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The Annotated Ayn Rand
It is no secret that Geoffrey Raymond, the author of the infamous "Annotated ____" series, is one of Zero Hedge's favorite artists, in no small part due to the crowdsourced method of artistic creation. Indeed, it was only last summer that a copy of the Annotated Cramer (who can forget that prominent third nipple) was sold to a mysterious collector for a stately sum after it was annotated (in addition to the comments from the usual disgruntled suspect scribbling directly on the canvas) with comments compiled from our own post revealing this masterpiece. And once again, just as it should be, Zero Hedge and it's readers get the last word. Prior to shipping his portrait of Ayn Rand to its new buyer, Geoffrey Raymond has invited ZH readers to submit a final round of comments, which he will then transcribe, more or less verbatim, onto the painting. He painted The Annotated Rand to coincide with last month's release of the Atlas Shrugged movie (a truly terrible flick, we are told) and the annotations inscribed in black were taken outside the premiere, then later at theaters around NYC. The blue comments were taken at his usual stomping grounds outside the NYSE. The Raymond market, as we've predicted here before, remains hot, with prices for this best work now flirting with six figures. Might make sense to go to www.annotatedpaintings.blogspot.com and pick up a choice one while they still cost just a little more than a handful of gold coins in CME-adjusted terms. Regarding the Rand painting, our favorite annotation is "Rand + Greenspan = Bonnie + Clyde". All you closet Objectivists can now step up to the plate and have at it...
Take it away.
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It looks like she just received a well-deserved facial.
Your avatar is way too befitting of your comment.
Where are the "annotated Jesus effin Christ" and the "annotated Moe Ham Ad"?
objectivist bitch bitchez!
Objectivism reduces to Atheism + free will/ego.
Marxism reduces to Atheism + deterministic universe/no ego.
Just shrug, Bitches!
Oh, is that REALLY clever! We were waiting for your comment! And now we have it.
Is this painting suppost to offend, because I find it offensive. I think his other paintings of Bernanke and other chronies are spot on, but why pick on Rand?
If you constantly visit Zerohedge, and believe in what this website stands for, you should consider Ayn Rand your Godmother.
may have something to do with the fact that she is a racist zionist, but that's just a guess.
that and Rushs' 2112.
"but why pick on Rand?"
She spawned Greenspend from her rickety crotch...
Neil Peart's a smart guy...chalk that one up to youth.
He's still searching for a belief system to hang his hat on.
Don't forget she's also a HUAC Snitch.
No see wasn't. You can read and listen to her testimony online. She reviewed a pro-Soviet film which was produced to support our Russian "allies" during WW2. She pointed out that the glorious socialist republic depicted in that film was entirely false.
Sorry. "Friendly Witness."
She spoke out against socialism using her personal experience as a refugee from Soviet Russia. Does that makes her a bad person in your opinion?
She was the equivalent of the Iraqi lady crying about babies in incubators. Her testimony was literary criticism of government propaganda.
The film she critiqued had portrayed Soviet life as being idyllic. She disputed the film's representations point by point from her own experience. She said that life in the Soviet Union was not idyllic but rather hard scrabble and dangerous. Do you claim otherwise?
The film she criticized was propaganda made by the US government to justify a military alliance.
Like any good Libertarian, her _real_ job was to lay the foundation for a government witch-hunt.
Did Ron "John Birch Society" Paul ask her to testify?
The film she criticized was propaganda made by the US government to justify a military alliance.
So you're in favor of government propaganda? You must just eat up the anti-Libya crap coming out of the New York Times and cable TV. Do you think that Ron Paul is wrong for speaking out against the attacks on Libya?
What, that free unregulated markets always end in disasters or monopolies? Or that the current economic disaster, which was brought to us under the banner of free unregulated markets (kicked off by Ronald Reagan) has its roots in Ayn Rand and delivered by her Libertarian poster boy Alan Greenspan?
That may be your Godmother. It isn't mine. Alan Greenspan must be your Godfather too.
The US has suffered under crony-capitalism (aka fascism). Read Atlas Shrugged and you'll learn that those Rand portrayed as the book's villains were fat cat crony capitalists.
So please, stop misrepresenting Ayn Rand and helping the evil bankers through your ignorance.
I've read Atlas Shrugged. It's a great comic book intended for juvenile males who haven't fully developed their logic and reasoning ability. The only ones that still believe in that BS are the one's who's brains froze at 16 and could never advance their mental facilities.
Libertarianism is fundamentally logically flawed. Deal with it, even if you can't figure it out.
And spare me the lame attempts by Libertarians to distance themselves from their Poster Boy, Alan Greenspan. It's too little, too late and too lame. Look, I understand that you don't want to be tarfeathered by the latest (and eternal) failures at the Liberarian version of Utopia. There's a reason why it will always fail. It can't ever work. Is that too hard to understand? How many times do you have to shoot yourselves, and everyone else, before that thought conflicts with your purely religious beliefs?
But what a bunch of freaking wussies. If you can't take responisibility for your flawed view of economics, get out of the kitchen. Geez, can't you pansies just man up for once? Try and learn from your failures, instead of trying to imitate Washington and pass the blame.
