Ayn Rand's philosophy

[blazeofglory]

well i read in some magazine some time back that 's (the founder of Objectivism) philosophy had a lot to do to brainwash the Americans not to choose the path of the left. Socialism was a growing trend among the American youth though it was the period of America's greatest anti-c o m m u n i s m stance and it was Rand who through her books and incorporated articles against leftism (which she claims was the cause she suffered and had to leave her country Russia).........


Rand held that the only moral social system is capitalism. Her political views were strongly individualist and hence and a n t i-Communist. She exalted what she saw as the heroic American values of rational egoism and individualism

[Red Rebel]

You were reading about her? You poor soul. I suggest looking into Paulo Freire's philosophy which is antagonistic to Objectivism. I have not read it yet but his book is Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

[mikelepore]

Ayn Rand's entire "philosophy" is: I've got mine; to hell with anyone else.

It is the "philosophy" of Ebenezer Scrooge.

It's not a philosophy at all. Philosophy means the love of wisdom, and in this there is no wisdom.

[apathy maybe]

Indeed, this shouldn't be in philosophy, but rather OI!

I think we can all agree that Rand was an absolutely nasty person. While not having read any of her books (I have seen extracts, and they don't make me want to read her books ...), I'm going to make that statement anyway.

Anyway, so yes, philosophy...
Starting from a basis of materialism (i.e. the belief that the only existing things in the universe are material, and as such gods and ghosts, and mind (as distinct from brain) don't exist), it is futile to argue that the only moral system is capitalism. Similarly of course, it is futile to argue that any system is the only "moral system".

I'll finish this post later.

[MarxSchmarx]

Actually this piece of crap "philosophy" has been thoroughly debunked so many times it is sad.

The best refutation I've read comes from an anarcho-capitalist :P named Robert Nozick and is titled "On the Randian Argument." This is available in most English academic libraries in his book "Socratic Puzzles".

Here are some places to start online:
http://www.jeffcomp.com/faq/
http://www.fishnet.co.nz/ted/papers/objcrit1.htm
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jsku/objectivism2.html
http://world.std.com/~mhuben/critobj.html

The left in the English-speaking world, where this garbage has some cache, should lead the drive to hammer nails into its rotten coffin.

In a nutshell, the critique works like this. "Objectivism" takes dubious premises. Yet even if the premises were true, the conclusions self-proclaimed "objectivists" and Rand infer from those premises are false. How pathetic.

[blazeofglory]

well, yeah. I accept everyone's view. to sum it all up.... individualism is some kinda selfish, cold-hearted attitude. I mean the very root of capitalism.

just the counter, marx says "from each according to their abilities to each according to their needs"

personally, I am not an orthodox communist (neither was Che)and very very far from being a c®apitalist. I am a socialist.........

and well, there is this feeling SERVE THE PEOPLE (mao) that always comes in my mind. maybe what Che said is right.,.....

the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love..... and well i tremble with indignation at every injustice!!!

and RAND, well her individualistic and capitalistic attitude sucks........ i have not read her books but after reading her profile in some magazine....... i began to detest her already.....

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

AM, you'd be right if anyone here were trying to defend Rand.

[fabiansocialist]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13, 2007 07:12 am
Actually this piece of crap "philosophy" has been thoroughly debunked so many times it is sad.


And no matter how many times it's done, there will remain brain-dead followers of Rand. Rand is the closest one gets to an ideologue for the American system (that I know of). That piece of junk fiction, "Atlas Shrugged," is so fundamentally misleading. The premise is that capitalism can prosper when government is kept to a minimum -- rather than the fact that without state power exercised domestically by way -- inter alia -- of infrastructure investment, subsidies, contracts, and suppressing labor; and internationally by way of militarism and structurally enforced inequality, modern capitalism will fall flat on its face. No matter for Rand the propagandist: brush it under the carpet, knowing most people in the USA (where she has most of her adherents) are willfully ignorant of the facts of life. One can go on in like vein with other equally pertinent criticisms of her outlook but what's the use? Anyone stupid enough to fall for this is also sufficiently stupid to not be able to understand simple rebuttals.

