Yeah getting lost in ones own thoughts is something that doesnt seem to happen anymore since everyone escapes to their screens at the first signs of boredom
You literally could not have. I heard he mentioned conversing with Charles Murray or Camile Paglia, or Michael Moore, or Stephen Fry, and I still haven’t seen those. Personally I want to hear his lecture at Hannah Arendt Research Center.
@@HereticAdv I can't find that recording. The essay it references is here, though: hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/reflections-on-antisemitism-christopher-hitchens-2011-12-16
Brad Iverson Thanks, that piece was literally how I knew. I meant from before an audio recording, or dare I dream someone video taped it. I should say Hannah Arendt was important to Hitch, specifically her writings of Banality of Evil, which forms the essential counter argument against the religious appropriation of what’s evil and its nature.
There's hours of Hitchens on some politics show available on the C-Span website. Hitch talking as the liberal guy and some other guest would be the conservative. It was pretty much him debating others about the current political events and taking calls. He went against all sorts of conservative voices ranging from Ben Stein to Pat Buchanan and it spans like 20 years.
Yes, it's crazy to think what he would do in our present political clime, I think he would pretty much explode. The left had to wait for all of its big thinkers to die before letting incompetent asshats like Ilhan Omar and Ocasio-Cortez represent it. I wonder if he would vote for Trump or just abstain completely.
Few philosophers have the style of communication to make them great communicators, but I don't think the problem is fixed in time, it's just that capitalism has so many layers of defenses today whereas socialism will always be build on sullied grounds in an effort to replace a superior, pre-extant threat peacefully. Hitchens is forced to be eloquent here by virtue of the struggle against a fascist, anti-intellectual attitude, meanwhile the opposition must lead the audience away from critical methodologies lest they begin to deconstruct the cult's logic. The sheer number of logical fallacies they employ in this effort is worthy of a completely separate video.
There are few examples of public intellectuals remaining in American society today. I really can't think of very many. Mostly just pundits and tweeters.
"All of the rights are on the side of the poor and the workers, and all of the suffering is on the side of those big capitalist businessmen." Unbelievable.
If Harry Binswanger ever did get married or have kids I couldn't find it, but his Wikipedia page does say he's an heir to the Binswanger Glass Company, which explains a lot.
Yeah, that quote had me yelling alone in my car when I heard it. It’s akin to saying “the healthy suffer more than the sick”. Categorically, to the extent that the rich suffer is to the extent that they *choose to suffer in service to their further enrichment.* To the extent that the poor suffer, they have no choice not to as it’s beyond their individual actions. The rich could step down from the situation and rest on the privilege and comfort of their riches. The poor have no such privilege. That is the key difference. I know what the guy was trying to say, that the rich are seen as villainous, and that they face niche laws and regulations. But what the dude fails to realize is that these troubles are born of sheer excess, and could be disbanded at any moment. He is also ignoring the tens of millions of cases where monetary might makes right. And by sheer debt of wealth, a group or individual can crush the poor man out of hand. With ease. And do literally anything they wish to him. To imagine the “system” is set up to oppose the rich, is to fail to look at the system itself.
Kellen what worker’s “rights” are violated in the constitution? ... i could tell you a number of violation of rights that only affect capitalist businessmen.
43:45 "Today all of the rights are on the side of the poor and the workers, and all the suffering is on the side of those big capitalist businessmen." 45:30 "There is no such thing as class, there are just individuals" 1:33:43 "Colonialism is the best thing ever to happen to the colonies." 1:34:24 "The Arabs have no right to that oil." cringe compilation
@Chris ask the ruling class politicians, to which collection of individuals they are giving tax breaks to, and which other collection they are sending off to war to extract resources?
To adumbrate the libertarian position: "The free market is the guarantor of human freedom.." And somehow, it's the socialists who are accused of utopianism
@@theanalyticsyntheticdichot4404 Libertarian philosophy overlaps strongly with objectivism particularly regarding their fettishisation of free markets as the bastion and guarantor of human freedom. Surely you dont dispute that?
@@jbmuggins8815 Capitalism is the embodiment of human freedom. It says you own what you produce and nobody can steal anything you've made. That is freedom.
@@damonhage7451 ?? the whole point of capitalism is that employees produce, only for the product to go to their employers. you accidentally described socialism...
@@jbmuggins8815 When you work for an employer, you are engaging in an trade of your labor for your salary. I don't know where this "product" comes in. Your employer makes a profit on you. You're worth more to the company than they pay you. They never would hire you otherwise. You go work for a company because your time is worth less to you than the salary they pay. You would never take the job otherwise. There are 2 products in a trade. I don't know what "product" means in your comment.
While Christopher Hitchens and John Ridpath have unfortunately passed on Harry Binswanger and John Judis are still alive and well among us. Seeing these men in their prime at a time that seems not so long ago it appears the human life span is too short.
Are objectivist thought leaders unaware of Libertarian Socialists and Anarchists, or is it just inconvenient for them to consider? Not all socialists are statists.
No, just present completely unreconstructed individualism without an attempt to reconcile the individual with the collective and claim intellectual victory.
100% of socialists are statist. If you don't know that then you don't know what either socialism or statism are. Not surprising, I've never known a self-proclaimed socialist to understand what socialism is. They just simply reject the term "capitalism" while promoting and practicing capitalism and just trying to insist on calling it socialism.
@@ajb7786 I'm not going to bombard you with insults about how ignorant you are blah blah blah point scoring etc, but do look up 'libertarian socialism' and discover the non-statist, anti-authoritarian currents of socialism which have been around (in their modern forms) for about 150-200 years.
Kyle Alexander the real world Canada Norway England France Conservatives are people who think that the real world is Texas and that it represents a natural order rather than a construct
@@joshuavickers9820 Serious question: Are you by any chance related to Jill Vickers, who was destroyed in the 1984 socialism debate against Peikoff and Ridpath?
As far as the Philosophy of Ayn Rand, it's a pretty good Philosophy to promote high productivity. BUT, guess what? People are drug addicts, bums, assholes and day-dreamers and some people don't have a lot going on between their ears. What do you do with them? Her philosophy is great for some people but the underlying arguments is what makes Ayn Rand perfectly fine. She's basically a small government advocate which, despite any philosophy, will actually yield greater results for ALL PHILOSOPHIES. If your goal is to smoke cocaine and do nothing than there is no place greater than a free society because only a free society can create the kind of wealth that is necessary for people to be bums.
@@EGarrett01 Exactly. It's ironic that people make this statement about Ayn and in reality their policies take thousands of dollars that otherwise would go to charity and instead go directly into the hands of politicians or government administrations etc. If everyone kept their money they would have more cash than they would know what to do with.
Two things. Firstly, the arguments of the capitalist side aged really badly. Secondly, that I would hear that colonization was the best thing that happened to these countries is a very evil thing to say. Or the comment about oil. This kind of thinking proves what Hitchens said about capitalism loving force and destroying private property.
@Thomas Farrell Sureee. I am sure having your resources exported, your people sold and your political system manipulated is a very nice thing. It's not like most of Africa is how it is largely because of the effect colonialism had on it. Ooo wait...
@Thomas Farrell so you really think all of sub-saharan Africa were just a bunch of savage tribes with no real knowledge of the world around them before the Europeans came?? What about the oppression and continued withdrawal (or theft) of capital (human or resources) for years, the control and the intervention in politics in society for it's own benefit, the drawing of maps with no respect in regards to the peoples language, history or culture. If you ask me, saying that colonialism was a good thing for African countries is not only morally appalling, but just completely and scholarly wrong. It is anti-intellectual and revisionist history.
@Thomas Farrell Ok clearly you're not interested in learning. You probably just think that Europeans (and whites) are a superior people/race. Have a good day
@Thomas Farrell No I do not believe that Western civilisation or Europeans are innately superior to Africans or Asians. Thats a claim is contrary to the spirit of science and education itself. Only very uneducates people would think something like that
Well I think Objectivism is an antisocial philosophy. In the psychological sense. As in toxic to society. They also don't believe in determinism. Which is contrary to science. When poor and rich comingle. They feel less alienated by one another and there is less friction. That's part of why equality is good. It breeds friendship. And friendship is good.
1:33:41 "Colonialism is the best thing that ever happened to the colonies." I'm in team Objectivism but this is so uninformed, it's unbelievable. The enslavement, massacres, artificial famines, human rights violations, racism, etc. in no way was good to India as a colony. The perfect rebuttal to this point is this viral Oxford Union speech: th-cam.com/video/f7CW7S0zxv4/w-d-xo.html
look at the india. it is same dirthole like 200 years back. sad to say, but some nations are not ready for freedom. this is reason why we have plenty of failed states around the globe.
@@Ivane_Maskhulia they already had/have mechanisms of control in place, regardless of how good they seem to be functioning, or how universally moral one regards the end. Colonialism is the pinnacle of ignorance and avarice. Your statement of how India is essentially unchanged after colonial rule is evidence of the harm the West likely did, rather than accelerate human rights it may have retarded them. The social changes both cosmetic, or actual, in exchange for accepting yoke of Western model, itself of deeply unjust and bloody origin, and now there are two absolutist systems, East and West, crushing the individual and their potential.
India was one of the richest countries in the world prior to colonial invasion. The citizens may not have been on equal footing, but the wealth looted from India by the English was immense.
I imagine there are a few societies that have, thus far in history, gained from being a colony of a larger society. I suppose it all depends what you mean in gained. I mean life expectancy, literacy rates, infant mortality, calories consumed per day, access to clean water, things of this nature. An even more disquieting thought is that some ancestors of slaves are better off because their ancestors were enslaved. I might go so far as to say some slaves themselves had their standards of living raised by being enslaved. More secure food, water, and housing, free from tribal raiders and midnight massacres. If you disagree, I’m wondering if you can imagine a situation in which you would agree. Say, there is some extremely advanced society, which can heal all illness, has means of giving any material or mental wants you could imagine, and you go from being a half starved agrarian Yemenis farmer, to being enslaved by this super advanced society. Would that be a lifting of living standards? Or does the slavery aspect, no matter the context, always get trumped by freedom, however relative and meager that freedom may be. I see it akin to being a slave to a local chief working in his hut, or being a slave to a global king working in his castle estate.
@LaMortEtLamour you see, this never changes - people come to support their sides or rather to confirm their own views, to think "yes, I'm right!", so when they hear something appealing they applause etc. but at least they ask questions, I mean real questions - to hear the answer, not to blame smb
One huge problem is that the American government subsidizes businesses, bails them out, etc. So we are not living in a capitalist society--it's closer to fascism than pure capitalism because the govt. has been bought out by corporations, lobbyists, etc. I believe this is a major reason why socialist agendas gain appeal in America--because, with the assistance of the government, capitalism grows to geometrically oppressive heights that then demand a socialist response to try to restore some kind of equilibrium between corporate rights and individual rights.
@@alexsch2514 No it isn't. Who told you that? The guy who said horse-drawn carriages would mean the end of palanquins and cause a loss of jobs in the transport industry?
@SteelpeachandtozHow does private property defend itself without the force of the state, then? Wondering for all the capitalists and business owners who wholly disagree with you.
@@Steelpeachandtozer How does Capitalism not turn into a monopoly overnight without government oversight? Verizon would purchase all the telecom corps tomorrow without anti-trust. Amazon and Google would own the internet, etc. The business with the largest market share in the age of globalization is a force of nature that can’t be stopped without government intervention. Capitalism necessitates government control and cronyism.
@@damonhage7451 No, it didn't. Just look at the wealth inequality in 1st world countries today. Wait until the people start justifiably killing the wealthy and their families, a-la the French Revolution.
@@rsr789 Um.... France wasn't capitalist. That is what made those killings "justified to the extent that they were. There is no justification for killing the wealthy (or anyone) under capitalism.
@@PazLeBon It would be fairly long winded for a comment to be honest. Just look into how geography gave the united states super power status so quickly.
10:45 OMFG I taught I was looking at a mirror. That expression sums up exactly how i was feeling when first speaker said wealth is not created by labour but by capitalist.
@Oners82 I wouldn't go so far. Decision capitalist take of where to apply capital saves wealth from going to waste. Therefore it does create wealth. I agree Capitalist tend to take more share then what is due to them
He is correct. All of the wealth is created by capitalists and none of the wealth is created by labour which is why the average per capita income worldwide did not exceed 105 USD until the advent of capitalism by Great Britain in the 1580's . You're welcome.
