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Rational Self-Interest
Rational Self-Interest
87 comments
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Ayn Rand didn't stop smoking after she'd been warned about the risks.
Because her books weren't selling, she ended up on social security, a program she'd mocked when healthy.
To her admirers she is a model of the power of intellect and the glory of self reliance and independence
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"The only moral use of [thing I disapprove of] is my use of [thing I disapprove of]."
A quote that may have originally been about abortion, but applies to most things that serial disapprovers disapprove of.
See also: "Do as I say, not as I do." or as it usually is these days: "Do as I say. I am also doing as I say and if think you see me doing otherwise, no you didn't."
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I will never get tired of linking to this: The Only Moral Abortion Is My Abortion
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That tribalist mindset is what defines conservatism. It's only coincidentally right-wing. Some people's claims, on every subject, are just shuffling cards. They have a conclusion and it needs an argument-shaped sentence. They don't care if this one contradicts the last one. They don't understand the concept.
And they think that's all you're doing, because they think that's all there is.
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I genuinely hate to disagree but taking social security when you need it is acting in your natural self interest. It's not hypocritical. Ironic yes but not "do as I say not as I do". Also doesn't make it a good philosophy to govern by
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Too bad people began to worship her instead
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source: https://existentialcomics.com/comic/364 (it has mouseover text too...)
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The problem is that in a closed economy, an increase in production without increased consumption will result in over production and closed down factories.
It isn't in capitalist's long term interests to increase production and cut wages across an entire economy. Having a very high net savings rate (whatever you don't consume is by definition, savings) is not a good thing as a country.
America's early growth was based on being a high wage and high consumption country.
However, in an open economy, you can export your excess savings (and underconsumption) to other countries. This was an issue during the great depression (called "beggar thy neighbour").
It is a big problem in the global economy right now with China, Taiwan, Korea, Germany, Denmark, etc. all having stagnant or low consumption shares of the economy while exporting their net savings to persistant trade deficit countries like the United States, UK, Australia and Canada (noting Australia and Canada sometimes have surpluses when commodity prices are high).
It relies on the net deficit countries being willing to accept net capital inflows and all the issues with having persistent trade deficits (deindustrialisation, high debts, etc.) forever, which isn't possible.
So in short, increasing profits and cutting wages (and/or the overall workforce) might work for an individual greedy douchebag but it is a terrible thing for the entire economy.
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I'm still waiting for a critique of rational self-interest that doesn't fail right out of the gate by stipulating an irrational position or decision.
This one wasn't even vaguely close.
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All of Ayn Rand's own examples of rational self interest were irrational and against her interests. It's such an easy philosophy to mock because it's just really stupid. True rational self interest would involve creating cooperative structures that give a safety net if anything goes wrong just like how it's rational to get home insurance even if you don't expect to burn your house down. Anyone drawing Randian conclusions can't have thought of rational self interest.
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True rational self interest would involve creating cooperative structures that give a safety net if anything goes wrong just like how it's rational to get home insurance even if you don't expect to burn your house down.
This is the part that drives me nuts. Plenty of today's decision makers only survive later thanks to social nets. But they're so sure that they won't be, they're willing to cut back social benefits to make a quick buck.
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All of Ayn Rand's own examples of rational self interest were irrational and against her interests.
Yes, they were. She was a shallow, ego-driven, willfully ignorant reactionary.
But that has nothing really to do with rational self-interest as an idea.
It's such an easy philosophy to mock because it's just really stupid.
Except that it's not.
What's stupid is the plainly irrational choices that are made and ascribed to "rational" self-interest.
True rational self interest would involve creating cooperative structures that give a safety net if anything goes wrong.
Exactly.
So the simple fact of the matter is that when someone argues against those safety nets, they aren't actually arguing from a position of rational self-interest.
The philosophy hasn't failed - they have.
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Lady in red is presenting an extremely common series of steps that companies take for the owner/investor self interest in profit.
How is it critiquing an irrational position?
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That series of steps, common or not, is bludgeoningly irrational, and for multiple reasons.
In fact, the introductory part of the comic, showing her rejecting the entirely rational option of working half as long to produce the same amount clearly communicates the point that it's irrational, as does the last frame, illustrating the consequences of her self-evidently irrational choice.
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Do you believe ayn rand believed in rational self-interest?
If so, why was she against all forms of welfare and socialism? If not, isn't she the inventor of the concept and thus the arbiter of what it should mean? Doesn't that mean you're changing the definition to suit your needs?
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Funny... this is actually a different account than I was originally posting from - I switched to it because the entire thread has vanished from fedia.io.
And pretty much the first thing I see here is this response, which I didn't even know existed before.
Not a good look for fedia.io.
Anyway...
Do you believe ayn rand believed in rational self-interest?
I think she probably thought she did, but I also think she obviously didn't even begin to understand it.
If so, why was she against all forms of welfare and socialism?
The glib answer would be because she didn't even begin to understand rational self-interest.
The more likely answer, which somehow manages to be even more shallow, is because the USSR was nominally communist and she hated the USSR.
If not, isn’t she the inventor of the concept and thus the arbiter of what it should mean?
No.
Even if she was in fact the inventor of the concept, which she most assuredly is not, she still wouldn't be the arbiter of its meaning.
Though she was such an egotistical authoritarian that if she were alive today, she'd undoubtedly be insisting that she was.
Doesn’t that mean you’re changing the definition to suit your needs?
Kind of.
While I really couldn't care less what Rand envisioned, so certainly feel no desire to hew to her conception, I haven't changed it to suit my "needs" per se. I've changed it as necessary so that it actually is, as far as I can see, what it appears to refer to - "rational" "self-interest."
I think it's a sound concept, and that Rand, blinded as she was by her emotions, her authoritarian habits and her gargantuan ego, didn't grasp it.
Thanks for the response.
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Do unto others as you want done unto you. Basically all of game theory. The threat of a guillotine. These are all extremely basic and rational arguments that merely ask you not to be a dickhead.
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She's not worth spending time on. Any rational person would understand that.
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Shut.
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87 comments