The Political Theory of Ayn Rand
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Ayn Rand? Ayn Rand Ayn
Who Is Ayn Rand? Ayn Rand Few 20th century intellectuals have been as influential—and controversial— as the novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand. Her thinking still has a profound impact, particularly on those who come to it through her novels, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead—with their core messages of individualism, self-worth, and the right to live without the impositions of others. Although ignored or scorned by some academics, traditionalists, pro- gressives, and public intellectuals, her thought remains a major influence on Ayn Rand many of the world’s leading legislators, policy advisers, economists, entre- preneurs, and investors. INTRODUCTION AN Why does Rand’s work remain so influential? Ayn Rand: An Introduction illuminates Rand’s importance, detailing her understanding of reality and human nature, and explores the ongoing fascination with and debates about her conclusions on knowledge, morality, politics, economics, government, AN INTRODUCTION public issues, aesthetics and literature. The book also places these in the context of her life and times, showing how revolutionary they were, and how they have influenced and continue to impact public policy debates. EAMONN BUTLER is director of the Adam Smith Institute, a leading think tank in the UK. He holds degrees in economics and psychology, a PhD in philosophy, and an honorary DLitt. A former winner of the Freedom Medal of Freedom’s Foundation at Valley Forge and the UK National Free Enterprise Award, Eamonn is currently secretary of the Mont Pelerin Society. Butler is the author of many books, including introductions on the pioneering economists Eamonn Butler Adam Smith, Milton Friedman, F. -
Paolo Silvestri Anthropology of Freedom and Tax Justice: Between Exchange and Gift
Paolo Silvestri Anthropology of Freedom and Tax Justice: between Exchange and Gift. Thoughts for an interdisciplinary research agenda1 1. Introduction The way in which fiscal institutions and fiscal policies are conceived and imple- mented raises problems at the intersection of so many ethical, institutional, legal, political and philosophical issues, both practical and theoretical, that a unified framework of all these rather fragmented issues seems to be quite impossible. Let us consider just a few of these issues. The performance of fiscal institutions is crucial for its effects on equality, inclusiveness and social mobility. Tax issues, or, rather, tax injustices are at the core, if not the origin of modern democratic and legal-political (and not only economic) institutions. The arrangement of fiscal institutions touches salient political-social issues, many of them at the heart of a sound and democratic good governance both at local and global level: transparency, accountability, efficacy, legitimacy, and trust. Last but not least, taxation is ambivalently connected to citi- zens’ trust/distrust relationships: among themselves as well as toward political, legal, and administrative institutions, since taxation is often perceived as the most immedi- ate presence (for better or for worse) of such institutions in their lives. 1 This little essay is dedicated to a great man, a man who one day gave me a great gift, rekindling my hopes for the future. At the time when I received that gift, I immediately felt an immense sense of gratitude, and an immediate boost to find ways to be able to pay my debts and honour, at my very best, the credit and trust I was given. -
Ayn Rand and Youth During the 1960S
UC Berkeley The Charles H. Percy Undergraduate Grant for Public Affairs Research Papers Title Radicals for Capitalism: Ayn Rand and Youth during the 1960s Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4tb298wq Author Tran, Andrina Publication Date 2011-05-31 Undergraduate eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California ““RRAADDIICCAALLSS FFOORR CCAAPPIITTAALLIISSMM”” Ayn Rand and Youth During the 1960s ANDRINA TRAN DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY There is a fundamental conviction which some people never acquire, some hold only in their youth, and a few hold to the end of their days – the conviction that ideas matter. In one’s youth that conviction is experienced as a self-evident