TOS’s Craig Biddle Take On Ben Shapiro on Rational Self-Interest

In Contra Ben Shapiro, Rational Self-Interest Is Not Hedonism, Craig Biddle takes on Ben Shapiro’s contention that Ayn Rand’s concept of rational self-interest equates to hedonism. Among the statements Biddle cites are Shapiro’s opinion that “there are ‘very few expositors of capitalism who I think are better than Ayn Rand’” but that “‘I don’t think Objectivism applies in personal relationships’” because “it’s in your self-interest to ‘abandon your wife and your children because there’s a hot chick at the bar’.” I highly recommend Contra Ben Shapiro, Rational Self-Interest Is Not Hedonism.

Shapiro is twisting himself into a mental pretzel trying to get around acknowledging the logic and value of rational self-interest. Can he really not see the difference between instant gratification at any cost and soberly considering the consequences before acting? Can he really believe that striving for a more flourishing and happier life over time is a product of self-sacrifice—i.e., making one’s life worse? Does he really believe that it’s rational to “abandon your wife and your children because there’s a hot chick at the bar”? If so, then logic says that honoring your parental and spousal responsibilities, not to mention respecting them, is a matter of whim. Does he really believe that?  

Or is he just being honest. Maybe he does really value womanizing over family, in which case for him it would be selfish to go after the hot chick at the bar. But then, he shouldn’t have gotten married and had children to begin with.

But the most glaring contradiction is his statement that there are “very few expositors of capitalism who I think are better than Ayn Rand.” Does he really not understand that the driving force of capitalism’s economic success is individual self-interest, with the best results achieved by the rational rather than the hedonistic—and that Ayn Rand’s great contribution is precisely that she identifies that fact about capitalism and thus provides the moral justification and foundation for capitalism? The Objectivist ethics at the level of personal relationships is integral to her ethics as applied to economics, given that economics is all about individual human relationships (trade). Take away Rand’s rational self-interest, and you no longer have the great expositor: You’re better off turning to the great classical economists who have been making the practical case while losing the moral battle. If Shapiro doesn’t know that the ethics he condemns is precisely the reason she’s one of the very best expositors of capitalism, then he’s talking through his hat.

Related Reading:

Does Evil Come From ‘Threatened Egotism’?

The Fight For Freedom is Far from Over by Garland S. Tucker III and Jon L. Pritchett for FEE:

The 20th century is littered with the failures of socialism.

Somehow, the next generation has to grasp the wisdom of Churchill’s warning: “Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.”

All true. But we’ve always known that. And still we’re losing. And why not, if the hallmark of capitalism, rational self-interest, is held to be immoral?

Atlas Shrugged—Ayn Rand

National Review’s MO Regarding Ayn Rand—Craig Biddle for The Objective Standard

How Conservatives Begat Trump, and What to Do About It by Craig Biddle for TOS

In the pages of her revolutionary novel [Atlas Shrugged], [Ayn] Rand had handed conservatives, and the world in general, an observation-based, demonstrably true philosophy that, in addition to providing principled guidance for choosing and pursuing life-serving values at the personal level, also provides a rock-solid foundation for supporting and defending freedom and capitalism at the political level. This book was a godsend to everyone who loves life, loves America, and wants to advance the ideal of a government dedicated to protecting individuals’ rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness.

What did conservatives do with this gift? They shat on it.

Exclusionary Zoning is Socialist

The New Jersey Star-Ledger editorialized about a N.J. mayor, like your crazy uncle, calls affordable housing a ‘socialist scheme’.

Well, yes, it is--but. The issue is what we in NJ have come to call Mount Laurel, the town whose restrictive zoning practices led to a state Supreme Court ruling that required every town to provide for its “fair share” of “affordable housing” through its zoning policies. That ruling dealt with a legitimate injustice, but danced around the basic issue--property rights (See my NJ's "Affordable Housing Crisis" - It's the Zoning, Stupid!).

This editorial is an interesting twisting of language, and points up the importance of properly defining our terms. “This isn’t magic,” writes the Star-Ledger:

It’s exclusionary zoning laws. It’s keeping housing values high and property taxes artificially low, by using home rule powers for selfish financial goals. It’s zoning out anything that doesn’t provide big revenue – the schoolchildren-breeding, communist rabble.

