Yes. Amazing how many complain about that but then resist changing it.

I like the "invisible hand" analogy. Since Coolidge I think most Presidents have been varying degrees of Progressives.

Compulsory altruism is indistinguishable from theft and theft is a form of slavery.

For the same reason people cannot trust an "invisible hand" to keep order in an economy with no central command or control. People find it counter-intuitive. People also gravitate toward anyone who takes command. Sometimes it takes a long time to find that the commands are irresponsible and unwise. It takes even longer to figure out that putting anyone in command of an economy is irresponsible and unwise.

The closest person other than Rand to explain it properly, was Calvin Coolidge, the thirtieth President of the United States.

Conveniently, an effect of blowing up government agencies frees up the educational process to become private, local and directed by the communities. I don't fear what is being taught locally because if you do not agree with their teachings, move to a different school. Collective, national systems are inescapable political propaganda machines.

Truth. The educational system is being used for this type of indoctrination. If we are going to change anything I think it needs to start there. Hard to do because you are right about the Church and State. They would lose a significant amount of influence.

Absolutely. I should not be made to feel guilty for wanting to keep my stuff.

Safety in numbers is a great point. Acting in an altruistic way typically earns you a pat on the back, acceptance and in some cases awards. Very enticing and hard to over come.

Altruism is a means by which one man can make demands on the life of another by appealing to emotion, fear of the unknown, guilt, loneliness, pity, insecurity, greed, lust and any other emotional appeal that can be used by one individual or group to gain control over another. Unfortunately, mystics have institutionalized the method and have preached it for so long that it seems to be a basic truth. It is just so easy to accept the prepackaged tenets of slavery than to think for oneself. Without altruism the churches and states, as we know them, would be unable to exist.

Excellent answer.

SHORT ANSWER: Because Objectivism requires individual RESPONSIBILITY.

The effects of altruism are not the concern of altruism. Cause and effect rely on reason, which must be reducible to percepts. Altruism reverses cause and effect. It does not observe the external world and seek verification using the method of logic, rather, it takes a belief and then forces that belief on the external world. Altruism discards the primacy of existence in favor or the primacy of consciousness. Who's consciousness? Does it matter. Thus, force.

What binds an altruist to obedience to the law? Nothing particular. Looking back to the middle ages, the exemplar of altruism, what modern individual can assert the rights to life, liberty, or property were respected or even practiced casually, like a Christian song at Christmas celebration among self-confessed atheists? No one in particular.

The confusion lies in the vogue of primacy of consciousness. The vogue, a bewildering irrationalist chic, is as an obvious phantom to the individual engaged in the pursuits of a mystic. Still, the practitioner somehow believes that he benefits from the propagation of the false worldview in a self-induced fog compounded by the laziness inherent in the necessary avoidance of reality. He seeks, like the compulsive gambler, one more roll of the dice at the table of destiny, slowly dissolving into a man who has faith simply because he has no desire to think... and no desire to change his course. And when the creditors come to collect, he devolves (lit.) into an animal that takes by force in order to propagate his habit.

The altruist of your question is a casual altruist. There is safety in numbers, so to speak. So rather than play dice, he joins causes the gain him favor in the eyes of his god or his peers or or his fuhrer, as the case may be, not realizing that he has been struck by a plague of the spirit from which he and his comrades cannot recover until his entire generation has passed on into their sour graves to be forgotten for their lack of courage. Altruism feels safe to people and it is systematically propagandized by various powerful institutions that believe benefit arises from it's propagation, as if it were some shadowy currency to use when it was most needed. What the world needs to hear is not "Yes, we can [win with altruism]", but "no, I won't [dabble in altruism... ever]".

Thanks. This board needs a thanks button.

That is a consequence of accepting altruist ethics.

All of that collectivism is rationalized by altruism.

Because they have mixed premises, explicitly accepting altruist ethics while trying to live implicit individualism in accordance with the American sense of life. When the explicit premises are not challenged, over time they replace the implicit, leaving people progressively sinking into guilt and more and more collectivism-statism.

Altruism means the notion that the basis of morality is sacrifice to others. "Voluntary" altruism only means voluntarily accepting a false, destructive ethics. As long as that false ethical premise dominates a culture it will cause statism and collectivism in politics.

