Today I will continue my discussion on my conversation with my objectivist relative. As the conversation progressed, the topic of public versus private education kept coming up. As a pure laissez-faire capitalist, libertarian, and objectivist, my relative opposes public education, stating that education should be left in the hands of individuals.My argument against privatized education is this: without public (“socialized,” as he called it) education to act as an equalizer, society could develop into a rigid caste structure defined by the cost of this education. My reasoning is simple: education is obviously an integral part of any successful person’s upbringing—no matter how intelligent a person is, without an education they will only be able to rise so far. If education is privatized, a large percentage of the population would not be able to afford it, meaning that they will be unable to ascend in socio-economic status. However, the sons and daughters of the rich can afford education that will allow them to be “qualified” for many high-level positions, often regardless of skill level. Because it is impossible to break from this cycle, the result is a world defined by class, in which one’s greatest asset is rich parentage. Since this type of society is neither desirable nor equal (which is the objectivist reason for capitalism, since it forces people to be on equal ground and “earn” everything they have), it is obvious that public education serves society much more.
My relative’s refutation of this is that education is not the most important aspect of success—he stated that natural intelligence, which cannot be taught, is the most important. I find this view overly idealistic—as we see today, employers are not as skilled and gauging incompetence and stupidity as many think. Also, it is not true that wisdom is often more important the knowledge—most jobs require a person to be learned in a subject, regardless of how smart they are.
Additionally, the topic of ownership was brought up repeatedly. My “opponent” stated that the product of a person’s are always their property, and any government that thinks otherwise is oppressive and unjust. Indeed, he compared any form of government intervention or income redistribution (a term he used in a disgusted tone) akin to slavery. However, he did mention some odd points about the concept of ownership. First, he stated that only a person, not a group of people, can own a invention. At one point he went as far as to say that groups of people cannot invent things, only individuals can. (I quickly shot this down with numerous examples.) Additionally, he stated that it is impossible to force someone to think. This did not surprise me—it is one of the central themes of “Atlas Shrugged,” which I have read and discussed here before. I am not so sure of this one, either—I mentioned the Soviet Union as a counter example, but my relative did not accept this.
Overall, I was quite surprised to meet a hard-core objectivist in the flesh. I knew such people existed, as there is are several foundations and organizations devoted to the promotion of the objectivism. However, I was very surprised to find one who is so few “degrees of separation” away from me. Also, I should point out that this conversation did not change my views—I still regard objectivism as invalid and outmoded.
3 comments:
This just further confirmed what I already thought: objectivism is good for the extremely rich, and everyone else gets hung out to dry. The ironic part about this is, in an objectivist government, the "everyone else" portion of the population would absolutely sky rocket, possibly (hopefully) leading to armed revolution and overthrowing of the government anyway.
I mean, if someone killed the President or emperor or whatever the leader of this government is, what would happen to them? Without tax money, how are there going to be jails?
Exactly. It's funny the way you describe a revolution--that sounds almost like what Karl Marx predicted.
Good point about jails. I think the objectivist answer would be that other people would enforce justice as they see fit. That's a very libertarian thing.
Let's be honest... sometimes vigilante justice is required, because sometimes the court systems fail. But an ENTIRE country run on vigilante justice would become the wild west. Person A commits a crime, so person B kills person A. But person C (Person A's protective sibling) seeks bloody vengeance on the entire "B" family. Where does it end?
You don't even have to be a political scientist (like Bill Murphy) to realize that objectivism just does not work. At all.
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