Was Ayn Rand a Proto-Fascist?

Column by Bob Wallce.
 
Exclusive to STR
 
What a philosophy claims and what it delivers are often two different things. Marxism was supposed to create a heaven on earth but instead created a hell. I think Ayn Rand’s philosophy, Objectivism, would also create a hell on earth.
 
Rand divided people into two groups: her perfect John Galtian heroes, and everyone else – whom she described as “sub-humans” living in “a hell.” She projected all “evil” onto her “looters” and “parasites” and reserved all goodness for her heroes. Such a division does not exist in real life.
 
In fact, this division into human/sub-human is one of the foundations of all wars. This all-good/all-bad split is also the basis of all propaganda, which is why Atlas Shrugged is in many ways a vast propaganda tract. (A good current example of propaganda was when the terminally addled George Bush claimed “the Evil Ones” attacked the United States “for our goodness.”)
 
Rand apparently truly believed when the world collapsed after her two dozen or so heroes withdrew into Galt’s Gulch, they would emerge to rule over the ruins. Would they rule benevolently and establish a permanent free market?
 
The answer: no.
 
The only true, eternal social division that exists is between the “elites” (I use that term neutrally) and the “masses.” I believe it is far more fundamental than “left” and “right.”
 
I’ve heard this split defined as “ranchers” and “cattle.” For thousands of years, way back to Jesus and Aesop, it’s been called “wolves” and “sheep.” Vilfredo Pareto referred to the elites as “wolves” and “foxes.”
 
The purpose of the elites is to maintain their economic and political power – to maintain what James Burnham in his book The Machiavellians called their “power and privilege.” This means using the power of the State to exploit the masses, which are mostly inert until pushed too far by the elites’ lust for blood, power and money. Then many times there is violent payback.
 
All politics is based on force and fraud. As such, the elites will always use those two weapons against the people to maintain their position – force is violence and fraud is lies and propaganda. All States are founded on, and run on, lies and violence.
 
Could Rand’s “perfect” elites be trusted to rule? No. They would use their political power to exploit everyone else to enrich themselves. Her perfect heroes are purely fictional – they don’t exist in real life.
 
This exploitation of the masses by the elites using the power of the States has been the history of the world. Even if Rand’s heroes established the free market, their descendents would overturn it.
 
I am reminded of Lord Acton’s saying: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” I prefer the saying, “Power intoxicates, and immunity corrupts.”
 
As Dostoevsky put it in The House of the Dead, "Tyranny . . . finally develops into a disease. The habit can . . . coarsen the very best man to the level of a beast. Blood and power intoxicate . . . the return to human dignity, to repentance, to regeneration, becomes almost impossible."
 
Political science (perhaps political economy is a better term) should start with how things are, not how scholars and writers want things to be. By starting with how things are, political economy becomes a science, and being a science, cures or prescriptions can be formulated.
 
In physics and chemistry, scientists start with how things are.  Yet, in economics and political science, thinkers/tinkerers often start with how they want things to be, or how things will be if their prescriptions are followed. It’s why there exists that old saying, if you took every economist in the world and laid them end to end, they’d all point in different directions.
 
Rand did not start with how things are. She started with how she wanted things to be. Like all leftists (and she was in many ways a leftist, in addition to being a narcissist), she did not understand human nature, which is why she thought a vanishingly small minority could rule over humanity, permanently establish political and economic liberty, and not become corrupted by unlimited power.
 
This is why there is a very strong probability Objectivism would turn into a fascist State.
 

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Bob Wallace's picture
Columns on STR: 89

Comments

B.R. Merrick's picture

"Rand divided people into two groups: her perfect John Galtian heroes, and everyone else – whom she described as 'sub-humans' living in 'a hell.'"

I believe it is confirmed that Rand was attempting to create perfection with Dagny Taggart, Hank Rearden, Francisco D'Anconia, and John Galt. That is one of her false premises: looking for perfection. But the above quote -- calling all other people "sub-human" -- is there a citation for that? I don't remember that in "Atlas Shrugged," but it was more than a thousand pages.

I also don't remember any effort at all on the part of any of the heroes of the story to "rule" over anyone. They were just exceptionally good at what they did and wanted to be left alone to do it. They never initiated coercion against anyone else.

I disagree with a few of Rand's premises, but not to this extent. Is there any more detailed information on Rand wanting these sorts of people to "rule"?

Robert Wallace's picture

Unfortunately I do not remember where I read Rand's comment about subhumans living in a hell, but I believe it was from Atlas Shrugged.

tzo's picture

Well, here is an article by a guy named Bob Wallace that addresses the comment:

http://personalitycafe.com/critical-thinking-philosophy/18311-secret-tea...

B.R. Merrick's picture

Thanks for the link. It was informative, but I'm still not convinced. The author in the linked article says:

"How could she so gleefully rub out the entire world? How could she so cold-bloodedly kill innocent children in the infamous train-tunnel-collapse scene?"

I didn't read any glee in what she wrote any more than I would read any other author's "glee" in describing terrible events. Rand only killed innocent children in the sense that they only existed in her mind, and she could do what she wanted with the characters she invented. It didn't seem cold-blooded to me. The jerk demanding that a train, any train, get him to his destination, against all logic and concern, was the cold-blooded killer, and that only unintentionally. It seems to me that Rand's purpose was to show the dire consequences of listening to "parasites."

I still do not see anything definitive, from "Atlas Shrugged" or any other writings, where she labeled the entire world as "looters," "parasites" or "sub-humans." I got the impression from the book that those were words reserved for government agents and the businessmen who got into bed with them. Am I wrong?

AtlasAikido's picture

with all due respect I think you are right. I would add that Bob Wall[a]ce's column covers a lot of ground and at the same time none because he assumes on such a grand scale. And this is only the beginning.

John T. Kennedy's picture

"I believe it is confirmed that Rand was attempting to create perfection with Dagny Taggart, Hank Rearden, Francisco D'Anconia, and John Galt. That is one of her false premises: looking for perfection. "

No one could think Rand was holding a mirror up to nature in her novels, she was explaining her ideals. I don't see a problem with ideal characters in literature; there's a pretty long tradition of it.

AtlasAikido's picture

Bob's Proto Fascist posit on Ayn Rand reminds of the following hand sleight:
Kinda funny how Greenspan now is " shocked, just shocked" that Ayn Rands ideas don't really work... After all these years of sitting at her feet! '

Yes, the publicity of a man who acquired his "free-market ideology" sitting at the feet of Ayn Rand and steeped in Objectivism is reported over and over by the media....

How "funny" is this? (Pronunciation: (fun'ē), —adj., -ni•er, -ni•est,—n., pl. -nies.3. warranting suspicion; deceitful; underhanded 5. strange; peculiar; odd.

And how funny is Bob's piece? Let's see it thru a prism that is being played out right now so that we can get a bead on Bob's points…

Yes indeed...

For the media to suggest Greenspan did not operate from a "free-market ideology"--Ayn Rand's position--would throw open the QUESTION of why Greenspan blew up the banking and credit systems.

It would introduce the possibility that he was prone to act as the large financial institutions would like him to act.

It would also reveal the extent to which he – and Bernanke – say and do what Politicians want them to say and do....

The very OPPOSITE of what Rand's ideas stand for. The very things Rand presciently depicted in "Atlas Shrugged": government, companies and media colluding in the name of economic rescue at the expense of the entrepreneur.

And Bob's points? Well they "Objectively" appear to be conflations. And they remind of the media.

Most recently Julian Assange and Bradley Manning--NOT the "heroic" media--shone a spotlight on the STATE welfare-warfare-media-complex.

There is a reason that “Atlas Shrugged” is becoming a Political “Harry Potter”. Ayn Rand SHONE a spotlight on a problem that STILL exists today: Not pre-1989 Soviet communism, but 2011-style State capitalism (Mercantilism / "Fascism")--with its own statist quo media and court appointed historians and its adoring stockholm syndrome patients...

Bob Wall[a]ce's article comes across as a sleight of hand indeed: equating free-market "ideology"--Ayn Rand's position--as "Fascism" (the first and original "Proto" no less) and as "Propaganda".

