Part 42 (1/2)
See also ENt.i.tY; EXISTENCE; METAPHYSICS; TIME; UNIVERSE.
Standard of Measurement. See Measurement.
Standard of Value. The Objectivist ethics holds man's life as the standard of value-and his own life as the ethical purpose of every individual man.
The difference between ”standard” and ”purpose” in this context is as follows: a ”standard” is an abstract principle that serves as a measurement or gauge to guide a man's choices in the achievement of a concrete, specific purpose. ”That which is required for the survival of man qua man” is an abstract principle that applies to every individual man. The task of applying this principle to a concrete, specific purpose-the purpose of living a life proper to a rational being-belongs to every individual man, and the life he has to live is his own, Man must choose his actions, values and goals by the standard of that which is proper to man-in order to achieve, maintain, fulfill and enjoy that ultimate value, that end in itself, which is his own life.
[”The Objectivist Ethics,” VOS, 19; pb 25.]
The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics-the standard by which one judges what is good or evil-is man's life, or: that which is required for man's survival qua man.
Since reason is man's basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil.
[Ibid., 16; pb 23.]
”Man's survival qua man” means the terms, methods, conditions and goals required for the survival of a rational being through the whole of his lifespan-in all those aspects of existence which are open to his choice.
[Ibid., 18; pb 24.]
See also ABSTRACTIONS and CONCRETES; LIFE; MAN; MORALITY; OBJECTIVISM; RATIONALITY; REASON; TELEOLOGICAL MEASUREMENT; ULTIMATE VALUE; VALUES; VIRTUE.
States' Rights. The const.i.tutional concept of ”states' rights” pertains to the division of power between local and national authorities, and serves to protect the states from the Federal government; it does not grant to a state government an unlimited, arbitrary power over its citizens or the privilege of abrogating the citizens' individual rights.
[”Racism,” VOS, 180; pb 131.]
[George Wallace] is not a defender of individual rights, but merely of states' rights-which is far, far from being the same thing. When he denounces ”Big Government,” it is not the unlimited, arbitrary power of the state that he is denouncing, but merely its centralization-and he seeks to place the same unlimited, arbitrary power in the hands of many little governments. The break-up of a big gang into a number of warring small gangs is not a return to a const.i.tutional system nor to individual rights nor to law and order.
[”The Presidential Candidates, 1968,” TO, June 1968, 5.]
See also ”COLLECTIVE RIGHTS”; ”CONSERVATIVES”; CONSt.i.tUTION; GOVERNMENT; INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS.
Statism. The political expression of altruism is collectivism or statism, which holds that man's life and work belong to the state-to society, to the group, the gang, the race, the nation-and that the state may dispose of him in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own tribal, collective good.
[”Introducing Objectivism,” TON, Aug. 1962, 35.]
A statist system-whether of a communist, fascist, n.a.z.i, socialist or ”welfare” type-is based on the ... government's unlimited power, which means: on the rule of brute force. The differences among statist systems are only a matter of time and degree; the principle is the same. Under statism, the government is not a policeman, but a legalized criminal that holds the power to use physical force in any manner and for any purpose it pleases against legally disarmed, defenseless victims.
Nothing can ever justify so monstrously evil a theory. Nothing can justify the horror, the brutality, the plunder, the destruction, the starvation, the slave-labor camps, the torture chambers, the wholesale slaughter of statist dictators.h.i.+ps.
[”War and Peace,” TON, Oct. 1962, 44.]
Government control of a country's economy-any kind or degree of such control, by any group, for any purpose whatsoever-rests on the basic principle of statism, the principle that man's life belongs to the state.
[”Conservatism: An Obituary,” CUI. 192.]
A statist is a man who believes that some men have the right to force, coerce, enslave, rob, and murder others. To be put into practice, this belief has to be implemented by the political doctrine that the government-the state-has the right to initiate the use of physical force against its citizens. How often force is to be used, against whom, to what extent, for what purpose and for whose benefit, are irrelevant questions. The basic principle and the ultimate results of all statist doctrines are the same: dictators.h.i.+p and destruction. The rest is only a matter of time.
[”America's Persecuted Minority: Big Business. CUI, 47.]
If the term ”statism” designates concentration of power in the state at the expense of individual liberty, then n.a.z.ism in politics was a form of statism. In principle, it did not represent a new approach to government: it was a continuation of the political absolutism-the absolute monarchies, the oligarchies, the theocracies, the random tyrannies-which has characterized most of human history.
In degree, however, the total state does differ from its predecessors: it represents statism pressed to its limits, in theory and in practice. devouring the last remnants of the individual.
[Leonard Peikoff. OP. 6: pb 16.]
