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Government Funding of Science
K. M.
As part of a comment on a post on India’s Chandrayaan mission on desicritics.org, I wrote
The government has no business pursuing scientific research.
Here are some responses
kerty: Unfortunately, many sectors can not rely on private commercial transactions. So tax payers have to pool their resources and create capital markets that can allow large scale projects to be undertaken. Unfortunately, capital markets run on profit motive. Lack of instant profit gratification can not help corpocracy or private sector to tackle fields of r&d and infra-structure that are key for economic development. So tax-payers have to pool money and assign such roles to government - roles that neither individual, private sector is capable of undertaking. Removing poverty is a function of economy - and that role is ideal for private sector - government need not dabble in it when empowerment of private sector can tackle it. R&D and economic infra-structure is a proper role of government and good use of tax money.
Morris: …a lot of other government activities are unjust to some people. I think the real question is; is this a proper activity for a government to engage into? If the answer is yes and I think it is then why not. The fact that India is poorer than the US is not relavent.
Chandra: It is increasingly debatable as to what the Govt should be or should not be in. The bottomline clearly is efficiency. Anybody who is able to use resources efficiently is good.
There are three aspects of this issue that I wish to comment on
1) The proper role of government
A government is an involuntary organization. Its involuntary nature makes it fundamentally different from other organizations such as companies, political parties, social groups etc. A voluntary organization is one which works on mutual consent. The individuals who are a part of such an organization, participate in it of their own choice. They (in whatever manner, democratic or otherwise) decide the rules by which the organization functions and the goals which the organization pursues. Any individual can leave a voluntary organization (subject to the rules to which he has already agreed) if he judges the rules or goals to be inappropriate. The only power a voluntary organization has over its members is the power of persuasion. It may not initiate physical force on its members and it may not violate its contracts with its members (the rules subject to which its members join the organization and stay in it). A voluntary organization cannot force a man to act against his judgement. A voluntary organization recognizes the principles that the individual is the unit of thought, choice and action; that the goals and interests of a group are merely the sum of the goals and interests of its members as determined by voluntary consensus; that the proper way to deal with men is persuasion and not force. A voluntary organization enables its members to work together in pursuit of their shared goals. No society can function without voluntary organizations.
But a voluntary organization cannot work without an arbiter. It cannot work if there is no authority to resolve and settle disputes. A voluntary organization cannot work in an anarchy. The role of government is to maintain a framework of individual rights within which individuals and voluntary organizations can work and interact with each other. The creation and maintenance of such a framework is the only proper role of government. This involves creating a system of laws and procedures in accordance with individual rights to adjudicate the resoluion and settlement of disputes (the law courts). It involves granting authority to certain individuals to implement laws (the police). It involves protecting its territory from outside interference (the army).
As a necessarily involuntary organization, a government can have no shared goals or purposes. Thought, choice, action, purpose, goal are all concepts which apply to individuals. Action, purpose and goal are concepts which can apply to groups if there is a consensus among its members and an agreement on the mechanism of estalishing a consensus. Shared goals can range from running a business to spreading a religion to landing on the moon to running a charity to achieving spiritual awakening. All such goals are legitimate. Individuals and voluntary groups have every right to spend their resources on pursuing these goals in any manner they see fit. No individual or group (and therefore the government) has any right to use the resources of some individuals to pursue the goals of others. For example a government may not subsidise a pilgrimage, may not sponser research, may not subsidise certain industries, may not provide social welfare etc. All such activities may properly be carried out by voluntary groups.
It is meaningless to talk of efficiency of resource allocation when one is talking of government activities. Is an efficient pilgrimage an efficient allocation of resources? Is a successful trip to the moon an efficient allocation of resources? Is a welfare scheme run without corruption an efficient allocation of resources? Is a subsidy or bailout granted to failing banks an efficient allocation of resources? Is the creation of a wildlife preserve an efficient allocation of resources? The concept of efficiency does not make sense without a purpose. And a government does not have a purpose beyond that of protecting individual rights.