@@Steelpeachandtozer The house in which you live was built by laborers. The roads on which you drive were built by laborers. The very computer which you used to post your breathtakingly moronic remark contains metals mined . . . by laborers. I can tell that you're the kind of smug little coil of shit who has never had an actual job.
@@ThreeFingerG Protip: Ayn Rand built a cult like following espousing her objectivist philosophy. All of those people believe(d) in a set of fundamentals which creates an in-group/out-group dynamic. From Wikipedia: Collectivism is a value that is characterized by emphasis on cohesiveness among individuals and prioritization of the group over the self. Individuals or groups that subscribe to a collectivist worldview tend to find common values and goals as particularly salient[1] and demonstrate greater orientation toward in-group than toward out-group. Objectivists define themselves according to their adherence to Rand's philosophy and in doing so we find that those values are consistent among objectivists. In other words, ask an objectivists what they value and believe in and you will find a lot of consistency, which is what you would expect from collectivism.
@@aliasoma "You will find alot of consistency, which is what you would expect from collectivism." You do not not properly understand the definition of collectivism. "which is what you would expect from collectivism". Yes if you have a surface level conception of what to "expect" from collectivist attributes. Protip: collectivism does not own the word collective but rather " *primacy* of the collective". Important distinction. Consistency in Objectivist circles is a product of that philosophy so strongly stressing noncondradiction, the supremacy of reason, and the potency of heirarchical integration. And really mostly the novelty of holding such a culturally atypical position as altruism=unadulterated evil. And besides this "consistency" is not so absolute as you might think. I name one of the few criticsim's of Rand that I've accepted: rebirthofreason.com/Articles/BissellRE/The_Evolution_of_the_Objective.shtml . Edit: spelling
He is using his savings. It has a clear purpose to him, to secure his life in the future. Someone who doesn't claim something doesn't own it. That was his point. The capitalist comes in, claims or buys the property; it is his. The socialist and/or statist sees the capitalist working the property; they claim it was theirs after the fact. That is, or is closer to, the proper scenario that Binswanger is mentioning.
It still doesn't make sense. If you don't know they value of a diamond but you posses one, and someone comes along and tells you it's his because you don't need it how is that fair?
@@PresidentialWinner You're presuming you're already in possession/claim of the diamond. In that case, it would be unfair. That's not what's being discussed in the video.
@@nicholasgramlich5860 Well hold on now, if you own a piece of land or your nation or tribe or family owns a piece of land and the diamond is on that land and you walk on the land and take it is that fair then, is that not the thing that is being discussed?
These two gentlemen were libertarians and/or anarcho-capitalists, which indeed reject a religious foundation to justify the type of freedom of capitalism. These were not the majority of pro-capitalists back then, and still are not now.
Knowledge is not synonymous with reason. Reason requires the formality if critical thinking. Knowledge is the acquisition of info, but doesn't necessarily imply critical thinking. As for creating/making wealth, he probably missed the fact of inheritance or theft. Growing rich while enslaving others is a form of theft. Using influence to avoid paying taxes while expecting others to beat your burden is theft. And social democracy is different from socialism.
"Knowledge is the acquisition of info, but doesn't necessarily imply critical thinking." I think your terms are a little ambiguous. Reason is using sense data to form concepts and validating those concepts using logic. 1. Sense data 2. Concept formation 3. Logical integration I don't know what "critical thinking" is. I know many people use that term, but I've never seen it defined in a reasonable way. The only way to acquire knowledge is through reason. You need to hear somebody tell you the knowledge or see it on your computer screen (sense data). You need to form concepts in order to understand what you are hearing or seeing.You need to use logic to eliminate contradictions in the concepts you formed. If you did not use reason, then what you have is not "knowledge". "As for creating/making wealth, he probably missed the fact of inheritance". If I create wealth, its mine. If I want to burn it, or give it to the government, or leave it to my cat, or leave it to my children, that is none of your business. It is mine. "or theft. Growing rich while enslaving others is a form of theft." You are attacking the socialist position now? It seemed to me you were attacking the capitalist's position but now I'm not so sure. "Using influence to avoid paying taxes while expecting others to beat your burden is theft." Taxes are theft. Everyone should try to pay as little as possible. Your money is yours, not the government's where you are just allowed to keep a certain percentage. "And social democracy is different from socialism." I agree. Most times social democracy is the tool that is used to achieve socialism.
Ha ha, you say that and then utterly fail in critical thinking. I love people trying to desperately protect their prejudiced conclusions trying to invoke critical thinking.
Do you? Why explains the popularity of politicians like AOC and Sanders, who openly admit that they will contract the economy to achieve what they see as moral ends?
@@sybo59 Medical bankruptcy is the #1 cause of bankruptcy in the US. We pay twice as much on medical expenses in the US as almost any other developed nation, while having similar or worse outcomes. Medicare for all would positively effect a lot of peoples pocket books.
"Today, all the rights are on the side of the poor and all the suffering is on the side of those big capitalist business men" "Depressions are not caused by the market, but by statist interference"
In reference to the great depression there is a wildly strong argument that government intervention did in fact create and extend the period. Unemployment had been on a recovery since the October crash and had seen a low of 6% in the following year. However, it came to a halt after the implementation of the Smoot and Hawley tariffs, unemployment would not be under double digits for the rest of the decade.
Braydon Bryan The tariffs were the initial big intervention, but it was a combination of all the massive interventions throughout the 1930s which have been shown to have prolonged, and deepened, the Great Depression.
Braydon Bryan I would also take it much further in emphasising that the Federal Reserve under Hoover was probably the largest factor in leading to the recession to begin with.
"Just as church should be seperated from state, state should totally be seperated from economics" I'd kindly remind Mr Ridpath about the industrial revolution and how the seperation of state and economics turned out for the working class. As always, americans really do seem to have a hard time learning from history...
@@edwardwilson4997 For as long as the most powerful army on the planet is protecting FED's monopoly to issue world's trading currency you cannot blame 'capitalism' for financial crises.
@@theinherentfloyd3393 binswanger is the original edgelord who has no understanding of economics. Should just stick with philosophy instead of spewing these nonsense regarding economic policies.
@@ianjedi1282 I am not sure about that. If you are aware of the parallel universe conservatives live in today, it seems like he might have just been so sheltered and shown such a distorted view of reality that he is just objectively wrong about basic things. I do wonder what you can do about it. I am not sure if you can.
Julian Janssen I do not know him or about him enough, to comment with certainty. The only cure is reality and exposure to varied experiences and sometimes divine intervention if you like talking like that. Walking a mile in someone else’s mohcasins does wonders.
It’s a pleasure listening to Hitchens speak, even when he’s dead wrong. He was out of his depth on this one - didn’t seriously address his opponents’ actual beliefs, and leaned to heavily on irony and non-sequitur.
@@williampatrickwoods Oof, that’s a tall order, friend - I didn’t take notes when I watched and would have to comb through again for you to do your question justice. Since it’s likely fresher on your mind, can you point to any serious argument Hitchens posed against anything the Objectivists actually believe?
There is no question that the most intelligent comment made in this very excellent video is that: "Colonialism is the best thing that ever happened to the colonies." EVERY country that was a colony of Western nation-states saw a drastic improvement in the rights of women and ethnic minorities, increased lift expectancy, increased personal freedoms, lower infant mortality, free trade, the introduction of capitalism, a decrease in tribalism, et al. Thank-you, Western Civilization.
Hitchens would've never objected to an ad hominem attack, he'd just spin it around and use the momentum of the attack to make his point hit that much harder, as he's done many times.
Jetting like a wolf! Sorry, I tried to contain myself but..... this is a beautiful Hitch document. Inspired and ever-inspiring. Nearly a decade without you CH. So glad you died knowing your reach and suspecting your legacy. x
@@sheehan92 You’re right that Hitchens was on the wrong side of this particular debate, and was very much outmatched, but he overall was a brilliant orator and courageous champion of reason and Enlightenment ideals. If only more Objectivists had his wit and fire in the belly!
@@sybo59 This is not true. You cannot support socialism (in any form) and also champion the Enlightenment. The fundamental idea of the enlightenment is that your life belongs to you and you only, and thus nobody has the right to initiate force on to you. You cannot support socialism and say you are pro-enlightenment. John Ridpath talks briefly about this in the last part of this video. Objectivists come from the tradition of Locke, Aristotle and Cicero. People like Hitchens come from the tradition of Russow, Marx and Kant who are anti-enlightenment figures. They mix reason with mysticism, they are collectivists at the core (sometimes explicitly), they define freedom as a zero-sum concept and thus they are socialists. On a different matter, I used to think Hitchens was a good orator around 2010 when he (and others) introduced me to atheism. But pretty much any objectivist starting from Leonard Piekoff to Alex Epstein are better speakers than him. They are clearer, more consistent, more rational and more objective. Even the ones who are non-native English speakers are far better than Hitchens.
@@sheehan92 You’re wrong, and worse, showing unfortunate signs of rationalism. I clearly and correctly said Hitchens’ broader legacy beyond this particular debate was glorious and pro-Enlightenment. Did it occur to you that he might have changed his views in the decades between this debate and his untimely death? You’ll be heartened to hear that he did. He explicitly acknowledged that Marxist socialism had failed. He penned excellent biographies on both Jefferson and Paine. He even wrote somewhat fairly about Rand at one point (a lot to ask of a reformed Marxist). And besides, even while an avowed Trotskyite, Hitchens through his words and deeds overwhelmingly exemplified individualism. Have you read his biography? Any of his essays? Yes, he was conflicted and imperfect. So were the aforementioned Jefferson and Paine, one of whom did in fact own slaves. Are you prepared to isolate their sins and tear them down in kind? Hitchens was morally courageous, several times risking his safety to cover stories he thought important. He fought religionists and totalitarianism, even when it was unpopular. He daringly pursued his own values. He was no arm-chair intellectual. Shame on you for diminishing this hero, the man in the arena, from your comfy spectator seat. In addition to your base rationalism, you reveal yourself as willfully blinded by tribalism in your wild comparison of Hitchens’s oratory to that of Peikoff or Epstein. I love those guys, but this is a laughable statement to any objective observer. Hitch’s rhetorical and speaking style was seductive; Peikoff and Epstein tend toward the mono-tonal, and often fail to read the room and sway the skeptics. Hitchens, on the other hand, talked countless thinking people away from religion. Perhaps you think that a trivial task. Yet no Objectivist since Rand ever matched it, and the movement, despite having the most potent ideas ever conceived, continues to limp on in obscurity. And zeroes like you with no skin in the game help insure no lessons are learned. You keep hating - we few will keep fighting to actually win.
Hitch didn't understand the question. I love him for his arguments for Atheism. But on this topic he is still living with the over-bearing and intransigent class structure of his home nation, mere historical imperfections. *Capitalism requires every citizen to become a capitalist.* To acquire the productive tools (including the mind, the resilience, courage, fitness, etc) to find a place in the system. IOW become a middle-class participant. Government is merely an opportunity to become corrupted by power (Acton). Human society need as unobtrusive version of government as any particular culture can manage. Eg: when they attempt to provide education, health care, communications, central banking systems, etc each of these became bureaucracies with their own misuse of force. Government interference in the economy led inexorably to the Carnegie-Rockefeller-Ford (et.al.) monopolies. A fully capitalist society would not tolerate the events and practises that permitted such monopolist outcomes (Toqueville, Tytler). The fundamental flaw in human systems is us. We can be as low as the snake's belly and we can soar with Wagner's eagles. Only when there is a direct impact to each decision concerning how we conduct ourselves in public will we restrain (or re-train) our individual imperfections. The sole purpose of our species is to allow the bright-minded to release the products of their imaginations and hard work. We are not mere survivors (I hope) and nobody but us can propel ourselves in this inhospitable universe.
for sure, it isnt the system, capitalist/socialist/communist, it's the individuals/groups who run it., allied with the fact that even the privedged education systems seem to push that greed narrative
The difference is that lazziez-faire capitalist systems can cause owners of the means of production to essentially have unilateral power over any person they can buy and this works under ANY political system. Therefore, the role of government, perhaps it's PRIMARY role is, and should be to prevent any UNELECTED official from becoming powerful enough to sway politics. Essentially the exact opposite of what the United States currently has, and why capitalism has failed us. We have a crony capitalist system and any attempt to fix it is LABELLED as "socialism". Equivocation of social programs with "socialism" more broadly, and then jeeringly the pundits ask: "But when has socialism ever worked". Our politicians receive money from donors who happen to be the business owners that Libertarians essentially hand over power to when they make statements like "Government needs to stay out of our lives" or insinuates that a government necessarily will be less efficient at running X system than a company. This does not account for cottage industries like Health Insurance companies which have transformed into incredibly powerful lobbying entities. Not to be rude, but it actually fails to account for a few things other than these as well.
