For the definitive presentation of Objectivist economics, I refer you to The Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Bernstein. It's the most in depth presentation thats been offered to date. Since you didn't actually bring up any points to address I will just refer you this book.

Perhaps a discussion on the idea of value as it relates to money would be in order here to help you understand the possible motivation an Objectivist might have for supporting an organization dedicated to the spread of said ideas...

Francisco's Money Speech would be a good read for you to clarify this. For most Objectivists communicating the ideas and the philosophy to others because we can think of no world that could be greater. Those that don't have the time, or are otherwise involved in a career distinct and seperate from philosophy, might choose to donate time, money, effort, or anything else to support a cause they believe in.

It also provides a community of like-minded people which I think is something that people on a forum filled with atheists can appreciate.

Why Contribute? WHY should anyone GIVE money to the ARI?

Ten Selfish Reasons to Give

How Contributions Help ARI 

You have quite a few misconceptions it seems about Objectivism. I don't think it's constructive for your understanding or for any discussion to sling mud, so raise some more points without doing so in the future, and I'll continue delivering explainations.

I don't appreciate your many insults, and I think they are a discredit to the way you respond to perfect strangers on a forum filled with Atheists looking for a community in a world of superstition and supernatural beliefs.

perhaps your still not convinced about Rands views on money:

"Money is the barometer of a society's virtue." ~Ayn Rand, Issue #62 of The Objectivist Newsletter

You're really not even attempting to be personable about this.

All highschool students afterall, know everything.. amirite? How long has it been since you've been in highschool? Do you think you might possibly could have read ANYTHING wrong, or might possibly slightly have a less than comprehensive understanding of the entirity of the philosophy?

I don't think that it's irrelevant in the slightest. I will demonstrate how these ideas aren't inconsistent for you then.

This only shows exactly how much you don't understand. "Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value."

It is only the concept of Value here that makes money a virtuous endeavor. "Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor--your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money."

A few virtues that I've come across in Objectivism:

Honesty

Justice

Productiveness

Integrity

Independance

Pride

Back to your post now...

And you're treating this quote as if spoken in this context money were not representative of common value to be voluntarily exchanged. That the mere pursuit of and possession of money no matter what, and no matter from whom, or by what means is what the goal of Objectivism is, and it isn't. This once again just demonstrates either your complete willingness to ignore what you've studied about Objectivism, or is evidence that you aren't the expert you're claiming to be.

Interesting how you offer no quotation here so I'll help. [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc7oZ9yWqO4Roark's speech]Howard Roark's Speech on Youtube[/url]

"I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life, nor to any part of my energy, nor to any achievement of mine."

Now I wonder why Roark wasn't just saying "money" in place of "life" "energy" or "achievement" could it be because the possession of money isn't an end in itself for objectivism. Money is just an agreed upon currency, a standard of translating achievement and values into a transferable medium, money is worthless without the people who create the value. Because money is a representation of the fair exchange of value between men, it is said in a fictious novel to be "the root of all good", the language is used to counter the claim that "money is the root of all evil". It's just the maniluation of language for effect in FICTION, this is not the formal delivery of the philsophy and why you've chosen to pluck a sentence among a library to make a judgement on is completely beyond me. The fact that you haven't grasped this in your "extensive highschool study" of Objectivism is only proof that your criticisms are emotionally charged morso than intellectually.

This is completely untrue, and I've already shown you this. "Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money?" ~Francisco's speech.

Here's another little Gem dug up from the formal presentation of Objectivism prepared by Leonard Peikoff and approved by Ayn Rand titled Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand..

"An ultimate value, Ayn Rand observes, is the end-in-itself "which sets the standard by which all lesser goals are evaluated. An Organism's life is it's standard of value: that which furthers its life is the good, that which threatens it is the evil." (212)

That is a direct quote, completely refuting your point, and I've given supporting points.

It isn't the only sign of Achievement, and what is it that you're achieving.. Values. What are values?

A Completely false statement. Money is only given a Value by the people who produce and achieve their values, life is a precondition of said value, without your own life, no values would be possible to you, thus life is the standard of value. Virtue or morality, the code by which people live is the system that enables them to best achieve said values. "Obtaining money by any means necessary" has never been one of them. (sounds like someone in the hip-hop industry might say "Git Muney Yall" haha!)

To expand for you the context with which "money is the root of all good" was used, it was referring to how people regard money. Explained in yet another quotation refuting your arguement below..

"Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion--when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing--when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors--when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you--when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice--you may know that your society is doomed." ~ Francisco's speech.

Only becuase you've ignored the actual understanding of money for Objectivists. You've divorced money from value, and I've given you quotes, and referenced you to the difinitive work on the subject by Andrew Bernstein. Only when you IGNORE the connection that Objectivists draw between value and money can you pretend these statements are contradictory in any sense, and I've already explained why they would want to donate.

Unless, the donation we're talking about is actually an exchange. I exchange a sum of money, or an amount of time volunteering with the aformentioned programs for the satisfaction of knowing that an established and well organized voice for my belief system is spreading the word in constructive ways, helping to create the world in which I want to live.

So again the only way this is possible is for you to..

1) ignore that money is based on value's created by human beings.

2) ignore that value's can be attained, expressed, achieved, in more ways than monetary gain.

Check, and Mate.

You gave me a quote by Rand and then ignored the philosophy in which it rests, you ignored the entire underpinnings and logical extensions of value and money to create an illusory contradiction.

Unless the counter quotes offered EXPAND your understanding and come from the same source, Ayn Rand in both Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead.

Here "pressed" means swarmed and question begged until the person ignores you. It doesn't seem to me like you're even trying to debate intelligible points, you're grabbing a quote and ignoring the rest.

"Re-interpret" here means show you more texts and more passages that expand the understanding of money from how it was used IN A WORK OF FICTION into the formal understanding of it in the formally presented philosophy, in Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.

I've shown you otherwise. Only through a constriction of awareness and of the magnitude in which these one-liners you're pulling up exist can you create these illusory contradictions.

Is there any need to be rude?

You were addressing me and quoting me. 1) I have already demonstrated that you're understanding of the philosophy is lacking. and 2) there's no reason for you to sterotype a self-proclaimed student of Objectivism based on Ayn Rand's life and lastly 3) I think it's generally acceptable that if you want to criticize something you need more than a few quotes with your own spin on them. I've give you some counter quotes from the same books you used, and pointed out where your reasoning has failed in this criticism.

I supposed I should just resort to direct insults as you've done? right? becuase those are always constructive when debating topics?

cheezues, you have proven me wrong with regards to Rands view of money.  I was mistaken.  I learn something new today.  Thanks.

