DEBATE! Objectivism vs. Socialism w/Yaron Brook & Ben Burgis
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- Опубликовано: 13 сен 2024
- Chairman of the board and former CEO of the Ayn Rand Institute, RUclipsr ( / yaronbrook , and author Yaron Brook ( / yaronbrook ) joins Ben Burgis ( / benburgis ) to debate their largely diametrically opposed philosophical belief systems.
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“I have always found it quaint, and rather touching, that there is a movement in the US that thinks Americans are not yet selfish enough.” -Christopher Hitchens
I dont get it. There are people committing crime, doing drugs, ignoring their relationships, and electing officials to take their own rights away. They know most of these actions are not good for their lives and still do it. And you think americans are selfish?
@@archiehung6361 You said it yourself, Americans are doing what they want with seeming abandon and they don't care unless it effects them directly...unless you are being sarcastic
The same hitches debated Objectivists and fell flat.
@Aaron Alfeche No matter how selfless anyone can be, there is a level of natural selfishness that is needed for survival. What Hitchens is talking about is that there is a movement in the USA that says that we are not selfish enough.
Also, it depends on one's viewpoint on what can be considered "selfish". I can make the progressive case that it's in my selfish interest to make sure there is a basic floor of gov't services to ensure that no one falls into grinding poverty and that I'll indirectly benefit better from that than taking the ayn rand approach. The best she has to offer is the downtrodden relying on charities. The problem is charities are not reliable.
@Aaron Alfeche Even in an ancapper society there will be coercion. I will be coerced into respecting private property even if I don't believe in it. Dude, you're full of shit.
Someone notify me when objectivists are prepared to defend their positions against actual people’s actual views, instead of projections of their cartoonish selves.
Loved how Brook defended capitalism with Apple, when in reality the technology that went into the iPhone was state subsidised 😂 😂 😂.
not during the founding. go read what jobs had to go through.
The state is a parasite. It distorts research and produces nothing.
Good debate, but it might be good to have a moderator.
For the great majority of people, having everyone care for society is a way to care for themselves. Also, I wish Ben had a louder mic to match Yaron. As for arguments, great job!!!
How can they do that if they dont have a claim to there own stuff separate from the needs of “the great majority”
Yaron are not against that. Problem is you are depending on altruism. You want to donate your money good for you but why should I be force to donate aka tax.
@@johnmaris1582 would you take that as far as not having tax paid police and fire services
@@user-dg6bl2ry2y Public service are funded locally, the community get to determine how to spend it. I won't cut policeman but fire station really have to be cut significantly. Building code ensure fire hazard drop to a minimum. We have less fire incident year after year yet fire station spending keep increasing.
At the local, I won't even called it a public service but self organising activity. The community get to decide how much tax fund to raise and how to spend. In this process everyone consent. Think of it as member fee.
@@johnmaris1582 Because we live in a complex society which require stable and constant allocation of resources to certain endeavours which need to be centrally organized, like highways, military, police, judicial system. For your framework can only be imagined to work for a simplistic model of society, once we start addressing issues arising in a modern complex society you model is unsustainable.
A libertarian being educated about the importance of building code:
ruclips.net/video/aYotqgekKtU/видео.html
Human beings weren't selfish, they shared everything.
they had to as a group to survive we are a group species, plain and simple.
@@teatime009 yes.
I agree with Kropotkin, that no one person can claim ownership of an idea or invention in a vacuum.
“There is not even a thought, or an invention, which is not common property, born of the past and the present. Thousands of inventors, known and unknown, who have died in poverty, have co-operated in the invention of each of these machines which embody the genius of man.
“Thousands of writers, of poets, of scholars, have laboured to increase knowledge, to dissipate error, and to create that atmosphere of scientific thought, without which the marvels of our century could never have appeared. And these thousands of philosophers, of poets, of scholars, of inventors, have themselves been supported by the labour of past centuries. They have been upheld and nourished through life, both physically and mentally, by legions of workers and craftsmen of all sorts. They have drawn their motive force from the environment. ..."
www.thepolisblog.org/2013/01/peter-kropotkin-on-invention.html
Humans are indeed selfish. But selfishness doesn't mean that you only do things that benefit yourself. It means you enter voluntarily into arrangements of cooperation that benefit you (until it doesn't). Sharing exists in the form of exchanging in a truly fair society. You give something of value to get something of value. This is why capitalism is so compatible with human natures. Humans being have always shared but human beings were always under immense pressure to provide value to the tribes they were.
@@thotslayer9914 it is clear that physical world has limitations (based on our current understanding the world). we have a finite amount of resources. we have a finite amount of energy on given day. finite amount of time on the earth. even when resources are plentiful it takes a great amount of energy to collect resources. you have to admit that reality will inevitably create and naturally select certain modes of thinking optimal for survival.
and to that extend they suffered, only after they started recognizing property and law people started to prosper
This guy can't have a grown up discussion about socialism.
They basically refuse to
@@Clefargle His argument's are so vague and emotional for someone who talks about objectivity
@@user-dg6bl2ry2y that’s because it’s projection, he isn’t really concerned with that he’s just pretending
Every libertarian is the same. "All the other libertarians weren't real libertarians, they misrepresented the ideology", and then they repeat the same tired lazy ideas. They live in fantasyland.
He thinks his ideas are very good and very just, and disregards any material reality in order to push them forward as valid. Somehow, him "succeeding" exists in a vacuum, without anything said of the history of WHY we live like we do. WHY we distribution wealth or not, WHY we have consolidation of power against the interest of the majority of the people. WHY the interest of big money is opposite to the majority of humans. He takes for granted that not everybody in our current system can succeed. Our system is literally propped up on the majority never getting the chance to succeed. Somehow those with power are deserving of making choices on behalf of others grave material suffering. Yet, those without power asking for a sad crumb of their deserved share is coercive. Literally sickening. And then the disgraceful analysis of socialism is honestly just embarrassing for a man like that. It still shocks me how confident these people are about everything when they know so little and seem to have so little self awareness.
Always makes me laugh when guys like this claim to not be libertarian. Always.
Im no Kant scholar, but Yaron should put down the Rand and actually read some Kant or some good Kant exegesis. He is so clearly out of his depth. For anyone who is interested, here is a nice explanation of the Categorical Imperative by Christine Korsgaard (2003):
"Kant’s solution goes like this: The categorical imperative, as represented by
the Formula of Universal Law, tells us to act only on a maxim that we could will to be a law. And this, according to Kant, just is the law of a free will. To see why, we need only compare the problem faced by the free will with the content of the categorical imperative. The problem faced by the free will is this: the free will must have a law, but because the will is free, it must be its own law. And nothing determines what that law must be. All that it has to be is a law. Now consider the content of the categorical imperative, as represented by the Formula of Universal Law. The categorical imperative merely tells us to choose a law. Its only constraint on our choice is that it have the form of a law. And nothing determines what that law must be. All that it has to be is a law. Kant concludes that the categorical imperative just is the law of a free will. It does
not impose any external constraint on the free will’s activities, but simply arises from the nature of the will. It describes what a free will must do in order to be a free will. It must choose a maxim that it can regard as a law."
Thanks for your work Ben. I love philosophy, but I am getting into politics because sometimes I feel like my work has no meaningful impact. People like you help me see that maybe I can do both. Cheers
But win-win is better than lose-win, regardless of what argument you propose.
I'm tempted to give a thumbs down because of just how insufferable this guy is. I wont tho 👉🏻👈🏻🥺
We put a man on the moon because some guy named Steve did everything by himself.
We can only send someone to Mars when Ben stops wanting to steal Yaron's garden, garbage, and all of his worldly possessions...