Such abuses over the past few decades have forced other towns in this county to shoulder greater expenses. This was why Mount Laurel was needed, a landmark decision against discriminatory zoning practices that towns long used to welcome the wealthy and keep out the poor.

Now, state rules require municipalities to build their fair share of affordable housing, pushing back against enclaves of affluence and opportunity hoarding, in which to send your kid to the best public schools, you have to buy an expensive house.

The mayor calls the state’s interference in its zoning policies “socialistic”--a complete inversion of the truth. What is socialist is this from the Star-Ledger:

If you work hard, you should be able to afford a home; it’s the American Dream. Yet thanks to growing income inequality, the path to the middle class is much harder to climb today than it was decades ago.

I posted these comments, edited:

Socialism is the subordination of the individual to the group (collectivism) imposed through governmental force by all-powerful central planners (totalitarianism), and geared to a collective moral vision of how socierty should be “shaped.”. What is not socialist is builders building housing on their own land for sale to willing consumers at mutually agreed pricing. Zoning boards refusing to grant permission for such housing, allegedly in the “interests” of “the community,” are mini-socialist dictatorships. There could be valid concerns about development, such as substandard roads or stormwater runoff, that can justify stopping a development unless these concerns are mitigated. But exclusionary zoning is legalized discrimination; i.e., mini-socialism.

Of course, it’s ridiculous to say “If you work hard, you should be able to afford a home.”  The wealth one earns is determined by how much economic value one creates as determined by how much or how many others are willing to pay for it. Hard work is important. But it is not the determining factor. The American Dream is the freedom to work and trade and keep what you have earned. It is not an automatic guarantee that someone will provide you with a home you can afford.

But if someone is willing to build you that home, some zoning board should not have the power to stop them.

The Mount Laurel ruling attempted to correct wrongful exclusionary zoning policies, thereby replacing local mandates with state mandates. There should be no mandates. And none would be required if property rights were respected in this state.

Related Reading:

NJ's "Affordable Housing Crisis" - It's the Zoning, Stupid!

COAH, ‘Affordable Housing,’ and Zoning in NJ

More Freedom, not More Government, Will Solve New Jersey's "Housing Crisis"

America; Democracy or Republic or Both--Why it Matters

In a New Jersey Star-Ledger guest column, You say Democracy, I say Republic, Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Bernstein tried to settle the question, is America a Democracy or a Republic? His conclusion is that America is both, and to say otherwise is an “assault on knowledge”:

The truth is actually simple: For all practical purposes, and in most contexts, "republic" and "democracy" are synonyms. The big difference is that the first comes from Latin and the latter from Greek. To say that the U.S. is a republic, not a democracy, is like claiming to eat beef and pork but not cows and pigs.

Bernstein goes on to condemn conservatives who claim that America is a “republic, not a democracy.” In a sense, he’s right that America is both. But the distinction is still critically important. Which predominates? I left these comments, slightly edited:

The fundamental question is not Democracy vs. Republic. The fundamental question is the proper role of government. Government’s purpose must be established before a discussion of democracy’s role in a republic can even begin. That is where the Founders started, recognizing that rights are individual, equal for all, and precede government, which is then “instituted to secure these rights.” “The People”, as an association of individuals, creates a government to protect their freedom and property under objective laws and just procedures. They create a constitution to prevent their elected officials from becoming the criminals. American democracy proceeds from that.

Democracy as the standard of governance is unlimited rule by electoral majority (or its elected representatives). The basic premise of democracy is that the elected government can do whatever it chooses to do to whomever it chooses based solely on “the will of the people” as expressed in election outcomes. This does not conform to the American vision. That vision is that elected officials are not above the law that private citizens must observe, simply because they are elected. EG: Just as the private citizen is not free to rob or force another, so a legislator cannot rob or force, even if labeled “Social Security” or “Economic Justice.”

Do not confuse democracy fundamentalism with the democratic process in a constitutional republic. Under American republicanism, democracy’s role is secondary to individual rights. The standard of governance in America was the protection of individual rights, not the vote. Any deviation from this hierarchy is unAmerican. Freedom is not the right to vote. Freedom is the right to live your life regardless of anyone else’s vote, congruent with the same rights of others.

