Article Archives by Subject:  Rand

11-20-2012

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Free Books
Subject: Free Objectivist Books for Students

Jason Crawford is an Objectivist who blogs at The Rational Egoist. He has created a website which acts as an exchange between students who would like to read one of the books in the Objectivist canon and individuals who are willing to provide the book or books to be read. His site is simply called:
Free Objectivist Books for Students


Here is a bit of what Jason has to say about this project:
    About this site

      This site gets donors to send Objectivist books (books by Ayn Rand or about her philosophy of Objectivism) to students who would like to read them. Our goal is to get more students reading Ayn Rand.

    How it works
      Students create a simple public profile with their name and school, and say what book they want to read. Donors browse a list of students and choose which ones they want to send books to. The donors send the books to the students directly.

    Can I donate used books?
      Yes, used books are fine.

    Do I have to mail the books myself?   Can I just buy them online?:
      Yes, that's fine. Many donors buy books on Amazon or AbeBooks and ship them directly to students. No need to pack boxes or visit the post office.

    What will you do with my info?
      Your public profile shows only your name and city (and for students, school and area of study). Students and the books they want to read will be displayed publicly on the site so that donors can find them and fulfill their requests.

      Your email address will be used by us to contact you, but will not be displayed publicly. For students, your mailing address will only be shown to the donor who sends your book.

For additional information, check out the Frequently Asked Questions page.

If you are interested in spreading the philosophy of Objectivism, this is one straightforward and reasonably inexpensive way to participate. Click on the link above and help to educate the next generation of intellectuals in the cause of freedom, individual rights and the pursuit of happiness.

02-11-2011

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Atlas Shrugged
Subject: Atlas Shrugged Movie is Opening April 15, 2011

Who is John Galt?

The long awaited movie version of Ayn Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged, is finally being prepared for release.

The first installment of the movie, which is being filmed in three parts corresponding to the three sections of the book, will be seen in limited release on April 15th — tax day — which seems wholly appropriate in symbolically reinforcing the story's theme.

You can visit the official movie website at this link: Atlas Shrugged Movie

The specific cities and theaters where the movie will be initially screened is currently not settled. If you would like to see the movie open in your area, obtain the name and contact information for one or more theater managers who may be interested in showing the film, and forward it to the studio using the following contact form.

Here is the first trailer to be released for the upcoming movie.

If you are interested in helping promote this film, pass the information along to others and link back to this article and/or the official movie website.
04-21-2010

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Jennifer Burns
Subject: Jennifer Burns Doesn't Understand Ayn Rand

Jennifer Burns, the author of Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, weighs in on Greenspan and Rand in a short article titled What Ayn Rand didn't teach: Cronyism. While she gets some points right, including the title of the essay, for a person writing about the market, some of her statements demonstrate an astounding level of ignorance as to the actual nature of how market's function.

Burns repeats Greenspan's now famous rationalization that he was shocked that investors didn't act "rationally" in the latest financial mess.
    "Greenspan brought some of Rand's ideas into the highest reaches of politics. One was her belief in free-markets, widely shared on the right. More damaging in the long run was her assumption that investors were rational. "

Here, she is stating that Greenspan held a tragically flawed view of humanity; one that he swallowed hook, line and sinker from Rand. I'm really getting tired of this gross misrepresentation of Rand's views being repeatedly tarred in the media by her past association with Greenspan during the 1960s and 70s.

During the early 1960s, Greenspan wrote three papers on Antitrust, The Assault on Integrity and Gold and Economic Freedom, which were republished in the collection titled Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, a book which provides an overview of Rand's thoughts regarding the moral as well as practical foundations of laissez-faire capitalism. In 1974, Greenspan became Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to Gerald Ford, and this move was endorsed by Rand who hoped that Greenspan would exert a strong free-market influence on government policy. However, Rand died five years before Greenspan was appointed as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, a position that I believe Rand would have criticized as anti-capitalistic. But there can be no doubt that she would have roundly condemned the actual policies followed by Greenspan during his tenure, where he propping up political regimes, manipulating the money supply, and supported a massive increase in bureaucratic regulation of the economy, all the while playing central planner and power broker over the financial institutions upon which all economic activity rests. Greenspan violated most of the positions he had written about in his early papers, including his advocacy of a gold standard, as can be seen in this short video clip. You can also watch Peter Schiff's devastating critique of Greenspan here and here.