Even after I've demonstrated that you don't even understand the ideas you're criticizing?

I agree with you completely here.

A lot of libertarians will take issue with you on this one, Knight_of_BAAWA is one of my favorite posters here, and on www.atheistforums.com.

Here's a history lesson for you, only to the extent that government involve itself in economics do any monopolies exist.

It hasn't been just tested partner, it's been proven superior in the West. Does the term "super power" mean anything to you? Maybe that will be the next history lesson.

To critique Lazzie Faire Capitalism even though it's never existed in it's purest form seems a little odd. Odd because you're judging it in practice, even though it's never been in practice.. history lesson time.. Mixed economies have existed with strong capitalist foundations, but none that were Lazzie Faire. Andrew Bernstein's book The Capitalist Manifesto goes into great detail about this, for a less than complete outline check out Ayn Rand's Captialism: The Unknown Ideal. A lot of history in those books supporting Capitalism.

Lazzie Faire Capitalism requires self governing Citizens with the balls to pull the plug on companies that they disagree with, by not buying their products or investing in their company. To much freedom can be a bad thing though amirite? Some decisions are best left up to big brother, amirite? Companies know that if you mistreat your workers they won't stay becaues competition is looking to hire and they have better working conditions... that mentality keeps sweat shops extinct, or if they crop up, they exist for a short amount of time. Please don't equate modern factories with hot machinery and average temperatures pushing 100 degrees like it's a sweatshop. Benefits are purchased through a company just like they would be from an insurance company, only the money comes out of your check so the illusion of not spending any money for it creeps up. You're paying for it, benefits can be privatized and made more efficient and more beneficial if companies didn't have to deal with them. I work part time in a bakery in the IT department, I'm not offered coverage, so I buy it myself from an insurance company. My coverage is better than my fellow emoployees, and in a cost/benefit analysis they pay less, but I get way more. Thats that concept of value again there.

WoW great arguement. *taps out*

So now we're criticizing just "capitalism" and not "lazzie faire capitalism?" Objectivism isn't an advocate of watered down capitalism.

What about sweatshops, they aren't slaveryshops and they aren't the only options availble? Conditions have improved STOP USING STRAW MEN PLZ. Disregard for the environment was a product of the engineering that took place when these places were constructed, as we are modernizing industry environmentally conscious practices are instituted VOLUNTARILY for the most part.

Prove them wrong. Thats why I'm here defending it, I want someone presenting arguements about this philosophy. Arguements, not ad hominems, debating points and not slinging mud.

You've failed thusfar to prove ANY of the points wrong, unless you consider reality by assertion an arguement.

"Look at the way she behaved." as though direct and immediate awareness were available in such a quantity that would qualify you to judge her. Is this, pretending to be smart?

The kicker, omniscience of her private and otherwise tabloided life. I'll admit, and have already several posts earlier, that this woman made what I would consider some mistakes, but the ideas within the philosophy are unaffected. I study very little of Ayn Rands life anymore. No one studies the life of Aristotle specifically to criticize his behavior relative to his philosophy, and very few philosophers recieve that treatment. Not because their lives were in contradiction with their pronounced beliefs, but because they didn't attract the attention that Ayn Rand did.

You have to remember that her fiction came first, best sellers, and voted by readers, Atlas Shrugged, as the second most influential novel of the 20th century, 2nd only to the bible. Her popularity was immediate, with popularity comes criticism even before her philosophy was documented in formal arguement. EVEN then her entire philosophy was presented in a single unit until 1991 with the release of Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.

The point is that It is a strawman arguement to dismiss Objectivism on the percieved inconsistancies of Ayn Rands behavior.

Thank you, I think this is a distinction that more students of Objectivism need to make. 

 The nice thing about the "human element" is that, as thousands of years of dogma have demonstrated, culture and religion (or philosophy) once learned remain as very strong and motivating forces for individuals.  Replacing meme's like "judge not lest ye be judged" with a meme more like "judge (in the sense of using your mind to understand) and be prepared to be judged" (taking responsibility for your own actions -individualism-) would be some good ways to start.  It's definitely not going to happen over night, but some promising figures that I find comfort in are the sustained increase in the number of copies sold per year of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.  If objectivism had a gateway these are that gateway and more people every year are exposing themselves and probably their friends to these ideas.

About implimentation, a society that accepts certain cultural norms to be norms creates an atmosphere where those norms are  phsychologically easier to find motivation for.  The highly respectable virtues that I listed in a previous post are basic goals intertwined and thoroughly defined as a goal.  100% consistency is not the goal of Objectivism.  Human beings are completely fallable, for sure, but with an explicit acceptance, and even more importantly an understanding, of a philosophy that helps you identify your own behavior in the context of not only your own potential but of the entire world increases your ability to achieve these things.  Another important thing about them is that they aren't impossible, lapses or failings are made apparent through introspection, the feeling of inconsistency.

Bottom line I guess is that I don't have a master plan for some kind of global conversion to any particular philosophy, I do as I feel any individual should and that is, whatever they choose, I choose to do all I can.  Grass Roots type stuff.  I give speeches at my college, I talk to christians daily (I live in Kentucky, how could I not) I'm openly atheistic and cordial about it in the work place, and I generally understand the big questions in life a little more than average people because we're such a faith entrenched culture right now.  Most of the paper work I do in college entails this philosophy in some way, and I've recieved some feedback about it from professors who know it's nothing new.  The only example I have is that human beings are all-in-all a lot more alike than they are different, in their wants and their means, and myself and a close knit network of friends that believe in this philosophy and live it as best we can.

Religions start off just the way philosophies do, whether it's Jesus or Ayn Rand.  No Originator is perfect, nor original, but they leave behind a little something special that acts as a vehicle for the spread of ideas, a glimpse into the world they feel ought to be, they vision of the world as they feel it should be.  I just think Objectivism has a lot of things going for it, Book Sales being number 1, The Ayn Rand Institute, The Nathaniel Branden Institute, and just the power these ideas carry.

I understand. 

Throughout the book he references a lot of Ayn Rands work through direct quotation.  The only differences are in communication and organization really, Peikoff as a Doctor of Philosophy and a native English speaker can expand on the ideas Ayn matched together in ways that she just linguistically could not.  Language limited her in a lot of ways, she knew this and hated it, but was unable to overcome it.  The importance is that this book, while nuances may be improved, was based on a lecture series by Dr. Peikoff that Ayn herself attended and critiqued.  At the end of Peikoff's course Ayn wrote, "Until or Unless I write a comprehensive treatise on my philosophy, Dr. Peikoff's course is the only authorized presentation of the entire theoretical structure of Objectivism - that is, the only one that I know of my own knowledge to be fully accurate."  As I said before though I've been a student of Objectivism for nearly a decade now and I've read everything there is to be read but continue to study because I feel that no time is being wasted in solidifying my understanding of this philosophy.