I was encouraged to read the following passage:

What Americans in the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st centuries all have in common is that at no time has anything other than some form of democracy/republic gained even a small amount of adherents. Not only has there never been a serious effort to install a monarchy, - there’s been no interest in any kind of formal aristocracy, or any national established church that would have political authority. Even supposedly “undemocratic” portions of the Constitution, such as the original Senate (chosen by state legislatures), or the courts, or the Electoral College, are just forms of popular rule, not an alternative to it.

I emphasized that last sentence. The purpose of these institutions is not to negate the popular vote, but precisely to restrain democracy to protect individual rights.

Also, it may be true that “at no time has anything other than some form of democracy/republic gained even a small amount of adherents.” But the confusion over the issue is giving credence to the democratic socialist movement, which springs from the idea that America is a democracy, not a republic, and therefor voters have the “right” to vote the country into totalitarian socialism. That would not be possible in a constitutionally limited republic based on inalienable individual rights.

Bernstein is wrong to brush off the conservative activists’ claim that “the U.S. is a ‘republic’ and not a ‘democracy.’” They may not be technically correct that it’s strictly either/or. Clearly, the Founders meant to integrate some form of democracy into the republic. But the devil is in the details, and the details are crucially important.

Related Reading:

QUORA: ‘Why does the Electoral College of the United States of America exist?’

Democracy is Democracy

Democracy in Action in Egypt

Rights and Democracy

Constitutional Republicanism: A Counter-Argument to Barbara Rank’s Ode to Democracy

Mesmerized by Elections, the NJ Star-Ledger Forgot that Tyranny is Tyranny

The Conscience of the Constitution: The Declaration of Independence and the Right to Liberty—Timothy Sandefur

New NJ Beekeeper Regs Show Why Government Should Focus on Punishing the Guilty, Not Regulating the Innocent

New state regulations on beekeeping last year created a big pushback in New Jersey. As Mark Di Ionno reported for NJ.com (Bad buzz on new beekeeping regulations), the NJ regulations were sparked by a single irresponsible beekeeper.

Our View opined against the regulations, and offered a fair solution:

The buzz among beekeepers is that the proposed rules reflect one or two recent incidents of badly behaved beekeepers, including one who had 33 hives on a 97-by-100-foot property.

The solution, however, is not a heavy-handed regime treating all beekeepers like the worst practitioners, but guidance to new and hobbyist beekeepers about proper practices and a formal complaint and review process for the few occasions where problems arise.

I left these comments on the Di Ionno article:

I’ve have lived in the Three Bridges area right up the street from Bob Kloss [quoted in the article] for 40 years. We’ve known the Klosses for at least the last 25 years. In all this time, we’ve never heard of any complaints in our town about Kloss’s beekeeping—not directly from neighbors nor indirectly through hearsay. I know of no complaints filed with the township government.

So why punish them with added costs and regulations? Because a beekeeper operation in Peapack-Gladstone created a nuisance for neighbors? Certainly, everyone has a right not to be harmed (or their property) by neighboring operations, based on the principal of property rights. But neither should a person be interfered with by government for engaging in legal activities on his own property that harms no one else. Why punish the innocent?

And that’s the dirty little secret of government regulation; the punishing of the innocent for the wrongdoing of the guilty. A good poster child for this premise is Sarbanes-Oxley, the giant financial regulatory bill passed after the 1999-2000 Enron accounting scandals. Enron, Worldcom, and a few other companies defrauded investors—and were prosecuted under pre-existing laws. Yet Congress and President Bush passed Sarbanes-Oxley, allegedly to “prevent” future fraud but which in reality burdened the thousands of companies that didn’t cook the books with new regulations—in effect, punishing the innocent many for the wrongdoing of the few.

We see this pattern time and again. Somebody does something wrong, and regulations reign down on an entire industry or sector. These new beekeeper regulations seem to fit that pattern. Which begs the question: Why not deal with actual instances of actual harm done to neighbors by beekeepers as they arise, leaving the innocent alone? What ever happened to the principle “innocent until proven guilty”?

