Unfortunately, many economists and conspiracy theorists alike, perpetuate all kinds  of nonsense about what “Fractional Reserve Banking” is, how it works, and what it’s effects are. In reality, Fractional Reserve Banking is really quite simple to comprehend once you get certain ridiculous notions out of your head. 

The first thing you need to understand about commercial banks (as opposed to branches of the Federal Reserve) who practice Fractional Reserve Banking, is that when you deposit money into such a bank, you are NOT paying (hiring) the bank to WAREHOUSE your money. Understanding this first detail is absolutely crucial. Warehousing money (for a fee) is what banks USED to do (back in the day). It is NOT what banks do now, and your “bank balance” is NOT a record of how much of your money is stored/warehoused “in the bank”. Rather, it is a record of how much the bank OWES YOU. This is a simple fact that even economists fail to understand. MODERN COMMERCIAL BANKS DO NOT WAREHOUSE (STORE) THE MONEY YOU DEPOSIT INTO THE BANK. Get that out of your head…

Nowadays, when you deposit money into a bank, what you are doing is LOANING money to the bank. What they do with it is simple: they store 10% of it in their vaults, and LOAN OUT the remaining 90%. THIS practice is called “Fractional Reserve Banking”. The phrase itself refers to the fact that the bank only has to keep (store) in it’s vaults (“reserve”), a FRACTION of what it’s customers deposit. The amount a bank is required to store is called the “reserve ratio”, which currently, by law, is 10% of every deposit. Put simply, if you “put $10 in the bank” (loan the bank $10), it will put $1 in it’s vaults, and loan out the remaining $9.

The second crucial detail, is one mentioned above: when a bank loans out money, they are loaning out money borrowed from their “customers” (“depositors”). They are NOT “creating money out of thin air” or “loaning money into existence”, as many people claim/believe. 

Here’s an analogy:

I borrow $10 from John, and then loan $9 of it to Shelly. Did I “create $9 out of thin air”? Of course not! I borrowed that money from John (THAT’S where it came from). Why this is so hard for people to comprehend is beyond me. 

At any rate, at this point in time:

a) I owe John $10.
b) Shelly owes me $9.
c) I have $1 in my pocket (my “reserve”).

The only people who actually have any money (at this point in time) are me and Shelly (I have $1, and she has $9). All John has is a note I wrote on a piece of paper, promising to pay him back. This piece of paper (the LOAN RECORD) would be analogous to a depositor’s “bank balance”. I, of course, would be analogous to a bank (in this analogy). John would be the depositor, and Shelly would be the borrower.

Now I know what you’re thinking… you’re about to ask, “But… if you were a bank, John could demand his money back at any time. That’s why they call it a ‘demand deposit’. Where does THAT money come from? Thin air, right?”

No, silly. NOT “thin air”. In fact, the answer to that question is so simple, it’s almost impossible for a conspiracy theorist to wrap their mind around it. 

If I was a bank, first of all, I would have more than one depositor. This is a KEY DETAIL. Remember when I said that a bank has to KEEP (store) 10% of every deposit in it’s reserves? Well… the WHOLE PURPOSE of those reserves, is to have money on hand for people who “want their money” (want the bank to pay them back). The reason that banks are ABLE (most of the time), to pay people back, is NOT because they can “create money out of thin air”. Rather, it’s because not EVERYBODY needs ALL of their money ALL the time. If they did, they wouldn’t put it in a bank in the first place. In other words, generally speaking, what the bank keeps in it’s vaults (10% of every deposit) is enough to pay people back when they want to get paid back. There’s absolutely nothing magical or mysterious about this.  

So let’s recap:

a) Where do banks get the money they loan out? From people called “depositors” (or “customers”) who walk into the bank with money, and hand it over to the bank (NOT thin air).

b) Where do banks get the the money to pay back those people? From the bank’s vault (NOT thin air).

See? It’s actually super-frikkin’ simple. 

Now… how do we KNOW that commercial banks don’t “create money out of thin air”? We know this due to two things (aside from reading all the fine print possible when opening a bank account):

a) Bank runs (which have actually happened historically), and

b) the existence of FDIC insurance.

A bank run is when too many customers try to withdraw their money at the same time, and the bank simply doesn’t have enough money to pay everyone back. Why don’t they have the money? BECAUSE MOST OF IT (90%) HAS BEEN LENT OUT. All those loans you thought were just “thin air” consisted of real money ultimately belonging to the bank’s customers. The WHOLE POINT of FDIC insurance is to bail banks out when they don’t have enough money to pay everybody (who wants to be paid back) back. If commercial banks could just magically create money out of thin air, there would be no need for FDIC insurance. FDIC insurance exists because banks CAN’T “create money out of thin air”. 