References:
Economic Depressions: Their Cause and Cure
by Murray N. Rothbard
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard183.html

The Flim Flam Man
An honest man cannot be cheated....
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north138.html

From Wikileaks releases, it is clear that political and military elites are over-classifying documents in order to protect their own asses.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig11/mason-a1.1.1.html

The FED/chariman claim to stabilize the economy but actually provokes instability like the present Greatest Recession.
http://www.theanarchistalternative.info/zgb/index.html

10A001: Endless War by Jim Davies, 7/31/2010
http://www.theanarchistalternative.info/zgb/10A001.htm

10A106 Victim Sanction by Jim Davies, 12/19/2010
http://www.theanarchistalternative.info/zgb/10A106.htm

December 23, 2010 Interview With Julian Assange
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/73973.html

How and why the press was broken and has never recovered--Tom DiLorenzo on Abraham Lincoln, US Authoritarianism Mercantilism and Manipulated History
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo186.html

Amity Shlaes: Ayn Rand’s Atlas Is Shrugging with a Growing Load
http://www.theatlasphere.com/metablog/820.php

Grovelling at the Fed: Greenspan and Bernanke
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/sheehan-f4.1.1.html

Alan Greenspan: Party Boy
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/sheehan-f5.1.1.html

The Malicious Myth of the 'Libertarian' Fed
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo171.html

tzo's picture

I interpreted the column as saying that as long as society has a government, then whatever "free markets" that may exist will eventually be captured by that government. Since Rand insisted that government was a necessity to society, then the end result of her ideal society would be a collection of captured markets, or fascism.

I concur.

Robert Wallace's picture

The article has nohing to do with Alan Greenspan, Murray Rothbard or Ludwig von Mises.

The amusing thing about Randroids is the way they throw conniption fits when anyone impugns Rand and her leftist-militant-atheist (they all go together) nonsense. Objectivists in general are ignorant, not only having never heard of Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, but W. H. Mallock, who eviserated socialism before Rand was even born.

What is "original" in Rand is not good, and what is good in her is not original.

AtlasAikido's picture

Mr Wall[a]ce's Horrid criticisms of Miss Rand bespeak a serious misunderstanding of her philosophy and how they relate to current economic and political events playing out right now a la Greenspan and Bernanke and bureaucracy VS Mises (minarchist), his students Rothbard, LewRockwell and Walter Block (anarchists) who stood on Mises and Ayn Rand's shoulders.

The Ayn Rand Bashing that Bob Wall[a]ce sets himself upon is hardly "original". The Lefties he speaks to have UNsuccessfully tried to smear Ayn Rand as a "socialist" and hippocrite. Is he at the same time conflating Rand with the Lefties that have tried to smear her? It makes no sense.

Not the least Mr Wall[a]ce misconstrues libertarian philosophy and Rand's principles. He has plenty of company. But this is sorted out in my post today with links and supporting points.

AtlasAikido's picture

Re tzo: As long as society has a government, then whatever "free markets" that may exist will eventually be captured by that government. Since Rand insisted that government was a necessity to society, then the end result of her ideal society would be a collection of captured markets, or fascism.

When I read Ayn Rand I got that she wrote a novel about producers who walked away from Mercantilism / Fascism--they're making a movie about it. Ever heard of Shrugging? And that reality is mimicking that. Witness Steve Winn in Macau etc...

I thought "Galt" refused to accept the post of ruling as an Economic Csar and explained why and was UNinterested in convincing controlling and forcing others via govt....

How does that play to your point that Rand "insisted" that govt ruling others is necessary?
I do NOT remember there being NO Politics in Rand's Gulch. Was there politicians and police state apparatus in Galt's Gulch? Wanna live like that but figure statism is going creep in because you think Rand insisted on that?

"Politics [without govt] is not necessarily force and fraud".

How did Rand "insist" that govt is necessary in Galt's Gulch? If people want to talk about a prototype then look to that instead of conflating Marxism with galts' Gulch and Laissez faire.

The prototype sits at your feet.
Feel free to throw out her contribution...

To see the farm is to live it. If she did not spell it out for you in her theory look to her speeches and fiction...and prototype it. But you know this? Or do you?

Where in Bob's article did you read the point supporting your premise?

By the speed of your post you skipped the links I provided which tells me much...perhaps you drop the Ragnar thing too?

References:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/holland/holland19.1.html

tzo's picture

Rand wrote much more than just Atlas shrugged. I have "The Virtue of Selfishness," "Return of the Primitive," and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" in front of me. Are you not familiar with her nonfiction writing? She ridiculed the idea of not having government.

Bob's article perhaps assumes the reader knows this. Is your position that Ayn Rand was for a voluntaryist/anarchist society that would forego a minimal but coercive central government? I have not read Atlas Shrugged (minus the "Ode to Money" part), and so if that is the only work of Rand one is familiar with then perhaps it gives the impression that she endorsed a stateless society.

She did not. If you are interested in more specific references, I could provide them for you.

Rand, in my opinion, put forth some great ideas but in the end was overly rigid and did not remain consistent in her arguments, something she did not tolerate from others.

AtlasAikido's picture

Perhaps you should read her magnum opus. It illuminates what you are missing. Takes me out of the drawing board to the prototype that can be tested and lived and emulated…

Too bad Thoreau had not had "Atlas Shrugged" under his belt. More likely he would not have returned to society.

Apparently you have read a small subset of Rand's works but not all...that Bob Wallace complains are too methodological and thus too made up: A is A, A acts according to A (identity causality etc etc. Objectivist Epistemology would be a good second read)

Yet Rand did not make the mistake of conflating Marxism with Galt's Gulch nor Laissez faire hands off.

Mises of the Austrian school also uses a methodological approach and gave rise to Reed, Rothbard, Tucker, Walter Block, DiLorenzo.

http://mises.org/daily/5158/Mises-on-Mind-and-Method

They refute Keynes boom bust cycle, the Fed Reserve boondoggle and Abe Lincoln...

Unlike Rand, Ludwig Von Mises had no fiction work to prototype what Rand concluded. Which was a private community…..His students took his legacy and brought that to fore.

In that regard she trumped even Mises. But if we follow Bob's assertion this means Mises is worse than Rand and thus no different than Marx and Keynes because Rand and Mises hold to limited govt in all of Mises work but not all of Rand’s work.

The power of the imagination is more powerful than knowledge. That is not just a saying and Einstein proved that and so did Rand (Atlas Shrugging is a very counter intuitive thing to do)--it is Peaceful self ownership personal secession requiring no govt.

If we follow Bob's and your premises: since Mises had still not worked out the limited govt baby in the bath water--that his contribution to boom bust cycle is kaput null and void. And what of the work of his students? Rothbard? Kinsella?

Drop by the Mises.org and Lewrockwell.com I think their anarchism has integrated Rand's prototype and Thoreau's return to society. Since he returned to a society steeped in govt compared to Walden pond does that mean that he was not an anarchist? A failed anarchist? I don’t think so.

And yet in Rand's prototype community of Atlas Shrugged she drops the insistence of the govt that you harp on because it does NOT WORK and and so we have what?
My say so? No. You will know soon enough for yourself.

Bob's piece is ridiculous. Jefferson inherited slavery. So what. Einstein worked in a govt patent office. So what. Rand was a cudmudgeon. So what? We now know that Intellectual Property (patents ad copyright) is a monopoly mine field that held back the division of labor society. There is a thread on this blog regarding IP. Kinsella has done incredible work as has McElroy. Neither Rand nor Mises knew of it yet she intuitively started to front load her book incomes. I am going to be visiting that thread pretty soon..

And the spiral continues to…progress one step as at a time. Rand and Mises cleaned out the Augean stables--but if you ever read Atlas Shrugged you will not be in stable but a portal that Thoreau would have approved of...

I will leave you with this:

Villains in Atlas Shrugged are very much alive and real.

http://mises.org/daily/5218/The-Continued-Relevance-of-Rands-Villains

Excerpt:
For instance, in Atlas Shrugged, the lobbyist Wesley Mouch decries the capitalist Hank Rearden's invention of a wonderful alloy that is stronger than steel. And last week, in the real world, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. took to the house floor to declare that Steve Jobs's iPad was killing jobs. Congress must, according to Jackson, recognize that Apple is driving companies such as Barnes & Noble and Borders out of business, and the company should be stopped in the interests of fairness.