What Burns seems to fail to recognize in her article is that there are two wildly different types of economic environments: the free-market and the government controlled, centrally planned economy. In a free market, individuals invest their time, energy and capital in personal pursuits, and trade voluntarily with others who are doing the same. Without going into detail, you can generally rely on others to be attempting to do what is rationally in their own best interest. This is not to say that individuals will not make mistakes — sometimes spectacularly so — but on the whole, you can rely upon their motive to do what is in their interest because, in the absence of outright fraud, there is no "safety net" or fallback plan to protect them from losses incurred by poor judgment. Consequently, they had better pay attention to their actions, and the actions of others with whom they engage, in order to protect their investment. This is what Rand meant when she spoke of investors acting rationally.

However, in the centrally planned economy, the natural checks and balances of the free-market system, provided by the rational self-interest of the participants, have effectively been distorted — in some cases, beyond all recognition. For example, who cares in which bank you invest your savings? If the bank should fail, Uncle Sam's FDIC will bail you out, so why waste time checking up on your bank's underlying stability? Does this mean that the savers are acting irrationally? Not really. The government has eliminated all risk associated with savings deposits, so it would actually be irrational for you or me to invest effort in looking more closely at the operations of our banks, when that effort would not yield us any real advantage. Rationally, our efforts would be more profitably spent elsewhere.

In a similar vein, the government has been imposing so many fiat requirements, and the FED has been manipulating the money supply, interest rates and jacking around with fractional reserve legislation for so long now, that the banks have learned to stop paying attention to the underlying fundamentals of their capital base and investments, and start looking to FED policy and pending legislation to try and determine exactly what actions are truly in their best interest. Now we have TARP and the newly proposed financial regulations which intend to make bailouts a permanent fixture of our economy. And just as FDIC does for depositors, these programs encourage financial institutions to stop devoting as much time worrying about potential risky investments, knowing that they will be rescued in the event of a catastrophe. Or consider how little risk there is when you can borrow money from the Federal Reserve at effectively zero-percent interest rates? Wouldn't the rational investor borrow as much as possible and reinvest it in short term ventures in order to make a quick buck?

The mortgage crisis presents another example. Congress passed legislation mandating that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were to substantially increase their underwriting of sub-prime mortgage loans. This created a market for the packaging and reselling of these loans, and other financial institutions, operating in their rational self interest, stepped up the creation of these bad loans, knowing that they had a ready buyer for their disposal, thereby minimizing the original risk. Their action were also nudged along with a little arm twisting by members of Congress who let it be known that should they not comply, their business life could be made very uncomfortable as a result of intervention by the FED, SEC and future legislation. Is it irrational to take seriously the threats of a mob boss who threatens to break your kneecaps if you don't play ball?

There are many other examples that could be discussed to show similar ways that government perverts normal market functions. But, in all cases, Rand's observation that, in general, people attempt to act rationally, within the context of their knowledge, still holds true. What goes unacknowledged by Burns, Greenspan, the media, the government, and many people who engage in the economy, is the obvious point that when you muck with the properly functioning incentives of the free-market, and replace them with the distorted policies of government planning, then the rules of the game have changed drastically, affecting what elements are now within each participant's rational interest. When Greenspan, or Obama or Burns state that people act irrationally, they show their ignorance in believing that you can manipulate the economic playing field by whatever means you wish, while still expecting everyone else to blindly go along, acting as if the old free-market rules were still in force. They aren't! And a failure to understand this may make the actions of others look irrational, but those "irrational" actions are the direct outcomes of the truly irrational government interventions into the market, where the assumption is that a small group of elite planners can substitute their supreme wisdom for that of millions of unique individuals. They can't!
12-24-2009

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01-20-10
Subject: Let's Strike!

Ken Cook has begun to organize a National Strike Day protest at he website, National Strike - January 20, 2010. The site is only a few days old and is still in the throws of organizational work, including defining exactly the form in which the strike will be executed.

I would like to encourage every reader to visit the site, sign up, and get involved in helping turn this into an event with maximum impact. There is a forum and a set of member blogs where running discussions are being conducted. So please read what has been written and then contribute your own ideas.

Whether striking by withholding goods and services for a period of time in order to demonstrate our numbers and our resolve — or by taking a variety of other actions that strike a note of fear in these entrenched politicians who have shown us their total contempt, it is important to add your efforts to the growing group of citizens across America who have reached the limits of what they are willing to tolerate. Standing shoulder to shoulder, we will march towards freedom and beat back a tyrannical ideology that wishes to enslave us to serve the whims of a ruling elite.

Stand up for your individuality and demand the full set of rights to which you are entitled as an autonomous human being.
12-17-2009

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George Monbiot
Subject: Redefining Humanity

In an article titled, This is bigger than climate change. It is a battle to redefine humanity, published in The Guardian, George Monbiot lays bare the soul and the intend of the entire environmentalist movement.