[Random Precision]

This post that I made in another forum sums it up pretty well:


Blech. Wooden writing with a self-righteous attitude, 1.5 dimensional characters, a more than slightly disturbing fascination with rape, as evidence just about any sex scene in her books, 50-100 page long clinchers typically in the form of a long-winded speech that repeats itself over and over and over, all laid out on top of a philosophy (I use the term loosely) that values narcissism and selfishness, and let's admit it, the adherents of which are horrible people. And their prized organization is a cult that preaches that "Ayn Rand is the most perfect human being ever to live". Look up "The Unlikeliest Cult in History" for more.

As for the collectivist society that you mention, her "experiences" with that system involve the few years she hung around in Russia after the Revolution, then fleeing to the United States. Unfortunately, her family having their wealth seized by the Bolsheviks was the framing experience for her "philosophy", indeed she never got over her riches being taken away or grew out of the selfish rich-girl mindset. If "Ayn Rand" sounds to you like a name that a teenage girl would think is kind of cool and way better than the dorky, Jewish "Alisa Rosenbaum", that's because that's what it is. And she was disturbed as a person as well, if you don't believe me, read her diaries to find the love letters she wrote to a serial killer who was later executed for raping and murdering a ten year-old girl.

It's too bad she had to go and write all those books, giving our less intelligent countrymen a reason to feel good about their selfish, egocentric actions. For example, I met a former friend of my father at a gas station a couple years back who told me how reading Ayn Rand had convinced him to leave his family (a wife and two kids) and run off with the wife of his business partner. Nice, huh? Like I said, it's too bad. She could have made a good living as a third-rate romance novelist without developing all that "Objectivism" stuff. A horrible, horrible woman, with no talent as a writer and even less as a philosopher.

As a side note, "Atlas Shrugged" is the only book I have ever physically destroyed. I ripped all the pages out of it and then recycled them. I call that poetic justice.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Fabian, absolutley right; and check this out:

'The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government' by Dean Baker

On line here:

http://www.conservativenannystate.org/

[Wanted Man]

Never have I seen such unanimous agreement in the Philosophy forum, or, indeed, on RevLeft itself. Clearly, Ayn Rand was good for something: to turn her books into a big bonfire to dance around, no matter if you like Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky or anarchism.

[redterror19]

Originally posted by Dick [email protected] 13, 2007 08:45 pm
Never have I seen such unanimous agreement in the Philosophy forum, or, indeed, on RevLeft itself. Clearly, Ayn Rand was good for something: to turn her books into a big bonfire to dance around, no matter if you like Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky or anarchism.
Alan Greenspan was a close friend of Rand. That said a lot to me.

[PRC-UTE]

It's something I'd never even heard of till I came onto the internet.

It seems like it's basically people who think they're better than everyone else say they deserve to have more stuff and pretend they're making some great philosophical statement.

[Axel1917]

Given the time she lived in and the philosophy she made in stark contradiction to the discoveries made in the time she lived in, it may be safe to say that Ayn Rand is quite possibly the worst philosopher in human history.

And if she is so "objectivist," then why are her main works fiction??!

[Pawn Power]

Originally posted by PRC-[email protected] 14, 2007 02:49 pm
It's something I'd never even heard of till I came onto the internet.

It seems like it's basically people who think they're better than everyone else say they deserve to have more stuff and pretend they're making some great philosophical statement.
A friend who of mine who want to high school in the US had a few of he literary works (The Fountainhead i believe) required in english class followed up be discussion of her wonderful philosophy.