Jackson decried Congress for failing to foster "protection for jobs here in America to ensure that the American people are being put to work." It's as if he wanted us to believe the printing press was harmful to the economy because it decreased the demand for scribes. Such a condemnation of a successful business and a demand for protection of failing industries could easily have been lifted directly from Rand's novel.

Harry Felker's picture

Ok Kids....

First off, in her own words Rand was in Konkinite terms a minarchist, so she did believe in the necessity of a small "government". This extended to protection of physical property and IP, her argument was independent contractors for protection would consistently war, this was Mises' argument as well. Roderick T. Long destroys this logic but that is another thread all together.

AtlasAkido is correct in noting Rand NEVER assumed that the "producers" would rise up as ruling elite (ala Marxist Dictatorship of the Proletariat) in response to their oppression. This is where Wallace starts assuming, but again if we examine Wallace's language (use of the term exploitation) I am unsure of the sincerity of his claim. The idea that there was exploitation of the haves over the have nots was precisely what brought about the fascist regime in Italy.

tzo, Rand's malfunction was not that he was overly rigid, she became a cult of personality, a victim of her own ideas and the lapdogs who surrounded her and as such stopped thinking. This was by her strict thoughts a "mortal sin" and probably was too busy debating Phil Donahue on daytime TV to realize it.

AtlasAikido's picture

Thanks,
Harry Felker

Great points!

AtlasAikido's picture

Some summing up points that come to “inquiring minds” regarding this thread and article.

If Rand is as per Bob Wallace’s piece is a Leftie Proto Fascist and that her Objectivism leads probably to a police state and that she is rigid, and too methodological and therefore made up then what?

I pointed out the same could be said for Mises and worse because his writings did not bear the fruit of anarchy till his students grabbed hold and yet most of those students broke away—shrugged-- from the rock of govt and mercantilism and fascism because of Rand and her prototyped Galt’s Gulch which had politics without govt.

We are talking about an anarchic group of people AND they were not roughing it Thoreau style.
Happily Harry Browne’s “How I Found Freedom in an UNfree World" actually innovated ways to live free and in a gulch OR NOT without group traps, govt trap, morality traps, utopia, Rights and treadmill traps. Whether the model is Mulligan’s (Galts’) Gulch…or seascapes etc

And those same students with triple autodidact pedigrees of Rand, Mises and Browne are correcting the IP thicket as we speak. How could that be? The slippery slope of freedom and self rule--anarchy--has produced this. This is a big deal. See Mises.org on IP. This is the outcome OPPOSITE of what Bob supposes and asserts.

If there is top down rigid made up “Leftie” thinking going on here it is Bob’s modeling of contradictory assumptions and trying to make something that is not.

The Gulch model prototype is self reflecting, innovative and frictionless like. If Rand had to herself Shrug and innoculate herself by writing a book that worked out the kinks then look to that PROTO-TYPE. Not the proto fascist model. Unless you love to waste time...

Rand’s peaceful “Atlantis” like legacy with Galt’s mirage force field is apparently still hidden. It is to George Reisman, and L Peikoff. But Harry Browne actually innovated a way of thinking that was influenced by Roarkes interest in TRADING with compatibles and living with such in a gulch or mobile gulch or on the net at Mises.org and lewrockwell.org

What good is a baby? This is not a put down. Einstein was a kid once. Find out and re-think the gulch that seems to be in some minds still inutero.

If Rand was so rigid? How did she end up prototyping a gulch without the need nor the interest nor the inclination of govt that some are hung up on still. Did she try to make that govt fit. Nope! And she did not re-write all her works. How dare she. She did not have the net. So now who is being rigid here?

She read and re-read and wrote Atlas Shrugged to go there--that chapter--with her friends and went to that gulch—Picture Ouray Co--and lived there in her mind. She said that she was uninterested in teaching others. Does she need to insist that anarchic place held her interest most?

The digital age has let us move there and communicate and divide and mix and learn. And some of us are free of the "drooling beast".

As in literature and economics so in life.

B.R. Merrick's picture

"How did she end up prototyping a gulch without the need nor the interest nor the inclination of govt that some are hung up on still."

That's part of what I got out of the book. I confess to only having read it once, but it was fairly recent. She wasn't driving the minarchy argument home. She was writing about gifted men and women who wanted to be left alone with their volition. The one part of the narrative where I felt that I disagreed strongly was the shrugging judge at the end, changing The Constitution as if doing so was the final requirement for a freedom revolution. That was less than one paragraph out of more than one thousand pages. Babies and bathwater, indeed.

AtlasAikido's picture

Re: How did she end up prototyping a gulch without the need nor the interest nor the inclination of govt that some are hung up on still."

Re: That's part of what I got out of the book. I confess to only having read it once, but it was fairly recent.

And Re: The one part of the narrative where I felt that I disagreed strongly was the shrugging judge at the end, changing The Constitution as if doing so was the final requirement for a freedom revolution.

I posted a solution to your cogent identification (and put you with Lysander Spooner as he had come to a similar conclusion regarding the constitution (allowing what has happened or unable to stop what has come to be). Happily there is a way to get away from governing others by controlling ones-self and attracting those who are compatible (and the explicit root of what that is (a personal covenant of unanimous consent).

I have enjoyed your articles.

This is one: The Fake TV Challenge by B.R. Merrick,
http://www.strike-the-root.com/fake-tv-challenge

I had already prototyped and adopted this and you described it perfectly for me:
Get dvds, wifi, cut the cable chord (Direct Actions)--sever the rat race with its self-serving cancerous insinuations and "Get A Life"--as in my own--(Direct Results) without permission, vulnerability, need nor urge to change others...

AtlasAikido's picture

3 things to the above posters.

Even though her description of Galt's Gulch is a functional anarchy (no rulers), Rand abhorred what she thought of as "anarchy" and she explicitly embraced the idea of minimal government. HOWEVER, as George H Smith points out "...Rand's principles, if consistently applied, lead necessarily to a repudiation of government on moral grounds".
“IN DEFENSE OF RATIONAL ANARCHISM”
http://dennisleewilson.com/simplemachinesforum/index.php?topic=34.0

And Carrie Burdzinski identifies good reason why SOME Objectivists do not apply these principles.
“Objectivist Resistance to Anarchy: A Problem of Concept Formation?”
Column by new Root Striker Carrie Burdzinski.
http://www.strike-the-root.com/91/burdzinski/burdzinski1.html

And Dennis Wilson ties it all together from what Ayn Rand says about the gulch in her letters; Judge Narragansett’s activities in the closing pages of Atlas Shrugged; Galts Oath NAP/ZAP and the L. Neil Smith’s Covenant of Unanimous Consent. The Covenant also satisfies the objections noted by Lysander Spooner and B.R. Merrick.
Look for the first five asterisks ***** In: “A personal journey from Objectivist morality to political “anarchy**”
http://dennisleewilson.com/simplemachinesforum/index.php?topic=10.0 http://tinyurl.com/2dm6kgj
________________________________________
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2006/tle379-20060806-03.html

AtlasAikido's picture

Re:Column by Bob Wall[a]ce.

Exclusive to STR

Re:What a philosophy claims and what it delivers are often two different things. Marxism was supposed to create a heaven on earth but instead created a hell. I think Ayn Rand’s philosophy, Objectivism, would also create a hell on earth.

Huh. You don't have to know what's in it--a philosophy--or how it's cooked, no effort is required of you, just swallow it—and if it poisons you, it was your own fault, the cooks will tell you, you didn't have enough "faith."’ Paraphrased from The Journals of Ayn Rand, Notes 1955-1977.

Well happily Rand broke that centuries long religionist faith based strangle hold. Back when there was no Mises institute nor internet, and her ideas were more than the one inch to pull oneself out of the conformance servitude idolatry of state and church.

Re: Rand divided people into two groups: her perfect John Galtian heroes, and everyone else – whom she described as “sub-humans” living in “a hell.” She projected all “evil” onto her “looters” and “parasites” and reserved all goodness for her heroes. Such a division does not exist in real life.

The Principle of Comparative Advantage and the Pyramid of Ability principle is how the division of labor society progressed (in spite of the State). The Steel Industrialist Hank Rearden was an Atlas but flawed as was Dagny Taggart the Operativing VP of a railroad in their acceptance of contradictions--accepting the wrong philosophy--and are resolved in Part III "A is A" of Atlas Shrugged.

