Laissez Faire in All Things

Lately, I have been experimenting with turning some of my essays into videos. Not everybody likes to read. Some people prefer being read to. Here is the latest video in this vein.

The text of this video can be found here. 

Ostensibly, the above video falls into the genre of the self-help, since it is a response to a similar effort by The School of Life. But at heart, what I am trying to say is the same as in this essay about nature and the free market. 

Th text to this video can be found here. 

I don't think that people who believe in socialism came up with that belief in a vacuum. I think it permeates their understanding of everything. They think it applies to love, to family, to society and even to nature. I keep getting inundated with ads from Jane Goodall. The latest one was to the effect that if I send her enough money, then "nature can win!"

Sorry, Jane, but nature always wins.  It does not need money from me or you  to function. We are a part of nature. There is no way to escape it. Nature's code of laws is self-enforcing. Any attempt to get away from the natural consequences of our actions is futile. But if we just go with the flow, if we just let things be, then we can be the beneficiaries of the consequences of sequences of events that cascade all by themselves.

Love is like that, too. It's not necessary to second guess everything. We don't need less ego to enjoy it. We can just understand this one simple thing: taking and giving happen simultaneously without "exploitation" when you just allow people to do what comes naturally. 

You Get What You Pay For

You get what you pay for. But no, don't read that with the accent on "pay". Of course, you have to pay. Everyone knows that you can't get anything without somebody paying for it. Yet people are always hoping that somebody else will pay for them.  So even though we all agree that you get what you pay for, most give that line the wrong reading. It's not "You get what you pay for." It's "You get what you pay for."

This is certainly true when it comes to the defense of your country, as well as the defense of a legal case. You cannot expect to get proper representation unless the person who holds the purse strings is the person being defended.

If it's not the person who eats the dog food who pays for the dog food, the dog food may not end up being fit for a dog to eat.  That's even though the person paying for the dog food has very good intentions. It's not the amount of money that is spent that matters, nor the intentions of the one spending it. The Wedel chocolates will be ruined, if the free market does not serve as quality control.

I've seen people arguing that if the accused  is entitled to a free defense -- to have an attorney appointed for him -- then a sick person should be entitled to free health care, too. If the one is a "right", why shouldn't the other be a "right"? Well, neither is really a right, because the doctor and the lawyer still need to agree to serve. Yes, I know, the government can pay them.  But nothing that we don't personally pay for is going to be the same in value as what that amount of money could purchase if wielded by the ultimate consumer. That is the aspect of laissez faire that socialists don't grasp.

Ask anyone accused of a crime how helpful his PD is. Ask veterans dependent on the VA how great the service they receive is. Ask any dog whether he would rather eat dog food or your leftovers. You get what you pay for. What you personally pay for.

Yaron Brook, Ayn Rand and the Virtue of Selfishness

Mars, courtesy of  NASA, a government agency

Last night I watched a video of Yaron Brook expounding on Objectivism in Tokyo, It was very interesting to me in a number of ways, which I will discuss in greater detail after you watch the video with me.

One of the things Yaron Brook pointed out is that due to government intervention, we have not had a real technological breakthrough in ages. Yes, there is Silicon Valley and innovations come from there all the time, but the scope of the innovation is very limited, and we still use the same mode of transportation that was developed at the turn of the twentieth century: cars, trains and airplanes. Why haven't we colonized Mars yet?

It is not clear to me that laissez faire would necessarily drive us to colonize Mars. I think we will only do it if we lose all our freedom here on earth. Freedom is not just freedom to innovate. Freedom is also about being allowed to maintain our lifestyle intact. Many people want that much more than they want to go to outer space.

If we do end up colonizing Mars, it is more likely to happen because we will have lost all our freedom here on earth and we will be desperately looking for a way out.

Freedom is a value in its own right. Technological advancement is not the justification for freedom -- nor is it the only thing that freedom is good for.