Found this very interesting interview from 1959 featuring Ayn Rand (see below)
I do not really know too much about her and have never actually read her books. I have often heard her referred to as the “worst woman.” While I find her well spoken, her intransigence to relax her position on capitalism sounds very unrealistic. I have been to Haiti where things like roads and sanitiation is actually left to the “good will” of the corporations and fact is, the only place there are paved roads is right in front of a corporation and the rest of society can go to hell is what it looked liked.
After listening to her, I wonder what evidence she could provide proving she actually lived by her own views and words in her personal life…
Video (youtube):
Ayn Rand 1959]
She didn’t, while she railed against Social Security, she collected it when she was eligible.
She didn't, while she railed against Social Security, she collected it when she was eligible.Oh yes, I have read that she did sign up for that and or medicare when she was older. But also, she wrote a couple books and claims her husband was, at the time of this interview, an "artist" and apparently in between jobs, so clearly she was never part of the top 1% as we might call them today. She would have never been wealthy, so I don't understand how she didn't just live like the rest of middle class society.
She didn't, while she railed against Social Security, she collected it when she was eligible.Oh yes, I have read that she did sign up for that and or medicare when she was older. But also, she wrote a couple books and claims her husband was, at the time of this interview, an "artist" and apparently in between jobs, so clearly she was never part of the top 1% as we might call them today. She would have never been wealthy, so I don't understand how she didn't just live like the rest of middle class society. For all her talk about capitalism she was never a businesswoman. I doubt she ever held a real job, which was probably one of the reasons she had such a tin ear when it came to economics. IMO she was not at all an intelligent woman. She was incapable of delving beneath the surface of anything. She was a pseudo intellectual who loved the sound of her own voice. Lois
Many tea party republicans think her a prophet. Silly, selfish, idiots that they tend to be.
Many tea party republicans think her a prophet. Silly, selfish, idiots that they tend to be.Just recently I read how Paul Ryan is a big fan of her economics but a lot of republicans do not like to talk too much about their like for her publically as not to offend their Christian voters because of her atheism.
By appreciating Ayn’s childhood - her later disconnect from reality and decent into egomania is much more understandable.
http://nymag.com/arts/books/features/60120/index1.html Ayn Rand was born Alissa Rosenbaum, in St. Petersburg in 1905. Her father, a pharmacist, was successful enough to buy both the pharmacy he worked in and the building that housed it. Her mother, foreshadowing her daughter’s future, named the family cats after American place-names. The family employed a cook, a nurse, a maid, and a governess. It was a bad time, of course, to be Russian Jews, and also a bad time to be a prosperous business owner—to be both basically guaranteed disaster. The Rosenbaums were subject to strict anti-Semitic laws, the constant threat of pogroms, and—just as Alissa was hitting adolescence—the Russian Revolution. At 12, Rand watched Bolshevik soldiers march in and take her father’s pharmacy. He would never really work again, and she would spend her adulthood railing, from across the world, against anyone who used force to “loot and mooch" from productive businessmen. As violence escalated and the Russian economy imploded, the Rosenbaums were forced to leave St. Petersburg and move into a small unheated house in a resort town on the Black Sea. ...
http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/ayn-rand-215.php Ayn Rand Biography also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand
Many tea party republicans think her a prophet. Silly, selfish, idiots that they tend to be.They would, wouldn't they? The blind and ignorant leading the blind and ignorant. Lois
I met an old woman from about the same era and circumstances as Rand. She tried to tell me how horrible “the Russians” are. I tried to tell her most of those people were dead. She cut me off and pointed her finger at me and said, “don’t forget what I’m telling you”. I haven’t.