You've had 25 years of waving the "Free Market" BS, and now you're whining like the Communists, when their failed views imploded.
Sorry, Alan Greenspan was, is and will remain the poster boy of the Libertarian movement, no matter how much you whimps cry and whine about it.
And spare me the lame attempts by Libertarians to distance themselves from their Poster Boy, Alan Greenspan.
I unilaterally decree Ted Bundy to be your poster boy. Do I win the argument?
Liberarian version of Utopia.
An individualist doesn't think in terms of utopia, statists do.
You've had 25 years of waving the "Free Market" BS, and now you're whining like the Communists, when their failed views imploded.
Twenty years ago I was a liberal Democrat who sometime consorted with Communists (in a college anti-war group). I wouldn't have known the free market if it had kicked me in the head. And while we're on the subject, is there a rule about Communists not doing laundry on less than a semiannual basis or what?
There never has been a "Free Market" anywhere on planet earth since it spun off from the solar cloud dust 17 billion years ago.
What "Free Market" are you referring to???
Are you suggesting that man should seek to make no progress? There was a time when no one could envision a black man living freely and equally among whites but that day came. Unless you believe that we already inhabit the best of all possible worlds you must admit to the possibility of better lives and greater freedom for all who have the courage to seek them out.
Does that disturb you?
Heh. This is funny. One of my observations has been that Libertarians have never progressed beyond the reasoning capabilities of a 16-year old.
Thank you for proving my point so very well.
Yeah, that's hilarious. You're better than me because you say so! Very mature, Sparky.
All she does is take on Cronyism in her book Atlas Shrugged. She doesn't discriminate between political systems, in fact she hardly mentions it--because she knows that it exists in all societies. Do you think for a second that 1950s Russia had a political lobbiest system similar to the one represented in the book. No, it was the United States. The entire book is about how the United States has been corrupted by greedy, self-entitled business elites with money to throw at problems. Not solutions to deal with the problems, just money. Moreoever, all the money these fools have to deal with problems was ill-gotten in the first place.
If you think the people who currently run the show behind the curtain in the United States--as well as Europe, the Middle East, and Asia--are terrible at their jobs, are grossly overpaid for the non-sence work they do. That the long hours they spend every day at work are used to figure out how to cover up lies and continue to live in disillusionment. Then you have the same beliefs as Ayn Rand.
As far as Greenspan is concerned. Ayn Rand never met that asshole. Maybe he read a book once, before he took over at the printing press. Alan Greenspan = Dr. Robert Saddler. Alan Greenspan is the man who knew better, but chose not to act for the good. Even that is giving him the benefit of the doubt of every knowing better, which is a big stretch.
I stand by what I said, Ayn Rand is a godmother. Greenspan should have been an abortion.
Ayn Rand is the Suckling Teat Mother of all Financial Whores.
Rand says that two-faced politicians and their corporate pals are the bad guys. It's all right there in her books. Why do you misrepresent her views?
Here is a photo of Greenspan, Gerald Ford and Rand in the oval office
http://www.theintellectualdevotional.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07...
She was a shitty writer who could sell books by giving a repressed Calvinism-inspired society permission to be dicks. Now that the little selfishness-orgy is coming to a close, we find ourselves feeling nauseated and sticky, while this woman's legacy is trying to convince us to keep pumping, instead of grabbing a shower and skulking away to do something productive in order to distract us from the shame.
eff that shit.
If you're so selfless then send me a check.
On the Money McP !
Exactly - at best it is a flawed philiosophical framework that attempts to justify greed.
I think you meant "at worst". At best, it is a philiosophical framework that says you get what you deserve, theft of other people's time/effort/ideas is still theft, cronyism is the bane of all people and the downfall of all governments.
I find that people who don't like Ayn Rand see too much of themselves in her villians.
Folks who have been suckling at Aynd Rand's whithered teat never realize that it's not rich milk but diseased pus they are ingesting.
If you constantly visit Zerohedge, and believe this website stands for Aynd Rand/Rosenbaum/O'Connor, then you misunderstand everything including objectivism. The woman was a halfwit with half good ideas that appealed to egomaniacal twits with delusions of grandeur about themselves. In other words, a good paperback fiction writer.
Next time you read Atlas Shrugged you might want to remove the blindfold first.
:) Hey I like the book! I just don't think she's a fantastic foundation for my sense of personal ethos.
Those who vilify Ayn Rand are enemies of personal ethos.
Vilify? Oh for fuck sake, get a grip on yourself. I'm glad you get something from her work (I did say her ideas are half good) but she's a fiction writer of note, nothing more to me. You want to base your personal ethos on a piece of paperback fiction? That's fine with me, but don't fuck with people who would rather not. As for her personal life, she's a rather wretched suck-up to the lowest common denominator, antithesis to her ideas about collectivism, just as ironic as your attack on those who are not on your strange wavelength.
You can tell the infantile nature of people who deify her paperback nonsense by the number of junks I receive. :) More the merrier, I say!
Vilify? Oh for fuck sake, get a grip on yourself.