What is true however, is the fact that a bank can loan out the SAME money AT DIFFERENT TIMES, and earn interest on EACH of those loans (NEWS FLASH: banks make money from brokering loans). What’s NOT TRUE, is that this process has anything whatsoever to do with “creating money”. Where many of the economists and conspiracy theorists go wrong, is in thinking that the SAME money can be lent out MULTIPLE TIMES AT THE SAME TIME. This however, defies the freakin’ laws of physics. Here’s how it actually works:

Let’s say that John deposits $100 into Bank of My Butt, and Bank of My Butt then loans $90 to Shelly. Shelly then buys a lap dance from me, and I deposit that $90 back into Bank of My Butt. Bank of My Butt can then loan out 90% of my deposit ($81) and make money (earn interest) on that loan. HOWEVER… if we STOP TIME AT THIS MOMENT and count how much money everybody has, what do we end up with? Let’s see:

a) John has $0 (but the bank owes him $100)
b) Shelly has $0 (but she owes the bank $91)
c) I have $0 (but the bank owes me $91)
d) The bank has $100 ($19 which must remain in it’s reserves, and $81 which it will probably loan out), and owes money to both me ($91) and john ($100).

So you see… the only “person” who has any money at this moment in time is Bank of My Butt, and only $100 exists in the present moment.

What certain economists and conspiracy theorists are doing, is pretending that time doesn’t exist (or they’re not philosophically astute enough to realize their blunder). They’re taking things from the present *and* from the future, adding them together, and kind of not mentioning the fact that they’re doing that. It’s as if you asked me what the human population of Texas was, and I added the population numbers from two separate years together, and kind of failed to admit that, and then also said, “OMG! The population of Texas is exploding!!! This is a huge problem!” (even though I’m basically lying about what the population is AT A CERTAIN PERIOD IN TIME).

This will conclude Part 1. Part 2 will address the objections people usually raise to this exceedingly simple explanation. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard them all.

I hereby set forth to critique Rothbard’s Ethics of Liberty. I’ll start by discussing some of the terms he uses, and how he uses (defines) them. I’ll probably have to clarify a bunch of things before I start questioning his actual arguments. We’ll start with “ownership” and “property”.

He first defines “ownership” as “having command over” something: 

”[The ‘natural man’] also discovers the natural fact of his mind’s command over his body and its actions: that is, of his natural ownership over his self.” - Chapter 6

I don’t think he means to define “ownership” as merely the “mental command” over something (I’m sure physically “commanding” something qualifies as well), and I’m assuming that by “command”, he means “control” or “posses”. At any rate, this leads to some obvious questions.

Firstly, why is he talking about a guy alone an an island? What does being alone have to do with ownership? Is he trying to imply that ownership means “being able to control something without interference from anyone else”? Even though he doesn’t flat-out say that, it seems like he’s implying that. For example, if “the natural man” (the isolated man) happened to be driving a jeep at the time, he would “discover” the “natural fact” that he could drive anywhere and over anything (he wouldn’t have to worry about driving through someone’s property, for example). Is that what “ownership” is (being able to do whatever-the-F you want with that which you control, without interference from anyone)? I think that’s a fair question, which we may have to come back to.

We also have to ask if this means that a rapist “owns” the person they are raping, or if a thief “owns” what they steal (since such people control such things), or if a pizza delivery guy own’s the delivery vehicle temporarily (while he’s delivering the pizza). I believe that Rothbard would answer “Yes” to all these questions.

In Chapter 9, for example, if we assume that Rothbard considers “ownership” and “property” to be correlated concepts (meaning that “property” is “that which is owned”), then Rothbard would agree that a thief owns what they steal:

“Suppose we are walking down the street and we see a man, A, seizing B by the wrist and grabbing B’s wristwatch. There is no question that A is here violating both the person and the property of B. Can we then simply infer from this scene that A is a criminal aggressor, and B his innocent victim?

     Certainly not—for we don’t know simply from our observation whether A is indeed a thief, or whether A is merely repossessing his own watch from B who had previously stolen it from him. In short, while the watch had undoubtedly been B’s property until the moment of A’s attack…” 

In Chapter 7 however, Rothbard points out that a guy hired to transport logs doesn’t have “rights to ownership of the logs”. This is because Rothbard makes a distinction between “ownership” and “right to ownership”/”just ownership”/”rightful ownership” (I don’t know why he doesn’t just pick one term and stick to it). In other words, whether you own yourself or the car you’re driving, is a SEPARATE issue from whether you “JUSTLY own” yourself, or have “ownership rights” to the car. We’ll come back to the issue of “rightful ownership” later.

As for “property”, it’s pretty clear (from the watch example above) that Rothbard defines “property” as “that which is possessed, used, controlled, etc.”. At first (I forget where), it seems like he tries to define “property” as “that which you personally make out of raw materials”, but he obviously doesn’t stick to that.

So just to clarify, “property” isn’t necessarily “rightful property”, and “ownership” isn’t necessarily “rightful ownership”. You can own property, without having the right to own said property. Personally, I would never set up my own semantics this way, but whatever. I’m not going to complain too much about confusing semantics.