His point isn't to do everything by yourself in order to achieve greatness. You can't achieve greatness by yourself, as a recluse. His point is to not be forced to sacrifice your values for other people's values.
I don't think you even tried to listen.
WOW. A mind that cannot think.
That's a terrible example. Steve Jobs is an individual working in a private market. The Apollo program was a taxpayer-funded enterprise.
The guy literally moved to Puerto Rico to not pay taxes and I wouldn't exactly base my political and economic beliefs on a person who wrote fictional novels.
You're supposed to think about the ideas in those fictional novels. If you learn something new from Harry Potter that helps your life, nobody is judging you.
@@robertbratescu3219 Hmm...in Rand's case...a few good ideas and a lot of bad ones.
@@ivandafoe5451 good argument. You gave examples and stuff, a logical deduction from which one cannot escape. How masterful.
@@ivandafoe5451 a lot of bad ideas? Which are those?
This is a great debate. I'm not a socialist, but I'm sure not a Randian Objectivist either. While I think that some lefty positions are too radical, like banning billionaires, and I don't agree with all of Ben Burgis' conclusions, he makes a much more compelling argument.
Also, even though I'm sure not a Marxist either, this distinction between private and personal property is important. Socialists don't seem to want to take everyone's stuff.
And while capitalism definitely has some benefits, this idea that it's free of coersion is just nonsense.
Why isn't it free of coercion?
@@mouwersor Capitalist corporations coerce people just as much as governments do. Plenty of people who run companies coerce their employees and consumers. The problem is human nature, not necessarily capitalism or government specifically. Neither are immune to people within these systems coercing others.
@@CancelledPhilosopher You can literally say "no" to any cooperation.. They can't force you with the threat of violence, you don't have to interact with them.
@@mouwersor No but they can lobby using their millions of dollars and set working conditions that are terribly paid. Is it really a 'Free choice' if the choice is between being unemployed and hungry or doing a shit job with terrible wages
@@user-dg6bl2ry2y Why would workers accept those working condition in the first place? If you think your time is better spend elsewhere then go do that. In the worst case scenario you can setup a commune and live off the land. You don't have to work for a company you know. Humans didn't for most of their existence.
arguument that came to my head about 3/4 in: iit’s absolutely in my oen selfish self interest that everybody else has a good as humanly possible life because then people around me are living out their best - which then directly affects my own life as the neighbor will be able to engage in really interesting conversations or teach me art or whatever i may accidently and only THEN be able to discover fior myself, get much more interesting ideas for myself, get better help, be intelkectually much more stimulated, or aesthetically and so on and so on sniff one sniff two sniff three
And the best way to do that is laissez-faire capitalism. And voluntary charity to help out those you deem worthy of your help.
@@openmind2464 and the rest of the people who arent worthy of your help can be left to be homeless and starve to death...that is not everybody you always have failures in capitalism
@@panoskatrin4910 the only way for a person to receive no help in a laissez faire capitalist system is if every single person in society decided that person was unworthy of their help. Wife beating drunks do not deserve help. In a capitalist society, those who fail, have failed by their own actions. In a statist society, those who fail are rewarded, and those who succeed are punished. A complete inversion of how humans should live.
@@dalton8281 even drunks and failures are humans and deserve a respectful life meaning having a roof over their head and the right to health-care, the access to electricity so they can warm themselves and the ability to feed themselves
@@panoskatrin4910 Agree to disagree. Convicted murderers do not deserve to live. Wife beaters deserve to be in a Correctional Facility (jail is a stupid system of "justice"). No...not every human deserves to live. Some are completely worthless blobs of flesh with no redeemable value of any kind. But, in a free society, even many of them, through their own ingenuity, could thrive. Only the truly worthless wouldn't make it.
God damn Ben, when you debate these guys I feel like my head is going to explode. 🤯
Head explodes because of his totally unstructured stream of thoughts,questions and mess.
Yaron Brook's talks absolute nonsense.
HOLY SHIT objectivists actually exist?? you mean to say that objectivism isn't some elaborate meme but an actual philosophy that people actually still believe in? yikes
How old are you, commie girl?
It does exist (according to The Ayn Rand Institute where Brooks made his mark), but to call it a philosophy is generous at best, as no serious philosopher accepts it all.
Your first notion was more accurate, it's little more than an elaborate indoctrination program to perpetuate the twisted ideas of it's creator to each new generation of youth, paid for by tuition fees and sales of her books.
All 4 of it's main "pillars" have questionable values attached, but it's embrace of a social structure based on free-market capitalism is the most problematic, as it clearly compromises the expressed values of the other 3 (but somehow this obvious contradiction is ignored, along with a host of other realities) by it's receptive acolytes (mainly teenage boys tired of parental constraints). Look it up...it's good to be informed and there are bits of basic truths that everyone can benefit from...but keep a wary critical eye for it's fallacies and logical pitfalls.
@@ivandafoe5451 it is absolutely irrelevant what do the "serious philosophers" think about Objectivism. The question is how relevant it is to our life, to our way of thinking and to the results we can achieve basing on this philosophy and concepts.
"Serious philosophers" in 21 century is a meme itself, because we have so strong degradation of our average level of thinking, that this is unbelievable that someone of those so called "philosophers" can be so arrogant to totally ignore one of the most reasonable thinkers of 20th century.
Yaron acted extremely rude towards the end of this conversation just yelling over you and interrupting you and even a few ad homs. Super disrespectful but like always, Ben is all class. great stuff
Ben in all his class interrupted Yaron all the time. The ad homs you don't mention are probably true(so no ad homs). Did you mean that Ben wants to steal his stuff? Ben says so: 31:10 . Yaron is passionate and normally loud because he is in teaching mode.
To me Ben talked a lot but said little. The little he said was breathtaking: 31:10
Brooks cannot defend Objectivism in any way based on reality, it's a fragile house of cards. He is in extreme denial about this, so anyone attempting to burst his bubble of unexamined contradictions is reacted to (fight or flight) as an existential threat to his very survival.
@@ivandafoe5451 ah
@@Ferdinand208 Taxes are now breathtaking.
@@GCKelloch your response is not clear so I have to assume: you think that because I didn't understand him it made no sense.
Going on that assumption. He should be able to communicate in a way that makes sense. I am not mentally impaired. The problem is still on his side.
Another assumption: people that agree with his viewpoint don't need his message to be clear and might think he is communicating it well.
The perfect response to Yaron's point about "Steve" being responsible for Apple would have been:
Steve Jobs wasn't the only person responsible for the founding of Apple. He wasn't even the only Steve responsible.
He wasn't even a capable technical person, a very mediocre programmer... So no, he's not exceptional, he couldn't have done it by himself ever.
Jobs and Wozniak are both geniuses. They formed a partnership and entered into a mutual contract, just like every Apple employee. They willingly exchanged their time and mental energy to work at turning Apple into the company it is today. Jobs and Wazniak happened to earn a lot more than the average Apple employee because the risk of wasting time and energy at Apple was magnitudes more dangerous for them. The company could have failed, for instance, in which case Jobs earns nothing or even goes bankrupt. Apple employee #99,999 also entered into a contract with Jobs. Jobs paid him a guaranteed salary in exchange for their time and energy, some may earn bonuses if their division is successful; they will use the money and experience to grow within the company or use the experience to start a company of their own. Steve Jobs and all workers at Apple willingly worked with/for each other because they both decided it was well worth it.
@@stephenpincetich2099 Good call, but usually when people say that Steve can’t claim so much credit for building Apple the next conclusion is that he shouldn’t reap so much of the reward, whereas I think Yaron is saying that Steve credit is, in a sense, proportional to the amount of shares he owned in the company, which is a lot... that is to say, Jobs was worth every penny he earned :p Thanks for the conversation!
