She openly detested Christians, too, but that hasn’t stopped her modern followers.
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That social kernel at the heart of private property has long fascinated me. Property and ownership are inherently social relationships, and modern property is a social relationship defined and mediated by law, i.e. by the state. You can’t have “ownership” outside a social matrix of some kind.
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I agree. But my experience is that these concepts limit what kind of social matrices people can be expected to have/make, and even actively punish other forms of social organization. Like any other philosophy, it becomes rather imposing when some naturalize it as a fundamental assumption of existence, social or otherwise.
Requiring selfishness yields immature societies.
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I’ve always thought of capital as an indispensible, useful social institution, just not a social institution of any special worth compared to compulsory free education, the universal franchise, social welfare, or any of a number of other vital social institutions. The fact that the institution gave itself an “-ism” to match other isms doesn’t give it more credibility as a ruling ideology than Bolshevism. The aim is the same even if the sense of entitlement works under different dynamics. Neither should rule.
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No longer in the works:
I had pre-ordered mine some time ago. It’s on the way!
Off topic–this is one I made in '09.
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And if the quote above is typical, very pseudo indeed. Just a lot of name-calling with no actual citations to back it up. Collectivist! Communist! Anarchist! Libertarian! Join them with lots of arrows pointing different ways, put Randianism in a different box with no arrows pointing to it, that’s an argument.
If you’ve read Rand, it becomes clear that her definition of “objective” is “agrees with me.” She not only proved, objectively, that selfishness is the highest virtue; she also proved, objectively, that tap dance is the highest art form. Since she was objective, it follows that whoever disagreed was simply wrong. If Objectivists were philosophically pure, they would enshrine her like a prophet… oh, wait…
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They already have. But it can’t be effectively monetized until there is sufficient scarcity. But fear not, they have some of their worst people hard at work on that project.
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> This is a well-researched, detail-packed book that I’ll need to read a few more times to fully digest.
If you’re going to take the time to read it a few times in order to digest it, might I also suggest hopping over to Amazon and picking up the short book, Myths about Ayn Rand: Popular Errors and the Insights They Conceal
I’ve not read The Age of Selfishness, but based on the author’s synopsis, it sounds like the typical anti-Rand book or article that has been written many times through the decades: build up a strawman then rip it to shreds.
As the authors say in the Myths book, “One may disagree about the truth of an idea in a novel such as Atlas Shrugged, or argue that it will have unforeseen consequences, but first one must state the actual idea .”
Overall, I admire and agree with much of Rand’s work even though I disagree with a few things she has said. That people disagree with her ideas is to be expected. But for crap’s sake, people should at least be honest about Rand’s ideas before they express their disagreements.
Just take a look at the table of contents of the Myths book (below). Interesting discussions, both pro and anti-Rand, can be had on any of these myths, but reading yet another misrepresentation of Rand’s ideas just bores me to sleep. It makes you wonder why they even bother. Anyone who has actually read Rand knows it’s crap, so it pretty much amounts to preaching to a choir with second-hand opinions of Rand.
Myth #1: Ayn Rand Was an Elitist
- Economic versus Political Power
- Virtue and Talent
Myth #2: Ayn Rand Was a Conservative
Myth #3: Ayn Rand Was for Dog-Eat-Dog Selfishness,
- No Conflicts of Interest
- Altruism: A Self-Sacrificial Suicide Pact
Myth #4: Ayn Rand Was Simply Pro-Wealthy and Pro-Business
- Rand’s Wealthy Villains
- Money Is Not the Bottom Line
- When Wealth Is Worthy
Myth #5: Ayn Rand Wasn’t a Serious Philosopher
Oddly enough, after slogging through 60 hours of audiobook, that is my one sentence summary of Atlas Shrugged.
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Two words: Ayn Rant.
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I call myself libertarian-socialist mostly because it is historically accurate and annoys the libertarian-capitalists. There is little in common between the two apart from the name and distrust of the state.
Is it too late to coin “benighted self-interest”?
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More and more I find myself located right about here:
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Thanks for the article…
First for info on Libertarianism GOOGLE the Libertarian International Organization (of which Rand was Fellow, not a founder).
Second, I’m amazed at the third-hand nonsense people circulate about Rand (no, there is no evidence she was SSI, and said very little on the subject beyond that ideally it should be voluntary; no, she was not an advocate of what most people here think she was advocating, etc.).
Well, except for those pesky records that show both she and her husband received benefits starting in the mid-1970s, obtained from the SSA through a FOI request.
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That’s been a libertarian-socialist belief since the early 1800’s
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In fairness, pretty much all she did was openly detest things. She probably started her day by openly detesting a cup of coffee.
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