Did Ayn Rand help the socialist cause?

[Anarchist420]

I think she did because she promoted greed and pretty much said it was a universal virtue... and due to that, irrational liberals often associate libertarianism with Randian "selfishness". In reality, however, greed is not universally rewarded in a free society because it's not in anyone's self- interest to be greedy in a free society.

Critique what I just said if you disagree.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

Can you universally and with 100% accuracy define greed and distinguish it from ambition? If not then I suggest you move on and go do some reading.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

Both Ayn Rand's fans and detractors grossly overestimate her influence.

 

[lotus503]

I think she did because she promoted greed and pretty much said it was a universal virtue... and due to that, irrational liberals often associate libertarianism with Randian "selfishness". In reality, however, greed is not universally rewarded in a free society because it's not in anyone's self- interest to be greedy in a free society.

Critique what I just said if you disagree.

I think she helped it more because as much as she railed against it, the fucking hypocrite used services she railed against.

Balanced society should be the goal, anyone on the extremes of liberalism or libertarianism are in fact the problem.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

I think she helped it more because as much as she railed against it, the fucking hypocrite used services she railed against.

Balanced society should be the goal, anyone on the extremes of liberalism or libertarianism are in fact the problem.

See this fallacy works only if you believe the tax money she took was not her money which went to pay for those services. So considering that she paid into the system itself then why should she not collect on this money that was taken from her in the first place? Then again I can see how politicians use this flawed reasoning to ignore the results of their spending of tax payer money without regard to the fact that the money they often misspend is indeed money taken from many, many individual people.

 

[Anarchist420]

I think she helped it more because as much as she railed against it, the fucking hypocrite used services she railed against.

I disagree with that reasoning, because she wasn't the bureaucrat with a badge and fire arm who threatened people with jail time if they didn't fork over their money.

 

[fskimospy]

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

Ayn Rand in a nutshell.

 

[Riparian]

Ayn Rand in a nutshell.

Is this the same John Rogers that wrote the screenplay for Transformers and Catwoman?

 

[1prophet]

Can you universally and with 100% accuracy define greed and distinguish it from ambition? If not then I suggest you move on and go do some reading.

Universally and with 100% accuracy define morality and you can easily discern the difference between greed and ambition.

 

[-Slacker-]

See this fallacy works only if you believe the tax money she took was not her money which went to pay for those services. So considering that she paid into the system itself then why should she not collect on this money that was taken from her in the first place? Then again I can see how politicians use this flawed reasoning to ignore the results of their spending of tax payer money without regard to the fact that the money they often misspend is indeed money taken from many, many individual people.

Proof that she didn't use more money than she put in through taxes?

 

[Siddhartha]

I think she did because she promoted greed and pretty much said it was a universal virtue... and due to that, irrational liberals often associate libertarianism with Randian "selfishness". In reality, however, greed is not universally rewarded in a free society because it's not in anyone's self- interest to be greedy in a free society.

Critique what I just said if you disagree.

"Irrational liberals"?

Anyway, to answer your OP the fact Ayn Rand applied for and received Medicare and Social Security after being diagnosed for having cancer negates everything she advocated earlier in her career.

So did this help the Socialist cause? I doubt if she made a difference because most rational people see the benefit of Social Security and Medicare.

The people who are against the programs would not change their opinions even when they, their families, and friends receive help from these programs. As someone pointed out before after all they "paid" for the government help the are getting.

 

[Siddhartha]

I think she helped it more because as much as she railed against it, the fucking hypocrite used services she railed against.

Balanced society should be the goal, anyone on the extremes of liberalism or libertarianism are in fact the problem.

Can you please provide examples of "extreme liberalism"?

 

[Siddhartha]

never mind

 

[Doppel]

I think the vast majority of people don't know or care who she is and thus her impact in general has been quite muted.

 

[tcG]

I think she helped it more because as much as she railed against it, the fucking hypocrite used services she railed against.

Anyway, to answer your OP the fact Ayn Rand applied for and received Medicare and Social Security after being diagnosed for having cancer negates everything she advocated earlier in her career.

The people who are against the programs would not change their opinions even when they, their families, and friends receive help from these programs. As someone pointed out before after all they "paid" for the government help the are getting.

This is a textbook fallacy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

Tu quoque (Latin for "you, too" or "you, also") or the appeal to hypocrisy, is a logical fallacy that attempts to discredit the opponent's position by asserting the opponent's failure to act consistently in accordance with that position; it attempts to show that a criticism or objection applies equally to the person making it. This dismisses someone's point of view based on criticism of the person's inconsistency, and not the position presented.[2] Thus, it is a form of the ad hominem argument.[3]

...in particular, if Source A criticizes the actions of Source B, a tu quoque response is that Source A has acted in the same way. This argument is fallacious because it does not disprove the argument; if the premise is true then Source A may be a hypocrite, but this does not make the statement less credible from a logical perspective.

 

[Steeplerot]

I think she helped it more because as much as she railed against it, the fucking hypocrite used services she railed against.

Balanced society should be the goal, anyone on the extremes of liberalism or libertarianism are in fact the problem.

Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum (ahem) "Ayn Rand" was a product of the dysfunction of Russian politics back in the revolution then.

She is just a mirror reflection of Bolshevism, thing is Russian immigrants were not very welcome here, so she wrote anti-bolshevik propaganda to stay in good with the anti-communist tide of the mccarthy era here in her new home the USA.

A rather good strategy, but awful in the execution. The books are terribly written and the rhetoric is so over the top it sounds like ideas from a bitter entitled 12 year old.

At least Karl Marx partied his ass off and didnt die a bitter hypocrite.