Anyway. I read “Atlas Shrugged” out of curiosity. It doesn’t take long to figure out where the story is going, but I couldn’t believe that was all there was too it. I had to stop reading it and look up interviews like this to find out what she was like. The book made sense after that. That is, it made sense why she would write it that way. The only way to enjoy the book is to think of it as a science fiction story about a world where the people who get ahead are the ones who value greed the highest. Everyone else is incredibly stupid and can’t figure how to fix anything, how to get rich people to spend their money on them, write a good play, or even be a decent thief. That’s the strangest one really, there isn’t rampant crime despite the economic collapse that occurs throughout the whole book. Everyone just complains to their government and gets handouts or something. It’s not really demonstrated by any secondary characters, it’s just talked about by the greedy people.
The other thing that is rarely discussed is the main characters are all second generation rich. The setting is not long after WWII, so railroads and metals are big business. There is some mention of how those businesses were built by hard work and ingenuity, but as with all bad economic theories, there is no discussion of how new capital can be created. They always depend on someone already owning something that depends on low wage workers.
Anyway. I read "Atlas Shrugged" out of curiosity. It doesn't take long to figure out where the story is going, but I couldn't believe that was all there was too it. I had to stop reading it and look up interviews like this to find out what she was like. The book made sense after that. That is, it made sense why she would write it that way. The only way to enjoy the book is to think of it as a science fiction story about a world where the people who get ahead are the ones who value greed the highest. Everyone else is incredibly stupid and can't figure how to fix anything, how to get rich people to spend their money on them, write a good play, or even be a decent thief. That's the strangest one really, there isn't rampant crime despite the economic collapse that occurs throughout the whole book. Everyone just complains to their government and gets handouts or something. It's not really demonstrated by any secondary characters, it's just talked about by the greedy people. The other thing that is rarely discussed is the main characters are all second generation rich. The setting is not long after WWII, so railroads and metals are big business. There is some mention of how those businesses were built by hard work and ingenuity, but as with all bad economic theories, there is no discussion of how new capital can be created. They always depend on someone already owning something that depends on low wage workers.That's a pretty good Cliff Notes version of Atlas Shrugged - as they say at Wait Wait Don't Tell Me: "Well Done'
Oy, I just had to pipe in here. So much fundamental misunderstanding of Ayn Rand here. And also a definite case of hating the author because of the current crop of morons trying to misuse her work. You may disagree with her, but her ideas are legit, and compared to so many academic philosophers, she’s great (though wrong in several areas). Most academic philosophers try as hard as possible to stay in their Ivory Towers and have nothing to do with the actual lives of people. The main problem with the assessments here is a misunderstanding of self-interest. People accuse her of advocating stepping over others just to attain one’s own goals…ends justify the means. Completely untrue. She advocated RATIONAL self-interest. Very different. Part of that is understanding that others want things too, have their own goals, and you yourself have no right to impinge on them, just as they have no right to impinge on you. That’s the executive summary. Dig in more on your own if you’re interested. If not, no big deal.
CuthbertJ the books speak for themselves.
She was confused and full of contradictions and willfully blind to the complexities of society,
and the webs that bind us all together like it or not.
thinking that her myopic bromides are solutions is the intellectual underpinning of the tea party crowd,
and we’ve seen what kind of good their brand of paranoia and hostility has achieved for society these days.
Oy, She advocated RATIONAL self-interest.Like denying the realities of living on a finite planet and Earth sciences, such as climate science, because that would mean a cut in corporate power and profits. You know like all them Republican politicians and their masses continue doing these days. :long:
That’s funny that you say philosophers stay in their ivory towers. That is a primary criticism of her, that she just put her philosophy out there and never compared or contrasted to others. She just claimed it was rational, without defining the term or saying how it was more rational than Hume or different than what Popper said was rational. That’s what you’re supposed to do as a philosopher. She didn’t, so she wasn’t in the club by her own choice.
But she wrote novels, gave talks, and granted interviews. We never saw how she would operate (and not that I would have wanted to). If she had a business and was CEO, would anyone want to work for her? She seems to have a very good textbook understanding of her ideas. However, in the interview, Mike Wallace asks her about vital components in society that often operate through government assistance in full or in part such as roads or hospitals and she believes that people will act in “rational self interest” and some corporation will say “Fine, we’ll fully fund hospitals.” Or some business, like Wal-Mart, would step up and decide to build roads (?) Is any of this plausible? Based on this interview, she does not agree with any taxation at all…zero…any funding for public facilities would have to be done because a private individual or corporation feels so compelled to do so, provided they have the financial means.