absolute, and one is unable fully to believe that there are people who do not share it. That ideas matter means that knowledge matters, that truth matters, that one’s mind matters. And the radiance of that certainty, in the process of growing up, is the best aspect of youth. –Ayn Rand CONTENTS Acknowledgements 2 INTRODUCTION 2 I THE QUIETEST REVOLUTION IN HISTORY 11 II MARKETING OBJECTIVISM 24 III THE THRILL OF TREASON 32 IV LIFE, LIBERTY, PROPERTY: Persuasion and the Draft 38 V LIBERTARIANS RISING 46 EPILOGUE: MEMORY & HISTORY 52 Bibliography 55 Appendix 61 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Even a paper pertaining to egoism could not have come into existence without the generous support of so many others. I would like to thank the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program, the Center for the Study of Representation at the Institute of Governmental Studies, and the Center for the Comparative Study of Right-Wing Movements for funding the various stages of my research. -
Rand, Hayek, and the Ethics of the Micro- and Macro-Cosmos Steven Horwitz
Centenary Symposium, Part II Ayn Rand Among the Austrians Two Worlds at Once: Rand, Hayek, and the Ethics of the Micro- and Macro-cosmos Steven Horwitz Moreover, the structures of the extended order are made up not only of individuals but also of many, often overlapping, sub-orders within which old instinctual responses, such as solidarity and altruism, continue to retain some importance by assisting voluntary collaboration, even though they are incapable, by themselves, of creating a basis for the more extended order. Part of our present difficulty is that we must constantly adjust our lives, our thoughts and our emotions, in order to live simultaneously within different kinds of orders according to different rules. So we must learn to live in two sorts of worlds at once. — F. A. Hayek (1989, 18; emphasis added) Introduction A title that contains Rand, Hayek, and the ethics of anything might well raise a few eyebrows among the cognoscenti. After all, Ayn Rand was a champion of an objective ethics and railed against anyone who suggested that a meaningful ethics could be anything but objective in her sense. F. A. Hayek (1989, 10), by contrast, argued explicitly that “Ethics is the last fortress in which human pride must now bow in recognition of its origins. Such an evolutionary theory of morality is . neither instinctual nor a creation of reason.” Thus we are faced with two thinkers who have strongly opposed explanations for the source of ethical rules. However, despite those differences, both Rand and Hayek do wind up with some similar conclusions. For one, both argued that there was a strong link between ethics, political philosophy, and the role of the state. -
The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand
THE CONTESTED LEGACY OF AYN RAND Truth and Toleration in Objectivism THE CONTESTED LEGACY OF AYN RAND THE CONTESTED LEGACY OF AYN RAND Truth and Toleration in Objectivism DAVID KELLEY The OBJECTIVIST CENTER Transaction Publishers Poughkeepsie, New York New Brunswick (U.S.) & London (U.K.) First Printing, February, 1990 Second Revised Edition, 2000 Copyright © 1990 by David Kelley Copyright © 2000 by David Kelley All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted in any form without written permission from the author. For information address Dr. David Kelley, The Objectivist Center, 11 Raymond Avenue, Suite 31, Poughkeepsie, New York 12603 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kelley, David, 1949– The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand: Truth and Toleration in Objectivism/ David Kelley Includes bibliographic references (p. 103–111) and index. ISBN 1-57724-010-3 Printed in the United States of America The Objectivist Center 11 Raymond Avenue, Suite 31 Poughkeepsie, New York 12603 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE TO THE 2ND EDITION 9 INTRODUCTION 13 I. MORAL JUDGMENT 19 COGNITION AND EVALUATION 19 MORAL JUDGMENT 21 TYPES OF MORAL JUDGMENT 23 THE TEMPERAMENT OF A JUDGE 28 II. SANCTION 31 EXISTENTIAL AID AND MORAL SANCTION 31 THE CASE OF LIBERTARIANISM 36 III. ERROR AND EVIL 39 IDEAS AND ORIGINAL SIN 40 THE ROLE OF IDEAS IN HISTORY 43 THE SCOPE OF HONEST ERROR 50 INHERENTLY DISHONEST IDEAS 57 IV. TOLERATION 61 TOLERANCE, JUSTICE, AND BENEVOLENCE 61 TOLERANCE AND OBJECTIVITY 63 V. OBJECTIVISM 71 OPEN AND CLOSED SYSTEMS 73 OBJECTIVISM AS AN OPEN SYSTEM 75 WHAT IS OBJECTIVISM? 81 THE OBJECTIVIST MOVEMENT 85 POSTSCRIPT 95 NOTES 103 APPENDIX A: A QUESTION OF SANCTION 113 APPENDIX B: BETTER THINGS TO DO 119 INDEX 123 PREFACE TO THE 2ND EDITION 2000 Ayn Rand’s philosophical novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged made her the most controversial author of her age. -