Re: In fact, this division into human/sub-human is one of the foundations of all wars. This all-good/all-bad split is also the basis of all propaganda, which is why Atlas Shrugged is in many ways a vast propaganda tract. (A good current example of propaganda was when the terminally addled George Bush claimed “the Evil Ones” attacked the United States “for our goodness.”)

Actually Atlas Shrugged differentiates subsidy seeking businessmen and the heroes of the book Including Eddie Willers--who was not a business magnate and not an Atlas--and they are UNinterested in being subsidized by the state.

And they come to understand that by Rand's principles played out, that they should leave the men-that-hold-a-whip over them to their own devices--peacefully (understanding the sanction of the victim and more below).

Re: Rand apparently truly believed when the world collapsed after her two dozen or so heroes withdrew into Galt’s Gulch, they would emerge to rule over the ruins. Would they rule benevolently and establish a permanent free market?

More truly is self-rule which is what the heroes embodied and practiced and continued to practice by walking away--unfortunately Étienne de La Boétie was not on my reading list thirty years ago but resolve to serve no more follows from Galt's Oath.

Re The answer: no.

The answer is NOT "no" in Atlas Shrugged's 1000 pages. The book leads one to come to the counter intuitive of peaceful secession.

Re: The only true, eternal social division that exists is between the “elites” (I use that term neutrally) and the “masses.” I believe it is far more fundamental than “left” and “right.” And Re: I’ve heard this split defined as “ranchers” and “cattle.” For thousands of years, way back to Jesus and Aesop, it’s been called “wolves” and “sheep.” Vilfredo Pareto referred to the elites as “wolves” and “foxes.” And Re: The purpose of the elites is to maintain their economic and political power – to maintain what James Burnham in his book The Machiavellians called their “power and privilege.” This means using the power of the State to exploit the masses, which are mostly inert until pushed too far by the elites’ lust for blood, power and money. Then many times there is violent payback.

This is what Rand warned against as the attila and witch doctors and she gave a peaceful Thoreau like solution to that in Atlas Shrugged...

Re: All politics is based on force and fraud. As such, the elites will always use those two weapons against the people to maintain their position – force is violence and fraud is lies and propaganda. All States are founded on, and run on, lies and violence.

That word "politics" has been co-opted--self governance is possible for even us simple folk. How hard is that?

Re: Could Rand’s “perfect” elites be trusted to rule? No. They would use their political power to exploit everyone else to enrich themselves. Her perfect heroes are purely fictional – they don’t exist in real life.

Tell that to Steve Winn in Macau and the C.J. Rodgers CEO Cypress Semi Conductor and ...They do not rule. They create jobs...They are Atlases....

Re: This exploitation of the masses by the elites using the power of the States has been the history of the world. Even if Rand’s heroes established the free market, their descendents would overturn it.

More of Wallace's malevolent metaphysics and there is an antidote to that mind set in Rand and Mises and so on...But if there is a proto fascist "The Real Lincoln" would make more sense.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo44.html

I do not see Libertarians speaking of Lincoln as the route to their Libertarianism but of Rand.

Re: I am reminded of Lord Acton’s saying: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” I prefer the saying, “Power intoxicates, and immunity corrupts.” And Re: Dostoevsky put it in The House of the Dead, "Tyranny . . . finally develops into a disease. The habit can . . . coarsen the very best man to the level of a beast. Blood and power intoxicate . . . the return to human dignity, to repentance, to regeneration, becomes almost impossible."

The Swiss understand that by having a 4% referendum of signatures they can rescind a law and can serve as a "check" on political power and their cantons (states) do not like each other...

Rand differentiates Political power--the power of the gun--from Economic power. And what to do when a society has reach the point when too many businessmen use the power of the state as a club.

Thoreaux was more interested in the business of life than the civil disobedience thingy so apparently was Rand.

Re: Political science (perhaps political economy is a better term) should start with how things are, not how scholars and writers want things to be. By starting with how things are, political economy becomes a science, and being a science, cures or prescriptions can be formulated. And Re: In physics and chemistry, scientists start with how things are. Yet, in economics and political science, thinkers/tinkerers often start with how they want things to be, or how things will be if their prescriptions are followed. It’s why there exists that old saying, if you took every economist in the world and laid them end to end, they’d all point in different directions. Re: Rand did not start with how things are. She started with how she wanted things to be. Like all leftists (and she was in many ways a leftist, in addition to being a narcissist), she did not understand human nature, which is why she thought a vanishingly small minority could rule over humanity, permanently establish political and economic liberty, and not become corrupted by unlimited power.

If you have problem with this argument it should be taken up with the Mises institute. They just went thru this mindset from congress critters who accused the Austrian Economists of the same whilst speaking for Ron Paul. Look up DiLorenzo...

Rand understood enough: Such as The Laws of Identity, Causality and the principles of Freedom and Rationality.
The Trader Principle and the Division of Labor. The Principles of Rational Selfishness and Justice.
Not the least the The study of Capitalism the study of the production of wealth in a division of labor society (remnant).

Paraphrased there is Rand's Galts Oath "I swear by my life and love it that I will not live for another man nor ask another to live for me" which leads to "resolve to serve no more", Étienne de La Boétie: Ending Tyranny Without Violence
and The Zero Aggression principle and Thoreau's Get on with the business of your life.

Here, the State Is Nowhere to Be Seen: Mises Daily: Wednesday, May 04, 2011 by Wendy McElroy
'As the crazed election season approaches and straw hats are dusted off, it is prudent to remember what the 19th-century American anarchist Henry David Thoreau called "the business of living."'
http://mises.org/daily/5250/Here-the-State-Is-Nowhere-to-
Be-Seen

The Case for Frugality Mises Daily: Friday, April 08, 2011 by Wendy McElroy
http://mises.org/daily/5183/The-Case-for-Frugality

VS

The "inevitability of Marx" and his implicit and explicit adherents
"From each according to his ability to each according to his need".

Does Rand deserve to be to defended?
I think so...

The post by Mr Wallace seems to be more tied to the resurgence in the Atlas Shrugged book sales second most read book in the world...and his having a problem with the way things have turned out in his homeland not to metnion his other problems (see above). Some anarcho libertarians--more than Mr Wallace has clue--have used Rand's works to set themselves free of an Unfree world.

I refer to the following post for the things possible (instead of the Marxian inevitability despair and utopia traps that Mr Wall[a]ce continues to posit here and other threads)

Even though her description of Galt's Gulch is a functional anarchy (no rulers), Rand abhorred what she thought of as "anarchy" and she explicitly embraced the idea of minimal government. HOWEVER, as George H Smith points out "...Rand's principles, if consistently applied, lead necessarily to a repudiation of government on moral grounds".
“IN DEFENSE OF RATIONAL ANARCHISM”
http://dennisleewilson.com/simplemachinesforum/index.php?topic=34.0

And Carrie Burdzinski identifies good reason why SOME Objectivists do not apply these principles.
“Objectivist Resistance to Anarchy: A Problem of Concept Formation?”
Column by new Root Striker Carrie Burdzinski.
http://www.strike-the-root.com/91/burdzinski/burdzinski1.html

And Dennis Wilson ties it all together from what Ayn Rand says about the gulch in her letters; Judge Narragansett’s activities in the closing pages of Atlas Shrugged; Galts Oath NAP/ZAP and the L. Neil Smith’s Covenant of Unanimous Consent. The Covenant also satisfies the objections noted by Lysander Spooner and B.R. Merrick.
Look for the first five asterisks ***** In: “A personal journey from Objectivist morality to political “anarchy**”
http://dennisleewilson.com/simplemachinesforum/index.php?topic=10.0 http://tinyurl.com/2dm6kgj
________________________________________
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2006/tle379-20060806-03.html

Suverans2's picture

G'day AtlasAikido,

A well thought out reply! Thumb up!

You wrote, "The book leads one to come to the counter intuitive of peaceful secession."

Why would you classify "peaceful secession" as "counter intuitive"? Or, am I reading that wrong?

And, it is important to note that this was individual secession; these freedom-loving individuals did not seek to force non-voters and dissenting voters to secede with them by putting it to a vote.

    PRIMACY OF THE RIGHT TO SECEDE
    The primary political right[1] of the individual...must be to secede from any larger political entity, whether they were born into it, were forced to join it, or voluntarily joined it. http://www.secession.net/

[1] Individual secession is a natural right, not a political right.