2) The effects of government sponsored science
Since government funds come from taxation, government funding of research (whether by research institutes as in India, or grants to professors as in the U.S.) reduces the capacity of industry to conduct their own research. When industry conducts research and the research fails to yield any practical results, the industy’s profitability declines. When the research succeeds the industry makes greater profits and its capacity for research increases. Good research is rewarded and bad research is punished. That is not the case with government sponsored research. When research fails, the researcher(s) has nothing to lose. When it succeeds, he (they) receive a patent, commercialize the results and reap the rewards (out of taxpayer money). Profits are private and losses are public. This is true of any commercial activity by the government. Those favored individuals (or groups) who get government support are able to take higher risks since the upside is unlimited and there is no downside. (Just consider the current mortgage crisis for example.) In the American model of research grants to university professors, the university is turned into a research lab. The professors who are able to get the most grants and write the most papers succeed at the cost of the professors who are genuinely interested in teaching. In the Indian model of research institutes, there are labs all over the country engaged in carrying out meaningless research, little of which is ever commercialized.
More importantly, the quality of research suffers. Since the government has no specific goals for research and no ability to judge matters of science or the calibre of researchers or the potential of their proposals, the task of approving grants is taken over by favored panels of ”scientists” whose primary skills are political rather than scientific. Obtaining research grants becomes a game of winning favors. Politically motivated projects often get funding. Consider the enormous amounts being spent on researching “climate change” as an example.
3) Private industry and large scale projects
Consider some numbers. The estimated cost of the Chandrayan mission is around $120 million. The annual profits of Exxon Mobil are $40 billion, of General Electric $21 billion, Reliance $2 billion, TCS $338 million. Private industry certainly has the sort of money required for large projects. The reason they do not engage in certain large scale projects is either that the projects are too risky or because under current laws (such as anti-trust), the projects are not profitable. Would a company spend billions on cancer or AIDS research when it knows that its intellectual property rights would immediately be confiscated? Would a company launch a satellite when it knows that government would demand control over its commercial uses? Would a company build a highway when it knows that toll-fares would be fixed by politicians eager to win the next election? Would a company setup a university when it knows that admissions and fees would be subject to vote-bank politics? Why do laws that prevent large scale projects from being profitable exist? Apparantly to “protect” “consumers” from the “greedy” private sector. These laws deliver the “consumer” to unprincipled politicians who do not care to look beyond the next election. If the road in front of my (am I a “consumer”?) house (which gets washed away every monsoon) had been laid by a private corporation, I (or some housing society) would have a contract and the corporation would be legally bound to implement it. The corporation would lay a concrete road that would last for 20 years. Instead the muncipal officers give the contract (for laying a 2-inch thick tar road which survives for about 8 months) to favored corporations, who in turn ensure that the muncipal officers will have adequate funds for political canvassing in the coming election. And if the muncipal officers decide that “public interest” will be better served by some other project, that is just too bad. I should learn to sacrifice my narrow selfish interests for a “larger purpose”. Or I can try going to court and proving that a road in front of my house is crucial to the “public interest”.
Government Funding of Science
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Ravi Kulkarni
URL
November 2, 2008
01:35 AM
Dear K.M.,
Your article is well reasoned and logical. However, your conclusions are not correct because of the fatal flaw in the premise with which you start. Let me start by looking at your premise:
"The role of government is to maintain a framework of individual rights within which individuals and voluntary organizations can work and interact with each other. The creation and maintenance of such a framework is the only proper role of government. "
This is not a complete role for the government. Man became civilized when he realized that there was no future in living like beasts: the strongest alpha male gets all the riches and some. When there was a realization that strong and weak have equal right to co-exist and a strong person can not be allowed to rule over a weak person. Thus we evolved from feudalism to kingdoms to democracy. That we have inefficiencies and corruption is a flaw but not a complete negation of the system.