We need to rethink the entire nature of government regulation. Here in New Jersey as well as at the federal level, we’ve created a swarm of basically unproductive government bureaucrats whose job it is to regulate the productive without any apparent guiding principles. The result is a growing burden of regulatory penalties dumped on the innocent and responsible who have done nothing wrong and have violated no one’s rights. Law should protect the innocent and the responsible, while punishing the guilty and providing for the restitution to victims of unscrupulous or careless operators. If the governments’ regulatory apparatus were forced to adhere to the principle of innocent until proven guilty, the regulatory burden would be greatly reduced while providing much greater resources for legitimate law enforcement. Preventive law—a law that presumes guilt before evidence of guilt arises—is not legitimate law. It’s time our government stuck to punishing the guilty and stopped regulating the innocent.

Related Reading:

"Regulating" Business - the Good and the Bad

Where Does Valid Law End and Regulation Begin? by me, for The Objective Standard

Don’t Regulate the Innocent, Punish the Guilty by me, for The Objective Standard

The Separation of Empathy and Force

A guest editorial, Offering ‘thoughts and prayers’ is not real empathy, appeared in the New Jersey Star-Ledger on Sunday, October 22, 2017. It was submitted by Brian Regal, a teacher of world history at Kean University.

Regal’s theme is that empathy must be backed up with positive action. My problem is not with the theme. There’s some truth to that. My problem is with some of the types of actions Regal thinks qualifies as “real empathy.” Without his kind of action, one can not claim empathy, regal asserts. He writes:

They say suffering builds character. It does more than that, it helps build empathy. It helps us understand the suffering of others and makes us want to help them rather than mock them. I had a sergeant major who once told me, “Never trust anyone who hasn’t had their ass kicked in a fight.” That was because they couldn’t feel empathy for someone who had. It seems many current political leaders and pundits have never really suffered. I come to this position based upon the behavior.

Empathy is an emotional reaction to the suffering of others, which prompts us to help them in some way. Empathy is seeing someone fall on the street unable to get up, and you go over and help them. Not having empathy is when you go over to the person who has fallen and you steal their wallet and then laugh about it.

In what way does he mean “help them in some way?” Certainly, the empathetic ends don’t justify any means, right? Not according to Regal. Here’s a hint:

Too many of our leaders are behaving as if they are devoid of empathy for the citizens they are supposed to be helping.

Which leaders are “devoid of empathy”? Apparently, leaders who believe that government is supposed to protect individual rights, including the right of each person to decide for ourselves who, when, and in what capacity to help others. The type of leader Regal believes is not “devoid of empathy” is the kind that passes laws forcing all of us to pay for help for people he decides need help, whether the taxpayer agrees or not. Force, in other words, over voluntarism. It all becomes clear with this paragraph:

Having no empathy allows you to do certain things. It allows you to vote to take away people’s health care. It allows you to give more rights to guns than the people they kill. It allows you to steal people’s homes and call it good business. It allows you to say that mass murder is “the price of freedom.” It allows you to go golfing while people are drowning. It allows you to be handed everything in life, then ridicule poor people for not working hard enough. It allows you to mock the disabled or the obese or the mentally challenged.

Let me give my “take” on each charge, in turn.

“It allows you to vote to take away people’s health care.”

What he really means is to vote to reduce subsidies that involve legalized government theft—taking the earnings and property of some people for the unearned benefit of others’ healthcare. No one has ever proposed to “take away people’s health care” that has been earned and paid for and agreed to by insurer and customer, or by patient and doctor, except for those who want to force people into government-approved plans (e.g., ObamaCare, which outlawed millions of policies). No one’s healthcare should be at the mercy of other people’s votes. But that’s what the “empathetic” socialists of the Left have forced on us. Nor should anyone be denied the freedom to decide when, who, and in what capacity to back up empathy with action. Empathy begins with respect for the rights of others to live by their own judgement.