    Many think in terms of "state's rights" secession, especially in the United States, with such states opposed to secession by smaller political units. However, Secession.Net promotes "community-based secession," assuming that smaller entities like communities, towns, small cities, neighborhoods within larger cities will and must become the basic political unit, after the individual. (Ibid.) [Emphasis added]

The only natural entity in the above paragraph is the individual man or woman, individual men and women therefore have natural rights. States, communities, towns, small cities, neighborhoods within larger cities, and "citizens", on the other hand, are created by artifice, they are, therefore, "artificial persons[1]", and as such they can only have artificial rights, i.e. legal rights, such as political and civil rights, and by civil rights is meant, "right or rights belonging to a person by reason of citizenship".

    [1]Artificial persons. Persons created by human laws for the purposes of society and government, as distinguished from natural persons. ~ Black's Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition (c.1991), page 113
Suverans2's picture

Your submission has triggered the spam filter and will not be accepted, because I added this, on, I think, the third editing. (I'm a perfectionist.)

[2]"Basic" is defined by Macmillan Dictionary as, "forming the main or most important part of something, without which it cannot really exist"; therefore the only "basic political unit" is the individual man and woman.

AtlasAikido's picture

Nice!

Yes, Suverans2, I was thinking of Rand's: The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. She spoke of individual rights but I don't rely on rights, but on myself, peaceful innovation, rational self-interest, trade with compatibles/ erring on the side of freedom and my feet...

I seem to have answered your question in your thumbs up post. Yes, you are right! I too was unable to add an edit. I think your logical arrangement of definitions (genus / differrentia; essentials/fundamentals via common denominators/measurement omission) was highly illuminating.

Wonderful when someone understands what one has said and adds to it and improves it (grin).

A note to myself: In Atlas Shrugged Rand used MANY "twinnings" of SALIENT similarities and significant differences between characters (Rearden and Boyle and Rearden and Stadler and so on) and this followed from her theory of concept formation (Objectivist Epistemology). One of the many multi-tiered ways she used to tie her characters and root her book in reality. She presciently foresaw what is happening today...

Suverans2's picture

Thanks for the pleasant reply, AtlasAikido.

I won't beat a dead horse, as regards this statement, "She spoke of individual rights but I don't rely on rights...". [Emphasis added]

I would ask you to fairly consider this, fundamentally "a right is nothing more than a just claim", we each have a just claim (a natural right) to our natural property, e.g. our life and liberty, and a natural right (a just claim) to our justly acquired property, and it is this "right", this "just claim", that makes it wrong (unjust) for someone to take them, (without our consent), and what makes it right (just) for us to protect them.

"By nature's law, every man has a right to seize and retake by force his own property [just claim] taken from him by another by force or fraud." ~ Thomas Jefferson

My friend, we all "rely on rights", whether we know it or not, and whether we admit it or not; it is not an option. 'Nuff said.

AtlasAikido's picture

I do not doubt that. Good points Suverans2.

I am focusing on the doing part...and the eye in the storm...for those who can see it and reach it....sometimes the one inch.

It can be as easy as moving and changing a position.

The power of the imagination is more powerful than knowledge. That is not just a saying and Einstein proved that and so did Rand (Atlas Shrugging is a apparently very counter intuitive thing to do)--it is a Peaceful UNwarlike "self" affirming ownership and personal secession requiring no govt, no permission, no waiting for others (Thoreau), no interest in what others think.

And that is a "direct" personal thing that plays to one's strengths and Rand's principles (rational selfishness, purposeful action, peaceful productivity individual rights etc. A framework where one takes "direct" control and one lets gravity do its work--ahemm.

Walking away may be a natural "right" that one relies on but it IS the walking amongst other things that makes it life giving and proper. How many take that option without fear of peer or family pressure or too many kids or marrying the wrong gal or debt or the wrong leaders or politic power? There is a way out.

I would add some--including myself once upon a time--would sit and RELY on "rights" and OTHERS much like Dagny--instead of taking control of themselves and letting others live and let live. Again, Dagny and Rearden relied on what they perceived others would grant as just rights. They were wrong and suffered for it until they corrected that.

This seems to be truly counter intuitive as it has taken years of intellectual action until the URGE--the emotion--is no longer there control others including when they trample one's rights. Why did one stay when when it was clear they were standing in front of a locomotive....

It is the reverse of what many do. When things go contrary to what one expects--including all the forms of disrespect to one's RIGHTS--what is it that has to be done to get the job (of living one's own individual life as an owner and not as an implicit or explicit slave or master or policeman or raising one's rights copy book).

Well we are back to Atlas "Shrugging".

I Shrug dear friend...and dear readers...

PS *Happily there is a way to get away from governing others by controlling ones-self and making it possible to not throw ones found freedom in an unfree world away and ATTRACTING those few or many who are compatible (and the explicit root of what that is (a personal covenant of unanimous consent) as a "basic" that I actually signed as to how I will act.

Suverans2's picture

G'day AtlasAikido,

We, (my natural law wife and I), too, "shrugged", over ten years ago, and as a result of that we are "in" the world, but not "of" it.

    “I would add some--including myself once upon a time--would sit and RELY on "rights"...” ~ AtlasAikido

Point well taken. It is useless to “sit” on our natural rights, we must “act”, based upon our natural rights. We “rely” on natural rights only to determine if our acts are just (right) or unjust (wrong).

Also, it is, most times, critical, when speaking of “rights”, that we specify the kind of “rights” we are referring to, since all rights are based on membership; the natural rights of man are based solely on membership in the human race, artificial rights are based on membership in artificial man-made groups.

AtlasAikido's picture

Hi Suverans2,

Yes and yes and yes!

I went looking for a post from you when I did not see it on the page I was on. And here you are 12 hours later...

One of the reasons I enjoy Whedon's "Firefly" and "Serenity" on hulu or dvd on my pc--Not T.V. per se--is:

It plays out in the present/future, with a crew of individual adventurers trading freely with themselves and compatibles. They avoid those who lord it over others…and this is productive!

It is part of Get dvds, wireless wifi, cut the cable chord (Direct Actions)--sever the mundane with its self-serving cancerous insinuations and "Get A Life"--as in my own--(Direct Results) without permission, vulnerability, need nor urge to change others...
http://www.strike-the-root.com/fake-tv-challenge

I think he--AtlasAikido--left and moved to Atlantis without sailing on the Titantic...LOL

Also enjoy this music:
Atlas Shrugged Movie Music: The John Galt Theme
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV2mULGktiw&feature=related

Lawrence M. Ludlow's picture

I have to agree with Mr. Merrick in so far as Mr. Wallace has intentionally misrepresented the situation in Atlas Shrugged by writing the following sentence in his Tzo-cited artice:

"She projects all hate, rage and envy onto them, scapegoats them, and then engages in a sadistic Hitlerian orgy of hate and destruction and kills off nearly everyone outside of Galt's Gulch."

This is an easily falsified statement. She does not kill everyone outside of Galt's Gulch. She abandons them. And while it is true that Ms. Rand expanded upon her fiction writings in numerous minarchist essays that contain the seed of statism in their minarchy, it does not help when one falsifies what she actually said. So Mr. Wallace owes his readers a mea culpa for this. I agree that Ms. Rand had a sadly overbearing view, and fortunately Nathanial Brandon and his wife have written extensively and informatively about precisely where she went awry. I think that Mr. Wallace should treat his wooden idol of Ms. Rand (something she shared with her characters) with a bit of humor, which is why I wrote the following satire about her once the excitement of reading Ms. Rand wore off and I began to see her warts:
http://www.strike-the-root.com/atlases-at-home-children

Robert Wallace's picture

"This is an easily falsified statement"

'Fraid not.

Objectivism is not a philosophy but a religion: Galt's Gulch: Heaven with gods; outside: Hell with demons.

What would happen in Rand's fictional Hell? Murder, chaos, destruction.

B.R. Merrick's picture

The religion of objectivism is one of the least intrusive and coercive religions I have ever encountered, then. The gods in charge of it seem far more preocuppied with their own interests than mine. That's okay by me. I also have no problem with the "hell" Rand described. That's what government intervention does. It creates hell on earth: "Murder, chaos, destruction." I'd rather live in a "heaven" like Galt's Gulch, where people build society because they enjoy it. I don't think that's anything like fascism, which is where favored corporations heavily regulated by a government feed us a pretend free market and mollify us.

