Ayn Rand

The same social security and Medicare she spent the majority of her adult life paying into? What a hypocrite!

 

I was thinking "If I'm required to pay into the system and the system permits me to reclaim what was taken when it is needed, how is this hypocrisy?" The question of what a person should do if faced with the opportunity to accept assistance from the government when it will be of benefit to the recipient is dealt with in her essay "The Question of Scholarships":
Ayn Rand Lexicon

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Ayn Rand believed altruism was immoral.
"Altruism holds death as its ultimate goal and standard of value."

Her philosophy was based on unapologetic greed and self-centeredness.

 

If she is connecting altruism to death, it's obvious she was concerned about the welfare of others enough to warn them against a moral code that led to the end of their lives. Cut her some slack.

 

The problem is that problably you didn't listen about other individualists probably more important than Rand like Godwin, Stirner...

 

I understand your point but I disagree and think greed has a huge roll in progress. I would argue greed is the largest factor that has fueled capitalism and progress. This might not be a good recipe as we move into the future but (*)(*)(*)(*) if has not gotten us this far.

 

I'm all for greed.

Tempered with social justice.

If it were all greed then....In "socialist" America of the last 30 years

The computer on my desk has shrunk from the size of a 24 ft moving van to a laptop with 5 times the memory and twice the storage.
My 1/4 ton pickup has gone from a bench seat and 12 miles per gallon to seating for six, over 20 MPG, sat radio with GPS
The gall bladder they took out of me in '79 leaving a 9 inch scar can be done leaving an incision the size of a quarter on it's side and sometimes outpatient.

We've made more progress in 30 years of social capitalism (since the breakup of ATT) than we made in the previous 150 years.

Lots of reasons but I think social programs that gave a chance to people like Herman Cain, Colin Powell, and President Obama helped. A lot.

 

Not very Christian of her was it .? Oh ofcourse , she was just being true to her roots .

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Greed is an inappropriate attitude toward things of value, built on the mistaken judgment that one's well-being is tied to the sum of one;s possessions. Greed is more than mistaken belief—as if knowing a few more facts would somehow solve the problem. It also involves emotions (perhaps longing, unfulfillment, fear) and attitudes (a sense of entitlement, rivalry). Greed alienates us , from our neighbour, and from our true self.

When we covet our neighbors' house, car, spouse, or whatever else, we see them as rivals or impediments to our own gratification. On one level, we see at once the errors that underlie greed.


For instance, greed can take the form of acquisitiveness—being inordinately concerned with amassing goods.

Michael Milken, the infamous junk-bond king of Drexel Burnham Lambert, earned a salary of $550 million per year when he was indicted and eventually convicted for violating federal securities and racketeering laws. Although rich beyond the average person's wildest imagination, Milken craved more and cheated to get it—a clear case of acquisitiveness. What might have motivated him? Perhaps he cloaked his acquisitiveness by ambition and ego, and justified his excesses by supposing that only unbridled competitiveness could win the high regard of his adversaries and success in the world of high finance.

Greed can also take form as stinginess—being too reluctant to part with one's goods, and become a sad habitual tight-fisted old misery guts.

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I disagree. The individualist society may be "richer" but it also leaves the disadvantaged farther behind. The second generation of these individualists corrupt the ideal as they assume a mantel of success that is completely unearned.

Rand did dealt in absolutes. I do not think that real life can be lived or viewed like that.

 

Anecdotally, in my career i've dealt with a lot of very successful people, and while some are motivated greed, the majority are motivated by ego and the acquisition of power. And a few actually ignore all of that to persue intellectual fulfillment and have "fun".

 

What did Ayn Rand ever actually accomplish that justifies her popularity?

 

What she accomplished with her two books was to expose the huge difference between a government that over regulates and taxes every business in sight to that of of aggressive businessmen/industrialists/capitlaists/entrepreneurs that spend much of their time fighting off those business killing over-reaches of of a statist government. Ayn's message can be and should be applied to today's current economy by highlighting the differences between Conservative Capitalists and Progressive Socilaists, i.e. the differences between a Mitt Romney and a Hussein obama.

 

So she accomplished nothing that Frederick Hayek hadn't already done.

Good to know.

 

This is what I don't like about Ayn Rand beyond her books just being plain boring and preachy: her philosophy if actually followed by society, would be a nightmare.