 

Words (and language in general) fascinate(s) me. Specifically, I find myself intrigued by words and phrases which I find meaningless, even though various individuals use them regularly. Of course, sometimes I ask myself the question, “What IS ‘meaning’?” I’ve thought about it (the meaning of “meaning”), but… I’m not sure I’ve put forth the time and effort needed to devise a good answer.

This isn’t done (I just started).

Much like there is a so-called “atheist community” present online and IRL, there is also a “skeptic community”. Now… I don’t want to get into detail about what “skepticism” is (we’ll save that for another time), but, personally, I would refer to it as “the practice of questioning premises”.

Now… to me, the “skeptic community” is essentially an ironic joke with some redeeming qualities, which ultimately, is probably a dangerous and detrimental thing/”movement”. The reason I consider it to be a “joke”, is because essentially, they are what is more properly termed “psuedo-skeptics” (and this adds plenty of irony due to the fact that they’re always “unmasking psuedo-scientists in order to save people from their own stupidity”). Here’s why:

It’s PAINFULLY obvious that the “skeptics” are skeptical of everything that challenges “the establishment”, but are NEVER skeptical of “the establishment” itself. In other words, If someone challenges “big pharma” (for example) by selling homeopathic remedies, then the “skeptics” will be up in arms and claim that the scientific studies that they cherry pick (regardless of who funded those studies) indicate that there is no evidence at all that any homeopathic rememdy in the entire universe is effective in any way, and thus they should be made illegal. Of course, they aren’t as “up front” about it as I’m being right now. Their agenda is always at least “thinly vieled”. At some point, I’m sure we can expect them to start talking about how Vitamin C is EVIL and needs to be ABOLISHED!!!

If someone claims to see a UFO, or provides any sort of evidence for UFOs, then that claim or evidence is automatically attacked and debunked, and if it can’t be debunked, then it’s just “fake” by default. However, if NASA says something, then it’s automatically true (unless the ”scientific community” notices something particularly absurd, and calls “B.S.” on NASA [which happens occasionally]). No evidence is necessary, and if said evidence is provided, it is NEVER scrutinized according to the same scientific standards that they scrutinize what they don’t like/support. In other words, if someone claims to provide a photo of a UFO, then it’s “OBVIOUSLY photoshoped”, whereas NASA photos from the LRO could “NOT POSSIBLY be photoshopped. Photo shop is super-hard… prolly too hard for NASA.”

Another example: if Obama claims to have killed Osama Bin Laden, that automatically disproves (once and for all) all the Conspiracy theorists who ever lived, EVEN IF Obama doesn’t even bother to provide a photograph of the corpse, or ANY EVIDENCE AT ALL (“skeptics” were gloating about “the kill” the FIRST DAY it was reported).

So yeah… most “skeptics”, if they were honest, would refer to themselves as “People who are skeptical of anything and everything that defies or contradicts the establishment.”

If you’ve never noticed this before, I’m sure it won’t take more than me pointing it out for it to become obvious to you.

Hi. I call myself “Empty Vee” these days, but… once upon a time, I called myself “D4Shawn” (and “ReIgNoFrAdNeSs”, BTW). I have a “real” name as well, but whatever…

At anyrate, I have a new idea!

If you haven’t heard of E-Prime, you should probably look it up NAO, cuz… it will help you understand what I’m about to say.

I would like to propose an “extension” (if you will) to E-Prime, called “We-Prime”.

“We-Prime” would exclude the “we” concept, and it’s corresponding word.

For example, I wouldn’t say, “We should stop using the word ‘we’. Everyone should speak for themselves, and for themselves alone. I think that would generate more honesty.”

Rather, I would say, “I’ve decided to experiment with removing the word ‘we’ from my vernacular.”

I’m writing this post because I think a lot of people (including anarchists of various sorts) misunderstand “Market Anarchy” (which hereinafter shall be referred to as “MA”).

Let’s start with some definitions:

Realistically, “most people” define “capitalism” in one of two ways:

a) Whatever type of economy the U.S. has now (or at any other point in time)

b) ANY market economy with a system of property rights.

For the sake of due diligence, I suppose we should see how Marx defined it. I think his emphasis was on the “private ownership of the means of production”.

According to wikipedia:

Marx’s notion of the capitalist mode of production is characterised as a system of primarily private ownership of the means of production in a mainly market economy, with a legal framework on commerce and a physical infrastructure provided by the state.

It’s worth noting then, that by Marx’s definition, “anarcho-capitalism” would be an oxymoron. 

Anyways, whether or not “the state” is a key component of “capitalism” is totally irrelevant to this discussion, and merely a semantic issue anyway. What is of importance, is that “capitalism” implies a) a market economy, and b) private property.

WHY NOT “ANARCHO-CAPITALISM”?