You're absolutely right that it cannot exist with the current social and ethical climate, no objection from me on that one.  No, once again here, I don't have some master plan laid out, this is a long term goal that really can only begin once reason is accepted over faith, I think religion is the best place to start in moving toward a society more ideal as it is directly tracable to a good share of the injustice, cruelty and unreason in our world.

This was just an allusion and a very indirect comparison.  phrased another way it might have said, "People will believe how they're conditioned to believe, or to think how they're conditioned to think, rationally or otherwise.  They believe in some crazy shit now, like god, so instilling a belief of beneficial taxation, something thats actually true and directly percievable isn't as far fetched as it's being made out to seem."   This was strictly about conditioning people to believer certain things, some starters would be independance, and reason, instead of filling a childs head with bullshit we could be doing so much better for them, and for ourselves.

No arguement, "society as it now exists" would crumble if we were to shift into voluntary taxes.  Laws, or repealing laws, that help us move in one direction or another is where a good focal point would be, and replicating better memes.  "Freedom is only possible with a self-governing citizenship." something like that, a thomas jefferson paraphrase.

Simple? On paper or in practice?

Simple but slow, in practice.  Simple on paper but constant.  We're already doing it, I mean the consciousness of Americans in general is being raise day by day about Atheism, we're getting media exposure, and it's happening slowly but surely.  My little brother is a physics major and the flying spaghetti monster is a favorite topic in the physics department in our local college WKU, the funny thing is that he didn't know the history or purpose of what the FSM represents, when I explained it to him - relating it to atheism - and revealing it as a parody religion to point out burtrand russels celestial teapot arguement - he told everyone in the physics department (it's a small department here).  Some of them already knew, some of them didn't, but they were talking about the FSM either way, now it's meaning will at least have a chance to stick in a few more minds, which is just a few more replica's.  Steps toward a more ideal state of the world.  Simple things like that Add up.

In addition to little memes like "Terrorists flying planes into our skyscrapers was a faith-based initiative" work well too. 

Maybe not the rational response squad specifically, but we're all backing a secular, rational worldview, and that can be manifest and promoted in more ways than just this.  Theism as a minority is inevitable because as time moves on reason will continue successfully and faith will continue to fail, when is just a matter of how much each of us does.  Here is An interesting talk about how  evolution of technology is exponential in growth http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/38  The point of that talk is just to point out how fast things are moving, as opposed to 300, 500, 1000, 2000 years ago the transfer of idaes is lightyears above and beyond what it was, that is a strong case for the desmination of the truth about religion.

The proof of Ayn being useless for philosophy is in her backing of capitalism, a failed concept. And in quantifying selfishness above all. Society may exist because of the self, but the self must coinhabit society with other selves. Holding the self as more valuable than the collective society is to abandon that which society was created for: Advancement and self defense. Lack of self defense and advancement(which society can provide, the self cannot) = extinction. Rand is a moron.

I would say so. It's origins come from before recorded history, and it still hasn't managed to achieve prosperity for all. Obviously it doesn't work. Or at the least, it doesn't work with us.

I don't see any concern for others in the removal of charities and volunteerism, and effectively the worship of material goods above all else.

I can't access youtube, google video, or 99% of other video carrying/gaming/etc sites anymore. Some idiots in Montreal were surfing porn too much so they put a net nanny on the whole national system and went overboard with it. *kicks Montreal*

Still, as I haven't read much more than bits here and there about her I must concede that I might not know as much as I think I do. But her economic policy is incompatible with reality as I percieve it. And I have yet to hear anyone speak positively about her either.

Even in the beginnings of economic developement, after the agricultural revolution there are tons of examples.  In ancient mesopotamia when tradesmen were actually made possible because of the surplus production of crops, the free trade between people of differing professions enabled more efficient means of specific types of production to ensue.  That is the absolute basic essence of capitalism.  Capitalism is where life began.

Look at systems that have failed since, feudalism, communism, anarchy, all of which entail state seizure of assets whether it's feudal lords or kings demanding tribute.  No different than welfare and social security taxes, government sponsored monopolies and regulations on international trade that do nothing but stagnate the progress and production of wealth for the entire world.

Life is actually the ultimate value and precondition of all values in Objectivism, and an individual has a right to control and do with what he pleases his OWN life.

No such "removal" exists, the only things Objectivism objects too are things like welfare which are forms of FORCED charity, which isn't charity at all, it's government redistribution of wealth to those who haven't earned it.

This begs the question, was society "created" for sustaining some "collective?"  Societies came about through developements by individuals that have improved the health and living conditions of everyone.  Society isn't created, they formed without agenda through a process of  natural selection motivated by the human desire to live, their recognition of that ultimate value, as opposed to death.  Coexisting within groups and communities was never a motivating factor, when it was someone collecting the resources produced for the purpose of redistribution was usually shaving quite a bit off the top or taking the entire thing for themselves.

Individuals lack the ability to defend themselves?  I disagree and I don't think you've got any arguement that could support an individuals inability to defend itself.  Again, just another indefensible assertion. 

Good thing your government makes those decisions for you huh, take that burden off your shoulders.  Who needs freedom anyway? *kicks Montreal*  I mean, the government ought to punish everyone when only some of the people do something they've criminalized through law.  Some people watch pr0n on HBO, no more TV for j000

 But you've just said that you don't percieve her policy as accurately as you thought, so any judgment you make critical or otherwise is unfounded and uninformed, regardless of how you see reality because both of these elements must be considered to make these kinds of statements.

I'll be the first then. 

It makes no sense, I know.

Perhaps I would stop insulting you if you stopped acting like a moron.  However, when you equate "sweatshops" with the heat of the building and machines, well, its kinda hard NOT to call you a moron.

 You have provided no evidence for why lasse faire capitalism is good.  I explained, and provided evidence, for why it is nothing more than explotation.

All you could counter with was that monopoly's are the result of government interference.  This is not just plain false, it is absolutely moronic.  Anti-trust laws were put in place, percisely to stop monopolies.  Not potential monopolies...monopolies already in business.  do either Carnegie Steel Company or Standard Oil ring any bells?

I don't know what you base your claims on.  Perhaps, your just pulling shit out of your ass.

I hope you say something intelligent than.

