What does Spiegel do with the news?

In line with Spiegel's implicit reproach of Merz's book, one would ask: How could someone dare to argue in favor of capitalism, in times like this?! How could someone argue in favor of self-regulating markets, at a time when governments need to step in to clean up the mess? "The holy ghost of unsullied capital" cannot be permitted to undermine our moral duty. At least Friedrich Merz is not a "blind fanatic", according to Spiegel.

WTF! This reasoning is just too plausible, just too upside down - and the reason I can't stand Germany's hypocrisy - the nation of do-gooders. Ha! Greed is to blame, and government is our only hope?! Of course all this is lame and wicked reasoning.

I wonder, when do kids first learn that greed is supposedly bad?

One of my economics professors once said that the first step in solving a problem, is to accept the facts. So, what is given? What is our nature? How do markets work? What are the facts?

To analyze the movement of an object, you have to accept gravity as a fact. To analyze the movement of a market, you have to accept greed as a fact.

Greed is an empty argument. Greed is a fact. There is nothing to argue about it. To say that some people are more greedy than others, is to say that some people love life more than others. Should they be prevented? Really? Should we run the economy on indifference instead? Indifference is exactly the result of too much government, of too much socialistic pretense. Greed is the thorn of freedom. Spiegel's irritating article is freedom's enemy.

I couldn't think of a more unwelcome time to highlight human shortcomings with regard to rational thinking.

If rationality is the goal, then the only useful news would be to encourage individuals, including their illusions, because a free mind is most likely to exhibit good judgement. Negative information causes feelings of waning control, and is used deliberately to manipulate opinion. Not our response to bad news should be questioned, but rather the perceptions of information makers, the politicians, who usher our world away from free markets and toward an evil growth of government.

That's the thing that is bad. Our minds are all right.

Of course, no individual can be expected to give up what he values most: his own life. No individual would have reason to believe that somebody else is definitely more able to find a solution. Hence, rational individualism would compell you to fight for yourself, and to place higher value on your life, the life of your family, and the life of your livestock, before giving any concern to other shepherds. Each shepherd, acting in his own self-interest, would act rationally. Individual rationalism would lead to a struggle for individual advantage. This could play out in the form of violence, displays of authority and oppression, with a randomn winner as the result. It could also play out in the form of sharing agreements, with compromise and inequalities as a result. Anyhow, the prisoner's dilemma precludes a solution that is best for all of them, that is, for the shepherds as a group.

If there is a long-distance runner among them, it would be rational for the group to let that shepherd use up the remaining water, rather than risking extinction of them all. But it would be irrational for any one sheperd to sacrifice his life for that purpose. It would be more rational to risk eventual death in search of a new waterhole.

How would Ayn Rand look at this situation?

Now extend this example to our human species. We don't (yet) have another alternative but to share our planet among us. We are growing at a rate of 80 million people per year. 840 million people are starving. 1,3 billion people live on less than a dollar per day (I bet the number is much higher). Europeans spend 11 million dollars on ice cream per year. That money could be used to save 11 million people from starving to death.

Does more equality serve us on the level of the human population? Isn't this question irrelevant, because we have allowed the state to own the power over the answer—the state that is intervined with our economy? Can't we just seperate politics from our economy—please? How can we know what works, if we let some people, who think who know what's right, rule over our behavior?

I think there is nothing inherently good or bad about living next to starving people, if this situation were the sole result of individuals competing with individuals. However, the situation is actually bad, because something we call "government" is involved in managing people and their priorities. Things are being "corrected" all the time and the interventions are justified by expedient explanations. When something goes wrong, the people are blamed and carry the burdon. The question who should get what would be completely irrelevant, if forces were left to themselves on the level of the individuals. It would be irrelevant, because it would be answered every day a million times by millions of interactions between people.

Implementing equality from the top down doesn't serve rational egoism, unless it also serves the individual working for it. People think for themselves and care about the groups they belong to. We don't care about the whole, the other group, and the truth. This means that special interests get a free ride—they do what they want and we elect the officials that support these groups, not the people. Starvation is not failiure, it is a symptom of our human nature. Allowing evil powers to deceive use and to intervene in our economy is the true failiure. Poverty would resolve itself, if individuals were left to seek advantage by working together against each other. Yes, together against each other. That's better than working against each other for a government that does everything but to identify and protect the timeless properties of our human nature, that allow us to prosper together.