And what’s obvious to me, but not to her, is that businesses exist because of public support, which includes government money. Ever heard of “tax-free” zones? That’s just one of many examples.
Listening to her talk about her plan reminds me of my basic economics class at the community college after high school. The assignment was to come up with some economic plan (do not recall any other details). I remember just getting a “decent” grade and the professor commented that none of it would work or was believable, but at least I was consistent and followed it through to the end…I feel that is exactly what could be said about Ayn Rand–none of it would actually work in the real world, but at least she’s consistent and follows it through.
Her main argument is for people to act in “self-interest”; but isn’t that human nature and what we’re all basically doing anyway? We do just about everything we do out of self-preservation and survival. Even the most philanthropic and generous of companies and individuals still make sure they profit and do “well” for themselves. Her entire angle seems to be that she does not like taxes because it forces people to put money toward a collective good whether they want it or not.
The way taxes work most of the time is if you are benefiting from the results of other people paying taxes, then you pay taxes. If you want to live off the grid without a job, go ahead. The rest of us are still protecting your property. Those corporations that would supposedly step up and do things like build roads had to have those roads there in the first place or they wouldn’t be so rich. Just because some of your taxes go to things you don’t like is not a reason to dismantle the entire system.
The people who claim they are the brains of the world in Atlas Shrugged are just a bunch of spoiled children who don’t appreciate what they’ve inherited. d’Anconia, who inherited a copper mining company that dates back to the Spanish Empire, destroys the assets of that company before he disappears to join the others in their secret mountain fortress. He does this because he can’t stand anyone else having it. As he says, “I am not merely leaving it as I found it; I am leaving it as Sebastiän d’Anconia found it, and then let the world get along without him or me!”
But what are we supposed to assume? That his ancestors were all completely honest and no one was ever harmed or abused in any of their mining operations? Rand looks only at the work people are doing today and completely ignores what went into building what we have.
So it seems a few here got my point. Instead of trashing her ideas based on the morons that have currently misused them, or because of some silly misrepresentation of the word “selfish”, posters are debating the ideas themselves. I personally think many of her ideas are good but not realistic any time soon. And many are just no good. So what. Same can be said of Kant, Descartes, Hume, etc.
As for her putting her ideas in novels versus scholarly reviews for peer assessment - hogwash. Most, not all, but most of the scholarly reviews I read in grad school we’re nothing more than personal, subjective whims couched in philosophy speak. And the professional philosophers (yes they depended on a salary from a university just like everyone else) were careful to play the game correctly. So peer review in the world of philosophy amounts to “checks to see if the author plays the game correctly”. Nothing like peer-review in science where calculations can be checked, results independently verified, etc.
CuthbertJ: I created this thread to discuss any aspect of Ayn Rand that posters wish. Personally, I’ve never really paid too much attention to her until recently (mainly because I like the fact that I can now hear the stuff straight from her mouth on youtube and not read other peoples interpretations), so it’s all interesting. I am not focused on current politicians who are her fans or think they can interpret her philosophies. I’ve just been talking about what Ayn states herself (such as in the interview) and whether it sounds reasonable. It does not, to me at least. You make a good point though…there are a myriad of philosophies and people are free to extrapolate which aspects do actually work and philosophies can be very general.
Correct me if I am wrong, but really this is just about her not wanting taxation (likely due to her childhood experiences in Russia). I am stuck on the fact that she does not discuss eliminating tax to be used for frivolous things, she seems to want it eliminated for some of the most basic and common goods such as roads or hospitals. She can’t be talking about charity or goodwill because we all know that we are free in our personal lives to give as much or as little (or nothing) to philanthropic causes.