Wanted: Objectivist Child Care Resources for Fictional Purposes

August 5, 2016 3:51 PM

I'm looking for links to Objectivist discussion sites/articles about how non-parent childcare (for orphans etc.) would work in an Objectivist/Randian society. I have some links; they don't cover this exact topic.

Background details: I want to write an Atlas Shrugged fanfic. (Please don't judge me; the Muse, she is a strange and stubborn creature.) It'd take place in Galt's Gulch sometime after the events of the book, and would involve some kind of child-labor factory that gets discovered and, ideally, shut down as sensible members of the community recoil in horror at the exploitation therein.

Only, the bits I can find on Obj. ethics and desired laws, don't seem to say that would be a wrong thing for them.

What I Already Have: A Children's Rights article that basically says "children don't have any, but their parents' rights include the right to protect them." However, that article says nothing at all about the structure of a society in which these hypothetical children are raised; it seems to presume that parents will be looking after the interests of their children. Found two other articles by the same author: Children's Rights II and Foundations of Criminal Child Welfare Law (zip file with word doc inside); both of those tackle Why Child Abuse Is A Crime but not What Should Be Done To Prevent This Crime. Found the Objectivist Answers site (objectivistanswers.com), which has some discussions of children's rights but most of those run around in the same circles.

What I Want: Links to Objectivist articles or discussions, or just explanations if anyone has those, about:
• How adoption works under Objectivist ethics/hypothetical law
• How child removal from an abusive situation would be handled (I thought police were a voluntary buy-in under Obj law?)
• Ethics of brainwashing
• Ethics of deliberately creating addicts, of volunteers or other
• Age-of-consent for various activities (sex, work, stopping education, etc.)
• Who, under Obj. rule, decides these things – who sets the age limits; who decides the mandatory education level; who decides what medical treatment is necessary, etc.

Those are background research. The real question is, "Can someone set up a factory, adopt or buy orphaned children to work in it, treat them like slaves, addict them to drugs so they can't leave without possibly dying, brainwash them into thinking this is the only thing they're good for—and not break any laws in an Objectivist 'rational' culture?" Since I want to write a story about that, I need more than a yes/no answer; I need to know the nuances involved from the Objectivist viewpoint.

Disclaimer, personal bits: I am not an Objectivist. I think Rand had some interesting and sometimes useful ideas that collapse horribly when applied to any society with, well, children, which are pretty much required for the continued existence of a society. I've read most of MeFi's existing post on Randism/Objectivism, and agree with most of the comments.

posted by ErisLordFreedom to Religion & Philosophy (11 answers total)

Best answer: the bits I can find on Obj. ethics and desired laws, don't seem to say that would be a wrong thing for them.

Basically, yeah. I mean, it is the philosophy of, "Fuck you, I've got mine." Parentless children would be moochers and expected to work for their room and board. Why should hard working people that pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps be required to pay for someone else? It's not the child's fault that their parents died but quite a few misfortunes aren't actually caused by a moral flaw and Rand was just fine spitting at lesser people.

*adopt or buy orphaned children to work in it

Not in so many words, but yes. It would be phrased as a choice to the children but if the alternative was literally dying, it's not exactly a choice.

*treat them like slaves

Objectivists are against minimum wage, so it'd basically be a company store situation where they'd end up increasingly in debt and unable to leave.

*addict them to drugs so they can't leave without possibly dying

I suspect it would be more financial obligation, but as long as the drugs were "offered" to them rather than forced, it's A-OK.

*brainwash them into thinking this is the only thing they're good for

Again, as long as it's dressed in the language of choice, Objectivism is fine with just about anything.
posted by Candleman at 5:01 PM on August 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

Idk about cites but if you want to talk to someone raised by honest to gosh hard core Objectivists from the 70s, feel free to memail me. (You might be disappointed though. It was all preyty boring. I had a Montessori education, probably because there really isn't a whole lot to work with when it comes to canonical Objectivist could-rearing. But I felt obligated to post given the subject matter.)
posted by soren_lorensen at 5:29 PM on August 5, 2016

I haven't reread the whole thing in light of your specific questions, but this article that was in Salon a few years back, How Ayn Rand Ruined My Childhood, might have some relevant information for you.
posted by ernielundquist at 5:37 PM on August 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