[mikelepore]

Even the use of the name "objectivism" was a lousy trick. Many people realized that scientific understanding requires the principle that reality is independent of what we think about it or whether we know about it. If this weren't true, then reality couldn't surprise people as it frequently does. A lighted match dropped into a barrel of gunpowder doesn't become safe just because the person may have believed that the barrel is empty. It became obvious that science had to reject all those mystics who claimed that reality is a product of the mind. In a word, truth is objective. Ayn Rand attempted to hijack this philosophical momentum by adopting the name "objectivism" and, in effect, simply tacking on the corrollary: therefore my political and economic views are the correct ones -- supplying us with the non sequitur of the century. Now people were supposed to think: Gee, how could I possibly disagree, when the ideology of laissez faire capitalism has objective reality itself on its side! Amazingly, many people actually fall for it.

[fabiansocialist]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 12:50 am
Given the time she lived in and the philosophy she made in stark contradiction to the discoveries made in the time she lived in, it may be safe to say that Ayn Rand is quite possibly the worst philosopher in human history.

And if she is so "objectivist," then why are her main works fiction??!
She's not a philosopher, period. Any more than, say, skulking criminals like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney can be called charismatic leaders of men.

My memory is hazy but I think Rand initially tried to publish some nonfiction material (I won't dignify it by calling it "economics" or "philosophy"); that didn't go too well. So she started writing novels incorporating her half-baked asinine ideas, which sold surprisingly well in the US, particularly among the semi-literate hordes who have graduated from American colleges. Her intellectual level is roughly at the same level as such hucksters of the American dream and American capitalism as Dale Carnegie, Norman Vincent Peale, and Napoleon Hill.

It's not enough to dismiss Rand; one also has to ask why her point of view has found such ready acceptance among swathes of the American population. I can't conceive of any such acceptance among jaded, sophisticated, and intellectually critical Europeans.

[funkmasterswede]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 07:41 am
Even the use of the name "objectivism" was a lousy trick. Many people realized that scientific understanding requires the principle that reality is independent of what we think about it or whether we know about it. If this weren't true, then reality couldn't surprise people as it frequently does. A lighted match dropped into a barrel of gunpowder doesn't become safe just because the person may have believed that the barrel is empty. It became obvious that science had to reject all those mystics who claimed that reality is a product of the mind. In a word, truth is objective. Ayn Rand attempted to hijack this philosophical momentum by adopting the name "objectivism" and, in effect, simply tacking on the corrollary: therefore my political and economic views are the correct ones -- supplying us with the non sequitur of the century. Now people were supposed to think: Gee, how could I possibly disagree, when the ideology of laissez faire capitalism has objective reality itself on its side! Amazingly, many people actually fall for it.
I am not sure what you were implying, but if you were implying that Rand thought that reality was not independant of the human mind, then you would be wrong. Her "philosophy" is that reality is independant of the human mind and that she feels man should aspire to understand that reality and that man can understand that reality. Certainly there is a sort of ridiculous appeal to man's capacities here. The name objectivism comes from the fact that her philosophy has the metaphysical position of "objective reality". It was certainly a gimmick however.

Rand's morality is quite asinine for it reduces a person to rational egoism, which ultimately makes people into robots calculating everything they do according to long term self interest. Certainly I would agree that self preservation is a person's first and most important goal. However, a person cannot simply calculate their self interest all the time. If we accept, for the sake of argument that altruism as she defines it is impossible for people, then her argument still falls apart. For example, if a person acts on empathy or sympathy towards another out of what I have heard called irrational egoism ( a person does something for another not for the good that it creates for the other but how it makes the person doing it feel) this act would be viewed as immoral, in the long run, if it does not make the person acting on sympathy better off in the long run. Certainly, her understanding of what it is to be human is quite off to say the least.

According to people like her, the person who discovers a cure for cancer should be able to sell it for whatever he chooses or not sell it at all.

[Don't Change Your Name]

Ayn Rand is idiotic but still she somehow managed to "change the lives" of plenty of people. However, she's mostly an American phenomenon. Out of curiousity, some years ago I started reading "The Fountainhead" and only got to read the first 40%, most of which was extremely boring and uninteresting. Also, I've heard than in most of her novels the main character(s) resort to violence and coercion, which obviously contradicts her "libertarian" ideas.