Regal says that “Not having empathy is when you go over to the person who has fallen and you steal their wallet.” Fair enough. But then, neither is it empathetic to steal the wallet of someone who has not fallen, right? Not according to Regal. Apparently, stealing that person’s wallet after he has fallen is a lack of empathy. But stealing a person’s wallet to pay for Regal’s “empathy” for people who have fallen and is unable to get up is empathetic. In other words, Regal won’t lower himself to actually “go over and help them.” He wants to force others to do that dirty work.

“It allows you to give more rights to guns than the people they kill.”

This is nonsensical on its face, and a complete misrepresentation of the position of advocates of the right to bear arms. Rights don’t belong to guns; i.e., inanimate objects. No one I know of has ever said that. Rights belong to individuals, and the right of law-abiding adults of sound mind and no criminal record to own a gun is really what Regal is after. Notice the moral inversion: Regal would deny you the right to own a gun for self-defense, but has no problem using law—the government’s guns—for aggression against you in the form of legally forcing you to pay for someone else’s healthcare regardless of your own choice and judgement. He replaces the right of armed self-defense with the “right” of armed aggression (the starting point of all welfare state programs).

“It allows you to steal people’s homes and call it good business.”

If Regal is referring only to eminent domain to take people’s homes for the sake of a developer, then I’m with him. But somehow I think he has more in mind—a smear of the mortgage lenders who foreclose on homes in which the borrower has reneged on his loan commitment. It’s a moral inversion that blames the victim. Imagine the homeless problem we’d have if lenders, including banks who have a fiduciary and moral, not to mention legal, responsibility to their depositors and investors, had no recourse to justice in the event of a loan default, and thus stopped making mortgage loans!

“It allows you to say that mass murder is ‘the price of freedom.’”

This is an attack on civilized countries defending themselves against barbarians who would destroy them (e.g., Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, and Jihadist Islam). Regal essentially claims that civilian casualties resulting from military action designed to defeat the barbarians is the moral responsibility of the defender--e.g., the U.S. and its allies--not the aggressor--e.g., Nazi Germany, the Empire of Japan. Another moral inversion.

“It allows you to go golfing while people are drowning.”

The evil premise behind a statement of this kind is that no one has a right to pursue happiness and flourish as long as someone, somewhere, has needs. It’s not about empathy for the genuine needy. It’s an attack on the achievement of any kind of good life—to anchor people down to the most suffering and unhappy state of life, intended to make people feel unearned guilt for every pleasure they may enjoy. Since no one would actually continue with his golf game while callously ignoring a person who is literally drowning in a nearby pond, anti-happiness is the only sentiment this metaphor can be intended to convey.

“It allows you to be handed everything in life, then ridicule poor people for not working hard enough.”

It’s hard to make any kind of sense out of this. Is he railing against inheritance? Is it a Rawlsian premise that, whatever your achievement, it’s all a matter of luck? In other words, if you learned a trade or profession or leadership skill and then applied it to a successful lifelong career or built that successful business, and managed to achieve a non-poor lifestyle, you didn’t build that? Is he attacking idea that poor people are incapable of working their way up from poverty in an economically free society, and cannot take care of themselves without government handouts?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Now, I know that, superficially, Regal is attacking one man, Donald Trump, as indicated by his “It allows you to mock the disabled or the obese or the mentally challenged.” But there is a deeper psychology behind his diatribe—a disrespect for people’s capableness and right to live by their own individual judgments and make their own independent choices, and a hatred of self-responsibility, achievement, and happiness. In other words, you, the “average” person, the “little guy”, is incapable of building that—so you must be made a ward of the all-powerful state. Even if you are capable of “building that”-and you do “build that”--you should feel guilty about it.

You cannot be left free to pursue your own happiness under a government that protects your inalienable rights to live and act according to your own capacities and judgement. That’s Regal’s message. Now, maybe Regal’s position is not that extreme. Maybe he allows for some freedom. But his message is clear: If you reject aggressive government force, you lack empathy. But if our political leaders’ empathy is enough for them to override your rights, then you are not actually free. After all, empathy begins with respect for the rights of others. Where’s the empathy in Regal’s stance?

