The American State Religion

[Daniel DeLuca]

This is laughable. How many stories are there of patents bought up and shelved by the oil industry? Did innovation save the rust belt when all our jobs were shipped overseas? You bring up patents but they're a common way competition is destroyed; they no longer encourage innovation, they stifle it and are now a way to get protection money out of real innovators. Not only that but because monopolies take all the air out of the market any such innovation can't compete.

Innovation is pointless when there is no market to compete in. Monopolies ultimately destroy markets and keep out or suppress all competitors.

Patents ensure that the industry that is responsible for the innovation, can get reimbursed for the expense of R&D. Other industries are not restricted from producing their own patents. Intellectual Property is imporatant to safeguard, because without it, there is no incentive to innovate. What we have endured for the past half century, is the American industries producing innovative products, and the Chinese copying the innovations, and marketing their products for far less, because they did not have to put up any investment into R&D. Undercutting the industry that created the product to begin with, is a surefire way to ensure that no new innovations are ever produced. Patents are not permanent. After the patent expires, the industry that produced the new product will have to compete with other industries for the product they created. This is why they come out with new stuff all the time. Those who are content to live with yesterday's technology, can get really good products at a reduced price. The Oil industry cannot shelve the innovations forever, and neither can any industry, not even the film industry, although their copyrights might possibly extend way beyond perhaps what should be allowed...I would argue that is debatable.

 

[Daniel DeLuca]

The problem with capitalism is it is hyper-individualistic. It is the law of the jungle applied to economics. If 1 man can maximize his profit by capturing the entire market and enslaving the nation that is good and rewarded. If an industry can make more profit by shipping all the jobs overseas and undercutting product quality that is good and rewarded. If corporations can make more profit by overthrowing the political system of a nation and installing their own rules that is good and is rewarded. If a corporation can make more profit by causing a drug epidemic that kills a half a million people that is good and will be rewarded.

Dude! If you just watched the videos I posted, you would see that this idea of capturing an entire market is utter nonsense, UNLESS a corporation has the help of a government that will impose the monopoly that they desire! It is a myth that a corporation can just undercut everybody, drive them out of business, and then charge exorbitant rates in order to make up for their losses! No sooner they charge such prices, and other companies are more than willing to undercut them.

As far as shipping jobs overseas, that only works if the places they are shipping jobs to, are run by government controlled economies, such as China and Latin America. Of course those people are impoverished, and don't have alternatives that they can turn to, that will pay better wages, so they take whatever they can get!

 

[Joleneakamama]

This is laughable. How many stories are there of patents bought up and shelved by the oil industry?

It is not just patents. How about laws prohibiting industrial hemp, lobbied for by forestry and big oil?

 

[Daniel DeLuca]

This is laughable.

Laugh all you want, but it was in the 19th century that Lord Kelvin believed that everything that ever needed to be invented, was invented by then, and that there was nothing more to invent.

 

[Daniel DeLuca]

It is not just patents. How about laws prohibiting industrial hemp, lobbied for by forestry and big oil?

OK, once again, you are conflating those entrepreneurs who do well without government intervention, with those who use the government to tip the scales in their favor.

 

[The Revolting Man]

I haven't but I am familiar with her book.

I think Ayn Rand takes Nietzsche and puts him on steroids.
Survival of the fittest.
Nietzsche was influenced by the whole Darwin thing of 'Only the strong survive'.
I think this needs to be tempered with social empathy.
Sure we want people to be able to stand on their own two feet... 'Work makes Free'... but not to the extent that we kick homeless people living in a sack on the street.
Ayn Rand is a grotesque caricature. Not a direction to be followed. In the Bible it states that the human heart is wicked and deceitful and that is true.

In short, both Kant and Hegel (and also all the French and British Enlighteners) correctly viewed the individual as inextricably linked with society, in dialectical unity with it. Never was their individualism posed as a way to escape society or "exceed" it. Self-interest was, in them, never counterposed to common interest, as in Rand. Rand sees things in black and white: that which serves the "self" as good, that which serves the "common" as bad. That's why Rand's version of individualism is a decadent one.