Get a grip on yourself. I didn't say you vilified Rand. I simply pointed out that those who espouse personal ethos have more in common with Rand than with her detractors.
You want to base your personal ethos on a piece of paperback fiction? That's fine with me, but don't fuck with people who would rather not.
How blind can you be? Rand's whole point was that individuals should maintain their personal ethos and not subject themselves to self sacrifice as demanded by the moochers and looters of this world.
I didn't say you vilified Rand.
Then to whom were you addressing your comment? Thin air?
How blind can you be? Rand's whole point was that individuals should maintain their personal ethos and not subject themselves to self sacrifice as demanded by the moochers and looters of this world.
Then it will seem that I understand Rand's point far better than you. I have maintained my personal ethos throughout this thread, whilst you have been demanding, attacking, and mooching off my personal views because I would not bend to your strange collectivist group think nonsense of glorifying a wretched paperback fiction writer!
End of story. I'll praise you in another thread, I'm sure, so calm the fuck down.
Then to whom were you addressing your comment? Thin air?
I was addressing you but you were not the subject of the sentence. If I told you "the moon is made of green cheese" would you infer that I thought you were the moon?
I would not bend to your strange collectivist group
So now individualism is an act of collectivism? Please review "A is A."
glorifying a wretched paperback fiction writer!
I read Atlas and Fountainhead in hardback.
...this is turning into foreplay I think...
The junks are because you are a dumb-ass, not because you slam Rand. She probably shit all over your God of choice and you couldn't handle it.
She wrote much more than "Shrugged" but alas probably beyond your comprehension.
I like Crockett and respect his views most of the time. But I don't know you cunt. Go away.
I stick to my comment dumb-ass. I do know who you are, someone too simple minded to comprehend cause and effect.
Damn I hate it when I have to stoop down to the level of an ad-hominem attacking anti-intellectual dumb-ass.
edited to add: I re-read your post. All you did was attack Rand and the individuals who appreciate her work and ideas. Do you actually think you can get away with such a broad based attack with impunity?
+1
I did say her work appeals to "egomaniacal twits with delusions of grandeur about themselves"
Thank you so much for proving my point so succinctly!
I do think very highly of myself, and ... it's the first time today I've been called a twit.
Cheers Mate!
.
lol really dude?
http://trololololololololololo.com/
Mr. Rearden, perhaps you've missed the point of "Atlas Shrugged". Ms. Rand's background is Soviet Russia. She wished to create the anti-Soviet Hero, the rugged individualist in opposition to the collective. "Atlas Shrugged" is a political novel couched in financial terms. These are cartoon characters, not role models. Objectivism is as unworkable as Marxism.
All she does is take on Cronyism in her book Atlas Shrugged. She doesn't discriminate between political systems, in fact she hardly mentions it--because she knows that it exists in all societies. Do you think for a second that 1950s Russia had a political lobbiest system similar to the one represented in the book. No, it was the United States. The entire book is about how the United States has been corrupted by greedy, self-entitled business elites with money to throw at problems. Not solutions to deal with the problems, just money. Moreoever, all the money these fools have to deal with problems was ill-gotten in the first place.
If you think the people who currently run the show behind the curtain in the United States--as well as Europe, the Middle East, and Asia--are terrible at their jobs, are grossly overpaid for the non-sence work they do. That the long hours they spend every day at work are used to figure out how to cover up lies and continue to live in disillusionment. Then you have the same beliefs as Ayn Rand.
As far as Greenspan is concerned. Ayn Rand never met that asshole. Maybe he read a book once, before he took over at the printing press. Alan Greenspan = Dr. Robert Saddler. Alan Greenspan is the man who knew better, but chose not to act for the good. Even that is giving him the benefit of the doubt of every knowing better, which is a big stretch.
Did anyone here read Rand's "Capitalism- The Unknown Ideal" - ?
Even without Feds printing & bankster bail-outs - U.S. corporations don't pay taxes - so don't blame fiat & credit for everything.
Capital invariably conglomerates and manipulates all things, driven by pure insatiable greed. Elevating GREED to structuring principle requirews a particular Rand'ian illogic.
Revising Rand's afore mentioned title to fit reality:
"CAPITALISM - The Un-Real Ideal"
Who needs to learn selfishness from books?
Hitchens shreds Rand:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wYR6e9Z6es
That's crap. If you've read ZH over the years you'd know that the readership is mostly apolitical, and don't bow to any figure. But on a personal note, I think she's a bitch, anyone that sees anyone outside of the ruling class as "filth" gets a middle finger.
She's certainly an 18-pack-and-a-pillow-case-nothing-much-else-to-do-on-a-saturday-night looking chick, isn't she?
Kinda looks like she landed in America... on her face.
Oh yes, the website that chose Fight Club as its main theme would choose Ayn Rand as its godmother, hehe.
Ayn Rand gives the economy a hand job in the blockbuster sequel, "Atlas Tugged".
Haaah! Good one MP.
Perhaps, since it is from the other side, it'll be called
"The Ghost of Atlas Tugged".
ORI
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com
mene mene tekel parsin (the writing on the wall)
Perhaps the only book ever written to be reclassified from fiction to current events.