@@stephenpincetich2099 I actually think that Jobs had a lot to do with the culture, work ethic and focus of the company. Otherwise, what makes them different than IBM?
@@stephenpincetich2099 Innovations are never inevitable. They are super rare.
Yaron sounds like an unhinged lunatic crying about how Ben wants to steal his stuff
Theoretically he does
@@libertybell5796 Simplistic thinking and simplistic analogies...right out of the libertarian storybook.
Seriously, Stop Stealing From Yaron, Ben!!!
😂😂
Ben wants the government to do it for him.
@The Great Pumpkin
Nope. It’s called stealing. Stop justifying from productive people. People getting their resources expropriated have every right to defend it with lethal force.
@The Great Pumpkin
You can’t compare eminent domain (which is extremely rare and you get paid for your property) to something like redistributionism which is a daily occurrence and the productive class don’t get their money back. Yes, I can fight against it by voting for Libertarian politicians.
@The Great Pumpkin
Who is preventing workers from receiving the wage they agreed to when they took the job?
I feel like Ben should’ve just said: “Yaron if you keep interrupting me, I’m going to take you back to the Kibbutz!”. I think maybe Ben would’ve been able to finish his points.
Yaron is insufferable.
Great argument. Can't argue with that! ;)
He admits that he's a scumbag and doesn't give a shit about anybody except himself. What a horrific worldview
@@johnnytwotimes7854 no
If you work for yourself, Worker Control over the Means of Production is you owning your means. If you work collectively then the ownership must be collective as well. An individual garden without the need to hire someone to sustain it is your Garden. That has very much been the approach when handling agriculture on Socialist lines, there’s the cooperative and then there’s your plot. Even in the case of authoritarian experiments.
But to Yaron, that's impossible, everyone would have barbarously stolen from each other all the time...
Because they wanted each other's stuff.
@@franglish9265 Collective work with collective ownership is theft. Put simply am I to receive the same compensation as a fellow worker even though my output is higher? There are some men and women whose genius is greater than the sum of thousands of collective minds.
I can't even begin to think of a world modeled on that precept. Imagine a novel written by 50 people, a work of architecture designed by 12 committees. It would be a monstrosity.
What you've described is slavery. The only means of producing anything is owned by the individual whose life and effort goes into the task. Communism, by proclaiming that no individual can own the means of production, proclaims that no one owns their own life. "Collective ownership" is an oxymoron and a rationalization to use brute force to enslave people.
Marxists who call themselves Communists are slavers.
@@A_friend_of_Aristotle Ok you idiot. What if most people don’t own the Means of their Production, their Means of Subsistence are kept artificially high by Capitalists *(Housing is a big example of that)* so a great deal of people are either debt slaves, live paycheck to paycheck, or both. In that case it is virtually slavery, only difference being that one could choose which slaver to summit to.
Actually a great deal of slavery on the past wasn’t cattle slavery like in the Americas, much of were people who had to keep cutting their pay to their masters. In Ancient Greece if I’m not mistaken it was an insult for a “free man” to “work for another”, to earn a wage, unless it was for the city it looked like what a slave would do.
Socialists for a long time have appreciated the medieval artisan, the one who owns their Means of Production and works them as well. That’s ideal, actually a great deal of tension was brought by guilds of them when Capitalism changed their trade for factories where they merely were cogs in the machine. By stating “Worker Ownership of the Means of Production” it is asking for people who work the tools to have a say on their management and their work. If modern work means to work collectively, then collective ownership per trade is a must, but of course if someone works solely on their own it wouldn’t change much their relation to property and sovereignty.
That doesn’t mean that everybody collectively owns all industries, that logically would strip the individual’s sovereignty over their workplace, it would dilute their voice. Seeing it as in “shares in a publicly traded company” *(See already collective ownership practiced nowadays)* the difference between each member owning a single share to everybody in a nation owing a single share of the industry, in the later renders the individuals involved powerless.
A great alternative is the concept of Parecon *(Participatory Economics)* ,as whatever concerns your Factory for example is a matter to deal with the people directly involved with it, if it is a certain department, then as well talk it with the people there, if by any means concerns the people living around the factory as smoke or contaminants, then deal it with the local council.
Generally the proposal of Liberty loving Socialists is a model of Confederalism, where government works from bottom to top, with Worker Cooperatives and Local Councils having direct autonomy and working voluntarily with others, not having central executives or nations but recallable representatives coordinating in Workers’ Councils.
Individuals being let loose to own whatever and whoever, isn’t an end of Slavery, it is literally its foundation. From the beginning of “civilization” and the institution of Private Property, Slavery was the norm, owning people was “natural”. Later on for moral and frankly economic reasons it was abolished. The same way we can recognize that certain monopolies in ownership *enslaves* most of humanity, as such we can change what kind of property we recognize.
What you’re describing is barbarism, whoever has the means can virtually slave the others. On the other hand, if people banded together in mutually beneficial relationships where power is shared equally in order to ensure it, I personally think that could be the best way to maximize individual liberty, the difference between “individuals working for the collective” *(The corporate or State way for employees)* and “The collective working for the individual” *(A model of sovereign Worker Owners, radical Democracy)*
@@A_friend_of_Aristotle Should check the concept of an “Union of Egoists” by Max Stirner, an anti communist, a radical individualist.
Yaron's rational self interest to monomaniacally propagate his goofy ideas contradicted with our collective interest of hearing a good conversation.
What if these collective interests conflicts with my individual interest ?
@The Great Pumpkin
Enforcing socialism is objectionable because it violates rights.
@The Great Pumpkin
Individual rights. Rights pre-exist government. Government can’t bestow rights. Only protect them.
@The Great Pumpkin
Socialism violates people’s right to live for themself. It forces people to sacrifice a higher value for a lower value (which is a violation of rights). Socialism puts the collective above the individual (a violation of rights). Rights exist with or without governance. Protecting rights needs governance.
@The Great Pumpkin
So if I don’t want to contribute to socialism and say keep my own money, no one with guns will come to my house and try to arrest me, right?
Individuals value different things.
What is the point of socialism if not to put the collective above the individual?
You can’t create a right. You can only enforce or violate them. Human rights aren’t animal rights. Human rights are human rights which is why you don’t see them in the animal kingdom. Rights aren’t physical. It requires human reason to make them intelligible. So yes, humans are required to think about them and enforce them. But rights can’t be created.
We don’t want to sacrifice Jeff bezos dream of going to space because we hate him and we’re jealous. We don’t want him to go to space because the money he got to fund his space dream was through exploitation
And elon's wanting to go to Mars. Both of them are reprehensible. Honestly, if we get energy production under control, I'm excited about space travel... not elon's cartoonist views of his Mars colony, but because getting heavy industry up out of the gravity well and resource extraction into asteroids etc, we save the earth so much bullshit. And THOSE projects shouldn't be exploitative billionaire vanity projects, but true international public investment.
I am going to have an aneurism. Straw man straw straw hyperbole
He also misconstrues what anarchism is, what he is describing is barbarism.
They always do.
Some Anthropology would certainly help. His assumptions about individualism and human survival are only made on conjecture only possible on our modern time. On regards of primitive humanity and our evolution we’ve always been social. If humanity had evolved the way they suppose we certainly wouldn’t have any Amazon for Bezos to go to Mars.
Yes.
What do you define as "social"? Every capitalist has to do business and interact with dozens if not hundreds of other capitalist firms and the individuals employed within them. Capitalism requires social interaction as a precondition, the difference being it is voluntary, not coerced and therefore far more productive.
@@Frank22164 “Social” as in cooperative, not based on domination or exploitation but on mutual aid and consensus. That ancient humans to survive and prosper didn’t live in a “Dog eats dog” world, but in one where we survive by taking care of each other.