Again, I agree that some of Rand's premises were false, and I enjoyed Ludlow's jab at her writing style (very, very funny), but I'm not getting the connection with fascism.

Lawrence M. Ludlow's picture

Good points. I wonder what Wallace's real beef is with Ms. Rand. She has plenty of faults, but I still love her for knocking me upside the head -- so to speak -- and waking me up. I don't think anyone else could have done it. She re-introduced the moral element into the picture in a powerful way by showing how socialists are first-rate victimizers and cannibals.

AtlasAikido's picture

Re: Mr Ludlow's, Good points. I wonder what Wallace's real beef is with Ms. Rand. She has plenty of faults, but I still love her for knocking me upside the head -- so to speak -- and waking me up. I don't think anyone else could have done it. She re-introduced the moral element into the picture in a powerful way by showing how socialists are first-rate victimizers and cannibals.

A question.

So what do you propose Ayn Rand could have done as a different writing style or plot theme or character development? You are an accomplished writer in your own right. I enjoyed what you wrote.

And if she had written what you write, would you have gotten your dose of wake up (freedom)? After all you now know what you needed. After the fact? She was prescient on what is going on right now and even what may come...

Could you or one imagine a bench mark of oneself, back in time without internet and lap top computer and without access to a division of labor society and all of the books on-line at one's finger tips? And could one tear out what one now knows because of her and others (which is the Intellectual Property "Copywrong" thicket currently being un-ravelled and which she inherited and tripped over most especially because the internet and technology has pressed this issue)?

If one cannot do this, is this entirely different from what she had to contend with, with those around her and her peers and indeed with herself?

What was she--Rand--to mitigate, to recover, to change?

I have to say that this continual "fault" caveat reminds of bowing and scraping (I have noticed that here on this site amongst other things and I am still working this thru) but I would say her heroes are shorn of these "fault" NON-Essentials. Thank goodness.

I am personally more interested in her Innovations, which were significant as was her worked out prototype of "Galt's Gulch" in "Atlas Shrugged", which was the pinnacle of her legacy.

She was an Earthling and surrounded by govt, religion and people nursed on centuries of "canned" philosophies.

She left a hint to the real problem of frozen abstractions--doing one thing and then replacing it with some equivalent.

It has taken me a life time to lift the veil and to be free of it. She did the heavy innovative lifting as did such students as Harry Browne--in his own right and he was super benevolent and a model of much of what he wrote--and yet people still drop the solution....

She described Dagny as expecting others to have the same values and then she took that to its ultimate conclusion. She corrected that and showed how.

When I read Lysander Spooner I don't have to wade thru this "but for his faults" Nor Harry Browne's "faults" nor Mr. Ludlow's or Mr. Merrick's as a preamble. I certainly don't come at things that way.

Lawrence M. Ludlow's picture

Atlas: I wouldn't have changed a thing about Ms. Rand's fiction. They were great accomplishments, and I have nothing to even come close to it. All of us make these tiny errors, and as we develop and learn as human beings, we realize the flaws in our earlier work. The idea of going back in time is impossible and silly. Yes, her dialog was wooden at times (and it made it into the good but flawed film that was recently released), but I don't think it matters in comparison to the wonderful things it communicated. Many of Rand's flaws are entirely excusable as examples of this. The only serious concern I have about her and some of those who claim to follow in her footsteps is their rigid adherence to errors that should have been abandoned in here subsequent non-fiction essays. For example, the "open letter to Ayn Rand" written by Roy Childs many years ago was an opportunity for the Randians to evolve. Many of them did, but they had to leave her official graces to do so. That kind of "hardening of the categories" that they exhibited was a sad thing. Here's the link for Roy's essay:
http://www.isil.org/ayn-rand/childs-open-letter.html

AtlasAikido's picture

Lawrence,

Re:Atlas: I wouldn't have changed a thing about Ms. Rand's fiction.

That is certainly a different caveat than but for her "plenty of faults". Wonderful and refreshing. I look forward to that new caveat regarding Ayn Rand.

Re:They were great accomplishments, and I have nothing to even come close to it. All of us make these tiny errors, and as we develop and learn as human beings, we realize the flaws in our earlier work.

Well this is the nub of it. Understanding How ideas work and applying them. However, actually implementing them--as you know--standing on her shoulders and others can be an uphill battle.

Re: The idea of going back in time is impossible and silly.

It is a wake up call to what is taken for granted. And it begins to open up the problems of writing with a fountain pen and a full scap vs today's technology and the access to knowledge that IS IN our minds. The Intellectual property issue was something back then that she tripped over and it was because the technology and internet break thru had not happened yet. There is a time for everything.

Re: Yes, her dialog was wooden at times (and it made it into the good but flawed film that was recently released), but I don't think it matters in comparison to the wonderful things it communicated.

Undoing centuries of rust infested canned philosophies and writing of a world outside of the one we still live in--the rat race whilst--embracing a division of labor society is probably how should I say it more World Fulcrum flow forward inch at a time and probably appears wooden to some. Imagine that!

Re: Many of Rand's flaws are entirely excusable as examples of this. The only serious concern I have about her and some of those who claim to follow in her footsteps is their rigid adherence to errors that should have been abandoned in here subsequent non-fiction essays. For example, the "open letter to Ayn Rand" written by Roy Childs many years ago was an opportunity for the Randians to evolve. Many of them did, but they had to leave her official graces to do so. That kind of "hardening of the categories" that they exhibited was a sad thing. Here's the link for Roy's essay:

Thanks, I am familiar with it and I would add that whilst Ayn Rand was moving the world fulcrum flow forward inch at a time and appearing "wooden" to some of the best of us I would submit she was self inoculating herself too. But perhaps without the timing and division of labor pressures of technology or the internet to press the "big" problem of intellectrual property issue home and which she tripped over but started to front-load her book sales (the reality thingy was pressing home). I will put up a link to that when I find it.

You are NOT--it appears--a "Randian" in the sense you use it on others. So they are apparently in the canned philosophy mode even when the times and division of labor would say that Child's points are worth considering and that the IP issue is indeed sensible. Apparently you are able to step to your own beat and so am I. That makes two of us. So what are we?

In summary I would say that it would be "silly" and improbable for you to caveat your works with--I [you] have plenty of "faults" small and large and one of those is being having "wooden" issues. But have it your way, when the next time you do some heavy lifting such as concrete pounding a New Foundation on capitalism or secession or reason over force or...--try playing a violin afterwards or during or because someone is trying to convince you of such when you are in action when the time is NOT ripe! The mind is a fine tuned machine last time I looked. The hand to mouth to brain cells nicotine monkey on the back was another inherited problem that eventually killed her.

I don't hold Rand responsible for uncritical zombies nor for helping the tobacco industry types nor those who will not help themselves and smoke because Rand smoked. They have been with us a long time. And they will even join up and perhaps assimilate the unwary with package deals. But they are not my drooling beasts and not because I say so...

Lawrence M. Ludlow's picture

Atlas: I must have been confusing you. I've loved her fiction and would never have satirized it if it had not been the case (good satire requires great intimacy with the target text!). I merely found her positions on Israel and NASA kind of goofy -- as well as her dictates on art and psychology. Fortunately, many former Randians evolved -- as I did. It is those who dipped her in concrete (and she did some of that to herself) and treat her like holy writ who have the problem. I hope I was clear about that. I loved many of her essays nonetheless and her portrayals of others. I have to confess that it was her hatred of libertarianism that first interested me in it and informed me of its existence. So I owe her for pointing me in the right direction there, and thence to anarchism.

AtlasAikido's picture

Lawrence,

Re: "I [you] must have been confusing you [me]".

"Confusing" only in the sense that you led some of your posts with caveats about "faults" regarding those you admire (Rand). See your posts to Mr. Merrick. (But it is not just you. He does it too). But you have explained much, so good for you.

On further prodding after calling you to explain your preamble you have come forth as "loving" her work and contribution to "anarchy". Ok I get that.

I don't think it is necessary to be concerned with the concrete bound and the zombies. So I don't bother with the Rand "fault" caveat. And that leads to Mr. Childs.

