Nozick on Anti-Capitalism

http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/cpr-20n1-1.html

Interesting read with some good points

I think intellectuals are so anti-capitalist generally because they see an issue with society... such as poverty, for example.  The intellectual then goes about thinking about how getting rid of poverty could be done.  Once he has his 'solution', he needs to impliment (force it on everyone else) his 'solution'.  The result is anti-capitalist.  Capitalism, to me, is a socioeconomic system in which private property rights are generally the rule and are respected.  But the problem is that the solution the intellectual dreams up (something like welfare for example), requires resources to accomplish.  The intellectual doesn't have money that he can just give to the poor to alleviate poverty, so he needs to find a source of money (the government).  The result is a foaming-at-the-mouth leftist screaming about how we need to raise taxes on the rich and give it to the poor, and that capitalism is the root of all evil, because it and the concepts that support it (property rights) stand in his/her way. 

Note:  the concept of property rights does not prevent the intellectual from achieving his goals.  It only prevents the intellectual from achieving his goals with -=someone elses' money=-.  In essence, in a capitalist system, these intellectuals are free to go out and create wealth, and contribute it to private charity if they please.  Capitalism and property rights do not prevent these activities.  They only prevent forcing someone else to do these activities for the intellectual.

Intellectuals now expect to be the most highly valued people in a society, those with the most prestige and power, those with the greatest rewards.
Upon what basis does he make such a broad claim?
There they were successful. They were judged against others and deemed superior. They were praised and rewarded, the teacher's favorites.
All right, so why do the 'wordsmiths' feel this way, and not the 'numbersmiths'?
The justice of a distribution may reside in its arising from a just process of voluntary exchange of justly acquired property and services.
Righto, mate. I'm so glad I went into science.

>>2
No, Intellectuals think want is the root of all bad.
Pollution,The depletion of natural resources, poverty,discrimination,collectivism,crime, and war can all be traced to the simple idea of wanting material things.

The sociological generalization we have stated is intuitively compelling; something like it must be true.
Wow. Just wow.

I guess the scientific revolution passed this man by. Verily, he is a philosopher in the ancient Greek tradition. Does he think the world is flat too?

If this was a professor at Harvard, I'm applying for a position post haste. With such low standards I'll be dean in no time.

>>5
Intuition is important in science.

Note that he said "SOMETHING like it must be true"


A flat world with Greek knowledge of such topics is, intuitively, similar to the modern day view. If modern science had not changed Greek views of gravity and such things, yet was able to observe our flat world as upside-down then the Greeks truly would have been wrong and intuition would have lied, leading them astray. Any observation must be explain by a law/rule that must be true, this is the basis of ration empiricism.



And no you would be denied

Intuition is important in science.
Yes, but scientists recognize that intuition isn't sufficient.

Note that he said "SOMETHING like it must be true"
Just because something is intuitive does not mean that the truth is anything at all like the model.

A flat world with Greek knowledge of such topics is, intuitively, similar to the modern day view.
Exactly. Intuitively it's flat, but that's wrong. Nobody has fallen off any edge.

In any case, you misunderstood; my comment wasn't written clearly. I was referring to the idea that reason alone is sufficient to find the truth. In fact the ancient Greeks did eventually figure out that the world was round (see: Eratosthenes) to great accuracy, but they did it empirically.

>>7
Well I guess we are just viewing the term "something" in this context differently. I believe he ment anti-capitalist intellectual behavior can be explained by environment, and more specifically, in the education system. I don’t think he was defending all of his points on the basis of intuition, but rather the mode in which he arrived at his conclusions.

>>8
Oh, I'll agree with that, with one caveat: words are the knives of academia (and the legal system).

Read the following essay by Orwell carefully: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm It's easy to sway an audience with careful use of connotation and grandiose language, but clouding an issue with emotion or carelessness is something that's hopefully beneath academics.

There are a number of problems with the above article. Language is just part of it (the careful redefinition of "intellectual" should set off sirens). There are logic holes as well ("wordsmiths" are left, "numbersmiths" aren't, yet both were the elite among academics), and at least one premise is simply false (http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=university+professors+political+science+art+democrat+republican).

I'm 100% certain someone could make a far more compelling argument than Nozick. My opinion of Harvard went down a few notches after this.

Honestly if anyone knows anything about basic human nature they know that Capitalism is the best for any country.  People are motivated by money and what better captivates this inherited attribute then capitalism?

communists never answer the question about how they will convince everyone to be nice to each other and work hard for no reward so communism can work

>>10
The natural state of man is not want, but primitive communism.But when two tribes with different ideas meet, trade opens, and capitalism starts.Therefore Capitalism and Communism are both natural state of man
>>11
Communism states you only need to work as much as you have to,dipshit.The reward is free medical care,food,shelter, and water.

You cant get rid of the lower class or poor people, its impossible. Shut the fuck up. Communism = fail due to not everyone wanting to work. I wouldnt want to be a doctor if I got paid as much as a janitor. Could you imagine the quality of health care? Fail.

>>12
No, it explicitly states you should work as much as you want and take what you need.

