INT 200: Global Capitalism and its Discontents

The Defense of Capitalism

Ayn Rand• Objectivism

– Reality is an absolute; a world independent of our minds • if people want to achieve their goals—such as gaining knowledge, amassing wealth,

achieving happiness, establishing and maintaining liberty—they must recognize and embrace the nature of reality

– man has a means of knowledge; it is reason—and reason alone• If people want to know what is true or good or right, they must observe reality and

use logic

– Free will• the ability to think or not to think, to use reason or not to use it, to go by facts or to

go by feelings

– Morality• purpose of morality is to provide people with principled guidance for living and

achieving happiness on earth• the good is that which supports or promotes an individual’s life; the evil is that

which retards or destroys it• Rational egoism holds that each individual should act in his own best

interest (alturism is not good)

Ayn Rand• Objectivism

– Society• in order to take life-promoting action, a person must be free to do so• people must refrain from using physical force against one another• sole purpose of the government in such a system is to protect the individual rights

of its citizens • the only social system in which such force is so prohibited—consistently and on

principle—is pure, laissez-faire capitalism

• Capitalism– not merely an economic system; it is the social system of individual

rights, including property rights, protected by a strictly limited government• if people want to deal with one another, they may do so only on voluntary terms,

by uncoerced agreement• the only thing they are not “free” to do is to violate the rights of others. In a

capitalist society, individual rights cannot legally be violated by anyone—including the government

Ayn Rand• Capitalism

– Rand: The moral code which is implicit in capitalism had never been formulated explicitly. The basic premise of that code is that man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the end of others, that man must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself, and that men must deal with one another as traders, by voluntary choice to mutual benefit. This, in essence, is the moral premise on which the United States of America was based: the principle of man’s right to his own life, to his own liberty, to the pursuit of his own happiness

– Against our “brothers’ keepers” programs or regulations on businessmen

Johan Norberg• “Globalization increases the wealth of already-rich nations by

impoverishing poor nations”– But: world poverty has fallen more during the past 50 years than

during the preceding 500• “Globalization promotes increasing inequality of wealth”

– But: Gini has, for the whole world, fallen by ten percent between 1968 and 1997

• “Globalization threatens democracy”– But: in 1950, 31 percent of the world’s population lived in democratic

societies, today 58.2 percent do

Johan Norberg• “Globalization is both desired and promoted by multinational

corporations” – But: In the poorest developing countries, someone working for an

American employer draws no less than eight times the average national wage

• “Western corporations mistreat their employees in developing countries.” – But: Foreign firms in the least developed countries pay their

employees, on average, twice as much as the corresponding native firms; and they pay eight times the average national wage; and they lead the trend towards better workplace and working conditions

• “Globalization hurts the environment” – But: the only places in the world where pollution is a growing problem

are countries that refuse to integrate themselves into the market