As for Childs in his letter dated in 1969: that was sheer genius (sic) or bad luck and timing copying in Brandon after her split with him in 68. And more importantly starting off with I am here to help you Miss Rand, ahemm with your logic and floating abstractions. Ouch!

Wonderful that Child had summed up the utopia impediments (I won't copy them here they are in the link below). But did he secede as in Shrug after from reading her book on anarchy "Atlas Shrugged"?

Perhaps he should have proceeded from that direction being the genius he was said to be? Perhaps he got caught up in the awe of improving the Newtonian Pulley?

Rand ESSENTIALLY SOLVED the problem of her "earlier works" by writing 1000 pages that lead to principled peaceful self anarchy, how, why and what to look to etc. and she did not have Dilorenzo's "The Real Lincoln" to turn to. Perhaps Child's had his own application problems and interests?

Did Childs Find Freedom in an UNfree World? Did he take Thoreaus advice that I have posted on this thread (Wendy's Frugality and Here there is No State articles). I much prefer Carrie's on Objectivist Concept Formation problems, or George H. Smith's on how her principles lead to anarchy or Dennis Wilson's wrap up and clean up of Lysander Spooner's issues and the journey from Objectivism to anarchy--see above or below. But then it TOOK TIME to get to that point. Did it not?

If Mr. Childs was waiting for the rest of the world to catch up or expecting Rand to be that fulcrum to a group then he missed the boat to Atlantis, "A is A" rational selfishness thingy.

Perhaps he was too busy himself rearranging the deck chairs on the Group trap Titanic and ended up perhaps like Eddie Willers. I would not focus on that but it is one of the things Rand is faulted for not modeling anarchy Thoreau or Galts Gulch style.

I must be a Real Fictional anomaly. Greetings Lawrence...

As in literature and economics so in life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Branden
The Rand-Branden business partnership lasted till May 1968. Rand announced in the The Objectivist, Branden would no longer be her intellectual heir and ordered all future printings of Atlas Shrugged not to carry his name in the dedication page. At the time, Rand did not reveal she was having a secret love affair with Branden who was twenty four years her junior and he was leaving her for a younger woman who was also an attractive model whom Branden would eventually marry. However, Branden divulged this information in his book, Judgment Day: my years with Ayn Rand.[2]

http://www.isil.org/ayn-rand/childs-open-letter.html
First published in 1969 in SIL's Individualist newsletter,
The purpose of this letter is to convert you to free market anarchism. As far as I can determine, no one has ever pointed out to you in detail the errors in your political philosophy. That is my intention here. I attempted this task once before, in my essay "The Contradiction in Objectivism," in the March 1968 issue of the Rampart Journal, but I now think that my argument was ineffective and weak, not emphasizing the essentials of the matter. I will remedy that here.

AtlasAikido's picture

....I would add that whilst Ayn Rand was moving the world fulcrum flow forward inch at a time and appearing "rigid" and "wooden" to some....I would submit she was self inoculating herself too. But without the timing and division of labor pressures of technology or the internet to press the "big" problem of intellectual property issue home she tripped over it. But she started to front-load her book sales (the reality thingy was pressing home). I will put up a link to that when I find it.

Here is the link: If You Believe in IP, How Do You Teach Others?
Mises Daily: Monday, November 16, 2009 by Jeffrey A. Tucker
http://mises.org/daily/3864

Ayn Rand's royalties from her work Night of January 16th gave her the first taste of financial independence, and how she later came to believe that she had not received enough. With each successive negotiation for book royalties and film rights, her terms became ever higher and ever more strict.

...Now, in a free market, there is nothing wrong with an upfront payment for first-run rights to a book or movie. It is by being first past the post that profits are made.

Rand had perfectly sound instincts (a person should charge as much as he or she can for first run) but Rand's rationale was rooted in a modern notion of intellectual property...

It goes on to show that not until N. Branden stopped intervening in word usage of Objectivism did it the philosophy flourish and change the western world and influence the Libertarians.

And clearly this IP issue tied up her movie release and production. But we now know--not everyone, but it is out there now--that Intellectual Property (patents ad copyright) is a monopoly mine field that held back the division of labor society. And this ground breaking knowledge is thanks to some of her and Ludwig Von Mises innovative thinking students: Stephan Kinsella and Jeffrey Tucker.

But I love this music:
Atlas Shrugged Movie Music: The John Galt Them
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV2mULGktiw&feature=related

"How a world without copyright would exist”?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL2FOrx41N0

From
http://blog.mises.org/13327/l-neith-smith-on-ip/#comment-703028
By Curt Howland

AtlasAikido's picture

I concur Re: I [Lawrence M. Ludlow] have to agree with Mr. Merrick in so far as Mr. Wallace has intentionally misrepresented the situation in Atlas Shrugged by writing the following sentence in his Tzo-cited artice: "She projects all hate, rage and envy onto them, scapegoats them, and then engages in a sadistic Hitlerian orgy of hate and destruction and kills off nearly everyone outside of Galt's Gulch."

Re: Fortunately Nathanial Brandon and his wife have written extensively and informatively about precisely where she [Rand] went awry.

I personally found Mr. Nathanial Branden's work as non-productive except his one article edited by Ayn Rand on infinite regress and reversing existence with causality regarding the question of the existence of God. Harry Browne In How I Found Freedom in an UNFree World provides actual solutions as it regards a division of labor between one's identity, other's identities, trade, and one's intellect and emotions.

Re: Andromeda

Nice until the part where Alex wakes up, that was a let down
http://www.strike-the-root.com/atlases-at-home-children

Well I picture "Andromeda" in this way...orange hair, legs flashing eyes in an audi in Transporter 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5sIAGocuzI&feature=related

I am laughing, almost crying....Natalya R asks if she is in heaven and he--Jason S--tells her the truth; they are in the shit…(A bit different from Dagny opening her eyes to Galt after crashing into the gulch)...

The interactions of Jason Statham and Natalya Rudakova are refreshingly clear cut and breathe real.

Understanding brings meaning--and the meaning of his and her disobedience and more--saves their lives--and sets her--Natalya--off....

Using what is, turning it around--all the while moving within incremental pockets of freedom…in an unfree world.

The protagonists stay with the Audi or die...but not the others....they push it away....

An action plot theme...where the man and woman and machinery interact thru out the whole movie...

Cheers...

Lawrence M. Ludlow's picture

Well I tried! My attempt was to show what happens when the quotidian world -- which includes those of us who aren't always focused and kinda fallible and with a lazy streak -- collides with the clear-cut world of the Randian characters in a tract-home situation that includes kids and laundry and dirty floors and "neighbors" and stuff like that.

AtlasAikido's picture

Lawrence M. Ludlow, you did magnificently! I love the way you portrayed Andromeda. And in childhood it is near impossible to get away from the group trap (family, govt, indoctrination schools etc). Happily Harry Browne provides a way out using innovative peaceful solutions.

I took your wonderful breathtaking description of Andromeda--and took it in a different direction--and tied it to an adult and romantic adventure rendering.

In the movie Transporter 3, Natalya R (in actual Ukraine accent) asks if she is in heaven and he--Jason S (an actual practicing martial artist)--tells her the truth; they are in the shit after he rouses her from a car--a tricked out Audi--crashed into Jason Statham's living room in a desperate run for her life. A bit different from Dagny opening her eyes to Galt after crashing into the respite of the gulch...but both are at the beginning of the road to freedom with a little help from their new friends....

I thank you for rooting out Mr Wallace's assumption and bringing it to the light. To see the farm is to leave it.

Robert Wallace's picture

Rand was more of a leftist than a rightist. Her belief in an Oakshottian rationalism, her belief in political messiahs, her attempts to overthrow all tradition, her vicious hatred of all religion...pure leftism.

By the way, Objectivism is a religion. Galt's Gulch: Heaven with gods. Outside Galt's Gulch: hell with demons.

AtlasAikido's picture

Mr. Wallace continues...

When called out on his "intellectual dishonesty" he asserts:

"[a]fraid not"

And continues with assumptions and religious projections...

The Lefties he speaks to have been "Warring" UNsuccessfully to smear Ayn Rand as a "socialist" and hippocrite for some time. Is he at the same time conflating Rand with the Lefties that have tried to smear her? It makes no sense.

These two things remind of what?

