Dee Finney's blog
start date July 20, 2011
today's date 5-12-13
updated 5-19-13 - Stefan Molyneux - bottom of page
updated 12-18-13 - Rick Joyner
page 493
TOPIC: WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN ANARCHIST AND A CAPITALIST?
NOTE FROM DEE: THE REASON I'M ASKING THIS IS BECAUSE SOMEONE ACCUSED ME
OF BEING ONE OR THE OTHER
ON A YAHOO LIST BECAUSE I ASKED IF THEIR GROUP HAD A 5-YEAR PLAN FOR THEIR
COMMUNITY.
THEY IMMEDIATELY STARTED ATTACKING ME AS TRYING TO DESTROY THEIR GROUP.
THEY ARE DOING A GOOD JOB OF DESTROYING THEIR OWN GROUP AND I'M NOT
IDENTIFYING IT SO AS NOT TO BE
BLAMED WHEN IT GOES UNDER WHICH IS WHAT THEY WERE COMPLAINING ABOUT TO BEGIN
WITH.
SO LET'S TAKE A LOOK AT THE DEFINITIONS OF BOTH:
Anarchism is often defined as a
political philosophy which holds the
state to be undesirable, unnecessary, or harmful.[1][2]
However, others argue that while anti-statism is central, it is inadequate to
define anarchism.[3]
Therefore, they argue instead that anarchism entails opposing
authority
or
hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations, including, but
not limited to, the state system.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10]
Proponents of anarchism, known as "anarchists", advocate
stateless societies based on non-hierarchical
free associations.[5][11][12][13][14]
As a subtle and anti-dogmatic philosophy, anarchism draws on many currents of
thought and strategy. Anarchism does not offer a fixed body of doctrine from a
single particular world view, instead fluxing and flowing as a philosophy.[15]
There are many types and traditions of anarchism, not all of which are mutually
exclusive.[16]
Anarchist schools of thought can differ fundamentally, supporting anything
from extreme
individualism to complete collectivism.[2]
Strains of anarchism have often been divided into the categories of
social and
individualist anarchism or similar dual classifications.[17][18]
Anarchism is often considered a radical
left-wing ideology,[19][20]
and much of
anarchist economics and
anarchist legal philosophy reflect
anti-authoritarian interpretations of
communism,
collectivism,
syndicalism,
mutualism, or
participatory economics.[21]
Anarchism as a mass
social movement has regularly endured fluctuations in popularity. The
central tendency of anarchism as a social movement has been represented by
anarcho-communism and
anarcho-syndicalism, with
individualist anarchism being primarily a literary phenomenon[22]
which nevertheless did have an impact on the bigger currents[23]
and individualists have also participated in large anarchist organizations.[24][25]
Many anarchists
oppose all forms of aggression, supporting
self-defense or
non-violence (anarcho-pacifism),[26][27]
while others have supported the use of some
coercive
measures, including violent
revolution
and
propaganda of the deed, on the path to an anarchist society.[28]
Etymology and
terminology
The term
anarchism derives from the
ancient Greek ἄναρχος, anarchos, meaning "without rulers",[29][30]
from the prefix ἀν- (an-, "without") + ἀρχός (arkhos, "leader",
from ἀρχή arkhē, "authority, sovereignty, realm, magistracy")[31]
+ -ισμός (-ismos, from the
suffix -ιζειν, -izein "-izing"). "Anarchists" was the term adopted by
Maximilien de Robespierre to attack those on the left whom he had used for
his own ends during the French Revolution but was determined to get rid of,
though among these "anarchists" there were few who exhibited the social revolt
characteristics of later anarchists. There would be many revolutionaries of the
early nineteenth century who contributed to the anarchist doctrines of the next
generation, such as
William Godwin and
Wilhelm Weitling, but they did not use the word "anarchist" or "anarchism"
in describing themselves or their beliefs.[32]
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was the first political philosopher to call himself
an anarchist, making the formal birth of anarchism the mid-nineteenth century.
Since the 1890s from France,[33]
the term "libertarianism" has often been used as a synonym for anarchism[34]
and was used almost exclusively in this sense until the 1950s in the United
States;[35]
its use as a synonym is still common outside the United States.[36]
On the other hand, some use "libertarianism"
to refer to individualistic free-market philosophy only, referring to
free-market anarchism as "libertarian
anarchism".[37][38]
SEE THE HISTORY OF ANARCHISM ON THIS PAGE:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism
CAPITALIST
Capitalism is an
economic system based on the
private ownership of the
means of production, with the goal of making a
profit.[1][2][3]
Central elements of capitalism include
capital accumulation,
competitive markets, and a
price
system.[4]
There are, however, multiple variants of capitalism, including
laissez-faire,
welfare capitalism, and
state capitalism. Capitalism is considered to have been applied in a variety
of historical cases, varying in time, geography, politics, and culture.[5]
There is general agreement that capitalism became dominant in the
Western world following the
demise of feudalism.[6]
Economists,
political economists, and
historians
have taken different perspectives in their analysis of capitalism.
Laissez-faire economists emphasize the degree to which
government
does not have control over markets and the importance of
property rights.[7][8]
Others emphasize the need for government regulation, to prevent
monopolies and to soften the effects of the
boom
and bust cycle.[9]
Most political economists emphasize private property as well, in addition to
power relations, wage labor,
class, and the uniqueness of capitalism as a historical formation.[10]
The extent to which different markets are free, as well as the rules defining
private property, is a matter of politics and
policy. Many
states have what are termed
mixed
economies, referring to the varying degree of
planned and
market-driven elements in an economic system.[10]
Proponents of capitalism use historical precedent to claim that it is the
greatest wealth-producing system known to man, and that its benefits are mainly
to the ordinary person.[11]
Critics of capitalism associate it with economic instability[12]
and its inability to provide for the wellbeing of all people.[13]
The term capitalism, in its modern sense, comes from the writings of
Karl Marx.[5][14]
In the 20th century defenders of the capitalist system often replaced the terms
capitalism with phrases such as free enterprise and private
enterprise and capitalist with
investor
or
rentier in reaction to the negative connotations sometimes associated
with capitalism.[15]
Economic elements
There are a number of different elements in the capitalist socio-economic
system.
Capitalism is defined as a social and economic system where capital assets
are mainly owned and controlled by private persons, where labor is purchased for
money wages, capital gains accrue to private owners, and the price mechanism is
utilized to allocate capital goods between uses. The extent to which the price
mechanism is used, the degree of competitiveness, and government intervention in
markets distinguish exact forms of capitalism.[16]
There are different variations of capitalism which have different
relationships to markets and the state. In free-market and
laissez-faire forms of capitalism, markets are utilized most extensively
with minimal or no regulation over the pricing mechanism. In
interventionist and mixed economies, markets continue to play a dominant
role but are regulated to some extent by government in order to correct
market failures, promote
social welfare, conserve natural resources, and fund
defense and
public safety. In
state capitalist systems, markets are relied upon the least, with the state
relying heavily on
state-owned enterprises or indirect economic planning to accumulate capital.
Capitalism and capitalist economics is generally considered to be the
opposite of
socialism, which contrasts with all forms of capitalism in the following
ways:
social ownership of the means of production, where returns on the means of
production accrue to society at large, and goods and services are produced
directly for their utility (as opposed to being produced by profit-seeking
businesses).
