It isn typically a negative sum transaction in economic term, as opposed to the positive sum transactions that is of the very nature of trade. Now, every society, I think, has some mix of trade and power as operating principles in the social structure.
One of the fascinating things about Atlasn Shrugged as a novel, is that it tracks the replacement of trade by power, over the course of a spell of years. And it traces, step by step, all of the consequences, including the economic consequences, the unintended effects of government regulations, the othern problems that must be solved by further regulations, it illustrates and shows how people being fleeing from responsibility, because they do not know what they can expect or what kind of penaltyn they can expect for stepping out of line.
You have black markets arising when goods are banned; you have people with political power making more money than the people who actually produce goods andn services honestly; and finally, with the complete abandonment of markets, you end up with a state in which no rational allocation of resources is possible.
And Rand was a very careful student of economics, she actually, was very familiar with the Mises theories and a great admirer of his. So, the key ideas just to summarize, that you find in Atlas Shrugged and that represent the intellectual revolution in my judgment, are the glory ofn production, the honor it deserves as a human activity, the morality of self-interest, and the justice of trade.
I think every social system has to have some moral foundation, something thatn justifies its political and economic arrangement and prescriptions. Capitalism needs such an ideal, not simply an economic justification, but an account of why it honors and protects a rational morality on the part ofn individuals, and why its social structure is just by a rational standard of fairness and justice. Thank you for listening.
Question:I was wondering, what do you think about the basic difference between the philosophy of the Atlas Shrugged and the one of The Fountainhead?
In The Fountainhead the core theme is individualism, and at that time Rand thought of individualism as the essence of her philosophy and stressed the issuesn of independent judgement.
In The Fountainhead, she was stressing the issues of independence of sprit, integrity of spirit, and most of everything else that she presented in Atlas Shrugged, isn there in principle if you look for it; about rationality and achievement, and freedom. So I would just say Atlas is more, a fuller account and also one that has more emphasis on the politicaln aspects. Kelley, I believe you own Atlas Shrugged rights to do the film, the movie.
They are owned, the film rights were acquired by a business mann named John Aglialoro, who was a long-time objectivist and he wanted to see the movie made so he bought the rights, and for fifteen years now he has tried to get a movie made.
In any case, the current project is to make a single feature film. There is a script, which is now being edited in some way, but it will be finalized soon.
There is the production, the corporation, which has worked for many years with John Aglialoro until they finally, in arranging to making this all happen, hasn stayed in the course. We now have a director, that was the most recent addition, and the one that we are all waiting for to, in effect, reach the point of what in the movien industry they call greenlighting the movie, that is the studio will authorize the project to go forward, authorize the spending of money, authorize the hiring of the cast and so forth.
Which country? DK:Which society? Which country today? Theren are smaller Hong Kong, to some extent, Singapore have freer markets in many respects than larger countries, including the U. Which countries are the most accepting of individualism, and most appreciative,n and supportive of achievement in different realms.
I was wondering, how would you persuade somebody like that, that is against his own interest to take advantage ofn other people, to pay wages that are not fair to his employees, or to be ruthless in undermining the competition in immoral ways? DK:I think that, what I would say to that is, that when you look at any profession, any line of work, there are both internal and external forces that leadn people to act well.
The external forces are the economic incentives of competition and the fact that people who are mistreated, employees or customers or investors orn whatever, can go elsewhere. So, anyone engaged briefly in any kind of business that involves repeat business with multiple exchanges and customers or long-term relations withn employees has an external incentive, whatever his internal feelings are, to deal fairly, or at least in a way that are mutually accepted by the other parties.
And I think for all the power of economic incentives you cannot evern replace that, but that is a realm of, not of social science and what are the forces that constrain people, but rather of morality and what are the decisions they ought to make. And the whole point of morality is that people do not always act as they should, they need standards.
How do you deal with that? All of us, all people who are participants in any kind of society that has a mixed economy and elements of a welfare state, isn both, recipient and victim, of ill-gotten gains, so to speak.
