talkObjectivism.com

This show consisted of a discussion between Mosley, Arthur, and a new caller. They talked about many of the points from last show from different points of view. Some of the topics include the enforcement of contracts, libertarianism, and the gold standard, just to name a few.

Also, Paul Hsieh of NoodleFood Blog sent us a well-written email with commentary on the last show, whose points Mosley read and discussed on the show as well. Below is the email in its entirety.

Dear Jason,

I hadn’t heard of TalkObjectivism.com until recently, but I decided to listen to your Memorial Weekend podcast (show 061) today. First, I’d like to thank you and your co-hosts Brandon and Arthur for creating another venue for interested, active-minded people to discuss Objectivism.

I’d also like to make a few comments in response to some points that were raised during your discussion with Charles the Libertarian. I hope you’ll accept these in the spirit of constructive criticism. You are free to share this to your co-hosts or to anyone else that might be interested. (I was also going to CC this to Arthur and Brandon, but I didn’t see their e-mail addresses on the website.) You may also read any of this on the air or post it to your blog if you think it would be beneficial.

I’d like to touch on three topics:

1) If two parties have made a contract, and one party breaches that contract, then he *has* initiated force. It’s an indirect form of
force, but in essence he is holding onto the other person’s property
without that second person’s consent.

Rand covered this nicely at:
<http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/fraud.html>

“A unilateral breach of contract involves an indirect use of physical
force: it consists, in essence, of one man receiving the material
values, goods or services of another, then refusing to pay for them
and thus keeping them by force (by mere physical possession), not by right, i.e., keeping them without the consent of their owner. Fraud involves a similarly indirect use of force: it consists of obtaining material values without their owner’s consent, under false pretenses or false promises.”

(The Virtue of Selfishness “The Nature of Government,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 111.)

Hence, when the second party gets the court system involved to address the breach of contract, this is an entirely proper use of
*retaliatory* force by the government in protection of property
rights. In particular, this is Charles’ error when he states that
bringing in the police and/or courts is the initiation. Instead, this
is appropriate use of retaliatory force, not an inappropriate initiation of force.

2) If the cheated party also publicizes accurate information about the person who cheated him, this sort of negative “credit report” is *not* any kind of force. A truthful negative evaluation of another person is not physical force, even though it might make other people choose not to do business with him or her.

It would be similar to someone giving a truthful negative recommendation about a former employee to someone who was thinking about hiring him. Suppose the old boss said, “Gee, I wouldn’t hire Tom as a salesman. When he worked for me, has was always late, and he was rude to the customers, and he didn’t do the office paperwork right. I had to let him go after 3 weeks.” If the prospective new employer then decided to not offer Tom a job, then he hasn’t violated Tom’s rights. And the old boss definitely hasn’t initiated any kind of force against Tom.

To call that kind of action “force” is an error. Otherwise, it would
also be “force” to tell someone not to go to Restaurant A to buy lunch rather than Restaurant B because Restaurant A had better prices and faster service. Or it would be “force” to tell your buddy not to date a particular woman because she was an unpleasant, demanding, inconsiderate shrew (assuming that this was actually true).

Of course spreading *false* information about someone in order to
deprive them of trade is a separate issue altogether, and would
arguably constitute either libel or slander, depending on whether
these lies were disseminated in writing or verbally. But of the sake
of the original discussion, we’re assuming that the information about the cheating party was true.

As a separate point, a cheated party is perfectly within his rights to
publicize the bad actions of the person who cheated him, in addition to taking him to court. The two options aren’t mutually exclusive, and both can be legitimate courses of action for the injured party to take.

3) With respect to money and the gold standard, I’d recommend that you re-read the argument for a gold standard by Greenspan in “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”. If you want a quick online defense of the gold standard, the Lexicon has a short excerpt from the article:

<http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/goldstandard.html>

“Gold Standard”

“Gold and economic freedom are inseparable, . . . the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and . . . each implies and requires the other.

“What medium of exchange will be acceptable to all participants in an economy is not determined arbitrarily. Where store-of-value considerations are important, as they are in richer, more civilized societies, the medium of exchange must be a durable commodity, usually a metal. A metal is generally chosen because it is homogeneous and divisible: every unit is the same as every other and it can be blended or formed in any quantity. Precious jewels, for example, are neither homogeneous nor divisible.

“More important, the commodity chosen as a medium must be a luxury. Human desires for luxuries are unlimited and, therefore, luxury goods are always in demand and will always be acceptable . . . .

“The term ‘luxury good’ implies scarcity and high unit value. Having a high unit value, such a good is easily portable; for instance, an
ounce of gold is worth a half-ton of pig iron . . . .

“Under the gold standard, a free banking system stands as the
protector of an economy’s stability and balanced growth.

“In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect
savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of
value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold . . . .

“The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no
way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.

“This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against
gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the “hidden”
confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious
process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps
this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism
toward the gold standard.”

(Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal Alan Greenspan, “Gold and Economic Freedom,” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 96.)

I hope you find these comments helpful

Otherwise, I hope you and your co-hosts are enjoying the podcasting, and I encourage you to keep up your efforts!

All the best,

Paul Hsieh