Your posts have a certain attitude towards Objectivism, which I want to check now. You seem to think that Objectivism is only practical in a society where everybody agrees to Objectivist principles.
My particular attitude towards Objectivism, in 'practice', rather than theory, really comes from a critique separate than the line you are following in your questions. Perhaps it would make things a bit clearer if I were to outline that critique for you.
I am a heavy proponent of Game Theory. I'm sure many who frequent this board would have a passing familiarity with the ideas behind Game Theory, but, basically, Game Theory is a branch of mathematics interested in the resolving situations of conflict and cooperation in many biological, social, and economic situations. It attempts to create a purely mechanical way of looking at different 'strategies' utilized by players in these situations, and, from the analysis, draw some conclusions about the viability of different strategic decisions the players could make.
When I look at Objectivism, in comparison with all the other ancient and currently active 'world-view philosophies' in the world, I see it as one strategy amongst many competiting in a world of memes. The entire population of this planet is playing a game, where different philosophies are different strategies one can take to achieve happiness and prosperity in the world. One could consider a variable payoff for following each strategy, based on some number cooresponding to an index of happiness and prosperity, and, from that, arrange a matrix of different values of payoff for pursuit of these different strategies.
Now, calculating a payoff matrix for _every_ philosophy in the world would be painstakingly complex, and probably a waste of time, but there are some underlying principles of Game Theory we can use to take a look at the current world environment.
In any game where multiple strategies can be utilized, the vast majority of such games rarely have just
one 'good' strategy. NxN matrix games often have 'mixed-strategies' as their best results. If you look at the payoffs in comparison to each other, as a percentage of a 'whole' payoff of 100%, the viability of different strategies corresponds to some percentage less than 100, but, added with all others, becoming 100% of the total strategies used by all players. So a game with two strategies, A and B, might have a mixed result of 60% A and 40% B.
Mixed strategies can mean a couple of things in games. In 'multiple turn' games, it might represent a distribution of choices made by the players. In 60% of their choices, they use A, and 40 % B, to achieve the best payoff. In single move games, it might represent 60% of players choosing A and 40% of players choosing B to achieve the best results.
In a way, the percentage of the Earth's population choosing one strategy vs another is a representation of the current viability of that strategy to achieve happiness and prosperity. The current viability of Objectivism, vs all other philosophies, is roughly equivelent to the percentage of people who embrace Objectivism vs the percent embracing other strategies.
So, what does this tell me about the viability of Objectivism today? What percent of the Earth's population accepts Objectivism vs all the other choices? The percentage is pretty small.
That doesn't mean that Objectivism isn't a useful strategy for some. It also doesn't mean that Objectivism will only be useful or accepted by a small group all the time - remember, strategies evolve over the generations. There used to be a big percentage of Olympian God worshippers...they are mostly gone now. Maybe, over time, the number of people using the Objectivist strategy will approach some percentage where, as you outlined, enough of them will come to accept a nation with Objectivist laws and justice. But at this point, I really don't see that on the immediate horizon.
I have this underlying 'sense', for lack of a better term, that pure Objectivism isn't a comprehensive strategy. More likely, some mixed strategy of Objectivism
and something else is more likely to have a higher payoff for the whole world. I cannot,
as of yet, fully describe what that would be in rational terms - it is merely an instinct based on observation.
If I were to take Atlas Shrugged as a model, it would appear to me that Rand is suggesting that some
very large percentage of the whole world must accept her philosophy to achieve happiness and prosperity. The whole section of 'John Galt Speaking' seems to encapsulate this idea. Right now, most of the world seems to disagree - the philosophy is over 50 years old, and it's percentage of adherents in the overall scheme of things is in the single digits. So unless the world is moving more and more towards Objectivism over time, there seems to be a problem in its viability.
Turning back towards your quotes about intelligence and genius, you raise one of the major critiques that has followed Objectivism for a long time and, I believe, one that has damaged its ability to achieve more adherents in the 'grand scheme of things'. Rand has created, intentionally or not, a distinct stratification of people. According to her, some people are just more equal than others - they are more intelligent, more productive, etc. While this might be factually true, most societies in this modern age are well aware of the problems of creating stratified classes. They've had their fill of theocracies, monarchies, oligarchies, etc. A class built on intelligence, or wealth, is just one more stratification people do not want to deal with. For all the discussion of Rand that this more productive class is _earning_ it's position, it's not enough to persuade people that the end result isn't a ruling aristocracy. Rand has no problem with that idea - she mentions the aristocracy of wealth in Atlas Shrugged. But there are billions who do. Even I cannot completely shed my inherent distrust of authoritarian looking groups, even one built entirely on merit. If intelligence is, as I suspect, tied to biology and social environment, both of which a child has little or no control over, then the level of achievement accessible by most children isn't based on a flexible enough springboard for a true meritocracy to flourish. Those who already have access to wealth in their educational years, and to good genetics, will always be on top.
Any such rigged game, if history is to be any indication, always ends up as an excuse for those with less power to rise up and use force against it. Perhaps, deep in my analysis, what I see is an inherent flaw of Objectivism...that it may always contain within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Unless 100% of people accept it, there will always arise a class of people who believe the system is unjust, and will rise to destroy it, using force where others find it unnacceptable.
Again, it's not a purely rational view. I can't 100% support it through pure fact or reasoned assessment. It's just the experience of observation of history that makes me wonder.
AT