I must also point out that her "criticism" of "the left" on that dumb novel is based around some strawman altruist who wants to "help the poor". Her notion of revolutionary politics is that they are a bunch of selfless "altruists" and "collectivists" who want to "control The Individual" by "government control of the economy" to help the masses, which she sees as "evil" and as something that will somehow make society collapse (wait, she probably doesn't think there's such a thing as a "society", only individuals). If I was a wealthy, white american male who likes to date rape women I'd probably name her as my favourite writer.

It's interesting to see the differences between the outlook of Ayn Rand and that of another Russian female of Jewish background who moved to the US: Emma Goldman, and how different their ideas were in spite of that, which shows how much someone's experiences can influence their view of reality.

Also, I'd like to see randroids try to solve the so called "prisoner's dilemma".

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13, 2007 02:46 am
well i read in some magazine some time back that 's (the founder of Objectivism) philosophy had a lot to do to brainwash the Americans not to choose the path of the left. Socialism was a growing trend among the American youth though it was the period of America's greatest anti-c o m m u n i s m stance and it was Rand who through her books and incorporated articles against leftism (which she claims was the cause she suffered and had to leave her country Russia).........


Rand held that the only moral social system is capitalism. Her political views were strongly individualist and hence and a n t i-Communist. She exalted what she saw as the heroic American values of rational egoism and individualism
Hm, I don't think Rand has a tenth of the importance you seem to attribute to her. She's to complicated for the common man, and too dilletant for the academy.

Never heard or read of her being taken in serious, either among progressist and conservative phylosophers.

In matters of serious phylosophy, the right would take Heidegger; in matters of best selling, she isn't match for Sidney Sheldon...

Luís Henrique

[mikelepore]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 05:42 pm

I am not sure what you were implying, but if you were implying that Rand thought that reality was not independant of the human mind, then you would be wrong.
I'm implying that of course she held that reality is independent of the human mind, and perhaps thousands of other writers said so before her, so she didn't contribute anything significant related to that point.

(Almost everyone except for Berkeley and some mystics of India and some schizophenia patients agree that reality is independent of the mind. The exceedingly obvious is hardly worth mentioning.)

It's also irrelevant because it has no implications in the area of choosing one socioeconomic system or another.

I think the point is relevant to making some decisions. If reality is independent of the mind, then we shouldn't play on the railroad tracks even thought no train is within hearing range. If reality is independent of the mind then we shouldn't be careless with a gun even though we believe it to be unloaded.

But in the task of choosing capitalism or socialism, it offers no advice at all. Advocates of all social ideologies believe that their own views are consistent with worldly facts.

[redcannon]

Ech, i saw the name "Ayn Rand" and I threw up a bit. I hate to say that I've read her books, but I've read "Anthem"and an bit of "Atlas Shrugged". Gotta know thy enemy, eh compadres?

Seriously though, Ayn Rand is a worthless *****

[Demogorgon]

The funny thing about Ayn Rand, is even leaving aside our own political persuasion, by purely capitalist standards, her agument is still guff.

She did not understand economics so rather than attempt to make any economic defence of capitalism, she came up with gobbledygook about how it is a wonderfully moral system because it alwaysrewards the best people and making money is wonderful and giving it away evil.

It is the philosophy of the spoilt rich who have started live's race already over the finishing line and want to be told they have run well.

[Angry Young Man]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13, 2007 06:17 am
Ayn Rand's entire "philosophy" is: I've got mine; to hell with anyone else.

It is the "philosophy" of Ebenezer Scrooge.

It's not a philosophy at all. Philosophy means the love of wisdom, and in this there is no wisdom.
:lol: :lol:

Why is it called objectivism? Isn't that taking all as a whole? I thought individualism was more liberal subjectivism...

I read this thing called "the Worker's Catechism", which was like

Q: What is philosophy?
A: The pursuit of truth

Q: How is this the friend of the upper-classes?
A: They pay philosophers to find one that glorifies them

Q: What if they find a truth unfavourable to?
A: It is called a lie.

