Blog

Court ruling favors corporate interests
The Badger Herald, January 25, 2010

Editor:

Chelsea Lawliss asserts that corporations have no right to freedom of speech because a “corporation is a collective entity and, by default, a machine that runs on the fuel of self-interest.” On the contrary, Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion notes that a corporation is run by individuals, including those who promote its political positions. He is right: a corporation just is a group of individuals freely associating with each other, and the free speech rights of a corporation derive from the free speech rights of these individuals.

In the majority opinion, Kennedy rebuts the assertion that a corporation is a rightless legal fiction. He demonstrates that a newspaper, such as the New York Times, is published and controlled by a corporation, but is exempt from the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law because of some groundless aura that surrounds a newspaper. The paper, however, is not staffed by machines, but by humans who express their opinions every day and who are paid by the corporation to write what they think.

What fundamental distinction is there between a newspaper and any other voluntary association of individuals, except in its product? None, argues Kennedy. Newspapers are no more special than any industrial or business organization. Their business is to report news and to take sides on issues, but the expression of opinions on issues is not inherently their exclusive domain or expertise. Indeed, is it not in a newspaper’s self-interest—not unlike another corporation’s—to express its opinion and attempt to influence an election?

Citizens United, which was being persecuted by the Federal Election Commission, is a voluntary association of individuals—no different from a newspaper—who agreed on a specific issue and spoke through that association. They were exercising their freedom as thinkers and citizens.

Intellectual freedom, wrote novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand, “cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries.” Political freedom includes the right to speak, and the right to hire representatives—corporate or otherwise—to speak on one’s behalf.
　
Regards,

Edward Cline
Williamsburg, VA
757-645-2107

Guest writer, The Undercurrent
(Author: First Prize, Whisper the Guns, and the Sparrowhawk historical novels)

If you would like to receive regular email updates with suggested approaches to writing your own CMR posts, please subscribe to the CMR email list or visit the CMR information page

Photo credits: 1, 2, 3.

Objectivists Expand Presence
The Stanford Review, January 8, 2010

Dear editors,

Jordan Carr claims that a revival of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism at Stanford does not result from any “attitudinal shift” among students. Instead, he thinks, a philosophy that upholds reason, egoism and capitalism is appealing to college students merely because they have “minimal responsibilities to others.”

Does Carr really believe that students such as Dakin Sloss are interested in Rand’s philosophy only because it appears to rationalize breaking free from obligations to others? Why assume so blithely that these students neither have nor recognize such obligations? And why assume that the interests of others cannot be important components of one’s own self-interest?

Indeed, why would Dakin Sloss, the egoist, spend so much time spreading Rand’s ideas of egoism, unless he thought that by helping others to pursue their own happiness, he would be making the world better for himself?

Carr’s greatest injustice is to neglect the possibility that students like Sloss are serious about the possibility that Rand’s ideas are actually true. Ayn Rand herself speculated about the appeal of her ideas among the young. Carr would do well to betray less cynicism about his fellow students, and consider her explanation:

“It is not in the nature of man—nor of any living entity—to start out by giving up, by spitting in one’s own face and damning existence; that requires a process of corruption, whose rapidity differs from man to man. . . . Yet a few hold on and move on, knowing that that fire is not to be betrayed, learning how to give it shape, purpose and reality. But whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man’s nature and of life’s potential”
(Introduction to The Fountainhead, 1968, pg. 6).

Sincerely,
Valery Publius
www.the-undercurrent.com

This week’s CMR post was drawn from our regularly updated blog of comment-worthy campus opinion pieces. If you would like to receive regular email updates with suggested approaches to writing your own CMR posts, please subscribe to the CMR email list or visit the CMR information page

Photos from:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tisue/200330559/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourdon/3433398238/

The flawed logic of conservationism

One can hardly escape the appeals to one of today’s most popular causes: conservationism. The message seems to be everywhere: conserve electricity, conserve water, conserve gas, conserve plastic, conserve paper. The state of California has even begun regulating large screen televisions in the name of conservation.

To many, it seems like a no-brainer. Conservationists claim a long list of benefits, including positive economic and environmental effects, and even a more satisfying way of life. Conservation.org, for example, argues that conservation can “ensure a better life for everyone, everywhere.” The city of Santa Clara, like many other cities and companies, proclaims that “it pays to go green” on their city-sponsored conservation website. The logic seems quite straightforward: the less we use, the more we have.

The simplicity of the argument, however, is deceptive. It is true, for instance, that you still have an apple if you don’t eat it. But this is not automatically a good thing: You’re not nourished as a result, nor do you have more apples than you started with. Putting it in economic terms, conservation is not production—it is simply the act of delaying or forgoing consumption. Sometimes conservation does help create values, such as when you save your stock seed for future planting rather than eating it (or feeding it to the birds). But conserving is not creating, just as fasting is not eating—it is the latter in both cases that ultimately sustains life.