How does it feel to have your own troll groupies?
http://i.imgur.com/wYaew.jpg
Because that book was full of business executives and bankers who were trying to build a world empire of megacorporate oligopolies and rigged crony captial controls. Just like current events.
Read Ayn Rand's description of Midas Mulligan. You will see that even in her magnum opus, she did not understand capitalism as run by capitalists.
Everything that occurred after the magnum opus was a miscarriage and mismanagement of the spirit of the novel. The current state of Atlas Shrugged leadership is now just an ivory tower think tank that gets paid in FRNs and produces such wonderful shilling as this:
http://blog.aynrandcenter.org/vindicating-standard-oil-100-years-later
Wow, you either didn't read the novel, or found that you fit one of the villainous archetypes to a "t", so decided you should hate the message instead of changing yourself.
What was "crony" about Midas? The fact that he refused to lend money to people when he could see their ideas were bad? Or the fact that he made money off of ideas that seemed stupid to others, but turned out to win a lot more than they lost?
Midas never asked for government bailouts. Never went to congress for special treatment. Never solicited government funds.
Seriously, what are you even talking about? Did you even READ THE BOOK? Or just the Janeane Garofalo Cliff's Notes version?
Christ, did you even read your link? Here is is reproduced for all to see:
"In 1865, when Rockefeller’s market share was still minuscule, a gallon of kerosene cost 58 cents. In 1870, Standard’s market share was 4%, and a gallon cost 26 cents. By 1880, when Standard’s market share had skyrocketed to 90%, a gallon cost only 9 cents — and a decade later, with Standard’s market share still at 90%, the price was 7 cents. These data point to the real cause of Standard Oil’s success — its ability to charge the lowest prices by producing kerosene with unparalleled efficiency."
Are you trying to say that Standard Oil was an evil monopoly for LOWERING FUEL PRICES?
ARE YOU INSANE?
+1
It took the best minds in coastal collegiate literature to create the argument against Atlas Shrugged.
.
Don't forget Mulligan's gold standard bank!
+1228
Let's not even mention FASB 157. I don't think Midas needed the fuckin' gubment to tell him how to be honest.
You need to relax. It's clouding your judgement and your rationality and your ability to understand me.
My point was that Midas Mulligan is a totally imaginary character. In no way does he resemble any real banker. The book was very unrealistic in its portrayal of executives, particularly Mulligan. The real Fortune 500 executives and chieftains of finance in this world are not doing the morally right thing -- getting away from the immoral society and making a just one with their own abilities and alliances with moral people. In fact they all seem to be complicit in the construction of a neo-feudal world order involving resource wars of conquest and police state domestic control grids.
Standard Oil was anti-freedom. It was a monopoly octopus. It bullied out competitors. It cannot be vindicated by any one who truly believes in economic freedom.
It's just very obtuse to believe that Rockefeller-style capitalism is a good thing. It's very obtuse to say "look prices went down, thanks to Rockefeller". That's ignoring the fact that he squeezed out the competition with ruthless grafting, bribery, intimidation, and corruption.
It may be disingenuous too, but I'm going to give the "objectivism" think tanks a break and assume that they merely have their heads up their asses, and are not intentionally writing this stuff up to mislead people.
Anyway... please relax...
So you're saying that the guys who correlate directly to the villains of Rand's story don't resemble the characters who went to Galt's Gulch? Are you fucking kidding me?
There are plenty of bankers who are just like Midas Mulligan. They have ALL been driven out of business by the perverse incentives created by the FDIC.
And it's funny how you rail about how "anti-freedom" Standard Oil was when you note in your own link that they lowered the price of fuel by 90%, much of that drop coming after they became a monopoly. Who gives a crap what they did to their competitors? As long as they didn't violate their property rights, or threaten them physically, it is FINE. The world was left better off than they were before Standard Oil. If he did it via illegal means, then he should have been prosecuted. But the fact is that he did GOOD for the world. He didn't use his monopoly to price gouge. In fact, he COULDN'T do that, because if he did, other people would see an opportunity and jump back into the game.
I'd relax a lot more if people didn't confuse up with down, good with evil, and life with death. Seems to be a theme over the last few hours.
Many people who fall in love with Atlas Shrugged and with Ayn Rand's Objectivism ("Realism", as she would have called it had not the name already been in use) are logical, rational people. They very much appreciate that her philosophy (Objectivism) attempted to bring morality out of the realm of the subjective and the unprovable straight into the realm of logic and reason.
The trouble came where Ayn Rand made conclusions that do not follow from reason. But because she was such a genius, and had opened up a new field of "science" for the millions of people who heard her message, people followed along with her out of respect, deference to her certainty of herself, and probably a little bit out of the same hero worship that she had always told them was virutous.
But respect and hero worship and following what others say doesn't make the false true. Ayn Rand's Objectivism, as she believed in it, is like an unplugged refrigerator in the middle of a desert with a sign hanging from the handle that says "COLD" -- the assertion is pointedly contradicted by reality.