"Capitalism requires every citizen" - "to acquire the productive tools to find a place in the system.": Are you happy for people who cannot do so (injured etc.) to simply die? If so I would argue that your ideal system fails to provide the best experience of life possible (which I believe to be the ultimate goal of any system but maybe you disagree). "Government is merely an opportunity to become corrupted by power.": Government is also an opportunity to unify a group of people whch allows said group to exploit things they could not individually e.g. Economies of scale, bargaining strength in numbers to improve their experience of life. "The sole purpose of our species is to allow the bright-minded to release the products of their imaginations and hard work.": I disagree as is probably clear by now. Our species does not have a sole purpose that I can see. A sole purpose implies that there is an objective truth to some statement of "people ought to..." but I don't see how that can be the case if value is subjective.
@@michaeledowling1039 a. When and how did they become injured? What insurances and backup plans have they provided for themselves? Who was responsible for the injury?... b. Read history much? Can you name one civilisation where that has ever happened? Until we start employing the ideal government system that is not possible. hint: facebook.com/Vision-Representation-A-Humanist-Government-262619170609120 OR demvision.wordpress.com [the concept in those links is a test of their host culture and thus the value of humanity] c. Worst case scenario. This universe will apparently destroy this planet one day. Ergo act as if that were going to happen and make escape possible. That will require huge knowledge and brainpower. Re: reality. Survival is a sub-branch of reality. Science has many 'ought to' advisory dictums.
@@josephd2653 You haven't been rude at all. Instead you have merely cherry-picked some isolated events, chose a poor example (the USA) and carried on. The CotUSA is a flawed document. It assumed: only the very best people would volunteer for election; and that as knowledge grew as a document it would be amended. Every representative democracy has made the same mistake. Acton was right and furthermore his warning is an absolute human condition; that power corrupts. (unless their name is Marcus Aurelius or they are a fervent fan of Stoicism) This is why Socialism and by inference strong central government is not in humanity's best interests. Never has been, never will be. Read Orwell's 'Wigan Pier' for a glimpse into how bureaucracies cruel everything they touch. Including corporate capitalism. See also: facebook.com/Vision-Representation-A-Humanist-Government-262619170609120 OR demvision.wordpress.com The above links will become a severe test of the society's preparedness for humanity in the transition period.
Hitchens is right about Capitalism, Milton Friedman said the same essentially. " Where ever you have freedom you have capitalism". Freedom in this sense is an act of individual nature. The act of the transaction between individuals is also an act of freedom. So the Former USSR, North Korea, China, Venezuela had a "black market", this is capitalism in its most natural form. Capitalists have never claimed that where ever you have capitalism you have societal freedom, because this is an obvious untrue statement.
@@sirherbert6953 better look that up. The Free to Choose Q&A series on youtube should clear up the comment. He made the comment in a speech about whether or not capitalism was humane. He pointed out that no system is "humane" that only people are humane, outlining the theme that where ever there is freedom you have capitalism. That freedom takes its most basic form through the individual and his/her capacity for economic self interest. Its the same as when Hitchens says that capitalism is not incompatible with socialism. Indeed! It is compatible, as laid out by the statement Friedman made.
This doesn't make any sense. If we are fundamentally anything, we are fundamentally social and collective. This is how all institutions, cultures, and forms of political and economic organisation have emerged. There is no individual freedom without collective, or "societal" freedom, and vice versa. The capacity of capitalism to individuate and obscure our collective subjectivity is its greatest horror.
@@samjames6890 "The capacity of capitalism to individuate and obscure our collective subjectivity is its greatest horror." AKA, capitalism throws a wrench into plans for European style government and mob rule. Come closer child and let me fill you in on some real hard truths, not assertions. Freedoms don't come from government, they are inherent because we are individuals. Freedom is the consequence of individuality, not society. The Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution are amplifiers of that ideal. Individualism fosters capitalism. Capitalism in its purest form is the uninhibited, un-coerced transactions between two or more people. It doesn't rely on class, race, "society" institutions or political parties, it relies on individual freedom. This is why you find capitalism in the places you normally wouldn't look for it; if there is an ounce of freedom, there is at least a pound of capitalism. So again, both Hitchens and Friedman are seeing capitalism in the same way, because they realize these truths are really indisputable.
@@samjames6890 Capitalism, in the free-market sense of the word, is social. How else would a *market* exist? (in fact prices can't exist without a market either but I digress) Businesses are also collective, multiple people working together towards a goal. But in neither sense is it *collectivist*, which is state control, coercion to perform as instructed (by political actors) at threat of violence. The entire libertarian/objectivist vision is for free individuals so they can find their own passions (restricted by the necessities of the market) and form their own voluntary relationships thereby sustaining themselves via providing for others, and providing people with what they need and desire. Since it is voluntary for consumers, niches can be better served than in a centrally organized economy (greater diversity of concern). Since it is voluntary for producers, passion and competitiveness drives higher levels of production (greater amount and/or quality). That is people can both be free, more productive, and have their desires better served. In fact it can be argued that coercion and slavery are intrinsically un-productive (or minimally productive).
Although not evident to those who are being subjected at the time, being colonised, or absorbed into a larger, more dominant empire can indeed bring multiple long term benefits. Most people of the world have been colonised or "taken over" at some point in history and it has been part of the pathway to a global society which brings numerous efficiencies. England benefitted from Roman occupation - "we owe London to Rome", as Churchill said. The Scots benefitted when they accepted and embraced English as a first language. India obtained from Britain a railway network, a common language, principles of democracy and governance, economic growth etc
Inglese29 it’s clear that not once in your life have you encountered a single word of Marx or, perhaps less controversially and more surprisingly, any images or articles depicting or describing any country on the African continent, on the Indian subcontinent, or much of Latin America or South East Asia.
Amanda Critchlow Even whilst the Mughal empire was failing in India in the early 1800s India had the second highest GDP in the world. By 1945 they weren’t even in the top 5! Which is crazy considering the raw materials and sheer quantity of labour that that region possesses. Unfortunately, a batch of people in the West can’t compute that ‘european economic supremacy’ is a very new thing historically speaking. For centuries upon centuries Asia was the hub of innovation, law, mathematics - it is not unreasonable to assume that this won’t come to pass this century. The world will return to its natural economic equanimity
Hitchens was any enemy of logic, and a champion of self-service. His mentality - unabashed prejudice and denial of anything that contradicts those prejudices - represents the biggest threat to humans.
Hitchens was right about religion but wrong about everything else, including in this debate. Point after point he got his ass whooped by Binswanger. I wish we had more young Binswanger videos.
I read "Atlas Shrugged" when I was 23, and became and instant fan of Rand and Objectivism, devouring everything she wrote, and I even have a hard bound edition of the first couple of years of "The Objectivist Newsletter". All through my 20's I was a passionate advocate for Rand and Objectivism. As the years passed I began to realize that the philosophy is based on two implicit premise that are simply wrong. Just as Marxism is incorrectly founded on the principle that everyone can share everything and that there is no such thing as greed, Objectivism is based on the opposite idea: that no one would willingly share with others, and that altruism is simply a pretentious affectation. Neither is true. The second premise is that nothing anyone can do, short of the use of force, can negatively affect others, thus there need be no regulation on the behavior of producers other than the inability to physically force others. If recent history and scientific discovery has shown us anything, it is that everything we do can affect others, and we need to start thinking more in terms of the collective well being before we make this planet unlivable. That said, I can't come to any other conclusion but that this is without a doubt, the best subject for debate ever, and both sides have so many vitally salient points that we must learn if we are to have any kind of future.
Marxism is not at all founded on the principle that everyone can share everything and there is no such thing as greed. *Marxism is a critique of capitalism and a critical analysis of history through tools such as materialism and Hegelian dialectics* . Socialism, of which many of its forms are inspired by Marxist thought, is also no more about the belief that everyone can share and there is no such thing as greed. The whole point is putting the means of production, distribution and exchange in the hands of the community as a whole, rather than that of the owners or those with immense wealth. It does not utterly eliminate greed, nor claim that it doesn't exist in humans, it simply biases in favour of most people will help their community, and then makes it extremely difficult for greed of a few individuals to overrun the good of the many. Not every resource is so scarce that it needs a prohibitive system of distribution so only those with more money can obtain them. Free markets for _everything_ does not align with the realities of production (for example, we produce food for up to 10B people per year, yet people still starve. That is both a highly inefficient and immoral form of distribution). Not everything can be shared, no resource is infinite and greed does exist, but you can make systems that make a much better use of what we do have, reward greed at the expense and suffering of others far less, and don't incentivize short-sighted overconsumption.
Rand doesn't argue that no one would willingly share with others, she was married, she explained that she benefited from sharing her life and possessions with her husband. She argues in favour of Charity. A way to understand it would be comparing the difference between Charity and state redistribution of wealth, one uses force, the other doesn't. She also doesn't argue that only direct use of force can harm others, she argued that the use of force against another is immoral. You clearly either managed to not understand Rand after 20 years or you are pretending to be a convert, i suspect the latter.
BenAffleckisanokayactor That comment is not neo-Marxist, but more or less classical Marxist (and neo means new, so that sentence is quite silly to begin with). Neo-Marxism is quite broad, but is often used to refer to traditions like Critical Theory, or other Western thinkers (like Gramsci) that recognised the Soviet system for the totalitarian nightmare it was, were still building on (or rather responding to) the theoretical works of Marxists, while abandoning some central concepts, like hard historical materialism
@@nadlax5920 Lmao what the first half is just definitions, because people sometimes think Marxism is a system of social organization when it is not. It is analysis. Socialism is, but it's extremely broad and can describe several systems that share a few similarities. Not sure what's "horseshit" about using the literal correct definitions of things. As for the free market not always being the best form of distribution, I'm sure that would seem very offensive to you if you're a free market fundamentalist but I would argue there are countless examples of it probably not being the best idea in every circumstance. "Ideology is the root cause of despotism" is a very sad, unimaginative and pessimistic view of the world that halts progress or thinking of any systemic improvements we can make in response to good social criticism. Not to mention literally every large social organization is based on ideology. The only way it wouldn't be is if there were no society at all. If you mean to say " _new_ ideologies are the root cause of despotism," well that's even worse.
Matt Crawley haha the philosopher that underpins the philosophy of the individual and freedom as the basis of the state. It is simply incorrect to categorise Kant within the European philosophers opposing the idea of American individualism
Oners82 moral worth of the individual,, to group Kant with philosophers from Europe just because he’s from Europe is to obviously miss kant’s moral philosophy, he was far more aligned with the USA’s grounding of morality in the individual and couldn’t believe the speaker said such a weird thing
Oners82 first of all, I’m in agreement with the capitalists. The man said Locke cicero etc were aligned with America and the idea of mans natural rights. Completely opposed to the European tradition of Marx Hegel and Kant. How on earth is Kant not a philosopher who rationally proved mans natural rights and part of the liberal enlightenment tradition that stands with Locke? The speaker may have misspoke, all I’m pointing out is that no way can Kant be grouped with the European socialists instead of Locke and America. If you’ve ever read kant’s political writings you would understand that his justification of the state is pretty much nozick’s minimal state
27:22 "Without property rights no human life is possible" might be the most "Capitalist Realism" quote out there. Where capitalist logic is taken as facts of nature and we may only hope to improve on out current economical system, not confront it's serious failings.
if you think the system of government with bailouts, government contracts, Quantitative easing, artificial interest rates, huge stimulus packages and a variety of social programs is actual capitalism then you did not learn anything in school.
