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Ayn Rand & Murray Rothbard: Diverse Champions Of Liberty
Submitted by Tibor R. Machan via Acting-Man.com,
Differences and Similarities
No one should attempt to treat Ayn Rand and Murray N. Rothbard as uncomplicated and rather similar defenders of the free society although they have more in common than many believe. As just one example, neither was a hawk when it comes to deploying military power abroad.* There is evidence, too, that both considered it imprudent for the US government to be entangled in international affairs, such as fighting dictators who were no threat to America. Even their lack of enthusiasm for entering WW II could be seen as quite similar.

Ayn Rand, famed writer and founder of the Objectivist movement
Photo credit: Cornell Capa / Magnum
And so far as their underlying philosophical positions are concerned, they both can be regarded as Aristotelians. In matters of economics they were unwavering supporters of the fully free market capitalist system, although while Rand didn’t find corporations per se objectionable, arguably Rothbard had some problems with corporate commerce, especially as it manifest itself in the 20th century. One sphere in which they took very different positions, at least at first glance, is whether government is a bona fide feature of a genuinely free country. Rand thought it is, Rothbard thought it wasn’t. Yet the reason Rothbard opposed government was that it depended on taxation, something Rand also opposed, so even here where the difference between them appears to be quite stark, they were closer than one might think.

Murray Rothbard, introducing his students to French economist Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot (widely regarded as a “proto-Austrian” today)
Photo credit: Roberto Losada Maestre
When intellectuals such as Rand and Rothbard have roughly the same political-economic position, it isn’t that surprising that they and their followers would stress the difference between them instead of the similarities. Moreover, in this case both had a similar explosive personality, with powerful likes and dislikes not just in fundamentals but also in what may legitimately be considered incidentals–music, poetry, novels, movies and so forth.
Yet what for Rothbard might be something tangential, even incidental, to his political economic thought, for Rand could be considered more germane since Rand thought of herself–and many think of her–as a philosopher (roughly of the rank of a Herbert Spencer or Auguste Comte). Rothbard wrote little in the sphere of metaphysics and epistemology, although he was well informed in these branches of philosophy, while Rand chimed in, quite directly, on several philosophical issues, having written what amounts to a rather nuanced long philosophical essay on epistemology and advanced ideas in metaphysics, such as on free will, causality, and the nature of universals. Her followers, such as Nathaniel Branden, Leonard Peikoff, Tara Smith, Alan Gotthelf, James Lennox, and David Kelley, among others, have all made contributions to serious discussions in various branches of philosophy.
Disagreements on Government and Market Exchanges
The central dispute, however, between Rothbard and his followers and Rand and hers focuses, as I have already noted, on whether a free country would have a government. The debate is moved forward in the volume edited by Roderick Long and me, Anarchism versus Minarchism; Is Government Part of a Free County (Ashgate, 2006).

A scene from John Carpenter’s famous documentary “They Live” – the State ultimately enforces its diktats and demands by threatening and exercising violence.
Photo credit: John Carpenter
Even apart from their disagreement about the justifiability of government in a bona fide free country, there is the difference between them about the subjectivity of (some) values. Rothbard holds, for example, that “’distribution’ is simply the result of the free exchange process, and since this process benefits all participants on the market and increases social utility, it follows directly that the ‘distributional’ results of the free market also increase social utility.” The part here that shows the difference between Rothbard and Rand is where Rothbard says that the “free exchange process … benefits all participants on the market.”
Maybe most of them benefit in such exchanges, but some do not. Suppose someone exchanges five ounces of crack cocaine for an ounce of heroin. Arguably, at least as Ayn Rand would very likely maintain, neither of these traders gains a benefit in this exchange, assuming that both commodities being traded are objectively harmful to the traders’ health. Both are, then, harmed, objectively speaking, even if they believed they would benefit.
This may be a minor matter but it isn’t, not at least if Rothbard’s idea is generalized to apply to all market exchanges. True, from a purely economic viewpoint both parties in free exchanges tend to take it or believe that they are benefited by these. But this belief could well be false.
Now of course Rand would agree with Rothbard that just because people engage in trade that’s harmful to them, it doesn’t follow that anyone, least of all the government, is authorized to ban such trade or otherwise interfere with it. Such matters as what may or may not harm free market traders from the trades they choose to engage in are supposed to be dealt with in the private sector. Family, friends, doctors, nurses, et al., or other agents devoted to advising people what they should and should not do are the only ones who may launch peaceful educational or advisory measures to remedy the private misjudgments and misconduct of peaceful market participants. Such an approach sees public policies such as the war on drugs as entirely unjustified even if consuming many drugs is objectively damaging to those doing so.
In any case, the Randian view doesn’t assume that all free trade benefits those embarking on them. Let me, however, return to the major bone of contention between Murray Rothbard and Ayn Rand, namely, whether government is (or could be) part of a free country. Given that Rothbard believes government cannot exists without deploying the rights-violating policy of taxation, his view is understandable, but the underlying assumption that gives rise to it is questionable.
Rand did indeed question it in her discussion of funding government in the chapter “Government Financing in a Free society” in The Virtue of Selfishness, at least by implication, when she argued that government can be financed without taxation. If she is correct, then Rothbard or his followers need to mount a different attack on the idea that the free society can have a government. (And some have indeed made this argument, including me in, for example, my “Anarchism and Minarchism, A Rapprochement,” Journal des Economists et des Estudes Humaines, Vol. 14, No. 4 [December 2002], 569-588).
Rand proposed that instead of taxation, which involves the rights-violating policy of confiscation of private property, a government could be funded by way of a contract fee, a lottery, or some other peaceful method. Whether this is so cannot be addressed here but it shows that Rand and Rothbard were not very distant from each other on the issue of the justifiability of government in a free country. Perhaps the term “government” is ill advised when applied to whatever kind of law-enforcement institution would be involved in bona fide free countries. But this is not what’s crucial–a rose by any other name is still a rose and a law-enforcement, judicial or defense agency in a free society is what is at issue here, not what term is used to call it. So, again, Rand and Rothbard seem closer than usually believed.
Yet it’s not just about taxation for many who follow Rothbard. Most also hold that the idea is mistaken that government–or whatever it is called–needs to serve a society occupying a continuous instead instead of Swiss cheese like region. The idea of a disparately located country, without a continuous territory and with the possibility of all parts being accessible by law enforcers without the need of international treaties, makes sense to Rothbardians. Not, however, to Randians, it can be argued, not unless the familiar science fiction transportation option of being “beamed up” from one area to anther (so that law enforcement can reach all those within its jurisdiction) is available. Otherwise enforcement of the law can be easily evaded by criminals.
Conclusion
Again, this isn’t the place to resolve the dispute between Rand & her followers and Rothbard and his. This brief discussion should, however, indicate where their differences lie. It doesn’t at all explain, however, why the different parties to the debate tend often to be quite acrimonious toward each other. What may explain this, though, is a simple point of psychology. Nearly all champions of a fully free, libertarian society are also avid individualists and often tend to insist on what might be called the policy: My way or the highway! Even when their differences don’t warrant it.
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Rand could talk a good game, but apparently in the real world she was not good with money.
We are all John Galts...
Rothbard on Greenspan.
He saw Greenspan as a Statist and a Keynesian:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2015/08/murray-rothbard-on-alan-greenspan.html
Add Crony Capitalist to the list.
He's old but he must still be terrified - doesn't want his Gadaffi moment:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/greenspan-warns-about-bond-market-bubble-2015-08-19
But how would Crony Capitalism work without a free market on politicians ?
Any respect gained by reading Ayn Rand is quickly diluted by knowing she kept toadies like Greenspan hanging around.
The Greenspan she knew then was not the Greenspan we know today, and I don't think he was in her inner circle very long. Since you bring his name up, he wrote a masterpiece entitled Gold and Economic Freedom.