@@jaandugu Consensus is exploitation and it's also an impossible calculation. It's exploitation because you are saying reason and logic are not the main drivers for progress but rather rule by the majority, which is also very unscientific. As an economic calculation, it doesn't work and that is easily provable. What should the price of a pound of bread cost? No single person or consensus opinion could possibly know the market price. Set it too low and you have shortages, set it too high and nobody wants to buy it (so the government has to).
@@Frank22164 Consensus on a Nation is exploitation. Discussion and consensus making on the local level *(Workplace or immediate community)* is the minimum one should engage with in order to ensure a healthy dynamic between the collective and the individual. We as humans need others for our development, that’s just a fact of life. Our task ought to be to make it work as much for the individual by having its input bing heard. Exploitation and fair distribution are purely subjective, that’s true. But sovereignty is a better goal, Do you have a say about how things around you are run and how the fruits of your labor are distributed? If you don’t you probably are the subject of a dictator. Like, yes you can sell yourself into slavery, that doesn’t make slavery a voluntary affair all the way out.
I heard part of this debate and gave up. Y.B just got ever more agitated, because B.B would not play the strawman that lives in YB's mind. I think Ben should do a "meta" show, on the cognitive biases, etc, that make these kinds of debates impossible, in an important sense (e.g, look at the work of Altemeyer, of Solomon Schimmel, etc)
2 years later... I'd still like to see this video made
Can this guy make his point without misrepresenting ben’s point? This guys whole life view is based on he lived on a kaputz and he thought it was socialism and he didn’t like it.
No he can't.
4:45 “survival is a choice… when I am born with the knowledge of hunting and agriculture… we must all discover that ourselves”
Does he not think that there was not a duty to pass on knowledge to our offspring so that our children had a better starting place than we did?
It was always understood as a duty of older generations to pass on (without charge) the collective knowledge that they fought and bled and died for. That wisdom is the acknowledgement of the collective duty of society to educate children (without bias) so that they are raised into positions of authority in society so that they can pass it on again…
He says, "We SHOULD have an obligations to other people. But you want to take all my stuff!" Libertarians seem to have a toddler's view of how life works.
He also says "YOU want..." very loudly, and as if Ben is personally coming into his house, and taking ALL HIS STUFF!!!
Here expecting a nuanced perspective... nope, same old talking points: “You want to take my stuff” and “in my society you can try, in yours I’m ilegal”. Also, the same old problems with Right-“Libertarians”, our current form of property rights wouldn’t be possible without a State. The world before the State wasn’t about defending what’s yours with a weapon, it was about watching each other’s backs and things in tribes. Nobody can stay awake to alone defend the plot 24/7.
Yeah...
He's either purposefully being disingenuous, or this is cultivated ignorance.
To be fair, shouting is a pretty common method of argument in Israel.
As a Kant specialist, I find objectivists' perennial hate-boner both incredibly irritating and sublimely hilarious. They just have no idea what they're talking about - they haven't read a single word.
With people like this, I think you need a moderator and a time limit on responses. Or some way to stop then from rambling on.
Not an objectivist and DEFINITELY not a socialist. So should be an interesting view for me to watch.
Yaron's debate skills (or lack there of) are more yikes than that racist you debated recently. Your patience for speaking with hucksters like this is amazing Ben.
"I'm not a philosopher."
The one true thing he said.
I don't think that it is the taxpayers' obligation to help Jenny become an anthropologist or Billy to become a physicist. I would agree that it is the taxpayer's responsibility to prevent Jenny or Billy from starving or freezing or being homeless or suffering or dying from a disease or injury, if they are unable to pay for food, heating fuel, electricity, shelter or medical care. When we get into free college (and the next call will be for free grad school, which they also have in various European nations!) or even higher education, we're no longer talking about a basic safety net. I don't think the taxpayers' obligation should include "helping people to reach their full potential".
It's difficult for worker co-ops like Madragon to make it in a capitalist market since they'll need to match the rate of exploitation by their competitors to survive. As Rosa Luxemburg put it. "As a result of competition, the complete domination of the process of production by the interests of capital-that is, pitiless exploitation-becomes a condition for the survival of each enterprise."
Why are you subjecting an objectivist's argument to facts and nuance?
They don't care. They'll believe in Selfishness Uber Alles all the same.
Please name another worker co-op, other than Mondragon, that is as successful.
@@sixthposition1548 Good. So co-ops CAN be successful in a capitalist economy. Case closed. :)
@@sixthposition1548 Then don't start a co-op
Every excuse in the book. First off Madragon is not the workers paradise it is made out to be, a lot of the workers can't even belong to the cooperative. They suffered bankruptcies and job losses just like any company and worker satisfaction is no higher than private companies. Socialist experiments cannot survive without the wealth created by capitalism.
Pitiless exploitation? What are you talking about? If you make an effort, you do very well in the United States. Look at the Asians. In parts of the U.S. Eastern Europeans are moving in and wow, do they work hard, put Americans to shame.
I think Ben should've emphasized that the redistribution of wealth benefits everyone. Libertarians frame any kind of taxation or redistribution as a theft of their hard earned wealth to be given to the undeserving and unsuccessful when in fact they too materially benefit from that redistribution, not only in their immediate life but also in the form of the preconditions of their success.
They're just sooo stupid, right? Why don't they understand that taking away money from them is good for them?!?!
@@robertbratescu3219 That is correct.
That's a possible long-term benefit that short-term thinkers will not grasp.
The taxation is theft nonsense must be taken on first. The infrastructure of modern society that we all take advantage of was not magically provided to humanity at no cost, it requires a constant flow of financial resources to pay for what we have now, to maintain it and for what we will need in the future. The same goes for all of it and there's far more of it than people seem to be aware. We wouldn't be able to function without it and we all have to pay for it. Willful ignorance and denial of this simple reality does not exempt anyone from their responsibilities to pay their damn taxes.
This vital element is only one of the many reasons for taxation, but it's a start and it completely negates the bogus taxation is theft claim.
@@robertbratescu3219 Very true...and you are one of "them" aren't you?
@@ivandafoe5451 The state has been taxing people for generations and taxation has been viewed as a burden on the average person. The Rosetta Stone, that thing that helped us translate hieroglyphs, is made of granite and it tells how someone is exempt from paying taxes. That's how important that was for them! They didn't want it written on a piece of papyrus, but carved in granite, so that it would be robust enough for when the tax man came to TAKE part of their PRODUCTION. Taxation is theft and has always been theft. Taxes have fueled wars and conquests and slave trades. Just because the taxed money is now also used to allegedly help the poor, doesn't make it a civic duty or a responsibility. Donate! Spend some time at a soup kitchen! Teach some underprivileged children something! You think that all that "infrastructure of modern society" argument is deep? People always try and always have tried to pay less in taxes. That should give you a clue that there's more than a "denial of simple reality" here.
How is pretending Ben wants to take stuff from his house the "objectivist" view?
That sounds very subjectivist.
@@libertybell5796 Utter nonsense...it is all about distributing wealth in a more equitable way, rather than allowing those a the top rig the system to acquire it all for themselves.
@@ivandafoe5451 in other words... Stealing the wealth of some to give to others.
@@dalton8281 Why should the rich be entitled to all of their wealth?
@@RayLRhodes all men, rich or poor, are entitled to whatever they have created using their own mind. They deserve it because the values they created would not have existed without their effort. What your question implies is that some men have the right to other men's labor. The ultimate meaning of this is dictatorship and slavery
@@dalton8281 You just ironically made an argument for socialism. Marx literally talked about people being able to keep the full fruit of their labor. Capitalism inherintly does not do this because for a business to succeed, unless its a sole proprietorship, it requires paying workers less than the value they generate in order to turn a profit. It's simple math. It's also delusional to think that anyone creates anything entirely on their own. Every generation inherits the wealth of knowledge, technology, infrastructure, etc. from prior generations. Every business requires engaging with the public. Hell, capitalism wouldnt even exist if not for the system of law we have, particularly property law. Anthropological study of human civilization and the historical formation of markets prove this.