The ideological root of statism (or collectivism) is the tribal premise of primordial savages who, unable to conceive of individual rights, believed that the tribe is a supreme, omnipotent ruler, that it owns the lives of its members and may sacrifice them whenever it pleases to whatever it deems to be its own ”good.” Unable to conceive of any social principles, save the rule of brute force, they believed that the tribe's wishes are limited only by its physical power and that other tribes are its natural prey, to be conquered, looted, enslaved, or annihilated. The history of all primitive peoples is a succession of tribal wars and intertribal slaughter. That this savage ideology now rules nations armed with nuclear weapons, should give pause to anyone concerned with mankind's survival.
Statism is a system of inst.i.tutionalized violence and perpetual civil war. It leaves men no choice but to fight to seize political power-to rob or be robbed, to kill or be killed. When brute force is the only criterion of social conduct, and unresisting surrender to destruction is the only alternative, even the lowest of men, even an animal-even a cornered rat-will fight. There can be no peace within an enslaved nation.
[”The Roots of War,” CUI, 36.]
The degree of statism in a country's political system, is the degree to which it breaks up the country into rival gangs and sets men against one another. When individual rights are abrogated, there is no way to determine who is ent.i.tled to what; there is no way to determine the justice of anyone's claims, desires, or interests. The criterion, therefore, reverts to the tribal concept of: one's wishes are limited only by the power of one's gang.
[Ibid.]
Statism-in fact and in principle-is nothing more than gang rule. A dictators.h.i.+p is a gang devoted to looting the effort of the productive citizens of its own country. When a statist ruler exhausts his own country's economy, he attacks his neighbors. It is his only means of postponing internal collapse and prolonging his rule. A country that violates the rights of its own citizens, will not respect the rights of its neighbors. Those who do not recognize individual rights, will not recognize the rights of nations: a nation is only a number of individuals.
Statism needs war; a free country does not. Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by production.
Observe that the major wars of history were started by the more controlled economies of the time against the freer ones. For instance, World War I was started by monarchist Germany and Czarist Russia, who dragged in their freer allies. World War II was started by the alliance of n.a.z.i Germany with Soviet Russia and their joint attack on Poland.
Observe that in World War II, both Germany and Russia seized and dismantled entire factories in conquered countries, to s.h.i.+p them home -white the freest of the mixed economies, the semi-capitalistic United States, sent billions worth of lend-lease equipment, including enthe factories, to its allies.
Germany and Russia needed war; the United States did not and gained nothing. (In fact, the United States lost, economically, even though it won the war: it was left with an enormous national debt, augmented by the grotesquely futile policy of supporting former allies and enemies to this day.) Yet it is capitalism that today's peace-lovers oppose and statism that they advocate-in the name of peace.
[Ibid., 37.]
The human characteristic required by statism is docility, which is the product of hopelessness and intellectual stagnation. Thinking men cannot be ruled; ambitious men do not stagnate.
[”Tax-Credits for Education,” ARL, I, 12, 1.]
The first choice-and the only one that matters-is: freedom or dictators.h.i.+p, capitalism or statism.
That is the choice which today's political leaders are determined to evade. The ”liberals” are trying to put statism over by steahh-statism of a semi-socialist, semi-fascist kind-without letting the country realize what road they are taking to what ultimate goal. And while such a policy is reprehensible, there is something more reprehensible still: the policy of the ”conservatives,” who are trying to defend freedom by stealth.
[”Conservatism: An Obituary,” CUI. 193.]
The statists' epistemological method consists of endless debates about single, concrete, out-of-context, range-of-the-moment issues, never allowing them to be integrated into a sum, never referring to basic principles or ultimate consequences-and thus inducing a state of intellectual disintegration in their followers. The purpose of that verbal fog is to conceal the evasion of two fundamentals: (a) that production and prosperity are the product of men's intelligence, and (b) that government power is the power of coercion by physical force.
Once these two facts are acknowledged, the conclusion to be drawn is inevitable: that intelligence does not work under coercion, that man's mind will not function at the point of a gun.
[”Let Us Alone!” CUI. 141.]
See also ALTRUISM; CAPITALISM; COLLECTIVISM; COMMUNISM; ”CONSERVATIVES”; DICTATORs.h.i.+P; FASCISM/n.a.z.iSM; GOVERNMENT; INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS; INDIVIDUALISM; INTERVENTIONISM (ECONOMIC); ”LIBERALS”; PHYSICAL FORCE; TRIBALISM; TYRANNY; WAR; WELFARE STATE.
”Stolen Concept,” Fallacy of. The ”stolen concept” fallacy, first identified by Ayn Rand, is the fallacy of using a concept while denying the validity of its genetic roots, i.e., of an earlier concept(s) on which it logically depends.
[Leonard Peikoff, editor's footnote to Ayn Rand's ”Philosophical Detection,” PWNI, 26; pb 22.]
As they feed on stolen wealth in body, so they feed on stolen concepts in mind, and proclaim that honesty consists of refusing to know that one is stealing. As they use effects while denying causes, so they use our concepts while denying the roots and the existence of the concepts they are using.