Tom Woods Is Interviewed by a Zombie
Recently by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/woods/woods145.html

And

It’s Ayn Rand Bashing Time, Once Again
by Walter Block
http://www.lewrockwell.com/block/block172.html

AtlasAikido's picture

Oh, damn I forgot my porridge and posted "the Lawrence M. Ludlow, you did magnificently post" twice.

Oh well, I have moved it to its proper slot and leave this Love Letters: starring Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotten in the hands of Ayn Rand. The second meeting with another "Andromeda". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQBjqJPztuw&feature=related

ElasahBazlith's picture

On sufferance?
In 1848 the most commonly heard phrase was -"Free soil, free speech ,free labor, and free men."
The good old days when men were men who had a cause.
'Tis taiseh to think one's penny silver of today?
What happened to produce the timid men of today?
Was it Ayn Rand?
'Tis funny to think these time bettering days.
Why the clerisy of Ayn Rand?

AtlasAikido's picture

Re: ElasahBazlith's "Tis funny"? Posted on May 18, 2011

And Re: "On sufferance?
In 1848 the most commonly heard phrase was -"Free soil, free speech ,free labor, and free men."
The good old days when men were men who had a cause.
'Tis taiseh to think one's penny silver of today?
What happened to produce the timid men of today?
Was it Ayn Rand?
'Tis funny to think these time bettering days.
Why the clerisy of Ayn Rand?"

Funny (Pronunciation: (fun'ē), —adj., -ni•er, -ni•est,—n., pl. -nies.3. warranting suspicion; deceitful; underhanded 5. strange; peculiar; odd.

How funny is taking the Proto-Fascist UNFreedom "good old days" works of "The Real Lincoln" [the UN"timid" Tyrant of 1848]--and his Politics in the Realm of Scum--AND conflating it with Ayn Rand?

"The Real Lincoln" by Thomas Dilorenzo
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/w-williams1.html

So does Ayn Rand belong in it (The "Politics of the Realm of Scum")? I say No. See posts on this thread.
And what of Ron Paul? () Article by Doug Casey.

There is no way to avert the train wreck now (as presciently depicted in Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged"). The plus-51% of the population on the dole alone guarantees it – that’s the point of no return. Not to mention the abject failure of the government education system, and many other factors discussed above and in the article

"Politics of the Realm of Scum"
Does Ron Paul belong in it too?
http://lewrockwell.com/casey/casey84.1.html

"Hate-Group Racketeering" On adding a person's name to the neo-hate proto-group-trap du jour
Posted by Thomas DiLorenzo on May 21, 2011 10:56 AM
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/88498.html

I would hardly call DiLorenzo nor Casey nor Ron Paul timid nor anti-freedom (and certainly not Ayn Rand nor Ludwig Von Mises whose shoulders they are standing on in their own right).

But what of Ms ElasahBazlith's "clerisy" cause and obtuse jargon? Perhaps Hamilton, Clay and Lincoln and their evidenced Proto-Mercantalist/Fascist agendas?

AtlasAikido's picture

The response to AtlasAikido's post was posted further down the thread, so his response was moved there.

ElasahBazlith's picture

Look around these times that are self evident.
Must be the text blindness and the isogloss.
One should just re-read.

AtlasAikido's picture

Re: ElasahBazlith, posted on May 18, 2011
"On sufferance?
In 1848 the most commonly heard phrase was -"Free soil, free speech ,free labor, and free men."
The good old days when men were men who had a cause.
'Tis taiseh to think one's penny silver of today?
What happened to produce the timid men of today?
Was it Ayn Rand?
'Tis funny to think these time bettering days.
Why the clerisy of Ayn Rand?"

But what of Ms ElasahBazlith's "clerisy" cause and obtuse jargon and conflations?

And her response: "ElasahBazlith, posted on May 22, 2011
Look around these times that are self evident.
Must be the text blindness and the isogloss.
One should just re-read".

Re: "Look around these times...

It is necessary but certainly NOT sufficient

AND

Re: Look[ing] around these times [AND from the times of 1848 and on per ElasahBazlith's prior post] as so-called "self evident".

I can almost see the pre-fox news-caster telling us in script or press or street mongering "in 1848 the most commonly heard phrase was -"Free soil, free speech ,free labor, and free men."

But wait, Abraham Lincoln supported the 1848 amendment to the Illinois constitution that prohibited the immigration of blacks into the state. He supported a law that "kept pure from contamination" the electoral franchise by prohibiting "the admission of colored votes." He supported the notorious Illinois Black Codes that made it all but impossible for free blacks to earn a living; and he was a "manager" of the Illinois Colonization Society that sought to use state tax revenues to deport blacks out of the state.

As president, he vigorously supported the Fugitive Slave Act that forced Northerners to hunt down runaway slaves and return them to slavery for a bounty and was about to break the back of the press/media and put the editors in jail and decimate the writ of habeas corpus and more....

See notes added to the end of this post.

The Unknown Lincoln
by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo26.html

EB posits that her conflation of the times of the legislator and tyrant Lincoln 1848 with free soil, labor, speech, and men should be "re-read and "must be text blindness and isogloss".

And buttresses her conflation with "The good old days when men were men--such as Lincoln--who had an [UN-Just] cause and war". And then proceeds with "What happened to produce the timid men of today? Was it Ayn Rand?"

Apparently these times and the times of 1848 are NOT "self-evident" to EB as her post conflates the UNFREEDOM works of Lincoln's times--1848--with freedom*; and then with the freedom works of Ayn Rand and Ludwig Von Mises and posits that Rand's and Mises students, "of today", Ron Paul, Dilorenzo and Kinsella etc as "timid"--and without "causes" let alone just.

Lincoln destroyed the Philosophical Union and imposed a Physical Union--Force over Reason--using bayonets and a train of usurpations worse than England's George III--the reason for seceding in the first place--and UNDID Jefferson's works and thereby added teeth (an understatement) to Hamilton's Proto-Fascist national banking super state agenda.

Lincoln's 'Second American Revolution'
by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo32.html

Understanding the large body of knowledge that intellectuals ("clerisy") Ayn Rand and Ludwig Von Mises and their students-- including the ground breaking work of Thomas Dilorenzo's, "The Real Lincoln", and Stephan Kinsella's illuminating work on Copywrongs and its destruction of a Division of Labor society--are essential to UN-Blinding what IS UnSeen and impossible to glean as "self-evident" by "just" looking around and "re-reading" text.

*Notes Regarding Abraham Lincoln specifically in 1848 (and from there on).
http://www.google.com/custom?sa=Search&cof=LW%3A500%3BL%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fw...

And regarding one of those entries:

An African-American Icon Speaks Truth to the Lincoln Cult
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo139.html

Lincoln not only talked like a white supremacist; as a state legislator he supported myriad laws and regulations in Illinois that deprived the small number of free blacks in the state of any semblance of citizenship. Bennett gives us chapter and verse of how he supported a law that "kept pure from contamination" the electoral franchise by prohibiting "the admission of colored votes." He supported the notorious Illinois Black Codes that made it all but impossible for free blacks to earn a living; and he was a "manager" of the Illinois Colonization Society that sought to use state tax revenues to deport blacks out of the state. He also supported the 1848 amendment to the Illinois constitution that prohibited the immigration of blacks into the state. As president, he vigorously supported the Fugitive Slave Act that forced Northerners to hunt down runaway slaves and return them to slavery for a bounty. Lincoln knew that this law had led to the kidnapping of an untold number of free blacks who were thrown into slavery.....

Notes: Regarding Lysander Spooner who authored The Unconstitutionality of Slavery in 1845, ...
http://www.google.com/custom?hl=en&cof=L:http://www.lewrockwell.com/lewr...

Spooner, the author of the 1845 book, The Unconstitutionality of Slavery and a celebrated abolitionist, wrote in his 1870 essay, "No Treason," that "all these cries of having ‘abolished slavery,' of having ‘preserved the union,' of establishing a ‘government by consent,' and of ‘maintaining the national honor' are all gross, shameless, transparent cheats — so transparent that they ought to deceive no one." Thanks to 140 years of propaganda in the government schools, these "cheats" now appear to deceive nearly everyone.

PS
If there is a Proto Fascist "The Real Lincoln" would make more sense.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo44.html

I do not see Libertarians speaking of Abraham Lincoln the Great Centralizer as the route to their Libertarianism but of Ayn Rand and Ludwid Von Mises