Basically, nobody who’s “hip” these days calls themselves an “anarcho-capitalist”. Generally speaking, people who do, believe they have the MORAL RIGHT to private property.

Obviously, that’s a retarded and indefensible notion.

Most groovy people (as proven by science) refer to themselves instead, as “market anarchists”. What this does is focus not on the property component of “capitalism”, but upon the “market” component.

So basically, what market anarchists are saying, is that they don’t want restrictions upon what people naturally do (although this can’t be taken as an absolute since one thing that people naturally do, is place restrictions upon behavior [which is a superset of economic activity]). MAs recognize that people naturally engage in economic activity (such as trade). MAs also recognize however, that while some people naturally prefer private property (either because they are territorial animals, or because they find great utility in private property), OTHER PEOPLE, naturally prefer a more communal lifestyle (because they’re all a bunch of hippies).

In that sense, MAs aren’t for OR against private property. They are FOR “the market” a.k.a. “natural commerce”, and they understand that “the market” is simply a reflection of people’s desires. If SOME people prefer collectivism, the the market will produce SOME collectivism. Likewise, if SOME people prefer individualism, the market will produce SOME individualism.

That’s what MA is about (allowing people to organize themselves as they see fit).

It is NOT a MORAL THEORY about how communists are evil, and I have the MORAL RIGHT to private property and ownership of the means of production.

Of course, it’s not a moral theory about how “the workers” have a moral right to own the means of production either.

At the moment, I am playing with some new ideas, so I don’t know how coherent this article will be. It may contain uncertainties and contradictions which will have to be worked out later.

What I’d like to argue here, is that when people are talking about “existence”, they are really talking about perception. I think we can come to this conclusion from a few different angles.

The first thing I would like to point out is that the word “exist” doesn’t mean anything. Now, if I was going to get technical about it, in order to make such a case, I should probably make the case using E-Prime only (avoiding all forms of the verb “to be”). However, that’s kind of a pain in the ass, and since we all habitually use the the verb “to be”, I think I may be able to get my point across better if I stick to standard English, even if it presents a kind of contradiction.

We often say things like, “That table is red.” Such a statement contains the idea that the table “is” (that the table “exists”). As I will explain in a bit, the word “exist” is problematic (meaningless). A more accurate statement would be, “I perceive a red table.” However, even the self (designated by the word “I”) is yet another perception.

Likewise, rather than asking “What is time?”, a more appropriate question would be, “How do we perceive time?”, or “How can time be perceived?” Most of us perceive time as being linear, but this may not be the only way that time can be perceived.

We also perceive things like causation. However, this could very well be a mis-perception based upon the limitations of our sense mechanisms and state of consciousness. If we, as humans, possessed the sensory capabilities of certain scientific instruments (for example), that is, if we had a “quantum view of reality”, then we might not perceive causation. We might perceive an entirely different reality. In fact, we might not even perceive things like time, space, motion, the self, or even things. We might perceive those things as being hallucinations.

What we think of as “existing” may very well be relative to a specific state of consciousness. It may be, that what most of us perceive as “existing”, is relative to what is often referred to as “ego-consciousness” (the perception of the self, as being separate from other things [and other things being separate from each other]). What is perceived by the ego-consciousness, may very well have no reality relative to more expansive states (or different types) of consciousness.

Now… you’re probably thinking, “Well, for there to ‘be’ perception, there must ‘be’ a perceiver.” This may very well be true. This might be one of those paradoxes I need to think about some more. At any rate, such a “perceiver” does not necessarily have to be what we conceive of as “the self” (or “the self” as we perceive it). For example, there may very well be an intelligence, or consciousness, that permeates every atom of this universe. It may be “within” all things… unifying all things, and “ego-consciousness” (what we think of as “the self”) may only be but a minute fraction of that vast consciousness, and it may very well be possible to expand consciousness beyond the confines of the ego, and what we perceive as a deterministic, material reality. 

Now… let’s get back to the word “exist”. Here’s my argument for why the word is meaningless:

a) Sounds and combinations of letters are not inherently meaningful. Meaning is something that we assign to words in the form of definitions.

b) A definition must have certain attributes in order to convey meaning (it must adequately describe something).

c) A synonym is not a definition. A synonym is not a description. This is easy to demonstrate:

If I were to call you a “groglesnook”, you might be inclined to ask me what the word ”groglesnook” meant. If I was to merely provide you with a synonym (explaining that a ”groglesnook” was the same thing as a “bloobiedoobie”), you would still have no idea what a ”groglesnook” was. A synonym is not a definition. Plain and simple. Thus, the word ”groglesnook” is meaningless, as long as no meaningful definition is provided.

When we look at the word “exist”, it is always defined the same way (with a synonym). That synonym is always some form of “to be” (i.e. “to be real”, “to be something”, etc.). The way we know that this is merely a synonym, and not an actual definition, is because when looking up the word “be”, we see that it means to “exist”. The two words are synonyms for each other, and neither one has a proper definition. “Existence” then, is a meaningless concept. 

