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A RESPONSE TO THE CAPITALIST WEEKLY


Mr. loserhailose of The Capitalist Weekly wrote a lengthy response in the comment section to the recent SFP excerpt from my Philosophical and Economic Manuscripts: "On the Importance of Dissent in the New World". He obviously spent a good bit of time on it. His lengthy comment presented some arugments, however mis-guided, that are not at all uncommon amongst Junior Objectivist club members and others who have drunk the wine of Rand and Hayek, but not yet sobered up.

In the most epic wall of text of all time, here is PQ's response to Mr. loser's ramblings. It is not intended as polemic, more like a colonic.





Mr. loser ===> I would like to begin by saying that Mr. Harrison Garrick is correct. No fully collectivist society (one which has completely abolished capitalist principles and trade between individuals based upon mutual agreement and mutual benifit) will permit dissent on things which matter. They may let you have freedom of speech in some areas (which do not seem to threaten those in power), but when someone suggests or promotes of philosophical idea or principle which is opposed to those in power, they will be destroyed. This is not freedom of speech at all then, since one cannot be half free and half slave for very long.

PQ responds ===>

What is this strawman "collectivist society"? The article dealt primarily with democracy and dissent as elements of successful organizations, not with the creation of a "collectivist society".

(Example of a strawman argument:

Person A claims: Sunny days are good.
Argument Person B: If all days were sunny, we'd never have rain, and without rain, we'd have famine and death. Therefore, you are wrong.
Problem: B has falsely framed A's claim to imply that A says that only sunny days are good, and has argued against that assertion instead of the assertion A has made.)

And in any case, what is the rationale for stating that "No fully collectivist society ... will permit dissent on things which matter."? What are the facts? What e-societies is Mr. loser talking about?

Has dissent been crushed in any e-Republik nation that has embraced a socialist path? Certainly not. Voices of dissent are alive and well in e-Italy, e-Belgium, and the e-Czech Republic. When the e-communists in e-Russia recently tried to establish a socialist state there, they were the ones who were crushed. The debate over what e-socialism means and how to achieve it is regular and lively feature of the e-Irish and e-German press, two countries with a large e-communist presence. No one is getting crushed there either.

It should be obvious that the excerpt from my philosophical notebook was published in response to several weeks of debate in the e-USA regarding SEES's propensity for trolling their opponents into oblivion, and underlying that, a debate over the nature and practicality of adopting such authoritarian methods in a collective endeavor like running an ersatz government in a browser game.

In the real world, destroying those who promote ideas opposed to those in power is a feature of totalitarian regimes of both the left (say, Pol Pot's Kampuchea) and the right (for example, Sukharno's Indonesia). Marginalizing and trivializing dissenting ideas through massive marketing campaigns is the preferred method of modern capitalist regimes, although outright suppression of parties and indiviudals is not unheard of there either. (Trumped-up charges and even murders of Black Panthers as part of the COINTELPRO come to mind).

By beginning his critique of criticism with such a claim, Mr. loser attempts to reify concepts which exist only in discussion, i.e. his bogeyman "collectivist society". This is the fallacy of misplaced concretion.

(Example:

Timmy argues:

1. Billy is a good tennis player.
2. Therefore, Billy is 'good', that is to say a 'morally' good person.

Timmy says that Billy is good at some particular activity, in this case tennis. In the conclusion, Timmy states that Billy is a morally good person. These are clearly two different senses of the word "good". The premise might be true but the conclusion can still be false: Billy might be the best tennis player in the world but a rotten person morally. However, it is not legitimate to infer he is a bad person on the ground there has been a fallacious argument on the part of Timmy. Nothing concerning Billy's moral qualities is to be inferred from the premise.)