36:40 "manual labour is not an achievement... It doesn't matter"
Somehow I feel this and the "I work in finance!" moments of the debate are very revealing. That a lot of this attitude comes essentially from snobbery about what your job is.
Manual labour has been getting replaced by machines designed by people who mainly work with their intellect for centuries. Nay, millenia. You know those paintings of bulls pulling plows? There had to have been someone or multiple someones who were so sick of pulling that plow themselves that they decided to get a bull from the wild, invent taming, tame it, and make it plow the field in exchange for hay and cow p***y. Most innovation is making stuff easier to do.
This view of the labor-capital divide is out of touch with reality, though. What about (for example) engineers who work for tech companies? There are plenty of jobs where you alienate mental labor to someone else. Yes though, people who own the means of production must be the smart ones!
This Brooks imbecile echoes this belief with his claim about the expendability of labor as opposed to capital (his examples of the non-expendable capitalists include Bezos and Steve Jobs). It's as if this guy thinks anyone chosen at random could be placed in an engineering position at a tech firm and succeed.
@@patrickhenehan9106 The engineers didn't make the decisions that improved the company. The owners did.
@@patrickhenehan9106 don't afraid, bro... your beloved proletarians will soon be replaced by robots, and there will be no "exploitation". These people will disappear just like they appeared.
Yaron is the rudest and most arrogant person I have ever seen Ben debate against. He makes Charlie Kirk look humble.
I always thought it was interesting that the word individual semantically means "not divided" It informs me how to be a citizen.
Etymologically, not semantically
Individualism is incompatible with society.
"I'm a finance guy, my means of production are in my head!"
Does he not realize that literally makes him 100% useless to "production" if he doesn't actually produce anything? Lol he straight owned himself there. Shame on Ben for not even realizing this argument. Haha
That's not true at all from a Marxist perspective. Marx fully acknowledged that intellectual labour is still a kind of labour, and is part of the production process. Now obviously there are types of intellectual labour which aren't socially useful, and therefore produce no real value, but that's a different matter.
@@monkeymox2544 true, but this guy just wants wage slaves and we all know it.
Speculative capital, doesn't have any real value to it. If this guy thinks that sitting somewhere accumulating wealth through speculation and information trading, is his "means of production", he has some issues.
Yaron Brooks is a freeloader (wants to pat no taxes) and a parasite (produces nothing but self-gain extracted from the efforts of others). This is revealed by how he lives, how he makes money and by his own words. However he chooses to justify this reality by cloaking himself as an Objectivist idealist instead of by applying revealing and objective self-refection.
He is deluding himself while propagating the delusional ideas of Objectivism.
@@monkeymox2544 The "different matter" is clearly the one that Brooks has chosen.
What i've learned today: Socialists are the guys who don't wan't to take all my stuff. Didn't made me feel calm.
Imagine thinking living for yourself is evil. And imagine thinking we have capitalism today.
Socialists make me laugh 😂😂
Extractive capitalism has literally raped this world to the brink of collapse... Greedy delusional apologists for capitalism, and their oligarch masters are indisputably insane.
I've never heard a socialist not thinking for himself. I've never heard a supposed capitalist thinking for himself, only preaching their internalized religion of capitalism. Basically they're like Scientologists.
Give me a time period where there was this *cough* true "free market" capitalism that you think existed, that didn't exploit people. I love how these free market acolytes always say "that's not real capitalism, that's "crony capitalism" but can't give a time period that this so called real capitalism existed that didn't have a monopoly of power. But hey!, look at that laughing emojis dog! You sure showed everyone whats up!
Great talk. Thank you.
Socialist: we want to take your stuff
Capitalist: I don't want you to take my stuff
Socialist: hahaha, stop strawmanning me ......
Can you timestamp when Burgis said he wanted to take his stuff?
@@RayLRhodes
Is it not funny? I mean, how this person, by accusing socialists for strawmanning, has strawmaned socialists.
Keep this conversation GOING!!!
I want all his stuff! Now! Give me all your stuff!
I want all his stuff too!
Gimme dat Tooth Brush!
This was painful to watch. He didn’t try engaging with your arguments but try to tell you what you believe. This was not fruitful at all.
There really isn't much to engage in with modern socialists. Their ideas have been thoroughly discredited and their methods well documented. Anyone who takes ideas seriously cannot accept Socialism or Communism as anything than what they've been proven to be: cannibalism and slavery, respectively.
@@A_friend_of_Aristotle He was talking about Yaron Brooks, who like yourself has no arguments, only strawmaning tactics to avoid good-faith discussion and debate.
If you wish to remain a "Friend of Aristotle" you might want to avoid your use of Sophistry.
Poor Ben seems like such a nice guy but he is really clueless about the nature of socialism. I can understand why it must have been so frustrating for Yaron Brook to "debate" him.
In the real world central planning is a myth and socialism equals chaos. That's Economics 101. And that's History.
Brook is a moron.
😂😂😂
@Seb G Night and day. Bureaucratic management vs profit management.
Center cannot hold a rational thought or bother to know anything that he's talking about. All management is bureaucratic by it's very nature, no matter who is doing it.
Socialists in the comments: Does it bother you that all your arguments against libertarianism are either misunderstandings of libertarianism or of empirical facts? Or are you cool with that?
Why would I be bothered by something that isn't true? Are you bothered by unicorns?
@@mrbadguysan You made his point.
I feel like I'm about to watch a rout, as it's an Objectivist vs an actual Philosopher Professor.
Edit: I was right.
Actual Philosopher Professor was a complete DUD in front of the Objectivist. The professor was helpless.
@@mgsp87 On what points?
Yaron never claims to be a philosopher
Every time Yaron destroys a socialist it just strengthens my beliefs
In what way did he "destroy"
Since it's never happened your statement can easily be added to your other dubious beliefs under the category...Gavin's unattainable wish list.
Did all of the old dudes money come from the labor of employees? He acts like not a single dollar in his account did he "work" for
That hard-working man or woman who was disabled due to a work-related injury should rely on "private charity" to help feed his or her family, according to men like Brook. If the charity is not forthcoming for whatever reason, the Right-wing Libertarian, Ayn Randian position is that the disabled worker and his or her family should starve before taxing a billionaire one dollar to maintain a safety net that could help feed them! The "philosophy", an overly logicized apologia for Power, is abhorrent when followed to its logical conclusion.
Wasn't he insured? Didn't he have some company insurance? Didn't he have money saved up for situations like this? You cannot just pull random situation from void and say: this is why whole system is bad
@@danielkraus5560 Wow...these types of situations have happened all the time for centuries to millions of people but somehow they are "random situation(s) from the void" and somehow that's no valid reason to conclude that "the whole system is bad"? Absolutely incredible what power propaganda and indoctrination has over an unthinking brain.
You can ask a millionaire for a dollar, but you can’t demand it. There is no right to demand others to help you.
@@borisreitman are taxes inherently illegitimate then? You are also assuming the millionaire gained wealth in a completely just system.
@@Neversoft2489 They are. We would have more millionaires in a just system. In the current system, the injustice is towards the millionaires.
No one coerced him to come to America. He said Israeli schools are better than the schools he went to in America. Is Israel free from taxes?
All private schools are better than public school. Quality only exists in capitalism. Because government has no incentive to produce something that people will choose. Toll roads are much better than public roads. By far.
@@firstlast9916 that is an overly simplified and pathetically overly deferential view that has no basis in reality and nothing to do with the comment to which you’re replying.