We perceive things, and I believe it is somewhat meaningful to discuss things in that context (in terms of how we perceive them). However, I don’t think is it meaningful to discuss what things ARE. What things ARE, appears, in light of certain things (which I’ve discussed a bit here, and will discuss further in the future), to be relative to ones state or type of consciousness.

In the following article I will be quoting and critiquing the “egalitarianism” entry from the Ayn Rand Lexicon (ARL).

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

The ARL defines “egalitarianism” as follows: “Egalitarianism means the belief in the equality of all men.”

There are two significant problems with this definition:

a) It doesn’t mention what type of “equality” is being referenced here. In other words, the definition is so vague, that it can be interpreted however one pleases. It’s a perfect definition if one is trying to set up a straw man. Obviously, people are not “equal” in ALL respects. For example, some people are tall and some people are short. As such, any time someone advocates “equality”, the type of “equality” being advocated needs to be specified.

b) As we shall see in a moment, egalitarianism is not a belief about man (about man’s natural attributes). Rather, it is a belief about how society should be structured (or the advocation of a certain societal structure).

Here’s how wikipedia defines it:

“Egalitarianism has two distinct definitions in modern English. It is defined either as a political doctrine that holds that all people should be treated as equals and have the same political, economic, social, and civil rights, or as a social philosophy advocating the removal of economic inequalities among people.”

So basically, there are two types of egalitarianism:

a) equal rights, and

b) economic/financial equality.

As a side note, there is nothing in the definition given, that suggest that these two “distinct” types of “egalitarianism” are compatible with each other.

The ARL goes on to say this: “‘Equality,’ in a human context, is a political term: it means equality before the law.”

Firstly, I have no idea what the phrase “human context” is supposed to mean. The sentence would make a lot more sense if it read, “‘Equality’ in a political context, means equality before the law.” This however, would still be very vague. For example, one could pass a law that says, “Every human must be of equal height. The height shall be set at 8 feet. Anyone who is not 8 feet tall must use stilts or wear platform shoes.” Needless to say, this is not what egalitarians are advocating.

The ARL then goes on to say this:

“But this is not the meaning that the altruists ascribe to the word ‘equality.’

They turn the word into an anti-concept: they use it to mean, not political, but metaphysical equality—the equality of personal attributes and virtues, regardless of natural endowment or individual choice, performance and character.”

This statement is just plain false. Egalitarians (a.k.a. “altruists”) know very well that people are NOT equal in terms of “personal attributes and virtues”. They seek to COMPENSATE for this NATURAL INEQUALITY by political or economic means. The ARL admits this immediately following by saying:

“It is not man-made institutions, but nature, i.e., reality, that they propose to fight—by means of man-made institutions.”

This statement is true. However, it applies to everyone. We “fight nature” every time we build a shelter to protect ourselves from the elements.

“Since nature does not endow all men with equal beauty or equal intelligence, and the faculty of volition leads men to make different choices, the egalitarians propose to abolish the ‘unfairness’ of nature and of volition, and to establish universal equality in fact—in defiance of facts.”

The above statement starts out alright, but falls apart in the end. First of all, the statement would be far more accurate if the term “universal equality” was changed to “legal or economic equality”. Secondly, the statement “defiance of facts” is fairly ambiguous. If it’s cold outside, and I react by putting on a jacket, am I “defying” the fact that it’s cold outside? Egalitarians know very well that people are not equal in various respects (i.e. in terms of “personal attributes and virtues”). They also know that some people do not wish to sacrifice their own interests for the sake of other people. Egalitarians seek to bring about one of two types of equality DESPITE these facts, just as someone who wears a jacket wants to be warm DESPITE the fact that it’s cold.

“Since the Law of Identity is impervious to human manipulation, it is the Law of Causality that they struggle to abrogate.”

Let’s look at how the ARL defines the “Law of Causality”. Personally, I think it’s really ambiguous. The language just isn’t clear, and it’s hard to make heads or tales of it:

“The law of causality is the law of identity applied to action. All actions are caused by entities. The nature of an action is caused and determined by the nature of the entities that act; a thing cannot act in contradiction to its nature . . .”

It’s just kind of hard for me to tell if the ARL’s “Law of Causality” has anything to do with causality, which wikipedia defines as follows:

“Causality is the relationship between an event (the cause) and a second event (the effect), where the second event is a consequence of the first.”

I can’t really say much about the ARL’s “Law of Causality” (because I’m not quite sure what it’s saying). However, I can say that Egalitarians seek to use political or economic means (which is a cause) to bring about legal or economic equality (which is an effect). The fact that they are acting as causal agents in order to obtain an effect, demonstrates that they understand causality just fine. In fact, it is the ARL that rejects causality by rejecting determinism:

“Determinism is the theory that everything that happens in the universe—including every thought, feeling, and action of man—is necessitated by previous factors, so that nothing could ever have happened differently from the way it did, and everything in the future is already pre-set and inevitable. Every aspect of man’s life and character, on this view, is merely a product of factors that are ultimately outside his control. Objectivism rejects this theory.”