"This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard."
http://www.constitution.org/mon/greenspan_gold.htm
Greenpan had only one purpose to Rand.
I think it's more like Rand had only one purpose to Greenspan - to get himself known to the public.
Fair enough.
Please don't let it be misconstrued that I do not totally disagree,,
Greenspan on Rand.
You don't want to see that.
Rand was a "champion for liberty" until it came to Palestine.
Do not forget. The residents of Gault's Gulch endeavored to re-write the Constitution, thus re-establishing government. Even after Government actions had produced the economic devastation that caused them to seek out Galt's Gulch.
Governent and Freedom are mutually exclusive. This is where Rand went off the Reardon Rails.
If you aren't an anarchist you're doing it wrong...
Bingo!!!
Sounds like every woman I ever dated.
Wadaya mean? She sells > 500,000 books every single year at $20 a pop and she's still dead so she's not spending any of it. I can't do that.
Oddly enough Rand does look allot like Janet Yellen.
Luckily for her, she was able to collect social security in her later years.
Anyone with an IQ above room temperature and some skills wants freedom from government control or any other control. Whether they follow Ayn Rand or Rothbard or their own self is not material though it is always best to follow your own reason and judgment.
Follow your own way but do not tell me what is the best way for me works the best for all
Always be your own champion of liberty. How can you be free if you are following someone ele?
"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." -- Rand
While they are individualists and might believe "My way or the highway." they mean it for themselves and not you and I. That is a huge difference.
When a leftist-statist says "My way or the highway." they mean YOU will do it their way or you will end up incarcerated or dead.
Shake it once, your a man
Shake it twice, your boy
Shake it 3 times, your a Fag.....
Social Security, health care, national defence, local policing (and about 100 other things "government" does) are OK by me, in theory (in practice they often suck). It's not the "government services" that bother me. Happy to pay a fair share of tax for these. It's when govenment gets in my home, my bedroom, my psychoactivity, my personal freedoms and liberties. Even worse, when government is corrupted by special interest wealth and power, like today.
Ayn Rand, the welfare queen ...
I was just about to say LTER in 3-2-1 but you stole his thunder ;-)
Damn, was she in Joy Division?
Shut up bitchez, it's Saturday night and she's lost control again!https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QVc29bYIvCM&itct=CB4QpDAYAiITCL3BnOjbz8cCF...
I think Lorde learned how to dance from watching Ian.
During her last years as her health deteriorated, I think she took Medicare or something like that. Liberals gloated at the thought she was a hypocrite. But if you read Atlas Shrugged, one of her protagonists was a pirate who "stole" from government. From the pirate's point of view, he was recovering what government stole from the people.
Ayn Rand said cigarettes don't cause lung cancer, then got lung cancer from smoking!
She made society pay for the cancer surgery she needed because of her stupid decision to smoke.
Furthermore, she accepted her delicious welfare handouts under the name "Ann O'Conner" (husband name) to hide people bringing up that the cost of her cancer treatment was way more than what she paid in. So long for "recovering what gov. stole from the people".
Ayn rand objectivism is not a philosophy but a cult, and not as efficient as Dianetics though. Basically that's why the book sales couldn't cover the surgical costs.
She MADE society pay for her cancer surgery? What are you smoking? The Feds MADE her pay more in taxes then she could ever recoup in medical costs.
"Ayn rand objectivism is not a phylosophy but just a cult,"
Looks like we have a liberal here.
I have yet to see anyone who calls Rand a cult refute her actual ideas. That tells me a lot more about the critics than Ayn Rand.
A cult generally has secret knowledge and some irrational beliefs. Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, or any other anti-statists posit ideas in the open for all to see. Every one of them will stand toe to toe with any leftist-statist and debate most any aspect of economic, political and social liberty.
My belief is the truth always survives scrutiny. When people can propose and defend these ideas in the light of day and without the use of force I give them high marks as probably being true.
Leftist ideologies are actually weak and illogical which is why they tend to use force very early in the discussion. A debate with a leftist will generally go like this:
Libertarian: I believe welfare to be theft given it is not done voluntarily.
Leftist: You are a selfish jerk, want kids to starve, hate old people, want the sick to die and do not believe in the fact of global warming!
Libertarian: I am not sure the data support global warming because of the logarithmic effects of increasing carbon dioxide and I also doubt the ability of the government to actually change temperature through taxes and a million new bureaucrats with a thousand new private planes.
Leftist: So, you admit you are a denier? You are dangerous.
Liberty works best for all.
Did Rand even have any ideas? I thought she was a just a bizarro communist because she hated communists. By bizarro communist, I mean completely contrary or opposite to communism. Communists were evil, therefore the opposite must be good.
Personally, I find Lao Tze a far more compelling libertarian philosopher.
I'm not debating benefit of welfare, or no welfare, I'm just debating Ayn Rand honesty.
Ayn Rand always stayed true to her political beliefs... until she got cancer!!
Turns out the free market believed that Rand didn't earn enough money writing shitty "fiction novels" while tweaking on methamphetamines to continue living. So rather than staying true to her "philosophy" by choosing to die from the cancer she got from her own stupid choice to smoke (which she said didn't cause cancer), she wrapped her lips around the government tit she had so furiously riled against in her books before, and sucked on it vigorously.
However, to her worshipers, she proudly declared that she was only taking back money she was forced to pay in.
I call it a fraud.
Also the fact an ideology saying that people should be as selfish as possible is not my definition of "ideas", because people are already selfish to begin with.
A whole lot of people become instant socialists when disaster strikes. How many Republican "small government" governers call the Feds for help when their state suffers a hurricane, wildfires, earthquake, etc etc.
Who cares? Why does Rosenbaum's "honesty" matter?
I am not going to defend Randenbaum's philosophy because (a) I am convinced she was just a shill part of the controlled opposition of academia and (b) the core of her philosophy is false. I agree with you that she was sort of a fraud. However, the merit of any snippets of her philosophy applied to real life do not hinge on her own personal choices. I do not need a teacher to practice what she preaches nor should you.
<<Also the fact an ideology saying that people should be as selfish as possible is not my definition of "ideas", because people are already selfish to begin with.>>
I agree. The idea is moot.
You can apply her Objectivism against her. If you apply Objectivism in the most absolute sense, the concept of "selfish" is pure nonsense because objectively, NOBODY can possibly know what is going on in the heads of others. There is no objective way to determine WHY somebody acts in the way he acts.
Seriously, fuck Ayn Rand (Not that anybody would want to). The old cunt had a disdain for anarchists as her government monopoly on force was imperative to her philosophy. Fuck that. There's more injustice in one man being denied his freedoms through government power than 1000 bandits unjustified takings.
Spirit, you can believe anything if you want to, truth is in the mind of the believer. I now realize; Americans are truth seekers, we are consumed by the search for the 'True' ideology espoused by the true Guru, we have faith it exists somewhere and we willingly devote our lives to the quest to discover it. (Why not? what better thing could we do with our lives?)
Ad hominem is not a valid way to criticize philosophies. It surprises me (well, maybe not) that the vast majority of Ayn Rand haters attack Rand, the person, rather than what she pieced together from the wisdom of the ages and presented as a whole, consistent philosophy. Widespread acceptance of her philosophy has faced some huge impediments, not the least of which are the widespread belief that the existence we experience is not the only reality (a problem with metaphysics) and, frankly, that too few people are equipped to understand metaphysics, epistemology etc, have never heard the words and don't care too. After studying these philosophical subjects and political economy for well over half a century, I have come to the conclusion that there is no remedy for this sad state of affairs, not even to "shrug." We are sliding down a very slippery slope. Run for cover and take care of your own. :-(
Come back when you are able to argue the ideas, rather than engage in Poison the Well Fallacies, and Ad Hominem.