Describing the Copenhagen climate summit, he states:
    "This is the moment at which we turn and face ourselves. Here, in the plastic corridors and crowded stalls, among impenetrable texts and withering procedures, humankind decides what it is and what it will become."

And like all good socialists, the issue for Monbiot is not what will we, as individuals, become. The only relevant question is what will be the transformation for humanity as a whole — with all of the inconsequential individuals simply forced to conform to the collective will.

And who is to decide this bold new direction for humanity? Well, for Monbiot that's a moot point as the decision has already been cast, with the consequences of that foregone decision sprinkled throughout the remainder of the article. Consider such prescient observations as the following:
    "The meeting at Copenhagen confronts us with our primal tragedy."

    "Now we find ourselves hedged in by the consequences of our nature, living meekly on this crowded planet for fear of provoking or damaging others. We have the hearts of lions and live the lives of clerks."

    "The summit's premise is that the age of heroism is over."

    "[I]t is ... a battle between two world views. The angry men who seek to derail this agreement, and all such limits on their self-fulfilment, have understood this better than we have."

    "[F]ossil fuels have granted the universal ape amplification beyond its Paleolithic dreams. [... allowing] us to live in blissful mindlessness"

    "The angry men know that this golden age has gone; but they cannot find the words for the constraints they hate. Clutching their copies of Atlas Shrugged, they flail around"

    "All those of us whose blood still races are forced to sublimate, to fantasise. In daydreams and video games we find the lives that ecological limits and other people's interests forbid us to live."

    "There is no space for heroism here; all passion and power breaks against the needs of others. This is how it should be"

As Ayn Rand once wrote:
    "Man is the only living species that has the power to act as his own destroyer — and that is the way he has acted through most of his history."

This article perfectly summarizes the real issue behind the environmental movement. I agree that it is concerned with nothing less than the redefinition of humanity. And the vision of that new humanity is as a passive video-gamer, vicariously placated by virtual-acts that were once undertaken in reality. With our lion hearts caged, and all thoughts of heroism ground out of existence, we will all voluntarily accept our new place as clerks and stewards of the planet, and sacrifice ourselves in service to "other people's interests". Nothing more can be expected when the "original sin" of our human nature unavoidably leads to "primal tragedy".

Monbiot articulates the polarity that exists between environmentalists' view of mankind and those held by Ayn Rand. So, who's the destroyer and who's the savior? The choice is yours. Either lay down you copy of Atlas Shrugged and accept your redefined role as a hapless, mindless sheep — or grasp your copy firmly in hand and wield it as the tool it was intended to be, standing proudly in the long tradition of our Paleolithic ancestors who knew how to dream of a better future and then work creatively to realize it.

[Thanks to Robert Tracinski for bringing this article to my attention.]
09-30-2009

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Subject: To All Innocent Fifth Columnists

In 1941, Ayn Rand wrote an open letter to intellectuals, encouraging them to organize in support of individualism as the only means of successfully fighting the collectivist forces of Communism and Nazism. This piece is fully applicable today, identifying the exact nature of our current battle for freedom.

From Wikipedia, a Fifth Column "is a group of people who clandestinely undermine a larger group, such as a nation, from within, to the aid of an external enemy." As Rand makes clear at the beginning of the article, she identified America's Fifth Column as the group of conservatives who failed to think, judge and then act to preserve the rights of the individual and the freedom to which they paid lip service. She was asking the honest among that group to rise to the challenge facing them, openly oppose totalitarianism, and fight for their independence and liberty. From the article:
    "First and above all: what is Totalitarianism? We all hear so much about it, but we don't understand it. What is the most important point, the base, the whole heart of both Communism and Nazism? It is not the "dictatorship of the proletariat," nor the nationalization of private property, nor the supremacy of the "Aryan" race, nor anti-Semitism. These things are secondary symptoms, surface details, the effects and not the cause. What is the primary cause, common to both Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany, and all other dictators, past, present, and future? One idea — and one only: That the State is superior to the individual. That the Collective holds all rights and the individual has none.

    Stop here. This is the crucial point. What you think of this will determine whether you are a mental Fifth Columnist or not. This is the point which allows no compromise. You must choose one or the other. There is no middle. Either you believe that each individual man has value, dignity and certain inalienable rights which cannot be sacrificed for any cause, for any purpose, for any collective, for any number of other men whatsoever. Or else you believe that a number of men — it doesn't matter what you call it: a collective, a class, a race or a State — holds all rights, and any individual man can be sacrificed if some collective good — it doesn't matter what you call it: better distribution of wealth, racial purity or the Millennium — demands it. Don't fool yourself. Be honest about this. Names don't matter. Only the basic principle matters, and there is no middle choice. Either man has individual, inalienable rights — or he hasn't.