I do feel kinda bad for her, she was a miserable twisted person in real life. Eastern Europe was a terrible place to grow up during those times. But then haters will hate.

If anything she probably did more to destabilize and radicalize conservatism as a ideology in modern US politics then Lenin's USSR ever could have dreamed.

So, score one for the red team.

 

[Miramonti]

Conservatives hide behind good philosophies with bad realities, including Ayn Rand.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

Universally and with 100% accuracy define morality and you can easily discern the difference between greed and ambition.

No one can distinguish between the two with 100% accuracy all the time and that was the point of my statement. Thus attempting to use arbitrary views on what "Greed" looks like or is will often lead someone to form a false view on many subjects based on a lack of proper understanding of the circumstances involving these implied human traits and their consequences and/or results in life. The reason being that ambition and "greed" can and do often bleed over in many instances and in some cases they mask each other's true intentions just like selflessness and self-interest bleed over and can mask each other's intentions in many instances.

Only in very rare instances of absolute and pure unadulterated acts of black and white "Greed" or "Ambition" can people truly distinguish between the two traits with any certainty approaching 100% accuracy and such instances are absolutely rare in life.

However even when one person is exhibiting "Greed" in its pure form it does not always ensure that negative results will occur and neither does "Ambition" always bring about positive consequences and vice versa. The same could be said about selflessness or self-interest and the ability to distinguished between the two and their inevitable results and/or consequences.


E.g., "Price gauging" maybe be a "morally" wrong to some and it maybe attributed to acts of "Greed" but its inevitable side effect is actually providing an increase in supply to sate increased demand thus eventually brings positive results that others can benefit from in times of need as "greedy" or "ambitious" suppliers rush to meet the demand for goods and services in an area experiencing higher prices due to natural disasters which induce a spike in demand for goods and services. Where as government intervention in the form of attempting to suppress such increases in prices due to demand often lead to shortages as people are not for to prioritized their needs and thus all items are bought up or consumed in a wasteful manner without any sort of self-imposed rationing by the individual in the form of higher prices thus forcing them to determine if an item is truly needed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MykJi8QVUWU

Thus people who form their economic views solely based on arbitrary views on what they deem to be "Greed" are often forming views that are prone to error and an inability to see other aspects such as human traits such as ambition, self-interest or selflessness, etc that motivate others to act for one reason or another and produce varying results and/or consequences in many situations.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I suggest the OP reflect on what Thulsa Doom says here.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/an-Nf...barbarian_1982_thulsa_dooms_monologue_part_2/

A fictional character with a very real point. A society without enforceable rules fails in advance by virtue of the ignorance of human nature.

 

[Anarchist420]

Thus attempting to use arbitrary views on what "Greed" looks like or is will often lead someone to form a false view on many subjects based on a lack of proper understanding of the circumstances involving these implied human traits and their consequences and/or results in life. The reason being that ambition and "greed" can and do often bleed over in many instances and in some cases they mask each other's true intentions just like selflessness and self-interest bleed over and can mask each other's intentions in many instances.

My point still stands. She promoted greed as a universal virtue... due to that, she gave liberals (i.e., those who are against people being cold-hearted when it comes to helping people out) an excuse for not supporting libertarianism.

I know she believed greed to be the ultimate virtue, because she swore by her life and love of it that she would never reduce it by helping someone else out... and that she would not expect anyone else to reduce their own life for her.

 

[Rainsford]

My point still stands. She promoted greed as a universal virtue... due to that, she gave liberals (i.e., those who are against people being cold-hearted when it comes to helping people out) an excuse for not supporting libertarianism.

I know she believed greed to be the ultimate virtue, because she swore by her life and love of it that she would never reduce it by helping someone else out... and that she would not expect anyone else to reduce their own life for her.

I don't know, I think the problem is more that she DIDN'T really do that...it would have been better if she had written with that message in mind.

The whole point of Atlas Shrugged, from the kind of pompous title to the idea behind Galt's rebellion, is that some people (ie, libertarians) are better than everyone else and are being dragged down by a society filled with people too lazy or stupid to do anything on their own (ie, non-libertarians). At no point is there any attempt to sell everyone on the idea that they'd be better off living by libertarian ideas. Instead, the whole idea is that the superior libertarians are better off starting their own society free from the rest of the sheep, with not a small amount of gloating over their plight after being deprived of libertarian superiority. In other words, the book is less about how awesome libertarianism is and more about how awesome libertarians are (which explains the popularity among libertarians, certainly ).

Rand's disservice wasn't so much that non-libertarians got the wrong idea from her writing, it's that LIBERTARIANS took her viewpoint and ran with it. A movement with a bunch of people convinced they are John Galt and thinking everyone else is a mindless sheep isn't going to get very far in a democratic society. Particularly because while John Galt had an impressive resume in the story, the idea that real life libertarians are supporting the world on their back any more than anyone else is kind of silly.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

I find it funny that the same people who claim to worship God also claim one of his seven deadly sins is a great virtue.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

I find it funny that the same people who claim to worship God also claim one of his seven deadly sins is a great virtue.

What is funnier is how Ayn Rand was a atheist that valued reason over political or religious dogma that often inspires government action/inaction.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

What is funnier is how Ayn Rand was a atheist that valued reason of political or religious dogma that often inspires government action/inaction.

Did I say Ayn Rand or did I say people? Quit twisting.

 

[Rainsford]

What is funnier is how Ayn Rand was a atheist that valued reason of political or religious dogma that often inspires government action/inaction.

I don't know, I feel like when you write a book with the express purpose of encouraging your political beliefs, you're pretty much in dogma territory.