Mr. loser ===>

Now let us begin with the real issue at hand here and the theme of this article: Political dissent (or even dissent in another branch of philosophy, such as ethics) is essential to the existence of a democracy. Let us define the two key terms here--dessent and democracy. According to what is arguably the best and most official source on definitions, The Oxford dictionary, dissent is, "the expression or holding of opinions at variance with those previously, commonly, or officially held."

So dissent, is simply expressing or holding views different from those generally held by the society in which one lives. I believe it will be generally conceded, that this is a good thing, since there have been many false tenets held by man throughout history. Someone who dissents to something which he believes, in all logic, to be wrong, can improve society by showing people that what they believed to be true to be false, and by knowing the actual truth of something, they will be able to take the correct course of action.

PQ responds ===>

The esteemed Mr. loser begins here to veer off into an attribution fallacy. He has redefined the argument made in the original article first by appealing to authority ("the best and most official source on definitions") and then re-casting the question of dissent as one of epistemology ("by knowing the actual truth").

In fact, the article says very little about the truth or falsehood of a dissenter's point of view. Its main point has to do with network dynamics: that crushing dissenting voices reduces the number of intercises (inter-nodal connections) needed for a complex system to thrive.

Although it is cast in a frame that he later tries to exploit illogically, Mr. loser's point here is essentially correct. Without dissent, good ideas can be overlooked.




Mr. loser ===>

Of course, we cannot assume that dissent is inherently good (i.e. dissent in the name of dissent), because there have been just as many, if not more dissenting ideas in history, which are false, and will greatly harm the individual who holds them, and all individuals in society if they choose to act upon these ideas.

PQ responds ===>

Here Mr loser once again loses the thread and presents us with another strawman argument: "dissent in the name of dissent", as well as another assertion by authority, this time with no attempt to provide a source, i.e., "there have been just as many...".




Mr. loser ===>

Now, we move on to the term, "democracy." According to the Oxford Dictionary, democracy is "a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives." This I believe to be a terrible definition, since it is almost synonymous with the definition of a republic ("a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives"), and a republic and democracy are very different things, indeed.

PQ responds ===>

Evidently the Oxford English Dictionary is no longer "the best and most official source on definitions". Oh dear. How quickly the authority crumbles when it no longer serves our didactic purpose!

More interestingly, Mr. loser seems to be unaware of the development of democratic practices since the time of Aristotle, and of the many arguments, both subtle and profound, that have been made on exactly this point.

Does he think we are children? Does he think that no-one else has ever read Madison and Hamilton's debates regarding the tyranny of the majority?

Let's take a quick look at how Hamilton phrased the problem:

Hamilton: "The intrinsic difficulty of governing thirteen states at any rate, independent of calculations upon an ordinary degree of public spirit and integrity will, in my opinion, constantly impose on the national rulers the necessity of a spirit of accommodation to the reasonable expectations of their constituents."

As we can see, the problem of democracy as characterized by Hamliton is not a stark Manichean contradiction between idealized concepts of "republic" and "democracy". It is a pragmatic problem of how best to govern, of how to govern wisely.




Mr. loser ===>

A republic holds principles and rights above the mood and passions of the people as a whole, while a democracy holds that the will of the people--the will of the majority of the people--is the most sacred principle, of more importance than all other principles. So a republic is a government based on principles and rights, while a democracy's key tenet is majority rule.
The terrible thing which has happened over the years, as is evident in the Oxford definitions of democracy and republic (which only makes the distinction that a democracy may or may not have elected representatives, while a republic does), is that the difference of thes two extremely different ideas has become garbled and confused now are considered almost one and the same. (I try not to add unnecessary sidelines while writing, but this one I must mention to aid my argument. Many historians and other educated people who deal with the founding of the United States, stress to the point to such a point that it is almost as if they are uttering a religious law of some sort, that the United States is a democracy, and was founded as a democracy, and they always try to avoid the word republic. It is almost as if they are paranoid about it.)

PQ responds ===>

No, you're wrong.