How do you convince them? Kelley, this conference is being webcasted and we got a question through the web, it says: How could there exist morality withoutn religion?
On then other hand, there is in Ayn Rand's view, morality is something that human beings need because they live in this world as a rational beings who, like any other species of living beings, have ton maintain their lives by acting to support it. But in the case of humans need to conceptual principles for identifying what it is they need to have successful lives and what capacities they have thatn will enable them to satisfy those needs.
So, a morality is, therefore, grounded to what is good or bad depending on what our nature is and how it can support successful flourishing lives and thatn is the basis of morality. And if we ask how can there be a science of medicine; well, medicine and the prescriptions about your health, what to do to be healthy. This is a point of view that is more secular and it is also less commonly known, it has a long tradition in philosophy in the different works of the Greekn philosophers, and their Statillian tradition, which has influenced many later thinkers, and I would put Ayn Rand and Objectivism in that context also.
David, thank you so much. On behalf of the Board of Directors, I would like to present to you this as a token of our appreciation, thank you so muchn David, I appreciate it. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not letn your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads.
Do not let yourn fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at- all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life that you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and then nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours. What is the basic difference between the philosophy of Atlas Shruggedand The Fountainhead?
How can you persuade people that it is against their self-interests to pursue immoral and uncompetitive business practices? It is worth remarking, too, that there is no sense of tragedy, no sense of the ultimate fragility of existence, in Rand's work. Her heroes regard suffering as something unnatural and unnecessary, and happiness as the only rightful condition of man. It is a strangely sterile world, one without sickness or disease or disability, where failure in business is merely an incentive to greater striving, and death takes only the villains, the marginal, or the vast unnamed.
Rand's heroes are unencumbered by finitude, however. They strive to overcome "the contradictory, the arbitrary, the hidden, the faked, the irrational in men," to recover, as Galt himself says, the spirit of their childhood.
There is a word for people who try to escape from the contradictory, the arbitrary, the irrational and tragic dimensions of life that we all must face--that word is delusional. Bill Buckley once said he thought Whittaker Chambers had gone too far when he wrote in his review of this book, "From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged , a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: 'To a gas chamber -- go!
Skip to content Site Navigation The Atlantic. Popular Latest. The Atlantic Crossword. Sign In Subscribe. The Atlas Shrugged Book Club. Read the entire series on Ayn Rand's controversial classic. The only proper purpose of a government is to protect a man's rights which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man's self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force.
The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contract from breach or fraud, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law.
Shortly after we are introduced to John Galt, he solemnly intones these words: "Ever since I can remember, I had felt that I would kill the man who'd claim that I exist for the sake of his need -- and I had known that this was the highest moral feeling. And I hate to be the outside-it-all religious one here, as always, but this really is a repulsive thing to put as the highest moral feeling.
This is John Galt talking about the looters and moochers, the takers. Shiftless employees, socialists, etc. His long speech is fascinating; it is also so humorless.
None of these heroes has any lightness of spirit. They are so leaden. Galt eventually addresses his inferiors as "you who dread knowledge" and shortly thereafter informs them "You have nothing to offer us. We do not need you Are you not crying: No this was not what you wanted?
These of course are the people that will starve first under the strike of the abled. If rationality routinely led to an early demise, no one would value rationality. But this does not entail, as Salmieri seems to think, that the ultimate value is literal survival Salmieri All it entails is that the virtues be compatible with survival in normal circumstances.
For it is easy to see that if justice or kindness systematically led to deep depression, and rationality routinely sucked the joy out of life, only the rare misery-lover would value his life, or the virtues.
Survival is a necessary condition of a happy life as well as an unhappy one , not an ultimate value. Another example concerns two minor characters in We The Living who risk — and lose — their freedom and lives for resisting the new communist regime.
Note, however, that Rand does not think that we are morally obligated to martyr ourselves to fight evil. All we are obligated to do is not be complicit in evil, or betray our values. My act does not adequately express the virtue of justice if I give you your due solely or primarily because acting justly is good for me rather than because I recognize and respect your moral standing, your entitlement to be treated justly.