As Ayn Rand herself loved to say... "When you find yourself at a contradiction, check your premises. There you will find that something is false." The great and terrible downfall of Objectivism as defined by so-called Objectivists today is that they believe that Ayn Rand is right about everything. David Kelley, formerly of the dogmatic Ayn Rand Institute, is the most prominent person to ever say as much and try to do something about it.
The quantum leap forward in thinking that Ayn Rand gave the world has not significantly refined or advanced itself since -- it's still a broken refrigerator and we are still nomads in the desert, and no one has yet figured out how to make it "COLD" in fact as well as in name.
...
The world is going to hell, breaking down, and about to get a lot more miserable for almost everyone -- but it's not going anything along the lines of Ayn Rand's powerful, moving, artistic masterpiece "Atlas Shrugged". It's more along of the lines evolution by survival of the "fittest" (most ruthless and nihilistic) at a time of population bottleneck, past-peak oil production, and a credit-money-fiat-money monetary system that has run off the rails and is taking down the global economy with it -- in my estimation.
So. Anyway. Mosley... just take back the statement:
Perhaps the only book ever written to be reclassified from fiction to current events.
and I can forgive you for being moved by your emotions to believe in things that are not true.
Ah yes, now I see your problem. You are a peak oil death worshipper.
No need to speak to you on the subject of the future anymore. You have shoved your head up your ass and all you can see is an endless line of shit with no light at the end. You can not be convinced otherwise by any form of logic or any new fact. I know this from having extensive dealings with death-worshippers before. I am deeply disturbed to see this sentiment re-emerge on ZH after being long banished by the vicious beatings given by myself and a few others.
And by the way, I never said ANYTHING about objectivism. I was talking about Atlas Shrugged, its characters, and the events that were therein portrayed. I am well aware of the many flaws of both Objectivism and Rand, and in no way do I worship either.
....sigh....
I thank you for this exercise in patience while discussing things with someone who thinks that they are rational and right, when in fact they are neither.
What's a death-worshipper?
Do all Canadians swear as much as you?
Here's what I got from reading Atlas Shrugged:
Death worshippers, whether they know it or not, "worship" death. Their conscious mind, their precepts, their conclusions, their ensuing actions... all give them away as death worshippers and all stem from an implicit belief in human death as something ideal.
Randian heroes worship life, and man's ability to manifest his will in his life, on the material Earth. The people who dislike such men (and women), such life-worshipping heroes, are usually death worshippers. I forget if Rand constructed people dichotomously as either life-worshippers or death-worshippers, or if she allowed some third way for people to be.
Death worshippers are jealous, bitter, irrational, and mad at anything except themselves when life doesn't go their way. Death worshippers are "looters" -- socialists, religionists, union-grafting thugs, academic intellectual frauds -- and they are logically the mortal enemies of true heroes and people who hold their own lives and their own will as the fundamental moral good.
Long story short: Ayn Rand constructed all the impotent, looting, degenerate characters in her novel as death worshippers. They never say to themselves "Wow! I really like worshipping death!" but it is something they implicitly believe in everything they do and that they avoid thinking about in themselves critically or explicitly.
It's a concept that I admit I find plausible -- but rabid, obtuse Ayn Rand–heads who pretend to be objective when they are usually just as subjective as everyone else tend to take it too far sometimes, and they insist it is an objective fact, and then they denounce anyone who tenders objection or who hesitates in agreeing that it is an objective fact.
(That's not you I'm describing as rabid, etc., Mosley, although you do seem to come pretty close to it today. No, I'm describing the clowns who believe that Ayn Rand was right about everything and have made a religion out of it, and who make Rockefeller into a hero because that fits their religion.)
Hahaha, you apparently didn't read Atlas Shrugged, because that ISN'T where that concept comes from. I came up with that, with the inspiration coming from the Chthulu mythos and Ba'al worship.
And I am not an Objectivist. Objectivism is tainted beyond repair through the artificial incorporation of a need for government out of convenience. I am an anarcho-capitalist, which is the theory that was really expressed in Atlas Shrugged, though she didn't know it, because she removed the whole government and had it as an enemy, which it is, though in her other teachings, she thought it could be a friend--it can't.
Cool story bro. I'm really happy for you...
And now for those who think that Ayn Rand didn't talk about death worship in Atlas Shrugged, see:
http://phconservative.blogspot.com/2011/04/excerpts-from-john-galts-speech-in.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZhGuk6_04M
http://www.aynrandbookstore2.com/prodinfo.asp?number=HB69M
Thank you, GFM, for your thorough and humorous axplanation/definition of "death-worshippers" in the Rand'ian sense of the word. I find it hillariously funny. Great writing.
Believe it or not when I state I am not an objectivist nor a Randian or an apologist for Rand. Actually, as a devotee of Rothbard not only I am well aware of her shortcomings, but of her unwillingness to see that a philosophy with reason as it's epistemology, much have anarchism (the absence of the state) as it's ideology. There's no other rational, logical or factual conclusion if, of course, one is to remain consistent.
That said...