[Le People]

A book she wrote called Anthem was required reading in my english class last year. I hated it, and get this, I had to write an essay explaining some various passages from the book. I'm suprised the teacher didn't give me an F for the ass riping I gave Rand.

[PigmerikanMao]

Originally posted by Le [email protected] 21, 2007 08:07 pm
A book she wrote called Anthem was required reading in my english class last year. I hated it, and get this, I had to write an essay explaining some various passages from the book. I'm suprised the teacher didn't give me an F for the ass riping I gave Rand.
Rape is never funny. :mellow:

In any case, I agree with mikelepore, the fact is that Mrs. Rand describes her selfishness as a philosophy is just annoying. She's just trying to defend money hording so she won't have to be pressured into giving to the local orphanage.

[Le People]

Whoa! I misspelled. Ripping, not rapping. A better expression is chew out, completely tearing apart of Rand's work, ravaging, destroying, basically, proving Rand is a selfish *****. Sorry if I offended ya buddy. By the way, it wasn't meant to be funny.

[Volderbeek]

Ok, I guess I'll sort of defend Ayn Rand here. Her vision of the ideal man, represented by Howard Roark, shares many similarities to what I would consider the ideal revolutionary. He's a passionate, rebellious, creative individual who asserts his own humanity and morals despite fierce resistance. I also think that, with a few adjustments, Rand could have been a good anarchist.

But, of course, I should also mention what's wrong with objectivism. The problems can be found right in its eithics. It erroneously asserts that morality is objective. Morality is always an ideal and will always be completely subjective. This manifests itself in the political realm where the singular moral of "rational self-interest" is supposed to never cause conflicts of interest. The problem of COI is at the heart of all politics; she's saying that you fix the problem by fixing the problem. There are two situations she describes regarding this: normal and emergency. In normal circumstances, mutual cooperation is always in everyone's self-interest. But that is pure collectivism, what communists and anarchists have always advocated. In emergency circumstances, which she describes with the analogy of a sinking boat with only one remaining lifeboat space and two people, they will both decide that only one can go rather than fight over it which will likely cause neither to make it. Of course, this means that the guy who decides not to go will be either acting altruistically or considering the collective good rather than the individual. Either way, he is violating objectivist ethics.

So it actually turns out that objectivism leads to communism in a roundabout way. =D

[PigmerikanMao]

In normal circumstances, mutual cooperation is always in everyone's self-interest. But that is pure collectivism, what communists and anarchists have always advocated.

Funny how at the same time she advocated pure capitalism.

[funkmasterswede]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2007 03:18 am

In normal circumstances, mutual cooperation is always in everyone's self-interest. But that is pure collectivism, what communists and anarchists have always advocated.

Funny how at the same time she advocated pure capitalism.
The keyword is "mutual". The objectivist and libertarian definition of voluntary does not take into account social situation. So, for example a starving man who is offered 1 dollar a day to do a menial task for a rich or middle class man, would be said to acting voluntarily. To her such a situation is a form of mutual cooperation. As both decisions are not made with the threat of violence by a human force.

[PigmerikanMao]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2007 03:34 am
The keyword is "mutual". The objectivist and libertarian definition of voluntary does not take into account social situation. So, for example a starving man who is offered 1 dollar a day to do a menial task for a rich or middle class man, would be said to acting voluntarily. To her such a situation is a form of mutual cooperation. As both decisions are not made with the threat of violence by a human force.
I think that the mutual cooperation you spoke of is also called wage slavery.

[Volderbeek]

Originally posted by funkmasterswede+July 26, 2007 11:34 pm--> (funkmasterswede @ July 26, 2007 11:34 pm)
[email protected] 27, 2007 03:18 am

In normal circumstances, mutual cooperation is always in everyone's self-interest. But that is pure collectivism, what communists and anarchists have always advocated.