@@wrenaevillard5266 if you haven’t had a kid in public school that has been beaten by thugs as my kids have, you don’t know what you are talking about.
Very interesting discussion - before having finished the video, I already have a comment on one of Yaron Brook's points: it's not true that animals are born with the knowledge of how to live. Many animals in fact develop most of that knowledge after birth, especially animals like dolphins and the great apes. Some of those animals even have cultural differences between groups (e.g. different methods of hunting, of attracting a mate, of relating to one another, etc).
Yaron Brook also seems to dramatically misunderstand both Kantian ethics and Christian ethics. As Ben Burgis tried to explain, in Kantian ethics one must act in a way that must be universalisable both on a conceptual basis and in terms of what one can will (because otherwise, you would be making exceptions for yourself), and this leads to duties/obligations both for yourself and for others. It is not that there is no concern for yourself until you've done all your obligations for others. And Kant doesn't think that an action has to go against your interest in order to be moral, or that it going against your interests would make it more moral. He only thinks that morality is to act by duty, rather than only in accordance with duty but by self-interest. So for example if a shop-seller sets fair prices in order for the poor to be able to buy food, that is acting morally, but if they set fair prices in order to gain market shares, they acted in accordance with the duty to set fair prices, but not by duty, by interest. In Christian ethics, it's not about pursuing your interest only after you've followed Jesus… It's about following Jesus who calls us to love one another as we love ourselves: so it recognises that love for ourselves and doesn't deny it, but says we should also love others in that same way.
I would also strongly contest the idea that our society praises or demands sacrificing ourselves for others more than developing our own potential. What's the primary concern of teachers at school when they help us choose what studies to go into? It is not what will allow us to help others most, it is what will allow us to flourish the most. And there are plenty of other examples showing that our current society rewards self-flourishing more than care for others. That said, our society is still bad at allowing people for flourish, in large part because it doesn't give everyone the means to do that. It is also true that figures like Mother Theresa are usually praised, but I'm really not convinced that they would say they've lived horrible lives, sacrificed for others. They have flourished in helping others because they love others. Also according to a lot of people (probably most) in our Western society, people like Mother Theresa display what is sometimes called 'supererogation', which means that they go beyond what morality demands (I would personally disagree with supererogation, but my opinion is not the point here). So Yaron Brook is really arguing against a strawman there when he says that we/most people in our society think the optimal morality is to sacrifice oneself completely for others.
Oh my gosh xD *describes a niche form of authoritarian communism that no one argues for* "that's what socialism is" xD
And moral obligation doesn't come from God for Kant, geez xD He literally rejected the idea of deriving morality from God. For Kant, the categorical imperative (which is essentially a universalisability test) comes merely from a sense of duty. We all know that there are situations where we feel the pull of duty even if it goes against our interests. From this, Kant tries to find what is the basics behind that duty. And it is that we should act in a way that can be justified to other moral agents, which is why we have to act according to a maxim which we could will as a universal law.
Oh Yaron Brook… Ben Burgis doesn't want to decide what he thinks are appropriate dreams/projects/potential, it's a question of using our resources in a fair manner to enable everyone to reach as much of their dreams/projects/potential as possible. And yes, worker cooperatives do work and do produce resources xD There are plenty of existing examples.
Regarding Yaron Brook's last points… it's not that simple. How did you come to own your garden? Where did you get the seeds for the garden? How were you protected against robbery? Who produced the food that you did not produce yourself? Who built the roads that lead from your house to anywhere else? Who built the hospital that healed you when you were sick? All of these things are made possible thanks to other people than you, and many of those things require a state or some other form of institution to collect certain funds and produce certain things to provide for people's basic needs and give them the infrastructures and resources to pursue their own projects. And I'm fairly sure Ben Burgis doesn't want people to just come into your garden and steal what you produced. What he wants is that we have a system which can provide the necessary resources for everyone to thrive, and this may imply for example taxing part of what each of us produces in order to build the infrastructures we all need.
It's also not necessarily that voluntary when people come to work for others in exchange of a salary… if the structure of society and the environment in which people grow leads them to being unable to pursue the studies or projects they want and produce the work they wish to produce, then they may be in some way coerced into having to accept jobs they do not to do in order to get the wages that will allow them to survive.
Book imagines the human being as thrown into and developing in no context whatsoever.
No single individual has created anything that I can think of - But then again I am just a civilian trained by others to think this way using a language that I learned from them lol...
Steve Jobs stole ideas from everyone else and put it into one package first...I should know, I grew up in the Xerox area of NYS where Steve visited, saw the newly invented mouse, and took it because they could not find a use for it.
Most private industry leaders have taken free things from the people of either the US through federally granted programs or ideas that could not be profited from becuase that is how our government is constructed, or by taking over a less civilized part of the world, calling it 'liberation' but simultaneously 'aquiring' resources by either underpaying for it or just plain stealing it through aggression and obfuscation tactics.
Yes, Kropotkin explained this succinctly.
Yaron should know better than to throw accusations that are so grossly generalized...pft.
'You wanna steal my stuff' is a joke considering we started the debate with philosophical ideas based on logic and impermanence discussing our finite lives, we jump into personal ownership as if that is really a thing.
This is why I started to look around when Aristotles' writings came to 'Virtues'...
Yeah. He jumped straight to making bad faith arguments or arguments from cultivated ignorance because he felt crummy at a "Communist" Kibbutz one summer...
Since he pays no taxes and makes money profiteering from the efforts of others on the internet, his lack of any usefulness to society is self-evident. I guess the freeloaders and parasites of our world are very sensitive about the topic of ownership and how they actually acquire their "stuff".
What are taxes?
What happens if you refuse to pay those taxes?
Confiscation, Eviction and death.
The consequences of refusing to cooperate with the socialist is the total seizure of your property. Funny coming from people who accuse Capitalism of being ''Coercive'' when their systems relies on Human coercion on human.
Also, there is no proper distinction between ''personal'' and ''private'' property. Your bicycle can be your capital to produce a service. Your house can be used as a warehouse to start a shipping company or a shirts company. Any ''personal'' property can be used to produce.
"i hate the word duty"
The meaning of the term “duty” is: the moral necessity to perform certain actions for no reason other than obedience to some higher authority, without regard to any personal goal, motive, desire or interest.
It is obvious that that anti-concept is a product of mysticism, not an abstraction derived from reality.
@@danielkraus5560 Don't bother. These are the atheists who still practice christian philosophy but don't believe in God because they've read Dawkins or smth.
Lol @ "no philosopher starts from themselves" someone never read De Sade. Clearly thats the direction ethics go when someone is starting from just themselves and only themselves.
De Sade was not much of a philosopher in the meta-ethics sense
@@Droselover-hu1gt ah and Ayn Rand was that much more?
@@RUELIAM right!? 😂😂😂
Alfie Kohn says we are mostly good people not selfish. Brook makes the case for criminal behavior. Get what you can, any way you can.
Yaron is right.
No, Yaron, he doesn't want a hundred percent of your bank account, just a hundred percent of your income past a100,000 dollars, according to an article he wrote in Jacobin magazine!
Where are the self-realized randyans? The great selfish poets and musicians? This is an empirical test of their theory! They have Ted Nugent, we have Bob Dylan
Steve Jobs. He is the kind of person that creates a world in which Bob Dylan's can ply their trade because Bob doesn't have to worry about what he is going to eat every day. There are artistically creative people who are classical liberals, Ray Bradbury is one example. There are fewer of them in the arts certainly. However much I love art I also realize it is the people who are creative in other fields that are the most important, without them we would still be living in caves.
@@Frank22164 Steve Jobs, for all his many successes with Apple, did not "create a world" of anything that would not or could not have been done by anyone else.