In Rand, the individual's activity becomes detached from its social basis, turning purely inwards and cultivating one's own, private peculiarities and wishes as absolute values. The puffing up into an end in itself of purportedly self-sufficient individuality cannot alter, let alone annul a single social commitment. That's why all Rand's "heroes" look the same and altogether they look so unrealistic, because real life simply doesn't work in the way Rand thought.

In the end, I think culture needs a balance between the individual and the collective. They balance each other out. They correct the vices and errors of each other. "The individual as inextricably linked with society" is a concept I agree with -- until something goes horribly wrong with that society. I don't agree with Rand that society should be fully atomised since we will always be bound by ties of culture, blood, and history. But i do think individual personal and economic freedom is fundamental to creating a worthwhile society.

https://evonomics.com/rand-meets-david-sloan-wilson-atlas-hugged/

https://evonomics.com/what-happens-...GVr8R0NBp1eZOiZeB48C4CmvgUffoJNE6K0YUoVWIqffA

https://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2013/02/ayn-rand-and-rational-beings.html

What does “social empathy” even mean? Who gets to define and how much are they going to tax me to try and implement it? All of the humanists are heretics and humanism and all of its off shoots are completely incompatible with the Bible on top of that.

 

[MeganC]

Laugh all you want, but it was in the 19th century that Lord Kelvin believed that everything that ever needed to be invented, was invented by then, and that there was nothing more to invent.

Lack of imagination never goes away, does it?

 

[FollowingHim]

@Daniel DeLuca: Whatever they may have been in the past, patents are no longer any use to the average person, as @rockfox said they're a tool for big business. Excellent explanation of that here:

 

[FollowingHim]

The citizens of a country are not a natural collective, they are paperwork exercise. But the nation of a country is. That's what countries originally were: nation-states. The territory in which a nation exercised it's self determination through collective government. But now we're mostly stuck with multinational empires and colonial mash-up jobs.

The people who happen to live in the same area are a natural collective for certain limited purposes - such as mutual defence. But they are not a natural collective for the purposes of social welfare, education etc, the family is the natural collective for those social purposes.

 

[MeganC]

The citizens of a country are not a natural collective, they are paperwork exercise. But the nation of a country is. That's what countries originally were: nation-states. The territory in which a nation exercised it's self determination through collective government. But now we're mostly stuck with multinational empires and colonial mash-up jobs.

Um, no.

First off, citizens of a country are typically brought together by the commonalities of culture, language, and beliefs. Not mere paperwork. While many Western countries have diluted themselves to dangerous levels other countries like China, Russia, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and etc. have maintained their linguistic and cultural ties and in some cases have worked to strengthen those ties.

Countries were not originally nation states. Countries started out as the alliance of tribes, the product of warlords, they were sometimes the result of conquest, but they typically were eventually best expressed as kingdoms ruled over by dynastic families and ruling classes. Even Israel in its early days was an amalgamation of Jewish tribes in the Levant. Its brief periods of unity were typically followed by disintegration into smaller kingdoms.

The nation state as we understand it in the West was then a creation of the 18th Century. I am discounting China here because it was an empire that suborned its vassal kingdoms.

Great Britain was probably the first and best expression of a nation state when the Union Act of 1807 incorporated Scottish people into the English Parliament as equals and not as vassals. It was imperfect in that the Scots really didn't have much choice in the matter but still it was a good step.

The Dutch and the Hanseatic League could arguably be presented as an early nation state but it was still just a trade organization that existed across various kingdoms. It was a good example of a multi-kingdom corporation.

That leaves the USA as the first actual nation state in which people of politically sovereign states voluntarily joined together as a nation. The next such entity would be Germany in the 1870's when it arose from the union of the many independent German kingdoms.