No, the job of our leaders is not supposed to be helping some citizens at the unwilling expense of others. Helping others in the way Regal means it is the job of voluntary charity (the only genuine kind). Our leaders should be protecting individual rights equally and at all times, including for people who have not fallen as well as people who have fallen. Yes, government officials can feel empathy, like everyone else. But, like the private citizens they serve, they do not have the moral right to force their empathy on others—that is, by law. Our leaders and government should be governed by the principle, the Separation of Empathy and Force. Empathy and force are really mutually exclusive.

Related reading:

"A Government of Men..."

The Roots of Morality: Primordial “Intuition” or Human Nature?

Sotomayor, Mr. Spock, and A Government of Men

‘Can Anyone Be Truly Selfish?’

How about ObamaCare’s Victims?

Understanding Ayn Rand’s Original Ethics Requires Original Thinking

Obama's Sugar-Coated Poison

CATO's Alan Reynolds Calls Out Roger McNamee for His Anti-Facebook Tirade

About a year and a half ago, I posted a piece on  Roger McNamee’s Attack on Intellectual Freedom. McNamee is a regular guest on the business and stock market channel CNBC, and a constant agitator for government regulation and censorship of the internet through controls on media giants.

There are other guests who, like McNamee, see a problem with the free-wheeling openness of free speech platforms like Facebook and call for regulation as a "solution." But CNBC has been woefully absent of anyone able to point out the dangers to free speech, or even to defend free speech.

I have been highlighting the politically-motivated, broad attack on a free and open internet--See related links below. So it is with pleasure that I highlight an article by CATO Institute scholar Alan Reynolds, Roger McNamee’s Facebook Critique, which was posted by The Atlas Society. Reynolds focusses in large part on McNamee's criticism of Facebook's consumer friendly, commercially successful business model, but also recognizes the threat to free speech:

McNamee’s proposed regulation of “harmful behavior” would invite political censorship and propaganda. So too would his proposed subsidies and protection from competition for new firms deemed “civically responsible” by politicians and bureaucrats. “In exchange for adopting a benign business model, perhaps based on subscriptions, startups would receive protection from the giants. Given that social media is practically a public utility,” he claims, “I think it is worth considering more aggressive strategies, including government subsidies … [because] civically responsible social media may be essential to the future of the country. The subsidies might come in the form of research funding, capital for startups, tax breaks and the like.” 

McNamee’s scheme for inviting ambitious political operatives to force Facebook to submit to being micro-managed as a regulated public utility is because he is confident that most common folk (unlike himself) are easily duped. It is his noblesse oblige to launch a political movement to protect the lumpenproletariat from their childish foolishness.

Citing unhappiness with voting results like Brexit and the 2016 U.S. election, Reynolds concludes:

An author’s political agenda often drives the arguments, which explains why extreme rhetoric about hypothetical “crises” in the future are typically abused to excuse extreme proposals for government meddling in the present. McNamee turns out to be just another missionary for paternalistic big government to throttle successful big tech firms, subsidize less-promising firms, and protect the gullible masses from being persuaded by Facebook posts to make what he regards as politically undesirable choices.

While free speech is still with us, it is under increasing attack. The attack is not overt. It comes under catchphrases such as "Dark Money", "New Neutrality", "Fake News", "Hate Speech", "Campaign Finance Reform." It comes in the form of regulatory extortion: "Either you do something about [the "misuse" of your platforms], or we will," Senator Dianne Feinstein told social media. Government censorship by proxie is still government censorship. It comes under cover of legitimate concerns, such as privacy or live streaming of violence. It comes in the form of calls to regulate internet companies as "public utilities." It comes under cover of "addiction" that requires regulation on "public health" reasons.

The threat to internet freedom and thus free speech is real, with many rationalizations, and it is growing. We need to fight back against the anti-free speech coalition.

Related Reading:

Roger McNamee’s Attack on Intellectual Freedom

George Soros; a Leading Point Man in the anti-free speech ‘broad anti-Facebook movement’

The Internet is Not a ‘Surveillance State’

NJ Star-Ledger Repudiates the First Amendment, Calls for Censorship

The Banning of Alex Jones: Facebook Choice or Regulatory Extortion?