Stop winning.  I don't really give a shit if you think im a prick.  Make a point or shut the fuck up.  Please, do one of these two options.

Glad to see I am not the only person noticing his idiocy.

Thats how he works.  Moves from one lie to another.  Persumably to support his moronic capitalist ideology. 

When someone peddles idiocy, I will call him on it.  I don't care if he is an atheist.  He is making stupid arguments, and we are calling him on it. 

"Companies know that if you mistreat your workers they won't stay becaues competition is looking to hire and they have better working conditions..."

The person who wrote the above statement is a fucking moron.  Basically, he is saying that if companies mistreat their employees, they will go out of business.  Tell me thats not just plain moronic, tod?  The person that said this, either sustained a head injury or is an idiot. 

Right, it needs to control 100% of the market.  90% isn't good enough, it must control 100%.  We can safely assume that 90% is good enough to be considered a monopoly.

Right, this is what we can expect from a capitalist society.  Why do you think it is given permission?  Why choose one business over another for a monopoly?  It all comes back to money.  Who supports the political campaignes.  Who takes the politicians out to dinner, and lines their pockets.

We can expect this from a capitalist society...they can be predicted.  When the accumulation of wealth is the societies highest virtue, those who have the most of it, will have the most power.  Thus, those with the most power will use it to their advantage, by influencing the government.  All this crap you're complaining about, is the direct result of capitalism.  It would be even worse if it was lasse faire capitalism.

Hence, the capitalist...whom you love so much, are simply using the government to make more money.  This is how capitalism works.

The lesser of two evils, is still an evil.  In any game-theoretic context, conditions get worse and worse.  So you point is that you conceed that capitalism is bad for many companies...but it is still slighly better than the countries own economic system?  Do you not see how moronic this is?

Capitalist companies go into countries, funnels all the resources out of the country, poisons the enviornment, and treats the workers bad.  Who gives a fuck if it was worse before they got there?  Who gives a shit?  

So the people should be greatful that instead of giving them 30 lashings they only give them 20?  The conditions still suck.  Moreover, they suck so bad, I bet you wouldn't work in them.  Tell me right now, would you work in the conditions capitalist countries maintain in third-world countries?  If not, you admit the conditions are terrible.  If you wouldn't put up with these conditions, why expect others to?  Are the people in the third-world not as human as you?

Pointing out an evil and saying that it is less evil in relation to something else, does not mean that both are not evil!  Hitler was worse than Ted Bundy.  So what? 

its the product of many other things too.  This is irrelevant.  Companies have to conform to enviornmental laws in America, or they are fined.  When they go to countries that do not have these laws, they dispose of waste the CHEAPEST way possible.  Look up 3M.  They are "enviornmentally concious" in America, but not in South America.  Why?  Because the government is forcing them to act like fucking decent human beings.  Without companies being watched like 5 year old children, they will do whatever they can get away with.  So why not dispose of waste properly?  That costs alot more money then just dumping it in the river.

Right, this is not the issue...obviously.  The issue is how they deal with the waste.

I am talking about the present also.  3M is STILL dumping waste into the river.  It is not a matter of "oh no, this didn't turn out as we expected."  It wasn't like a failed experiment.  I get that people make mistakes.  I am talking about a blatent disregard for the enviornment, with the knowledge that what they are doing is poisioning the planet, and its people.   This is indefensibe.

Its not a matter of an oversight.  People know that it isn't good to dump waste into the river.  5 year olds understand this.  Companies do this, because they just don't fucking care.  Moreover, isn't it just common sense that if you dump waste into drinking water, this isn't good?  I bet they don't drink the water they dump in.  Why?  Because they know its bad, but don't care.

Except its not becoming less of a problem.

basically.

No, its you who are so far out on these issues.  Probably because you get your information from the propagandists over at the Ayn Rand Institute.

No, its "work for wal-mart or starve."  You fucking people have the mistaken notion that "force" only comes in the physical form.  It also comes in the implied socio-economic situation.  The situation is "work for a shit wage, or starve...make a choice ya prick."  This is the same nonsense we hear from people who say "if she doesn't like it, she can quit."  Right, because the bills pay themselves while she is looking for another job. 

Do you honestly think these people work at Wal-Mart if they had a better choice?  People do it, because they have to live.  Society is structed in such a way, that people are forced into these situations if they want to live. 

The illusion of choice...is not choice.

so what?  So they are treated as badly as before.  They are still treated badly.  So what the hell is your point?

Right, be a slave and live, or starve.  Is this really any different that putting a gun to someones head?

Oh really?  Check this out:

"n Honduras, teenage girls and young women were found sewing clothing for TV talk-show host Kathie Lee Gifford's apparel line sold at Wal-Mart. Girls as young as 13 to 15 years old worked long hours, usually from 7:30 am to 9:00 pm, Monday through Friday. Because of forced overtime to meet rush orders, the children were not permitted to attend night school, where from 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm they could have studied to complete their grammar school educations"

"According to independent labor rights organizations in Hong Kong, a living wage in China would be about $0.87/hour. Minimum wage rates vary as they are set by each provincial government, however, they do not meet this living wage. Shanghai's minimum is $0.21/hour, and Guangzhou's $0.26/hour. ("Behind the Label: Made in China," March 1998, Charles Kernaghan/National Labor Committee.)"

http://www.sweatshopwatch.org/index.php?s=67

" By Julie Su, Co-Founder & Board Member of Sweatshop Watch, Litigation Director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center

Published in No Sweat: Fashion, Free Trade and the Rights of Garment Workers, Verso, 1997.
Photo by Phil Bonner.

On August 2, 1995, the American public was horrified by press reports about the discovery at an apartment complex in El Monte, California, of seventy-two Thai garment workers who had been held in slavery for up to seventeen years, sewing clothes for some of the nation's top manufacturers and retailers. The workers labored over eighteen hours a day in a compound enclosed by barbed wire. Armed guards imposed discipline. Crowded eight or ten into bedrooms built for two, rats crawled over them during their few precious hours of sleep. From their homes in impoverished rural Thailand, these women and men had dared to dream the immigrant's dream--a better life for themselves, hard work with just pay, and decent living conditions. What they found instead was an immigrant's nightmare--a garment industry that reaps exorbitant profit from its workers, organized to disclaim any responsibility for the inhumane consequences.

Starvation wages, long hours, and illegal working conditions are standard business practices in the industry, and the El Monte story has helped to dramatize public awareness of these crimes. But the story told here is about how workers have endured, and have mobilized to bring about change.