I am unaware of any connection with Objectivism and Ray Bradbury, who espoused the values of Humanism, Zen Buddhism and Christianity.
He first explains that it took thousands of years to learn how to hunt and that everyone's job is to figure out how to survive and then says that there is no value in average labor compared to Bezos.🤔 Is Bezos More important individual? Also, he seems to have a narrow definition of success. I feel very successful, but live paycheck to paycheck.
@Roosevelt L No...it actually means that countless generations of people over ten of thousands of years have contributed, step by step to society's acquired knowledge, skills, accomplishments and the very progress that has lead to our shared modern world.
The 21st century didn't suddenly appear spontaneously from the ideas of a couple of smart people as you somehow seem to imagine.
The continuing contributions of "average labor" in whatever form that it presently exists or will become in the future, has always been and will always be the bases for our success as a human civilization.
Your foolishly choosing to believe in Libertarian heroic delusions doesn't make them factual.
Success means how happy you are with your life. If you're rich and unhappy, then you are unsuccessful. Be that as it may, it is no reason to not venture for more money, so long as it doesn't take away for passion for living.
23:31 "they matter just as much" To who do "they " matter just as much , to me, to society ,to you.
Old dude is mad af
I agree that we on the left should be ready to debate, even ideologies that are extremely different their our own. But, after I have seen this guy, who looks like an absolute jerk, why even bother when he is not even trying to show any respect to your own ideology and believes what so ever? And instead dictating for you, what socialism is and what it isn't by always making a pathetic comparison to the Kibbutz without even giving the benefit of the doubt that your ideology or believes might actually be different.
I do want your laptop Yaron
Lol This guy think's smart phones are like watercolour portraits: painted by one man's genius. He literally thinks Jeff Bezos lays golden eggs and that's how value enters society.
Without the labor of the Proletariat the money of the Bourgeoisie would have no value. The Bourgeoisie need the Proletariat not the other way around.
Great point by Yaron, Capitalism is the system of freedom and Socialism is just organized coercion.
Capitalism is the system of freedom for capitalists who now presently control everything...how is that in any way considered freedom? It isn't freedom for the citizens...it is wage-slavery, debt-peonage, incarceration and abandonment by the corporate state. And somehow there's no "coercion" happening here and now?
Since when should we be accepting such delusional definitions from idiots when reality is in plain sight for all to see?
Socialism in a modern mixed economy is organized co-operation with the public good in mind...nothing more and nothing less.
Great point by Yaron...you got to put 2 big lies in 1 short sentence. Impressive.
“Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.”
― Vladimir Lenin
At 30:00. Ben hasn't brought up the one of the *best* arguments against Yaron, which is that he's committing the "naturalistic" fallacy with his justification of egoism.
We have the men ,we have the material we have a product
obnoxiousness is leaking through my screen it hurts
Jason Fisher whatever floats ya boat but I think hes severely unimpressive
Objectivism is so disturbingly disgusting.
II can't imagine where I would start talking to an objectivist.
Where can you go if I was to say, "actually I do believe in god, but regardless of that fact also in a material sense I see the physical division you make between people to carve out what you wish to call individual in contradiction with human nature. If I was really forced to carve out and "individual" I would suggest humans are not divisible below level of family."
The believe in "individualism" when talking about rich white men, that they "Individually" achieved everything they did in life, therefore shouldn't pay any taxes. They are collectivist when talking about people of color, especially Arabs, saying they are all collectively "savages" and don't deserve property rights, like the "White Man". They are just racist trying to hide their racism under intellectualism
"Im looking out for #1. F**** everyone else. That's on them. My life is about me"
Solid argument 😆
That's not what he said. Try actually reading Ayn Rand.
In so doing however it benefits all of mankind.
@@micchaelsanders6286 it's not RawBeets fault because yaron did a terrible job.
@@openmind2464 Yaron did a great job.
@@micchaelsanders6286 you know he did not. He kept interrupting. And you can tell the guy was not convinced. It’s like yaron Has the script he’s going to repeat no matter who he’s talking to. He should tailor his argument to the person he’s talking to. Mouthy infidel I was also a bad debate. I agree that studies are worthless in a debate like this. But you have to answer them in someway. You can’t just smile and look annoyed. After all he’s trying to convince people in that guys audience. And they came away thinking that we had no answer to those studies. I could’ve done a lot better job. A lot better.
39:52 capitalism has transitioned the gun/force from the feudal lord to the CEO
These ayn rand Institute guys sure are nice. Great convo 👍👍
Until they get into power then they are full on tyrants for what they want to impose and consider anything else full on communism...lel
@@TheEverydayProgressiveShow truth.
@@TheEverydayProgressiveShow That's a contradiction. If an objectivist, i.e. someone who believes that the proper role of government is laissez-faire capitalism, is a tyrant, then he is not an objectivist no matter hoe many tattoos of Ayn Rand they have. Just kidding, objectivists don't have tattoos :))
@@robertbratescu3219 You had me going for a sec there bruh.....hehehehe
@@TheEverydayProgressiveShow I was only kidding about the tattoos. I heard it on a podcast. The objectivist view is that the human body is to be admired, not altered, unless you alter it to make it better. So laser fingers good, Mickey Mouse tattoo bad.
It's important to recognise that when Yaron said "you want to take my stuff," he wasn't saying that Ben consciously wanted to directly steal Yaron's stuff, he was saying that it is what Ben's point is tantamount to. Even if he's incorrect, I don't think it's a strawman, it's Yaron's legitimate interpretation of Ben's beliefs, at worst it was poorly articulated.
It is a straw man.
@@nataliekhanyola5669 Useful of you to provide justification
Yaron's opening statement, in the beginning, lost most of this audience. Including Ben.
Why do you think so?
In capitalism you literally have to go out and find a master that is nice enough to hire you to exploited you 7 days a week and sometimes by more than one master vs feudalism you were born into it and had to work 3 days for the lord and 3 days for yourself
16:30 you start with yourself and then build outward, you don't start with a social, collectivist duty and force every individual to fit into it.
My confusion with yarons argument is that no individual truly creates things just on their own. They use and need the resources of other to help them get to that point. Jeff Bezos is not self made. Sure there are things and ideas he came up with 'himself'. But to put those ideas into practice he needed the help and minds and ideas and resources of others to get there by definition.
@@user-dg6bl2ry2y Sure. Individuals produce and trade with one another. But the janitor isn't the revolutionary Jeff Bezos is, which is why he makes so much more. Cooperation is part of capitalism.
@@micchaelsanders6286 But i think Ben's point is there's an irony with that janitor because although his full potential may not be as huge as Jeff's but that janitor may have (i think will have) hidden talents and skills he's never able - or it's incredibly difficult to - Practice and dedicate time to because of his lack of time and resources. So he's not able to reach the level of personal flourishing yaron believes he has a right to precisely because of his situation.
@@user-dg6bl2ry2y Because of our current mixed economy of high taxes and regulations, you are right. But under a system of freedom, pure capitalism, the janitors of today’s would be wealthier and happier than any of us could ever imagine.
@@micchaelsanders6286 Bezos would not have gotten anywhere without the janitor. That's why he forced his employees to work during a pandemic.
He doesn't make his fortune. His workers do.
I need more STUFF!
I agree with Yaron but this was a terrible showing by him and boarder on rude. Disappointing.
I think stealing is rude.