    Your intentions don't count. If you are willing to believe that men should be deprived of all rights for a good cause — you are a Totalitarian. Don't forget, Stalin and Hitler sincerely believe that their causes are good. Stalin thinks that he is helping the downtrodden, and Hitler thinks that he is serving his country as a patriot. They are good causes, both of them, aren't they? Then what creates the horrors of Russia and of Germany? What is destroying all civilization? Just this one idea — that to a good cause everything can be sacrificed; that individual men have no rights which must be respected; that what one person believes to be good can be put over on the others by force.

    And if you — in the privacy of your own mind — believe so strongly in some particular good of yours that you would be willing to deprive men of all rights for the sake of this good, then you are as guilty of all the horrors of today as Hitler and Stalin. These horrors are made possible only by men who have lost all respect for single, individual human beings, who accept the idea that classes, races, and nations matter, but single persons do not, that a majority is sacred, but a minority is dirt, that herds count, but Man is nothing.

    Where do you stand on this? There is no middle ground.

Where do you stand? And what will you do in the face of the same threat facing our country? Do not relegate yourself to the fifth column. Act in whatever capacity you can. Speak out. Write articles. Attend local protests. March on Washington. Donate to campaigns to oust the totalitarians from office. Sign the John Galt Pledge. Quoting again from Rand's article:
    "We do not know how many of us there are left in the world. But we think there are many more than the Totalitarians suspect. We are the majority, but we are scattered, unorganized, silenced and helpless. The Totalitarians are an efficient, organized, and very noisy minority. They have seized key positions in our intellectual life and they make it appear as if they are the voice of America. They can, if left unchecked, highjack America into dictatorship. Are we going to let them get away with it? They are not the voice of America. We are. But let us be heard.

    To be heard, however, we must be organized. This is not a paradox. Individualists have always been reluctant to form any sort of organization. The best, the most independent, the hardest working, the most productive members of society have always lived and worked alone. But the incompetent and the unscrupulous have organized. The world today shows how well they have organized. And so, we shall attempt what has never been attempted before — an organization against organization. That is — an organization to defend us all from the coming compulsory organization which will swallow all of society; an organization to defend our rights, including the right not to belong to any forced organization; an organization, not to impose our ideology upon anyone, but to prevent anyone from imposing his ideology upon us by physical or social violence.

    Are you with us?

    [...]

    The world is a beautiful place and worth fighting for. But not without Freedom.    "

Marshall your optimism and man the battle stations!


Read the entire article:          To All Innocent Fifth Columnists


[Thanks to Cloud Downy for bringing this article to my attention.]
09-24-2009

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Subject: Oh Where, Oh Where, Did All The Doctors Go?

Here is a very interesting article: South Africa: Doctor brain drain continues.

The article states:
    "The country is losing 17% of its qualifying doctors every year and, in the four years since 2005, nearly 1,000 new doctors did not register to work, according to government figures."

The author then quotes Mike Waters, the shadow minister of health for the official opposition Democratic Alliance as stating:
    "It mirrors the depth of dissatisfaction among doctors over South Africa's public health system."

What is interesting about this is that South Africa seems to have the type of medical system being proposed for the United States. Medical schools are state-run and student tuition is subsidized by the government. In addition to a year of internship, graduates are also required to contribute twelve months of their life to community service at a state-run health institution before being allowed to obtain a license to practice medicine. The majority of the health care system is run by the government, and is available without charge to roughly 80% of the population. And yet, despite this idyllic set-up, there appears to be problems in paradise.

As the article explains:
    "Community service doctors and interns are crucial to the public health system, which suffers a 40% vacancy problem. Newly graduated doctors are expected to 'give back' to the community, and they are often deployed to very remote and under-equipped hospitals where their skills are most needed. Working conditions are often extremely difficult."

    "South Africa employs 18,000 doctors in state-run hospitals — or one doctor for every 3,800 people without medical aid"

Ravick van der Merwe, an industrial relations adviser for the South African Medical Association states:
    "Considering the money they will earn after five years, new doctors might run away even before they enroll for community service. The remuneration that they get is not enough for some to pay back loans that they would have borrowed."

What ideas are being considered to solve this problem? The article states:
    "One way of trying to ease the medical brain drain is to select students who display social responsibility and a commitment to the country and to communities, especially in rural areas."