Money,
capital, and accumulation
Money was primarily a standardized medium of exchange, and final means of
payment, that serves to measure the value of all goods and commodities in a
standard of value. It is an abstraction of economic value and medium of exchange
that eliminates the cumbersome system of
barter by
separating the transactions involved in the exchange of products, thus greatly
facilitating specialization and trade through encouraging the exchange of
commodities. Capitalism involves the further abstraction of money into other
exchangeable assets
and the accumulation of money through ownership, exchange, interest and various
other
financial instruments.
Capital in this sense refers to money used to buy something only in order to
sell it again to realize a financial profit.
The
accumulation of capital refers to the process of "making money", or growing
an initial sum of money through investment in production. Capitalism is based
around the accumulation of capital, whereby
financial capital is invested in order to realize a profit and then
reinvested into further production in a continuous process of accumulation. In
Marxian economic theory, this dynamic is called the
law of
value.
Capital and
financial markets
The defining feature of capitalist markets, in contrast to markets and
exchange in pre-capitalist societies like
feudalism,
is the existence of a market for capital goods (the means of production),
meaning exchange-relations (business relationships) exist within the production
process. Additionally, capitalism features a
market for labor. This distinguishes the capitalist market from
pre-capitalist societies which generally only contained market exchange for
final goods and secondary goods. The "market" in capitalism refers to
capital markets and
financial markets.
Capitalism is the system of raising, conserving and spending a set monetary
value in a specified market. There are three main markets in a basic
capitalistic economy: labor, goods and services, and financial. Labor markets
(people) make products and get paid for work by the goods and services market
(companies, firms, or corporations, etc.) which then sells the products back to
the laborers. However, both of the first two markets pay into and receive
benefits from the financial market, which handles and regulates the actual money
in the economic system. This includes banks, credit-unions, stock exchanges,
etc. From a monetary standpoint, governments control just how much money is in
circulation worldwide, which can play a role on how money is spent in one's own
country.
Wage labor and
class structure
Wage labor refers to the class-structure of capitalism, whereby workers
receive either a wage or a salary, and owners receive the
profits generated by the factors of production employed in the production of
economic value. Individuals who possess and supply financial capital to
productive ventures become owners, either jointly (as
shareholders) or individually. In Marxian economics these owners of the
means of production and suppliers of capital are generally called capitalists.
The description of the role of the capitalist has shifted, first
referring to a useless intermediary between producers to an employer of
producers, and eventually came to refer to owners of the means of production.[15]
The term capitalist is not generally used by supporters of mainstream
economics.
"Workers" includes those who expend both manual and mental (or creative)
labor in production, where production does not simply mean physical production
but refers to the production of both tangible and
intangible economic value. "Capitalists" are individuals who derive income
from
investments.
Labor includes all physical and mental human resources, including
entrepreneurial capacity and management skills, which are needed to produce
products and services.
Production is the act of making goods or services by applying
labor power.[17][18]
Macroeconomics
Macroeconomics keeps its eyes on things such as inflation: the rate at which
money loses its value over time; growth: how much money a government has and how
quickly it accrues money; unemployment, and rates of trade between other
countries. Whereas microeconomics deals with individual firms, people, and other
institutions that work within a set frame work of rules to balance prices and
the workings of a singular government.
Both micro and macroeconomics work together to form a single set of evolving
rules and regulations. Governments (the macroeconomic side) set both national
and international regulations that keep track of prices and corporations'
(microeconomics) growth rates, set prices, and trade, while the corporations
influence what federal laws are set.[19][20][21]
Types of capitalism
There are many variants of capitalism in existence that differ according to
country and region. They vary in their institutional makeup and by their
economic policies. The common features among all the different forms of
capitalism is that they are based on the production of goods and services for
profit, predominately market-based allocation of resources, and they are
structured upon the accumulation of capital. The major forms of capitalism are
listed below:
Mercantilism
Mercantilism is a nationalist form of early capitalism that came into
existence approximately in the late 16th century. It is characterized by the
intertwining of national business interests to state-interest and imperialism,
and consequently, the state apparatus is utilized to advance national business
interests abroad. An example of this is colonists living in America who were
only allowed to trade with and purchase goods from their respective mother
countries (Britain, France, etc.). Mercantilism holds that the wealth of a
nation is increased through a positive balance of trade with other nations, and
corresponds to the phase of capitalist development called the
Primitive accumulation of capital.
Free-market capitalism
Free-market capitalism refers to an economic system where prices for goods
and services are set freely by the forces of supply and demand and are allowed
to reach their point of equilibrium without intervention by government policy.
It typically entails support for highly competitive markets, private ownership
of productive enterprises.
Laissez-faire is a more extensive form of free-market capitalism where the
role of the state is limited to protecting
property rights.
Social-market economy
A social-market economy is a nominally free-market system where government
intervention in price formation is kept to a minimum but the state provides
significant services in the area of social security, unemployment benefits and
recognition of
labor
rights through national
collective bargaining arrangements. This model is prominent in Western and
Northern European countries, albeit in slightly different configurations. The
vast majority of enterprises are privately owned in this economic model.
Rhine capitalism refers to the contemporary model of capitalism and
adaptation of the social market model that exists in continental Western Europe
today.
State capitalism
State capitalism consists of state ownership of the means of production
within a state, and the organization of state enterprises as commercial,
profit-seeking businesses. The debate between proponents of private versus state
capitalism is centered around questions of managerial efficacy, productive
efficiency, and fair distribution of wealth.
According to Aldo Musacchio, a professor at Harvard Business School, it is a
system in which governments, whether democratic or autocratic, exercise a
widespread influence on the economy, through either direct ownership or various
subsidies. Musacchio also emphasizes the difference between today's state
capitalism and its predecessors. Gone are the days when governments appointed
bureaucrats to run companies. The world's largest state-owned enterprises are
traded on the public markets and kept in good health by large institutional
investors.[22]
Corporate capitalism
Corporate capitalism is a free or mixed-market economy characterized by the
dominance of hierarchical, bureaucratic corporations. State-monopoly capitalism
was originally a
Marxist concept referring to a form of corporate capitalism in which state
policy is utilized to benefit and promote the interests of dominant or
established corporations by shielding them from competitive pressures or by
providing them with subsidies.[citation
needed]
Mixed economy
Main article:
Mixed economyA mixed economy is a largely market-based economy consisting of both private
and public ownership of the means of production and
economic interventionism through macroeconomic policies intended to correct
market failures, reduce unemployment and keep inflation low. The degree of
intervention in markets varies among different countries. Some mixed economies,
such as France under
dirigisme,
also featured a degree of
indirect economic planning over a largely capitalist-based economy.
Most capitalist economies are defined as "mixed economies" to some degree.
Other
Other variants of capitalism include:
Pray For Our Leaders, The Great Commission,
Pray For Our Leaders, The Great Commission,
Considering the responses I have received from this WFTW
series, I had no idea so many had so little understanding of
what Marxism is, and that you would want to learn more. I’m
sure many do not really understand capitalism either. It is
an encouragement that so many of you want to go deeper in
understanding these. I believe this is the work of the Holy
Spirit, Who “searches
all things, even the depths of God” (see I Corinthians
2:10). Those
who are led by the Spirit will not be shallow in their
understanding but will always want to go deeper, especially
in the key issues of our time.
