank · 18-09-2014 3:56am

Well, speaking of trains and transportation. Didn't Mussolini famously make the trains run on time and didn't Hitler build Europe's first Autobahns? Pointing to a few isolated examples of transportation 'improvements' and then making the 'logical' leap, thus deducing that society works pretty well with government is pretty far fetched and frankly irrational and illogical.

To note, this is the original claim made by you.

The TGV example..

One was able to drive on a motorway in 1930's Germany, therefore government intervention works "well"..... and you are wrong to say that it doesn't (cause of my aforementioned example)! That sums it up tbh.

Turtwig · 18-09-2014 4:13am

As is doing the opposite: pointing to examples of bad regulation and then deducing regulation doesn't work.

Again I find myself flummoxed at having to say this. It's like you oppose state intervention that's bad, want it kept to a minimum - so does practically everyone.

Pondering over whether I should bother posting in this thread further.

jank · 18-09-2014 4:21am

Robin, what ever about your argument your constant condescending attitude like that displayed in the above quote does nobody favors here.

magicbastarder · 18-09-2014 8:52am

that is an incredibly narrow - and problematic in its own right - example to give to counter the 'people are not hyperrational economic units' issue.

5uspect · 18-09-2014 8:56am

The Murphy and Becker paper discusses how children who never start up a habit are less likely to form one later in life. Surely this is reason enough to increase prices?

Permabear · 18-09-2014 10:36am

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20Cent · 18-09-2014 10:39am

One criticism of libertarianism and Randyism is that it has never been tried in real life. It seems that this is untrue a "superman" has actually created his own Galts Gulch in Chile similar to that in Atlas Shrugged. Looks nice: http://galtsgulchchile.com/ parcels of land could be bought using bitcoins of course and other supermen could go live there free of the tyranny of regulation and taxes.
The experiment went exactly as one would expect. The superpeople are all suing each other over not getting the land they purchased and claims of scams/ponzi schemes. The "moochers" local labourers who did all the building and supplied materials are still left unpaid. Also the place doesn't have access to water. They are currently trying to get the local government to supply it to the land.

http://www.thedailybell.com/editorials/35591/Wendy-McElroy-The-Fate-of-Galts-Gulch-Chile/

http://gawker.com/ayn-rands-capitalist-paradise-is-now-a-greedy-land-grab-1627574870

Permabear · 18-09-2014 10:41am

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Permabear · 18-09-2014 10:44am

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20Cent · 18-09-2014 10:45am

I've changed my tune. It has been tried in real life. Worked out as expected.

Permabear · 18-09-2014 11:14am

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20Cent · 18-09-2014 11:23am

Not so sure such a state is sustainable but it would be interesting to see how they would get on. Like the Galts Gulch thing in Chile I'd expect.

5uspect · 18-09-2014 11:24am

Were I an economist, I would have used a better word. I would simply refer to rational and irrational consumers as regular and irregular perhaps.

Of course I don't. Historically the situation is much different however. Cigarette company executives have testified that their product isn't addictive. Their advertising campaigns have messaged the notion that smoking is good for you.

So which is better? The pack of cigarettes with the 'SMOKING KILLS" and the nasty picture or the pack with the doctor giving the thumbs up? How do consumers decide as individuals when complex scientific research on health needs to get funded somehow? The cigarette companies cannot be trusted, the Government will just **** all over everything?

Permabear · 18-09-2014 11:37am

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Permabear · 18-09-2014 11:46am

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Valmont · 18-09-2014 11:50am

A psychiatrist will tell you that there is something wrong with such a person. The story is that their addiction is a mental illness over which they have no control, it being an alleged brain disease exerting deterministic control over their actions at a given time. Just one more confusing aspect to the popular usage of the term 'rational'!

Naz_st · 18-09-2014 12:00pm

This illustrates for me one of the fuzzy areas of Libertarian thinking though. What you say is true, but it seems to me it's only true because of state intervention and regulation? In the absence of such, why would there be "Smoking Kills" on cigarette packs and a ban on smoking advertisement?

Permabear · 18-09-2014 12:09pm

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Atlas Shrugged

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