The concept that one person's power cannot override another's right to life and living drives today's civilizatoin. The power does not lie in physical strength alone. In fact in today's world, it is not the physical strength that matters but the power acquired by ideas and money that plays the primary role in who controls what.
Due to the changing nature of power, we need the government to increasingly play a more dominant role in the society. A rich and powerful person can act as an obstacle to someone acquiring his or her rightful education or healthcare. A similarly endowed person can damage the environment affecting all of humanity. A powerful person can suppress or buyout research that will benefit a lot of people. All of this is happening today.
The idyllic world that you and other Ayn Rand's fans assume does not exist. Individuals are not just selfish and greedy, but they are also corrupt. Not everyone is Howard Roark or John Galt. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Until the day we all become Buddhas who are totally uncorruptible, we need a powerful government that intervenes at least in the essential parts of our lives. When we all become Buddhas, I suppose the profit motive will vanish altogether, but that's another story.
I want to discuss this topic more, but for now this should do.
Regards,
Ravi Kulkarni
K. M.
URL
November 2, 2008
11:20 AM
Ravi,
1) I do not start from the premise that the purpose of government is to protect individual rights. That is a final conclusion. I reach it by observing that only individuals have goals and purposes. Groups or organizations can have goals or purposes only by consensus and consensus has to be voluntary. Since the government is involuntary (by definition), it cannot have any purpose other than the preservation of the conditions needed for men to interact with each other voluntarily (a framework of rights).
2)You are not happy with such a government because you believe it would not be fair. You talk of power. There are two aspects to power, political and economic. Political power is the power to establish and enforce laws. It involves the use of physical force. Economic power is the power of having greater ability or a better education or owning better resources or being in a better bargaining position. It does not involve the use of physical force.
Political power can be used to initiate physical force (which is what I regard as unfair) or it can be limited to retalliatory uses of force in a framework of rights.
The use of economic power cannot be prevented. At the most it can be destroyed (as the various experiments in communism did). Deny a rich man the right to use his money in whatever way he pleases and he will buy out the deniers. That is the root of all the corruption that we see today. In today's world, man lives by trade with others and trade is an exchange of values (and I don't just mean material values here). There is no way to change that. When the government restricts trade among men, men trade with the government instead in the form of bribes and votes. You can choose between an unrestricted trade in values and a trade in votes, favors and bribes. You cannot avoid the necessity of trade. You cannot achieve a system where the powerful (in any sense you choose) serve the powerless. Power exists and this fact has to be acknowledged. The only choice is between political power and economic power. I would recommend reading the money speech by Ayn rand.
3) In a sense, I do believe in an idyllic world. A world in which man has the capacity to think, the capacity to understand the world around him, the capacity to make choices to achieve his desires, the capacity to communicate his ideas with other men, the capacity to form groups with shared interests and purposes, in short, the capacity to be happy. This is the benevolent universe premise.
I reject any notion that man is corrupt by nature, that having desires is the root of suffering, that the good is doomed to fail, that ideals cannot be attained.
kerty
November 2, 2008
02:35 PM
KM
"As a necessarily involuntary organization, a government can have no shared goals or purposes. Thought, choice, action, purpose, goal are all concepts which apply to individuals. Action, purpose and goal are concepts which can apply to groups if there is a consensus among its members and an agreement on the mechanism of estalishing a consensus."
- Groups too can claim freedom to be involuntary organizations built around social, cultural, economic, religious, ideological, political interests even if they are not shared by all individuals or state. Having 'consensus' can be dispensed with 'might is right', will of majority, terrorism of the vocal minority.
- Since there can not be consensus, same-ness, common-ness, universalism in social, cultural, religious, economic spheres, they express their freedoms, autonomy, and pursuits as localized groups, at group levels. Therefore no consensus exists for individualism an well as 'rights' too.