Even though Marxism has not once been successful in
accomplishing even its most basic goals, as they have been
stated, whole nations are still gravitating toward it,
including the U.S. Marxists claim to have a basic goal to
bring equality to all, but in every country that Marxists
take over, they destroy the middle class, elevate the party
members into an elite class, and impoverish everyone else.
Marxism has carried more people into poverty, even resulting
in the starvation of tens of millions of people, than has
ever been done before. That anyone would still view Marxism
as an option is possibly the most extreme example of how
those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.
In contrast, when China recently began moving toward a
market economy allowing capitalism, more people were raised
out of poverty in a shorter period of time than has ever
happened before in human history. Hundreds of millions rose
out of poverty in just a decade. Nothing like this has ever
been seen before. Of course Russia, China, and other former
communist countries are having their problems coping with
rising capitalism, but they are the problems of extreme
growth not stagnation, like those who are turning toward
socialism are dealing with. In China, wealth has grown so
fast it has been like a runaway train.
Capitalism releases human initiative like no other economic
system has ever done. It can go too far and lead to
increasing greed and waste. For this reason, it is not easy
for governments to find the balance that can help keep these
in check, so they often respond by becoming too controlling.
If they impose enough control to completely eliminate greed
and waste, they will have also imposed so much control that
initiative is stifled. However, if they do not impose some
controls, the train will run off of the tracks like it did
in the U.S. in the 2008 crash.
The 2008 crash was the result of greed on the part of just a
few people and companies, which released a form of
speculation that was not based on substance or products, and
the government allowed it to run wild. Then, as is often the
case, our government overreacted and began to over-control
the economy. With this extra weight, our economic train is
barely chugging along at all and is in real danger of
grinding to a complete halt.
We must have government regulations to operate in the modern
world. Government officials are supposed to be like
officials in a football game. Without rules the game cannot
be played. The officials are there to ensure that the game
is played by the rules and to penalize accordingly any who
break the rules. However, with too many rules, or too many
penalties enforced too strictly, the game would become so
frustrating and boring that both players and fans would soon
walk away from it. That is basically why so many great
companies and entrepreneurs have left America in recent
years.
An eagle needs both a left wing and a right wing to fly.
There is merit on both sides. Kept in proper balance, the
left and right can provide the most smoothly running economy
and culture. Since 2008 we made such a hard turn to the left
that the eagle has not been able to get far off the ground
again. When we do rise a little, we end up going in circles
and coming back down fast. Another challenge will come when
people wake up to what is happening. Will they be wise
enough not to overreact and swing too far to the right?
I learned as a jet pilot that even when your engine
instruments stay within parameters, if they start
oscillating to extremes, the engine is about to come apart.
We may need to turn far back to the right to get to the
proper balance, but it will take supreme wisdom, courage,
and resolve for our leaders not to go too far, especially
with the national polarization we now have. It is our job to
pray for our leaders. Scripture does not say to just pray
for the good ones, or ones we agree with, but the ones we
have. They need our prayers like never before.
FROM:
http://www.morningstarministries.org/resources/word-week/2013/pray-our-leaders-great-commission-week-51?utm_source=Rick+Joyner%27s+Word+for+the+Week&utm_campaign=7c4d8363e5-WFTW_December_17_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_38a2ee5121-7c4d8363e5-243037029#.SV5mvZt2hnQ
|
NOTE FROM DEE: IF I WAS A CAPITALIST, I WOULDN'T BE IN THE SITUATION
I'M IN NOW, A RENTER WHOSE HOUSE IS BEING SOLD OUT FROM UNDER THEM BECAUSE THE
LANDLADY DIED.
I'M CERTAINLY NOT AN ANARCHIST BECAUSE I DO SEE THE VALUE OF THE STATE
BECAUSE SOMEONE HAS TO MAINTAIN ROADS, BRIDGES, THE MONETARY SYSTEM, EVEN THOUGH
THEY DON'T DO A GOOD JOB OF EITHER ONE, BUT WE HAVE TO LIVE WITH OTHERS AND
SOMEONE HAS TO MONITOR HOW THE COUNTRY IS RUN. MILLIONS OF PEOPLE CAN'T DO
IT ALONE WITHOUT SOMEONE MAKING SOME RULES. I CERTAINLY DON'T ADVOCATE FOR
DICTATORSHIPS EITHER - THERE HAS TO BE SOME KIND OF SYSTEM THAT MAKES IT
RELATIVELY EASY TO GET ALONG WITH OTHERS IN THE BIG PICTURE.
-
www.greatdreams.com/anti-capitalism.htm
Sep 27, 2002 ... Housing is a headache for
the anarchists. ... Many were steered to the Anti-
Authoritarian Babysitters Club, described as "anarchists watching
...
-
www.greatdreams.com/kent.htm -
If one is to follow the traditional horizontal
line, the far left is made up of communists, socialists and left
anarchists. Communists believe that the wealth created by ...
-
www.greatdreams.com/political/democratic-convention-2004.htm
Jul 29, 2004 ... The Black Tea Society, an
anarchist group, as well as the National ... Anarchists
are also wary of being tracked by the cameras mounted in the ...
-
www.greatdreams.com/John-Lear.htm
Perhaps some anarchists, or some leftover
Marxists who thought they were going to bring down western capitalism.
Or perhaps, the hijackers were another ...
-
www.greatdreams.com/coleman.html
May 25, 2001 ... immigration were opened to
the anarchists and those imported into this country from Eastern
Europe and they came with the concerted ...
-
www.greatdreams.com/war/anti-war.htm
Oct 26, 2002 ... The government is hoping to
avoid infiltration into Italy by members of the Black Bloc — the violent
anarchists blamed for much of the damage ...
-
www.greatdreams.com/brown/ed-brown.htm
Those who claim that everyone but them have been
duped by the IRS to think otherwise are simply anarchists who
egotistically think they are above the rule of ...
-
www.greatdreams.com/blog-2012-2/dee-blog223.html
May 22, 2012 ... The CPC has its origins in
the May Fourth Movement of 1919, where radical political systems like
anarchism and Communism gained traction ...
-
www.greatdreams.com/blog/dee-blog68.html
Anarchism, and Other Essays · Goldman, Emma.
Andersonville A Story of Rebel Military Prisons · McElroy, John.
Architecture and Democracy · Bragdon, Claude ...
-
www.greatdreams.com/mind_control.htm
Apr 26, 2002 ... More programmed "Manchurian
Candidates" will begin anarchistic attacks on the public using
bombs, knives, fires, Molotov cocktails, baseball ...
-
www.greatdreams.com/suspicions.htm
Sep 11, 2001 ... discourses of anti-racism,
of feminism, of environmentalism, and of both socialism and anarchism.
And while there is token resistance by ...
www.greatdreams.com/blog-2012-3/dee-blog314.html
Sep 25, 2012 ... That is the sentiment of
anarchism, and has spread to a certain extent, and is spreading over "the
land of liberty and the home of the brave.
NOTE FROM DEE: I NOTED ABOVE THAT I DID A PAGE ON JOHN GALT, AFTER A MOVIE
CAME OUT ABOUT HIM AND AYN RAND.