The Thai workers were industrial homeworkers, forced to eat, sleep, live and work in the place they called "home." The slave labor compound where they were confined was a two-story apartment with seven units, surrounded by a ring of razor wire and iron guardrails with sharp ends pointing inward. Their captors, who supervised garment production and enforced manufacturer specifications and deadlines, ruled through fear and intimidation. Workers were forbidden to make unmonitored phone calls or write uncensored letters, and were forced to purchase goods from their captors, who charged four to five times the market price for food, toiletries, and other daily necessities. Living under the constant threat of harm to themselves and to their families in Thailand, they labored over sewing machines in dark garages and poorly lit rooms, making clothes for brand-name manufacturers sold in some of the biggest retail stores in America: labels like Tomato, Clio, B.U.M., High Sierra, Axle, Cheetah, Anchor Blue, and Airtime. Many of these labels are privately owned and sold by well-known retailers--Mervyn's, Miller's Outpost, and Montgomery Ward. Others are sold on the racks of May department stores, Nordstrom, Sears, Target, and elsewhere.

Immediately following the disclosure of conditions at El Monte, Sweatshop Watch, a coalition of organizations, attorneys, and community members, mobilized to bring support and social and legal services to the Thai workers with the aim of securing their release from further detention at the hands of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Formerly known as the Coalition to Eliminate Sweatshop Conditions, Sweatshop Watch was formed in 1992 as a statewide network. Southern California members include the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles, Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates, Thai Community Development Center, and UNITE. Northern California members include the Asian Immigrant Women Advocates, Asian Law Caucus, and Equal Rights Advocates, among others.

Working around the clock, members of Sweatshop Watch demanded to meet with the Thai workers in INS detention to advise them of their legal rights and to advocate for their release. In detention, the workers were frightened and bewildered. Forced to wear drab yellow prison uniforms, they were shackled by the INS each time they were transported from federal detention at Terminal Island in San Pedro to the downtown Los Angeles facility. Using a makeshift office consisting of the pay phones in the INS basement waiting room, Sweatshop Watch broadcast the message that continued imprisonment of the workers was not only inhumane, but also conveyed the wrong impression about justice in the United States: that workers who have been exploited and abused will be punished further and sent to the INS if they come forward. This practice discourages workers from reporting labor and human rights abuses, and pushes operations like the El Monte slaveshop even further underground.

With the help of the news media, which focused public scrutiny on the inaction of federal agencies, Sweatshop Watch held the INS office open into the wee hours of the morning and refused to accept any bureaucratic excuses for denying the workers their freedom. After meeting with federal prosecutors and public defenders to obtain bail reduction for each worker from $5,000 to $500, an appeal was sent out to the community that bonds were needed. Sweatshop Watch members themselves posted over fifty bonds. Churches, shelters, supermarkets, and hospitals stepped forward to help provide transitional housing, emergency food and clothing, and medical care. One worker, whose teeth had rotted from long neglect and who had extracted eight of his own teeth while confined in El Monte, received a brand new set from a generous dentist. Taking the lead from the Thai Community Development Center, Sweatshop Watch conducted a job search on behalf of the workers. This was no mean task in the garment industry, since it meant locating jobs that pay the minimum wage and overtime in shops that comply with health and safety laws. All of the Thai workers were re-employed within two months, a testament to the efforts of the community-based organizations working in coalition.

After the August 2 raid, eight of the immediate operators of the slave sweatshop were taken into federal custody, charged with involuntary servitude, kidnapping, conspiracy, smuggling, and harboring of the Thai workers. In February 1996, they pled guilty to--among other charges--criminal counts of involuntary servitude and conspiracy. The courageous testimony of the Thai workers made this criminal case possible, but their legal struggle has not ended there. As heinous as the conduct of the sweatshop operators was, it represents only the outward continuum of abuse in the garment industry. The true culprits responsible for slave labor in California are the retailers and manufacturers.

The El Monte compound was just one unit of a slave sweatshop operation which, as early as 1988, ran various locations in downtown Los Angeles, where Latina and Latino workers toiled long hours seven days a week for subminimum wages in unsanitary and degrading conditions. Each location performed a different role in the garment manufacturing process, together constituting one business operation sharing common ownership, control, coordination, and assets. The Latina workers downtown sewed buttons and buttonholes and performed ironing, finishing, checking, and packaging. The El Monte site was one of the locations where cut cloth was actually sewn into garments. The garment manufacturers employed the Thai and Latino workers' services through enterprises supervised by the sweatshop owners, operating as SK fashions, and D&R Fashions. Their downtown facilities, with fewer than ten sewing machines between them during all of 1995, could not possibly have produced the volume of garments, to the quality and specifications, with the turnaround time demanded by manufacturers. In fact, clothes were sent from these front shops to El Monte and another unregistered production site to be sewn to manufacturers' specifications and patterns. The manufacturers' quality-control inspectors either knew or should have known that the orders they were giving to the sweatshop operators could not possibly have been filled at the downtown front shops. Had manufacturers taken their legal responsibilities seriously, the El Monte slave site would have been discovered and the workers' suffering ended much sooner.

The example of El Monte demonstrates how easily illegal conditions in the garment industry can deteriorate from sweatshop to slaveshop under the existing industrial system. In response to this system, the Thai and Latino workers have filed a landmark civil rights lawsuit in Federal District Court in Los Angeles. Peonage and involuntary servitude violate the U.S. Constitution and many other laws: the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), the minimum wage an overtime compensation requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act and the California Labor Code, federal and state prohibitions on industrial homework, false imprisonment, extortion, and unfair business practices. The lawsuit holds responsible not only individual operators of the slave sweatshop but also the manufacturers and retailers whose profits were secured on the backs of slave labor. In addition to their immediate captors, the Thai and Latino workers have named Mervyn's, Miller's Outpost, B.U.M. International, Montgomery Ward, Tomato, L.F. Sportswear, New Boys, and Bigin in their suit.

The lawsuit strikes at the heart of the so-called subcontracting system endemic to the multibillion dollar garment industry, whereby sweatshop operators act, in effect, as supervisors and managers of labor on behalf of manufacturers and retailers, who exercise all meaningful control over the industry. The lawsuit charges that the latter are actually joint employers of garment workers and as such, bound by all the provisions of federal and state labor laws. Manufacturers counterclaim that sweatshop workers are not employees but, rather, independent contractors. However, nominal contracting relationships are routinely ignored under both federal and state law, where an analysis of the factors underlying the relationship belies the independent contractor status. Thus, manufacturers employed these workers in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the California Labor Code, the Industrial Homework Act's prohibition on homework, and the Garment Manufacturing Registration Act's requirements on wages, hours, safety, and registration. To the response that sweatshop operators were paid the "industry standard" or "fair market value," the lawsuit charges that, in an industry where all prices are substandard and artificially depressed by rampant abuses, the "industry standard" itself is an illegal one. Indeed, this response only highlights workers' points that manufacturers sustain and profit from an industry that operates outside the law.