- If there can be no consensus on any matter, than what is the reason d'etre for a state and on what basis it derives its mandate? Absence of state might breed despots and invasions. May be protection against despotic invasions from within and from externally is state's mandate - law/order and national security/defense. But we can not have consensus on what constitutes 'nation' either hence no mandate to defend it. Same goes for laws - what is state trying to protect thru laws? Whose rights? Is there a consensus on them? State assumes that its 'individual' is inclusive and covers all citizens. Again, no consensus exists. Therefore entire edifice of state-individual and its regime of rights and laws is involunatry, enforced thru force.
-State claims to get its mandate from people thru elections thru which people accept or reject the mandate. Again, the entire edifice is built on majoritism rather than consensus. Of the total population, probably 70-80% are registered/eligible to vote. Of them, hardly 60-70% of them vote. That is only 42-56% of total population. Out of votes cast, winner needs only 51% to win. That is hardly 22-29% of total population. In a multi-party races, a winner may not need 51% to win, even 35% to 40% of votes would be enough to win elections. That makes it less than around 20% of population. Subtract from that votes cast out of ignorance, money power, bogus voting - we are talking about state earning the mandate of tiny small % total population. So where is the mandate or consensus for state to do anything?
Yes. State exists. Not as a useful institution, but as a lessor of evils, as a preemptive force against greater evils. State too can be mother of all evils - but we hope that we can tame it with checks and balances and pray it will become a force for good, if not for all, at least for some who may need it the most. We grudgingly accept that even if state can never build 100% consensus, as long as it is striving to do something good for some without harming the rest, state has a role. Has state lived up to it? Can state live up to it? Not while shadow of socialism, communism, capitalism is hanging around. They subvert state, whatever little mandate state may have. That is why we cheer when state takes us to the moon, when state opens new frontiers of science and knowledge. It reminds us what state can do when it is used as a positive force in positive directions.
kerty
November 2, 2008
02:55 PM
KM
"The role of government is to maintain a framework of individual rights within which individuals and voluntary organizations can work and interact with each other. The creation and maintenance of such a framework is the only proper role of government. This involves creating a system of laws and procedures in accordance with individual rights to adjudicate the resoluion and settlement of disputes (the law courts)."
How and why involuntary organization can and should have such absolute powers? Law-giving is such absolute power. Granting and withholding of rights is another example of absolute power. It would grant only certain rights and only to those who do its bidding (ie. state recognizing only individualism and its rights.). Therefore, such powers should be vested in voluntary organizations, shouldn't they, because only they can have the mandate born out of consensus of the governed?
kerty
November 2, 2008
03:03 PM
KM
"And a government does not have a purpose beyond that of protecting individual rights."
Read my comment #4
Who gave such purpose to government? When? How? And why should people respect it (driving the proponents of certain rights to be champion of statism)? Isn't it an attempt by state to create its crusader votebank?
kerty
November 2, 2008
03:16 PM
KM
"Since government funds come from taxation, government funding of research (whether by research institutes as in India, or grants to professors as in the U.S.) reduces the capacity of industry to conduct their own research."
Than you go on to argue how r&d lacks profit incentive, how it is inefficient with high degree of risks, failures and incompetencies. So it is not really a zero-sum game. Funds left with tax-payers does not increase industry's capacity or will to conduct their own research. All science and knowledge do not have to have commercial value or immediate utilitarian gratification. That is why state with its targeted funding has been essential for expanding science and knowledge.
K. M.
URL
November 2, 2008
04:20 PM
kerty,
The central question in all your comments is
"Is there (or can there be) a consensus on rights?"
The only right I am talking about is the right to be free from physical force (the right to life, right to property, right to freedom of speech, right to carry arms etc follow from that single right).
It is the responsibility of all those who believe in such a right to establish a state that protects it. If any individual or group or other state does not believe in such a right and actually initiates force, that is either a crime or an act of war. The retalliatory use of force by a state that is established on the principle of protecting individual rights is an act of self defence. No consensus is needed for acts of self defence.