In fact, very few honest historians or people who are seriously concerned with the development of good government are unaware of this distinction. The garbling and confusion is entirely on Mr. loser's side. It begins with his sophomoric obsession with ontology, moves on to ad hominem arguments ("as if they are uttering a religious law" ... "they are paranoid"), and concludes with the false assumption that the only valid case study is the United States (or, for that matter, that we are even talking about real world governmental systems).

Let's briefly review Mr. loser's method again.

He is clearly very concerned about definitions. So far his presentation has consisted primarily of an argument that he is having with the Oxford English Dictionary.

Ontology is necessary, I will grant him that. If I may also be allowed a brief aside...

It may surpise my erstwhile Capitalist Weekly corresponded that in my (RL) professional life I am concerned with the movement, computation and communication of financial data. The means by which this information is transmitted, interpreted, reported and analyzed is critical. Within the systems that I help to manage, there are billions of dollars at stake and the livelihoods of millions of poeple are affected by the quality of this information. When clear definitions are lacking, trouble ensues.

For example, if the algorithm that determines the ratings (credit-worthiness) of the underlying legs of a complex derivatives are unclear, then the real market value of the financial instrument cannot be accurately evaluated. So it is a good thing that the current US administration, as well as their peers in the European Union, are focussing their attention first on the semantic and ontological underpinnings of these systems. Without that, any new regulations would be based on unfounded assumptions and divergent interpretations. The key method for developing accurate ontologies is, interestingly enough, precisely an open and collective debate not at all dissimilar from the methods employed by the open source community.

But ontology is only a necessary starting-point; it is not sufficient for solving complex problems.

(Example of a failed purely ontological argument:

"This plucked chicken has two legs and no feathers - therefore, by definition, it is a human!")




Mr. loser ===>

So then, now that we have defined democracy simply as a government by majority rule, and separated it from the idea of a republic, we can now consider the theme of this article, which is that dissent is a necessity to democracy.


PQ responds ===>

Unfortunately, that defintion of democracy is lame.




Mr. loser ===>

So, "the expression or holding of opinions at variance with those previously, commonly, or officially held" is necessary to a government by majority rule, is what the author of this article is arguing.


PQ responds ===>

Wrong again.

As clearly summarized in the last paragraph of the article, the author is making a point about democratic processes within an organization, not tilting at the windmill of "Democracy" vs "The Republic":

"...Democracy is a necessity, not a luxury. Democracy is the best method yet that human beings have evolved for managing complex problems with a minimum of violence. The more democratic principles are compromised, the greater the likelihood of poor decisions, faulty judgements, escalating levels of conflict, and ultimately violence. Dissent – and the engagement in creative conflict – is the cornerstone of democratic processes and in an ever more complex world, silencing the dissenting voice imperils human survival."

There is nothing whatsoever in the article about majority rule, nor is the question of forms of government ever brought up. The entire text is, in fact, about stress, its toxic effects and the means of managing them, within a group dynamic.





Mr. loser ===>

Now that we've put the definitions into place though, it should be easy to recognize a simple fact: that the ideas commonly held, are the ideas of the majority, who, on principle of majority rule, should make the decisions. So then, what good are the dissenters in a democracy if the majority's commonly held ideas are the one which will be accepted? They are useless, any dissenter will be over-ruled by the majority, so wha does it matter if they dissent or not?

Now that we are able to see this, we can see that dissenting ideas have no real place in a democracy. Also consider that one who supports dissent as sometimes good believes, rightly, that whole societies, can make mistakes and can be wrong, while the idea of majority rule implies that the majority is infalliable. So now we've uncovered something even more crucial, that dissent playing a role in a democracy is a contradiction in terms. The ideas and rights of a minority, can be crushed as invalid by a simple majority vote. And that, sirs, is the evil of democracy exposed nakedly to you all.