Before we get into anything about how altruism, charity, and religion would disappear, let's just look at one of the biggest flaws of Objectivism: it has no way to address the problem of public goods. Simply put there are goods and services that you cannot prevent people from free riding which means that people can use them without paying for them. This means that the products or services cannot generate a profit and therefore will not be provided by the free market. Objectivism does nothing about these goods.

In an Objectivist society, there would be no military beyond private armies owned by the rich or corporations. Before anyone offers militias by citizens as a fix, bear in mind that a militia is inherently collectivist and would allow citizens who don't participate to free ride. They also assume that the people are working at no benefit directly to themselves, which is altuism and is wrong.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Schools would vanish except for the wealthy. Weather monitoring and severe weather warnings would stop. Flood control would disappear except where private individuals build their own dams. Infrastructure construction except where it can turn a private profit would stop meaning that thousands of miles of unprofitable roads would diappear in America.

Police and fire protection would become protection rackets in the vein of the mafia. "Oh, you just got raped? Well pay me and I'll look for the guy who did this. (Three weeks later) Oh, I haven't found him yet, you need to pay me some more if you want me to find him. (Three weeks later) Well, I think I might have found the guy, but he's in another police corporation's area so you'll need to pay me and them if you want him arrested."

For fire it becomes, "Pay me money or else no one will protect you when your house burns down. Oh, you don't want to pay? Well it would be a shame if your house burned down tomorrow, wouldn't it? My partner is the arson investigator with the police corporation, I'm sure he would rule that it was an accident. Still don't want to pay?"

If you follow Objectivism to its natural conclusion, it becomes the return of fuedalism with the wealthy faux-aristocrats having a near monopoly on wealth and armed force ruling over a massive population of landless, uneducated serfs who have no choice but to toil in the aristocrats' land and factories for barely enough pay to survive or die (or become outlaws, attempt to free ride, and get hunted and killed by the private armies of the rich).

 

No, this would be the ultimate natural conclusion:

 

History is cyclical, isn't it?

 

Bottom line with me: I reject that horribly destructive BS Rand put out.

 

She was right about the "looter" mentality but wrong about laissez faire economics - much to the chagrin of Alan Greenspan, Larry Summers, and 300 million Americans.

 

Atlas Shrugged [Mass Market Paperback]
Ayn Rand (Author)

This book takes place probably around the 1950s. It is centered around the industrial sector of the U.S., the only government that has not become a People's State. The main character in this book is Dagny Taggart. She is a no-nonsense VP of Operations for the largest railroad in the world. She is intelligent and is solely driven to keeping her RR as the best. The times are dim and getting dimmer. In the beginning the country is in a recession of sorts and it is up to Taggart and others like her to save the country. There are two problems that are preventing her from doing this. One, the government seeks more and more control when it should be stepping away. Second, the men of industry are disappearing one by one just when they are critically needed.

http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Shrugged-Ayn-Rand/dp/0451191145

 

I have not read Atlas Shrugged but I intend to sometime. Many of Rand's basic principles appeal to me i.e. taking responsibility for your own life and happiness. A lot of people seem to equate objectivism with materialism, which is fundamentally false. The objective is for the individual to survive, not to amass worldly goods. Also missing from most discussions of objectivism is the importance of honesty and justice. I'm also a religious person so I haven't completely reconciled objectivism vs. religion but I do recognize that it is conflicting 'moral' values that cause a lot of the problems in the world. And I know when I do for others it makes me feel good about myself so chalk that up to my happiness. It's interesting food for thought. During most of my lifetime I have recognized that in the U.S. we are far too concerned with individual 'rights' and not nearly concerned enough about individual 'responsibility'.

Part II of the Atlas Shrugged movie is due to come out in a couple of weeks. I understand part I was pretty much a failure. I still might give it a try. I just discovered yesterday that I used to work for the producer. Small world.

 

Atlas Shrugged was, I understand, made into a movie.

The audience shrugged.

 

What little audience there was mostly liked it but I thought it was slightly below average.

 

Seen her tax returns, have you?

 

What she did was to relay the message for the times during the 50s, the 60s and the 70s. So the torch was passed onto Ronald Reagan, and now its Mitt's turn to explain the difference between Capitalism and today's socialism under obama. Ayn's message will never die. Remember, she grew up in Russia under a communist nation, so her words and her experience should ring true and profound for all current and future generations of Americans to take heed to.