Percentage Tax Designation Institutions. on Sugden's
International Review of Economics (2021) 68:101–130 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12232-021-00364-2 RESEARCH ARTICLE Percentage tax designation institutions. On Sugden’s contractarian account Paolo Silvestri1 Received: 12 September 2020 / Accepted: 27 January 2021 / Published online: 27 February 2021 © The Author(s) 2021 Abstract “Percentage Tax Designation Institutions”, also known as “Percentage Philanthropy Laws”, are fscal institutions through which taxpayers can freely designate a cer- tain percentage of their income tax to organizations whose main activity is of public interest: churches, third-sector organizations, political parties, etc. A comprehensive explanation of such systems is still lacking. In The Community of Advantage, Robert Sugden provides an original theoretical account of the Italian “8 × 1000” institution as one of those forms of regulation that “would be justifed as ways of expanding opportunity for mutually benefcial transactions” and, more particularly, as a lib- eral and “contractarian approach to the provision of public goods”. This article is an attempt to expand and deepen the understanding not only of the 8 × 1000 but also of the 5 × 1000 and 2 × 1000 institutions, by refecting on and possibly refning Sug- den’s contractarian account, at least with regard to the part that relies on and devel- ops the voluntary exchange tradition (Wicksell, Lindahl and Buchanan). To remain faithful to two normative premises of Sugden’s approach—the opportunity criterion and the correlated freedom of choice—we must introduce some theoretical adjust- ments to take into due account the way in which taxpayers’ freedoms—not only freedom of choice but also autonomy—are afected by default rules and the related redistribution procedures. -
Who Studies Philosophy?
Who Studies Philosophy? Created with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundat ion Amer ican Philosophical lDAssociation Academia Sheila Bair, president of Washington College and former FDIC chair Noam Chomsky , professor , activist , author, and public intellectual Alice Domurat Dreger, professor , activist , and author Rev. John I. Jenkins, President, University of Notre Dame Aung San Suu Kyi Activism Stokely Carmichael Stokely Carmichael / Kwame lure, civil rights leader Angela Davis, social act ivist Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leader Aung San Suu Kyi, 2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner Business Herbert Allison Jr., former Fannie Mae CEO Martin Luther King Jr. Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Flickr Angela Davis Patrick Byrne, founder of Overstock.com Robert Greenhill, investment banker Reid Hoffman, co-founder of Linked In Damon Horowitz, entrepreneur and in-house philosopher at Google Carl Icahn, investor and former CEO of TWA Airlines Gerald Levin, former CEO of Time Warner, Inc. John Mackey, co-founder and co-CEO of Whole Foods Market Stewart Butterfield Sheila Bair Lachlan Murdoch, media magnate and son of Rupert Murdoch Max Palevsky, co-founder of Intel and venture capitalist Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia George Soros, investor and ph ilanthropist Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal News and Journalism Barbara Amiel, Lady Black of Cross harbour, journalist and writer Juan Williams Larry Sanger John Chancellor, journal ist Chris Hayes, journalist, political commentator, and MSNBC host Tamara Keith, journalist and NPR White House correspondent Kathryn Jean Lopez, journalist and political commentator Stone Phillips, broadcaster George F. Will, journalist , author , and political commentator Juan Williams, journalist Kathryn Jean Lopez Photos pub lic do main o r Creati ve Com mons. -
From the Instructor
