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

[Solopower]

According to George Monbiot, Objectivism is a belief system that contends that selfishness is good, altruism evil, empathy and compassion irrational and destructive. It's Ayn Rand's philosophy and becoming very popular in the US.

It's the perfect justification for capitalism. This seems to be what has informed Tory policy for most of the 20th century and is probably behind the government's desire to reduce the role of the State - they believe in the survival of the fittest. The rich survive because they deserve to. The rest of us are runts and parasites and they want rid of us.

'Apart from the police, the courts and the armed forces, there should be no role for government: no social security, no public health or education, no public infrastructure or transport, no fire service, no regulations, no income tax.'

Could it work?

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/05/new-right-ayn-rand-marx

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.

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

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.

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

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

tis ver true

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

'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?

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.

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.

'They espoused all sorts of contradicatory nonsense.'

Yes, that sounds like a progressive to me.