tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post7422765529995078157..comments2024-03-27T05:47:21.295-07:00Comments on Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature: Rand & Aesthetics 16Daniel Barneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06359277853862225286noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-12214189937120632222011-06-22T12:51:25.104-07:002011-06-22T12:51:25.104-07:00@gregnyquist: Big business has never been particul...@gregnyquist: <i>Big business has never been particularly good at defending it's own interests.</i><br /><br />@Chris: <i>I've heard two schools of thought on this.</i><br /><br />Want a third school? Despite the conventions of the common law, a business or corporation is not really a person, and cannot do anything; all its decisions and actions are carried out by humans, either the owners or the employees. If the interests of those humans are not aligned with those of the corporation, the business will not "defend its own interests."<br /><br />If as an owner I can maximize my personal benefit by selling the company assets and driving it into bankruptcy, is that not what I should do? You will recognize this as the basis of many leveraged buyouts and hostile takeovers.<br /><br />If as an employee I can maximize my personal benefit by engaging in highly-risky behavior that might destroy the company, is that not what I should do? A number of traders at some of the financial firms did exactly that, a few years ago; they could maximize their pay and bonuses by making highly-risky trades, so they did so. When their positions went sour, the companies crashed, but the traders kept the money they already had.Kennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-67888561490192014902011-06-20T11:40:32.164-07:002011-06-20T11:40:32.164-07:00Yes I followed all those links and realized you fo...Yes I followed all those links and realized you folks are familiar with this great play. How a Randian can still be so serious after watching is beyond me.<br />The link to Jo Rothbard does not work. I even found the link at LRC and it still does not work. Run time error.<br /><br />CatoAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-1216293495777601772011-06-18T12:55:14.473-07:002011-06-18T12:55:14.473-07:00HI Cato
Yes, we're well familiar with and hav...HI Cato<br /><br />Yes, we're well familiar with and have enjoyed Mozart was a Red, we've <a href="http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/2008/01/mozart-was-red-live.html" rel="nofollow">posted on it</a> some years back as well as The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult plus also this great snippet from <a href="http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/2009/01/joey-rothbard-on-rothardrand-schism.html" rel="nofollow">Joey Rothbard.</a>Daniel Barneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06359277853862225286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-84463076247925195782011-06-18T08:54:23.802-07:002011-06-18T08:54:23.802-07:00Chris,
I plan at some point to discuss your very ...Chris,<br /><br />I plan at some point to discuss your very insightful point because it feeds into the cynical view of corporate social responsibility. Of course, I think there can be many motives for any act so I like reviewing the possibilities.Xtra Lajhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17166565583455141813noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-18811219938415384392011-06-18T07:42:06.844-07:002011-06-18T07:42:06.844-07:00Does anybody here understand and appreciate the hu...Does anybody here understand and appreciate the humor of the play, Mozart Was a Red?<br /><br />Helps if you have spent time with convinced Randians and if you understand the superior intellect of Murray Rothbard.<br /><br />CATOAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-86338273815444133852011-06-18T07:36:50.276-07:002011-06-18T07:36:50.276-07:00Xtra Laj,
From here on out, I will always sign my...Xtra Laj,<br /><br />From here on out, I will always sign my anonymous comments CATO.<br /><br />Greg,<br /><br />Well we passed the first hurdle; you clearly and concisely articulated the real beauty of capitalism.<br />“This partnership between counter-culture and big business created a great deal more money for everyone involved.”<br /><br />Essentially, all involved parties prosper from free trade. Capitalism and trade is the wealth creator,not government.<br /><br />CATOAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-2105185525300617782011-06-17T17:50:22.555-07:002011-06-17T17:50:22.555-07:00Big business has never been particularly good at d...<i>Big business has never been particularly good at defending it's own interests.</i><br /><br />I've heard two schools of thought on this. One agrees with Greg, that if a capitalist can make a profit from selling you the rope to hang him with, he'll do it. (A metaphor for the self-destructive tendency in cap'sm).<br /><br />The other is that capitalism has remained dominant b/c it absorbs, neutralizes and incorporates resistance to it. For example, rebellion is commidified in a variety of ways and sold as a lifestyle choice. After mass production threatened to make society and culture into something homogeneous, routine, conformist, etc., producers and marketers figured out how to take the critique of this -- that cap'sm robs people of their individuality -- and make it a strategy. Now we're sold numerous variations of a single product so we can "express our unique selves." Individuality is achieved through choices made during shopping.<br /><br />- ChrisAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-74816385953762697522011-06-17T08:21:40.701-07:002011-06-17T08:21:40.701-07:00If capitalist profit from counter culture, this wi...<i>If capitalist profit from counter culture, this will leave the counter culture with less money.</i><br /><br />It doesn't work that way. Most counter-culture performers/artists were poor businessmen (which partially explains their animus toward capitalism). They didn't have the capital or the initiative or the business savvy to mass market their counter-culture products. Hence many of these counter-culture icons leagued up with the big media corporations, which had the capital to produce and market their recordings. This partnership between counter-culture and big business created a great deal more money for everyone involved.<br /><br /><i>What self-destructive tendencies in capitalism are you referring to?</i><br /><br />Big business has never been particularly good at defending it's own interests. Whether it's funding center-left think tanks or producing anti-corporate films or supporting the Democratic Party and Barack Obama (68% of Wall Street's political donations in 2008 went to Democrats), corporations in America are hardly uniformly pro free enterprise.gregnyquisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-27193916846503790072011-06-17T07:43:47.830-07:002011-06-17T07:43:47.830-07:00Hawker40,