Rand simply demonstrated, through her actions, the following reality (intentionally or not:
A) Throngs of Free Shit Army warriors, will always cost more than they contribute
B) A peaceful means of reclaiming your stolen capital from the Monopoly Criminal Gang that you call Daddy....er...Government
Actually the pirate's part is a bit stupid on rand's part.
The pilar of Objetivism is that A is A, which means that there is an inmutable and natural "objective" truth (similar but not related to the Divine truth of most ancient philosophers, like Plato). As pointed in the article, Rand does not critic goverment per se, but stealing (taxes) and violence (law enforcement). Given this, i think we can assume that "theft is bad" and/or "violence is bad".
But that pirate's thefts and violence are not bad but good. Why the goverment theft is bad but the pirate one is not?. Is it because he is stealing from a thief (goverment)? After all, the plunder came from a legit propietor in the first place, and the goods stealed from the goverment are not returned to their legit owners but to the pirate's stash.
Also, does the pirate becomes a thief himself? If another pirate attacks and plunders the first one, what is the moral stature of this second pirate, according to Rand? is he a good man or a looter?
If the second pirate is a looter, then theft is bad depending on who you are stealing from (which is the same reasoning that saying that murder is ok if you only kill jews/jihadists/sodomites/klansmen)
If the second pirate is a good man, then what was the norwegian guy? a looter? If both are good men, what is the objective truth about theft?
First Rand says that A is A, then she creates a character which actions are good/evil depending on the point of view. At least one the two statements is incorrect.
Either objectivism does not work or the pirate is not a moral man.
This relation between the pirate and objetivism can be found on many events of the world's history. During 1500-1900, russian warlords conquered vast amounts of land from the khans of the steppes, populating them with russian serfs. When the bolshevisks took those lands from their legit owners, where they looters? Also, from the 12 original colonies IIRC only 2 belong to private citizens. The rest where legally either full or partly king's property. Given this, was the declaration of independence an act of looting? (more or less as if your tenant decides that your rented dweling belongs to him)
I think that Objectivism is a not very fortunate ideollogy. Too many things depend on the point of view and many times thing are not absolutely bad or evil. Even Rand herself described situations that challenge objetivism.
Now before you start calling me names, note that I support the idea that despite any ideollogy, in the end you only really own wharever you can defend, be it with a law, a leverage, a shotgun or an army.
But that pirate's thefts and violence are not bad but good. Why the goverment theft is bad but the pirate one is not?. Is it because he is stealing from a thief (goverment)?
Tolkein was an anarchist. His hero in The Hobbit is a thief named Bilbo Baggins who steals treasure back from a dragon. We like Bilbo and cheer for his success.
After all, the plunder came from a legit propietor in the first place, and the goods stealed from the goverment are not returned to their legit owners but to the pirate's stash.
Incorrect. The gold is transferred to a bank at Galt's Gulch were it is keep in accounts in the name of the individuals who had been looted by government but were liberated by Galt.
I think that Objectivism is a not very fortunate ideollogy. Too many things depend on the point of view and many times thing are not absolutely bad or evil.
There is an objective reality and A does equal A. Individuals who understand this can work together efficiently while those who have fanciful notions about the world at large which are unique to themselves can not interact effectively with others. Objectivity makes peaceful interaction possible.
But personally Rand suggested that we have our own subjective tastes based on our unique abilities and needs. That's why she says that each individual must live according to one's own values and not by values imposed by others.
Rand's philosophy is one of subjective personal freedom to act independently in one's own sphere made possible by a recognition of the real, objective world which we inhabit with others.
We like Bilbo and cheer for his success
That's the point. Is Bilbo a looter or a hero?
The gold is transferred to a bank at Galt's Gulch were it is keep in accounts in the name of the individuals who had been looted by government
Ah, i never arrived to that part (didn't like the book at all), but that makes sense. The character is coherent with objetivism then.
There is an objective reality
And an objective moral? We are right and they are wrong. We are good and right and able and they are evil and unable. Is all really as simple as Rand pictures it? Then why we haven't arrived to that blessed world by now then?
I used to blog on a liberal website. They hated Rand with a passion. Being called parasites and plunderers doesn't sit well with them.
In Virtue of Selfishness, Rand went out of her way in the beginning of the book to define the term. Liberals didn't care. The irony is that liberals fit the definition they ascribed to Rand.
Just one thing if I may, what WE describe as a Liberal is not a Liberal at all, its a progressive, a socialist. A Liberal (note the capital L) does not crave Big Brother's interference in all aspects of their lives...or in fact any.
They shun it ;-)
nmewn
Yeah. Most of the "conservatives" are in fact, socialists- living off government money and largesse.
I wonder if John Stuart Mill would even crack a smile at what mainstream America thinks liberalism is.
"Most of the "conservatives" are in fact, socialists- living off government money and largesse."
Yeah, don't ever think for a second I don't see them, they're squarely in my cross hairs.
There are few people in this world who can live separate from the corruption that surrounds us. Ayn Rand was FORCED to pay into a system of which she endured, just like the rest of us. I hold no one guilty of hypocrisy from extracting sustenance from a system they are forced to participate. It is those who continually demand that we must submit to their benefit, that I hold in contempt.
And there ya go, spot on.
The "progressive mind" can always be depended on to say "Why, you work for a bank you scoundrel!" while smugly swiping their bank card for the latest i-shit gadget from China. And "You would outlaw a womans right to choose if you had control!" as they fall oddly silent at the sight of Planned Parenthood cronies discussing the going price for "unviable fetal masses"...which is apparently in the sixty dollar range. "The NRA is a promoter of mass murder and completely razzzist!" without having any concept of the history of the oppression of ALL minorities that is it's true purpose. "You're a hopeless uneducated neanderthal!" as they corrupted some the finest free thinking universities on the planet with the suffocation of the "thought police", the monotone, grey color of statistism, commonly called politically correct speech, your ideas and thoughts are banned forthwith!
I could recount countless variations...but you get my point ;-)
Hello, nmewn. Good to see you here. Now down to it.
I find that terms in general here are often tossed around. In particular progressive (and conservative). A few months back i defended conservative, and now I do the same for progressives for the same reason.
The two can be one in the same, or share traits at least. I despise the sorry fucks that fit your description of progressive too, but I would just call them idiots, same as many who people lable conservatives. Being progressive doesn't mean you're a stupid shithead. Quite the contrary. Same goes for conservative.
As for the NRA, before 1979 / 1980, they were a respectable organization. They were however losing membership, so they hired lobbiests and consultants who concurantly encouraged mass handgun ownership and proliferation to both bolster membership and save the gun companies. This fucked this country up wholesale. I repeat. This fucked this country up wholesale. The NRA is directly responsable to the crimewave of the '80's, (the easy gun part) and it benifitted financially from it. The NRA leadership is full of a bunch of pussies.
Nothing wrong with owining a gun, though, btw.
The NRA is directly responsable to the crimewave of the '80's, (the easy gun part) and it benifitted financially from it.
Can you qualify that for readers? I guess you are tying the NRA to the Drug War. Nancy Reagan, etc?
I'll disagree.
No, not at all to the drug war. Nothing to do with Regan, Nancy or Ronald. Just greed pure and simple. I believe at the time Smith and Wesson was going under, as well as many smaller companies who made hand guns. Gun ownership in general in the US was declining substantially, and in turn the NRA was losing membership. More guns = more members. Really simple. A good sportsman's organization got taken over by greedy metrics asholes and there goes the neighborhood.
OK, thanks for abiding my mistaken presupposition. So more guns in American's hands is bad? I'm not following. You seem like you aren't anti-gun, but you disapprove of the pro-gun lobby nonetheless. To be certain the NRA isn't perfect, otherwise we wouldn't have the GOA.
To lay it out for you (my own gun philosophy) and background. I grew up with 22's and 410's, a 12g and a 44 in the house. i was taught to shoot small game on our farm and my dad would even take me into the city to go to indoor ranges where we could rent different stuff to try. Most of my friends growing up had similar experiences. We live in the USA, and guns are a part of our collective culture.