Galios Elvensong I’m gonna focus on the last piece of your statement. Communism is the logical extension of capitalism per Marx. He actually credited it for more than you did (which isn’t surprising given he wrote about it.. a lot); it’s because of capitalism’s contradictions that the need for socialism arises in the first place. The last sentence of my comment was aimed specifically at this sort of comment - “history doesn’t end here”
@@matthijsvanoostende9292 bro just didn’t answer. Anyways, Yaron Brook does some great talks which might be interesting to someone like you who wants to see both sides.
A debate of this scope and magnitude is impossible today because our time is consumed creating and uploading 12-second TikTok dance videos and dominating Candy Crush.
Smoothly misquoting like a habitual liar, you mean. The full quote is: "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living." Hence historical determinism and the opposite of free will as correctly defined by Ridpath and Binswanger.
If one leans to any kind of superstition- I'm sure you will man :) For me, i just hope to be as ethically eloquent/ casually influential as The Hitch was.♡ We need him nowadays, and to study his philosophy and to implement it accordingly in one's life is the best we can do to honor his life. He was my Socrates
He not only denied the existence of the supernatural but again and again said that if God to exists he would reject him anyway. In the end he died in a very rare fashion, melted infront of our eyes, became a fragile walking corps, became explicitly and visually, completely powerless version of his once furious self. These are the facts. Only an idiot / a self centered retard would watch it all happen and interpret it in terms of, "it's just a coincidence maaaan because science".
@@bakedcreations8985 Even in your intellectual prime, you are intellectually inferior to the fragile dying Christopher Hitchens. The only idiot here is you.
He was a Trotskyite for a good chunk of his life. He became a sort of Neo-Liberal towards the end of his life but still identified as a Marxist, albeit one more sympathetic to Capitalism
Yeah, he maintained the Marxist label almost ironically, and his belief in the materialist conception of history was really all he clung to. He fully acknowledged the power of capitalism, and hated any form of nanny-statism. He was never fully consistent, though. Perhaps if he lived another decade or so... One can imagine.
S E Yes and no. He was a Trot and they are the most interventionist of the Marxist branches. Similar origins with the founders of Neo-Conservatism but Hitch was to their left
Reading some of these comments confirmed my thoughts as I listened to a rather young version of perhaps the greatest orator and intellectual since he adorned our shores in the early 1980’s, most of what he argued here is just above most of the audience’s ability to fully comprehend and eons above most of the commentators below
And you, as Earth’s answer to God, are what? You pretentious dick. You are what? Some contrarian? Some reasonable contributor? I’ll keep my eye out for Festi 2003 in the periodicals. Jesus Christ.
Are you referring to Hitchens? LOL. Clearly, you have prematurely and immaturely decided to idolize him and fail in all logical analysis. Hitchens never made a cogent argument in his life. He makes emphatic emotional statements designed to manipulate people who have already chosen a side before any analysis has been done, and who are predetermined to live in denial of all evidence that contradicts that prejudice.
@ Protip: neither being a great rheoricians or a great orator (which is akin to being enamored with the line-delivery of an actor) implies automatically philosophic potency.
the speaker at 49:50 is wrong about the great depression. read murray rothbards "americas great depression". once again, this guy completely forgets the fact that the newly established federal reserve pumped a massive amount of liquidity into the financial markets which then crashed in 29. lets not forget that there was an even steeper crash in 1920 but the whole thing started and ended in 1 year. why? because the government didnt intervene. FDR took a falling stock market in 1929 and turned it into the great depression with all his intevention
Colonialism is the best thing that ever happened to the colonies. Yeah, I'm sure they would all agree. Ooops, what happened to that anti-violence angle?
11:14 conflates capitalists with inventors, some inventors can be capitalists but they can also be workers. The latter happens much more often based on the sheer overwhelming ratio of worker to capitalist.
Without capitalism, there is no incentive to be an inventor. If you can't enjoy the fruits of your labor, what's the point. American innovation is the reason we're having this discussion. Capitalism created the incentive to create the devices that we use to communicate today.
@@mzebari You can have patents without capitalisms, I also like how free market capitalist's are suddenly huge fans of state enforced monopolies because they "increase innovations".
@@kinghassy334 but you need customers, socialism doesn't make for good customers. What's the point of inventing something if no one's going to buy it. That's why the natural flow of capitalism creates a natural flow of demand. The idea that capitalism steals wealth is ridiculous. It creates wealth, and that creates the need to invent new things for people to consume. Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith is an amazing book I recommend.
Hitchens question regarding India has been answered since 1991 with PV Narasimharao as prime minister getting back to lpg capitalist policies which thereby led to the advancement in a never seen before pace and after 30 years of introducing the capitalist elements, I know what, as every socialist says once they're proved wrong, Hitchens would've said nahhh look there are still poor people but that wasn't that question you asked...The Commies are always like this 🤦♂️🤷♂️ I love hitchens for his atheistic views and I love him only for that, that is, for a reason! He's just articulate and all rhetoric and feel more than content
It has been, in every society to ever run according to socialist principles, that productive capacity and quality of life has been increased. Under Stalin and Mao the life expectancy (the single greatest indicator to quality of life) of their respective people doubled.
Please learn to listen, hitch was not a communist. You just haven't heard from him enough to make that judgement, or otherwise you're just misrepresenting him.
TH-cam algorithms finally did it right...
Debate actually starts at 6:45.
magicpony9 legend
magic pony9
I was looking for you, thank you.
You're the real hero. Thank you.
Thank you, the person introducing the debate sounded like a typewriter if it could speak.
It actually starts at 31:45
What I learned from this debate: before smartphones college students just stared blankly into space when bored.
😂😂😂 I wanna go back (just kiddin’)
Too funny. They each have a sullen, almost bitter look.
As if to say :
"This sucks. I don't want to just space out. I want to ignore you."
Yeah getting lost in ones own thoughts is something that doesnt seem to happen anymore since everyone escapes to their screens at the first signs of boredom
Yeah instead of getting lost you can pick up your learn about something you'd rather be learning about. How terrible.
so they were silently, mostly unconsciously, processing information instead of absorbing more (garbage) information. Quite the change
wow, this is a hidden gem. I thought i had seen everything of Hitchens.
You literally could not have. I heard he mentioned conversing with Charles Murray or Camile Paglia, or Michael Moore, or Stephen Fry, and I still haven’t seen those.
Personally I want to hear his lecture at Hannah Arendt Research Center.
@@HereticAdv I can't find that recording. The essay it references is here, though: hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/reflections-on-antisemitism-christopher-hitchens-2011-12-16
Brad Iverson Thanks, that piece was literally how I knew. I meant from before an audio recording, or dare I dream someone video taped it.
I should say Hannah Arendt was important to Hitch, specifically her writings of Banality of Evil, which forms the essential counter argument against the religious appropriation of what’s evil and its nature.
GoldBlockCareer
Hey! That’s exactly what I was going to comment! I’m a Hitch fanatic 😜
There's hours of Hitchens on some politics show available on the C-Span website. Hitch talking as the liberal guy and some other guest would be the conservative. It was pretty much him debating others about the current political events and taking calls. He went against all sorts of conservative voices ranging from Ben Stein to Pat Buchanan and it spans like 20 years.
The first Hitchens clip I'm watching and holy cow how the level of public intellectualism has fallen
Yes, it's crazy to think what he would do in our present political clime, I think he would pretty much explode. The left had to wait for all of its big thinkers to die before letting incompetent asshats like Ilhan Omar and Ocasio-Cortez represent it. I wonder if he would vote for Trump or just abstain completely.
@@joshuavickers9820 idk dude those are politicians, not thinkers
@@aagantuk7370 lol
Few philosophers have the style of communication to make them great communicators, but I don't think the problem is fixed in time, it's just that capitalism has so many layers of defenses today whereas socialism will always be build on sullied grounds in an effort to replace a superior, pre-extant threat peacefully. Hitchens is forced to be eloquent here by virtue of the struggle against a fascist, anti-intellectual attitude, meanwhile the opposition must lead the audience away from critical methodologies lest they begin to deconstruct the cult's logic. The sheer number of logical fallacies they employ in this effort is worthy of a completely separate video.
There are few examples of public intellectuals remaining in American society today. I really can't think of very many. Mostly just pundits and tweeters.
"All of the rights are on the side of the poor and the workers, and all of the suffering is on the side of those big capitalist businessmen."
Unbelievable.
If Harry Binswanger ever did get married or have kids I couldn't find it, but his Wikipedia page does say he's an heir to the Binswanger Glass Company, which explains a lot.
Yeah, that quote had me yelling alone in my car when I heard it.
It’s akin to saying “the healthy suffer more than the sick”. Categorically, to the extent that the rich suffer is to the extent that they *choose to suffer in service to their further enrichment.* To the extent that the poor suffer, they have no choice not to as it’s beyond their individual actions.
The rich could step down from the situation and rest on the privilege and comfort of their riches. The poor have no such privilege. That is the key difference.
I know what the guy was trying to say, that the rich are seen as villainous, and that they face niche laws and regulations. But what the dude fails to realize is that these troubles are born of sheer excess, and could be disbanded at any moment. He is also ignoring the tens of millions of cases where monetary might makes right. And by sheer debt of wealth, a group or individual can crush the poor man out of hand. With ease. And do literally anything they wish to him.
To imagine the “system” is set up to oppose the rich, is to fail to look at the system itself.
Kellen how is he wrong?
@@alexanderevans7930 Nice try.
Kellen what worker’s “rights” are violated in the constitution? ... i could tell you a number of violation of rights that only affect capitalist businessmen.
Thank you very much for uploading this. I knew it existed but gave up on the hope of ever seeing it.
43:45 "Today all of the rights are on the side of the poor and the workers, and all the suffering is on the side of those big capitalist businessmen."
45:30 "There is no such thing as class, there are just individuals"
1:33:43 "Colonialism is the best thing ever to happen to the colonies."
1:34:24 "The Arabs have no right to that oil."
cringe compilation
No wonder libertarianism never took off
capitalism evolves.
socialism denies.
@@swamivardana9911 th-cam.com/video/H3LA_VkDTYo/w-d-xo.html Socialism Gives a Better Quality of Life (Research Paper by California State University)
@Chris ask the ruling class politicians, to which collection of individuals they are giving tax breaks to, and which other collection they are sending off to war to extract resources?
@@jojosip1917 don't tell me. Lived both capitalist and socialist India.
You are crazy about socialism because you haven't lived it.
To adumbrate the libertarian position:
"The free market is the guarantor of human freedom.."
And somehow, it's the socialists who are accused of utopianism
@@theanalyticsyntheticdichot4404 Libertarian philosophy overlaps strongly with objectivism particularly regarding their fettishisation of free markets as the bastion and guarantor of human freedom. Surely you dont dispute that?
@Kali Southpaw it's utopian to think that capitalism can ever be the basis for human freedom
@@jbmuggins8815 Capitalism is the embodiment of human freedom. It says you own what you produce and nobody can steal anything you've made. That is freedom.
@@damonhage7451 ?? the whole point of capitalism is that employees produce, only for the product to go to their employers. you accidentally described socialism...
@@jbmuggins8815 When you work for an employer, you are engaging in an trade of your labor for your salary. I don't know where this "product" comes in.
Your employer makes a profit on you. You're worth more to the company than they pay you. They never would hire you otherwise. You go work for a company because your time is worth less to you than the salary they pay. You would never take the job otherwise. There are 2 products in a trade. I don't know what "product" means in your comment.
While Christopher Hitchens and John Ridpath have unfortunately passed on Harry Binswanger and John Judis are still alive and well among us. Seeing these men in their prime at a time that seems not so long ago it appears the human life span is too short.
Damn, this Hitchens guy is good. He should become a debater and novelist or something.
Wow you need to check his debates on religion man he was a legend. R.I.P
@@yada7630 I think @John McCrae was being sarcastic.
@@yada7630 Some people just don't get sarcasm.
He was being sarcastic but Hitchens would detest anyone calling him a novelist
Good comment but I can already see the comment flying over many peoples heads😊
man, the crowd questions are painful.
Black pill of the day:
The questioneers are still more educated than the average voter.
The first speaker claims that life is dependent upon the ability for rational thought. Yet there he stands - clearly disproving his own argument.