Moving on…

“Since personal attributes or virtues cannot be ‘redistributed’,  they seek to deprive men of their consequences—of the rewards, the benefits, the achievements created by personal attributes and virtues. It is not equality before the law that they seek, but inequality”

This statement is true in reference to economic equality, but not in reference to equality of rights. This is why it would help if the ARL was a little bit more specific about what type of “equality” and “Egalitarianism” was being addressed.

“Of special significance to the present discussion is the egalitarians’ defiance of the Law of Causality: their demand for equal results from unequal causes—or equal rewards for unequal performance.”

Hmmm… while I think it’s fair to say that egalitarians support equal rewards for unequal performance, I don’t know what it means to say (imply) that equal results have equal causes. For example, let’s pretend that I am a dictator ruling over a society consisting of two other people (Fred and Bob). Fred has $20, and Bob has $10. Since I’m an egalitarian dictator, I want them both to have the same amount of money. As such, I steal $5 from Fred and give it to Bob. The “result” is that both people have $15. In the case of Fred, I stole, and in the case of Bob, I gave. Of course, we could also say that the “result” is that both Fred and Bob have the same amount of money. I could also achieve this result by stealing $10 from Bob, and keeping it for myself. Thus, I don’t know if it could be said that equal results have equal causes. Maybe it’s a matter of how you look at it.

The ARL contains a long paragraph explaining that attempts at achieving economic equality don’t work and are generally disastrous. I tend to agree with the ARL here, however, I don’t think this is NECESSARILY the case. I think that an economically egalitarian society/community could work fine if it was voluntary, that is not imposed upon people who aren’t interested in economic equality. If a bunch of egalitarians went and started their own commune or whatnot, they might do just fine. Monasteries are often essentially mini egalitarian societies, and many of them are calm, peaceful places to be. Nobody is forcing people to give up their worldly possessions in exchange for a robe, some beads, and a bald head. 

The part of the paragraph I disagree with is where it reads, “there is no such thing as a benevolent passion for equality and that the claim to it is only a rationalization to cover a passionate hatred of the good for being the good.”

Frankly, that’s a pretty absurd statement. Just because various forms of egalitarian societies will most likely fail to go according to plan, doesn’t mean that ALL (or even many) egalitarians are aware of this fact. For example, very few people have any understanding of economics, and thus really have no idea why economic egalitarianism tends to backfire. Plus, even Ayn Rand (were she alive today) would admit that a lot of people have what they have because they’re good at what Ayn Rand would consider bad. Egalitarianism can easily be a reaction this this state of affairs, even if said reaction is misguided.

Well… that’s about it.

All in all, I think there was a fair amount of ignorance and bigotry that went into the ARL’s treatment of this subject, and I say that as someone who is an egalitarian only in the same sense that Ayn Rand herself was (I think the idea of equal rights is nice, but I’m not an economic egalitarian [I’m not a fan of any existing economic systems either though]).

In the following post, I will critique the following video by Stefan Molyneux (which is Stefan’s pseudo-examination of the philosophical doctrine of nihilism):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzAOYTOOAQo

Essentially, this video fails right off the bat, due to the fact that Stefan uses a DICTIONARY to define “nihilism”. To think that a dictionary is suited to adequately express the intricacies of a complex school of philosophy, is, well… extremely boneheaded. AT THE VERY LEAST, he could have consulted an ENCYCLOPEDIA. This would have at least provided him with a basic understanding of the subject he was speaking on. Perhaps someone should tell Stefan all about the really cool website, www.wikipedia.com.

At any rate, after consulting a couple of dictionaries, Stefan concludes that nihilists believe that (and I quote):

a) Truth does not exist.

b) Values are imaginary.

c) Morality is an illusion.

Let’s compare Stefan’s assessment to that of wikipedia’s, and see if one is perhaps a bit more fair (shall we say) than the other:

“Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. Moral nihilists assert that morality does not inherently exist, and that any established moral values are abstractly contrived. Nihilism can also take epistemological, metaphysical or ontological forms, meaning respectively that, in some aspect, knowledge is not possible or that contrary to our belief, some aspect of reality does not exist as such.”

Now, lets compare the two side by side to see if there are at least some similarities (I’ll paraphrase wikipedia when appropriate):

a) Truth does not exist.

“Nihilism can also take an epistemological form, meaning that, in some aspect, knowledge is not possible”

b) Values are imaginary.

“Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value.”

c) Morality is an illusion.

“Moral nihilists assert that morality does not inherently exist, and that any established moral values are abstractly contrived.”

Clearly, there are some similarities here. However, as they say, the “Devil is in the detail”.

Stefan then proceeds to examine a, b, and c individually, and so shall I.