Funny how at the same time she advocated pure capitalism.
The keyword is "mutual". The objectivist and libertarian definition of voluntary does not take into account social situation. So, for example a starving man who is offered 1 dollar a day to do a menial task for a rich or middle class man, would be said to acting voluntarily. To her such a situation is a form of mutual cooperation. As both decisions are not made with the threat of violence by a human force. [/b]
Well, the word mutual does imply equality in social relations, but I can see what you mean. All it proves is that capitalists (non-Social Darwinists) are deeply confused about their own morality.

[fabiansocialist]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2007 03:34 am
The keyword is "mutual". The objectivist and libertarian definition of voluntary does not take into account social situation. So, for example a starving man who is offered 1 dollar a day to do a menial task for a rich or middle class man, would be said to acting voluntarily. To her such a situation is a form of mutual cooperation. As both decisions are not made with the threat of violence by a human force.
That social situation of gross inequality is kept in place by coercion, the threat of violence. Property rights ultimately rest on a foundation of violence. So the starving man might ostensibly be a free agent -- "free" to decide whether or not to accept a pittance of a wage -- but this is not real freedom, and the constraints on his actions -- kept in place with force in the background -- are severe. The philosophical sleight-of-hand performed by capitalists and their running dog ideologues (like Rand) is to assert that this superficial "freedom" is the real thing; that arrangements between agents are voluntary, and being voluntary can't possibly be exploitative. Conveniently brushed under the carpet is the fact that the rich man has options -- he can afford to walk away from any particular arrangement, or instead of hiring one particular starving man he can choose from a thousand others in a reserve army of labor. This negotiating power -- sustained by the big stick in the background -- mean any such "voluntary" arrangement is going to involve the poor man getting the shaft.

[Ol' Dirty]

Her social individualism was nice, but I strongly disagree with her economic views. I've never read her books, but I know very generally who she was.

[mikelepore]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2007 02:14 pm
that arrangements between agents are voluntary, and being voluntary can't possibly be exploitative

Thanks for your excellent paraphrase. One of the clearest I've even seen.

Over the years I have tried and tried to get them to understand that a _situation_ can force a person to "agree" or "volunteer", and that the fact that no one has a gun to the working class person's head doesn't mean that a free choice was made. Pose to them the hypothetical situation where you encounter a person drowning or hanging over a cliff, and you tell that person "If you will freely agree to be my servant then I will lower a rope to you", and of course the person will "agree". Rand followers and the so-called Libertarians will be able to comprehend that hypothetical situation wlel enough, but then they are unable to visualize how a social system could do anything analogous to it. Well, how about some people inheriting the means of life while others do not? How about the fact that the capitalist sends only an externality, some invested capital, which never feels hunger or cold, to the bargaining table, while the thing that the worker must sell is the use of his or her mind and body? How about the fact that the worker's labor power is instantly perishable, and must be sold either at a given moment or else that amount of it is simply lost, while the capitalist's money continues to earn interest all the while the capitalist is waiting for the deal to be made? How about labor power being a commodity the price of which fluctuates due to remote conditions, just like the price of a bag of potatoes? I don't see how any brain can be unable to recognize the existence of force applied by a situation and not applied by the other party to the "contract."

Additionally, they mischaracterize their own views when they claim to bash "government" and "the state" all the time. Clearly they hold that the "rightful" owner of a production facility is whomever has a deed on file at the town clerk's office, or a stock certificate or bond sitting in the safe, no matter where it may have originally come from. They expressly reject any suggestion to question whether the owner may have earlier bought it from someone who in turn had bought it from a thief or a swindler or a conqueror. No, they insist, the legal piece of paper itself is the whole story. So in effect they are saying that legality is the same thing as morality, which is the opposite of the way they characterize their own views.

[Comrade Rage]

Atlas Shrugged is the most pretentious piece of cack ever. It is the biggest insult to literature since Mein Kampf. I don't know why anyone would buy it unless they had a toilet to stop up.