'The poor deserve to die; the rich deserve unmediated power.' What do you think?

'They espoused all sorts of contradicatory nonsense.'

Yes, that sounds like a progressive to me.

claig - well they liked to think they were.

They espoused all sorts of contradicatory nonsense. Not least of which was their love of creative physical artisan labour. Funnily enough, they didn't actually do a lot of labour themselves. They were generally wealthy intellectuals, academics, authors and the like.

Claig Al Capone only got rich because of the authoritarian, unpopular, undemocratic and draconian policies of the US government in banning the sale of alcohol. The government created the black market demand and Capone was in the right place to supply the people of Chicago with illicit booze.

In that respect, Capone (and any modern day drug dealer if you like) is a classic free marketeer whilst the initiator of force (banning an otherwise legal and relatively harmless activity) is the government.

The fact that Capone and his gangs (and modern drug gangs) were involved in criminal activity beyond the selling of their wares (St. Valentine's Day Massacre for example) is an argument for the rule of law and for capitalism to be regulated by the open market and the natural laws of competition.

'reminds me a lot of some members of our own 'Bloomsbury Group' around the same point in the last century'

I don't know much about the Bloomsbury Group. Were they some sort of progressives?

Social Darwinism is the bedrock of Fascism.

She espoused libertarianism but actually she betrays herself in the fundamental belief that 'some' people are worthy of life and others are not. Her John Galt hero is just a cameo of all our modern day hero worship of Chief Executives of big corporations. Her 'small' Govt philosophy only works if Govt has a cosy relationship with 'big' corporations.

She was no libertarian. She believed an elite (which she of course belonged to) should run the World. She was a rich well educated intellectual elitist who reminds me a lot of some members of our own 'Bloomsbury Group' around the same point in the last century. Many of whom also supported, sympathised with and espoused Fascism.

Al Capone would say he was to big to fail, pay up or he's leaving the country and then where would we all be.

He'd skim and scam, flim and flam and wouldn't give a friigging damn; all spin and bling picked up in old Sing Sing, he'd run the country dry with a crocodile tear in his eye, he'd squeeze blood from a stone would individual Al Capone.

She seems to believe in unbridled individualism, with no interference or regulation form teh community, society or state. But that leads to the law of the jungle, the survival of the fittest and most ruthless and the rise of Al Capone.

We've seen Al Gore's DVD on global warming. Imagine what rackets Al Capone would get up while offering to save our businesses or our planet.

Rand hated all forms of collectivism and statism and was therefore against both communism and fascism. I don't undertsand what she really believed in, but it seems to be some form of pie-in-the-sky individualism and liberty which can never be achieved in the real world.

She seems to promote the philosophy of "I'm alright Jack" and social Darwinism and she does have supporters amongst people who want to remove the safety net of the state or any community, collectivist help.

How intertesting that she seemed to liked the bits of the state that she used but wanted to get rid of the things the state provided that she could afford to buy herself.

She used Medicare and the welfare system towards the end of her life when she was vulnerable and believed in the state police force as all rich people do because they always want someone to protect their property for them and keep them safe from the rabble. She believed in a strong military for the same reason.

It is shocking listening to the social and political discourse on US televison news. Rich bankers and top business people and politicians demanding ever more state money be thrown their way to save 'the financial system' while demanding that basic medical and state welfare sytem be cut to pay back debt.

I believe in capitalism but not the crony capitalism we have today and that in effect Rand suggested was 'good' with mega corporations and Govt in close harmony. Interesting too that she lived in Russia and escaped communism only to espouse what amounts to the political and economic philosophy of fascism.

Read the Economics of Fascism here. The parallel is striking between Objectivism and Fascism.

But Ayn Rand was not a libertarian. She was asked

'What do you think of the Libertarian Party?'

and replied

'I?d rather vote for Bob Hope, the Marx Brothers, or Jerry Lewis'

The only name missing from that list is Gordon Brown, but she had probably never heard of him.

www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=education_campus_libertarians

My apologies for the typos in my last post, I didn't run a spell check over it.

Libertarian thought puts the nucleas of the family at the heart of society, not an all powerful state. It is niether a left wing nor a right wing philosophy - the only thing it opposes is an 'all powerful' and authoritarian big government. These are the same governments which have (under various authoritarian regimes nominally tagged as left or right) slaughtered millions of people in pointless and unnecessary wars, condemned millions to starvation through ill thought out centralisation policies, shipped off whole ethnic/social groups to be obliterated in death camps and generally made a right pigs ear out of much of the 20th century. Libertarianism makes these outcomes impossible by seeking to limit and minimise the power of any government, political party or set of individuals.