A democracy is not a friend of the individual, but only of the brute force of the biggest mob. A democracy does not protect your rights, but makes any rights you do have subject to consideration before a majority of the people, and that majority can take them away on a whim. Sirs, is this not as evil, or perhaps more evil, than any despotic government which disregards all the rights of the individual?


PQ responds ===>

Here Mr. loser is in high dudgeon against his strawman. His confusion is revealed in a most startling fashion with the statements: "dissenting ideas have no real place in a democracy" and "the evil of democracy".

Of course he is trying, somewhat unsuccessfully, to be ironic with that first crack. He is not saying that "dissenting ideas should have no real place in a democracy." What he is trying to say is: "In my idealized notion of a Democracy as a system of anarchic mob rule by the majority, minority voices would naturally be silenced."

And, oddly enough, although the language is somewhat garbled and the context even more so, in fact he is agreeing with the main gist of the original article.

As for how he casually tosses out "the evil of democracy", that's the real issue I have with this school of thought: it is utterly irrational, upholding an uber-idealized "superman" vision of knowledge and "right" against empirical knowledge practised in the context of the human store of wisdom and science. In short, it is French idealism at its worst.






Mr. loser ===>

The common fallacy is that a democracy will do what is best for the most people. But this is absurd. Since it is in a person's self-interest to have the right to his life, property, and his various other liberties, how can democracy do what is best for the most when it is able to destroy the lives of any minority? Wouldn't a government which protects the rights of all individuals be doing that which is best for ALL people, by giving them the ability and protection to live their lives freely?

PQ responds ===>

Again, in his boyish enthusiasm for New Republikanism a la Rand, Mr. loser has lost the thread of the discussion. Contray to his "common fallacy", in fact it is "common knowledge" that democracy is a method, not a system. As another commentator on the article put it, democracy is the "sugar" mixed into the republican (or, I might add, constitutionally monarchic) pie. Mr. loser's wild-and-wooly "democracy" only exists in his mind, or perhaps in Somalia. The system he is describing is actually what many modern observers would characterize more accurately as "anarcho-capitalism".





Mr. loser ===>

Now, here is where the garbled line between a republic and a democracy come in. Those intellectuals who advocate democracy will now say something along the lines of "but the minority has rights which are protected from majority." Oh no they don't, not in a democracy. Democracy, in its final, most blatant, most fundemental form, is simply mob rule. And the minority will be crushed. As example of this, let us look back in history to the Athenian democracy. The majority voted to kill a dissenter, the philosopher Socrates, simply because they believed he was corrupting the youth through his ideas. This will happen in any real democracy.
Sirs, the only form of government which will protect the rights of the individual, and holds them as the highest principle, which no one, not even the government, has the right to violate, is a republic.

PQ responds ===>

I am tempted to simply say "I agree" since, being a socialist, I am also opposed to Monarchy (although not necessarily to a all constitutional monarchies, if they have a good constitution...).

But the real deal is that, in the course of human events, it is not the form of a Republic that preserves individual dignity and upholds human rights. It is Constitutional Law that does that. The point of a consitution is to have a body a law that supercedes legislative and juridical law. No Congress, Parliament, Senate, Regent or Judge can make law that contradicts the constitutional law. It is the quality of the Constitution that matters most, not what form of government enforces it.

In the real world, there can be -- and there have been -- any number of reprehensible Republics. They are reprehensible exactly because they are un-democratic (in the pragmatic, Hamiltonian sense). They are flawed because they either promulgated a rotten constitution (Hiterlite Germany) or because they didn't or don't uphold their own constitution.




Mr. loser ===>

That is what the United States was when it was founded. If one reads the Constitutional Convention debates, the founders are not advocating for majority rule, but are considering how best to protect the rights of the individuals in the nation. In fact, some of them actually state that democracy is a terrible thing which will be just as bad as a monarchy. (Is this why those democracy loving historians are so paranoid, because they know they are uttering a blatant lie to say that America was founded as a democracy?)