Facebook/Cambridge Analytica Data Breach Should Not Be a Pretext for Government Controls

Corporate ‘Censorship’ and Fredrik DeBoer’s Evil ‘Solution’

Earth Day: The Anti-Industrial Revolution

“The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow”. - Ayn Rand

One such uncontested (except by Rand) absurdity was inaugurated on April 22, 1970…the first Earth Day. The inability or unwillingness of Americans to understand and appreciate the actual meaning behind that concept has allowed Earth Day to evolve into a powerful symbol of an ideology that is anti-human life.

Ayn Rand coined the term “anti-industrial revolution” to describe the “ecology” movement of the 1960s and 1970s. That movement was the precursor to the modern Environmentalist movement* [I use an upper case 'E' to highlight its ideological nature].

The basic premise of Environmentalism is that “nature” in its raw state—which means unaltered by human intervention—has intrinsic value. But the concept "value" cannot be divorced from the concept valuer. Nothing can have intrinsic value ... i.e., value in and of itself. But that is exactly how Environmentalism sees nature. The consequences to human freedom and well-being by the acceptance of that doctrine are horrendous. Mark Levine puts it thus:

  If nature has "intrinsic value" then nature exists for its own sake. Consequently, man is not to be preferred over any aspect of his natural surroundings. He is no better than any other organism and much worse because of his destructive existence.

  Is not man, therefore, expendable? And if he is, is not the suppression of his liberty, the confiscation of his property, and the blunting of his progress at all times warranted where the purpose is to save the planet - or any part of it - from man himself? After all, it would seem that there can be no end to man's offenses against nature if he is not checked at every turn. (Liberty and Tyranny, pages 121-122)

Alex Epstein, author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, puts it another way—in terms of a moral standard of value. The environmentalists' standard of moral value is unaltered nature, not human flourishing. Since man's means of survival is to apply productive—i.e., reason-guided—work to the task of transforming the Earth nature gives us into an environment suitable to human living, everything man does above the level of the higher animals is immoral. Man is not to improve his natural surroundings; not to maximize his well-being while minimizing the negative consequences of his industrial development. He is to minimize his impact on the Earth, regardless of the consequences to his life. This is the underlying meaning of Earth Day, of "going green"—deindustrialization, not as a means to a better environment for humans, but for deindustrialization’s sake. Earth Day stands for anti-humanism.

Think of what it means if unaltered nature is the moral standard; if nature has intrinsic value. It means that whatever nature "does"—raw nature—is valuable and not to be altered. A volcano erupting and destroying Mount St. Helens, taking with it millions of trees and wild animals, is raw nature, and thus good. Man clearing a forest and “destroying” an ecosystem to build a housing development is not "natural," and thus bad. Animals devouring one another to survive is raw nature. Man using animals for the purpose of testing (human) life-saving medicines is not. Crop-destroying insects or plant diseases is raw nature. Insecticides and bio-engineered pest- and disease-resistant crops is not. A black primordial goo lying underground is raw nature. Refined protroleum products like gasoline and heating oil and plastics are not. Natural climate change is acceptable. Human-caused climate change is not. A natural 400 foot rise in sea levels is not bad. Let human activity contribute a couple of inches in the last century to the 20,000 year trend, and its a catastrophe. Modern agriculture, transportation, health care, buildings, amusement parks, even household appliances—everything manmade—results from altering raw nature in some way, which destroys intrinsic value and is thus immoral and needs to be minimized and ultimately stopped and reversed.

The common denominator of that which is not “raw” nature is that it represents the application of human intelligence to the advance of man’s well-being and survival. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. Every living species, from the lowest bacteria to the most advanced mammals, must act according to its nature to sustain its life. In other words, every living species is provided by nature with some means of survival, which it must rely on and exercise.

There is one crucial fact of nature that sets man apart from every other living species. Every other species must essentially adapt itself to its natural environmental background. It has no choice in the matter, since it basically has no way of altering that environment. It is thus equipped with the basic means of survival determined by its nature to survive in that manner. Any species that lacks or loses the means to adapt perishes. Man, however, is not equipped to adapt to raw nature. He must, if he is to survive and thrive, adapt his environmental background to his own needs ... by building homes, inventing medical treatments, developing advanced agriculture, producing fuel for transportation and heating ... all produced from exploiting the materials found in raw nature.

