Who creates your value?

Here's that letter I wrote to the Oklahoma Gazette, in response to the letter by Brett Thomasson in last week's edition. My letter has been printed in this week's - July 22nd - edition.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

While I find much to agree with in Brett Thomasson's letter ("'Free' advice") in the July 15, 2009 Oklahoma Gazette, I do take exception with his assertion that Matt Zitterkob is more dependent on capitalism "as a parasite than as the low-level worker he was before, since he now contributes nothing to society."

A person's capacity to support himself has nothing to do with his "contributions to society". Such an idea fosters the impression that your value is somehow tied to or ultimately determined by society, leading to the notion that "society owes me" - which leads to such ideas as "freeganism" and "urban foraging" in the first place.

Supporting yourself by productive work, on the other hand, is an expression of your capacity to uphold your own value - which is bestowed upon you, not by society, but by your own judgement. While capitalism recognizes that a free society makes it possible for people to trade their efforts for the values they need to sustain their lives - and to determine for themselves the terms of that trade, including price - productive work to create those values would be required to survive even if you were alone on a deserted island. For if your food could not be "foraged" in such a place, then it would have to hunted or grown before you could eat it.

That is, it would have to be created by your own effort. And not merely physical effort, but thought as well.

Rob Abiera
Oklahoma City

I didn't come up with the title "Food for thought", the editors at the Gazette did. But it strikes me that it conveys one of the main points of my letter perfectly: thought is required to create food, and thought is the 'coin' which pays for the food - the thought required to choose the specific physical efforts which will result in the production of the food. In a very real sense, one does trade thought, itself, for food.

So: "food for thought", indeed!

An observation

Something just occured to me as I was re-reading my last post. I'm sure the same thing has occured to other readers, as well.

It has to do with this line:

"The government can create coalitions of private companies, . . . "

Now, it occured to me that when private companies form private coalitions, that's a trust and it has to be busted. Hence, the antitrust laws. It would also be considered anti-competitive, as well. As such, it would attract the attention of the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department, as well as the SEC, the FTC, and who knows what other agencies - including various and sundry Congressional committees, who would consider such a thing an unmitigated evil (which it is not, of course).

But when the government does it, suddenly it is - somehow - not so evil.

Hmmm . . .

Will Obama's health care plan outlaw private insurance?

From IBD:

Still Not An Option

EXCERPTS: "Not fully trusting our own interpretation, we asked for confirmation from the House Ways and Means Committee. Sources there agreed: The bill would indeed shut down the individual private health care insurance market.

Our impression was further confirmed Monday when Rep. Dave Camp, the ranking member on Ways and Means, told us that "any existing plan will not be able to enroll members." There will be "a prohibition," the Michigan Republican said, "on enrolling individuals in private health plans" after the bill becomes law in 2013.

It was also confirmed by Ways and Means staff director Cybele Bjorklund, who, in response to questions from Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin during a committee markup session, admitted last week that insurance providers "cannot create new policies outside of that window outside of the exchange.""

. . .

"In trying to prove the exchange will be a private market, the bill's own supporters actually prove our point. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., complains in a letter on the next page that last week's editorial is "factually incorrect and highly misleading" yet admits three paragraphs later that outside the exchange, providers "can't continue to market" existing "policies to new customers."

Waxman, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, also claims the legislation "will create a transparent insurance marketplace," apparently unaware that government cannot create a market. The government can create coalitions of private companies, which are eventually co-opted by the state. And it has given itself the power to seize private companies, as with General Motors.

But it cannot fabricate a market. Anyone who thinks it can, does not know how markets work."

IBD's evidence looks pretty damning to me.

"The government can create coalitions of private companies, . . . "

Isn't that what fascist states do?

Republicans complain about Kern

More fallout from Sally Kern's 'Morality Proclamation': The Journal Record has posted an email sent by a Republican activist to state party chair Gary Jones.

Did church newspaper commit forgery?

Did the Baptist Messenger, the newspaper of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, deliberately attempt to mislead people into thinking that Governor Brad Henry and Secretary of State Susan Savage signed Sally Kern's "Morality Proclamation"?

That's what The Lost Ogle alleged today - and the Messenger has apparently taken the allegations seriously enough to believe they are worth apologizing for.

The Messenger, in a "Message from the Editor" claims "oversight and error" but the evidence presented on The Lost Ogle seems to be pretty damning.

A Great Achievement

Today is the 40th anniversary of the day when human beings first set foot on the moon - one of the all-time great events in human history.

An excerpt from Ayn Rand's article on Apollo 11 is online at the website of the Ayn Rand Institute:

. . . Apollo 11 enacted the story of an audacious purpose, its execution, its triumph, and the means that achieved it—the story and the demonstration of man’s highest potential.

A recording of her lecture, "Apollo and Dionysus" is also online at the Institute's site.

Induction

NoodleFood contributor Roderick Fitts has a new blog which could be of interest to everyone interested in Induction and its place in Objectivism.

Inductive Quest

(via Objectivist Round Up!)

Objectivist Round Up

This week's Round Up is hosted by Titanic Deck Chairs.

Even trash must be created before it can be re-distributed

Good letter in this week's Oklahoma Gazette:

'FREE' ADVICE

Regarding the Heide Brandes story "Foragers and 'freegans'" in the July 8, 2009 Oklahoma Gazette:

Matt Zitterkob overlooks several important points in his analysis of his lifestyle. He is, of course, still dependent upon the capitalism he disdains, since the free food he scrounges was produced, processed, packaged, shipped and so on by persons who are part of that system. He is perhaps more dependent on it as a parasite than as the low-level worker he was before, since he now contributes nothing to society - unlike all of those involved in the production of the thrown-out food he eats - and earns nothing with which to navigate within it.

The entire "freegan" movement is based on the idea of, "You work, I don't, and you can feed the both of us whether you want to or not." I suspect that many people in Third World nations who forage for food because no other option exists would marvel at a society where such actions are unnecessary but which produces people who choose to do them anyway.

After they got done laughing at them, that is.

- Brett Thomasson
Newcastle

Good, that is, except for the part about 'contributing to society'.

I'm not going to post my thoughts on that here because I like what I came up with so much that I sent it in as a Letter to the Editor to the Gazette! I'll post it when (& if) it gets printed!

Diana Hsieh on altruism

The Demanding Altruist

It's always good to remind people that

It is the egoist, not the altruist, who values other people.