BACK IN THE DAY WHEN I READ NOVELS, (WHICH I NO LONGER HAVE TIME FOR) I READ
TWO BOOKS ABOUT AYN RAND AND HER PHILOSOPHIES AND I WAS VERY INTRIGUED BY HER
THOUGHT PROCESSES - THOUGH IT SEEMED A LITTLE FAR OUT CONSIDERING I WAS RAISING
SIX KIDS AND WORKING HARD EVERY DAY TO PROVIDE GOOD, CLEAN FOOD AND CLOTHING FOR
THEM - WHILE THEIR FATHER KEPT A DECENT ROOF ON OUR HOUSE AND TILLED THE GARDEN
WHEN HE WASN'T WORKING THREE JOBS TO KEEP US ALL HEALTHY WITH HEALTH INSURANCE
AND ALL THE REST IT TOOK TO KEEP A FAMILY TOGETHER.
THE TWO BOOKS I READ WERE: THE FOUNTAINHEAD AND ATLAS SHRUGGED.
LETS TAKE A LOOK AT AYN RAND NOW THEN:
-
www.atlassociety.org/ayn_rand
Ayn Rand is America's most controversial
individualist. She was a bold woman who produced brilliant works fusing
fiction and philosophy.
-
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ukJiBZ8_4k -
Jan 9, 2008 ... In this engaging 1959
interview, her first on television, Ayn Rand capsulizes her
philosophy for CBS's Mike Wallace. The discussion ranges ...
-
www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/ayn_rand.html -
Enjoy the best Ayn Rand Quotes at
BrainyQuote. Quotations by Ayn Rand, Russian Writer, Born
February 2, 1905. Share with your friends.
-
www.alternet.org/story/149721/ayn_rand_railed_against_government_benefits,_...
Jan 28, 2011 ... At least she put up a fight
before succumbing to the imperatives of the real world.
-
nymag.com/arts/books/features/60120/ -
Oct 18, 2009 ... Ayn Rand never got
into an argument she couldn't win. Except, perhaps, with herself.
-
chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2012/08/19/the-ridiculous-rise-of-ayn-rand/
Aug 19, 2012 ... When the literary editor of
The New Republic asked me to review two new books on Ayn Rand
three years ago, I readily agreed. Rand, the ...
-
www.imdb.com/name/nm0709446/
Ayn Rand, Writer: The Fountainhead. ...
Ayn Rand (pron.:
/ˈaɪn
ˈrænd/;[1]
born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum; February 2 [O.S.
January 20] 1905 – March 6, 1982) was a
Russian-American novelist, philosopher,[2]
playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels,
The Fountainhead and
Atlas Shrugged, and for developing a philosophical system she called
Objectivism. Born and educated in Russia, Rand moved to the United States in
1926. She worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood and had a play produced on
Broadway in 1935–1936. After two early novels that were initially less
successful, she achieved fame with her 1943 novel
The Fountainhead.
In 1957, she published her best-known work, the novel
Atlas Shrugged. Afterward she turned to nonfiction to promote her
philosophy, publishing her own magazines and releasing several collections of
essays until her death in 1982. Rand advocated
reason as the
only means of acquiring
knowledge
and rejected faith and religion. She supported
rational and
ethical egoism, and rejected
ethical altruism. In politics, she condemned the
initiation of force as immoral[3]
and opposed
collectivism and
statism as
well as
anarchism, instead supporting a
minarchist
limited government and
laissez-faire
capitalism,
which she believed was the only social system that protected
individual rights. In art, Rand promoted
romantic realism. She was sharply critical of most philosophers and
philosophical traditions known to her, except for some
Aristotelians and
classical liberals.[4]
Rand's fiction was poorly received by many literary critics,[5]
and academia generally ignored or rejected her philosophy. The
Objectivist movement attempts to spread her ideas, both to the public and in
academic settings.[6]
She has been a significant influence among
libertarians and
American conservatives.[7]
Early life
Rand was born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum (Russian:
Алиса Зиновьевна Розенбаум) on
February 2, 1905, to a
bourgeois
family living in
Saint Petersburg. She was the eldest of the three daughters of Zinovy
Zakharovich Rosenbaum and his wife, Anna Borisovna (née Kaplan), largely
non-observant Jews.
Zinovy Rosenbaum was a successful pharmacist, eventually owning a pharmacy and
the building in which it was located.[8]
Rand found school unchallenging, and said she began writing screenplays at the
age of eight and novels at the age of ten.[9]
She was twelve at the time of the
February Revolution of 1917, during which she favored
Alexander Kerensky over
Tsar
Nicholas II.
The subsequent
October Revolution and the rule of the
Bolsheviks
under
Vladimir Lenin disrupted the comfortable life the family had previously
enjoyed. Her father’s pharmacy business was confiscated and the family
displaced. They fled to the
Crimea, which
was initially under control of the
White Army during the
Russian Civil War. She later recalled that while in high school she
determined that she was an
atheist and
that she valued
reason above any other human virtue. After graduating from high school in
the Crimea at 16, Rand returned with her family to Petrograd (the new name for
Saint Petersburg), where they faced desperate conditions, on occasion nearly
starving.[10][11]
After the Russian Revolution, universities were opened to women, allowing
Rand to be in the first group of women to enroll at
Petrograd State University,[12]
where she studied in the department of
social pedagogy, majoring in history.[13]
At the university she was introduced to the writings of
Aristotle
and Plato,[14]
who would be her greatest influence and counter-influence, respectively.[15]
A third figure whose philosophical works she studied heavily was
Friedrich Nietzsche.[16]
Able to read French, German and Russian, Rand also discovered the writers
Fyodor Dostoevsky,
Victor
Hugo,
Edmond Rostand, and
Friedrich Schiller, who became her perennial favorites.[17]
Along with many other "bourgeois" students, Rand was purged from the
university shortly before graduating. However, after complaints from a group of
visiting foreign scientists, many of the purged students were allowed to
complete their work and graduate,[18]
which Rand did in October 1924.[19]
She subsequently studied for a year at the State
Technicum
for Screen Arts in Leningrad. For one of her assignments, she wrote an essay
about the
Polish actress
Pola Negri,
which became her first published work.[20]
By this time she had decided her professional surname for writing would be
Rand,[21]
possibly as a
Cyrillic contraction of her birth surname,[22]
and she adopted the first name Ayn, either from a
Finnish name or from the
Hebrew word עין (ayin,
meaning "eye").[23]
Arrival in America
In 1925, Rand was granted a
visa to visit American relatives. She was so impressed with the skyline of
Manhattan
upon her arrival in
New York Harbor that she cried what she later called "tears of splendor".[24]
Intent on staying in the United States to become a screenwriter, she lived for a
few months with relatives in
Chicago, one of whom owned a movie theater and allowed her to watch dozens
of films for free. She then set out for
Hollywood, California.[25]
Initially, Rand struggled in Hollywood and took odd jobs to pay her basic
living expenses. A chance meeting with famed director
Cecil B. DeMille led to a job as an
extra in his film
The King of Kings as well as subsequent work as a junior screenwriter.[26]
While working on The King of Kings, she met an aspiring young actor,
Frank O'Connor; the two were married on April 15, 1929. Rand
became an American citizen in 1931. Taking various jobs during the 1930s to
support her writing, she worked for a time as the head of the costume department
at
RKO Studios.[27]
She made several attempts to bring her parents and sisters to the United States,
but they were unable to acquire permission to emigrate.[28]
Early fiction
Rand's first literary success came with the sale of her screenplay
Red Pawn
to
Universal Studios in 1932, although it was never produced.[29]
This was followed by the courtroom drama
Night of January 16th, first produced by
E.E. Clive in Hollywood in 1934 and then successfully reopened on
Broadway in 1935. Each night the "jury" was selected from members of the
audience, and one of the two different endings, depending on the jury's
"verdict", would then be performed.[30]
In 1941,
Paramount Pictures produced a movie version of the play. Rand did not