Environmentalism’s elevating of nature to the absurd and logically indefensible status of having intrinsic value is a direct assault on, and denial of, man’s method of survival; his need to transform raw nature as dictated by his very nature. That man is himself a product of nature does not daunt the environmentalist mindset. They champion nature, except the one creation of nature that sets man apart. Since man’s primary, basic means of achieving this is his rational mind, the anti-science of Environmentalism is thus anti-mind, which means anti-man.

Environmentalism should not be confused with the idea of developing cleaner methods of producing and consuming that which we need to survive and thrive. Pollution--ingredients around us that is harmful to humans above a certain scientifically validated threshhold--can and should be cleaned up. That is not what the leaders of the environmental movement have in mind. It is human production and technology itself that is the enemy. That's why, for example, Environmentalists oppose nuclear power as a sollution to what they call the "climate crisis" induced by human emissions of carbon dioxide.

Following are some quotes from some of those leaders:

The collective needs of non-human species must take precedence over the needs and desires of humans.

—Dr. Reed F. Noss, The Wildlands Project

Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, is not as important as a wild and healthy planet ... Some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.

—David Graber, biologist, National Park Service

The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing....This is not to say that the rise of human civilization is insignificant, but there is no way of showing that it will be much help to the world in the long run.

—Economist editorial

I suspect that eradicating smallpox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems.

—John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

We, in the green movement, aspire to a cultural model in which killing a forest will be considered more contemptible and more criminal than the sale of 6-year-old children to Asian brothels.

—Carl Amery

We have wished, we ecofreaks, for a disaster or for a social change to come and bomb us into Stone Age, where we might live like Indians in our valley, with our localism, our appropriate technology, our gardens, our homemade religion—guilt-free at last!

—Stewart Brand (writing in the Whole Earth Catalogue).

This last is the ideal that drives environmentalism…the return of mankind to a pre-industrial age--a new Stone Age, essentially--when man lived “in harmony” with nature. A time when nature was worshipped, rather than exploited for human gain. Rather than a warm winter home, they long for an existence of savages cowering in fear of natural forces. The name itself, “Environmentalism”, captures the very essence of its meaning, just as Communism or Theocracy captures the essence of those systems. In fact, statists of every stripe have latched on to the environmental movement to further their anti-capitalist agendas.

But make no mistake. The agenda of Environmentalism is to thwart, roll back, and destroy the life-giving technology and industrialization of the modern age. This is not to say that I believe that they will succeed (although the seeming popularity of the Green New Deal questions that assumption). Most people don’t equate Environmentalism with an anti-man’s-life agenda. There is a real danger, though, that they will succeed at advancing a statist (socialist) agenda under cover of Environmentalism, leading to a deteriorating economy, rising impoverishment, and possible dictatorship. I submit in evidence the two news items cited in my 2010 Earth Day post.

By celebrating “Earth Day”, we should be aware of the enemies of man that we are helping to bring to power in America and around the world.

Rather than celebrate raw nature, as embodied in “Earth Day”, we should instead look around at all of the life-giving benefits we enjoy as a result of industrialization.

Earth Day is the “holiday” of the anti-industrial revolution. Instead, we should celebrate the wonderful job humans have done in improving the planet through science, technology, industry, entrepreneurship, and hard work. We should celebrate the holiday of the Industrial Revolution, Exploit The Earth Day!

Related Reading:

Forget “Earth Day”…Celebrate Life On Earth Day!--Michael Hurd

THIS EARTH DAY, SHRUG OFF ENVIRONMENTALIST FEAR AND GUILT—Amanda Maxham for The Ayn Rand Institute

On April 22, Celebrate Exploit-the-Earth Day—Craig Biddle

The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels—Alex Epstein (Chapter 1, The Secret History of Fossil Fuels, available free.)

Related Viewing:

Related Listening:

The Anti-Industrial Revolution—Ayn Rand Lecture

“The environmental movement is often seen as a campaign to clean up man’s environment so that we can lead healthy and happy lives. But in early 1971, less than a year after the movement kicked off its first Earth Day celebration, Ayn Rand argued that this was a façade to cover the actual ideology animating the movement.”—ARI