Primitive communism only works because it's not communism.

There will always be poor, but in capitalism its less painful.

>>15
Being poor isn't a default in capitalism. If you are poor it is your fault. Never gamble more than you can afford to lose. Your services are always needed somewhere sometime and religions are in such heavy competition to gain followers they are willing to relinquish some of their wealth in order to keep you out of poverty and convert you. This is why socialists don't like the christian right, as socialism is just another religion competing to convert poor people on the free market.

>>16
but you shouldn't have to join a church to afford to live.

"The natural state of man is not want, but primitive communism.But when two tribes with different ideas meet, trade opens, and capitalism starts.Therefore Capitalism and Communism are both natural state of man
>>11
Communism states you only need to work as much as you have to,dipshit.The reward is free medical care,food,shelter, and water."


Even within their own tribes people who killed the mamoths got the better meat...Capitalism.  And you only work as hard as you feel like dipshit.  Then you reap the fruits of others' labor.  Then people feel discouraged they are working hard to pay for other peoples medical bills and they stop and the economy goes kaplunk.

>>12
HOW DO I FAILED ANTHROPOLOGY

>>17
You shouldn't, but you have to. In tribal societies you work for food or you starve. The incentive to cooperate comes from reality, not from some fallacious belief that jewish bankers prevent you from getting whatever you want or other national socialist beliefs that socialists and communists actually believe.

>>16
I never ment to imply that it was the systems fault that someone was poor, im well aware its the individuals responsibility to bring themselves up in society. I was merely trying to point out that the word poor just means lowest class of society and how there will always be a lowest class. However in capitalist society being at the bottom isn’t so bad. America’s modern lower class citizens are far better off then the average American in the 1700's, yet they are still considered poor. A war on poverty is just as unintelligent as a war on terrorism, yet liberals can’t seem to make the connection.

>>21
Yes, I'll agree with this
We see people below the poverty line who are obese, which means they're defiantly getting enough food.
But then you have to ask yourself, was it the Age of Progression(1890-1910) that made it so that American poverty not so bad or was it something else?

A war on poverty is just as unintelligent as a war on terrorism, yet liberals can’t seem to make the connection.
I think most liberals are intelligent enough to have figured this out on their own. As far as I can tell, most of them aren't Communists.

I wouldn't call universal healthcare, universal education, and a social safety net a war on poverty. Indeed, from the perspective of an employer, a happy, healthy, and educated pool of prospective employees is only a good thing.

>>23
Unless you can provide a better service than the government for lower cost, but can't because you won't get the same priviledges as nationalised surgeries.

>>These wordsmiths include poets, novelists, literary critics, newspaper and magazine journalists, and many professors.

Fucking idiots, in other words. Leeches on society who are afraid that in a truly free society nobody would like their shit non-products and they'd starve to death.

"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." THAT SURE WORKED FOR THE 100 MILLION PEOPLE WHO DIED UNDER COMMUNISM LMAO

>>25
Truth told.

>>24
That's a problem with the implementation then, not the concept.

A number of countries (in fact, all that I can think of) with universal healthcare allow clinics to operate like that, except that the government pays the costs instead of the client. If you can do it cheaper with the same quality, you keep the profit.

Universal healthcare means that healthcare is provided for all, not that the government will be providing all the healthcare. This isn't the USSR we're talking here.

Solution: Post-scarcity society.

wow, i never liked nozick, but this is pretty amazing.

"this is my brush, it is a huge brush, i will now use it to paint all the communist liberal wordsmiths red as communism"

i mean... seriously? lol

>>25
you're just stupid.
poets, novelists, literary critics, newspaper and magazine journalists produce as much as everybody else, they simply don't produce something material. They don't produce taking care of sick people like the nurse, or beer like the brewer, but they produce poetry and novels for entertainment, critique on literature which reduces the cost of seeking information which creates a free'er market for it. Newspaper and magazine journalsits produce spreading of news, which is also a profitable good since the more you know the better, the faster you know about something the faster and more effectively you can respond. "top 10 things to do in bed" provides women/men with information on how to sexually acquire, obtain, keep a male/female partner, thus reducing the cost of marital information seeking, this is valuable to the person and thus he/she is willing to pay for it.


As someone said, there will always, relatively, be a poor class, but depending on how the society is build that poor class can be either able to manage, develop, acquire knowlegde, thus value for an employer, or starving, not being able to acquire new knowledge, be stuck in their situation.

Now, if everybody could just work hard and be really smart and make rational and logic decisions at all times of their life, capitalism would be absolutely fine. But they can't. Well that's their own fault! go die in a fire failfags!
that is the obvious reply of course, but not necessarily the one that leads to the greatest amount of social moveability, which leads to the greatest amount of well-trained people who are "worth" more.
Something should be done to make a society as flexible as possible, and i don't believe that commanding them to a) work harder at their two minimum wage jobs  or b) die in the gutter, will necessarily make them do any of the two things.

>>25

If you don't think there's a market for literature, you should maybe read a book once in a while. Since you probably can't read very well, I suggest starting with Dr. Seuss.

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