Well, if I was really ill or injured and required extensive or complicated medical assistance, I know that I would much rather have a doctor who pursued that career out of self-interest, following their thirst for knowledge and love of that type of work. Those are qualities that I can rely upon in a critical situation. I would not be comforted to know that the criteria used to select my doctor was "commitment to the country and to communities." He might be a warm body filling a space in a hospital, but a person's "social conscience" tells me nothing about their commitment to themselves and their work! When my life hangs in the balance, I want the self-motivated, competent doctor making the judgment or holding the knife, not the "nice guy".

The article concludes with the following observation:
    "South Africa has been experiencing a brain drain for decades, undermining the regional economy. Previous studies have shown that 25% of medical graduates have been lost to the US alone. And it is not only doctors who move to greener pastures. Official statistics estimate that between one and 1.6 million people skilled in professions and managerial occupations have left the country since 1994, the year South Africa became a democracy."

As those of you who have read Atlas Shrugged know, this "Brain Drain" phenomenon — or the John Galt effect — was described by Ayn Rand as a completely predictable consequence of the ever tightening government regulation of any profession or industry. If we continue to move in the direction that the Obama administration is leading us, this is one aspect of the future awaiting us.
09-20-2009

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Subject: My Response to Frank Rich's Article in the New York Times

On Saturday, September 19th, Frank Rich posted an opinion piece in the New York Times entitled Even Glen Beck Is Right Twice a Day. In this article he attempts to slay many dragons including Joe Wilson, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Ayn Rand, and of course, Glen Beck. He opens his discussion with the following:
    "With all due respect to Jimmy Carter, the racist component of Obama-hatred has been undeniable since the summer of 2008, when Sarah Palin rallied all-white mobs to the defense of the 'real America.' "

and a short time later he writes:
    "The White House was right not to second Carter's motion and cue another 'national conversation about race.' No matter how many teachable moments we have, some people won't be taught."

So, according to Mr. Rich, my dislike for the impact that President Obama's policies and philosophy is having on my life and my future, is rooted in my "undeniable" racial bigotry. And furthermore, I'm too stupid to be "taught" anything, so don't bother trying.

Here is my response to Frank Rich, published in the online comments section.
    It's obvious that those of us who disapprove of Barack Obama's Marxist philosophy and altruistic morality of sacrifice are all simply racist. Why? Well because Frank Rich says so, that's why! That has to be the reason, because such an incredibly insulting statement has no other supporting evidence. Frank, like Jimmy Carter and others, has the god-like power to look into my soul and know, with a certainty that allows him to proclaim it to the world in the pages of the New York Times, that I am a low class bigot. And because of that "fact", Frank is able to dismiss anything that I might have to say as simply the loony rantings of a moron.

    Thanks Frank. I was really confused. I thought that there might be some issues here concerning the abridgment of individual rights; limiting the government's powers to what is enumerated in the Constitution; the shift in our country from a philosophy of individualism to socialism; the right to keep and dispose of my property as I, not the government, see fit; the short and long range trouble being created by an exploding national debt; the inability of the CIA to function in the wake of retroactive criminal investigations; the destruction of our financial institutions as all innovation is crushed under threats of 'clawbacks' and legal prosecution if you take any risks; ... to name just a few. But now I see that all of those "issues" are really just rationalizations I use to cover up my intense hatred of our President because his skin is a few shades darker than my own. Thank you Frank for your moral enlightenment. Oops, just kidding on that last comment!

    The truth is that Frank Rich, Jimmy Carter, and many others operate from an implicit position that those of us who disagree with their outlook and philosophy ARE actually morons. Because anybody with an IQ of 80 would obviously agree with them! The dissenting Glen Beck is just another moron - a broken clock - that could only be right occasionally by accident, but certainly not by dint of intellectual rigor and a proper analysis of the facts. Actually, this makes me start to wonder who the real bigots are?

    Finally, I would like to comment on what a joke it is to refer to Ayn Rand, and then link, as though it were relevant and insightful, to an article by Jonathan Chait in The New Republic. Yes, it's a feel-good piece for everyone who already thinks that Rand was also just another moron. But this reference is not going to do anyone any good if they want to actually discover what Rand, and her philosophy of Objectivism have to say that is relevant to what is happening in our country today. There are plenty of reference sites on the internet that people can explore in order to get a more balanced picture of Rand. What I would recommend is picking up a copy of her book, Atlas Shrugged, and read it. You might be surprised to discover an ominous set of parallels to today's events being depicted, despite the book having been written over 50 years ago. There is a fun game you can play while reading it. See if you can find your favorite politicians and commentators depicted, making statements and taking actions that could come right off of the front page of today's papers. Why, if you read closely enough, you might even find a bit of Frank Rich in there!

    Regards,
    --
    C. Jeffery Small