From the Instructor Nicholas wrote this paper for my WR 150 course that surveys debates surrounding the free market. The second major paper in the course challenges students to contend with two uncompromising visions of the market’s virtues and evils: Karl Marx’s narrative of exploitation and estranged labor in The Communist Manifesto vs. John Galt’s forceful speech at the end of Atlas Shrugged, through which Ayn Rand asserts that competition alone can engender individual autonomy and national pros- perity. As a writer, the young Marx exemplifies many of the lessons that I teach my students. He provides an insightful and consistent framework for analysis—class relations—but does so through an elegant story with clear protagonists, antagonists, and a compelling narrative of historical struggle. Rand consciously inverts aspects of Marx’s narrative, contrasting “men of ability,” personified by Galt himself, with the weaker strata of society who seek shelter from the vicissitudes of struggle. Nicholas demonstrates in this paper his capacity to grasp the core points of contention between Rand and Marx, but also to elucidate the relevance of their grand visions for contemporary political debates in clear, insightful, and often clever prose. Nicholas frequently settled on a theme and argument from the first draft of his papers, and spent subsequent drafts developing those ideas further. He made good use of scholarly sources to substantiate his argument in this paper, especially when demon- strating that Rand, far from being a marginal twentieth-century thinker, has attained a mythical status for the contemporary American Right that is nearly on a par with the cult of Marxism in the scholarly and political movements of the past century. -
The Essential Rothbard
THE ESSENTIAL ROTHBARD THE ESSENTIAL ROTHBARD DAVID GORDON Ludwig von Mises Institute AUBURN, ALABAMA Copyright © 2007 Ludwig von Mises Institute All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any man- ner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews. For information write the Ludwig von Mises Institute, 518 West Magnolia Avenue, Auburn, Alabama 36832 U.S.A.; www.mises.org. ISBN: 10 digit: 1-933550-10-4 ISBN: 13 digit: 978-1-933550-10-7 CONTENTS Introduction . 7 The Early Years—Becoming a Libertarian . 9 Man, Economy, and State: Rothbard’s Treatise on Economic Theory . 14 Power and Market: The Final Part of Rothbard’s Treatise . 22 More Advances in Economic Theory: The Logic of Action . 26 Rothbard on Money: The Vindication of Gold . 36 Austrian Economic History . 41 A Rothbardian View of American History . 55 The Unknown Rothbard: Unpublished Papers . 63 Rothbard’s System of Ethics . 87 Politics in Theory and Practice . 94 Rothbard on Current Economic Issues . 109 Rothbard’s Last Scholarly Triumph . 113 Followers and Influence . 122 Bibliography . 125 Index . 179 5 INTRODUCTION urray N. Rothbard, a scholar of extraordinary range, made major contributions to economics, history, politi- Mcal philosophy, and legal theory. He developed and extended the Austrian economics of Ludwig von Mises, in whose seminar he was a main participant for many years. He established himself as the principal Austrian theorist in the latter half of the twentieth century and applied Austrian analysis to topics such as the Great Depression of 1929 and the history of American bank- ing. -
Moral Philosophy 101 Warren J
What do we “owe” each other? Moral Philosophy 101 Warren J. The Caries Epidemic in Native American Communities The First Law Of Healthcare Improvement “Every system is perfectly designed to achieve exactly the results it gets” So If your results are consistent, but unsatisfactory, you need to redesign the system (…but first you have to realize you are in a “system”). Donald Berwick, Do we lack social cohesion? Collective efficacy is the glue that binds neighborhoods, cities, states, and countries together Keriana Carll cries in pain nearly every day. Her mouth hurts. She doesn't eat much. No dentist in Sarasota or Manatee County was willing to treat her. The only dentist her publicly funded Medicaid insurance company found who was willing to help the child is 50 miles north, in central Tampa. I have had a change of heart. I now believe that Democrats are entirely responsible for the mess that Medicare is in today. If the people crying for more free stuff would just shut up and get a job, and stop smoking cigarettes, using crack, wasting their money on chips and beer, they would have enough money to provide health care for their children Keriana Carll cries in pain nearly every day. Her mouth hurts. She doesn't eat much. No dentist in Sarasota or Manatee County was willing to treat her. The only dentist her publicly funded Medicaid insurance company found who was willing to help the child is 50 miles north, in central Tampa. If you have children there are expense and responsibilities, but in today's world those responsibilities are being transferred to the guy next door via government. -