I greatly admire Rand. At a time when collectivist ideologies were running rampant in the western world, when economist of note in academia where embracing and promulgating Keynesianism and the chief executives of the political class in western democracies had begun the march towards imperial offices, Rand stood firm and forcefully said: "STOP." She took a great deal of abuse and ridicule, along with her fellow free men and women struggling against the currents of collectivism. her public persona displayed more courage than the anonymous ZH members here have done collectively. For all she suffered, for all the abuse, she deserves my respect. I will not dishonor what she was attempting to do for people such as us, despite what personal or philosophical flaws she might have.
For those who claim to be champions of liberty, but take a bat to Rand. I give you The Young Fresh Fellows (Hank, Karen and Elvis):
http://grooveshark.com/#/s/Hank+Karen+And+Elvis/1YFQSP?src=5
I refuse to aid and abed the forces of collectivism and jump on the bash Rand band club and in the process implicitly aid said collectivist in their march to imprision us through the coersive forces of the state.
Well said.
I respect Ayn Rand and I call her a (fallible) genius, and I look up to her in most ways.
But it's the people that claim her legacy and claim they have morality objectively defined and that think that the problems in today's world need not be distilled down in terms of anything besides Atlas Shrugged that I emphatically challenge.
I think of Nietzsche as "more right" in some ways than Ayn Rand -- but that's another subject for another time.
I also think that the economic forces of global oligopolies and monopolies can be just as coercive as the state.
What a great and terrible mess...
And many critics don't understand her great respect for the Austian school emplified by Hayak and the idea of sound money backed by gold. Rothbard had a very close relationshipo with her. And like Jefferson, she consistently expressed a complete opposition to the idea of a draft or a large standing army for intervening in other countries affairs. So, her philosophy of the dominant role of the individual is indeed a recurring theme on zero hedge.
The most important theme in all her writings which is really missed in most of the comments is the "man defines the meaning of his life through his work". This is an incredible philosophical insight! That's likely why bankers and lawyers never are key positive characters in her novels as these are parasitic professions. Engineers, scientists and builders play that positive role in all her novels-very rare for fiction indeed.
You are talking about the Orren Boyles, and James Taggarts, whose methods Rand accurately identifies, there Chief. One cannot deny that reading "Atlas" against the context of today's world make Rand look likle Nostradamus.
Rand looks like Nostradamus??
Except for the fact that there are none of her heroes today. Just a lot of chief executive assholes.
And those assholes are greedy to the point of sociopathy, above the law in most cases, and they are building a control grid for neo-feudalism -- and totally unlike the villains in the book.
So when the villains in her book don't fit today's villains and when the heroes certainly don't, I would have to disagree that she looks like Nostradmus.
The heroes are GONE.
Just like *GASP* the book predicted.
There are no heroes.
Honestly, where are they? Are you one?
Who follows Ayn Rand's philosophy and what are they doing now?
You can't "go Galt" in this world -- the fascists are taking over everything.
I really would like to see such a hero, so that I could apply to work for them.
Trouble is, every active Atlas Shrugged–head that I meet gets paid in FRNs -- or hopes to someday get paid -- for joining the cult and repeating the party line.
the heroes exist Guy, but the white noise is too much for them to try and rise above.
A real "hero" knows that you cannot push a river.
Only block it. That too temporarily.
ORI
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com
"Who follows Ayn Rand's philosophy and what are they doing now?"
Anyone who does their own car repair, electrical work, construction, raising their own food etc. instead of hoping "someone else, say the government" will solve their problems for them. We are a minority but we exist and are likely concentrated in the technical and scientific professions. Independence, questioning central planning authority and "experts" and creative problem solving is our philosophy.
I wish I could give you a positive vote.
Excellent response.
To which I would only add also endeavoring to raise our progeny to do the same.
Freedom is found in proportion to responsibility accepted.
Encourage others to think for themselves by setting an example.
Are you using fiction to assert that Standard Oil was not a monopoly?
You have exceedingly low reading comprehension skills. I would suggest you complete high school, then answer your own question using things like "context" and "who said what".
Don't lecture me, Mr. Profit.
Was Standard Oil a monopoly or wasn't it? How tough is that to answer for a genius like yourself?
Reading the wiki, I find that it was not. Indeed, the concept of a free market monopoly is foolish. Here is the definition:
In economics, a monopoly (from Greek monos / μονος (alone or single) + polein / πωλειν (to sell)) exists when a specific individual or an enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it.
Now, one might claim that having a 90% control of the market would meet that definition, but the fact is that it doesn't. Why? Because the fact that there was a free market meant that they not only had to deal with their current competition, but also any POTENTIAL competition. It is the threat of this potential competition that made prices fall even after they had 90% control over the market.
This sentence should've tipped you off, sparky.
much of that drop coming after they became a monopoly.
Use this for future reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_comprehension
The only monopolies in existence are created/protected by Govt.s! What does this tell you?
Perhaps in a legal sense. Functionally? Far from it. If you can reduce prices to 1/8th their former levels, with 90% of the marketshare, and make alliances with other businesses that benefit yourself, your employees, and the general population, while still turning a profit....so the fuck what? Is that really monopolistic?
Question is, did he benefit from the public largesse? But that discussion is less about the company, and the politicians, than it is about the public bending over, and playing Consuela the Cleaning Lady for DSK.