How does Ben not understand the equivalence of someone coming into my house to take my stuff and someone going into my bank account and taking my earned money? The only reason I have stuff in my house is because I used money from my bank account to buy it. When you take 50% of my earned income, you take away 50% of the stuff I could buy with it. In essence, you are taking the stuff I earned using my own drive, reason, and effort, away from me. Along with that, you take away my drive to put more effort into my life because I know you're just going to take some of it away and give it to someone else YOU deem worthy...whether or not they are. And you call Objectivists "selfish a-holes" for it? All Communism (and even socialism) provides is a barrier to productivity for all involved. The ones receiving "free" stuff lose their drive to be productive because they don't need to be to survive and thrive. The ones innovating, producing, and thriving lose their drive because the benefits they earned are taken away from them. This is just basic human behavior. What most people seem to get wrong is the idea that Objectivism's use of the term "Selfishness" extends to "at the expense of others". It does not. It is not moral, under Objectivism, to rob a bank, because doing so takes away the earnings of others. It is not moral, under Objectivism, to embezzle money from your company. It is moral, under Objectivism, to pay a "slave wage" to your employees IF that is the wage they are willing to accept to do the work. If they value their work at the price you offer, that is completely moral. It is up to each individual to decide what they are willing to do and for what price. If you don't like what some employer is willing to pay you, then use your brain and come up with your own business model.
Ben keeps talking about those born into poverty having to work the low wage job their entire lives and never getting to reach their potential because of it. That's a mindless strawman argument in a FREE society. There are millions of people in America that came from nothing and have become multi-millionaires. And that is in spite of having some level of socialism in this country holding the economy back. NOTHING is free. Somebody is paying for it. $15 Minimum wage will come at the expense of more low-wage earners being out of work, and the cost of goods and services going up by...$7/hr per laborer. All it does is reset the level of poverty. You want to reset the economy in a positive way, get rid of minimum wage entirely. Allow workers and employers to set their own terms. The price of goods and services will drop, more people will be employed, and the US will experience a productivity boom which hasn't been seen since the Industrial Revolution.
You want to help the poor? Start and/or contribute to a charity that focuses on the areas you want to focus on.
@Belinda Knight Obviously you don't know anything. So, gonna have to ignore you.
I just cant let go of this guy saying at the beginning that animals are essentially automatons whose actions are preprogrammed, unlike humans, which have free will. Just total nonsense that should be obvious to anyone that has spent any amount of time interacting with animals.
Objectivist here. Some issues I had:
1. I never heard Ben answer the metaethical origin of the duty to others;
2. I’m not the biggest fan of an unmoderated yelling over each other. If that is his hosting style, I’m not a fan of his format;
3. I would have liked an introduction to Ben’s view similar to Yaron’s at the beginning. I understand it’s his show and that his listeners are already familiar with why he believes what he does, but I would hope a few minutes of introduction for new listeners wouldn’t be too much to ask. I would like Ben to come on Yaron’s show to present his view to a new audience.
Given the comments, I would have thought Yaron’s presentation was not good. But when I listened, I primarily saw someone who struggled to keep the host on topic. Ben didn’t seem hostile at all, and sometimes he gave Yaron the opportunity to present his views. But Ben also didn’t seem particularly inclined to engage the issues Yaron raised, and to my ear kept rehashing the same points.
Lastly, forty-five minutes is not long enough for a topic this broad and important. If they were doing the show over again for that length of time, I would like the topic to be more delimited, and for the host to stick to it.
Both Ben and Yaron had competing thoughts that weren't fully expressed. Therefore, I would agree 45 minutes wasn't enough. However, It was Yaron that seemed less interested in Ben's positions than Ben had in Yaron's. Yaron strawmaned Ben's positions constantly before hearing or asking what his position was. Ben at least would preferece with saying"I dont know if this is your position, but if it is I think....." Yaron also made egregious slippery slope arguments
in his strawmaning, like " you just want to come in and take all my stuff out of my house!!!" ???? I'm not a socialist, but the lack of charity here is bad. Most of the time he just divulges to screaming the same tropes about socialism without really defining it. This is why socialists tend to defend their positions better than right libertarians because they know more about the opponents position than the opponent knows about their's from what I've been able see.
@@Brettwbeyer14 When Yaron said everything in his house he meant the full expression of socialism. Ben finally admitted that yes, he would have to take stuff from the house and in the real world it is over 50% of what Yaron earns. I pay over 50% in taxes, that's getting pretty close to slavery because in effect I am working more for others than myself. Socialism is not just the means of production, it's also controlling the means so if a sector of the economy like health care is highly regulated, it is socialist in nature. When a hospital wants to add an MRI machine they have to get permission from the government. So in effect, the government is acting like an owner.
@Bird Watcher The hospital cannot in most cases, they have get approval from the government, it is called a certificate of need. What this does is limit the supply of medical care artificially.
Insofar as the logic is concerned I need more information from you. I think you're going to say "Medical care is too important to be left at the mercy of the private markets where profit is the primary driver, not taking care of human beings." Yet profit is predicated on innovation, reducing costs and providing superior service, however this is conditional on operating in a free market, controlled markets like education/health care and banking are protected from competition, so costs are exorbitant and service is less than stellar (especially in education).
@@Frank22164 Money is the innovation of the state. It's theft for you to demand the innovative benefits of money without giving anything back to the entity that gives you such an innovative product.
@@Frank22164 From your language, I can tell you really don't understand socialism. socialism isn't the government doing things or having a mixed economy. it's the ownership of the means of production by the workers. im not a socialist myself, I believe in a mixed Economy. Healthcare being public is great because it's more cost effective and actually gives most people more access at a cheaper rate than under the current predatory system. there isn't inflated costs and everyone is covered. people have less financial burdens from exorbant hospital bills, premiums or co-pays. I find it ironic that you find being in a tax bracket where you have to pay 50% slavery. You know who would love to trade places with you? Wage slaves
constantly telling someone what you imagine he does without letting him talk is no argument, talkin to you Yaron.
Yaron was talking within the context of Ben Burgis argument, Yaron was not imagining anything.
Its not Yaron's fault if Ben Burgin constantly contradicts himself.
@Belinda Knight Says the guy who calls himself a knight.
Its just a name, get over yourself.
@Belinda Knight And i bet you are not a knight. See, your name has nothing to do with who you are.
God this guy is so obtuse he doesn't even realize that working cooperatively and not selfishly is part of his own argument. Early agriculture and Hunting were almost purely cooperative, especially hunting pre bow and arrow because of the innately dangerous nature of hunting.
We didn't get to have the Luxury of selfishness in any large scale until societies became large enough that you could have "lords" and bureaucracies of administrators etc.
He is also a poster child for strawmaning and confirmation bias, especially when it comes to his misrepresentation of Kant and others.
This was awful on yarons part. Good thing for Ben being respectful but he would just characterize socialism
Yaron got slapped
I have watched many debates between socialists and supporters of objectivism and capitalism and have noticed how the right wing people tend to resort to strawmen arguments and on occasion ad hominem attacks. I wonder if that is to do with the selfishness of their mindsets.
Getting robbed with a gun is selfish? Is it selfish to go to jail if you refuse to give a thief your wallet?
I feel bad for socialists. There are so many examples of attempted socialism that failed miserably that it is hard to find 1 or 2 examples in debates to talk about. Even then, its a mixed bag of some socialism and some capitalism, just to tick some boxes to make it more palatable for most people.
exactly!! BUT the same could be said about capitalism....the ones that are a success are always mixed with some socialism even in the US....my point is that one should not close his mind to the advantages of both systems...
@@pedrolopez-torrestubbs7569 Capitalism is most successful at generating wealth and improving the quality of lives of the citizens in the market when it is as free as possible. Any compromise in that, hurts the quality of improvement, slows it down and even reverses progress.
damn this guy argues against socialists without understanding a single thing about it.
Hi, I'm from a country formerly known as the Socialist Republic of Romania. What would you like to know about socialism?
I am from the USSR. Do you want me to know smth about socialism what I don't know?