No such state exists today. My posts here are advocacy for such a state. In all your comments on this post and my previous posts, I do not recall a single principle that you consider proper for a state. Do you claim that a state can run without any explicit principles?
kaffir
November 2, 2008
04:34 PM
The only right I am talking about is the right to be free from physical force (the right to life, right to property, right to freedom of speech, right to carry arms etc follow from that single right).
KM, maybe I misunderstood your point, but all these rights are not context-free. These rights arise and matter because of the society we live in. Otherwise, you could easily get all those rights and experience 100% pure freedom if you moved to a deserted island somewhere with your guns and bullhorn/typewriter, and enough supplies of campbell soup.
---
I also think you haven't addressed the points I'd raised in that original post (sorry, can't find the link) - about different options for an enlightened objectivist, and the evangelical as well as "monotheistic" aspect of the philosophy. I'd think the aim is to increase one's numbers (more objectivists) to have a majority and implement one's world-view, no?
K. M.
URL
November 2, 2008
04:40 PM
kerty #3,
"Groups too can claim freedom to be involuntary organizations built around social, cultural, economic, religious, ideological, political interests even if they are not shared by all individuals or state. Having 'consensus' can be dispensed with 'might is right', will of majority, terrorism of the vocal minority."
And when a group does that and acts on it, it has established itself as a state.
"State claims to get its mandate from people thru elections thru which people accept or reject the mandate. Again, the entire edifice is built on majoritism rather than consensus. ...we are talking about state earning the mandate of tiny small % total population. So where is the mandate or consensus for state to do anything?"
Exactly my point. State has no mandate to do anything other than retalliate in response to initiations of force. That is an entirely passive activity and does not require a mandate since it is just self defence.
"Yes. State exists. Not as a useful institution, but as a lessor of evils, as a preemptive force against greater evils. State too can be mother of all evils - but we hope that we can tame it with checks and balances and pray it will become a force for good, if not for all, at least for some who may need it the most. We grudgingly accept that even if state can never build 100% consensus, as long as it is striving to do something good for some without harming the rest, state has a role. Has state lived up to it? Can state live up to it? Not while shadow of socialism, communism, capitalism is hanging around. They subvert state, whatever little mandate state may have."
What are these checks and balances? I recall you saying in response to my post on Zakaria's book that checks and balances are futile. What is the basis for your hopes and prayers that state remains a force for the good? What principles must the state accept and be limited by for this to happen? You need to elaborate if you want your comments to be taken seriously.
"All science and knowledge do not have to have commercial value or immediate utilitarian gratification."
Agreed. Most responsible individuals act with long-term goals in mind. They go to educational institutions by taking large loans which can only be repaid over a period of years. They save for their retirement which is a long way away. They form groups which have even longer term goals. Many corporations invest heavily in projects that will only start showing promise several years in the future and will start making profits after decades if ever. They do not need the government to tell them that research is valuable. Most scientists enter the field because they consider the satisfaction of their curiosity as an end in itself regardless of material returns. Millionaires like Carnegie set up universities and libraries without any immediate gratification or material returns. The government has no role in any of this.
K. M.
URL
November 2, 2008
05:00 PM
kaffir #8,
Certainly rights are not context free. They only arise in a social context, when man interacts with other men. The only proper way for men to interact is with persuasion, since force is antithetical to the mind and man lives by his mind. And that is where the principle of non-initiation of force comes from.
As to going off on some island, there is no such island :) and moreover, most of today's societies even with all their problems are still net values.
"I'd think the aim is to increase one's numbers (more objectivists) to have a majority and implement one's world-view, no?"
The aim is to create a culture of reason, a culture that understands that ideas and principles are important. The right ideas will necessarily win in such a culture (the benevolent universe premise, see end of #2). A majority is not needed to achieve this. The direction of any society (cultural, moral and political) is set by small minorities who choose to take the responsibility. As someone said on some other post, an intellectual is one who chooses to think, and it is intellectuals who set the trends in a society, however impractical others may consider them to be.