participate in the production and was highly critical of the result.[31]
Rand's first novel, the semi-autobiographical
We
the Living, was published in 1936. Set in
Soviet Russia, it focused on the struggle between the individual and the
state. In a 1959 foreword to the novel, Rand stated that We the Living
"is as near to an autobiography as I will ever write. It is not an autobiography
in the literal, but only in the intellectual sense. The plot is invented, the
background is not..."[32]
Initial sales were slow and the American publisher let it go out of print,[33]
although European editions continued to sell.[34]
After the success of her later novels, Rand was able to release a revised
version in 1959 that has since sold over three million copies.[35]
Without Rand's knowledge or permission, the novel was made into a pair of
Italian films, Noi vivi and Addio, Kira, in 1942. Rediscovered in
the 1960s, these films were re-edited into a new version which was approved by
Rand and re-released as We the Living in 1986.[36]
Her novella
Anthem was written during a break from the writing of her next major
novel, The Fountainhead. It presents a vision of a
dystopian future world in which
totalitarian collectivism has triumphed to such an extent that even the word
'I' has been forgotten and replaced with 'we'.[37]
It was published in England in 1938, but Rand initially could not find an
American publisher. As with We the Living, Rand's later success allowed
her to get a revised version published in 1946, which has sold more than 3.5
million copies.[38]
The Fountainhead and political activism
During the 1940s, Rand became politically active. Both she and her husband
worked full-time in volunteer positions for the 1940 presidential campaign of
Republican
Wendell Willkie. This work led to Rand's first public speaking experiences,
including fielding the sometimes hostile questions from New York City audiences
who had just viewed pro-Willkie
newsreels, an experience she greatly enjoyed.[39]
This activity also brought her into contact with other intellectuals sympathetic
to free-market capitalism. She became friends with journalist
Henry
Hazlitt and his wife, and Hazlitt introduced her to the
Austrian School economist
Ludwig von Mises. Despite her philosophical differences with them, Rand
strongly endorsed the writings of both men throughout her career, and both of
them expressed admiration for her. Once Mises referred to Rand as "the most
courageous man in America", a compliment that particularly pleased her because
he said "man" instead of "woman".[40]
Rand also developed a friendship with libertarian writer
Isabel Paterson. Rand questioned the well-informed Paterson about American
history and politics long into the night during their numerous meetings and gave
Paterson ideas for her only nonfiction book,
The God of the Machine.[41]
Rand's first major success as a writer came with
The Fountainhead in 1943, a romantic and philosophical novel that she
wrote over a period of seven years.[42]
The novel centers on an uncompromising young architect named
Howard Roark and his struggle against what Rand described as
"second-handers"—those who attempt to live through others, placing others above
self. It was rejected by twelve publishers before finally being accepted by the
Bobbs-Merrill Company on the insistence of editor Archibald Ogden, who
threatened to quit if his employer did not publish it.[43]
While completing the novel, Rand was prescribed the amphetamine
Benzedrine
to fight fatigue.[44]
The drug helped her to work long hours to meet her deadline for delivering the
finished novel, but when the book was done, she was so exhausted that her doctor
ordered two weeks' rest.[45]
Her continued use of the drug for approximately three decades may have
contributed to what some of her later associates described as volatile mood
swings.[46]
The Fountainhead eventually became a worldwide success, bringing Rand
fame and financial security.[47]
In 1943, Rand sold the rights for a
film version to
Warner
Bros., and she returned to Hollywood to write the screenplay. Finishing her
work on that screenplay, she was hired by producer
Hal Wallis as a screenwriter and script-doctor. Her work for Wallis included
the screenplays for the
Oscar-nominated
Love Letters and
You
Came Along.[48]
This role gave Rand time to work on other projects, including a planned
nonfiction treatment of her philosophy to be called The Moral Basis of
Individualism. Although the planned book was never completed, a condensed
version was published as an essay titled "The Only Path to Tomorrow", in the
January 1944 edition of
Reader's Digest magazine.[49]
While working in Hollywood, Rand extended her involvement with free-market
and
anti-communist activism. She became involved with the
Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a Hollywood
anti-Communist group, and wrote articles on the group's behalf. She also joined
the anti-Communist
American Writers Association.[50]
A visit by Isabel Paterson to meet with Rand's California associates led to a
final falling out between the two when Paterson made comments that Rand saw as
rude to valued political allies.[51]
In 1947, during the
Second Red Scare, Rand testified as a "friendly witness" before the United
States
House Un-American Activities Committee. Her testimony described the
disparity between her personal experiences in the
Soviet
Union and the portrayal of it in the 1944 film
Song of Russia.[52]
Rand argued that the film grossly misrepresented conditions in the Soviet Union,
portraying life there as being much better and happier than it actually was.[53]
She wanted to also criticize the lauded 1946 film
The Best Years of Our Lives for what she interpreted as its negative
presentation of the business world, but she was not allowed to testify about it.[54]
When asked after the hearings about her feelings on the effectiveness of the
investigations, Rand described the process as "futile".[55]
After several delays, the film version of The Fountainhead was
released in 1949. Although it used Rand's screenplay with minimal alterations,
she "disliked the movie from beginning to end", complaining about its editing,
acting, and other elements.[56]
Atlas
Shrugged and Objectivism
In the years following the publication of The Fountainhead, Rand
received numerous letters from readers, some of whom it profoundly influenced.
In 1951 Rand moved from Los Angeles to New York City, where she gathered a group
of these admirers around her. This group (jokingly designated "The Collective")
included future
Federal Reserve Chairman
Alan Greenspan, a young psychology student named Nathan Blumenthal (later
Nathaniel Branden) and his wife
Barbara, and Barbara's cousin
Leonard Peikoff. At first the group was an informal gathering of friends who
met with Rand on weekends at her apartment to discuss philosophy. Later she
began allowing them to read the drafts of her new novel, Atlas Shrugged,
as the manuscript pages were written. In 1954 Rand's close relationship with the
younger Nathaniel Branden turned into a romantic affair, with the consent of
their spouses.[57]
Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957, was Rand's
magnum
opus.[58]
Rand described the theme of the novel as "the role of the mind in man's
existence—and, as a corollary, the demonstration of a new moral philosophy: the
morality of rational self-interest."[59]
It advocates the core tenets of Rand's philosophy of
Objectivism and expresses her concept of human achievement. The plot
involves a
dystopian United States in which the most creative industrialists,
scientists and artists go on
strike and retreat to a mountainous hideaway where they build an independent
free economy. The novel's hero and leader of the strike,
John Galt,
describes the strike as "stopping the motor of the world" by withdrawing the
minds of the individuals most contributing to the nation's wealth and
achievement. With this fictional strike, Rand intended to illustrate that
without the efforts of the rational and productive, the economy would collapse
and society would fall apart. The novel includes elements of
romance,[60][61]
mystery, and
science fiction,[62]
and it contains Rand's most extensive statement of Objectivism in any of her
works of fiction, a lengthy monologue delivered by Galt.
