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That is a derogatory characterization and it is false. The best outcome for society is for government to adhere to the principles laid out in Atlas Shrugged.

by nirvana 14y ago

That is a derogatory characterization and it is false. The best outcome for society is for government to adhere to the principles laid out in Atlas Shrugged. Collectivism has given us poverty, illiteracy, the 2008 financial crisis, etc. Worse, whenever they screw things up really bad, they use the fact that things are screwed up to claim that they need even more power to exploit poor people and violate the rights of everybody, and they wrap themselves in the flag of "serving the poor" to sell it. These people pretend like Rand was advocating self centeredness, and that they are advocating altruism, when the reverse is more accurate. Rand is advocating freedom and liberty and they are advocating a form of slavery.

Ygg2 14y ago
Please do show how does collectivism (and not a bad application of collectivistic principles) has given poverty, illiteracy and the 2008 financial crisis (last one I can kinda understand).
RyanMcGreal 14y ago
> That is a derogatory characterization and it is false. It may be derogatory but it's not false. Rational self-interest was the centrepiece of Rand's moral philosophy. > The best outcome for society is for government to adhere to the principles laid out in Atlas Shrugged. The most successful societies, by a wide variety of measures, manage to balance individual freedom, agency and entrepreneurialism with a foundation of civil liberty and social equity that provides the best opportunities for everyone to succeed. > Collectivism has given us poverty, illiteracy, the 2008 financial crisis, etc. Labelling the whole gamut of different forms of government under a pejorative ism has given us a legacy of dogmatic, wooly-minded incoherent political discourse. > Worse, whenever they screw things up really bad, they use the fact that things are screwed up to claim that they need even more power to exploit poor people and violate the rights of everybody, and they wrap themselves in the flag of "serving the poor" to sell it. Some of them do that some of the time, and one solution is to eliminate government, but that has not worked anywhere ever. What has worked - what is working today in many places - is to press for a better, more responsive government that forms policies based on evidence and respects human rights. > These people pretend like Rand was advocating self centeredness, and that they are advocating altruism, when the reverse is more accurate. The 2008 economic crisis, incidentally, was made possible in large party through deliberate state deregulation of the financial industry in the late 1990s, a catastrophic outcome that was predicted at the time but ignored by those people who were most loudly touting libertarian governing doctrines.
yzhengyu 14y ago
From what I have observed, Objectivism's problems lie in the fact that its "me" message is inherently attractive to people who probably need psychiatric treatment for their tendencies which trend towards sociopathy. Most people who buy into Rand's philosophy essentially buy into this message, it is rather pointless to try to debate the more subtle points of her philosophy with them. IMHO, human society is neither about collectivism or individualism but a dynamic balance of the two.

by nirvana 14y ago

Ygg2 14y ago

Please do show how does collectivism (and not a bad application of collectivistic principles) has given poverty, illiteracy and the 2008 financial crisis (last one I can kinda understand).

RyanMcGreal 14y ago

> That is a derogatory characterization and it is false. It may be derogatory but it's not false. Rational self-interest was the centrepiece of Rand's moral philosophy. > The best outcome for society is for government to adhere to the principles laid out in Atlas Shrugged. The most successful societies, by a wide variety of measures, manage to balance individual freedom, agency and entrepreneurialism with a foundation of civil liberty and social equity that provides the best opportunities for everyone to succeed. > Collectivism has given us poverty, illiteracy, the 2008 financial crisis, etc. Labelling the whole gamut of different forms of government under a pejorative ism has given us a legacy of dogmatic, wooly-minded incoherent political discourse. > Worse, whenever they screw things up really bad, they use the fact that things are screwed up to claim that they need even more power to exploit poor people and violate the rights of everybody, and they wrap themselves in the flag of "serving the poor" to sell it. Some of them do that some of the time, and one solution is to eliminate government, but that has not worked anywhere ever. What has worked - what is working today in many places - is to press for a better, more responsive government that forms policies based on evidence and respects human rights. > These people pretend like Rand was advocating self centeredness, and that they are advocating altruism, when the reverse is more accurate. The 2008 economic crisis, incidentally, was made possible in large party through deliberate state deregulation of the financial industry in the late 1990s, a catastrophic outcome that was predicted at the time but ignored by those people who were most loudly touting libertarian governing doctrines.

yzhengyu 14y ago

From what I have observed, Objectivism's problems lie in the fact that its "me" message is inherently attractive to people who probably need psychiatric treatment for their tendencies which trend towards sociopathy. Most people who buy into Rand's philosophy essentially buy into this message, it is rather pointless to try to debate the more subtle points of her philosophy with them. IMHO, human society is neither about collectivism or individualism but a dynamic balance of the two.