So far, the workers can claim several victories, including a number of settlements critical in helping them rebuild their lives. In March 1996, the manufacturers and retailers sought to have the case dismissed, claiming the workers had no basis for bringing them to court. The U.S. District Court refused to grant the motion, rejecting the manufacturers' argument that they cannot be deemed joint employers. This decision was a major setback for the manufacturers and retailers, who have hired some of the most upscale law firms in California to defend them, firms that have flooded the workers with endless discovery requests and withheld crucial information on the companies' actual practices. In June 1996, the Latino workers employed at the downtown facilities joined the Thai workers in their legal battle. The inclusion of the Latino workers in this suit sends a broader warning to manufactures and retailers throughout the industry. In March 1997, the trial judge refused to dismiss the workers' claims that violations of the hot goods provision of the FLSA by retailers constitutes negligence: if sweatshop owners are the agents of retailers, then these violations do fall under the contracting relationship. With this important hurdle crossed, the case proceeded to summary judgement in the summer of 1997.

On trial here are not simply the conditions of involuntary servitude behind barbed wire, but all sweatshop conditions throughout the garment industry. In filing this lawsuit, the workers are suing not only to win back wages, but to put the entire industry on notice that this kind of exploitation must stop. While the Thai workers have come a long way in the last year--they have been studying English, taking the bus to work, paying their own bills, buying their own groceries--they have also entered the unenviable world of immigrant garment workers, who toil long hours and struggle to survive on the minimum wage. Their freedom from enslavement has not meant freedom from poverty or a host of other problems stemming from the long years of neglect to their health, physical exhaustion, and psychological abuse. It is difficult to evaluate the emotional costs of their ordeal, and impossible to place a monetary value on each day of freedom from which they were deprived.

In the face of anti-immigrant hysteria, these Thai and Latina workers are defying attempts to divide them along ethnic lines, and are appealing to U.S. law to remedy the kind of labor abuses that permit powerful forces to blame the victim. When workers face retaliation, intimidation, or deportation for standing up for their rights and pursuing legal redress, garment industry giants will continue to exploit them with impunity. With this lawsuit, the Thai and Latina workers say, "no more."

One-time handouts will not change the structure of an industry explicitly organized to protect profit and privilege and to depress wages and working conditions. Government forums and calls for good corporate consciences are not enough. Manufacturers and retailers will continue to flagrantly disregard the law as long as they can get away with it. The workers' lawsuit is a warning that is long overdue. It is high time these corporate employers invested as much in the basic dignity of the workers who make their clothes as they invest in lawsuits to silence workers, creative advertising, and fancy marketing techniques.

Learn more about the El Monte Slave Sweatshop and how it helped to galvanize support for the anti-sweatshop movement:

• "Between a Rock & A Hard Place: A History of American Sweatshops, 1820-Present" An interactive web site featuring photos and video clips of the El Monte Slave Sweatshop."

 http://www.sweatshopwatch.org/index.php?s=68

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 So...it seems that your wrong...once again...as usual.

This is a pure republican lie.  It is not abused as much as people think.  This is pure nonsense designed to drum up hatred for poor people.  Go study sociology, please.

so we should let these people rot and die?  Fuck you.  Think people enjoy being homeless?  You make it sound like its just one big barrol of laughs.  Most people are not homeless due to their own doing.  They are that way for either psychological problems, or they fell into some bad luck.  Homeless people and drug addicts need help, not to be pushed aside as being "of no use."

Right, because SOME people abuse it...we should do away with it.   Give me a break.

I know people who grew up in communist russia.  It wasn't as bad as people thought...atleast after Stalin.  Everyone had a job, everyone got to eat...it took care of its citizens.

by structuring a society in such a way that no one went hungry.  How would a charity feed people?  It gives them food you fucking moron.  When people are down on their luck, they would still get feed.  Look how Russia was structured.  In the later parts of communist russia, there wasn't mass starvation like in America.

Right, if you're rich and want healthcare, come to America.  If you poor, go to Canada.  This was not in dispute.  America has great health care...for the rich.

Its not.  Thats why we have 30,000,000 people without any health insurance.  The technology is there...most people can't afford it however.  The wealthy can...the poor cannot.  

Basically.  Capitalism gives good health care to the rich, and shitty health care to the poor.  This was my point.

Bullshit.  No one says they shouldn't be payed well.  You are just lieing about what I am claiming.  I am claiming that everyone has a right to good health care.  They are extremely valuable...no one denies this.  So please, stop lieing.

When did I say I supported all the tenents of socialism?  Please, stop assuming things about me.

Stop lieing.  I know its hard for a propagandist to do, but please try.

wrong, as usual.  Stop acting like an asshole.  This is nothing more than capitalist propoganda.  There is no evidence that this is a wide spread phenomena.  Please, stop your lieing.

They are called people, not gutter rats, you stupid fuck.  Show some godamn respect.  These people deserve more then to be labeled "gutter rats."  They are people, you stupid fuck. 

You really think thats how it works?  Do you know how hard it is to apply for these programs?  Very.  You obviously know nothing of what you talk about.  

When did I blame the industrial revolution?  Stop ladeling me as anti-technology.  This is false, and you are simply lieing now!  

------------

Im done with you.  I have neither the time nor energy to deal with a propogandist and a liar.  Your a liar pushing an ideological adjenda.  We all see it.    

Why did you respond?  I told you I am done with you.  I am not wasting anymore of my time with your lies, falsehoods and propoganda.  Go sell your bullshit elsewhere, we are all stocked up here.

Becaues your arguements are easily dismantled, but I told everyone already that I'm in this thread to defend and help everyone understand Objectivism, that means explaining your bullshit too regardless of whether or not you choose to continue. 

By "done with you" you mean fresh out of insults I'm assuming, because thats all you've done.

Not to be outdone by a post that dismantled your arguements, you got some nice last second jabs in before CONCEEDING, calling me names...  as if you did anything else previously.

Not until chaoslord jumped in slinging mud, now that he's decided not to participate it should shape up to be the kind of atmosphere where rational individuals can actually communicate.

No, because I don't want to waste anymore time on dipshits like you.

Do you ever stop lying?  I gave arguments and links.  I may not like you, but at least I am not lying about you.