Despite many negative reviews, Atlas Shrugged became an international
bestseller, and in an interview with
Mike Wallace, Rand declared herself "the most creative thinker alive".[63]
After completing the novel, Rand fell into a severe depression.[64]
Atlas Shrugged was Rand's last completed work of fiction; a turning point
in her life, it marked the end of Rand's career as a novelist and the beginning
of her role as a popular philosopher.[65]
In 1958 Nathaniel Branden established Nathaniel Branden Lectures, later
incorporated as the
Nathaniel Branden Institute (NBI), to promote Rand's philosophy. Collective
members gave lectures for NBI and wrote articles for
Objectivist periodicals that she edited. Rand later published some of these
articles in book form. Critics, including some former NBI students and Branden
himself, have described the culture of NBI as one of intellectual conformity and
excessive reverence for Rand, with some describing NBI or the
Objectivist movement itself as a
cult or religion.[66]
Rand expressed opinions on a wide range of topics, from literature and music to
sexuality and facial hair, and some of her followers mimicked her preferences,
wearing clothes to match characters from her novels and buying furniture like
hers.[67]
Rand was unimpressed with many of the NBI students[68]
and held them to strict standards, sometimes reacting coldly or angrily to those
who disagreed with her.[69]
However, some former NBI students believe the extent of these behaviors has been
exaggerated, with the problem being concentrated among Rand's closest followers
in New York.[70]
Later years
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Rand developed and promoted her Objectivist
philosophy through her nonfiction works and by giving talks to students at
institutions such as
Yale,
Princeton,
Columbia,[71]
Harvard, and
MIT.[72]
She received an honorary doctorate from
Lewis & Clark College in 1963.[73]
She also began delivering annual lectures at the
Ford Hall Forum, responding afterward to questions from the audience.[74]
During these speeches and Q&A sessions, she often took controversial stances on
political and social issues of the day. These included supporting abortion
rights,[75]
opposing the
Vietnam
War and the
military draft (but condemning many
draft dodgers as "bums"),[76]
supporting Israel
in the
Arab-Israeli War of 1973 against
Palestinians and Arabs as "civilized men fighting savages",[77]
saying
European colonists had the right to take land from
American Indians,[78]
and calling
homosexuality "immoral" and "disgusting", while also advocating the repeal
of all laws against it.[79]
She also endorsed several
Republican candidates for President of the United States, most strongly
Barry Goldwater in
1964, whose candidacy she promoted in several articles for The
Objectivist Newsletter.[80]
In 1964 Nathaniel Branden began an affair with the young actress Patrecia
Scott, whom he later married. Nathaniel and Barbara Branden kept the affair
hidden from Rand. When she learned of it in 1968, though her romantic
relationship with Branden had already ended,[81]
Rand terminated her relationship with both Brandens, which led to the closure of
NBI.[82]
Rand published an article in The Objectivist repudiating Nathaniel
Branden for dishonesty and other "irrational behavior in his private life".[83]
Branden later apologized in an interview to "every student of Objectivism" for
"perpetuating the Ayn Rand mystique" and for "contributing to that dreadful
atmosphere of intellectual repressiveness that pervades the Objectivist
movement."[84]
In subsequent years, Rand and several more of her closest associates parted
company.[85]
Rand underwent surgery for
lung
cancer in 1974 after decades of heavy smoking.[86]
In 1976 she retired from writing her newsletter and, despite her initial
objections, was persuaded to allow Evva Pryor, a consultant from her attorney's
office, to sign her up for
Social Security and
Medicare.[87]
During the late 1970s her activities within the Objectivist movement declined,
especially after the death of her husband on November 9, 1979.[88]
One of her final projects was work on a never-completed television adaptation of
Atlas Shrugged.[89]
Rand died of
heart
failure on March 6, 1982, at her home in New York City,[90]
and was interred in the
Kensico Cemetery,
Valhalla, New York.[91]
Rand's funeral was attended by some of her prominent followers, including
Alan Greenspan. A six-foot floral arrangement in the shape of a dollar sign
was placed near her casket.[92]
In her will, Rand named
Leonard Peikoff the heir to her estate.[93]
Philosophy
Rand called her philosophy "Objectivism", describing its essence as "the
concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of
his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his
only absolute."[94]
She considered Objectivism a
systematic philosophy and laid out positions on
metaphysics,
epistemology,
ethics,
political philosophy and
esthetics.[95]
In metaphysics, Rand supported
philosophical realism, and opposed anything she regarded as mysticism or
supernaturalism, including all forms of religion.[96]
In
epistemology, she considered all knowledge to be based on sense perception,
the validity of which she considered axiomatic,[97]
and reason, which she described as "the faculty that identifies and integrates
the material provided by man's senses".[98]
She rejected all claims of non-perceptual or
a priori knowledge, including "'instinct,' 'intuition,' 'revelation,' or
any form of 'just knowing.'"[99]
In her
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, Rand presented a theory of
concept formation and endorsed the rejection of the
analytic–synthetic dichotomy.[100]
In ethics, Rand argued for
rational egoism (rational self-interest), as the guiding moral principle.
She said the individual should "exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing
himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself".[101]
She referred to egoism as "the virtue of selfishness" in her
book of that title,[102]
in which she presented her solution to the
is-ought problem by describing a
meta-ethical theory that based morality in the needs of "man's survival
qua man".[103]
She condemned ethical altruism as incompatible with the requirements of human
life and happiness,[104]
and held that the initiation of force was evil and irrational, writing in
Atlas Shrugged that "Force and mind are opposites".[105]
Rand's political philosophy emphasized individual rights (including property
rights),[106]
and she considered laissez-faire capitalism the only moral social system
because in her view it was the only system based on the protection of those
rights.[107]
She opposed statism, which she understood to include
theocracy,
absolute monarchy,
Nazism,
fascism,
communism,
democratic socialism, and
dictatorship.[108]
Rand believed that rights should be enforced by a constitutionally limited
government.[109]
Although her political views are often classified as conservative or
libertarian, she preferred the term "radical for capitalism". She worked with
conservatives on political projects, but disagreed with them over issues such as
religion and ethics.[110]
She denounced libertarianism, which she associated with
anarchism.[111]
She rejected anarchism as a naïve theory based in
subjectivism that could only lead to collectivism in practice.[112]
Rand's esthetics defined art as a "selective re-creation of reality according
to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments". According to Rand, art allows
philosophical concepts to be presented in a concrete form that can be easily
grasped, thereby fulfilling a need of human consciousness.[113]
As a writer, the art form Rand focused on most closely was literature, where she
considered
Romanticism to be the approach that most accurately reflected the existence
of human free
will.[114]
She described her own approach to literature as "romantic
realism".[115]
Rand acknowledged
Aristotle
as her greatest influence[116]
and remarked that in the
history of philosophy she could only recommend "three A's"—Aristotle,
Aquinas, and Ayn Rand.[117]
Indeed her debt to
Aristotle
was so great that in a 1959 interview with
Mike Wallace, when asked where her philosophy came from, she responded: "Out
of my own mind, with the sole acknowledgement of a debt to Aristotle who is the
only philosopher who ever influenced me. I devised the rest of my philosophy
myself."[118]
However, she also found early inspiration in
Friedrich Nietzsche,[119]
and scholars have found indications of his influence in early notes from Rand's
journals,[120]
in passages from the first edition of We the Living (which Rand later
revised),[121]
and in her overall writing style.[122]
However, by the time she wrote The Fountainhead, Rand had turned against
Nietzsche's ideas,[123]
and the extent of his influence on her even during her early years is disputed.[124]
Among the philosophers Rand held in particular disdain was
Immanuel Kant, whom she referred to as a "monster",[125]
although philosophers George Walsh[126]
and Fred Seddon[127]
have argued that she misinterpreted Kant and exaggerated their differences.