***”Truth does not exist”***

Firstly, do I consider the above statement to be an adequate expression of epistemological nihilism? No, I don’t. I think it’s a gross oversimplification, and makes use of terms that many nihilists would consider to be problematic. Epistemological nihilism is actually a fairly complex position, and in order to explain it (or understand it), there are many issues that need to be discussed in detail. It’s not the type of thing that can be understood by consulting a dictionary. It took me a quite a while to wrap my head around it, and in order to do so, there were many philosophical concepts and ideas that I had to familiarize myself with.

At any rate, Stefan (at about three minutes into the video) claims that the statement “Truth does not exist” is an “accurate statement”. I’m not kidding. Apparently then, Stefan thinks he agrees with nihilists on this point, but feels compelled (for some unfathomable reason) to argue against himself, and other nihilists. Yes folks, he REALLY is a crazy person.

Prior to that, Stefan claims (in reference to statement ‘a’) that, “Like any other philosophical statement, the first thing that is required is a definition.” I would argue that this is only half true, but that Stefan doesn’t actually understand WHY he’s right (partially).

The reason WHY the terms need to be defined, is because in order to evaluate a statement, one must know what is MEANT by the statement. It becomes clear that Stefan doesn’t understand this, when he defines “truth”.

In order to know what is MEANT by the statement (if we accept for the sake of argument, that it is an accurate reflection of epistemological nihilism), Stefan would have to know how NIHILISTS define the terms in question. However, when Stefan defines the terms, he makes no reference to any nihilists. 

Not that it’s particularly relevant (since Stefan is basically just straw-manning nihilists here, and really has no interest in exploring what they actually think), but let’s look at how Stefan defines “truth”:

“‘Truth’ is, generally, accurate statements about reality.”

*NOTE: this definition is essentially tautological since “accurate” and “true” are synonymous. But anyways…

Stefan goes on to say, “the fact that the truth does not exist does not mean that the truth is subjective.”

Um… what does that have to do with anything? I thought the position Stefan was going to argue against was the position that “truth does not exist” (not “Truth is subjective”), and yet within the first few minutes of the video, he agrees TWICE that “truth does not exist”.

So here’s what he’s doing (and yes, it’s totally crazy):

He’s saying, “Nihilists believe X, and so do I. However, despite the fact that I agree with nihilists, I want to make it look like I disagree with them, and so I’m going to pretend I’m arguing against X, when in fact, I’m arguing against Y. I’m going to pull a bait and switch maneuver to make it look like I disagree with people I agree with. Hopefully, if you’re not paying close attention, that will totally fuck with your head.”

So anyways, Stefan AGREES with nihilist statement ‘a’, so I won’t bother dissecting all the other irrelevant nonsense he’s talking about.

Moving on…

***Values are imaginary***

Let’s look at the wikipedia definition again:

“Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value.”

In other words, “value” is something that humans ascribe to (or project upon) things. Anyone who’s ever studied economics understands what is meant by this. This does not mean that things do not have ATTRIBUTES. It means that whether or not an individual values X, depends upon the particular individual in question.

At around 4 minutes into the video, Stefan claims that, “values don’t exist within the real world.” Apparently, that’s completely different from saying “values are imaginary” (I’m being sarcastic). He also says that values “occur only as thoughts and/or desires within the mind.” In other words, values are not INHERENT to the things being valued.

He also says that “as concepts within the mind, [values] can be called ‘imaginary’”

So once again, Stefan agrees with nihilists, but is pretending that he doesn’t. He’s basically saying, “I disagree with you because I agree with you.” The guy is fucking bonkers.

Moving on…

***Morality is an illusion***

Stefan does not refute this proposition in the video. He merely suggests we read his “Universally Preferable Behavior” book. Well… I’ve read his book, and it’s so full of holes (logical flaws) that he should have called it “Universally Preferable Swiss Cheese”. UPB is crap, and I will gladly debate ANYONE on the subject.

Stefan goes on to talk about the catastrophic ramifications of accepting the nihilist position. However, by this point, Stefan has made it clear that while he may not understand the nihilist position, he DOES accept what he THINKS the nihilist position is (with the exception of the nihilist position on morality). As such, it’s really impossible to put anything he’s saying into any sort of meaningful context. He’s basically saying, “For the most part, I agree with nihilism. However, nihilism is totally horrible.” What are we as viewers supposed to make of THAT? 

Eventually, Stefan comes to his “conclusion”. He says (and I quote):

“*I agree with the nihilists that the truth does not exist.

*I agree with nihilists that values do not exist.

*I agree that these are all conceptual standards within our minds.

*I do not agree that the logical result of these premises is that truth and value are subjective and mere opinions.”

Again, Stefan is:

a) agreeing with nihilists (or what he thinks nihilists think), and

b) disagreeing with a position that isn’t one that he lead us to believe he was going to argue against. He appears to be trying to IMPLY something about nihilists without actually making any kind of explicit statement related thereto, or providing any justification for the implication. It’s just a bait and switch tactic, that has some inexplicable motive behind it.