Are objectivist thought leaders unaware of Libertarian Socialists and Anarchists, or is it just inconvenient for them to consider?
Not all socialists are statists.
No, just present completely unreconstructed individualism without an attempt to reconcile the individual with the collective and claim intellectual victory.
100% of socialists are statist. If you don't know that then you don't know what either socialism or statism are. Not surprising, I've never known a self-proclaimed socialist to understand what socialism is. They just simply reject the term "capitalism" while promoting and practicing capitalism and just trying to insist on calling it socialism.
Nah because they lean on the hegemony of US pro-Cold War propaganda
@@ajb7786 I'm not going to bombard you with insults about how ignorant you are blah blah blah point scoring etc, but do look up 'libertarian socialism' and discover the non-statist, anti-authoritarian currents of socialism which have been around (in their modern forms) for about 150-200 years.
Kyle Alexander the real world Canada Norway England France Conservatives are people who think that the real world is Texas and that it represents a natural order rather than a construct
Epic debate and very respectful, which is always nice to see
All my birthdays have come at once. Thank you, Rand Stuff, whoever you are.
Is it your birthday? Happy birthday!
Fuck you and your birthday.
@@joshuavickers9820 there’s the objectivist! Get him!
@@joshuavickers9820 Serious question: Are you by any chance related to Jill Vickers, who was destroyed in the 1984 socialism debate against Peikoff and Ridpath?
It amazes me that Ayn Rand is regarded by some as a serious philosopher. Just my opinion though.
I agree. Her philosophy is easily pulled apart because it is theoretical rather than empirical.
You just don't know what she actually said. She wasn't against charity or people helping other people.
As far as the Philosophy of Ayn Rand, it's a pretty good Philosophy to promote high productivity. BUT, guess what? People are drug addicts, bums, assholes and day-dreamers and some people don't have a lot going on between their ears. What do you do with them? Her philosophy is great for some people but the underlying arguments is what makes Ayn Rand perfectly fine. She's basically a small government advocate which, despite any philosophy, will actually yield greater results for ALL PHILOSOPHIES. If your goal is to smoke cocaine and do nothing than there is no place greater than a free society because only a free society can create the kind of wealth that is necessary for people to be bums.
@@EGarrett01 Exactly. It's ironic that people make this statement about Ayn and in reality their policies take thousands of dollars that otherwise would go to charity and instead go directly into the hands of politicians or government administrations etc. If everyone kept their money they would have more cash than they would know what to do with.
@@kylewatson5133 Yes, she wanted charity to be voluntary.
I previously thought I had seen everything starring Mr. Hitchens. Glad to be proved wrong.
Cheers for uploading :D
Small world! The more Hitch the better, I must say.
Two things. Firstly, the arguments of the capitalist side aged really badly. Secondly, that I would hear that colonization was the best thing that happened to these countries is a very evil thing to say. Or the comment about oil. This kind of thinking proves what Hitchens said about capitalism loving force and destroying private property.
@Thomas Farrell Sureee. I am sure having your resources exported, your people sold and your political system manipulated is a very nice thing. It's not like most of Africa is how it is largely because of the effect colonialism had on it. Ooo wait...
@Thomas Farrell how was Africa better off with or under colonialism?
@Thomas Farrell so you really think all of sub-saharan Africa were just a bunch of savage tribes with no real knowledge of the world around them before the Europeans came??
What about the oppression and continued withdrawal (or theft) of capital (human or resources) for years, the control and the intervention in politics in society for it's own benefit, the drawing of maps with no respect in regards to the peoples language, history or culture.
If you ask me, saying that colonialism was a good thing for African countries is not only morally appalling, but just completely and scholarly wrong. It is anti-intellectual and revisionist history.
@Thomas Farrell Ok clearly you're not interested in learning.
You probably just think that Europeans (and whites) are a superior people/race.
Have a good day
@Thomas Farrell No I do not believe that Western civilisation or Europeans are innately superior to Africans or Asians.
Thats a claim is contrary to the spirit of science and education itself. Only very uneducates people would think something like that
John Ridpath - March 23, 2021 - *R.I.P.*
RIP bozo. The world is a better place without him.
@@RikerLovesWorf
Any specific objection? Or are you just capable of hooliganism ?
John Ridpath was awesome.
@@RikerLovesWorfWhat a disgusting comment. Ridpath was a tremendous man.
Well I think Objectivism is an antisocial philosophy. In the psychological sense. As in toxic to society. They also don't believe in determinism. Which is contrary to science. When poor and rich comingle. They feel less alienated by one another and there is less friction. That's part of why equality is good. It breeds friendship.
And friendship is good.
1:33:41 "Colonialism is the best thing that ever happened to the colonies."
I'm in team Objectivism but this is so uninformed, it's unbelievable. The enslavement, massacres, artificial famines, human rights violations, racism, etc. in no way was good to India as a colony.
The perfect rebuttal to this point is this viral Oxford Union speech: th-cam.com/video/f7CW7S0zxv4/w-d-xo.html
look at the india. it is same dirthole like 200 years back. sad to say, but some nations are not ready for freedom. this is reason why we have plenty of failed states around the globe.
@@Ivane_Maskhulia they already had/have mechanisms of control in place, regardless of how good they seem to be functioning, or how universally moral one regards the end. Colonialism is the pinnacle of ignorance and avarice. Your statement of how India is essentially unchanged after colonial rule is evidence of the harm the West likely did, rather than accelerate human rights it may have retarded them. The social changes both cosmetic, or actual, in exchange for accepting yoke of Western model, itself of deeply unjust and bloody origin, and now there are two absolutist systems, East and West, crushing the individual and their potential.
India was one of the richest countries in the world prior to colonial invasion. The citizens may not have been on equal footing, but the wealth looted from India by the English was immense.
I imagine there are a few societies that have, thus far in history, gained from being a colony of a larger society. I suppose it all depends what you mean in gained. I mean life expectancy, literacy rates, infant mortality, calories consumed per day, access to clean water, things of this nature.
An even more disquieting thought is that some ancestors of slaves are better off because their ancestors were enslaved. I might go so far as to say some slaves themselves had their standards of living raised by being enslaved. More secure food, water, and housing, free from tribal raiders and midnight massacres.
If you disagree, I’m wondering if you can imagine a situation in which you would agree. Say, there is some extremely advanced society, which can heal all illness, has means of giving any material or mental wants you could imagine, and you go from being a half starved agrarian Yemenis farmer, to being enslaved by this super advanced society. Would that be a lifting of living standards? Or does the slavery aspect, no matter the context, always get trumped by freedom, however relative and meager that freedom may be.
I see it akin to being a slave to a local chief working in his hut, or being a slave to a global king working in his castle estate.
Taking in the rest of his quote into context, what he said is absolutely true.
Man, people could talk and discuss things in a civilized way those days. Incredible!
@LaMortEtLamour well yeah but at least they don't shout and shit at each other
@LaMortEtLamour and I even more surprised with the quality of the audience
@LaMortEtLamour you see, this never changes - people come to support their sides or rather to confirm their own views, to think "yes, I'm right!", so when they hear something appealing they applause etc. but at least they ask questions, I mean real questions - to hear the answer, not to blame smb
survivorship bias
One huge problem is that the American government subsidizes businesses, bails them out, etc. So we are not living in a capitalist society--it's closer to fascism than pure capitalism because the govt. has been bought out by corporations, lobbyists, etc. I believe this is a major reason why socialist agendas gain appeal in America--because, with the assistance of the government, capitalism grows to geometrically oppressive heights that then demand a socialist response to try to restore some kind of equilibrium between corporate rights and individual rights.
The government being bought is a necessity under capitalism, because without force capital is incapable of continuity itself.
So Capitalism can't protect itself by buying force privately, so it has to buy the most expensive and legitimized force (government) instead? Okay
@@alexsch2514 No it isn't. Who told you that? The guy who said horse-drawn carriages would mean the end of palanquins and cause a loss of jobs in the transport industry?
@SteelpeachandtozHow does private property defend itself without the force of the state, then? Wondering for all the capitalists and business owners who wholly disagree with you.
@@Steelpeachandtozer How does Capitalism not turn into a monopoly overnight without government oversight?
Verizon would purchase all the telecom corps tomorrow without anti-trust. Amazon and Google would own the internet, etc.
The business with the largest market share in the age of globalization is a force of nature that can’t be stopped without government intervention.
Capitalism necessitates government control and cronyism.
Like they say in curling: Hitchens has the hammer!
@Ernesto Lombardo .....and sickle.
I had argued with a friend that I've seen every Hitchens debate. Oh well...
Oops
Isn't the distinction between these two sides an issue of definitions of "freedom" and why freedom is fundamental value to us?
freedom for the rich and sly versus freedom for the responsible humanity
I love how the moderator is a ginger John Maynard Keynes
7:05 "We champion capitalism as the only moral political system."
That's his opening statement! Good luck with that...
Worked out pretty well didn't it.
@@damonhage7451 No, it didn't. Just look at the wealth inequality in 1st world countries today. Wait until the people start justifiably killing the wealthy and their families, a-la the French Revolution.
@@rsr789 Um.... France wasn't capitalist. That is what made those killings "justified to the extent that they were. There is no justification for killing the wealthy (or anyone) under capitalism.
Colonialism is the best thing ever to happen to the colonies. Wow. Just wow.
Can we handle the truth? I guess not.
Slowpoke Rodriguez ???
I mean it is technically true. North America is the best geopolitical location on the planet, bar none.
@@Mediax5 ehhh? howso?
@@PazLeBon It would be fairly long winded for a comment to be honest. Just look into how geography gave the united states super power status so quickly.
Thank you Dr. Ridpath for your definitions and resolute statements.
THANK YOUUUUU BEEN LOOKING FOR THIS FOR MONTHS
10:45 OMFG I taught I was looking at a mirror. That expression sums up exactly how i was feeling when first speaker said wealth is not created by labour but by capitalist.
@Oners82 I wouldn't go so far. Decision capitalist take of where to apply capital saves wealth from going to waste. Therefore it does create wealth. I agree Capitalist tend to take more share then what is due to them
He is correct. All of the wealth is created by capitalists and none of the wealth is created by labour which is why the average per capita income worldwide did not exceed 105 USD until the advent of capitalism by Great Britain in the 1580's . You're welcome.
@Oners82 iTs bIg bRaIn tImE.
Reread my comment fucktard I didnt say "wealth is not created by labour".
@Oners82 Ok go run around in a field and move around some rocks. See how much wealth you produce.
@@Steelpeachandtozer The house in which you live was built by laborers. The roads on which you drive were built by laborers. The very computer which you used to post your breathtakingly moronic remark contains metals mined . . . by laborers.
I can tell that you're the kind of smug little coil of shit who has never had an actual job.
What do you call a group of objectivists who all think the same thing? A collective. Ba-dum-tiss.
Protip: collectivism doesn't own the concept collective.
"All a collective is is a group of individuals."
@@ThreeFingerG Protip: Ayn Rand built a cult like following espousing her objectivist philosophy. All of those people believe(d) in a set of fundamentals which creates an in-group/out-group dynamic.
From Wikipedia: Collectivism is a value that is characterized by emphasis on cohesiveness among individuals and prioritization of the group over the self. Individuals or groups that subscribe to a collectivist worldview tend to find common values and goals as particularly salient[1] and demonstrate greater orientation toward in-group than toward out-group.
Objectivists define themselves according to their adherence to Rand's philosophy and in doing so we find that those values are consistent among objectivists. In other words, ask an objectivists what they value and believe in and you will find a lot of consistency, which is what you would expect from collectivism.
@@aliasoma "You will find alot of consistency, which is what you would expect from collectivism."
You do not not properly understand the definition of collectivism. "which is what you would expect from collectivism". Yes if you have a surface level conception of what to "expect" from collectivist attributes. Protip: collectivism does not own the word collective but rather " *primacy* of the collective". Important distinction.
Consistency in Objectivist circles is a product of that philosophy so strongly stressing noncondradiction, the supremacy of reason, and the potency of heirarchical integration. And really mostly the novelty of holding such a culturally atypical position as altruism=unadulterated evil. And besides this "consistency" is not so absolute as you might think. I name one of the few criticsim's of Rand that I've accepted: rebirthofreason.com/Articles/BissellRE/The_Evolution_of_the_Objective.shtml .