Today the only multinational empire that might come into existence is the European Union. The EU leadership is desperately trying to erase the sovereignty and cultural/linguistic identities of its member states in an effort to replace the sovereign states with a true European empire that no common people have actually voted for. I suspect that it will quickly follow the previous European empires with a bloody war and the restoration of national sovereignty along linguistic, cultural, and religious lines. It won't surprise me if we see the restoration of smaller kingdoms as people seek the stability that monarchies often create.

Yes, there are failed colonial mash-ups like Iraq and Libya but those are in the process of being replaced by smaller political entities aligned along tribal lines. They are today more the exception than the rule.

 

[rockfox]

But they are not a natural collective for the purposes of social welfare, education etc, the family is the natural collective for those social purposes.

But not for economic purposes. Families though are too small a collective unit to deal with economic predation by multinational corporations. Or government granted monopolies (as the American colonies found out).

First off, citizens of a country are typically brought together by the commonalities of culture, language, and beliefs. Not mere paperwork.

The no-go zones of Europe would beg to differ.
So would America's Black separatists.
And also the Boers who live in fear of being raped and burned alive.
Or the various warring parties of Iraq.

"commonalities of culture, language, and beliefs" and religion and genetics gives you a nation. Very similar to ethnicity; though usually more overtly political.
Country is a territory, it can have various forms of government or mixes of nations.
State is a government over a territory.
Citizenship is a state granted privilege within a country. It is separate from the nation. A paperwork exercise. Just because we import an Islamist and slap a piece of paper on him saying 'citizen' doesn't mean he's going to suddenly adapt our language, culture and beliefs. Just ask the French how that's going.

Nation-states are generally pointed as starting with the Peach of Westphalia; 1648.

"politically sovereign states voluntarily joined together as a nation." They were already one nation. They were almost all British people and had a lot in common with one another; hence why they unified in war against the British. One nation, separate states. Then they unified under one federal government, which quickly became the sovereign state.

To be honest, these concepts are sometimes hard to define and much debated. But citizenship in a state is definitely quit distinct from being a member of a nation and much of our present political problems are routed in our forgetting that.

Yes, there are failed colonial mash-ups like Iraq and Libya but those are in the process of being replaced by smaller political entities aligned along tribal lines. They are today more the exception than the rule.

Much of the Middle East and Africa is still organized along the lines of the colonial mashups. Even those two you point out weren't failed until the US inserted themselves into the mix.

 

[rockfox]

Dude! If you just watched the videos I posted, you would see that this idea of capturing an entire market is utter nonsense, UNLESS a corporation has the help of a government that will impose the monopoly that they desire! It is a myth that a corporation can just undercut everybody, drive them out of business, and then charge exorbitant rates in order to make up for their losses! No sooner they charge such prices, and other companies are more than willing to undercut them.

Myth? Sorry no that is false. I know it's false because it happened to people I knew. That is exactly how Smithfield destroyed the independent pork producer. Monopolies can do this, have done it, and will do it if not restrained. They didn't do this by the help of the government but by the power of consolidation and vertical integration and the monopolistic powers it gave them. Other companies couldn't act to undercut them because they were either in on it or too small to have the same economies of scale.

As far as shipping jobs overseas, that only works if the places they are shipping jobs to, are run by government controlled economies, such as China and Latin America. Of course those people are impoverished, and don't have alternatives that they can turn to, that will pay better wages, so they take whatever they can get!

So? Those aren't our countries, we can't control them. And what does that have to do with the our capitalistic system rewarding companies which destroy our economies, break the law and even kill people if it makes them more profit?

There is a word for what I'm describing: tragedy of the commons. Commons here being the people of our country upon whom corporations attempt to make a profit. This is a concept capitalists use against other systems in arguing for private property rights. But it suffers from the same problem when it comes to the nation and her economy.