Rand said her most important contributions to philosophy were her "theory of
concepts, [her] ethics, and [her] discovery in politics that evil—the violation
of rights—consists of the initiation of force".[128]
She believed epistemology was a foundational branch of philosophy and considered
the advocacy of reason to be the single most significant aspect of her
philosophy,[129]
stating, "I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism;
and I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one
recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest
follows."[130]
Reception and legacy
Reviews
During Rand's lifetime, her work evoked both extreme praise and condemnation.
Rand's first novel, We the Living, was admired by the literary critic
H.L. Mencken,[131]
her Broadway play Night of January 16th was both a critical and popular
success,[132]
and The Fountainhead was hailed by a reviewer in
The New York Times as "masterful".[133]
Rand's novels were derided by some critics when they were first published as
being long and melodramatic.[5]
However, they became
bestsellers
largely through word of mouth.[134]
The first reviews Rand received were for Night of January 16th.
Reviews of the production were largely positive, but Rand considered even
positive reviews to be embarrassing because of significant changes made to her
script by the producer.[132]
Rand believed that her first novel, We the Living, was not widely
reviewed, but Rand scholar Michael S. Berliner says "it was the most reviewed of
any of her works", with approximately 125 different reviews being published in
more than 200 publications. Overall these reviews were more positive than the
reviews she received for her later work.[135]
Her 1938 novella Anthem received little attention from reviewers, both
for its first publication in England and for subsequent re-issues.[136]
Rand's first bestseller, The Fountainhead, received far fewer reviews
than We the Living, and reviewers' opinions were mixed.[137]
There was a positive review in The New York Times that Rand greatly
appreciated.[138]
The reviewer called Rand "a writer of great power" who wrote "brilliantly,
beautifully and bitterly", and stated that "you will not be able to read this
masterful book without thinking through some of the basic concepts of our time".[133]
There were other positive reviews, but Rand dismissed most of them as either not
understanding her message or as being from unimportant publications.[137]
Some negative reviews focused on the length of the novel,[5]
such as one that called it "a whale of a book" and another that said "anyone who
is taken in by it deserves a stern lecture on paper-rationing". Other negative
reviews called the characters unsympathetic and Rand's style "offensively
pedestrian".[137]
Rand's 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged was widely reviewed, and many of the
reviews were strongly negative.[5][139]
In the
National Review, conservative author
Whittaker Chambers called the book "sophomoric" and "remarkably silly". He
described the tone of the book as "shrillness without reprieve" and accused Rand
of supporting a Godless system (which he related to that of the
Soviets), claiming "From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice
can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: 'To a gas chamber—go!'"[140]
Atlas Shrugged received positive reviews from a few publications,
including praise from the noted book reviewer
John Chamberlain,[139]
but Rand scholar
Mimi Reisel Gladstein later wrote that "reviewers seemed to vie with each
other in a contest to devise the cleverest put-downs", calling it "execrable
claptrap" and "a nightmare"; they said it was "written out of hate" and showed
"remorseless hectoring and prolixity".[5]
Author
Flannery O'Connor wrote in a letter to a friend that "The fiction of Ayn
Rand is as low as you can get re fiction. I hope you picked it up off the floor
of the subway and threw it in the nearest garbage pail."[141]
Rand's nonfiction received far fewer reviews than her novels had. The tenor
of the criticism for her first nonfiction book,
For the New Intellectual, was similar to that for Atlas Shrugged,[142][143]
with philosopher
Sidney
Hook likening her certainty to "the way philosophy is written in the Soviet
Union",[144]
and author
Gore Vidal calling her viewpoint "nearly perfect in its immorality".[145]
Her subsequent books got progressively less attention from reviewers.[142]
On the 100th anniversary of Rand's birth in 2005, Edward Rothstein, writing
for The New York Times, referred to her fictional writing as quaint
utopian "retro fantasy" and programmatic
neo-Romanticism of the misunderstood artist, while criticizing her
characters' "isolated rejection of democratic society".[146]
In 2007, book critic Leslie Clark described her fiction as "romance novels with
a patina of
pseudo-philosophy".[147]
In 2009, GQ's
critic columnist Tom Carson described her books as "capitalism's version of
middlebrow religious novels" such as
Ben-Hur and the
Left
Behind series.[148]
Popular interest
In 1991, a survey conducted for the
Library of Congress and the
Book-of-the-Month Club asked club members what the most influential book in
the respondent's life was. Rand's Atlas Shrugged was the second most
popular choice, after the
Bible.[149]
Rand's books continue to be widely sold and read, with 25 million copies sold as
of 2007[150]
and another 500,000 sold and 300,000 donated by the
Ayn Rand Institute in 2008.[151]
Although Rand's influence has been greatest in the United States, there has been
international interest in her work.[152]
Rand's work continues to be among the top sellers among books in India.[153]
Rand's contemporary admirers included fellow novelists, such as
Ira Levin,
Kay Nolte Smith and
L.