He concludes by saying that nihilism is “not a problem to be solved, but a disease to be cured”. If that’s the case, then why does Stefan ACCEPT the nihilist position in 2 out of 3 cases? Wouldn’t the “cure” (in his metaphor) be the REJECTION of nihilist positions?

Go figure.

-D4Shawn

In the following article I will be quoting and critiquing the “Existence” entry from the Ayn Rand Lexicon:

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

“Existence exists—and the act of grasping that statement implies two corollary axioms: that something exists which one perceives and that one exists possessing consciousness, consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists.”

One of the presuppositions here, is that the statement “Existence exists” can be “grasped” (I assume that means “comprehended”).

I think I can say with confidence, that in order to grasp a statement, one must be able to define the individual terms composing the statement. It’s fair to say that in order to “grasp” the statement in question, we need to define “exist”. Further down in the article, the Ayn Rand Lexicon (ARL) has this to offer:

“To exist is to be something, as distinguished from the nothing of nonexistence, it is to be an entity of a specific nature made of specific attributes.” 

So… to “exist” is “to be”. What then does it mean “to be”? Unfortunately, the ARL does not define “being”, and so I had to google it. Here is the only relevant definition I could find:

“exist: have an existence, be extant”

So basically, to “exist” means to “exist”. Obviously, this is not a definition. Rather, it’s a tautology. The ARL has not actually defined “exist”, and thus the presupposition that the statement “Existence exists” can be “grasped”, may very well be false.

Further more, since the two “corollary axioms” that the “act of grasping implies” rely upon a term that appears to be meaningless, it is not likely that those axioms posses meaning. We would definitely need a proper definition of “exist” before we could figure out what the hell the ARL is talking about here.

“a consciousness with nothing to be conscious of is a contradiction in terms. A consciousness conscious of nothing but itself is a contradiction in terms”

That may be true, but I’m not sure that just because something is a contradiction in terms, it means that there is no such thing. It may just be that there is something we don’t understand about that thing, or something we don’t understand about logic or language. For example, the universe itself doesn’t make any sense, and can be considered a contradiction in terms. Specifically, how could the universe have had a beginning (how could something come from nothing), and likewise, how could the universe be eternal (how can something NOT have a beginning)? The universe presents us with all sorts of mind-bending riddles, which at this point, we have no way to solve.

“Whatever the degree of your knowledge, these two—existence and consciousness—are axioms you cannot escape”

I like this sentence a lot, because it points out the fact that it’s almost impossible to understand what the heck Objectivists are talking about, because they are speaking a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT LANGUAGE than you and I.

Here’s how the ARL defines “axiom”:

“An axiom is a statement that identifies the base of knowledge and of any further statement pertaining to that knowledge, a statement necessarily contained in all others, whether any particular speaker chooses to identify it or not. An axiom is a proposition that defeats its opponents by the fact that they have to accept it and use it in the process of any attempt to deny it.”

So… since when are existence and consciousness “statements”/”propositions”? Who on Earth would define “consciousness” as “a type of proposition…”. That’s about as wacky as it gets, and will hopefully clue you into the fact that Objectivists redefine just about everything. They DO NOT SPEAK ENGLISH. They speak Objectivish. It really is it’s own language. You can’t understand them, and they can’t understand you.

Plus, how do we reconcile the following two statements:

“consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists”

“existence and consciousness—are axioms”

Is consciousness a faculty, or is it a type of proposition? The ARL describes it as both. Go figure. I guess that makes sense somehow in the mind of an Objectivist.

“the greatest of your philosophers, has stated the formula defining the concept of existence and the rule of all knowledge: A is A. A thing is itself.”

Sorry, but again, that’s NOT a definition. It’s a tautology.

“Reality is that which exists; the unreal does not exist”

Amusingly enough, if you try to look up “Reality” in the ARL, it says, “see Existence”, so here we have yet another tautology. They might as well just say, “Existence is that which exists; the non-existent does not exist.” That would save us the trouble of having to look up synonyms, whose definitions simply refer back to the word we were trying to define in the first place. 

Plus, does it really make sense to say that, “Existence is that which exists”? Isn’t that like saying, “Heat is that which is hot”?

“The first and primary axiomatic concepts are ‘existence,’ ‘identity’ (which is a corollary of ‘existence’) and ‘consciousness.’”

Here is how the ARL defines “concept”:

“A concept is a mental integration of two or more units which are isolated by a process of abstraction and united by a specific definition.”

Since no definition has been provided for “existence”, then on what basis is it being referred to as a “concept”?

Lastly, but not least, what I find amusing is the fact that the ARL seems to think that the phrase “existence exists” is super profound or something. It’s actually LESS profound than saying “Heat is hot”, because at least we can define “hot”.

-Shawn