Edit: spelling
The difference is state forced collectives vs collectives you join voluntarily. Objectivists and libertarians have no problems with the latter.
@@JensHove "ladder"
latter not ladder.
Thank you for uploading this.
How have I never seen this before
What do we have here, new Hitchens footage I have never seen before....O baby
Well after Caplan and Vickers in 1984, the Socialist side could only improve...
Mark Schulz They were truly terrible. I’ve never seen such a lopsided debate.
Wow this is some quality television right there.
This video is a great treasure. Thank you for the one who uploaded it.
If TH-cam recommends this to you, know you're deep in the Hitchens rabbithole
"We had the right to take their oil because we are using it". Okay, then I have the right to take his savings because he's not using them. QED.
Very good.
He is using his savings. It has a clear purpose to him, to secure his life in the future.
Someone who doesn't claim something doesn't own it. That was his point. The capitalist comes in, claims or buys the property; it is his. The socialist and/or statist sees the capitalist working the property; they claim it was theirs after the fact. That is, or is closer to, the proper scenario that Binswanger is mentioning.
It still doesn't make sense. If you don't know they value of a diamond but you posses one, and someone comes along and tells you it's his because you don't need it how is that fair?
@@PresidentialWinner You're presuming you're already in possession/claim of the diamond. In that case, it would be unfair. That's not what's being discussed in the video.
@@nicholasgramlich5860 Well hold on now, if you own a piece of land or your nation or tribe or family owns a piece of land and the diamond is on that land and you walk on the land and take it is that fair then, is that not the thing that is being discussed?
35 years ago, the right was rejecting Jesus and religion. I'd like to see them try that now:)
What are you talking about? "The Moral Majority" was a big thing then.
the fuck are you talking about?
These two gentlemen were libertarians and/or anarcho-capitalists, which indeed reject a religious foundation to justify the type of freedom of capitalism. These were not the majority of pro-capitalists back then, and still are not now.
Aurora Actually, they are Objectivists. Rand abhorred both anarchists and libertarians.
Anarcho-capitalism is a redundant phrase, as anarchism assumes private property.
Knowledge is not synonymous with reason. Reason requires the formality if critical thinking. Knowledge is the acquisition of info, but doesn't necessarily imply critical thinking. As for creating/making wealth, he probably missed the fact of inheritance or theft. Growing rich while enslaving others is a form of theft. Using influence to avoid paying taxes while expecting others to beat your burden is theft. And social democracy is different from socialism.
"Knowledge is the acquisition of info, but doesn't necessarily imply critical thinking."
I think your terms are a little ambiguous. Reason is using sense data to form concepts and validating those concepts using logic.
1. Sense data
2. Concept formation
3. Logical integration
I don't know what "critical thinking" is. I know many people use that term, but I've never seen it defined in a reasonable way. The only way to acquire knowledge is through reason. You need to hear somebody tell you the knowledge or see it on your computer screen (sense data). You need to form concepts in order to understand what you are hearing or seeing.You need to use logic to eliminate contradictions in the concepts you formed. If you did not use reason, then what you have is not "knowledge".
"As for creating/making wealth, he probably missed the fact of inheritance".
If I create wealth, its mine. If I want to burn it, or give it to the government, or leave it to my cat, or leave it to my children, that is none of your business. It is mine.
"or theft. Growing rich while enslaving others is a form of theft."
You are attacking the socialist position now? It seemed to me you were attacking the capitalist's position but now I'm not so sure.
"Using influence to avoid paying taxes while expecting others to beat your burden is theft."
Taxes are theft. Everyone should try to pay as little as possible. Your money is yours, not the government's where you are just allowed to keep a certain percentage.
"And social democracy is different from socialism."
I agree. Most times social democracy is the tool that is used to achieve socialism.
@@damonhage7451 Profit is theft.
@@TheSnowyBlizzard How is profit theft? Every single voluntary interact has both sides profiting.
Ha ha, you say that and then utterly fail in critical thinking. I love people trying to desperately protect their prejudiced conclusions trying to invoke critical thinking.
Love it how his voice and drinking has been consistent over the years.
"I don't think that people vote their pocket book"
OK buddy
Like my old boss said in 1980. I'm voting for Reagan because he's going to put more money into defense.(Which was the business we were in).
Do you? Why explains the popularity of politicians like AOC and Sanders, who openly admit that they will contract the economy to achieve what they see as moral ends?
@@sybo59 Medical bankruptcy is the #1 cause of bankruptcy in the US. We pay twice as much on medical expenses in the US as almost any other developed nation, while having similar or worse outcomes. Medicare for all would positively effect a lot of peoples pocket books.
Berning Sandwiches Many wealthy people vote for those who would substantially increase their taxes. It will knowingly hurt their pocket book, no?
@@sybo59 there's a lot more poor people than wealthy people. Poor people typically benefit from social programs, no?
"Today, all the rights are on the side of the poor and all the suffering is on the side of those big capitalist business men"
"Depressions are not caused by the market, but by statist interference"
In reference to the great depression there is a wildly strong argument that government intervention did in fact create and extend the period. Unemployment had been on a recovery since the October crash and had seen a low of 6% in the following year. However, it came to a halt after the implementation of the Smoot and Hawley tariffs, unemployment would not be under double digits for the rest of the decade.
Braydon Bryan The tariffs were the initial big intervention, but it was a combination of all the massive interventions throughout the 1930s which have been shown to have prolonged, and deepened, the Great Depression.
@@MC-hj1fv Thank you, that's certainly true and drives the point further.
Braydon Bryan I would also take it much further in emphasising that the Federal Reserve under Hoover was probably the largest factor in leading to the recession to begin with.
don't forget war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength
"Just as church should be seperated from state, state should totally be seperated from economics"
I'd kindly remind Mr Ridpath about the industrial revolution and how the seperation of state and economics turned out for the working class. As always, americans really do seem to have a hard time learning from history...
Tell us when you are ready to FIGHT instead of make commentary... there are a lot of us out here.
Not to mention the early years of America and the trial of librarian capitalism under Hoover during the great depression, and it's remedy under FDR
@@edwardwilson4997 For as long as the most powerful army on the planet is protecting FED's monopoly to issue world's trading currency you cannot blame 'capitalism' for financial crises.
The industrial revolution turned out VERY good for the working class. They saw an immense increase in their living conditions.
@@matthijsvanoostende9292
Lmao
Shoutout Ben Burgis for bringing this to light in his appearance on the “This is Revolution” TH-cam channel
The kid at 1:12:40 🤣🤣🤣
The insecure little fuckwad Binswanger sicced the moderator on him too! Couldn't take the banter so he shuts down his speech!
@@theinherentfloyd3393 binswanger is the original edgelord who has no understanding of economics. Should just stick with philosophy instead of spewing these nonsense regarding economic policies.
This guy❤️
@@theinherentfloyd3393 yeah, totally. It wasn't even an ad hominem.
@@eclipse369. Holy shit such a savage comment
1:31:40 Dude is up there like "Oh yeah, gottem this time!" and then Hitchen begins a rarely seen but epic Hitchslap
No it wanted, that was a pathetic deflection.
@@equaltoreality8028 Uh, no, that was a masterclass. You must think Harry Trashcanwang is a genius in that case.
@@RikerLovesWorf Harry is a genus and frankly this was the few times Hitchens was outclassed as socialism is completely mystical and irrational.
Harry Binswanger is a lunatic. I keep hearing him saying absolutely absurd nonsense every time he talks. He really lives in a parallel universe.
He was born to a rich capitalist family.
@@ianjedi1282 I don't see why that should impair his connection with reality...
Julian Janssen it shouldn’t. I think he’s just being dishonest.
@@ianjedi1282 I am not sure about that. If you are aware of the parallel universe conservatives live in today, it seems like he might have just been so sheltered and shown such a distorted view of reality that he is just objectively wrong about basic things. I do wonder what you can do about it. I am not sure if you can.
Julian Janssen I do not know him or about him enough, to comment with certainty. The only cure is reality and exposure to varied experiences and sometimes divine intervention if you like talking like that. Walking a mile in someone else’s mohcasins does wonders.
31:40 let’s get to the good part now
It’s a pleasure listening to Hitchens speak, even when he’s dead wrong. He was out of his depth on this one - didn’t seriously address his opponents’ actual beliefs, and leaned to heavily on irony and non-sequitur.
@@sybo59 Can you please provide a specific example?
@@williampatrickwoods Oof, that’s a tall order, friend - I didn’t take notes when I watched and would have to comb through again for you to do your question justice. Since it’s likely fresher on your mind, can you point to any serious argument Hitchens posed against anything the Objectivists actually believe?
There is no question that the most intelligent comment made in this very excellent video is that: "Colonialism is the best thing that ever happened to the colonies." EVERY country that was a colony of Western nation-states saw a drastic improvement in the rights of women and ethnic minorities, increased lift expectancy, increased personal freedoms, lower infant mortality, free trade, the introduction of capitalism, a decrease in tribalism, et al. Thank-you, Western Civilization.
Look at where they are now. I'm tired of lecturing people that habe skipped their history lessons...
any more obscure hitchens debates?
Hitchens would've never objected to an ad hominem attack, he'd just spin it around and use the momentum of the attack to make his point hit that much harder, as he's done many times.
None of his points actually hit here, socialism is evil and immoral. Even Hitchens lied here about Marx being not deterministic.
Objectivism is all about not giving the sanction of the victim. Not engaging does that. Any Rand did the same.
Jetting like a wolf! Sorry, I tried to contain myself but..... this is a beautiful Hitch document. Inspired and ever-inspiring. Nearly a decade without you CH. So glad you died knowing your reach and suspecting your legacy. x
but Hitchens was on the wrong side
What is so inspiring, Hitchens lied several times in this debate. Do you even understand what these people were taking about?
@@sheehan92 You’re right that Hitchens was on the wrong side of this particular debate, and was very much outmatched, but he overall was a brilliant orator and courageous champion of reason and Enlightenment ideals. If only more Objectivists had his wit and fire in the belly!
@@sybo59 This is not true. You cannot support socialism (in any form) and also champion the Enlightenment. The fundamental idea of the enlightenment is that your life belongs to you and you only, and thus nobody has the right to initiate force on to you. You cannot support socialism and say you are pro-enlightenment. John Ridpath talks briefly about this in the last part of this video. Objectivists come from the tradition of Locke, Aristotle and Cicero. People like Hitchens come from the tradition of Russow, Marx and Kant who are anti-enlightenment figures. They mix reason with mysticism, they are collectivists at the core (sometimes explicitly), they define freedom as a zero-sum concept and thus they are socialists.
On a different matter, I used to think Hitchens was a good orator around 2010 when he (and others) introduced me to atheism. But pretty much any objectivist starting from Leonard Piekoff to Alex Epstein are better speakers than him. They are clearer, more consistent, more rational and more objective. Even the ones who are non-native English speakers are far better than Hitchens.
@@sheehan92 You’re wrong, and worse, showing unfortunate signs of rationalism. I clearly and correctly said Hitchens’ broader legacy beyond this particular debate was glorious and pro-Enlightenment. Did it occur to you that he might have changed his views in the decades between this debate and his untimely death? You’ll be heartened to hear that he did.
He explicitly acknowledged that Marxist socialism had failed. He penned excellent biographies on both Jefferson and Paine. He even wrote somewhat fairly about Rand at one point (a lot to ask of a reformed Marxist). And besides, even while an avowed Trotskyite, Hitchens through his words and deeds overwhelmingly exemplified individualism. Have you read his biography? Any of his essays?
Yes, he was conflicted and imperfect. So were the aforementioned Jefferson and Paine, one of whom did in fact own slaves. Are you prepared to isolate their sins and tear them down in kind?
Hitchens was morally courageous, several times risking his safety to cover stories he thought important. He fought religionists and totalitarianism, even when it was unpopular. He daringly pursued his own values. He was no arm-chair intellectual. Shame on you for diminishing this hero, the man in the arena, from your comfy spectator seat.