Having fetish like firepower under every pillow, and enabling every criminal to easily get whatever they want in bulk.... automatic weapons, cheap cheap firearms, AK's, AR's, Uzi's, whatever.... is the problem. It used to cost money to buy a handgun.... like $500-600 for just about anything. A saturday night special was like $200..... in 1980. Bringing in the cheap foreign 9mm's and everything else just opened the flood gates and really tweaked our culture.
Now there are so many guns, due to price and a complete lack of regulation (household chemicals and cars are more regulated) that it is almost impossible to go back. A self fulfilling prophecy has been created. Add to that enough well armed idiots who can't rub two brain cells together and I don't have any answer to the problem. Better schools? WTF.
cars are more regulated
You say that like it's a good thing but trafiic regulations actually make the roads less safe.
Hans Monderman is a traffic engineer who hates traffic signs. Oh, he can put up with the well-placed speed limit placard or a dangerous curve warning on a major highway, but Monderman considers most signs to be not only annoying but downright dangerous. To him, they are an admission of failure, a sign - literally - that a road designer somewhere hasn't done his job. "The trouble with traffic engineers is that when there's a problem with a road, they always try to add something," Monderman says. "To my mind, it's much better to remove things."
Monderman is one of the leaders of a new breed of traffic engineer - equal parts urban designer, social scientist, civil engineer, and psychologist. The approach is radically counterintuitive: Build roads that seem dangerous, and they'll be safer.
http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/traffic.html
Careful, you're being too logical here.
And thank you for having a good conversation.
To answer your more guns + bad question.... It's not that simple, but in general, yes. Pretty simple in those terms. Arming everyone to the hilt just brings out the wackos. I used to say (and still fairly believe) that guns should be required in rural areas and outlawed in the cities. Don't take that literally, but it's an interesting place to start.
The pro gun lobby is not pro gun. They are pro gun sales. So yes, I disapprove of the lobbiests that are making money off of a soul-less attempt to justify more gun sales. They are just the same and equally as bad as the pro drone lobby. They are probably often one in the same.
No one has sold more guns than progressives continually threatening to grab them. If guns were the problem then why has gun proliferation not resulted in a massive crime wave? The one we see growing now may well be enabled by easy access to guns but we know the direct cause is NOT gun availability but deliberate decisive politics creating poverty and racial tensions at an ever increasing rate. If it rains for thirty days and thirty nights the most obvious answer is more sand bags, but any intelligence observation would tell you the real cause of your pain is the rain.
I have attended many dreaded gun shows and it does make me wince when I see some of the people buying guns, that in my opinion shouldn't even own an air rifle, but they were not brought there by the NRA. They were brought there by Obama and his progressive promoters. If you are really concerned about guns, then look at the real cause. I would submit that the NRA, good or bad, has virtually no influence on the vast majority of gun buyers. Just as inflation is used to motivate us to buy now for fear we won't be able to in the future, progressive politics does the same for gun ownership. I know it has for me.
Owning a hunk of metal does not change someones personality or make them go insane. If that were true everyone who owns a car or a lawnmower would be deemed too crazy to own it by the standard being set and have to forfeit their poperty.
Thank you. Seems like the guy I who I directed my question at is just upset that the people he doesn't approve of bought firearms.
Hey guys,
I read your responses and I wonder if you even read my posts. Sad.
I just read your "liberal / progressive" post from earlier. Slight nomenclature issues.... but I think we're on the same page as usual.
@nmewn: I keep looking at those tax code books, the recent Supreme Court decisions, Obamacare, and government intrusion into what we eat and drink IS BIG BROTHER'S interference into ALL spects of our lives. I haven't seen any liberal shunning any of these recent developments now or 8 years ago. They are all for it. They'd take our guns too if they could, and many are calling for it.
Conservatives are living off of other people? You mean they're recipients of EBT cards, Section 8 housing, Obamacare, Obamaphones, and pumping out babies just to get free things? I can smell a liberal a mile away when they talk like that. LOL!
That's what I'm trying to say (have said)...They-Are-Not-Liberals, my friend.
Jefferson was a Liberal, Hamilton was not. Voltaire was a Liberal, Louis XV was not.
A little Saturday night humor.......
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In my nightmare, I found myself nude in bed, and I was looking at a mirror on the ceiling, and I discovered that I am a Black, and I'm circumcised! On top of that, my wiener dog has a longer slong.............
Quickly I sat up, found my pants and looked in the pockets to find my driver's license photo and it was that same color. Black.
I felt myself being very depressed, downcast, sitting in a chair.
But it's a wheelchair!!
That means, of course, besides being black and Jewish, I'm also disabled!!!
I said to myself, aloud 'This is impossible. It's impossible that I should be black and Jewish and disabled.'
'It's the pure and holy truth', whispers someone from behind me.
I turn around, and it's my boyfriend.
Just what I needed!!!
I am a homosexual, and on top of that with a Mexican boyfriend..
Oh, my God..... black, Jewish, disabled, gay, with a Mexican boyfriend, drug addict, and HIV-positive!!! With a short slong......
Desperate, I begin to shout, cry, pull my hair, and Oh, noooooo...I'm bald!!!
The telephone rings.
It's my brother.
He is saying, 'Since mom and dad died the only thing you do is hang out, take drugs, and laze around all day doing nothing. Get a job you worthless piece of crap... Any job.'
Mom?... Dad?... Nooooooooo... Now I'm also an unemployed orphan! With a short slong....
I try to explain to my brother how hard it is to find a job when you are black, Jewish, disabled, gay with a Mexican boyfriend, are a drug addict, HIV positive, bald, and an orphan, with a micro brew pecker......
But he doesn't get it.
Frustrated, I hang up.
It's then I realize I only have one hand!!!
With tears in my eyes I go to the window to look out.
I see I live in a shanty-town full of cardboard and tin houses! There is trash everywhere.
Suddenly I feel a sharp pain near my pacemaker.... Pacemaker?
Besides being black, Jewish, disabled, a fairy with a Mexican boyfriend, a drug addict, HIV positive, bald, orphaned, unemployed, an invalid with one hand, and having a bad heart, I live in a crappy neighborhood. And a tooth pick length, pencil pecker.
At that very moment my boyfriend approaches and says to me, 'Sweetie pie, my love, my little black heart throb bubble butt bottom, have you decided what you are going to wear to Washington to see O-Zero?
Say it isn't so!!! I can handle being a black, disabled, one armed, drug addicted, Jewish homosexual on a pacemaker who is HIV positive, bald, orphaned, unemployed, lives in a slum, and has a Mexican boyfriend, but please, oh dear God, please don't tell me.....................................................................................................................
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.............................. I'm a Fucking Liberal Technocrat!!!!!!!!!! With a short cock!!!!!!!
No worries.
Just this year I learned that it doesn't matter who, or what, you really are. You can just close your eyes and self-identify as anything that you want to be. No, really. As long as you're not confused by it the other 300 million people will just have to work it out and see you for who you think you are. Problem solved.
But wait, it gets better and better, because tomorrow you can change and be something else again. And if you choose wisely, the government will pay you for it.
Yes, we’ve all had that dream at one time or another.
But what I wanted to add to the conversation, being a committed libertarian, is that it’s not unusual for liberals to hate Ayn Rand. I think it stems from the fact that she wrote one of the most ghastly fiction books ever written — two actually — Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead.
If you’ve ever tried wading through that morass of bathos and sentimental moronity, you know what I mean. On the other hand, her philosophy was straight to the point, brutal and without it, we probably wouldn’t have the society we have today. Its kind of like the two versions of Pottersville in that Capra fillum. Now guess which one we ended up with, George?
Lovely! Every day I wake up and thank Ford! for putting me here on this green Earth.
What other "ghastly" books have outsold them? There are an awlful lot of these unreadable books in print.