Good job TM. Some of us who read "Atlas Shrugged" do indeed comprehended the reality of Rands theme as that which parallels today's alternative reality in which arrogant lazy/dumb ass parasitically maligned minded politicians and their bureaucratic spawn are trying their primal best to continue to loot the creators and producers through fees, taxes, regulatory policies and any other leach sucking ideas they harbor in their worm infested brain tissue.
How many pseudo intellectuals here are still sucking sustenance from their mothers teats or siphoning from the government tip while still living at home thinking they are actually making a contribution.
Here is one of the best and most accurate scenes in movie history that portrays more reality in 7 minutes than all the bullshit excuses I've heard in my lifetime.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-AXTx4PcKI
Parasite Lazy Ass Bitchez!!!!
Watch out, there.
You sound like a toady.
A bully's toady.
So of all the business, political, and social leaders of today, not one is to be counted as a Randian "Objectivist". No one makes money preaching the Randroid religion -- it's all funded by donations from non-Randroids.
The leaders of today are a Predator Class. You sound like you, like a toady, are jeering at the Prey for not being Predators.
"The leaders of today are a Predator Class. You sound like you, like a toady, are jeering at the Prey for not being Predators."
Excuse me "Predator Class"....A predator is defined differently than a parasite. I make no mention of a "Predator Class" it appears you are suffering from perception impairment. No matter the basic premise of Rand's novel are two opposing mind sets. Those that create, produce and make profits vs. those that feed off their profits and want to control them.
I am of the creating and producing persuasion and my mind has difficulty wrapping around minds whom feed off my labor through sloth, indifference, apathy and a host of other sick minded pathologies. Rand is dead on when describing parasites inner most fear which is their manufactured terror of physical reality.
Some of us can identify albeit on a lesser scale the great contributions our forefathers made in whom I honor deeply laboring to birth America. America an anomaly in world history indeed. Few can comprehend the contribution in which it's peoples have given the world through freedom in creating and producing. Seeing it trashed by irresponsible dependent children is difficult to stomach.
One only step out the front door and see the horror of what sick minded parasitical business hating politicians are trying to create here in this great land. Parasites can only survive with a host. Hosts do not need parasites to survive. Rand is correct in her idea that if you take away the creating and producing hosts from those that feed off of them then they will in the end annihilate themselves.
Not all politicians are of this mind and indeed talented policy makers and lawmakers are out there but it seems they have been swallowed up by a monster leech.
Kill it, kill it with fucking fire.
Good seeing you back Cheeky.
One unJunk for Cheeky....
(she looks like the dood in the 'Red Meat' cartoon.)
i junked you with pride†
Jump! You Fuckers!
Bastard!!!!
Dashing down the street --
http://youtu.be/bjD4PHojNBU
AUSTERITY, BITCHEZ!
Grow Your Own! .....paper
If Ben used rice paper the currency would actually be good for something
- Love Ayn
http://youtu.be/DIEvHCyb4Ms
Social security and Medicare kept me alive when corporate America forgot about me but kept my ideology.
Ain't that the truth.
Are you certain they ever even knew that you were alive?
I love the junks from the right-wing retards that don't check their facts. Ayn lived on SS and Medicare towards the end. Two things her ideology adamantly oppose. Now go kill yourselves for your stupidity.
After you genius.
Yes, she accepted Social Security (not sure about Medicare). No, her ideology did not adamantly oppose it. It was well within the framework of her philosophy as written in "The Objectivist" in 1966 - years before. To quote:
"The same moral principles and considerations apply to the issue of accepting social security, unemployment insurance or other payments of that kind. It is obvious, in such cases, that a man receives his own money which was taken from him by force, directly and specifically, without his consent, against his own choice. Those who advocated such laws are morally guilty, since they assumed the “right” to force employers and unwilling co-workers. But the victims, who opposed such laws, have a clear right to any refund of their own money—and they would not advance the cause of freedom if they left their money, unclaimed, for the benefit of the welfare-state administration."
She wasn't perfect and, like all, is subject to rational criticism. But at least argue from a factual foundation.
Okay, so she did act in self-interest to accept socialist help.
Your response suggests to me that you didn't read the excerpt. As per her stated philosophy, she attempted to recover monies confiscated, monies she had no say in handing over. I don't blame her one bit. I would/will do the same.
You might call it accepting socialist help. I prefer to call it bed debt recovery.
Okay, so she did act in self-interest to accept socialist help.
All sane people act in their own interests. Someone who deliberately hurts themselves is usually considered to be unbalanced. The people who try to convince you to simply trust in one authority figure or another and engage in self sacrifice are those who are trying to scam you -- in their own self interest!
Once you realize that all living beings must behave in a way that they believe will lead to some benefit for themselves the world makes perfect sense. Believing that there's some priest or politician who will tell you how to live your life and that he'll do it strictly for your benefit and not for his own benefit is clearly irrational.
Sorry, but altruism is a massive gaping whole in your argument.
How so?
Because altruism goes against self-interest and is a group mentality (i.e. what is better for the group).
Creating a society that revolves around the lowest common denominator and penalizes those who are different or successful is not good for the group. Increasing the availability of desired goods and services is good for the group. Burdening the most productive or inventive members of a group can only decrease the total number of available goods and services.