This is important in light of the claim that conservation is the key to a better world. Consider for a moment how we historically arrived at today’s standard of living. Things like electricity, gasoline, clean water, and even food have been, at various points in history, rare luxuries. Over time, consumption of all these things has increased dramatically – we now use thousands of times more energy every day than was possible in centuries past. And yet, as a result, our quality of life has drastically improved. Indeed, we now have more access to all these goods than ever before.

On the premise of conservationism, this is a puzzling outcome. If conservation were the way to a “better life”, then our lives should have been reduced to worse and worse misery over time. But they haven’t, because conservation was not, until recently, sold as the road to prosperity. Rather, it was production that was seen as the antidote to poverty. By producing more, we have more to consume, and our lives are better as a result.

If anything, conservationism has achieved its favorable reputation only through its historical link with production. When your grandmother encourages you to pinch pennies, it is because you can eventually use that money to buy a car or a house—that is, you can ultimately consume your savings. But those who advocate conservationism ignore this connection—and ignore the fact that production, not conservation, is the primary means by which we create the values our lives require.

Should the country have decided in 1920 that too much electricity was being used, and launched a movement to conserve, to use less—if it had begun to regulate the energy use of rotary telephones and Model T’s the way the government is now regulating plasma TVs—if people had felt guilty about the resources needed for newly invented frozen food, and become reluctant to partake in the immense benefits of budding modern transportation—we would be living today in a much more impoverished world, without the benefit brought about by the cultural embrace of mass production.

Production, not conservation, is the only means that can “ensure a better life for everyone, everywhere.” To make possible bigger, better things in greater quantities, more has to be produced. Improvements like the wide availability of modern medicine, iPods, cars, and the like did not come about from conserving resources; it was new labs, hospitals, factories, universities, and power plants that made them possible.

What then do conservationist policies actually achieve? In practice, they ask for all of us to surrender our personal values–the convenience and benefits of driving, the taste of “wasteful” foods like meat, the relaxing entertainment of a big screen TV, and even the pleasure of a long, relaxing shower (to name just a few). In effect, they urge us to be satisfied with less, to shun expansion and growth, to accept a comfortable stagnation—to live lesser lives. They demand this on the grounds of an alleged conflict between enjoying your life and being “responsible” .

Thankfully, there is no such conflict. The course of the industrial revolution and the lead-up to today’s relative abundance demonstrate that man is capable of creating for himself a better world by producing all of the things he needs, in ever greater quantity and quality. Instead of demanding sacrifice and conservation, we should be actively encouraging greater production in every way possible (including savings for the sake of enabling production). If California, for example, enabled rising energy production by increasing the freedom of producers, there would be no basis to consider banning TVs or any other life-serving good. If production were once again defended as morally proper, there is no telling what abundance we could create in this century, and the lengths to which it would improve our quality of life. That is far more practical than anything conservationism could hope to achieve.

Are children naturally altruistic? A recent study seems to suggest so:

“When infants 18 months old see an unrelated adult whose hands are full and who needs assistance opening a door or picking up a dropped clothespin, they will immediately help" Michael Tomasello writes in “Why We Cooperate,” a book published in October.

Dr. Tomasello’s research shows that very young children offer helpful behavior indiscriminately, and then later as they grow, come to direct it more selectively towards specific individuals. From this, Tomasello reasons that children start out with an innately altruistic impulse, one which then wanes as the child grows. Implicit in the Times article—and presumably in the study itself—is the idea that the child’s helpful behavior is inherently an expression of altruism, the selfless sacrifice of one’s own goals and needs to serve the interests of others. In other words, helping others is taken to be antithetical to self-interest.

According to the Times, Tomasello argues that because a child becomes more selective as he ages, the child is moving away from what is initially an altruistic impulse. But a simpler explanation is that the change is just a change in degree. A growing child initially finds joy in human interaction generally, and then gradually comes to care about certain specific people more than others. The fact that he develops stronger and narrower preferences over time is not a reason to think that he was initially being self-effacing—it just shows that with experience he comes to refine and develop his judgment of which people matter most to him.

In helping those we care about—including in some situations complete strangers—we do not necessarily subordinate our own goals and values to the needs of others. Such a view would imply that we don’t have anything to gain from cooperative endeavors. In fact, we gain tremendously from working and socializing with others. As Tomasello himself points out, even in hunter-gatherer societies, let alone our modern world today, individuals benefit immensely from cooperative endeavors. Given this benefit, there are selfish reasons to be kind to others—i.e. to treat them as the potential value that they are.

Dr. Tomasello, in identifying that young children engage in spontaneous acts of helpfulness, is recognizing that young children come to (implicitly) value human interaction, i.e. that they realize and appreciate how much it can benefit their own lives. This makes sense—human relationships are one of the greatest joys that life has to offer. But for precisely this reason, such acts of kindness are a far cry from exhibiting a tendency towards self-sacrificial altruism. They are, to the contrary, the natural expression of self-interest that one would expect to see at an age when altruism-induced guilt and cynicism have not yet made their mark.

To learn more about the difference between cooperation and altruism, see:

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/altruism.html

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/selfishness.html

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/selflessness.html

http://arc-tv.com/the-origins-of-altruism/