Could it be that it is only unreadable for those who don't like what it says? Admittedly the chapter "John Galt speaks" was one of the longest reads of my life....but it did leave a mark. Maybe that's what it takes some times. The hard things are what we remember just like life's lessons.
We knew what you meant.
Classic Liberalism was the 19th century vision of small, limited self-government, self reliance, and free market capitalism. When socialists didn't get traction in the first half of the 20th century they made a calculated move to drop the terms 'communist' and 'socialist' and totally co-opt the term 'liberal' to reinvent and disguise themselves. As usual, they are the opposite of what they represent themsvles to be.
When they ruined the term 'liberal' term in the last 2 decades they started dusting off the old turn-of-the-century term "progressive" again. Old commies never die, they just get real old, real fast!
Yeah, I know, most thinking people did.
But ya gotta admit Team's romp through fantasy land was still pretty damned funny...lol.
Don't you just love it when they miss the high hanging curve ball........lol.
"Conservatives are living off of other people? You mean they're recipients of EBT cards, Section 8 housing, Obamacare, Obamaphones, and pumping out babies just to get free things? I can smell a liberal a mile away when they talk like that. LOL!"
Goldenfoxx, Conservatives are living off the money made supplying these things, you don't think these things appear by majic do you, well connected interests make a lot of money from the poor, even if it is you who ultimately pays for it all!
If you follow the sequence. They were socialists until socialism became a pejorative. Then Progressive until that word became a pejorative. Currently "liberal" is falling out of favor for the same reason. The current fashion is "left libertarian" and "right libertarian".
If this keeps up long enough, libertarians will be able to call themselves liberals again.
Socialism? I thought socialism was mostly dead (Cuba? N. Korea?). Maybe you're thinking of "social democracy" - like Sweden, or New Zealand? Or maybe the USA, with 66% of all tax money now going to social programs?
Cudos to you for blogging on said website!
Good chance it had a raised, clenched fist for a logo and a link to marxist quotes. 'Liberals' don't get Rand, or anything else, because they are just not that bright and it makes their heads explode if they try to put too much stuff in there. They need free cheese and government handouts cause it hurts when they think about where their next meal is going to come from.
Amusing, since the biggest welfare recipients are corporations that have usurped the political and institutions of the State for their own purposes. They appear to need free handouts to the tune of trillions.
+1 I want you to know that I am classical liberal. That basically means I am libertarian (small l). I have no debt. End of story.
Rothbard has it nailed down. I have the Ludwig von Mises books and I have been reading them for several years. That is not easy reading.
Both free marketers with different view of the role for government.
Rand escaped from Soviet Russia and hated government because she saw how it was used to destroy people. Little wonder she (chain smoked) didn't have much use for any role for government.
Government in the US is now not different and going down the same path of collapse. Just the other side of the totaliraian coin in terms of being facist being controlled by corporate interests.
Please don't anyone confuse Ayn Rand with the Ayn Rand Institute - nor the Atlas Society anymore. Both these organizations have sold themselves to their benefactors.
The flaw of all ideologies is that humans never conform absolutely to any system, and the more any given system relies on this conformity, the more tyrannical and destructive it will become. Political correctness is the means of creating this conformity "voluntarily", where legal constraints would create too much resistance. Lead by the nose while being driven by the bayonet.
Sorry, Oldwood, but that is not the problem here. The problem for ARI is that it is being used by some very wealthy benefactors to promote military conflict with nations that are not a threat to US. The problem with the Atlas Society is that they have become primarily involved with their interpretation of Ayn Rand's political philosophy and with DC policies and away from her metaphysical and epistemological philosophy.
The Atlas Society does challenge the DC pols by calling them out. But it also Is a significant educational organization with special emphasis on metaphysics and epistemology. Check out their web site. David Kelly, it's founder, is a heavy-hitter and has published in the field of epistemology -- e.g, "Evidence of the Senses", and a widely used logic textbook. My impression is they are not bellgerant or confrontational as distinguished from some who see war as one of the principal tools of American policy.
You are 'Fireing on all cylinders' today Oldwood, Great stuff!
"resolve the dispute between Rand & her followers and Rothbard and his."
I suspect that this purported "dispute" is only among a collection of persons who fail to see corruption for what it is.
Perhaps they consider themselves above the issue.
Go figure.
ZH needs more articles like this to keep those superficial few who focus on race or religion out of the site. My concern is that we are too quick to turn pure philosophers into a school, a religion, or worse as cult. Both are excellent philosophers but no one is correct all the time. The author does make a point with which I agree wholeheartedly. Find the commonality in all beliefs. It is there if you look close enough. We focus on the contrasting qualities, but we have more to learn from the commonalities of these brilliant minds than the differences.
Kudos to ZH for posting Tibor's article. There are philosophical and economic debates, intellectual stuff, that are fundamental to validating Austrian economics and the moral foundations of freedom. Thanks
It is what I love about ZH. There is a mix of economics, finance and governmental ideologies. All are interconnected and important. I would love an article on a deconstruction of Marx or even a defense of it. Makes you think and you learn something.
I love the thoughts and teachings of Rothbard. I am ambivalent to Rand because she is a bit too philosophical for my taste.
Regardless, I would take the meaning of Liberty a bit further than they did, and emphasize the need to actively protect Liberty, "non-submission," versus the passive and reactive maxim often called the "non-aggression principle."
The theory of "non-submission" is Liberty as an active demand to not be aggressed against, the active rebuffing of aggression against you, and, of course, not aggressing against others--"Don't tread on me!"
Sort of like the difference between concealed carry, and open-carry.
Failure to demand Liberty, or submission to aggression, is to discard Liberty in favor of tyranny--I.e. Tyranny is never imposed, but permitted.
Zion is a scheme, not an ethnicity..
"Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission."
Interesting thought.
What I have discovered on the other side of the political ideology is that the leftist-statist has no problem with using force, at all and in any situation. Oh, they may verbally decry it before coming into power but they actually use it. Whether is it Bolsheviks, Red Brigade, Weatherman Underground, union thugs or Black Panthers they fully believe in the active use of force to get their way.
So, here is the interesting thought based on your post: If one side, the side of the statist believes in the use of force and the other side, the side of liberty believes in not using force and is also passive what will the long term result be? Well, I think it would describe a lot of history particularly since the beginning of the 20th century.
I have been evolving over to your way of thinking that if we are really going to get anywhere with this silly, idealistic, yet, always successful liberty thing, we may have to become more active, less passive and turn the tables on the union thugs. These people never ever never stop trying to extend the power of the State and then get favors.
Great post.
I should write a more detailed post on what you highlight, but am jammed for time right now.
But yes, overall, we need to be preparing now. Taking a more active role in our thinking, and the education of others. Starting lists, studying war, studying the tyranny that ails us, etc., as tyranny is not going away, and will certainly grow more violent.
Additionally, we, the American people, need to Stop following their script that is embedded in their propaganda, and start setting our own agenda and priorities. Should fags, homos marrying, abortion, trannies, "illegals," race, etc. be our priories, or should ridding the country of the criminal tyranny that ails us be?!
Above all, we need to be caring and growing our Liberty against tyranny. It is our responsibility to protect it, and to take it back from those that we have permitted to trample upon it, and us.
And those that think that violence doesn't solve anything, have never had fight for anything. With bullies and tyranny, they only understand violence, so one must learn the language and art of violence, and how to apply it.
With that said, remember, we Americans have a very powerful nonviolent weapon at our disposal, and that is to withdraw our backs from supporting their fragile system built upon fiat-debt and usury. Withdraw our backs, and their whole edifice of tyranny will collapse down upon them, making it that much easier to rid the American country of them.
And last, but not least, think. Use only what I, and many others are saying, as a guide in thinking. If that later finds us in agreement, great, but think, as this problem is too big for just one of us to offer up an answer, and we certainly don't need more strangers as leaders, as the leaders we need reside in our mirrors.
