FEE: Ayn Rand Predicts its Intellectual Bankruptcy
FEE or the Foundation for Economic Education has proven to be intellectually bankrupt. For instance, their position against patents and Intellectual property shows that they do not understand property rights or rights generally. They also revere the work of the philosopher David Hume, who argued “cause and effect” does not exist, induction is just correlation, and that a rational ethics is not possible (the so-called is-ought problem). This means that Hume undermined reason, science and ethics. Despite this FEE thinks Hume is a great guy. FEE also promotes Matt Ridley who denigrates human achievement in science and engineering, calling Nobel Laurites in science and inventors frauds, for more click here.
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The root of Marxism stems from the Catholic failure of moral clarity when it came to lending capital with interest.
Marx , a Jewish convert to Catholicism, hated Capitalism because for almost 2,000 years the Catholic view was that engaging in usury, lending Capital with interest, is immoral. The Church, through the 10% mandatory tithe of all your assets. (read tax) would support the poor (but mostly itself, just like our government today) and be in control of all the dependents. Being poor became a virtue because it served the interests of the Church. Trades and guilds (unions) would flourish to protect scarce work and economies would stagnate as the Church siphoned off their wealth (Federal Reserve) . Only the Landed Aristocracy, Vassals of the Church and kings were rich enough to afford to engage in science. Hence the dark ages.
Needing capital to create business, such as buying a ship and goods to trade was necessary so the Church found an out. Let the Jews do it. They are devils and immoral anyway. Let the sin be on them and we will take advantage.
The Church decreed that Jews were abandoned by God to be downtrodden on earth and serve as a lesson to anyone who did not accept Jesus and the Church, The Torah, Pentatuach or Five books of Moses was demeaned as the "Old" testament and ignored.
Then once the Jewish capital created economic prosperity - Re-distribution, e.g. Stealing from the Jews (today called "the Rich") and giving to the Church (government) was considered noble.
Read Das Kapital on the Jewish question. Can someone who converts to Catholicism be considered to be a German Citizen? Marx answers, even a German is a Jew if he engages in Capitalism.
Not until Vatican II and Pope John Paul did this view officially change. Once this moral stigma of Dirty Jew is removed from Capitalism and the Nobleness from re-distribution (theft from the Dirty Jew) then we might get some clear thinking about Capitalism without the mixed messages. .
Shocked? Appalled that the world Collectivist/Socialist/Marxist culture is based on Jew hatred and Religious Doctrine based on the lust for control and power?
The truth is like that.
Roman Catholic and Islamic Religions had to demean the original religion of Israel to get converts away e.g. money, assets and women to make more soldiers to be used to conquer and get more money. control and power.
That is the moral (or immoral) basis that must be revealed and corrected to gain acceptance of capitalism instead of focusing just on economics.
Ridley is liar and denigrates human achievement. His argument is that no one inventor is important, it is a societal effort. That is epistemological collectivism and that is as bad or worse that political collectivism
Also don't believe she believed that either.
Look at it this way: Not even God can make all the people happy AND simultaneously.
Risk-taking and competition are the means man uses to achieve goals, or objects, and are as important to him in his goal-seeking behavior, as the object itself.
You may not understand completely the nature of addiction, in so far as it becomes tied to man's competitive and risk-taking nature. Gambling is an addiction to a certain type of risk-taking. Power has a use and power-seeking is a driving force in man's nature, but it can become an addiction, and I still need to explicate the nature of that addiction further. Neurologically, addicts are said to be "chasing that high", but can never find it.
Where did you learn about human nature, kh?
See the topic I started: "Countervailing Powers", for help.
In any event, to me this is time wasted on counting the number of angels who can dance on the head of a pin when there are much larger issues to confront. If you want to fight with FEE, go ahead. I doubt you will amount to a fly buzzing around its head. If you want to fight friends rather than “spread the word” through education of the multitude of people who have no idea what free enterprise, atheism, and liberty are, then enjoy the fight. But it is my opinion time is better spent on more enjoyable and profitable endeavors. In the meantime I bid you adieu, for I have some trivial things to do which are far more important.
So celebration Matt Ridley who thinks scientist, engineers, and inventors are frauds is not attacking reason?
You need to reevaluate what is attacking reason.
If you are talking about smoother for the controllers.
But I really have to go now.
Take a look at the much larger picture of what FEE stands for and you will find Objectivists will agree with 90% or more.
The incessant Objectivist attacks upon friends is, I think, one of the many reasons AS is a failing organization. CEO Grossman described the problem in her December 31 email: “This year at The Atlas Society, we faced facts: Fewer and fewer young people were reading Ayn Rand, membership was declining, revenues were down, and we were struggling to attract fresh faces to The Atlas Summit. As Objectivists, we needed to admit that the old way of doing things wasn’t going to produce the results we needed to achieve our goals of promoting the values of reason, achievement, individualism, liberty and ethical self-interest.”
FEE has those same goals of promoting the values of reason, achievement, individualism, liberty and ethical self-interest. This begs the question: with so many enemies around, why attack a friend?
Reminds me of a conversation I had with an eminent physicist, and I asked "What is a quantum mechanical event anyway?" So he says, "Well, we don't really know that, Carol."
Law is "lex" in Latin; regulations come from the Latin word for king---"rex", so are arbitrary and vary over time.
Capitalism, to work effectively, depends on man's competitive nature, which in turn is connected to that risk-taking attribute of man, and those are good things, without which there could not be evolution at all. But as in all those attributes of man's nature, it can be taken to an extreme. Humans sometimes aren't even aware of that fact of human nature. But as I said, I'll be thinking about that going forward.
Anyway, did you read my topic: "The Most Dangerous Game"? It is not greed that becomes obsessive, it is playing the "game". Becoming aware of that is a good first step.
By what standard? What does that even mean?
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