Oh, ugh please forgive my atrocious typos up there.
posted by soren_lorensen at 5:41 PM on August 5, 2016

in Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand was just fine with (and implied it was morally acceptable to permit) a train accident that killed children simply because their parents were "drains on society" so I'm pretty sure an objectivist approach to a factory using child labor would be to buy it and reap the profits, not rescue the kids.
posted by FritoKAL at 5:53 PM on August 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Candleman, that's the impression I've gotten from my initial looking for discussions, with a side of hand-wringing where they obviously don't want to be mistaken for supporters of pedophilia and sadism, but can't seem to go as far as coming up with a principled statement about what's not permitted.

I'm wondering if that really is all they've got, or if someone has come up with any standards at all for how a "perfect Objectivist society" should deal with children whose parents are not taking care of them, whether that's from vice, neglect, ignorance, or just not being around.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 5:55 PM on August 5, 2016

Best answer: I feel like the Libertarians at the Mises Institute are within spitting distance of Objectivism, so these essays may/may not help.

Children and Rights:

Applying our theory to parents and children, this means that a parent does not have the right to aggress against his children, but also that the parent should not have a legal obligation to feed, clothe, or educate his children, since such obligations would entail positive acts coerced upon the parent and depriving the parent of his rights. The parent therefore may not murder or mutilate his child, and the law properly outlaws a parent from doing so. But the parent should have the legal right not to feed the child, i.e., to allow it to die.2 The law, therefore, may not properly compel the parent to feed a child or to keep it alive.3 (Again, whether or not a parent has a moral rather than a legally enforceable obligation to keep his child alive is a completely separate question.) This rule allows us to solve such vexing questions as: should a parent have the right to allow a deformed baby to die (e.g., by not feeding it)?4 The answer is of course yes, following a fortiori from the larger right to allow any baby, whether deformed or not, to die. (Though, as we shall see below, in a libertarian society the existence of a free baby market will bring such "neglect" down to a minimum.)

The Defense of Orphans: A Libertarian Approach
The Gay Adoption Conundrum
What About Children
posted by foxfirefey at 6:06 PM on August 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

I think you're looking for good where there just isn't any.

"When I say “capitalism,” I mean a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism—with a separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church."

She exalted the labor abuses of the 1800s, which obviously included child labor.

However, this might be some of what you're looking for. As well as this:

Q: Do profoundly retarded and severely retarded individuals have rights? A: Not actual rights, not the same rights as they would apply or belong to a normal individual. They would have the right to be protected, as perennial children, in effect. Just as children are entitled to protection, so do retarded people, simply on the very distant possibility that since they are human they may be cured and they may become, uh, at least partly able to stand on, on their own, or partly, uhh, con- scious. So that their protection of their rights is a courtesy extended to them for the fact that they are human beings, even if botched ones. (Ford Hall Forum 1973, 14:44–15:58

posted by Candleman at 6:35 PM on August 5, 2016

Response by poster: foxfirefey, those are exactly what I'm looking for, and... wow, dude is COLD. (Also, the article about gay parents is delightfully archaic; I suppose in 2003 people could talk about gay couples as some weird exotic hypothetical.)

I'm thinking that my fictional sweatshop will comply with whatever laws the Objectivist utopia requires for childcare... minimum food and housing standards, basic medical care, and so on. (Objectivists are split as to whether education is required; some say no; others say it's abuse/neglect to not teach children to read. I will continue to seek links.)

And then I'll stack abuses on top of those legal minimums, designed as "freely chosen trade" interactions: children who work an extra few hours get books/pictures/art; children who pose naked for pictures get desert; children can play in sports teams to win prizes like booze and drugs. Or something like that.

Still trying to wrap my head around how a society, or even a community, with that level of lack of empathy could work.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 6:41 PM on August 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

In a Randian universe the solution to your factory scenario would not come from the State but rather from individuals; former child workers, distant relatives of theirs, citizens at large. They wouldn't say "you can't do this" but they would find it in their own interest to destroy the practice.
posted by SyraCarol at 5:37 AM on August 6, 2016

This story might interest you. It's not a how-to or philosophy, just one (now grown-up) kid's story.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 12:59 PM on November 6, 2016