PQ responds ===>

And then Andrew Jackson came along and wrecked everything. LOL!

The US Constitution, as originally written, also: designated African Americans to be 3/5ths of a human being when computing the number of represenatives for region; consistently refers to Native Americans as "savages" (despite good evidence that parts of the Constitution were derived from that of Haudenosaunee League); disenfranchised all women; disenfranchised anyone who was not a land-owner; and was so lacking in democratic checks that it was promptly amended to make up for its most obvious weaknesses (i.e., The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution).

We are pretty far afield from eRepublik now, but this kind of nonsense deserves a response.

The U.S. Constitution has required few amendments over the years. It is brief, for the most part eloquent, and it defines a Republican system of government that (while flawed, particularly in its original form) provides for numerous checks against the tyranny of the majority. In other words, it is a worthy Constitution exactly because its authors were concerned with putting the right amount of democratic "sugar" into their pie.

That is why Ho Chi Minh, for example, used it as a model when writing up a constitution for an independent Viet Nam.





Mr. loser ===>

Now, the author of this article, he's a socialist of some breed (and by the sounds of his behavorialist mumbojumbo babble, he's been educated by modern university professors, and thus has had his rational faculty destroyed), and socialists don't give one damn about individual rights, in fact they believe them to be evil. The only rights they can conceive of are the right to already created material things, such as food, shelter, ObamaCare--or something worse, etc. They do not understand that a right to a specific thing is not a right at all, since it will necessarily violate someone else's rights obtaining that specific thing for the person who does not have it. For example, since a person has a right to food, the person who does not have food will have to get it from somewhere (which means from someone), and they are going to get it by having the government take it from someone else, through taxes, etc, violating that person's right to HIS food (in reality the right violated is property, since people don't actually have a right to have food, or anything else, without effort.)

PQ responds ===>

(Wiping away the tears of laughter.)

My friend, socialists are not a "breed". Let me tell you a story...

I have eaten dinner several times in a worker's humble aparment in Madrid. It is a place built by workers' hands, through their own efforts, in a neighborhood that fought a fascist invasion, held onto its solidarity through 40 years of fascist government, and, in the wake of that, helped to build a modern, open society under the leadership of a party -- though now bourgeois in many respects -- that still calls itself the Party of the Socialist Workers of Spain. (They are the majority party in Spain.)

My hosts were in their 80's. They are grandparents with several bright and wonderful grandchildren, one of whom is my daughter-in-law. They worked all their lives, under miserable conditions for the most part. Until the "socialist" government arrived, they had nothing, many times not even enough to eat. Now they have dignity, freedom of expression, and enough to live on in their retirement without fear of becoming homeless or destitute. What have they ever "taken" from you or anyone else by being "socialists"?

Before you start in on "evil socialists", consider who the hell you are talking about. Will you go to their apartment and tear down the picture of the founder of the Socialist Party from their wall? And since you brought up "ObamaCare", allow me to point out that Spanish public health care is excellent and affordable. I have a healthy one-year-old grandson to prove it. My daughter-in-law is perfectly free to pay for additional, private care if she wants to, but you know what? She doesn't want to because the public system is better and cheaper.

Feel free to fulminate all you want about "socialists" from the podium of what I expect is your own ivory tower of middle-class privilege prominently located in a junior high school somewhere. But try your shit in that neighborhood in Madrid, and expect to be laughed out of town.

I also find your comments on "modern university professors", "behavioralist mumbojumbo" and my "rational faculties" rather curious. Is that something you picked up at an Ayn Rand Convention? Which "modern univerisity professors", if any, do you approve of?





Mr. loser ===>

So then, in this society of having an inherent right to material things, the person who either is unable or unwilling to earn the things required for survival through is effort, is able to steal these things from the person who already has earned them, using the force of government to do so. This means, that the best in society, the people who are the strongest, the most productive, the most deserving of the things they own, must be canabalized by the worst in society. Is this not a gross injustice?

