Comments | petite_lambda: Where Ayn Rand Was Wrong

petite_lambda

Where Ayn Rand Was Wrong

Feb 15, 2009 19:50

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" creates a world where need is rewarded and ability is punished, profoundly screwing up the incentives for everyone involved. That's not what Ayn Rand got wrong - that's what she got right. The thing is, what she proposed - laissez-faire capitalism - also has the incentives wrong.
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economics, ayn rand

Comments 12

logical fallacies egoistpaul January 18 2011, 14:45:58 UTC

I read and re-read this post of yours and found quite a few logical fallacies in Ayn Rand's philosophy, economic principles, and product development and marketing process. If you'd like, I'll be happy to go through them.

Re: logical fallacies petite_lambda January 18 2011, 20:39:46 UTC

Sure! Go ahead!

egoistpaul January 19 2011, 04:03:48 UTC

Ayn Rand seems to think that in the environment of free competition, money and Quality go together. Meaning, that the way to make more money is to make a better product, and vice versa. And this is simply not true.I'll break it down into two statements, S1 and S2 ( ... )

petite_lambda January 19 2011, 07:14:37 UTC

S1 = "Ayn Rand seems to think that in the environment of free competition, money and Quality go together."
S2 = "Meaning, that the way to make more money is to make a better product..."

S2 is what I meant by S1. The word "meaning" was kind of indicative of that :-) True, S1 alone, taken out of context, could have many meanings, because it is vague -- which is exactly why I clarified it. S2 is the statement I discuss. More precisely: "in order to make as much money as they can (in a given industry), one needs to make the best product they are capable of". That is not true in general (although it is in Ayn Rand's books), and that is what I argue with ( ... )

egoistpaul January 19 2011, 12:34:16 UTC

S2 is what I meant by S1. The word "meaning" was kind of indicative of that :-)

What I meant in the previous comment was that S1 is not indicative of S2.

Also, I used my Objectivism CD-ROM and didn't not find anything close to S1.

I think that Crocks deliberately made a much crappier product than they could have, in order to later "improve" it and make more money on upgrades.

Well, there is nothing wrong with that. When the consumers are not ready for an improved version of a product, it is natural for a company to make a watered down version. The product is still in high quality from the consumers' point of view.

You see the problem here is that you use the word "quality" as if there is a universal standard for all product and for all consumers. In reality, it is not the case. A crappy pair of shoes is crappy only for the producer, not for the consumers.

It's just not in line with the beautiful world that Ayn Rand envisioned.I'd like to know exactly how you get the idea that Ayn Rand envisioned a beautiful world. Can you give ( ... )

petite_lambda January 19 2011, 18:57:38 UTC

If clients get what they want, from their point of view they are not screwed. In other words, if a dentist provides a service to a client and they are satisfied with it, they are not screwed even if they pay higher price. The fact that you, who know more about the service, think they are screwed isn't matter.Wow ( ... )

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