Sorry, but Randians are worse than fundies when it comes to reason.  Don't hid behind reason, you don't trump reason.  I would rather deal with a fundie than some piece of shit Randian any day of the week.

for the record, I never claimed I said Global Warming was caused by humans.  I have rejected this nonsense for years.  You can ask todangst or hillbillyatheist.  I have argued against it over on IG.

Don't equate my "enviornmentalism" with supporting global warming. 

The point of me referencing this video was about resisting America's attempts to develope the undeveloped world. Resistance to Capitalism is made here through the vehicle of environmentalism... Africa has oil and coal that the world pressures them to leave alone. As the movie says, forcing the Africans to only use wind and solar power, is to deny them the luxury of electricity. You know capitalism would have oil pumping and coal mines and power plants going in no time, africa would be a 100 years away from developing if only people would let capitalism do it's thing.

no insinuations were made regarding your stance on environmentalism or global warming, this just highlights what the product is, the end result of keeping capitalism out of Africa... denying Africans a decent life.

It's in the last 15 minutes of the vid.

But their are many, ipso facto, more societies structured similar to socialism/anarchism that function just fine.  Look at many tribal societies.  Many of them do not have leaders that force people to listen to them.  The people work for the benefit of the tribe...and oddly enough, they have lower rates of crime, poverty and mental illness.

It is simply a capitalist lie that people are naturally greedy.  Tribal societies act as a reductio against this claim.  Moreover, these societies function just fine.  If someone doesn't do their fair share, well, they are black-balled.  Moreover, it isn't "dog-eat-dog."  If someone fucks up and doesn't catch a hog one day, no big deal.  They still get feed.  There is a nice social net, with mutal cooperation.

Right, and this was my point.  lasse faire capitalism, right or wrong, is idealistic.  This is the poin that Cheezues doesn't get.  When I point out various things wrong with capitalism, Cheezues says "ah, but thats not how lasse faire capitalism works!"  Correct, but this is irrelevant.  When put into practice, lasse faire capitalism morphs into something else...it evolves shall we say.  For the same reason that socialism, when implemented, evolves into something else.  To focus on the idealization, even after the implementation failed, is to be blinded by ideology; one is letting their politics cloud their judgement.

I will once again use socialism to illustrate this point.  Marx wanted to create a utopian society, when everone worked for the equal amount of money.  A preliminary government would be set up, and over time it would dissolved, and we would all live in a society of science, reason, equality and so forth.  Religion would go away, and we would have heaven on earth.  Sounds good eh?

Sadly, when this was implemented, we got a distorted version of marxism.  Now, I could say "ah!  This isn't REALLY socialism...Lenin bastardized it, it was more of a dictatorship."  But this is irrelevant.  This is what it evolved into.  The idealization can never be achieved, for persisely this reason.  What works "in theory" does not always work "in practice."  To deny the effects of a political theory by hiding behind the idealization nothing more than wishful thinking.

This is what Cheezues is doing.  I bring up government controlled monopolies, and he says "ah!  But this is not how capitalism works...it contradicts the very notion of no government interference in business."  Correct, it contradicts the idealization.  We don't live in an idealization...so, sorry Cheezues.  This is why I gave up on him.  He wasn't seeing this.

You have it backwards.  You have supporters of global warming using it for political purposes.  If you look at the science of "global warming" you will see it is, ipso facto, real.  However, the cause is not humans.  Watch the documentry, it said many of the same things I was saying over on IG.

Global Warming is a scientific issue, to be settled by scientists.  Not a political one.

The majority of earth scientists believe that the cause of global warming is not due to humans.  So you can believe scientists, or Al Gore who has a political adjenda.  Hard choice?

This is a lie.  It is the established view among politically correct liberals.  Not among scientists.

This is a scientific issue, not a political one.

So you're saying people who are against the claim that humans caused global warming are for raping the earth?  Im against it, but im still an enviornmentalist.  This is like saying people who are skeptical of UFO's are against the search for life on other planets.  It makes no sense.  Global Warming is a scientific issue...period, end of the fucking discussion. 

I'm going to respond to a few things you've said strafio, but I think you ought to read the earlier posts. 

Everyone has an idea of who has rights to what, Objectivism and indeed libertarians believe that individuals have a right to their own life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Having the right to your own life entails having the right to the fruits of your own effort, unlike anyone who endorses any concept of forced siezure of assets for the purpose of redistribution.  You can't take away someone's right to their own life, you can only violate that right.

I don't think anyone has a "right" to an education, I know fewer people than we like to think certainly don't exercise that "right."  Most of the kids I knew in highschool didn't give a shit, the one's that understood it's worth took advantage of the opportunity.  I think as a civilization education should be a very high value shared by everyone, but it's not a fundamental right.  The right exists in a persons ability to freely pursue the end of educating their kids, and themselves if they so choose.  Pressures of course will exist in a Capitalistic civilization to make the value in education more apparent than this faith-laden American environment does.

Even if that is true, it's not my arguement, that's just a prediction, a statement that rests on more fundamental prerequisites.  That kind of atmosphere is unthinkable given our current state, we've got a lot of things keeping us back intellectually as a human race.  My arguement is both difficult to form and difficult to grasp at the same time, because it's so hard to compare the masses of ignorant citizens as they exist now to what Objectivism projects as an ideal world because of the difference in atmosphere.  A lot of our stunted growth morally can easily be attributed to religion, so I'll leave that at that because Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins have shown it to be true very eloquently.  I especially like Sam Harris pointing toward the more secular nations in the world, Australia, Norway, Sweden, and talking about their crime rates, their education levels and how they provide a really nice light for Atheists to project positive atheism, they are the living breathing example of more Atheistic nations with less theistic governments.  Australia is an especially funny example, because it began with NOTHING BUT CRIMINALS, and aborignals, and the crime rate is lower than ours, lol! Just think about the small differences between our country and European, and those other places.  Think about the progress the human race has made since the European Enlightenment and it's not difficult to fathom that such a world can exist eventually.

 A good way to put potential progress into perspective might be to check out Ray Kurzweil's Ted Talk about the exponential nature of progress, because he relates the ideas to things beyond technology. 

It's happening all around us and people are still calling it "naive."  I don't think idealism like that is overly naive, and I think it's a good selling point for atheism for inspiring people.  Either way, I'm not saying it's easy.

Law Enforcement is a must for any society.  Lazzie Faire Capitalism can only exist where individual rights are enforced by Law Enforcement. It doesn't exist to instill fear into potential law breakers it need not be overbearing, but as a body that provides justice and recompensation for those who've had their rights violated.