John Dewey, Maria Montessori, and Objectivist Educational Philosophy During the Postwar Years
73 Historical Studies in Education / Revue d’histoire de l’éducation ARTICLES / ARTICLES “The Ayn Rand School for Tots”: John Dewey, Maria Montessori, and Objectivist Educational Philosophy during the Postwar Years Jason Reid ABSTRACT Objectivism, the libertarian philosophy established by Ayn Rand during the postwar years, has attracted a great deal of attention from philosophers, political scientists, economists, and English professors alike in recent years, but has not received much notice from historians with an interest in education. This article will address that problem by discussing how Rand and her followers established a philosophy of education during the 1960s and 1970s that was based, in part, on vilifying the so-called collectivist ideas of John Dewey and lionizing the so-called individualist ideas of Maria Montessori. Unfortunately, the narrative that emerged during this time seriously misrepresented the ideas of both Dewey and Montessori, resulting in a some- what distorted view of both educators. RÉSUMÉ L’objectivisme, philosophie libertaire conçue par Ayn Rand dans la période de l’après-guerre, a suscitée beaucoup d’attention de la part des philosophes, politologues, économistes et profes- seurs de littérature anglaise, mais rien de tel chez les historiens de l’éducation. Cet article cor- rige cette lacune, en montrant comment durant les années 1960 et 1970 Rand et ses partisans ont établi une philosophie de l’éducation qui s’appuyait, en partie, sur la diffamation des idées prétendues collectivistes de John Dewey et l’idolâtrie de l’individualisme de Maria Montessori. Malheureusement, leurs travaux ont donné une fausse image des idées de Dewey et Montessori et conséquemment ont déformé les théories ces deux éducateurs. -
David Hume Foundations of the Classical School of Economics
Economic Insights FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF DALLAS VOLUME 8, NUMBER 1 David Hume Foundations of the Classical School of Economics Adam Smith is the founder of the nomic essays] are all clearly written classical school of economics, but eco- and often contain an excellent sum- nomic theorizing predates Smith. The mary and synthesis of the ideas of his philosophic foundations of classical eco- predecessors. In that respect, how- nomics are found in the work of the ever, Cantillon’s Essai sur la nature Scottish Enlightenment thinkers of the du commerce en général, published early to mid-18th century, centered in 1755, but written over twenty years David Hume is primarily known as around the University of Edinburgh. previously, is superior. a philosopher and chronicler of English Notable among these great thinkers and writers is David Hume. It is impossible to know whether history. Less well known is his work on eco- Hume was born in Edinburgh, Smith was more influenced by Can- nomic theory and several political econ- Scotland, on May 7, 1711. The extent to tillon’s book or by personal discussions which Hume influenced Smith, his close with Hume. Schumpeter (1954, 124) omy issues, some of which remain salient friend, has to be inferred from their argues that Hume did influence Smith, today. Studying his economic work respective writings, but the warmth and and Rothbard (1995, 430) suggests that depth of their relationship is incon- Hume was one of Smith’s mentors. enables us to see how he reshaped John testable. Smith said of Hume: O’Brien (1975) gives Hume a large role Locke’s quantity theory of money and how in the development of classical econom- Upon the whole, I have always con- ic thought because of his participation he influenced the great Adam Smith, sidered him, both in his lifetime and in spreading natural law philosophy.