Finally, I am aware that I have not answered several questions yet. I will do that as I get time.
commonsense
November 2, 2008
05:01 PM
gee, i had no idea that ayn rand was taken that seriously...although i did know that alan greenspan was a big fan, but look what happened...
K. M.
URL
November 2, 2008
05:02 PM
kaffir,
Sorry about the bad formatting in my reply above
K. M.
URL
November 2, 2008
05:18 PM
commonsense,
Indeed I take Ayn Rand very seriously. And if you look at the website of the Ayn Rand Center, you will find that there are several others who do so too.
And although it is off-topic, Alan Greenspan as the chairman of the Federal Reserve is no Objectivist. In Atlas Shrugged, John Galt is ordered to take the role of an economic dictator at the point of a gun. He refuses. Greenspan applied for that job on his own. Look at the contrast.
And finally, again off-topic, here is a good article on the roots of the financial crisis.
commonsense
November 2, 2008
06:39 PM
KM,
Not to carry this any further, and please don't take this personally, but Ayn Rand provides self-righteous support for the worst human instinct for selfishness, greed and worse. I'm glad you like her; never imagined any serious person who is not completely selfish and self-centred would ever take such drivel seriously, but I admit I was wrong.
kerty
November 2, 2008
06:46 PM
KM
"The retaliatory use of force by a state that is established on the principle of protecting individual rights is an act of self defence."
1) The retaliatory use of force by a group that is established on the principle of protecting group rights is an act of defense. If any individual or group or other state does not believe in such a right and actually initiates force, that is either a crime or an act of war. When nations are made of such groups, doesn't it turn the edifice of randian state and individual rights and randian theories upside down? Does not randian theory a war upon such groups?
2)The retaliatory use of force by an individual that is established on the principle of protecting individual self interests is an act of self defense. These are your own words - I have merely substituted individual. On what basis would you deny the use of force by individual? If state has right to use force for self-defense, why not individual, or any group for that matter? What give state a mandate to use force, but not same right to individuals ad groups?
"No consensus is needed for acts of self defence."
Nor does it need the consent, I assume. As long as a person, group, state or entity perceives a threat to their designated rights, it is free to use force against anybody. Rand would like to limit such right only to state, but people will not accept such monopoly over force. So what we would end up is culture trapped in crimes, wars, cops, rights, justice, lawyers, more laws, more rights, more cops, more wars....Culture of rights creates a self-fulfilling realities.
"I do not recall a single principle that you consider proper for a state. Do you claim that a state can run without any explicit principles?"
State has to be a voluntary organization and it should only do those things on which there is a consensus, and consent of the governed. Once this fundamental requirement is met, everything else will fall in place. But of state is drawn artificially, involuntarily, than no theories or principles would work.
kerty
November 3, 2008
12:07 AM
Interestingly, NYT makes the same observation I made in #3 Para 5. You can read it here:
How much is your vote worth in America
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/opinion/02cowan.html?em
kerty
November 3, 2008
10:15 AM
KM
"What are these checks and balances? I recall you saying in response to my post on Zakaria's book that checks and balances are futile. What is the basis for your hopes and prayers that state remains a force for the good?"
Following have been offered by the state as checks and balances against the state -
- Constitution offering checks against state
- Various branches of government offering checks and balances against each other
- Various political parties and ideologies checkmating each other
- People(though only small minority) checkmating political parties thru elections, and thus, indirectly their ideologies and state's policies
So what is wrong with this picture?
- That they are sham checks and balances. They merely replace the players, one set with another. Power of state remains unaffected and unabated and unchallenged
1:- That the checks and balances are internal from within state. State is asked to police itself. It is like robbers are asked to police themselves
2:- That constitution and SC are deemed infallible and lack no accountability or checks and balances.