Don't follow, but march with your countrymen of like mind and Liberty.
See you on the battlefield, or find me screaming from one of Zion's basement "Room 101s."
Zion is a scheme, not an ethnicity.
Force always subdues pacifism, just like free shit always has a higher demand than good paying jobs. We want to elect politicians to go to Washington and fight to eliminate their new found power....and wonder why it never works. The miracle of government is that it's employees understand implicitly that their jobs, their futures rely completely upon the success and growth of said government, while those working for private business divorce themselves from the reality that their company's success is in any way tied to their own personal success. That they can actively work to defeat their own employer, do everything in their power to ensure there are NO profits to sustain it, and then disparage same said employer as an ignorant and selfish person who mismanaged the company to failure.
Until people can figure out what is in their interest and what is only a lure to dependency and tyranny, dependency and tyranny will rule.
"Maybe most of them benefit in such exchanges, but some do not. Suppose someone exchanges five ounces of crack cocaine for an ounce of heroin. Arguably, at least as Ayn Rand would very likely maintain, neither of these traders gains a benefit in this exchange, assuming that both commodities being traded are objectively harmful to the traders’ health. Both are, then, harmed, objectively speaking, even if they believed they would benefit."
The idea that free exchange "always" benefits both parties to the exchange is one side of the debate over the objective versus subjective theory of value. Most Austrians subscribe to the subjective theory. An Austrian would say that the crack addict values his cocaine more than heroin and the heroin addict, vice versa. Thus, the "benefit" is that each individual gets what he values most. In all cases of the subjective value theory, trade is a positive sum game.
Under the objective theory, the determinant of value is outside the belief of the individual trader. One can understand that there might be an objective determinant of the health value of destructive drugs. Any Rand subscribed to the objective theory. But not every value in trade can be determined objectively. Would you trade your brother your picture of your beloved late grandmother for his picture of your beloved late grandfather? How can there be any objectivity applied to that exchange? In any event, the exchange would be win-win—else it would not take place. And that is the Austrians' logic for free trade's being a net economic positive for everyone.
A disagreement between Rand and the Austrians? Ed Younkins reconciles Rand's adherence to the objective theory of value with the Austrians' subjective theory. See http://www.quebecoislibre.org/younkins1.html
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The "benefits" of a trade should not even be part of libertarian discussion. What a party "gets" from a trade is irrelevent. That is between him and his shrink.
The only thing that matters is whether he gets what he wanted AFTER the trade is completed. The future is always uncertain. Thus, every "trade" is more objectively seen as just a gamble.
<<But not every value in trade can be determined objectively. >>
Not only that but not every trade can be determined objectively. I choose my coffee shops based on how hot the baristas are that day ---- I do not care about the coffee. Who would know the difference? The "value" in a trade is not a libertarian issue.
Both Rothbard and Rand make the mistake of trying to prove inalienable "rights" in their philosophies. Both fail in this regard --- i.e., "rights" can not be proven nor do they exist. As such, both demonstrate a peculiar --- albeit trivial --- confusion over mankind.
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The problem with "government" is a lot simpler than most anarcho-libertarian philosophy makes it out to be: men lie, men steal, men rape, men murder and men can be blackmailed. It does not matter 1 wit what form of "government" is up for discussion. Facebook or Google can each conceivably become a form of "government" tomorrow.
Anus Rosenbaum was just a lame Zionist second rate writer that was promoted by industry Jews because she was a trained seal that could draw so-called wannabe feminists just like Betty Freidan, and Gloria Steinem.
Anus Rosenbaum used the pseudonym Ayn Rand because the Rand Corporation was huge in terms of the public sphere at that time. Anus was a money hungry Jew and she sucked right up to power so that she would get promoted and sell her second rate rhetoric.
And which of her ideas was actually wrong?
The whole idea of 'Objectivism' has been refuted in contemporary Social Science disciplines like Experimental Psychology, for example. Frankly,
Noam Chomsky destroyed B.F. Skinner's notions of Objectivist Behaviourism in one landmark paper back in the 60s. Objectivism died a still birth in contemporary academia.
60% of psychology studies yield results that are not reproducible(Reproducible results is a fundamental part of SCIENCE!).
ROFL@ Chomsky and Skinner
You are kidding, right?
You mean like Communism has been destroyed everywhere except on college campuses, right?
Rand says a fundamental rule for survival is A=A. Something that progressives have been trying to hide under their skirts for decades, substituting delusion and ideology of utopianism in place of reality. We can get off into the weeds of analyzing everything every person wrote or said, when we only need to recognize the TRUTH when we see it regardless of who said it for the purpose of deification. Rand suggests repeatedly that humans only tool of survival is NOT some protectorate collective, but our fucking brains, sifting fact from fiction to determine what is real, what is risk and threat and what is reward. Today we are told that none of that is important. THEY will tell us what to fear and THEY will protect us. No need to understand beyond what is required to create the beloved "consensus" needed to claim a mandate to RULE AS THEY PLEASE. Rand tells us to surrender our rational mind's ability to JUDGE for ourselves, to ACT in our own interests and self defense, is SUICIDE. The voluntary submission and defeat of our very meaning of existence. A government can hold value in a society if it can be restrained from stripping away it liberties, as our founders warned us. Rand is telling us NOTHING we don't already know, only what we would rather forget....that our life is OURS to PROTECT and no one else's.
Master, She was and is, a good read, She was human so she was failable, (and so are you and I),, she had many brilliant insights, no doubt she wrote things then which look foolish today, many of today's popular ideas will look down right stupid in the future! If we make it to the future!
Actually, MASTER OF UNIVERSE is infallible, Sparkey. And when you witness the entire USA devolving into all out chaos, & contagion, you will know that I am infallible without any sort of equivocation whatsoever.
NOTE: I will singlehandedly destroy the Western Ponzi Casino Capitalist Empire, and there is not a God damned thing anyone can do about it.
Would you hurry the fuck up and get on with it already?
I'm waiting for the shaddow banking sector to run out of drug money.
I find the issue of whether its ethical for an anti-statist to receive government support interesting. A career that appeals to me is High School teacher, but I refuse to accept a position with the public schools due to political/ethical reasons. I despise government unions, and I want no part of it.
There are private schools , of course. But my current jobs pays more.
One time the President of Hillsdale College was on William F. Buckley's tv show Firing Line. Hillsdale College refuses federal govt money. If I recall correctly, WFB argued it may be permissible for an anti-statist to receive govt support. The President of Hillsdale college view was like, if you get by without it, then don't take it.
Think like a consequentialist, old horse... if the government is giving you some of their ill-gotten splosh, then you will be spending it in ways that are morally superior to some other, statist, cubicle-droid.
But never forget the brute fact: if you draw a .gov salary, you are on tax-funded welfare - you are being paid by a process in which the good or service on offer is being foisted on people who would rather do something else with their money. Every cent you take home came out of the pockets of someone in the private sector (since .gov does not produce anything except by stealing the resources from somewhere that has a higher-valued use for them)... the fact that bureaucrats 'pay tax' simply means that of all the tax money handed to them, they have to give some back.
(Disclosure: most of my income is derived from contracting to state and local government - which is only one remove from being a direct sucker at the tax tit. Don't get me started on how anyone who relies on government licensing, IP/patent/copyright law, or the myriad other artificial barriers to entry, is also on partial welfare: if it were not for IP artificial-monopooly laws, Bill Gates would only be as rich as Linus Torvalds (i.e., not very, but still not bad)).
Corruption works by ensuring that the only path to prosperity, or many time just survival, is through the corruption. A good reason why it won't change is that far too many are dependent on it for survival. Many of us despise it yet KNOW if it ended tomorrow, likely so would our jobs and businesses.
Everything depends on the "spice"
" I refuse to accept a position with the public schools due to political/ethical reasons. I despise government unions, and I want no part of it."
Congratulations, there is a special part of Heaven reserved for Right Thinkers like you!
"But my current jobs pays more."
A common excuse for everything.
anti-statist ... receive government support.
I collect SSDI and feel that there's absolutely nothing wrong morally wrong in me doing so.
First of all, it is a way of reversing the moral wrong I did in paying all that tax money in to the system when I was working. I used to feel shame and anger every April 15. Not any more. It might be interesting to set up a spreadsheet to estimate my monies paid and monies received, adjusted somehow for net present value with some sort of "discount rate" being applied, to come up with a date when I've received back all that was paid in, which would be a crossover from net payer to net receiver.
Secondly, I haven't lied to them about being unable to work I tried it for twelve months of what they call a Trial Work Period. I was an expert witness in a multi-year legal proceeding. It was a monumental disaster for everyone involved. Sure, if I could be my own boss, but it's not gonna work if someone is telling me what to do and how to do it.
...But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now, that’s the system, Mr. Rearden, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.”
-Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, p.411
Make so many laws with so many nuances and interpretations that everyone in the nation is a lawbreaker and therefore can be harassed at will and legally by the State. This is where we are today. There is not one business that could not be instantly closed down by a half dozen state agencies...and it will happen as we go on.
Which I believe is why we constantly see threats of gun control. There has been no better gun salesman than Obama. We know progressives are not stupid, so why would they continually do something that in their minds is actually contributing to the problem? I believe they KNOW that it is impossible to remove the guns from the population now. They can't even get them out of the hands of criminals that even most gun lovers would support restrictions on. Further, I believe that this is purposeful in that when they inevitably do outlaw private gun ownership, the citizens will largely not comply. As such, and as you suggest, these people will now effectively be outlaws. Not necessarily outlaws with a warrant on their heads, but people who know that living outside of the law will force their silence, their capitulation. Having a closet full of guns and ammo means you will not be out protesting or doing anything to call attention to yourself. They do not need or want us in prison. They want us silent and dependent.....obediant and servile......like being dependent on government entitlements.....or debt. They don't have to destroy our constitution. They simply have to manipulate us to be outside of its protections.
Who IS a legal citizen?
What IS the law?
We don't really know because as Bill said, it now depends on the definition of "is" is.
"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force."
- Ayn Rand.
Obviously a crank.
We have NEVER been more free... to do what we are told.
Rand was a shallow hack wannabe salon-intellectual; the best that could be said about her is that she was to philosophy and political theory, what Isidora Duncan was to ballet; what Pollock and Warhol were to art; what what Kerouac was to literature... self-promoting, American, and deplorably unoriginal. Anyone with the remotest dilettante interest in the history of political thought, or the history of philosophy more generally, finds absolutely nothing of merit in the output of Rand and her silly little cult of personality.
Rothbard saw through her pretty quickly (he was only in her circle for a brief period; he was drummed out after a Stalinesque show trial and ritual humiliation); some of what he wrote about her subsequently is as damning as his (Rothbard's) writing about Keynes.
Having read most of Rand's oeuvre (to see what all the fuss was about - only evert among Americans, mind you), I can seriously say that I have never read anything as badly-written (and I've read Marx and Keynes). Her fiction is especially awful - Altas Shrugged is fucking unreadable (at least, anyone who has ever actually done anything except wank in a salon, finds its description of how competition works worthy of a dull-witted 4 year old).
As Samuel Johnson is said to have said (but sadly, never did, as far as I can gather): her work is good and original. But the parts that are good are not original, and the parts that were original were not good.
She was a cunt on Palestine, too... not as if she would admit to an ethno-cultural bias, but it was as plain as the nose on her face. Anyone who lets primitive nonsense cloud their judgement to that extent has no place pretending to be a thinker.
It's too bad that an expedient "she was a Sociopath" doesn't work any more...
Uh, I've read and reread two of her works and find them easily "readible." Her writing is accesible, understandible, not preachy yet her philosophy comes right on thru the page. I confess that I have never read Rothbard. Maybe after I get through with reading through the top 100 works of literature list I will check him out(I'm ~40% done; Anna Karinina is kicking my arse right now).
"Having read most of Rand's oeuvre (to see what all the fuss was about - only evert among Americans, mind you), I can seriously say that I have never read anything as badly-written (and I've read Marx and Keynes)."
Most leftists would agree.
Lots of critique of the person but no direct critique of her primary assertions, simply denigration by means of other "more enlightened" individuals.
It would be a great time to tell us what Obama thinks of Rand, given the review of other "great minds".
I am not a large fan of Rand. I read half of Atlas Shrugged, got the point and quit. I am reading a book "In Defense of Selfishness" by Peter Schwartz, distinguisged fellow of the Rand Institute. It is so-so and I am not sure I will finish it. I just like things that provoke thinking.
However, I appreciate her contribution to the discussions of liberty. Whether or not you like her, her writing and thoughts have provoked useful debates and inspired many organizations and even Randian philosophy. You could say the same about Marx and Keynes, as well. Even though they are thoroughly debunked they continue to influence actual policy. The latter two are still major influences on college campuses around the world.
I can divorce her personal issues from her ideas. I do not care if she had a latex fetish, bad relationships or had a personality disorder. Her writing, work and beliefs stand on their own. I do not care if Stalin was a devoted, generous and faithful husband and grandpa, either. He is still a murdering autocrat.
So, you can prefer Rothbard to Rand. You can prefer Hayek to Friedman. You can prefer Ron Paul to Rand Paul. It is not necessarily an either-or choice.
When you use the term "cunt" then you are moving into a new realm that is not solely intellectual.
I am not expert on her Palestinian position other than a few sound bites, but supporting Israel over Arab-Muslims is hardly new, hardly unique and not necessarily racist.
Rothbard = true champion of freedom, Rand = military bootlicker.
Rand = military bootlicker and a cocksucker with rape fantasy.
Tyler is giving importance to this worthless rat faced Jewess.
by Milo Yiannopoulos
Both are Zionazi Jews
Speaking, not as a Jew, I find it interesting the constant scrutiny they receive. While we know of their constant brace against antisemitism, they must also take great pride in constantly being cast as the evil genius running the world from behind the scenes, manipulating the entire world to their ends. This surely must mean that they are far and away the smartest among us. Besides evil bankers and such, they also hold many high positions in science and medicine as well as other great successes. If this is even remotely true, is it smart for all of us gentiles to immediately reject what some of them are telling us? Or are we just that dumb? Is Rand correct in telling us it is our brains that will determine our success and survival and not a belief, not a religion or ideology or even conspiracy theory or bias. Just our brain's ability to reason and determine fact from fiction?
Gentiles believe the Buybull story and therefore support ZioNazi Jews. They are not that smart, they just stick together and consider themselves above any laws. This is why they have been able to fanagle their way into power.
They are Masters of Deceit and Manipulation. Yes, they are smart, (in an evil way).
What is not discussed is they actually concocted the Holocaust for their furthur agenda of World Domination with Jerusalem being the capital.
So, unless they hold magical powers, they have it going on and the rest of us are supposed to hate them for it?
Does this sound weak, or is it just me?
Curious which of Rothbard's works you've read; which we all know the answer is none. Rothbard is the anarcho-capitalist, the greatest philosophy individual freedom ever. Just because he was a Jew doesn't mean shit in this context. FYI, I'm a Protestant and I despise the US lapdog status of Israel.
Once I see the "evil Jew" bullshit, I know I am dealing with idiots. I am going to make a concerted effort to get in on the secret world-domination teleconferences they must hold at least weekly.
Anything you ascribe to Jews I can ascribe to most any other group. The stupidity is overwhelming. The evil is palpable.
There are loads of Jews on the side of liberty. I went to one website that suggested that because Jews compete better in a free system that it is the reason some of them advocate it. So, Jews get blamed for Russian Communism and Austrian Economics. Genius. I suggest it is because they have a wide range of beliefs similar to caucasians.
The Old Testament is Jewish. Jesus was Jewish. Einstein and a zillion others in medicine and science are Jewish. Is the theory of relativity a Jewish conspiracy?
People of the same ethnicity, religion, nation, and race like to hang out together. That is why there there are Italian, Jamaican, Russian, and WASP neighborhoods. I notice Mormons hire lots of other Mormons and I bet gays do the same.
Caucasians have conquered every nation on the face of the earth. Europeans invented Communism and Fascism. What should we think of them? They fooled Asian guys like Mao, Pot and Kim with secret mind control methods. Then they fooled Arab guys like Hussein and Assad and a whole bunch of dumb asses in S. America and the Caribbean. I think there is some caucasian world domination thing going on. I missed out on that secret teleconfernce, too.
So, to say things like "Gentiles believe the BuyBull story..." is to say gentiles (all non-Jews) are stupid. It is to say that the Jews must be the actual master race because only they do not believe it but pretend they do? How does that work, exactly? To say things like "They are Masters of Deceit and Manipulation" (written incorrectly) is to say we are brainless dupes and outside of Alfred cannot break through the deception. It is to insult ourselves.
How about we just evaluate things in a non-Jewish way. Is socialism a great idea? Does libertarianism have merit? Was Keynes correct in "The General Theory"? Was Hayek (a Jew) or Friedman (another damned Jew!) correct in their refutation and preferences for liberty and free markets? Is 2+2 still four if a Jew believes it?
Get a friggin' life and trade your brain in for a better model.
Replace all government with publicly owned and operated open source software.
They didn't have such a solution otherwise they would have agreed with Q99X2.
The US is a protectionist success story.
When the UK was the workshop of the world in the 1800s the US and Western Europe caught up by forgetting all about Adam Smith.
The UK was the home of the industrial revolution and therefore had all the technological advantages.
The US and Western Europe used tariffs on UK manufactured goods to catch up with its more advanced technology.
If Adam Smith's ideas had been popular 100 years ago the UK would still be the workshop of the world and the US would be a third world agricultural nation.
The free market is a useful tool to stop others catching up.
The freedom to spend your money as you choose is a rich man's freedom.
You have 1% of the vote.
What gives you the right to stick a gun in my face for my property, oh omnisicent one?
Ayn Rand the BDSM queen. She is better suited as a sex slave than a writer.
I upvoted you only because you properly, in your own way, objectivized Ayn without any trite reference to barnyard dwellers.
These guys are as "Bolshy" in their vision of "perfect invisible handed capitalism"; outside ALL state intervention; as the original Bolshies were about "dictatorship of the proletariat" leading to "withering away of the state" in a perfect communist state. Man would be free in a world freed of Capitalism and Kings.
Both these ideologies are totally divorced from the time line of human societal reality : the LOGIC of POWER. Machiavelli's treatise said that best, when the Renaissance exposed papal power as a fake ideological construct. From then on nation states were built on the premise : the end justifes the means.
And the US is the global empire today that incarnates this principle of perpetuating political power; in its hubristic, hegemonical control of fossil fuel, monetary and military levers of world geopolitics.
It overrides all considerations of theory; although each theory brings something to the power meme.
Our western world has tried all these theoretical models time and again : Communes, dictatorships, theocratic autocracies, bourgeois democracy, republics and oligarchies...you name it, we've done it!
But it all boils down to one thing : all power combines cannot sustain their life line as power corrupts; absolutely when its absolute. And the pendulum swings violently. All systems have their limits.
Humans have one defect : they are human and perfection is not of their world. So we keep trying and we keeping learning as a RESULt of our past discoveries and our past cowardices.
We learn from both progress and regression.
What is truly novel about the capitalist industrial age is that it discovered FOSSIL FUEL to galvanise human society into a consumer age. And that is now coming to an end. We see it signalled everywhere although our past momentum would WANT to DENY it. Until we find new limitless and "cheap" energy, in terms of ecosystems and EROEI cost we won't be free of the loss of past heritage of "black gold".
The new paradigm will require a new Power construct that faces the complexity of this new REALItY.
Lets not flog dead horses of past theoretical constructs, but look ahead and learn from the past.
Liberty is a much more complex issue for Man in society than this "reductionist" version of "me first" narcissism, disguised into self-fulfillment of the Jeffersonian credo.
Pursuit of happiness is nOT maximising of personal profit. (read Aristotle's definition of Eudaimonia. Its as old as logic and empirical thought).
Like most libertarians, they value their freedom above any cost required from others to accomplish same; the intellectual equivalent of spoiled children at best.
You're right about the industrial revolution moving from enslaving other humans to exploiting the environment instead, but they will not hestitate to mistake correlation for causation in support of their con game.
You morons understand very little of Libertarians. You have the shallow leftist meme at work. Given that libertarians are not in power and seek the precise opposite goal of disempowering governments your critiques fail. Spoiled children have someone who spoils them. Is that the State? It is stupid juvenile comment.
You follow the marxist line of materialist thinking yourselves. You talk about "the environment" like a pagan religionist. The "environment" is simply the background in which we live. Much of it is inanimate. Once we land on Mars it will have a new environment. How much should we protect that? What if temps start going up on Mars after we get there? What if we pull all the minerals out and leave big ugly holes in the ground?
The world offers a lot of resources most all of which are renewable. Mankind through labor and ingenuity makes use of them and turns them into amaing things. Perhaps, you will still prefer living like Neanderthals? Maybe you will immediately throw down your iThings because of the dirty batteries with rare earth minerals from dirty mines in China.
Self loathing leftist hypocrites.
Dear liberals, progressives, leftists, Marxists, statists or whatever you call yourselves today.
You cannot suppress the spirit of liberty. You cannot stop it from spreading throughout the world.
The personal attacks on Rand have become a bore. We know she had a flawed personality. We know she had zionist sympathies. IMO, her biggest mistake was in not releasing her works to the public domain upon her death. Her second biggest mistake was in disinheriting Nathaniel Brandon. He was the only person alive who had the talent to refine her works. I believe her writings will get into the public domain eventually as popular classics for the centuries to come.Fortunately, Brandon did not disappear after their breakup. His works on psychology carry on the legacy. The course he taught on Objectivism is still available in print and audio.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Vision-Ayn-Rand-Objectivism/dp/098195362X
Dear Partisan, liberty is dead. Eisenhower warned us of its coming demise in 1961, and today the power of corruption is near complete. Stockman calls it "crony fascism." You want to know why Sanders and Trump are so popular? They are the only ones telling the truth about U.S. fiscal corruption. Stop making this into a partisan food fight. Focus on the core cancer, which is the abuses of power and greed in our checks and balances. Red Pill time.
@gizmoton You missed the connection bettween the popularity of Sanders and Trump, and the abuse of power and greed.
Those two are shills. But the growing resentment is real. The cycles of history are long, but the trend is in the direction of more individual freedom.
Citizens United engenders greater personal freedoms? I have billions of dollars of "free speech." You don't. The Western trend is towards corporate fascism, not personal liberty and freedom.
Sorry man. You missed my point. The Western trend is short by historical standards. Take the longer view from the begining of written history.
Hey good thread-folk on ZH, this exchange reminds me of sitting in a Wyoming bar with some fellow oilfield scourge, some were Newfoundandlers ..... nuffies.
I was approached to calm the "F" down by some locals. They were unsettled by the nuffies volume and general super rapid tone of discourse. I tried to explain their observation was off target, the nuffies are all "in the right" and actually agreeing in slightly different ways together ! You don't want to see how nuffies disagree, I added !
There was a narrow window between the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence when we had a chance, but we blew it with corporate personhood, it's been a downhill ride for liberty since.
Liberty is not dead any more than gravity is dead when you are flying in a plane or on a spaceship in orbit.
The fact that liberty is supressed is a problem to be solved not a law of physics to be obeyed.