The group's needs can only be served through division of labor, voluntary association and the desire to make life better for oneself, one's family and one's friends. The redistribution of wealth disincentivizes the production of desired goods and if not halted will terminate in a death spiral for the group in question.
I read her books and her ideas all seem truly wonderful, until you realize that real people don't act like her characters.
Few real people have faced what john galt faced.
I would do the same as galt in his situation. I can only carry so many parasites until i have to rid myself of them.
Just
Over
Her
Nooky
Goes
Another
Losing
Trade
A very succinct and accurate criticism.
I take it that Romantic Manifesto was not on your reading list. Check it out, and you'll understand why fictional heroes are meant to portray ideals for which to strive. Fiction is not meant to be the literary equivalent of reality TV.
So true. And just as one should not take fictional heroes as realistic one should not take the world of fiction as real. That is why only the foolish (or the crazy) try to find or create Hogworts, Middle Earth or the Vulcan Science Academy. The story always comes out the way the author wants because the author controls the setting, the people, the rules and the events. If you need a dragon one appears. If you need magic to be real it is. If you need a world in which children either don't exist or act like miniature adults - they do.
Fiction makes a terrible basis for a philosophy of life - ask any Gorean.
Z
p.s. I am aware of the irony of this post and my handle.
Ms. Rand considered herself not just a fiction writer/entertainer, but a philosopher...
well, so much for that; her blind spots could fill the black holes in Wall Street's cooked books.
I'm sure she's discussing it with Jesus right now - correlating her super-human ideals to Greenspan's flip-flop on the gold-standard.
If you have an actual argument against Rand's philosophy, please feel free to present it. Until then, I'll just disregard these ramblings.
Rand's "philosophy" is mere iconization of the self-interested, self-promoting individual. Real/true/actualized individuals do not promote themselves, but ideas which transcend themselves.
Rands ideas do not transcend her - on the contrary - they are designed to elevate her - as a "creator", more valuable than human beings who do not "create" according to her definition of "creating".
Rand's contempt for altruism, betrays her non-philosophical intellect; a true creator would not worry the slightest about any non-creator.
Ergo: Rand pretends and acts, That's all.
Jesus and Rand commiserate with each other over the betrayals of their students?
Understand that when Greenspan dies, he will go to the lowest circle of Hell and gain a spot next to Judas in the Devil's mouth/anus (if such a fanciful and wondrous place existed).
The place her philosophy fell apart was when she shoe-horned in a need for government, which does not fit in with the rest of her philosophy. It allowed her to adopt many nonsensical ideas, like Jews having a right to take Israel "back" from their cousins that they abandoned there thousands of years ago, and indeed the right to kill them.
The place her philosophy fell apart was when she shoe-horned in a need for government, which does not fit in with the rest of her philosophy.
True. Rothbard has a better system but Rand had the poetic genius which is evidenced by the amount of ire she draws to this day.
Well said. But even reality TV ain't really reality.
You pretty much captured what I was going to offer:
"World's best author. When you're 16."
I was a bleeding heart liberal at 16. At age 46 I first read Atlas Shrugged. I can only imagine how much better my life could have been and how much more quickly success could have come if I had understood the lessons of Ayn Rand earlier -- find your passion and bust your ass until your dreams become reality and don't let the naysayers get you down.
If only someone had given me a copy of Atlas when I was 16!
I do.
Women, can't live with them and you can't kill them.. but they can kill you, over and over and over again.
LOL, so true..
...
There, cut off the sound to defeat audio ad.
Tyler(s)!!!
Make it easy to send cash (like to a P.O. Box in Khartoum or something), and I will contribute! Another blog found a way to do that, and I have given. I do not like CC payments over the 'Net...
Credit card payments over the net are quite safe.
It is much more dangerous to give your card to a waiter.
I've used ZHs paypal option, no CC over the net, except when signing up for paypal - which is safer than giving it to topcallingtroll's waiter. ;)
How about:
"The Maestro's Mistress?"
How about "The Maestro's Betrayal":
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/alan-greenspan-betrayed-ayn-...
He didn't betray her.
He brought down the whole rotten house.
Kind of like Francisco d'Anconia.
While it would be nice to believe that were the case, there is just no evidence whatsoever that he did not absolutely believe what he was pushing. While Francisco pretended to be someone he wasn't, he didn't actually follow through on any of the pretense (e.g. sleeping around with all the floozies in his entourage.) Greenspan, on the contrary, argued at every step in favor of increased government regulation and forcible manipulation of the market.
Are you retarded, or truly this stupid? Greenspan fought all regulations and pushed for the repeal of regulations. Ever hear of Glass-Steagall act, Greenspan vs Brooksley Born, etc., etc.
Think about it. The very existence of The Fed IS regulation through the Price fixing of money.
"When destroyers first appear among men, then begin by destroying money."
I see three root possibilities here. Either Greenspank, a) betrayed Objectivism by becoming Fed Chairman, b) sought to bring down the Fed from within, c) a mix of All of the Above and corruption by way of power.