In addition to your base rationalism, you reveal yourself as willfully blinded by tribalism in your wild comparison of Hitchens’s oratory to that of Peikoff or Epstein. I love those guys, but this is a laughable statement to any objective observer. Hitch’s rhetorical and speaking style was seductive; Peikoff and Epstein tend toward the mono-tonal, and often fail to read the room and sway the skeptics. Hitchens, on the other hand, talked countless thinking people away from religion. Perhaps you think that a trivial task. Yet no Objectivist since Rand ever matched it, and the movement, despite having the most potent ideas ever conceived, continues to limp on in obscurity. And zeroes like you with no skin in the game help insure no lessons are learned. You keep hating - we few will keep fighting to actually win.
The fellow at 48:23 seems familiar to me. Can someone help me ID him?
Dr. Edwin Locke
Hitch didn't understand the question. I love him for his arguments for Atheism. But on this topic he is still living with the over-bearing and intransigent class structure of his home nation, mere historical imperfections.
*Capitalism requires every citizen to become a capitalist.* To acquire the productive tools (including the mind, the resilience, courage, fitness, etc) to find a place in the system. IOW become a middle-class participant.
Government is merely an opportunity to become corrupted by power (Acton). Human society need as unobtrusive version of government as any particular culture can manage. Eg: when they attempt to provide education, health care, communications, central banking systems, etc each of these became bureaucracies with their own misuse of force. Government interference in the economy led inexorably to the Carnegie-Rockefeller-Ford (et.al.) monopolies. A fully capitalist society would not tolerate the events and practises that permitted such monopolist outcomes (Toqueville, Tytler).
The fundamental flaw in human systems is us. We can be as low as the snake's belly and we can soar with Wagner's eagles. Only when there is a direct impact to each decision concerning how we conduct ourselves in public will we restrain (or re-train) our individual imperfections.
The sole purpose of our species is to allow the bright-minded to release the products of their imaginations and hard work. We are not mere survivors (I hope) and nobody but us can propel ourselves in this inhospitable universe.
for sure, it isnt the system, capitalist/socialist/communist, it's the individuals/groups who run it., allied with the fact that even the privedged education systems seem to push that greed narrative
The difference is that lazziez-faire capitalist systems can cause owners of the means of production to essentially have unilateral power over any person they can buy and this works under ANY political system. Therefore, the role of government, perhaps it's PRIMARY role is, and should be to prevent any UNELECTED official from becoming powerful enough to sway politics. Essentially the exact opposite of what the United States currently has, and why capitalism has failed us. We have a crony capitalist system and any attempt to fix it is LABELLED as "socialism". Equivocation of social programs with "socialism" more broadly, and then jeeringly the pundits ask: "But when has socialism ever worked".
Our politicians receive money from donors who happen to be the business owners that Libertarians essentially hand over power to when they make statements like "Government needs to stay out of our lives" or insinuates that a government necessarily will be less efficient at running X system than a company. This does not account for cottage industries like Health Insurance companies which have transformed into incredibly powerful lobbying entities.
Not to be rude, but it actually fails to account for a few things other than these as well.
"Capitalism requires every citizen" - "to acquire the productive tools to find a place in the system.": Are you happy for people who cannot do so (injured etc.) to simply die? If so I would argue that your ideal system fails to provide the best experience of life possible (which I believe to be the ultimate goal of any system but maybe you disagree).
"Government is merely an opportunity to become corrupted by power.": Government is also an opportunity to unify a group of people whch allows said group to exploit things they could not individually e.g. Economies of scale, bargaining strength in numbers to improve their experience of life.
"The sole purpose of our species is to allow the bright-minded to release the products of their imaginations and hard work.": I disagree as is probably clear by now. Our species does not have a sole purpose that I can see. A sole purpose implies that there is an objective truth to some statement of "people ought to..." but I don't see how that can be the case if value is subjective.
@@michaeledowling1039
a. When and how did they become injured? What insurances and backup plans have they provided for themselves? Who was responsible for the injury?...
b. Read history much? Can you name one civilisation where that has ever happened? Until we start employing the ideal government system that is not possible.
hint: facebook.com/Vision-Representation-A-Humanist-Government-262619170609120
OR demvision.wordpress.com
[the concept in those links is a test of their host culture and thus the value of humanity]
c. Worst case scenario. This universe will apparently destroy this planet one day. Ergo act as if that were going to happen and make escape possible. That will require huge knowledge and brainpower. Re: reality. Survival is a sub-branch of reality. Science has many 'ought to' advisory dictums.
@@josephd2653 You haven't been rude at all. Instead you have merely cherry-picked some isolated events, chose a poor example (the USA) and carried on.
The CotUSA is a flawed document. It assumed:
only the very best people would volunteer for election;
and that as knowledge grew as a document it would be amended.
Every representative democracy has made the same mistake.
Acton was right and furthermore his warning is an absolute human condition; that power corrupts. (unless their name is Marcus Aurelius or they are a fervent fan of Stoicism) This is why Socialism and by inference strong central government is not in humanity's best interests. Never has been, never will be.
Read Orwell's 'Wigan Pier' for a glimpse into how bureaucracies cruel everything they touch. Including corporate capitalism.
See also:
facebook.com/Vision-Representation-A-Humanist-Government-262619170609120
OR demvision.wordpress.com
The above links will become a severe test of the society's preparedness for humanity in the transition period.
"I don't belong to a family", lol. you do, but maybe yours disowned you for conning them out of money for a college education
That statement was very cryptic. What did he really mean?
@@taz0k2 he meant he didn't owe his family anything, I assume
Hitchens is right about Capitalism, Milton Friedman said the same essentially. " Where ever you have freedom you have capitalism". Freedom in this sense is an act of individual nature. The act of the transaction between individuals is also an act of freedom. So the Former USSR, North Korea, China, Venezuela had a "black market", this is capitalism in its most natural form. Capitalists have never claimed that where ever you have capitalism you have societal freedom, because this is an obvious untrue statement.
Pretty sure Friedman said capitalism leads to freedom. He used that argument to defend Pinochet
@@sirherbert6953 better look that up. The Free to Choose Q&A series on youtube should clear up the comment. He made the comment in a speech about whether or not capitalism was humane. He pointed out that no system is "humane" that only people are humane, outlining the theme that where ever there is freedom you have capitalism. That freedom takes its most basic form through the individual and his/her capacity for economic self interest. Its the same as when Hitchens says that capitalism is not incompatible with socialism. Indeed! It is compatible, as laid out by the statement Friedman made.
This doesn't make any sense. If we are fundamentally anything, we are fundamentally social and collective. This is how all institutions, cultures, and forms of political and economic organisation have emerged. There is no individual freedom without collective, or "societal" freedom, and vice versa. The capacity of capitalism to individuate and obscure our collective subjectivity is its greatest horror.
@@samjames6890 "The capacity of capitalism to individuate and obscure our collective subjectivity is its greatest horror." AKA, capitalism throws a wrench into plans for European style government and mob rule. Come closer child and let me fill you in on some real hard truths, not assertions.
Freedoms don't come from government, they are inherent because we are individuals. Freedom is the consequence of individuality, not society. The Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution are amplifiers of that ideal.
Individualism fosters capitalism. Capitalism in its purest form is the uninhibited, un-coerced transactions between two or more people. It doesn't rely on class, race, "society" institutions or political parties, it relies on individual freedom.
This is why you find capitalism in the places you normally wouldn't look for it; if there is an ounce of freedom, there is at least a pound of capitalism.
So again, both Hitchens and Friedman are seeing capitalism in the same way, because they realize these truths are really indisputable.
@@samjames6890 Capitalism, in the free-market sense of the word, is social. How else would a *market* exist? (in fact prices can't exist without a market either but I digress) Businesses are also collective, multiple people working together towards a goal. But in neither sense is it *collectivist*, which is state control, coercion to perform as instructed (by political actors) at threat of violence.
The entire libertarian/objectivist vision is for free individuals so they can find their own passions (restricted by the necessities of the market) and form their own voluntary relationships thereby sustaining themselves via providing for others, and providing people with what they need and desire.
Since it is voluntary for consumers, niches can be better served than in a centrally organized economy (greater diversity of concern). Since it is voluntary for producers, passion and competitiveness drives higher levels of production (greater amount and/or quality).
That is people can both be free, more productive, and have their desires better served. In fact it can be argued that coercion and slavery are intrinsically un-productive (or minimally productive).
"Colonialism is the best thing that ever happened to the colonies" - Harry Binswanger
Well he's not wrong
Although not evident to those who are being subjected at the time, being colonised, or absorbed into a larger, more dominant empire can indeed bring multiple long term benefits. Most people of the world have been colonised or "taken over" at some point in history and it has been part of the pathway to a global society which brings numerous efficiencies. England benefitted from Roman occupation - "we owe London to Rome", as Churchill said. The Scots benefitted when they accepted and embraced English as a first language. India obtained from Britain a railway network, a common language, principles of democracy and governance, economic growth etc
Inglese29 it’s clear that not once in your life have you encountered a single word of Marx or, perhaps less controversially and more surprisingly, any images or articles depicting or describing any country on the African continent, on the Indian subcontinent, or much of Latin America or South East Asia.
See 'The White Man's Burden' by Kipling - written to Teddy Roosevelt concerning the Philippines of the time.
Amanda Critchlow Even whilst the Mughal empire was failing in India in the early 1800s India had the second highest GDP in the world. By 1945 they weren’t even in the top 5! Which is crazy considering the raw materials and sheer quantity of labour that that region possesses. Unfortunately, a batch of people in the West can’t compute that ‘european economic supremacy’ is a very new thing historically speaking. For centuries upon centuries Asia was the hub of innovation, law, mathematics - it is not unreasonable to assume that this won’t come to pass this century. The world will return to its natural economic equanimity
I know we all came here for Hitchens, whether you like him or not
I actually came here for Binswanger but was excited to see Hitchens.
@@emoshunless same
I came for Ridpath, haha.
@@azorbz9286 I didn't know him until now. And I am now a fan. I'm curious why I've never heard of him..
Binswanger
I have to give kudos to the moderator. He did a great job.
Hitchens uses words like a razor... magnificent
He's a word smith
RIP Christopher Hitchens! Sorely missed, but never forgotten! ❤
Hitchens was any enemy of logic, and a champion of self-service. His mentality - unabashed prejudice and denial of anything that contradicts those prejudices - represents the biggest threat to humans.
@@ajb7786 Love it when dumb apologists rant and rave against Hitchens! 😂😂
@@ajb7786 says the monotheist
@@ajb7786 *You're a clown. A total bleating imbecile. No wonder you're a monotheist (with shades of theocratic fascism, too)*
Hitchens was right about religion but wrong about everything else, including in this debate. Point after point he got his ass whooped by Binswanger. I wish we had more young Binswanger videos.
3:20 in and the capitalists already lost. Ouch
“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
― Margaret Thatcher
I read "Atlas Shrugged" when I was 23, and became and instant fan of Rand and Objectivism, devouring everything she wrote, and I even have a hard bound edition of the first couple of years of "The Objectivist Newsletter". All through my 20's I was a passionate advocate for Rand and Objectivism. As the years passed I began to realize that the philosophy is based on two implicit premise that are simply wrong. Just as Marxism is incorrectly founded on the principle that everyone can share everything and that there is no such thing as greed, Objectivism is based on the opposite idea: that no one would willingly share with others, and that altruism is simply a pretentious affectation. Neither is true. The second premise is that nothing anyone can do, short of the use of force, can negatively affect others, thus there need be no regulation on the behavior of producers other than the inability to physically force others. If recent history and scientific discovery has shown us anything, it is that everything we do can affect others, and we need to start thinking more in terms of the collective well being before we make this planet unlivable. That said, I can't come to any other conclusion but that this is without a doubt, the best subject for debate ever, and both sides have so many vitally salient points that we must learn if we are to have any kind of future.
Very true.
Marxism is not at all founded on the principle that everyone can share everything and there is no such thing as greed. *Marxism is a critique of capitalism and a critical analysis of history through tools such as materialism and Hegelian dialectics* . Socialism, of which many of its forms are inspired by Marxist thought, is also no more about the belief that everyone can share and there is no such thing as greed. The whole point is putting the means of production, distribution and exchange in the hands of the community as a whole, rather than that of the owners or those with immense wealth. It does not utterly eliminate greed, nor claim that it doesn't exist in humans, it simply biases in favour of most people will help their community, and then makes it extremely difficult for greed of a few individuals to overrun the good of the many.