The notion of imagining chances of dependency in advance of being born instead of basing ethics on choices that must be made here in reality in accordance with causality is John Rawl's misnamed Theory of Justice, thoroughly dissected and dispensed with in Ayn Rand's “An Untitled Letter” in Philosophy: Who Needs It. It's one more variant on collectivist premises used to rationalize every variant of collectivist politics from the Welfare State to Communism.

And what is a "negative effect" is defined by one's philosophical standards. Altruism regards its destruction as an ideal to be strived for, not as a "negative".

To see what is positive and what is negative requires formulating an objective ethics that begins with identifying the facts that give rise to the field of ethics. What is in your self-interest is a principle to be discovered based on the nature of man. That determines what is virtue and what is good versus bad. That is why the Objectivist ethics is called "objective".

Altruism in contrast begins with the premise of sacrifice to others as the entire basis of ethics. It regards ethics as entirely social -- relating to other people through sacrifice as the ideal. It excludes from the province of ethics the entire realm of choices in your personal life, their affect on your life, and the idea of the life of the individual as the standard and one's own happiness as the goal. It begins with ethics as entirely social -- social sacrifice -- and does not recognize principles of social aspects of ethics as a consequence of ethical principles for one's own life.

They see negative affects all right, and often don't personally like it, but don't allow that as a motivating ethical concern for what to do since duty to sacrifice is the entire basis and motive for what they consider to be ethical behavior. At most they scream for others to sacrifice more. For every altruistic act there is a beneficiary, and they want to be included as one in the orgy of increasing demands for sacrifice.

Because seeing a person in need and walking by isn't something some can live with. Mandating altruism, via taxation, not no longer charity its theft.

Technocracy Road Block 1 - I am not prone to be part of a group. I do however have empathy when I see someone in need. I have no objection to giving a few dollars, getting a meal for someone, or putting a few dollars of gas in someones gas can if its my choice.

Technocracy Road Block 2 - I gave up on hedging my bets with a Creator some time ago - to many Christians its more about faith than works. I give when I choose because its something I want to do be that money, food or time.

I think people think selfishnes is what makes someone steal and altruism is what makes someone make honest trades even if they could get away with deceit. This is not correct, of course, but people use it all the time. "He was so selfish. He didn't paid his employees the agreed amount because he was putting his own needs ahead of others. The moral and altruistic thing to do would be to think of others first and pay the agreed amount." That talk makes me cringe, but amazingly I sometimes find if I probe the person saying it doesn't really believe in putting other people first. They don't want some paying them, spending time with them, or anything out of pity/charity. But the language still says "put others first."

2 is like an insurance policy. It makes me imagine a thought experiment where before birth I knew I would be born into a world that taxes my wealth to help the poor or one that doesn't. In this experiment, though, I would not know whether I would be born to a family that provided for me as a young child or if I would have a body and mind capable of producing things other people want. I would certainly choose the gov't-enforced-alms society (that's god-awful!) for the same reason I buy insurance. I'd rather pay the premiums in exchange for limiting my risk.

I actually support limited gov't programs to help the poor, but for the same reason I support taxes to fund the police. Let's remove that reason within this thought-experiment. Suppose it's proven that it's impossible for gov't programs for the poor to provide a non-excludable benefit the way policing does. Now I have to answer if I support gov't programs for the poor that really are a form of alms. I do not believe in gov't-enforced charity, but I would choose that world in this thought experiment.

I imagine someone smarter than I am about all this writing a story where someone chooses the altruistic world in the before-life, lives half a lifetime, and then somehow gets the chance to cross over into the selfish (in the good way) world and shudders to see the real price of altruism.

Good points Tech.

I don't have any problems with someone being altruistic and giving away their stuff. It's their stuff. Where I object is when they want to be altruistic and give away my stuff. Often they want to give away my stuff instead of their own but take credit for their superior character.

Hello richrobinson.
Busy people without initiative or time to examine philosophic principles... to think... Emotion rules and feel good actions are always "well-intentioned." That is the trap for those that do not bother to think of it any further. It is a catch all mental tool of evasion, useful for avoiding the obvious, or the effort of thinking it through, and recognizing the pattern. Following up and checking one's premises may mean one must reassess much of their belief system. Some can be very set in their ways.
Regards,
O.A.