I think it is because they target preten...Hawker40,<br />I think it is because they target pretension and someone who is put up on a pedestal becomes one of their targets. She probably saw it as mockery of the heroic.Lloyd Flackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00832519369660328832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-66958923548330339012011-06-17T06:03:21.199-07:002011-06-17T06:03:21.199-07:00I find it interesting that Ms. Rand disliked Gilbe...I find it interesting that Ms. Rand disliked Gilbert and Sullivan. Since G. and S. generally targeted the nonsense of the British government, and Ms. Rand was anti-government...Hawker40noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-42505297040919890612011-06-17T03:36:46.072-07:002011-06-17T03:36:46.072-07:00Greg your comment has me confused more than normal...<i>Greg your comment has me confused more than normal. If capitalist profit from counter culture, this will leave the counter culture with less money. Counter culture will then have less opportunity to undermine society.<br />What self-destructive tendencies in capitalism are you referring to? </i><br /><br />Greg will answer, but making money of a counterculture does not mean that you are impoverishing the counterculture. In many cases, you are turning the counterculture into a larger business than the culture could be without your investments. Of course, it is partly because you can see that if you don't invest, someone else might and might make more money that you could if you invested.<br /><br />Think of Hollywood movies with left-leaning messages, or rap music. If a capitalist sees money to be made, a capitalist will invest. It doesn't necessarily mean that the artists will be poorer or richer, though it is definitely likely that the capitalist's investments will make them more popular.<br /><br /><br />I think it would help if *anonymous* did something to distinguish himself from other anonymous posters so we could at least build an identity - hard to talk to nameless people.Xtra Lajhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17166565583455141813noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-60698888016393390262011-06-16T17:49:55.888-07:002011-06-16T17:49:55.888-07:00Oops, I forgot to include the title.
Mozart was a...Oops, I forgot to include the title.<br /><br />Mozart was a red.<br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIk5C2qsRH8Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-23831086801905773862011-06-16T17:47:43.353-07:002011-06-16T17:47:43.353-07:00This short play/skit is the funniest slam against ...This short play/skit is the funniest slam against Rand an Austrian could ever view. I laugh every time!<br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=KIk5C2qsRH8Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-55069222992014274602011-06-16T17:45:30.954-07:002011-06-16T17:45:30.954-07:00Greg your comment has me confused more than normal...Greg your comment has me confused more than normal. If capitalist profit from counter culture, this will leave the counter culture with less money. Counter culture will then have less opportunity to undermine society.<br />What self-destructive tendencies in capitalism are you referring to?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-54687642069331812962011-06-16T13:23:57.160-07:002011-06-16T13:23:57.160-07:00Rand also hated popular music for the most part, w...<i>Rand also hated popular music for the most part, with special venom reserved for rock.</i><br /><br />What is perhaps most interesting about her hatred of rock (and counter-culture popular art in general) is how she seems to have blithely ignored some of the obvious sociological implications of all this. The counter-culture was hostile to capitalism; but that didn't prevent entrepreneurs from commoditizing the counter-culture and profiting from that which sought to undermine and destroy capitalism. The sociologist Daniel Bell, inspired by both Marx and Schumpeter, described this phenomenon as the "cultural contradictions of capitalism." Rand always seemed blind to such self-destructive tendencies in capitalism, as she was blind to the fragility of civilization itself, assuming, as she did, that it was merely an issue of presenting the right arguments against Kant.gregnyquisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-25808834758189392192011-06-16T12:30:28.616-07:002011-06-16T12:30:28.616-07:00Chris, this has struck me too. The impression I ge...Chris, this has struck me too. The impression I get from her pronouncements is that one should value and admire, even worship the producer - if the producer is a hero, then the product must of course be perfect.<br /><br />Yet there were so few products she approved of.<br /><br />caroljanestuarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05084026545492206558noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-69481166188514800722011-06-16T12:07:54.433-07:002011-06-16T12:07:54.433-07:00Rand also hated popular music for the most part, w...Rand also hated popular music for the most part, with special venom reserved for rock. This is interesting if only because popular song is the music of capitalism: mass-produced, marketed, commodified, and ultimately, profitable. Yet she hated the sounds her preferred economic system produced.<br /><br />This same contradiction really struck me in <i> The Fountainhead </i> too -- as if capitalism was all about pleasing yourself with your work, with attracting customers and turnng profits being irrelevant. Weird.<br /><br />- ChrisAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com