You have to get out of the black and white libertarian world-view that sees the market as all good and government as all bad. The market is just made up of people, who are variously honest and crooked. And while the government can be a bad actor, can do things to harm the market, it is also an essential part of a functioning market. Without government intervention in the market modern life would be impossible.

 

[Daniel DeLuca]

@Daniel DeLuca: Whatever they may have been in the past, patents are no longer any use to the average person, as @rockfox said they're a tool for big business. Excellent explanation of that here:

That is not an argument that patents are entirely useless, but rather they do not help the small player, who has already come up with an innovation. The original claim, which I have thoroughly refuted, is that patents suppress innovation, which it is clear that the innovation, that the small player has come up with, has not been suppressed at all.

If anything, this video demonstrates how advantageous it can be for an individual to study and learn how to become a patent lawyer, because there are plenty of small players who are more than willing to pay the patent lawyer the big fat checks that they demand. Now it may very well be the case, just like in any sales pitch, (MLM comes to mind) that the product received is not worth the cost that was paid, but that is up to the individual to decide, and if they choose, factor that into the cost of the merchandise that they produce, and it is up to the consumer to decide if they want to pay that price to get something that nobody else has produced. That is all about where value comes into play! The producer needs to do the research to determine the best price point that will maximize returns on their investment, by enticing enough consumers to pay over and above the price of the materials that were needed to make the product, in order to cover the fixed costs, such as equipment to manufacture the product, and patents, should the producer deem it necessary and worthwhile to secure them.

Again, as long as there is a demand for patent lawyers, there is plenty of incentive for people to study and learn how to become a patent lawyer, in order to obtain those fat checks that they are obviously able to obtain from willing small players or from industrial giants. None of this has anything to do with suppression of innovation, whatsoever!

 

[Daniel DeLuca]

Myth? Sorry no that is false. I know it's false because it happened to people I knew. That is exactly how Smithfield destroyed the independent pork producer. Monopolies can do this, have done it, and will do it if not restrained. They didn't do this by the help of the government but by the power of consolidation and vertical integration and the monopolistic powers it gave them. Other companies couldn't act to undercut them because they were either in on it or too small to have the same economies of scale.

Now that is a crock! I don't go out and buy a McRib sandwich, in order to keep the poor farmer in business! I could care less about whether he stays in business or not! I get my McRib because I like the taste, and I can afford the pork (not a big fan of pork per se, but I do like the McRib) that was produced on a farm. I could care less which farm produced it. The monopoly came along and was able to produce it at a lower cost than these people you know, because of the innovations that the monopoly possessed and utilized which reduced their cost of operations, not because they hoped to run farmers out of business and then jack up the cost on me, the consumer. I don't exist in order to pay the farmer's bills. The farmer exists in order to get food to the meat packing plant, so that the grocery store can get the packed meat and put it on display, so that we, the consumer can put food on the table for our families. If the monopoly decides to jack up the price after they run the competition out of business, new competition will spring up. It is up to the farmer to plan properly for fluctuating prices, and to diversify, so that they don't put the entirety of their commodity eggs into one proverbial basket. Successful farmers do this. Unsuccessful farmers find out the hard way, that failure to plan properly, is no different than planning to fail.

So? Those aren't our countries, we can't control them. And what does that have to do with the our capitalistic system rewarding companies which destroy our economies, break the law and even kill people if it makes them more profit?

So we should advocate for unfavorable trade policies towards such nations (e.g. China, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba), and favorable policies towards nations where they allow the market to decide what should be produced (e.g. Hong Kong, Taiwan, Switzerland).

There is a word for what I'm describing: tragedy of the commons. Commons here being the people of our country upon whom corporations attempt to make a profit. This is a concept capitalists use against other systems in arguing for private property rights. But it suffers from the same problem when it comes to the nation and her economy.

You have to get out of the black and white libertarian world-view that sees the market as all good and government as all bad. The market is just made up of people, who are variously honest and crooked. And while the government can be a bad actor, can do things to harm the market, it is also an essential part of a functioning market. Without government intervention in the market modern life would be impossible.