I'm not saying global warming is a lie, I just think the theory behind it is flawed or at least incomplete, and if nothing else more evidence is needed.  We're launching a satelite in 2009 CryoSat and in 2012 we're launching Sentinel-3.  Both of these satelites are going to really make the case one way or the other.  Until then the Jury is out no matter how many zealots storm the streets preaching against "climate crimes."

None of the criticisms offered even if proven to be absolute fact (which they haven't been yet btw) should prevent the developement of the third world, both because it's profitable, and because those people are in terrible condition.  Watch the end of that video I linked. Developing technologies like solar power to actually be efficient could be funded paritially by investors from these companies while developing the third world.  Profits that companies would make would be tremendous, and since they know the public would be pressuring them and criticizing them they might make some investing decisions to increase their PR and contribute to developing these kinds of technologies to eventually be implimented first in the countries that produce the most polution...  Instead of penalizing starving Africans.

A few points here...

1) Capitalism moving into third world countries would be tremendously profitable.

2) Capitalism moving into third world countries would create polution, but relative the amount of polution first world countries produce it's going to be minimal.

3) Nature heals itself and the damage done in Africa by business would be minimal and relatively quickly recouped, the biggest problem (if one exists) is first world countries.

4) The only acceptable, feasable, and reasonable answer is to continue as we are now watching the exponential growth of technology until things like Solar and wind power actually become more cost-effective than other means.

Thats just one potential, but once we get this technology developed to the point where it's more cost effective than anything competing with it, it will take hold, getting it to that point is the problem at this point.

Tribes are tight knit, you recieve benefits from this kind of collective effort.  Societies as fast as the American society don't allow for the same return on an investment of the same type.  The failed welfare system is the easiest example, drug addicts do not deserve a free ride.  In a tribe though, these people depend explicitly without intermediaries upon one another for survival, it's not a comparable example to civilization.  The introduction of massive numbers invalidates the comparison between crime rates, poverty and mental illness.

Greedy in the sense that you want more.  Not in a gluttonous fashion, but in a progressive one.  I think it's undeniable.

I think any individual "tribesman" participates in the societal practices of his tribe because it's been culturally engrained into him that this leads to prosperity.  Of himself and his tribe, not just his tribe.  That is also to ignore that they are tribal people, and their system gives them exactly what it's been worth, illiteracy.

If you completely ignore scale, sure.

Family and friends serve this function, not to mention the ability to actually stockpile resources in Capitalism.  You can't do that in tribal societies,  spoilage and decay, no technology no food preservation or sanitary technique, you're much more likely to contract a disease and live a short life in a tribal society.  The medicine man isn't really pulling anything out of your stomach, it's just fake blood and dead animal flesh.

I guess they are at least greedy enough that they won't tolerate people who don't "do their fair share."  A lot of people like are in our welfare system now, calling hard working citizens "suckaz."

Idealism is a beautiful thaaaang. 

The counter point obviously, is that implementation of the ideal ends when the change occurs and whatever fails or begins failing later on down the road isn't the ideal.  Thus judging the outcome even though things in the experiment that weren't meant to be controls, changed and in doing so invalidated the experiment, means you're judgment is inaplicable and misdirected.

Compare it to a scientific experiment, we want to find the boiling point of liquid X.  We begin applying heat and time passes, as time passes we mix in some of liquid Y and it becomes a solution.  The boiling point of liquid X and liquid Y differs greatly.  So then when the liquid boils, we record the temperature and call it the boiling point of liquid X?

The answer is no.  The boiling point of Capitalism has been distilled with socialism and other forms of statism forever, countries based on explicit statism in it's purest forms have failed.  You don't know the boiling point of liquid X.

Even the ideal is bad, it doesn't even sound good ideally.  Working explicitly for the benefit of strangers does not provide anyone any emotional return.  The only outcome of such a society is stagnation.  Did you read the link I provided about the history of famine in statist countries?  Compare that to America's track record.

I'm not saying it "always" does, I'm saying Capitalism does/has in practice and in theory worked to create the most prosperous societies in existence.

There's actually a lot in Objectivism about the seperation between Theory and Practice, it's generally thought that if something fails in practice the theory is just as bad.  Capitalism 1) hasn't failed even in it's deluted form here in America and 2) Would only be More successful if stripped of it's baggage.  You're judging theory based on the tainted experiment.

The theory was diluted, so it's effects were tainted.  I've been explaining to you how you misassociate cause and effect for 3 pages now.

when you say "Capitalism allows for monopolies to take over everything" (paraphrasing)  and simultaneously bring up monopolies controlled by the government in a mixed economy what do you expect?

Fact 1) No monopolies have ever existed without the government's sanction.  No amount of redefining the term "monopoly" will allow you to escape that fact.

Fact 2) Using a Government controlled monopoly as evidence for the existence of monopolies in an ideal capitalist society isn't an accurate criticism.  The culprit you lay the blame on doesn't even exist in the scenario because "big government" is doing the dirty work that you would like to blame "capitalism" for.

You're the one confusing the two.  You use real world examples of "government controlled monopolies" to attempt to refute the philosophy behind "limited government" politics.

Yesterdays paradise is todays poverty.  By that I'm comparing ancient civilizations to current day.  Time progresses and people evolve, idealism provides the inspiration for working toward a long term goal.  America's founding father were the product of an idealistic era, the European Enlightenment and they clearly demonstrated the power of idealism, leading rag-tag rebels against the largest army in the world and winning because they believed in something and then creating the greatest nation to have ever existed up to that point.

Your criticism of "idealism" as such only shows me you've got a broken spirit and you've lost what I consider to be the great fire of being human.

No, it just indicates the the motives might be not be pure.  Politicians are in the business of getting re-elected.  This means, using issues that appeal to their fan base.  Why do you think "abortion" gets brought up all the time?  Roe v. Wade is never going to get over-turned, but trumping this issue appeals to christians.

Even better, look at Karl Rove.  Rove is a man who basically (as far as I know) helped Bush appeal to the evangelical Christians, subsequently leading to his getting elected.  It turns out, he is an atheist.

Most politicians care about one thing: keeping their power.  The issues they support, may or may not have any credibility.  It is literally a coin-toss.  The truth of an issue, is irrelevant to most politicians.  What matters, is simply:  What opinion of this issue is likely to get me re-elected?  Truth is irrelevant. 

What does it matter if the fellow offering to help you also has ulterior motives? Some political purposes, whatever their motives, lead to actions with beneficial outcomes.  If what you imply is true: that all politicians have ulterior motives, then a concern about ulterior motives appears moot. One should ignore them and simply focus on which political purposes potentially serve the greatest common good.