By rejecting big government, Libertarianism seeks to empower the individual to take command of their own lives. This, naturally extends into business and trade. Under a totally free market all companies have the potential to fail. There are no bailouts and no guarantees are made. If a business tries to rip off it's customers for too long, a rival will pop up, take all of the custom and the monolith will go out of business. The only way to stay alive is to either improve quality or reduce price. Similarly, the banks would have known that if the market had crashed they would go bust if they were too overreliant on a particular product. There would be more incentive to either spread your risk or find some other way to insure yourself against the market going tits-up. If everyone had played by these rules - and perhaps more importantly understood the consequences of these rules - would the banking crisis have ever manifested itself?

As for the social consequences of Libertarianism, most people look to our NHS and the welfare state as entities which are incompatible with individualism. This is true but there is no reason why social insurance can't be provided for by private companies at competitive rates under a free market.

tis ver true

It's not something you are used to hearing, I know.

you had me at 'Custardo you're right.'

Custardo, you're right. Rand sees altruiism and kindness as an evil. I think she lacks humanity and kindness. She sees everything through a selfish cost-benefit lens, she doesn't understand nobility of spirit, self-sacrifice and kindness. She doesn't understand religion, God and the pleasure of selflessness. She doesn't understand the whole, just her small, shrunken selfish self.

he predicted text speak. genius.

anyhooo....

where does humanity and kindess fit? the individualistic survival of the fittest and kindness can't be done together

In 1984 and Animal Farm, which are his greatest works, he doesn't criticise conservatives or capitalists, he criticises totalitarian and communist inspired dictatorships. I think he was spot on.

I have read Down and Out in Paris but not Road to Wigan Pier. I like Orwell because he has great insight, unmasks hypocrisy and spin and casts light on power.

Was Orwell just critcising Stalinism and not Leninism too?

He criticised those who claimed to be communists and claimed to support equality, but in fact believed that some were more equal than others - that "four legs good, two legs better".

He is critcising all hypocrites and impostors who climb to power on the back of the people and deny them their freedom. If you think that that doesn't apply equally to communists and communist parties, then I think you have misunderstood his work.

I don't care if he wa a socialist or not. He understood the deceivers and told us what they were all about.

"We, in the west, have the personal freedom to drink, fuck, do drugs, consume shit, and talk about things, so long as we don't take any action which attempts to control our own destiny or that of society. Our elections are meaningless. Protest is only legal if symbolic, and easily ignored." ttosca, can I quote this.

"That is why we have governments that govern and laws that we have to abide by. Society takes priority over the individual in some cases, and the law determines the boundaries of freedom" this could equally be said of socialism.

Claig you are apt to quote Orwell Quite a lot, can I ask why? have you read Down and out in paris and road to wigan peer? You do realise that Orwell was a socialist! a democratic socialist.
In animal farm Orwell was critiquing Stalinism not communism.

After Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged she declared herself "the best thinker in the world" and then fell into depression. Clearly such selfish ideas need the chemical cosh of amphetamines, such self regard obviously isn't healthy.

After the credit crisis the Ayn Rand Institute said that the problem had been caused by government intervention and that the only way out of the crisis was less regulation just when I thought it was american banks wrapping up bad mortgage debts in complex financial packages and flogging them to less savvy banks whilst no one was regulating their activities. Silly me.

Good point about the rich. If what appear to be her views on inheritance came into effect, then the rich would not start with a silver spoon and success would not be so automatic.

I was wrong about her thinking like environmentalists. Some of her statements about them were that they are trying to extinguish the flame which Prometheus gave to humanity, which is why she was opposed to them.,

Apart from the fact that those who believe such things need lynching (and probably would be if they sad such things openly), that whole idea is deeply flowed.

For the rich are where they are because they are parasites feeding off the back of the workers, they feel they are superior simply because they are smart enough to have others work for them instead of having to get off their own backsides, where it really a life of survival of the fittest, the upper classes would suffer as they loose the lifeblood that sustains them and be forced to loose money/power.

I'm sure people like Cameron are well aware of the advantages we have as a Capitalist/socialist hybrid country, Take from the poor in tax, in order to give it back to them as benefits to subsidise the rotten wages, then you can continue to charge people a lot for everything while paying them little, while keeping the majority of your money aboard and what little you keep here, intricately laced between all the loopholes so you don't pay tax yourself.

She saw things in black and white, just like the communists did. She couldn't distinguish between shades of grey and that is why her thought, just like her spirit, is poor and has never caught on across the world. It doesn't represent the truth or the light of reason - it is simplistic, basic and crude - and that is why the people will never accept it, whatever promotion it receives.

She has no room for compromise in her ivory tower. Her views are not based on real life on this earth. No man is an island, we all live in society, her view of the individual is not grounded in reality.

Life is about compromise. You can't always get your way, as Mick Jagger famously sang "you can't always get what you want". You often have to accept the majority view. At elections it is the people who have spoken and you have to accept their choice just as a losing leader also has to.

One minute you're up, the next minute you're down and that applies to everyone including the mighty who have fallen.

She even seems not to believe in the right of inheritance - the natural wish of people to leave their possessions to their descendants. Sounds like a communist dictatorship to me.

'Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth, the man who would make his fortune no matter where he started.'