The Hidden Price of the Unearned

January 16, 2012

Devon Sampson Ayn Rand, Original Content, Politics , , , , , Leave a comment

Victory is sweetest when you’ve known defeat.

-Malcolm S. Forbes

Like most people, I do not enjoy losing.

But that is just what I experienced some hours ago. Since I like to multitask while listening to audiobooks (I’m a voracious listener as well as a voracious reader), I played EA Sports’ NHL 12. A week ago, I had started a playoff run with the Boston Bruins (with a fantasy draft before the season, so the team was an eclectic mix of players), and now I was in the Stanley Cup Finals against the Detroit Red Wings. It was a dramatic, far-too-intense-for-a-video-game series that had reached a 7th and deciding game. My team, however, was down by a goal with 50 seconds left, but then my Bruins beared down and tied the game! My euphoria continued well after the ensuing face-off at centre ice – but it ended abruptly seconds later when Detroit came back and immediately took the lead again! This time, their lead would hold up and I lost the (virtual) Stanley Cup.

I was devastated.

This may seem like an overreaction, but I had a lot of time invested with this (virtual) team and it was a bitter feeling to come up short. I thought to myself, “If only the result could be different…”

But then I stopped myself. For at that exact moment, a particularly relevant Ayn Rand quote came to mind:

There is no conflict of the interests among men who do not desire the unearned.

Now, it is one thing to read that quote in a neutral emotional state, with no immediate conflict facing you. It is quite another to hear that quote in the midst of a torrent of melancholy and frustration. However, the quote still struck me as profoundly true.

Since, however, emotions are not tools of cognition (but rather, a sort of adviser for what your conscious mind should focus on) I decided to divert my attention away from my broken heart and consider why that particular quote struck me as true.

This led to me to the following thought experiment: what if the players in my virtual Stanley Cup Finals were real? And what if my team still lost to Detroit? If I could reverse the NHL’s verdict to award the Stanley Cup to Detroit rather than my Bruins, without changing the scores of any of the games or the fact that Detroit had technically earned it, would I?

This is actually an extremely complex thought experiment because there are many factors to consider that are not immediately obvious. I’ll summarize my thinking below:

  • If I reverse the decision, I win the Stanley Cup and feel good, but not as good as if I had earned it.
  • In addition, Detroit, the team that did earn it, would not be able to reap the rewards of their effort.
  • Through my own actions, I have given my fullest consent to a world (or social system) in which those who earn values may not get to keep those values.
  • Therefore, if I ever earn something myself it is unlikely that I will be able to reap the rewards of my success.

A mere desire for the unearned is contradictory to a desire to be able to keep that which you earn. It is not just an act of resistance against a free and just society, it is a rebellion against the Law of Causality itself. Since I do not desire an irrational world, I would therefore refuse to accept the Stanley Cup that I did not earn and congratulate the Detroit Red Wings on their hard-fought victory.

Those of you who are particularly astute may have already realized that this concept is applicable to any other situation where there is a “conflict of interest”, from job searches to love triangles.

There is a difference between someone who has lost and someone who is a loser. The purpose of this article was to further illuminate this distinction.

But it’s still going to take me a few days to get over this loss…

“Free to Choose” by Milton Friedman

December 29, 2011

Devon Sampson Politics , , , , , , Leave a comment

I hope you all have had a great holiday season. Here at the Bank of Notes, we want to give our readers a present as well – so here is Part 1 of Milton Friedman’s legendary 10-part miniseries “Free to Choose”. Each episode starts out with 20-30 minutes of Friedman discussing an economic issue in a fairly succinct manner, while showing video of the various world economies discussed.

However, it is the second half of each episode that makes this series truly epic. Milton Friedman debates various academics, usually of liberal or socialist inclinations, on the topic of the episode (eg: Episode 1 discusses the merits of free markets). It doesn’t take long, however, for these debates to turn into total bloodbaths – which Friedman emerges from triumphant and unscathed. In fact, Friedman dissects and eviscerates arguments against individual rights with such precision that it appears effortless – and to the Nobel Prize winner, it is, because he has an unshakable conviction in his principles and a comprehensive understanding of the logical validity of his arguments.

Economics has long been referred to as “the dismal science”, but Milton Friedman’s uncompromising, unrelenting advocacy of liberty and individual rights has inspired me more than any speech, public figure, or movie (and certainly any academic) has in a very long time.

The Virtue of Selfishness – Ayn Rand (1/3)

December 5, 2011

Devon Sampson Ayn Rand, Politics , , , , , , Leave a comment

I was originally planning on making a separate post for each of the 19 chapters, but to truly understand the code of ethics Rand advocates one must have a full understanding of all of its antecedent concepts. Reading the book cover to cover is the only sufficient way to accomplish this; there is no way to give it justice with out-of-context notes.

Still, I have too many gems from the later chapters to let go to waste so I’ll share them in 3 parts.

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Chapter 12 – Man’s Rights

“The right to life is the source of all rights – and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.” (110)

“Bear in mind that the right to property is a right to action, like all the others: it is not the right to an object…but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it.”

“Rights are conditions of existence required by man’s nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work.” (Atlas Shrugged.) (111)

“(The Declaration of Independence) provided the only valid justification of a government and defined its only proper purpose: to protect man’s rights by protecting him from physical violence. Thus the government’s function was changed from the role of ruler to the role of servant.”

“Just as in the material realm the plundering of a country’s wealth is accomplished by inflating the currency – so today one may witness the process of inflation being applied to the realm of rights. The process entails a growth of newly promulgated ‘rights’ that people do not notice the fact that the meaning of the concept is being reversed. Just as bad money drives out good money, so these ‘printing-press rights’ negate authentic rights.” (112)
-ie: American democrats claiming that people have the “right” to have a job, no matter what.

“If some men are entitled by right to the products of the work of others, it means that those others are deprived of rights and condemned to slave labour.” (113)

“Any alleged ‘right’ of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right…there can be no such thing as ‘the right to enslave.’”

“A right does not include the material implementation of that right by other men; it includes only the freedom to earn that implementation by one’s own effort.” (113-4)

“(The Founding Fathers) spoke of the right to the pursuit of happiness – not of the right to happiness.” (114)

“The political function of ‘the right of free speech’ is to protect dissenters and unpopular minorities from forceable suppression – not to guarantee them the support, advantages and rewards of a popularity they have not gained.” (117)

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Chapter 13 – Collectivized “Rights”

“Just as the notion that ‘Anything I do is right because I chose to do it,’ is not a moral principle, but a negation of morality – so the notion that ‘Anything society does is right because society chose to do it,’ is not a moral principle, but a negation of moral principles and the banishment of morality from social issues.” (118)

“A man can neither acquire new rights by joining a group nor lose the rights which he does possess…any group that does not recognize this principle is not an association, but a gang or mob.” (119-120)

“The notion of ‘collective rights’ (the notion that rights belong to groups, not to individuals) means that ‘rights’ belong to some men, but not to others” (120)

“Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).” (121-122)