Nor does my helping you when you need help adequately express goodwill or kindness if I help you solely or primarily because acting benevolently is good for me. The root of the problem is that, although Rand rejects psychological egoism, she seems to regard genuine goodwill towards, or love of, others as an offshoot of proper self-love, as though there were no independent source of love for others in human nature.
This is where her metaethics and ethics differ most starkly from that of Aristotle. Altruism is also the reason why so many sympathize with, or even praise, bloody dictatorships that proudly proclaim that the sacrifice of the individual is a necessary and noble means to the goal of the collective good Rand a. As such, it is also profoundly immoral.
Altruism leaves us without any moral guidance in our everyday lives and gives morality a bad name. What, then, is the psychological explanation for the widespread equation of altruism with morality? The theorists and preachers of altruism are motivated largely by a desire to control and manipulate others by playing on their guilt.
Some altruists are altruists because their mentalities are still frozen in a tribal past when survival required the sacrifice of some for the sake of others b. Rand herself rejects a zero-sum picture of human relationships, so long as everyone in the relationship acts rationally.
The philosopher who responds negatively to her work finds many biased and simplistic interpretations of philosophers and philosophical doctrines, including her claim that she is the first to consistently defend a morality of rational self-interest, all other philosophers having defended either altruism or mysticism Pojman Not only actually shooting someone, but also threatening him with a gun, is an act of force.
The non-initiation of force against others is the basic moral principle guiding our interactions with others, whether in a political society, or in the state of nature.
This political principle binds not only individuals in their interactions with each other, but also, importantly, the government.
But what exactly is a right? Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law. These rights are based in human nature, and are basically rights to actions, not to things or outcomes, and they can be violated only through the initiation or threat of force, or through fraud. The right to life means…the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life.
Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Like other libertarians, both right market and left egalitarian , Rand opposes state regulation of morality, as well as forced service to the state, whether military or civilian.
She criticizes both conservatives and liberals as these terms are understood in American politics for wanting government to control the realm they regard as important: the spiritual or moral realm in the case of conservatives, and the material or economic realm in the case of liberals b. Both sides thus betray a lack of understanding of the fact that human beings need to be free in both realms to be free in either.
Critics have pointed out that if we have rights only because we need them for our survival and happiness, then we have no right to take actions that are contrary to our survival and happiness, such as blindly following a guru instead of thinking for ourselves, living off others because we prefer the life of a couch potato to fending for ourselves, wasting our property instead of using it wisely, or, most obviously, committing suicide Mack ; Zwolinski Yet the freedom to do only that which is morally good or rational is no freedom.
This need and the fact that we value our survival and happiness is the source of rights. As Rand says elsewhere:. A right is the sanction of independent action. Rand b Everything said so far shows that Rand believes that individuals have rights even in a state of nature, or a society without a government.
In any case, Rand takes back her controversial statement by reiterating her earlier view that:. A is A and Man is Man. Onkar Ghate and Harry Binswanger both defend this view.
Ghate uses two scenarios involving individuals in a state of nature. Suppose you are by yourself on a desert island, and you domesticate a pig. Then someone from a neighboring tribe steals it. Do you have a right to retaliate by stealing some of his property, or stealing from his relatives? Again, suppose Robinson Crusoe and Friday are strangers sharing an island, and Crusoe invents a superior spear. Does Friday have a right to copy it?
Of course the tribe and you might not be able to reach a resolution satisfactory to both of you. Their view seems to imply that if the Founding Fathers had been shipwrecked for 5 years on a desert island, they could not have come up with a Bill of Rights that defined the limits of their liberties vis-a-vis each other, or set up a fair system of adjudication in the event of a dispute.
As many scholars have pointed out, starting in the 11th C, merchants from various countries created the body of law called the Law Merchant in order to protect foreign merchants not protected by the local laws Benson ; see the entry on law merchant at libertarianism. The Law Merchant was uniform throughout Europe, and enforced by courts also created by merchants in European cities, without the involvement of any European government.