So sirs, in a socialist society, you have no right to property which you have earned, and because a person requires the security of his property to be able to survive, you have no right to your life. The only people with rights, it seems, are those who are in need of something.


PQ responds ===>

I have no idea who Mr. loser is arguing with here. We seem to have moved from a strawman of "Democracy" to a strawman of "Socialism".

Let me just ask you this, sir: Who built America? Who constructed the railways, planted and harvested the fields (of corn!), built the cars and bridges, mined the coal, and took care of the children?

I'll tell you: slaves, immigrant workers, and women. All unpaid or underpaid. Disenfranchised. Beaten. And kicked to the curb when their "usefulness" to capital was done with.

To say that such people are "unable or unwilling to earn" is a gross and ignorant insult.

To say that they seek to "cannabalize", by pursuing politics of social solidarity, those who are "the best in society, the people who are the strongest, the most productive" is complete crap and reveals your adolescence. Grow up.

I predict you will come back to me with an apology when your parents are faced with a 400 thousand dollar medical bill.





Mr. loser ===>

Now, this newspaper article, was probably hard to understand, since it was written in a style that purposely sounded as if it was written by a higher intelligence who can understand things you can't, and that you should trust the author to be correct. In reality, the author is probably less intelligent than most of you, and knows it. He wants to fool you into following his ideas, on eRepublik and in the real world. Don't fall for it. This article gives you a strange feeling when you read it, and its the feeling that one experiences when one looks upon something he thinks is discusting, but everyone else is saying is beautiful.

Never take something to be true because you can't understand it. Most truths can be explained in a way which is understandable to the person of even below average intellect. You might not understand the mathematics and some of the concepts in the theory of relativity, but even that most complex of theories can be explained for a person to understand and to accept.


PQ responds ===>

The only person who found this article hard to understand was you. Most of the people who responded in the comments seemed to have little trouble with it.

It gave you a strange feeling because it challenged your Objectivist brain-washing and it forced you to think outside that box. That's a good thing, brother. Don't be afraid.

(Note: I am not saying that all Objectivists are brain-washed culties, but some are.)

Funny you should mention the theory of relativity. You are, of course, aware that Albert Einstein was a socialist, right?





Mr. loser ===>

In conclusion, those of you who value your lives must oppose this ever growing breed of people called socialists, communists, collectivists, etc. They wish to destroy ever means you have to live your life. They are called philanthropists, lovers of mankind, but they hate and despise everything which is required for man to live. The next few years and decades are going to be hard ones, because this is a defining moment in the history of America and the world. This is the time, when civilization will collaspe back into a period as bad or worse than the dark ages, or it turn the course around and continue to advance at a faster and faster rate, with wealth and prosperity ever more abundant. Collectivism will lead you to a hell which those who advocate for it know, but refuse to admit. Freedom, Individualism, and Capitalism, will take you on the opposite course.

I apologize for the long post, but I could not silence myself, especially on this day. I would like tho thank those who took the time to read it, and to "tisk tisk" those who have the attention span of a toddler, and said to themselves "tl;dr."
loserhailose


PQ responds ===>

An "ever growing breed"!?!?! Yikes! That sounds bad!

I sure wouldn't want to be known as a "philanthropist" or a "lover of mankind"!

The world is a big place. My friendly suggestion for Mr. loser is that he pull a few books off the shelf other than those written by Ayn Rand.

Capitalism, along with some horrid attempts at "Socialism", have gotten us into the current mess. A focus on developing a global constitutional order that builds upon the best human traditions from a multitude of sources will likely get us out of it. Call that "socialism" if you like (as I do), or call it whatever you like. I don't care. Just get to work.

And, BTW, I still think that dissent is a healthy and necessary ingredient in any collective endeavor and I didn't find a single point in Mr. loser's diatribe that would indicate otherwise.

Phoenix Quinn