When you are talking about "collectivism" <communism> you are talking about producing and giving it away with no benefit to you so there is little motivation to produce anything better or higher quantity.
I agree, still it does not explain anything in modern capitalist countries. I don't see how Apple produces iPhones and is mandated by government to give them away
if everyone is entitled to an amount of what you are selling, where can you innovate? if they are only allowed to receive a certain amount how can they possibly innovate? if all the steel they are allowed to buy is going for one thing, how can they use that same steel for something new and still make their mandated quotas?
Except nowhere in the world it works like that (except for extreme communism)
the idea that someone is responsible for and to their society is nonsense. A corporation does not owe society anything. The whole "give back to the community" thing is BS. If a company chooses to be charitable and help people that's a good thing. When people see charity and start coming with their hands out expecting it... attacking people and corporations when they don't get it... its a problem.
Except corporations and people like Dagny didn't arrive here from outer space. Dagny was educated in the education system paid in large part by taxpayers, she drives to work on roads paid by taxpayers, she is the person she is because she has lived in a society and learned from its best and worst members. She is part of society and corporation she creates is part of society. If she was born in an African slum, no matter how bright she was, she would not be where she was in the movie.
Also, there aren't a huge number of people coming with their hands out expecting charity... Vast number of people have jobs and struggle to make ends meet. The lazy bum sitting on dole is largely a right wing nightmare fantasy
Take for instance Nestle. They are a huge producer of bottled water. They took it upon themselves to build a pipeline for a 3rd world country that wouldn't do it for themselves. They maintained the pipeline and pump station for years. When they stopped supporting it, the 3rd worlders completely neglected it and now Nestle is criticized for the pipeline and pump station being in disrepair. Like they are somehow required to spend millions to provide it and then maintain it for the rest of their lives with no expectation of ever being free of that burden. It's like your parents buy you a car when when you are in high school so you force them to insure it, provide fuel for it, and maintain it for the rest of their lives.
No, it's like when parents force on you a mortgage on a large house and after a while stop paying for it, so you can't pay the mortgage and have to live on the street. Much better comparison. Of course they will be criticized, because they created a dependency and then when they were done playing with local people, they just left.
Do these people have money or skills to maintain the pipeline? Maybe it would just be better to give money to educate people how to get water and build pipelines, not go in with high tech solutions and make people dependant on them. After all we are talking here about WATER, not iPhones or weed... You can't call these people moochers because they need water, for God's sakes!
Another 3rd world country needed a source of fresh water so Nestle at great expense, built a well and a factory there to purify and bottle water. Again they get criticized for selling it after spending millions to be able to produce water there. They are providing a valuable service to the people that wont take it upon themselves to solve their water issue, they have an expectation of "free".
How much do people living there earn? And how much of their income would they spend on this bottled water? It's one thing to sell bottled water in the USA, it's quite another thing to keep super poor people poor, to make an extra buck.
What I don't get in these examples is how un-Randian your attitude is towards it. In both cases what Nestle did isn't very libertarian at all. In the first case it's giving people something for free, in the other case it's artificially creating a monopoly on water in a region... and if you will say "well, locals can build their own business and compete" then it is a complete bullsh**t as Nestle sure isn't a government, but by putting millions in this project they basically insure that no competition and market economy is possible, that "state" in this case Nestle, will provide water for a fixed/subsidized fee.
Again, wouldn't it been better if there were micro-loans, education classes on digging wells, purifying water and creating a business. Wouldn't it be better if Nestle loaned money to several local businesses to purify the water and compete with each other?
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Erniesam
9 years ago
What I don't get in these examples is how un-Randian your attitude is towards it. In both cases what Nestle did isn't very libertarian at all. In the first case it's giving people something for free, in the other case it's artificially creating a monopoly on water in a region... and if you will say "well, locals can build their own business and compete" then it is a complete bullsh**t as Nestle sure isn't a government, but by putting millions in this project they basically insure that no competition and market economy is possible, that "state" in this case Nestle, will provide water for a fixed/subsidized fee.
Nestle is giving people something for free out of their own free will. There's no pressure or extortion involved and therefor the integrity is intact. And is it really for free? Perhaps Nestle thought that this would be good publicity and they would benefit from it in the long run.
When there is no competition to begin with, how can you create a monopoly? To put millions into a project is a perfectly legal thing to do. That others cannot compete with that is not the fault of Nestle. Competition doesn't only consist of money you know, but also and especially of creativity and specialisation. Your definition of a monopoly would mean that no millionaire could ever start a big project in a country with no competition in that particular area and that every business should be build from the grounds up. That way you actually stifle and hinder the progress in that particular field and the citizens of that particular country would be the victims of it.
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