Rand argues that the only just social-political system, the only system compatible with our rational nature and with the right of individuals to live for their own sakes, is capitalism , b , that is,. State regulation of the market, she argues, is responsible for corrupting both state and market institutions, just as political regulation of religion or religious regulation of politics , wherever it exists, corrupts both state and religious institutions. Regulation creates the opportunity for the trading of favors between politicians and religious leaders, and politicians and businesses.
She does, of course, praise capitalism or semi-capitalism for creating widespread prosperity, but this feature is itself explained only by the fact that it leaves individuals free to produce in peace. She holds that for a short period in the nineteenth-century America came closer to a laissez-faire system than any other society before or since, but that capitalism remains an unknown ideal. Some critics complain, however, that in her non-fiction c Rand does not always recognize the aristocrats of pull in the real world—business leaders who lobby politicians for subsidies for themselves and restrictions on their competitors Rothbard ; Johnson In such a society, competition and opportunity will flourish, and prevent concentration of power in a few hands.
Is it true, however, that rational interests cannot conflict, or that, if they do, it follows that rights must also conflict?
We think that whenever two or more people have a rational interest in one good, there is potential for conflict, and sometimes that potential is actualized. To show otherwise, Rand considers a situation in which two people apply for the same job, and the better candidate gets the job. There is no conflict of interests here, she argues, because the better candidate has earned the job, and the loser cannot rationally wish to have been given the job. Both points are well-taken.
But what if the employer is not rational and gives the job to the somewhat less qualified applicant because, say, he reminds the employer of his long-lost brother? Or, what if the two candidates are equally qualified, and the hiring committee chooses one over the other by tossing a coin?
In both cases there is a conflict of interests between two rational applicants. The second possibility, that of two equally qualified candidates, she does not consider at all. Rand would be on firmer ground if she were to argue that there is no necessary conflict between rational interests, that is, that it is not in their nature to conflict. When they conflict, it is due to contingent factors, such as only one job for two equally qualified people.
In any case, a conflict between rational interests does not entail a conflict between rights, since, as Rand herself points out, neither party has a right to the job. Such a government is minimal, limited to protecting us from criminals and foreign aggressors, and enforcing individual rights and contracts with the help of the police and armed forces, using objectively defined civil and criminal laws and courts.
Accordingly, the government may use or threaten force only in retaliation against those who initiate or threaten force directly or indirectly. Statism in all its forms, from unlimited democracy to a mixed economy to dictatorship, is at odds with our status as independent, rational beings, as ends in ourselves. The fountainhead of all progress is the human mind, and the mind does not function well when forced.
There is a judge to arbitrate disagreements, but there has never been any need for arbitration. Anarchist critics, such as Roy Childs [] and Murray Rothbard , have argued that a territorial monopoly on law and force government is not necessary, because people can establish a just and effective legal system in a competitive market of security providers see Long and Machan The Law Merchant, a body of law established and enforced in private courts by the merchants of various countries, illustrates the possibility of an effective voluntary legal system.
Cox a and b. The trader principle states that a voluntary, mutually beneficial exchange between independent equals is the only basis for a mutually respectful and rational relationship b: The trader principle applies to emotional relationships as well. It would seem, however, that the trade between parent and child is unequal, given that the child receives both pleasure and material support from the parent.
And it is unclear how the trader principle applies at all when a severe disability renders a beloved child or spouse a source of pain rather than pleasure. Branden One literary critic argues that Dagny is the first, and perhaps only, epic heroine in Western literature because of the grandness of her vision, her courage and integrity, her unusual abilities, and her national importance Michalson In all three novels, it is the heroine who has the power to choose which of the men who love, admire, and desire her and only her she will have.
Her relationship to the feminist movement, however, was more complex. Branden ; Presley ; Sheaffer ; Taylor Another objects that Rand has internalized a masculine conception of human nature and virtue, and then created her ideal woman in light of this conception Brownmiller ; Glennon Brown At least as offensive to many are the violent sex scenes in her novels, especially the infamous scene in The Fountainhead that many regard as rape, where Howard Roark has sex with Dominique in spite of her resistance.
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