Neil Smith, and later writers such as
Erika
Holzer and
Terry Goodkind have been influenced by her.[154]
Other artists who have cited Rand as an important influence on their lives and
thought include
comic book
artist
Steve Ditko[155]
and musician
Neil Peart
of Rush.[156]
Rand provided a positive view of business, and in response business executives
and entrepreneurs have admired and promoted her work.[157]
John Allison of BB&T and
Ed Snider
of Comcast Spectacor have funded the promotion of Rand's ideas,[158]
while Mark
Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, and
John P. Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, among others, have said they consider
Rand crucial to their success.[159]
Rand and her works have been referred to in a variety of media: on television
shows including animated sitcoms, live-action comedies, dramas, and game shows,[160]
as well as in movies and video games.[161]
She, or characters based on her, figure prominently (in positive and negative
lights) in literary and science fiction novels by prominent American authors.[162]
Nick Gillespie, editor in chief of
Reason, has remarked that "Rand's is a tortured immortality, one in
which she's as likely to be a punch line as a protagonist..." and that "jibes at
Rand as cold and inhuman, run through the popular culture".[163]
Two movies have been made about Rand's life. A 1997 documentary film,
Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life, was nominated for the
Academy Award for Documentary Feature.[164]
The Passion of Ayn Rand, a 1999 television adaptation of the
book of the same name, won several awards.[150]
Rand's image also appears on a
U.S. postage stamp designed by artist
Nick
Gaetano.[165]
Political influence
Although she rejected the labels "conservative" and "libertarian",[166]
Rand has had continuing influence on
right-wing politics and libertarianism.[7]
Jim Powell, a senior fellow at the
Cato Institute, considers Rand one of the three most important women (along
with
Rose Wilder Lane and
Isabel Paterson) of modern American libertarianism,[167]
and
David Nolan, one of the founders of the
Libertarian Party, stated that "without Ayn Rand, the libertarian movement
would not exist".[168]
In his history of the
libertarian movement, journalist
Brian Doherty described her as "the most influential libertarian of the
twentieth century to the public at large",[149]
and biographer Jennifer Burns referred to her as "the ultimate gateway drug to
life on the right".[169]
She faced intense opposition from
William F. Buckley, Jr. and other contributors for the
National Review magazine. They published numerous criticisms in the
1950s and 1960s by
Whittaker Chambers,
Garry
Wills, and
M. Stanton Evans. Nevertheless, her influence among conservatives forced
Buckley and other National Review contributors to reconsider how
traditional notions of virtue and Christianity could be integrated with support
for capitalism.[170]
The political figures who cite Rand as an influence are usually conservatives
(often members of the United States Republican Party),[171]
despite Rand taking some positions that are atypical for conservatives, such as
being
pro-choice and an atheist.[172]
A 1987 article in
The New York Times referred to her as the
Reagan administration's "novelist laureate".[173]
Republican
Congressmen and conservative
pundits have acknowledged her influence on their lives and recommended her
novels.[174]
The
late-2000s financial crisis spurred renewed interest in her works,
especially Atlas Shrugged, which some saw as foreshadowing the crisis,[175]
and opinion articles compared real-world events with the plot of the novel.[176]
During this time, signs mentioning Rand and her fictional hero
John Galt
appeared at
Tea Party protests.[177]
There was also increased criticism of her ideas, especially from the
political left, with critics blaming the economic crisis on her support of
selfishness and
free markets, particularly through her influence on
Alan Greenspan.[178]
For example,
Mother Jones remarked that "Rand's particular genius has always been her
ability to turn upside down traditional hierarchies and recast the wealthy, the
talented, and the powerful as the oppressed",[172]
while
The Nation alleged similarities between the "moral syntax of Randianism"
and fascism.[179]
Academic reaction
During Rand's lifetime her work received little attention from academic
scholars.[6]
When the first academic book about Rand's philosophy appeared in 1971, its
author declared writing about Rand "a treacherous undertaking" that could lead
to "guilt by association" for taking her seriously.[180]
A few articles about Rand's ideas appeared in academic journals before her death
in 1982, many of them in
The Personalist.[181]
One of these was "On the Randian Argument" by libertarian philosopher
Robert Nozick, who argued that her
meta-ethical argument is unsound and fails to solve the
is–ought problem posed by
David Hume.[182]
Some responses to Nozick by other academic philosophers were also published in
The Personalist arguing that Nozick misstated Rand's case.[181]
Academic consideration of Rand as a literary figure during her life was even
more limited. Academic Mimi Gladstein was unable to find any scholarly articles
about Rand's novels when she began researching her in 1973, and only three such
articles appeared during the rest of the 1970s.[183]
Since Rand's death, interest in her work has gradually increased.[184]
Historian Jennifer Burns has identified "three overlapping waves" of scholarly
interest in Rand, the most recent of which is "an explosion of scholarship"
since the year 2000.[185]
However, few universities currently include Rand or Objectivism as a
philosophical specialty or research area, with many literature and philosophy
departments dismissing her as a pop culture phenomenon rather than a subject for
serious study.[186]
Gladstein,
Chris Matthew Sciabarra,
Allan Gotthelf,
Edwin A. Locke and
Tara Smith have taught her work in academic institutions. Sciabarra co-edits
the
Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, a nonpartisan peer-reviewed journal
dedicated to the study of Rand's philosophical and literary work.[187]
In 1987 Gotthelf helped found the Ayn Rand Society with George Walsh and David
Kelley, and has been active in sponsoring seminars about Rand and her ideas.[188]
Smith has written several academic books and papers on Rand's ideas, including
Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist, a volume on Rand's
ethical theory published by
Cambridge University Press. Rand's ideas have also been made subjects of
study at
Clemson and
Duke universities.[189]
Scholars of English and American literature have largely ignored her work,[190]
although attention to her literary work has increased since the 1990s.[191]
Rand scholars Douglas Den Uyl and
Douglas B. Rasmussen, while stressing the importance and originality of her
thought, describe her style as "literary, hyperbolic and emotional".[192]
Philosopher Jack Wheeler says that despite "the incessant bombast and continuous
venting of Randian rage", Rand's ethics are "a most immense achievement, the
study of which is vastly more fruitful than any other in contemporary thought."[193]
In the
Literary Encyclopedia entry for Rand written in 2001,
John David Lewis declared that "Rand wrote the most intellectually
challenging fiction of her generation".[194]
In a 1999 interview in the
Chronicle of Higher Education, Sciabarra commented, "I know they laugh
at Rand", while forecasting a growth of interest in her work in the academic
community.[195]
Philosopher
Michael Huemer has argued that very few people find Rand's ideas convincing,
especially her ethics,[196]
which he believes is difficult to interpret and may lack logical coherence.[197]
He attributes the attention she receives to her being a "compelling writer",
especially as a novelist. Thus, Atlas Shrugged outsells not only the
works of other philosophers of
classical liberalism as
Ludwig von Mises,
Friedrich Hayek, or
Frederic Bastiat, but also Rand's own non-fiction works.[196]
Political scientist
Charles Murray, while praising Rand's literary accomplishments, criticizes
her claim that her only "philosophical debt" was to Aristotle, instead asserting
that her ideas were derivative of previous thinkers such as
John Locke
and
Friedrich Nietzsche. According to Murray, "By insisting that Objectivism had
sprung full blown from her own mind, with just a little help from Aristotle,
Rand was being childish, as well as out of touch with reality."[198]
Although Rand maintained that Objectivism was an integrated philosophical
system, philosopher Robert H. Bass has argued that her central ethical ideas are
inconsistent and contradictory to her central political ideas.[199]
Objectivist movement
In 1985, Rand's heir Leonard Peikoff established the
Ayn Rand Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting Rand's
ideas and works. In 1990, philosopher
David
Kelley founded the Institute for Objectivist Studies, now known as
The Atlas Society.[200]
In 2001 historian John McCaskey organized the Anthem Foundation for Objectivist
Scholarship, which provides grants for scholarly work on Objectivism in
academia.[201]
The charitable foundation of
BB&T Corporation has also given grants for teaching Rand's ideas or works.
The
University of Texas at Austin, the
University of Pittsburgh, and
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are among the schools that have
received grants. In some cases these grants have been controversial due to their
requiring research or teaching related to Rand.[202]
- Novels
- Other fiction
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|
- Non-fiction
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On 5-19-13 - I WAS INTRODUCED TO OUR NEW BEST FRIEND WHO IS STILL ALIVE.
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