3:- That there is no external checks and balances - from a force that is not part of state's own axis of power. We expect it to come from UN agencies, other countries, religion, NGOs, RSS parivar. But they lack legitimacy to be effective
4:- That there is no check and balance against state's monopoly on use of force. In USA, right to bear arms and create private militia is an attempt in this direction - but whatever state can give, it can also taketh away. So when it is really needed in a crunch time, it would be of no use. 'Right' granted by state can not act as a checkmate against state, but rather makes it docile and dependent on state.
5:- That rivalry between statism vs nationalism, secularism vs communalism can act as external checks and balance. But that can happen only while nationalism and communalism still have strength in realities at grass root levels. Once state has eroded their presence and pushed them to the margins, they both become liabilities rather than bring any checkmating dynamics to the society.
That is why people are left to hope and pray that state remains a force for good. Their hope lies in being left alone and state not getting in their way. In prayers that endemic political corruption, fiscal and moral bankruptsy of government, contradictions of statist ideologies will limit the ambitions and overreach of government. That society will stand not because of government, but in spite of government - that is true strength and empowerment of society which is not dependent on government for survival or progress.
K. M.
URL
November 3, 2008
04:09 PM
kerty,
"State has to be a voluntary organization and it should only do those things on which there is a consensus, and consent of the governed. Once this fundamental requirement is met, everything else will fall in place. But of state is drawn artificially, involuntarily, than no theories or principles would work."
That is a contradiction in terms. State by definition is the ultimate legal authority within its jurisdiction. It cannot be voluntary. As I asserted in my post voluntary organizations cannot work without an external arbiter. What happens in the case of a dispute among the members of your "voluntary state"? The "voluntary state" devolves into anarchy and lawlessness which is more destructive than any corrupt democracy.
Any state needs to have a set of principles. Even individuals need principles to interact with other. Do you agree that non-initiation of force is a necessary principle for inter-personal relationships? If so, why do you reject it as a proper principle for a state?
kerty
November 3, 2008
04:35 PM
KM
"State by definition is the ultimate legal authority within its jurisdiction. It cannot be voluntary."
It does not have to be ultimate, or legal authority or involuntary. They all are ideological positions, and need not be written in stone or divine.
"Do you agree that non-initiation of force is a necessary principle for inter-personal relationships?
That is because inter-personal relationships are voluntary and consentual - therefore use of force is redundent, and agreeable when need be, because there is consent of the governed.
"why do you reject it as a proper principle for a state?"
When state is a voluntary and consentual organization, than use of force by state becomes a non-issue, redundent, consentual.
K. M.
URL
November 3, 2008
04:40 PM
commonsense,
I am here to discuss ideas and therefore do not take offense to them.
I did intend to write a post on "greed". When I do so, I will expand it to include comments on selfishness and self-centeredness.
For the moment however let me say that Rand does not use the word selfishness in the sense it is commonly used (or misused). Selfishness is the recognition of the fact that ones life is ones ultimate value (since no values can exist without life). It includes a recognition and acknowledgement of all the necessities of leading a successful life, such as the necessity of being rational, the necessity of being productive, the necessity of recognizing the social and political conditions for a pursuit of values, the necessity of dealing with other men with justice, etc.
The commonly used meaning of selfishness is a disregard and disrespect to the values, goals and rights of others. Such behavior is destructive and not selfish. Selfishness requires an understanding of what it takes to interact successfully with other men.
K. M.
URL
November 3, 2008
04:43 PM
kerty,
You did not answer the most important question in my comment
What happens in the case of a dispute among the members of your "voluntary state"?
kerty
November 3, 2008
05:26 PM
KM
Because organization voluntary and consentual, its use of force based on consentual principles is also considered consentual. Voluntary organization does not need to view disputes as enemy act or act of war, but rather like a parent scolding a child for misguided behavior - in a worst case scenario, it would isolate or ex-communicate the guilty member and deny the benefits that accrue by being a member of the organization - it is not much different than what involuntary state does to its law-breakers, except that its legitimacy is based on the consent of the governed.
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