Not every resource is so scarce that it needs a prohibitive system of distribution so only those with more money can obtain them. Free markets for _everything_ does not align with the realities of production (for example, we produce food for up to 10B people per year, yet people still starve. That is both a highly inefficient and immoral form of distribution). Not everything can be shared, no resource is infinite and greed does exist, but you can make systems that make a much better use of what we do have, reward greed at the expense and suffering of others far less, and don't incentivize short-sighted overconsumption.
Rand doesn't argue that no one would willingly share with others, she was married, she explained that she benefited from sharing her life and possessions with her husband. She argues in favour of Charity. A way to understand it would be comparing the difference between Charity and state redistribution of wealth, one uses force, the other doesn't.
She also doesn't argue that only direct use of force can harm others, she argued that the use of force against another is immoral. You clearly either managed to not understand Rand after 20 years or you are pretending to be a convert, i suspect the latter.
BenAffleckisanokayactor That comment is not neo-Marxist, but more or less classical Marxist (and neo means new, so that sentence is quite silly to begin with). Neo-Marxism is quite broad, but is often used to refer to traditions like Critical Theory, or other Western thinkers (like Gramsci) that recognised the Soviet system for the totalitarian nightmare it was, were still building on (or rather responding to) the theoretical works of Marxists, while abandoning some central concepts, like hard historical materialism
@@nadlax5920 Lmao what the first half is just definitions, because people sometimes think Marxism is a system of social organization when it is not. It is analysis. Socialism is, but it's extremely broad and can describe several systems that share a few similarities. Not sure what's "horseshit" about using the literal correct definitions of things.
As for the free market not always being the best form of distribution, I'm sure that would seem very offensive to you if you're a free market fundamentalist but I would argue there are countless examples of it probably not being the best idea in every circumstance.
"Ideology is the root cause of despotism" is a very sad, unimaginative and pessimistic view of the world that halts progress or thinking of any systemic improvements we can make in response to good social criticism. Not to mention literally every large social organization is based on ideology. The only way it wouldn't be is if there were no society at all. If you mean to say " _new_ ideologies are the root cause of despotism," well that's even worse.
"Some Chinaman took my legs from me in Korea" "I went out and achieved anyway"
My advice to you would be to do what your parents did, get a job sir.
@@michaelbrent6099 DO YOU HEAR ME, MR LEBOWSKI! THE BUMS WILL ALWAYS LOOSE
..... yeah, he said I could take any rug in the house...
2:02:30 “the socialists stand with Kant” WHAT IS HE ON ABOUT
Kant is a philosopher. Look him up
Matt Crawley haha the philosopher that underpins the philosophy of the individual and freedom as the basis of the state. It is simply incorrect to categorise Kant within the European philosophers opposing the idea of American individualism
Oners82 moral worth of the individual,, to group Kant with philosophers from Europe just because he’s from Europe is to obviously miss kant’s moral philosophy, he was far more aligned with the USA’s grounding of morality in the individual and couldn’t believe the speaker said such a weird thing
@@ivanbenisscott you are very confused lol
Oners82 first of all, I’m in agreement with the capitalists. The man said Locke cicero etc were aligned with America and the idea of mans natural rights. Completely opposed to the European tradition of Marx Hegel and Kant. How on earth is Kant not a philosopher who rationally proved mans natural rights and part of the liberal enlightenment tradition that stands with Locke? The speaker may have misspoke, all I’m pointing out is that no way can Kant be grouped with the European socialists instead of Locke and America. If you’ve ever read kant’s political writings you would understand that his justification of the state is pretty much nozick’s minimal state
1:17 This guy radiates South Park character
27:22 "Without property rights no human life is possible" might be the most "Capitalist Realism" quote out there.
Where capitalist logic is taken as facts of nature and we may only hope to improve on out current economical system, not confront it's serious failings.
@LaMortEtLamour exactly. Human were not bearthed out of captialst owned factories in 1850-1900. I can't with these people...
go get a job you dirty hippie
Wow. This debate has aged well given the current failures of government and capitalism we’re living through, eh? History doesn’t end here, folks.
if you think the system of government with bailouts, government contracts, Quantitative easing, artificial interest rates, huge stimulus packages and a variety of social programs is actual capitalism then you did not learn anything in school.
Justin Phillips ya exactly. This time in history points out how important to contemplate the purpose of an economy
Galios Elvensong I’m gonna focus on the last piece of your statement. Communism is the logical extension of capitalism per Marx. He actually credited it for more than you did (which isn’t surprising given he wrote about it.. a lot); it’s because of capitalism’s contradictions that the need for socialism arises in the first place. The last sentence of my comment was aimed specifically at this sort of comment - “history doesn’t end here”
capitalism has not failed... it is the engine of our upward progress
@@jepper6140 Yeah? Tell me what capitalism is and I’ll tell you how that’s failing.
This is actually the first time going into a debate having somewhat decent respect for the persons on both sides.
Not really, I have seen much better performances.
@@unicockboy1666 Can you share them? I'd be very interested.
@@matthijsvanoostende9292 bro just didn’t answer. Anyways, Yaron Brook does some great talks which might be interesting to someone like you who wants to see both sides.
Just what the doctor ordered. Marvelous.
a Hitchen debate I've never seen before!? Oh happy day!
A debate of this scope and magnitude is impossible today because our time is consumed creating and uploading 12-second TikTok dance videos and dominating Candy Crush.
Binswanger is an absolute binswanger of a name
1:17:29 is what I imagine everyone on Reddit looks like.
Raaaails
You’re not wrong
1:23:14 Hitch quoting 18th Brumaire by memory
Smoothly misquoting like a habitual liar, you mean.
The full quote is: "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living."
Hence historical determinism and the opposite of free will as correctly defined by Ridpath and Binswanger.
I want Hitch as my lawyer when I die. In case I'm wrong and I'm gonna be judged
If one leans to any kind of superstition- I'm sure you will man :) For me, i just hope to be as ethically eloquent/ casually influential as The Hitch was.♡ We need him nowadays, and to study his philosophy and to implement it accordingly in one's life is the best we can do to honor his life. He was my Socrates
@@jjavodelb couldn't have said it better myself my friend 😊
He not only denied the existence of the supernatural but again and again said that if God to exists he would reject him anyway. In the end he died in a very rare fashion, melted infront of our eyes, became a fragile walking corps, became explicitly and visually, completely powerless version of his once furious self. These are the facts. Only an idiot / a self centered retard would watch it all happen and interpret it in terms of, "it's just a coincidence maaaan because science".
@@bakedcreations8985 well I think only an idiot would say, "idk so it must be god"
@@bakedcreations8985 Even in your intellectual prime, you are intellectually inferior to the fragile dying Christopher Hitchens. The only idiot here is you.
1:23:00 Isn't that the definition of determinism?
I didn't know Hitchens was a socialist
He was a Trotskyite for a good chunk of his life. He became a sort of Neo-Liberal towards the end of his life but still identified as a Marxist, albeit one more sympathetic to Capitalism
Yeah, he maintained the Marxist label almost ironically, and his belief in the materialist conception of history was really all he clung to. He fully acknowledged the power of capitalism, and hated any form of nanny-statism. He was never fully consistent, though. Perhaps if he lived another decade or so... One can imagine.
S E Yes and no. He was a Trot and they are the most interventionist of the Marxist branches. Similar origins with the founders of Neo-Conservatism but Hitch was to their left
Hitchens was eloquent, but unfortunately, never a philosopher.
Most people are in their youth, fortunately most people grow out of it
HUGE shoutout to the third questioner
Reading some of these comments confirmed my thoughts as I listened to a rather young version of perhaps the greatest orator and intellectual since he adorned our shores in the early 1980’s, most of what he argued here is just above most of the audience’s ability to fully comprehend and eons above most of the commentators below
Festi 2003 your god dam right
And you, as Earth’s answer to God, are what? You pretentious dick. You are what? Some contrarian? Some reasonable contributor? I’ll keep my eye out for Festi 2003 in the periodicals. Jesus Christ.
Are you referring to Hitchens? LOL. Clearly, you have prematurely and immaturely decided to idolize him and fail in all logical analysis. Hitchens never made a cogent argument in his life. He makes emphatic emotional statements designed to manipulate people who have already chosen a side before any analysis has been done, and who are predetermined to live in denial of all evidence that contradicts that prejudice.
@@ajb7786
And yet there's no evidence to back up your claims.
@ Protip: neither being a great rheoricians or a great orator (which is akin to being enamored with the line-delivery of an actor) implies automatically philosophic potency.
This is the first time I've seen Hitchens on the losing side of a debate. Great job by Drs. Binswanger and Ridpath.
Hitchens also lost to Dinesh in the religion debates, although Dinesh made many wrong points Hitchens couldnt catch him.
the speaker at 49:50 is wrong about the great depression. read murray rothbards "americas great depression". once again, this guy completely forgets the fact that the newly established federal reserve pumped a massive amount of liquidity into the financial markets which then crashed in 29. lets not forget that there was an even steeper crash in 1920 but the whole thing started and ended in 1 year. why? because the government didnt intervene. FDR took a falling stock market in 1929 and turned it into the great depression with all his intevention
21:15 does anyone else hear a voice quietly saying his exact words to him before he speaks like on a radio or something? I may be going crazy idk
45:30 "There is no such thing as class" ... Were it only so my foolish friend.
Colonialism is the best thing that ever happened to the colonies. Yeah, I'm sure they would all agree. Ooops, what happened to that anti-violence angle?
lol These right wing idiot objectivists have no morals or set ideology.
"I rest my case"
classic Hitchens lol
and yet his arguments failed
Alguien tiene este debate traducido al español?
23 minute mark. Great he came to the socialist side right off the bat. Good for you sir.
So, Binswanger won't answer a question due to an ad hominem but goes on to call welfare recipients 'a mangy lot'. Pot, meet kettle.
"Aren't a happy lot"*
@Time Warp That's what Harry Binswanger said. He didn't say "a mangy lot."
He says both, though mangy (1:53:52) isn't necessarily an insult.
@@josephhermitage5996 Oh, I must've missed it.
@@josephhermitage5996 thanks for the time stamp.
11:14 conflates capitalists with inventors, some inventors can be capitalists but they can also be workers. The latter happens much more often based on the sheer overwhelming ratio of worker to capitalist.
Without capitalism, there is no incentive to be an inventor. If you can't enjoy the fruits of your labor, what's the point. American innovation is the reason we're having this discussion. Capitalism created the incentive to create the devices that we use to communicate today.
@@mzebari You can have patents without capitalisms, I also like how free market capitalist's are suddenly huge fans of state enforced monopolies because they "increase innovations".
@@kinghassy334 but you need customers, socialism doesn't make for good customers. What's the point of inventing something if no one's going to buy it. That's why the natural flow of capitalism creates a natural flow of demand. The idea that capitalism steals wealth is ridiculous. It creates wealth, and that creates the need to invent new things for people to consume. Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith is an amazing book I recommend.
@@mzebari I read it, now read the first few chapters of Das Kapital
@@kinghassy334 will do.
We miss you Hitch!
Yo, it's my boy Binswanger
Hitchens question regarding India has been answered since 1991 with PV Narasimharao as prime minister getting back to lpg capitalist policies which thereby led to the advancement in a never seen before pace and after 30 years of introducing the capitalist elements, I know what, as every socialist says once they're proved wrong, Hitchens would've said nahhh look there are still poor people but that wasn't that question you asked...The Commies are always like this 🤦♂️🤷♂️ I love hitchens for his atheistic views and I love him only for that, that is, for a reason! He's just articulate and all rhetoric and feel more than content
It has been, in every society to ever run according to socialist principles, that productive capacity and quality of life has been increased. Under Stalin and Mao the life expectancy (the single greatest indicator to quality of life) of their respective people doubled.
Where was this debate hiding in the depths of the interweb? I'm all for any new Hitchens content, even if he was a myopic communist.
You should look up the Peikoff/Ridpath 1984 debate on socialism. It’s a total bloodbath.
Please learn to listen, hitch was not a communist. You just haven't heard from him enough to make that judgement, or otherwise you're just misrepresenting him.
When you see Binswanger
L O B S T E R