I am afraid you have been listening to too many progressive liberals. Government does have a role to play, and that is to protect the property of those who have paid for it, and to keep rogue gangsters from threatening the life or health of the individual. Their role is NOT to influence the outcome of a particular enterprise's success or failure.

 

[Daniel DeLuca]

Now skip ahead to 3:48 here.

 

[MeganC]

The no-go zones of Europe would beg to differ.
So would America's Black separatists.
And also the Boers who live in fear of being raped and burned alive.
Or the various warring parties of Iraq.

You somehow failed to read and quote my sentence that followed the one you objected to so here it is for your convenience:

While many Western countries have diluted themselves to dangerous levels

 

[FollowingHim]

The monopoly came along and was able to produce it at a lower cost than these people you know, because of the innovations that the monopoly possessed and utilized which reduced their cost of operations, not because they hoped to run farmers out of business and then jack up the cost on me, the consumer.

Mostly correct - however it is important not to discount the fact that both small and large companies always work within a regulatory framework, and large companies always have a closer connection to the writers of that framework than smaller companies.

Overall, we have a major problem in agriculture. Owner-operators, who actually care about preserving the land because they hope to hand it to their children, are being pushed out for a whole raft of reasons, and replaced with larger corporates. The work that used to be done by people who own the land and animals and have a personal stake in it all, is now being done by hired labourers and even robots. This is a serious problem for many reasons, and occurs because of a very wide range of causes. It is too important to dismiss because of free-market philosophy.

And in fact it only happens because we DON'T have a true free market. Everything runs on fiat money, with constant money printing and inflation. The beneficiaries of this are those who receive the new money first - the banks and largest corporates - and then loan it to the rest of the economy. The entire economic table is tilted in their favour in a somewhat invisible but very real manner. A truly free market system would end up looking quite different to what we see around us today and think is free.

 

[FollowingHim]

But not for economic purposes. Families though are too small a collective unit to deal with economic predation by multinational corporations. Or government granted monopolies (as the American colonies found out).

The tribe is the natural collective to deal with such larger-scale issues. So still the family, just on a larger scale.

 

[FollowingHim]

Thinking about how our modern society works, I recall this excellent look at "civilisation" from the brilliant 1980 film "The gods must be crazy".

 

[Daniel DeLuca]

Mostly correct - however it is important not to discount the fact that both small and large companies always work within a regulatory framework, and large companies always have a closer connection to the writers of that framework than smaller companies.

The way I was reading what @rockfox said, the monopolies were not getting any government assistance, but of course, we know that government assistance can come in many forms. Libertarians are opposed to all forms of government assistance.

The work that used to be done by people who own the land and animals and have a personal stake in it all, is now being done by hired labourers and even robots. This is a serious problem for many reasons, and occurs because of a very wide range of causes. It is too important to dismiss because of free-market philosophy.

...and too often, we import those cheap laborers from third world countries, by having lax immigration policies. More expensive labor, eventually leads to better innovation (think toothpaste machine), which enables people to learn skills that make them more valuable in the marketplace, skills which are useless in the absence of such innovations.

And in fact it only happens because we DON'T have a true free market.

I could not have said it better myself.

Everything runs on fiat money, with constant money printing and inflation. The beneficiaries of this are those who receive the new money first - the banks and largest corporates - and then loan it to the rest of the economy. The entire economic table is tilted in their favour in a somewhat invisible but very real manner. A truly free market system would end up looking quite different to what we see around us today and think is free.

Biblically, we know Scripture speaks out against usury, but we tolerate it because it encourages lenders to lend, and then we put a chairman in charge of the banks, to ensure they can regulate how much interest can be charged on money that they borrow from one another, and in turn, they compete against each other to offer the best interest rates. Where it hurts the average citizen, is in the realm of inflation. We don't have a perfect system, but it could be a lot less perfect than it is (think China, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela).