# Think Tank > Political Philosophy & Government Policy >  Robin Hood: Why Ayn Rand Got It Wrong

## Ronin Truth

> *Robin Hood: Why Ayn Rand Got It Wrong
> 
> *Charles Burris
> 
> April 20, 2015
> 
> 
> For sixty years I have been captivated by the heroic stories of Robin Hood. The Adventures of Robin Hood was my favorite movie as a kid, Errol Flynn my favorite actor. _Adventures of Robin Hood_, by Eleanor Graham Vance, was my favorite book as a kindergartener. 
> 
> ...


https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/04/...is/robin-hood/

Copyright © 2015 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are provided.

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## jmdrake

Ayn Rand got a lot of things wrong.  I'm not sure why people treat her as such an intellectual god.  But yes.  Robin Hood was "stealing" from a corrupt state that was stealing through taxation.  Ayn should have been to see this.  But I guess she was too self absorbed.  Or she never got past the slogan "Steal from the rich and give to the poor".

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## Ronin Truth

> Ayn Rand got a lot of things wrong. I'm not sure why people treat her as such an intellectual god. But yes. Robin Hood was "stealing" from a corrupt state that was stealing through taxation. Ayn should have been to see this. But I guess she was too self absorbed. Or she never got past the slogan "Steal from the rich and give to the poor".



Ayn never got past her statism, though her ideal was much different than her/our reality.  I do acknowledge an intellectual debt to her, however.

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## Vanguard101

Ayn Rand is overrated

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## Ronin Truth

> Ayn Rand is overrated


Ayn Rand is dead.

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## Acala

I think of her as a one-trick pony.  She successfully, even brilliantly, identified the psychological illness of villifying the economically successful and glorifying economic failure.  Everything else she did was at best a rehash of better works and was at worst elitist, inconsistent, and wrong.

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## Ronin Truth

*The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z*

by Ayn Rand, Harry Binswanger (Editor) 

The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z 

A prolific writer, bestselling novelist, and world-renowned philosopher, *Ayn Rand* defined a full system of thought--from epistemology to aesthetics. Her writing is so extensive and the range of issues she covers so enormous that those interested in finding her discussions of a given topic may have to search through many sources to locate the relevant passage. *The Ayn Rand* A prolific writer, bestselling novelist, and world-renowned philosopher, *Ayn Rand* defined a full system of thought--from epistemology to aesthetics. Her writing is so extensive and the range of issues she covers so enormous that those interested in finding her discussions of a given topic may have to search through many sources to locate the relevant passage. *The Ayn Rand Lexicon* brings together all the key ideas of her philosophy of Objectivism. Begun under Rand's supervision, this unique volume is an invaluable guide to her philosophy or reason, self-interest and laissez-faire capitalism--the philosophy so brilliantly dramatized in her novels The Fountainhead, We the Living, and Anthem.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...n_Rand_Lexicon

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## ThePaleoLibertarian

Ayn Rand was a bad writer and a poor philosopher, who wrote some (at best) mediocre books decades ago. Why anyone cares about her now is beyond me.

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## otherone

Watch these and tell me what she got wrong:

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## Ronin Truth

> Ayn Rand was a bad writer and a poor philosopher, who wrote some (at best) mediocre books decades ago. Why anyone cares about her now is beyond me.


https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...ed=0CEsQ1QIoAg

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## Acala

> Watch these and tell me what she got wrong:


I won't go into her assumptions about human perception being based on reason.  So we can start off with her assumption that altruism does not bring happiness to some.  While one person may find happiness in building a railroad, another might find happiness in devoting their life to serving others and denying their own comfort.  In other words, there is no way to measure or evaluate happiness objectively.  That's in the first ten minutes of the first video.  Probably not going to make it any farther because I can't decide which of the two I find more repulsive.  

This error comes to its natural fruition with Ayn Rand's justification of the European conquest of the Indians based on the Indians being "savages" who were not using the resources of the continent to best advantage.  Ayn Rand claims everyone should be free to pursue their own happiness so long as it is happiness as SHE sees it.  But the objective reality is that some people prefer the life of the hunter/gatherer to the life of the modern western man.

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## Scrooge McDuck

> Ayn Rand was a bad writer and a poor philosopher, who wrote some (at best) mediocre books decades ago. Why anyone cares about her now is beyond me.

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## libertarianMoney

I feel like the Rand bashing of this thread might be a little severe. 

Of course she's not perfect. She has some beliefs we'd all consider naive today but I'd image that goes with every figure in history. She was a great thinker in the world of media. (Talk for a few hundred hours on camera and see how stupid you look.) She was able to introduce this conversation to way more people than any of us could imagine communicating with and she did it in a system without the internet. Insult her novels all you like but a ton of people really enjoyed her work. She was obviously doing something right. 

That all being said, I would have thought I'd be the one Rand bashing in this thread... She's certainly said some stupid things (as did just about any public figure.) She's also done some very stupid things. I'm just saying this because that shouldn't completely overshadow the good she did.  She had a  waterfall of stupid later in her career but if anything, that just helps emphasize the idea that power corrupts (even her.)

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## Deborah K

> Ayn never got past her statism, though her ideal was much different than her/our reality.  I do acknowledge an intellectual debt to her, however.


As do I.  She helped put focus on the concept of 'Individualism vs. Collectivism'.  For that I am grateful to her.

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## ThePaleoLibertarian

> Watch these and tell me what she got wrong:


The kind of atomistic individualism that Rand put forth would never be able to lead to a functioning civilization. Any truly free and prosperous society has deep communitarian roots, with people who sacrifice their own wants or the immediate gratification for the prosperity of the organic community.

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## otherone

> I won't go into her assumptions about human perception being based on reason.  So we can start off with her assumption that altruism does not bring happiness to some.  While one person may find happiness in building a railroad, another might find happiness in devoting their life to serving others and denying their own comfort.  In other words, there is no way to measure or evaluate happiness objectively.


Rand:




> What is the moral code of altruism? The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value.
> 
> Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice—which means; self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction—which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good.
> 
> Do not hide behind such superficialities as whether you should or should not give a dime to a beggar. That is not the issue. The issue is whether you do or do not have the right to exist without giving him that dime. The issue is whether you must keep buying your life, dime by dime, from any beggar who might choose to approach you. The issue is whether the need of others is the first mortgage on your life and the moral purpose of your existence. The issue is whether man is to be regarded as a sacrificial animal. Any man of self-esteem will answer: “No.” Altruism says: “Yes.”


Rand's concern is the idea that pursuing self-interest is immoral, when in fact, it is self-interest that justifies freedom.

continuing:




> The social system based on and consonant with the altruist morality—with the code of self-sacrifice—is socialism, in all or any of its variants: fascism, Nazism, communism. All of them treat man as a sacrificial animal to be immolated for the benefit of the group, the tribe, the society, the state. Soviet Russia is the ultimate result, the final product, the full, consistent embodiment of the altruist morality in practice; it represents the only way that that morality can ever be practiced.


and...




> From her start, America was torn by the clash of her political system with the altruist morality. Capitalism and altruism are incompatible; they are philosophical opposites; they cannot co-exist in the same man or in the same society. Today, the conflict has reached its ultimate climax; the choice is clear-cut: either a new morality of rational self-interest, with its consequences of freedom, justice, progress and man’s happiness on earth—or the primordial morality of altruism, with its consequences of slavery, brute force, stagnant terror and sacrificial furnaces.


The question to ask, is:  Who's life is it?  Yours?   Yes or No?

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## otherone

> The kind of atomistic individualism that Rand put forth would never be able to lead to a functioning civilization. Any truly free and prosperous society has deep communitarian roots, with people who sacrifice their own wants or the immediate gratification for the prosperity of the organic community.


In a "truly free" society, the individual would CHOOSE what if anything he wished to contribute.
And "communitarian roots" is straight from the Progressive playbook..

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## heavenlyboy34

> The kind of atomistic individualism that Rand put forth would never be able to lead to a functioning civilization. Any truly free and prosperous society has deep communitarian roots, with people who sacrifice their own wants or the immediate gratification for the prosperity of the organic community.


Some strange language here.  If you're trying to describe "rational self-interest".  I would agree.  Communitarianism, in a really strict practice, has always been an epic failure.  It's the model that the pilgrims in the early tried until they nearly $#@!ing starved to death living in dirt poverty.

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## ThePaleoLibertarian

> In a "truly free" society, the individual would CHOOSE what if anything he wished to contribute.


Yeah sure, but any civilization worth living in has a deep sense of community, where people feel connected to their family, their neighbor, their culture. The West has lost that, and that's one of the many things that's causing the decline.




> And "communitarian roots" is straight from the Progressive playbook..


Progs think they're for the community, but nothing could be further from the truth. Progs like big government, which is always, always, ALWAYS opposed to the organic, bottom up community. Giving some bureaucrat in DC control over regulating local resources, or telling the communities how they can and can't organize themselves is NOT communitarian in the way I define it. The kind of communitarianism I advocate for is organic, anti-egalitarian, radically decentralized, hierarchical, traditional, ethnically centered and mostly based on cooperating property owners as opposed to communal property. There's nothing progressive about any of that, any prog would run screaming from such a community.

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## ThePaleoLibertarian

> Some strange language here.  If you're trying to describe "rational self-interest".  I would agree.  Communitarianism, in a really strict practice, has always been an epic failure.  It's the model that the pilgrims in the early tried until they nearly $#@!ing starved to death living in dirt poverty.


Maybe "communitarian" is the wrong word, because I'm not talking about communal property, or equally sharing in resources regardless of one's individual contribution. I'm talking about decentralized groups of people who are involved with the people around them and look after one another.

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## Acala

> Rand:
> 
> 
> 
> Rand's concern is the idea that pursuing self-interest is immoral, when in fact, it is self-interest that justifies freedom.
> 
> continuing:
> 
> 
> ...


If you define altruism as "charity" by force, as she does in your quote, I wouldn't argue with what she says about it.  But that is not the dictionary definition of altruism.  Furthermore, my interactions with Objectivists (including the current head of the organization) suggest that Ayn Rand and most Objectivists don't just advocate against altruism as Rand defines it here, but against altruism as defined in the dictionary ("unselfish concern for the welfare of others" -Webster's Second Edition).  And that is not only not a rationally-based position, but is a position that infringes on individual freedom and makes for an impoverished society.

Furthermore, the Objectivist hostility towards altruism as defined in the dictionary puts liberty in a bad light.  A deeply and pervasively altruistic society is perfectly, indeed optimally, compatible with the maximum liberty.  I would not want to live in a society where nobody cared for the welfare of others.

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## osan

> I think of her as a one-trick pony.


Perhaps, but it was a pretty damned good trick.  But I don't think she was that.  She may not have had all the details correct, but the basic gist of her world view was in fact quite good.  I'm not going to dismiss the good one produces simply because they are not 100% correct all of the time.  I take from Rand that which I find agreeable, truthful, and of good use.  I ignore the rest.  Then, I take the good and mess with it to see whether there is any way in which it may be improved, whether by expanding upon it, clarifying, or what have you.




> She successfully, even brilliantly, identified the psychological illness of villifying the economically successful and glorifying economic failure.


And I would assess that as absolutely spectacular.  Not only did she identify it, she articulated it clearly and exhaustively - something nobody had really done before; at least not in a style that was immediately accessible to the meaner, which is a very different thing from the dry and arcane styles of men like Kant and Milton who packed into one page more semantic density than most people manage in 400 pages of output.

Those who so viciously villify Rand are IMO very foolishly tossing the baby out the window along with the bath water.  Take what is good for you and forget the rest.  I doubt too many of us are completely correct at all times... except for me, of course.




> Everything else she did was at best a rehash of better works and was at worst elitist, inconsistent, and wrong.


Care to list these works from which you claim she borrowed?  I would be interested in knowing.

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## osan

> Ayn Rand was a bad writer and a poor philosopher, who wrote some (at best) mediocre books decades ago. Why anyone cares about her now is beyond me.


Forgive me, but this sounds like some sound-byte you are repeating, thinking it sounds cool because it is negative.

She was not a spectacular writer, to be sure, but she was definitely not "bad".  She was a sound writer with a bad habit of using 100 words to say that which required only 15.  That does not make her a bad writer, but only one whose style may lack appeal for some.  Those are two very different things.

If she was so poor a philosopher as you claim, it would be helpful if you would give some detail as to how and why you feel that to have been the case.  I disagree with that assessment.  She helped the human race learn something it had long since forgotten.  She took the tacit assumptions by which this world operates and subjected them with some considerable analytic adeptness and dissected them, separating the essential core ideas underpinning those beliefs from the smoke and mirrors in which they are packaged.  The world owes her a debt of gratitude for what she did, even if they do not like her stories or her writing style.  If nothing else, she provided the people of the twentieth century with the opportunity to at least examine the world from a differing perspective precisely because she questioned that which has gone unquestioned for a very long time.

Much of the American "liberty movement" would not have been possible but for the wake-up call Rand trumpeted to the world 5+ decades ago.  Rather than taking a giant, steaming $#@! on her memory and works, you might be better served by appreciating the gift of her sharp mind and the fact that she gave enough of a damn to want to at least try to save the human race from itself.  If you think Rand has had no significant impact on even your own thinking, I would suggest that you are fooling yourself.  She provided much of the conceptual basis for today's libertarian thought.  She clarified many ideas and untangled the truth from the bull$#@!. Clarity is important, even when completeness may be absent.

She was by no means perfect, but for pity's sake open your eyes and give credit where due, and she's due a lot.

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## Acala

> Perhaps, but it was a pretty damned good trick.  But I don't think she was that.  She may not have had all the details correct, but the basic gist of her world view was in fact quite good.  I'm not going to dismiss the good one produces simply because they are not 100% correct all of the time.  I take from Rand that which I find agreeable, truthful, and of good use.  I ignore the rest.  Then, I take the good and mess with it to see whether there is any way in which it may be improved, whether by expanding upon it, clarifying, or what have you.
> 
> 
> 
> And I would assess that as absolutely spectacular.  Not only did she identify it, she articulated it clearly and exhaustively - something nobody had really done before; at least not in a style that was immediately accessible to the meaner, which is a very different thing from the dry and arcane styles of men like Kant and Milton who packed into one page more semantic density than most people manage in 400 pages of output.
> 
> Those who so viciously villify Rand are IMO very foolishly tossing the baby out the window along with the bath water.  Take what is good for you and forget the rest.  I doubt too many of us are completely correct at all times... except for me, of course.
> 
> 
> ...


I certainly have not read all of her work, not will I, as I find her writing mundane.  But I am not aware of her writing anything in the realm of morality, law, or economics that was not stated more succinctly by Bastiat and rigourously by Spencer, to name just two.

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## osan

> [W]e can start off with her assumption that altruism does not bring happiness to some.


She did not say that.  I would assess her error as laying in her method of expression.  I take from the first 9 minutes that altruism is, firstly, a myth and I agree.  There is rarely any such thing as selfless action.  Whatever one's true motives for doing, there is _always_ a pay-off.  There may be rare cases such as when one reacts almost reflexively to scoop a child out of the path of an oncoming bus such that there was no time for the actor to consciously assess the relative merits of his action.  But generally speaking, those who "suffer" for the sake of others do not do so selflessly.  There is alway a pay-off, regardless of how subtle.

Therefore, altruism is basically a nonexistent thing beyond mere appearances.  She did not say altruism cannot bring happiness; her words implied to me that forced altruism where the altruist is compelled to "serve" his fellow man is in fact, evil.  I agree completely with that assessment.  If you wish to serve others, regardless of the reasons, have at it.  But to force someone to sacrifice his own interests for the sake of those of his fellows is a far greater evil than raping a child.  It is, IMO, unforgivable and worthy of death itself.




> While one person may find happiness in building a railroad, another might find happiness in devoting their life to serving others and denying their own comfort.


We agree, and I believe that Rand may have agreed as well, so long as the service was wholly voluntary and not coerced.




> This error comes to its natural fruition with Ayn Rand's justification of the European conquest of the Indians based on the Indians being "savages" who were not using the resources of the continent to best advantage.


I do seem to recall something along that line of reasoning, which would be one of the paths she took with which I am in disagreement.  Her one-size-fits-all bled upward into levels of consideration far too high.  She was on the money, but did not constrain her opinions to the bottom-most fundamentals of life.  This is similar to asserting that all people love vanilla ice cream.  Some so not like vanilla; some don't like ice cream; some dislike both.




> Ayn Rand claims everyone should be free to pursue their own happiness so long as it is happiness as SHE sees it.


You go too far.  I do not take this from her words at all, though once again she extends her otherwise commendable parochialism to considerations to which it does not apply.  So, she wasn't perfect.  Whoopdee friggin' doo... welcome to the human race.




> But the objective reality is that some people prefer the life of the hunter/gatherer to the life of the modern western man.


And here your point is valid - once again Rand mistakenly applying valid principles to invalid cases or in invalid ways.  Take what good there is and make use of it.  I'm not a fan of AK-47s, but if I need a gun and that is the only thing available, I am going to make use of it.  I don't have to be in love with it, but will accept that it has utility.

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## osan

> I certainly have not read all of her work, not will I, as I find her writing mundane.


Well, <phoom><phoom><phoom> Mr. Fancy Pants...  I think this is an unfortunate attitude, but so be it.  You don't need to read her works in any event because the important things have been distilled by others, myself included, for the sake of clarity, correctness, and completeness.   But you should not judge her harshly until such time as you can say you have indeed read her work, and then only after having identified the salient points she makes, ignoring the at-times unfortunate ways in which she made them.




> But I am not aware of her writing anything in the realm of morality, law, or economics that was not stated more succinctly by Bastiat and rigourously by Spencer, to name just two.


That may be true, but nobody in 1959 was reading Bastiat et al.  She brought good ideas to the masses and for that you should be thankful because had she not done what she did, I daresay the USA would be in even sorrier shape than that in which we now find it.

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## Ronin Truth

Interesting conversational exchanges, Guys. 

Thanks!

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## Acala

Since my pen is warmed up on the subject, let me go a step further.

Objectivist villification of altruism is almost entirely without practical value because in Washington D.C., altruism is simply not a factor in policy-making.  Sure, there are a handful of altruists in Congress, just as there are a handful of true free marketers.  But they don't make policy.   Although there is plenty of altruistic rhetoric being spewed, policy in Washington is directed by crony-capitalism, not altruism.  Don't believe me?  Name a program enacted in the last fifty years that is driven by altruism.

Obamacare is a subsidy for the health care and insurance industries.
Student loans and grants are subsidies for the education industry.
Food stamps are a subsidy for agribiz and the banks.
Mortgage deductions on your taxes are a subsidy for banks and the home construction industry.
And on and on.

Our foreign policy isn't altruistic.
The drug war isn't altruistic.
The Federal Reserve and monetary system are not altruistic.
The FDA isn't altruistic.
The EPA isn't altruistic.
Homeland Security isn't altruistic.
Gun control isn't altruistic.

To hear Objectivists talk, they have pinpointed the crux of evil in the USA.  But where IS all this evil altruism?

Altruism is irrelevant in US policy-making.  Nobody is taking money from the productive people and giving it to the "poor", except tangentially.  
Altruism in the US government serves only as a thin cover story for the real agenda of taking money from the productive people and giving it to the insiders, and as political bait.

Rank and file Democrats are duped into thinking they are being humane by supporting candidates who pretend to be altruistic.  
Rank and file Republicans are duped into thinking that lazy poor people are getting all their tax money and that the Republican candidate is going to put a stop to it.  The lie is obvious, but it sells nonetheless.  Politically, altruism is nothing but a fabricated bone of contention to keep the masses divided.  So, not only are the Objectivists attacking a straw man when they attack altruism, they are helping to fuel the two big lies that define the false dichotomy of the major political parties.  They are playing into the hands of the puppetmasters. 

Finally, although Ayn Rand has helped to wake up some rationalists, those people would all have woken up eventually anyway.  And the Objectivist creed is worse than useless at converting non-rationalists who see it as a heartless philosophy.  It divides and alienates people.

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## Ronin Truth

> Since my pen is warmed up on the subject, let me go a step further.
> 
> Objectivist villification of altruism is almost entirely without practical value because in Washington D.C., altruism is simply not a factor in policy-making. Sure, there are a handful of altruists in Congress, just as there are a handful of true free marketers. But they don't make policy. Although there is plenty of altruistic rhetoric being spewed, policy in Washington is directed by crony-capitalism, not altruism. Don't believe me? Name a program enacted in the last fifty years that is driven by altruism.
> 
> Obamacare is a subsidy for the health care and insurance industries.
> Student loans and grants are subsidies for the education industry.
> Food stamps are a subsidy for agribiz and the banks.
> Mortgage deductions on your taxes are a subsidy for banks and the home construction industry.
> And on and on.
> ...


My guess is that Ayn would claim that free market capitalism without any government involvement, what so ever, would be the correct answer.  

And NEVER, EVER, EVER any Socialism.

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## Ronin Truth

*It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand* 

by Jerome Tuccille 

It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand 3.48 of 5 stars 3.48 · rating details · 33 ratings · 2 reviews 

This edition of "It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand" contains much of the text that appeared in the original edition-revised and edited to conform to modern style-plus new chapters dealing with events that took place after the book was first published. 

Some of the new material deals with my campaign for Governor of New York as the Free Libertarian Party candidate, a discussion of events that transpired on the American political scene after that benighted campaign, plus thoughts on my current political and spiritual leanings. The perennial success of "It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand" has startled no one more than me. Sales started slowly, then began to pick up over the years, until the book became an underground classic that has gained readership over the decades. It should be read as political memoir, a first-hand account of a political movement, mostly fact, but with fictional elements and hyperbole added for effect. A reviewer once said that most memoirs are neither fact nor fiction; they are the truth as the author remembers it. So it is with "It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand."  

Paperback, 280 pages
Published November 5th 2007 by ASJA Press


http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2..._with_Ayn_Rand

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## Acala

> My guess is that Ayn would claim that free market capitalism without any government involvement, what so ever, would be the correct answer.


One would hope so.  But two years ago when I attended a speech by Yaron Brook, President of the Ayn Rand Institute, he yammered on and on about altruism as if it was the heart of darkness and had nary a word to say about crony-capitalism, the world empire, the drug war, gun control, or any of the other statist projects that are FAR more important than forced altruism.  Maybe in Ayn Rand's time, altruism had a role in government policy - the New Deal and Great Society were perhaps motivated in part by forced altruism - but the modern emphasis on philosophical opposition to altruism is at best an anachronism.  At worst, Objectivism NEVER got the point because socialism in the USSR and China was not about altruism either.  With a few exceptions, socialism has always really been about state power and not about altruism.  For government, altruism has almost always been nothing more than a new sales pitch for the same old snake oil.

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## Ronin Truth

> One would hope so. But two years ago when I attended a speech by Yaron Brook, President of the Ayn Rand Institute, he yammered on and on about altruism as if it was the heart of darkness and had nary a word to say about crony-capitalism, the world empire, the drug war, gun control, or any of the other statist projects that are FAR more important than forced altruism. Maybe in Ayn Rand's time, altruism had a role in government policy - the New Deal and Great Society were perhaps motivated in part by forced altruism - but the modern emphasis on philosophical opposition to altruism is at best an anachronism. At worst, Objectivism NEVER got the point because socialism in the USSR and China was not about altruism either. With a few exceptions, socialism has always really been about state power and not about altruism. For government, altruism has almost always been nothing more than a new sales pitch for the same old snake oil.


*If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject.*
Ayn Rand

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## Acala

> *If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject.*
> Ayn Rand


Assuming it is altruism as SHE defines it - forced - rather than altruism as Webster defines it, then yes that is one among MANY evils we must eschew.

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## otherone

> Since my pen is warmed up on the subject, let me go a step further.
> 
> Objectivist villification of altruism is almost entirely without practical value because in Washington D.C., altruism is simply not a factor in policy-making.  Sure, there are a handful of altruists in Congress, just as there are a handful of true free marketers.  But they don't make policy.   Although there is plenty of altruistic rhetoric being spewed, policy in Washington is directed by crony-capitalism, not altruism.  Don't believe me?  Name a program enacted in the last fifty years that is driven by altruism.


The state is built on the morality of altruism; it can not survive without it.



_The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his._
George S. Patton

At it's core, altruism claims that self-sacrifice for the good of others is the greatest virtue.   Any time the individual is trampled for the "greater good", it is altruism at play.  The welfare state, foreign aid, interventionism, war, taxes, decency or vice laws, ALL are based on altruism.  ALL claim that one must abnegate the self for the sake of the community.   Those who defy the community:
 are viewed as selfish, hard-hearted bastards who don't care about their community, it's future, or it's children. 
The state EXPECTS you to feel GUILT when you cheat on your taxes, because you were bred on altruism.   The state expects you to support it's wars by sacrificing your children upon it's alter.   WHY?   Because you are told that self-sacrifice is the GREATEST virtue.
.
Self-interest is UN-AMERICAN.   You OWE this country for everything you have:

That the successful are expected to "give back" implies that they have "taken from".
The morality of altruism says :"Yours is NOT yours."

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## Acala

> The state is built on the morality of altruism; it can not survive without it.
> 
> 
> 
> _The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his._
> George S. Patton
> 
> At it's core, altruism claims that self-sacrifice for the good of others is the greatest virtue.   Any time the individual is trampled for the "greater good", it is altruism at play.  The welfare state, foreign aid, interventionism, war, taxes, decency or vice laws, ALL are based on altruism.  ALL claim that one must abnegate the self for the sake of the community.   Those who defy the community:
>  are viewed as selfish, hard-hearted bastards who don't care about their community, it's future, or it's children. 
> ...


As I stated, altruism is used as the sales pitch for statism but nothing more.  Real policy-making has nothing to do with altruism and everything to do with crony-capitalism.

By the way, did Ayn Rand ever write against war, decency or vice laws?  I thought she was pretty hep on those things.

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## otherone

> By the way, did Ayn Rand ever write against war, decency or vice laws?  I thought she was pretty hep on those things.


...




> Statism—in fact and in principle—is nothing more than gang rule. A dictatorship is a gang devoted to looting the effort of the productive citizens of its own country. When a statist ruler exhausts his own country’s economy, he attacks his neighbors. It is his only means of postponing internal collapse and prolonging his rule. A country that violates the rights of its own citizens, will not respect the rights of its neighbors. Those who do not recognize individual rights, will not recognize the rights of nations: a nation is only a number of individuals.
> 
> Statism needs war; a free country does not. Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by production.
> 
> Observe that the major wars of history were started by the more controlled economies of the time against the freer ones. For instance, World War I was started by monarchist Germany and Czarist Russia, who dragged in their freer allies. World War II was started by the alliance of Nazi Germany with Soviet Russia and their joint attack on Poland.
> 
> Observe that in World War II, both Germany and Russia seized and dismantled entire factories in conquered countries, to ship them home—while the freest of the mixed economies, the semi-capitalistic United States, sent billions worth of lend-lease equipment, including entire factories, to its allies.
> 
> Germany and Russia needed war; the United States did not and gained nothing. (In fact, the United States lost, economically, even though it won the war: it was left with an enormous national debt, augmented by the grotesquely futile policy of supporting former allies and enemies to this day.) Yet it is capitalism that today’s peace-lovers oppose and statism that they advocate—in the name of peace.


edit:

For those interested in easily exploring Rand's views, I suggest visiting here:
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/

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## Ronin Truth

Self sacrifice is impossible.  Sacrifice of others is the only kind of sacrifice that there is.  Think about it.

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## Acala

> ...


Can't argue with what you quoted.

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## Paul Or Nothing II

> As I stated, *altruism is used as the sales pitch* for statism but nothing more.  Real policy-making has nothing to do with altruism and everything to do with crony-capitalism.


You've put it really well there. I've never really been a fan of Rand (objectivism ) but I think that was her message to a large degree, telling people to not fall for the sales pitch that altruism actually is for control over others.

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## Acala

> Self sacrifice is impossible.  Sacrifice of others is the only kind of sacrifice that there is.  Think about it.


At this point you begin to delve into what is really meant by the "self".   And rigid individualists like Ayn Rand (and most libertarians) are left behind as the illusion of "self" as a separate "thing" unravels under scrutiny.

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## Ronin Truth

> At this point you begin to delve into what is really meant by the "self". And rigid individualists like Ayn Rand (and most libertarians) are left behind as the illusion of "self" as a separate "thing" unravels under scrutiny.


Well I think we're all sort of like hard wired to choose our greatest values in each life situation. As such, self-sacrifice is never an option, we always HAVE to automatically choose our highest available value as individuals. Make any sense?

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## Paul Or Nothing II

> Well I think we're all sort of like hard wired to choose our greatest values in each life situation. As such, self-sacrifice is never an option, we always HAVE to automatically choose our highest available value as individuals. Make any sense?


Yeah, this is similar to what I've always believed. For example, even when a person is "selflessly" giving to charity, he is giving because he has self-interest invested in it; for a religious person it could be a way secure a place in Heaven (that's what they'd like to believe), for a non-religious person, it could be just the feeling of happiness derived or the validation from other people, etc. but no matter what, a person is always acting in self-interest, either because of the perceived happiness one expects to derive or to avoid discomfort.

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## Acala

> Yeah, this is similar to what I've always believed. For example, even when a person is "selflessly" giving to charity, he is giving because he has self-interest invested in it; for a religious person it could be a way secure a place in Heaven (that's what they'd like to believe), for a non-religious person, it could be just the feeling of happiness derived or the validation from other people, etc. but no matter what, a person is always acting in self-interest, either because of the perceived happiness one expects to derive or to avoid discomfort.


Yes, to both you and Ronin.  With a rare exception: there are people who transcend the normal sense of self and act in a truly selfless way.  We call them saints, sages, enlightened beings, etc.  But for the vast majority of people, ALL action is selfish in the sense that it is all intended to pursue whatever happiness is for the individual who is acting.

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## Ronin Truth

> Yes, to both you and Ronin. With a rare exception: there are people who transcend the normal sense of self and act in a truly selfless way. We call them saints, sages, enlightened beings, etc. But for the vast majority of people, ALL action is selfish in the sense that it is all intended to pursue whatever happiness is for the individual who is acting.


Even intentionally falling on a live hand grenade to save your foxhole buddies, is a genuine reflection of your highest situational event driven personal values.

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## Paul Or Nothing II

> Even intentionally falling on a live hand grenade to save your foxhole buddies, is a genuine reflection of your highest situational event driven personal values.


That's right. It's a person that values posthumous fame more than life itself, it's still a self-interest driven choice. Many people yearn to be remembered even after their death, this is one way to do it for some of them.

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## osan

> The state is built on the morality of altruism; it can not survive without it.
> 
> 
> 
> _The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his._
> George S. Patton
> 
> At it's core, altruism claims that self-sacrifice for the good of others is the greatest virtue.   Any time the individual is trampled for the "greater good", it is altruism at play.  The welfare state, foreign aid, interventionism, war, taxes, decency or vice laws, ALL are based on altruism.  ALL claim that one must abnegate the self for the sake of the community.   Those who defy the community:
>  are viewed as selfish, hard-hearted bastards who don't care about their community, it's future, or it's children. 
> ...



What the _hell?_  Are these your personal words on the matter?  If so, everyone needs to rep up on it because it is about as good as it gets.

This is really a perfect answer to the idiocy in which this world marinates on the matter in question.

Kudos.

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## Ronin Truth

> That's right. It's a person that values posthumous fame more than life itself, it's still a self-interest driven choice. Many people yearn to be remembered even after their death, this is one way to do it for some of them.


Or perhaps he just loves his buddies so much that he thinks their survival is really more important to him than his own.  

His choice and values preference.

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## A. Havnes

I love The Adventures of Robin Hood.  I was so happy to find the box set on DVD a few years ago.  The second actress to play Marian sucked, though...  And for any Doctor Who fans out there, Alan Wheatley (the Sheriff of Nottingham) was the first to die by Dalek, and Patrick Troughton, who played the Second Doctor, pops up in the show from time to time as various characters.

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