What is Ayn Rand’s philosophy and how is it bad?

[Trey Kincaid]

I've heard of Ayn Rand's objectivist philosophy, and all the flak that it gets. But what is it actually, and what makes it bad?

[gentlehook586]

I found it amusing that she ended up needing public assistance in her later years.

[Carl]

Well the idea is basically that:

Greed and selfishness are the only true moral compasses to what is good for persons.

We should follow these things throughout our lives, and ignore other false morality provided by man.

She further attempts to establish a "top down" view of economics. That individuals at the top only rose to that point by utilizing their hard-work and ingenuity. Thus should be rewarded with their success by obtaining all that they "earned".

Furthermore, she pushes against the idea of government, government assistance, and any form of social welfare programs.

She sees these programs as stealing from the top, and then providing to the "lazy" people. That is those who sit on the bottom (the poor) at that way because generally, they don't know how to work hard, and are not intelligent / don't have ingenuity.

To obtain wealth they instead form together as a majority, then create laws via government to restrict those who have worked hard for what they have. They "steal" from the top, and then use this wealth to instead become wealthy themselves.

Objectivists hold that initiation of physical force/coercion against another to obtain something they "own" is morally wrong. They see the world as being a place where if all obtain only that which they own, then all will be more fair.

They see the collection of taxes as something that is morally wrong, because you're being coerced by the government to pay for services you do not have a choice in partaking.

She further argued against restrictions, like the EPA, or DSHS as being harmful to the poor. These programs stopped those who wanted upward social mobility from rising to the top by restricting actions they could take.

She argued against anti-trust monopoly laws, claiming that they hindered capitalism. Rand's objectivism supports what she calls "full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism." No rules, no child labor laws, no anything. To Rand capitalism is the only moral system, because it is the only system that is fair to the poor.

Finally Rand denied all claims of positive, or collective rights. Racisim was a non-problem, and affirmitive action / minority positive rights / etc are bad things that coerce the market and attempt to control peoples moral compasses.

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That is the BASIC jiste of it. Simple, yes, but you can go read the wikipedia page for Objectivism if you want the full information.

Now, why do people think its bad or untrue:

Following reasons:

1. No man is his own island: The rich became rich by benefiting from a social contract. This contract was agreed to by all persons. Certain people (those with money) are capable of faster upward social mobility. They benefit from transaction laws, and non-violence laws in Rand's world. However, there is no extension of benefit for poor individuals. They are subject to laws that harm them (as weird as it sounds, it is relatively true.) The laws are designed as such to not allow them to utilize their genetic/physical traits effectively (physical coercion, right to be entirely free of any restrictions). They give these benefits up to cooperate in a society and help each other.

However, individuals at the top often believe they "created themselves" or something equally silly. Persons at the top still benefited more than the others from the social contract. Thus since they reaped more benefits persons argue that they owe a debt to the social contract. This theory opposes Rand's views of objectivism with capitalism. The idea is that we all coalesced together in society and continue to give up some of our rights (everyone gives up rights to be in society, period) so that we can all obtain the benefit from society. Some persons obtain much lesser benefit, and thus some amount of redistribution is necessary to spread the benefit equally. That way there are less losers. The sacrifice is a small amount of the "winnings" of those who "earned" it by the social contract which they've benefited.


I was forced by Yahoo! Answers to remove items number 2) (Selfishness and Greed), 3) (Deregulation), 4) (Incumbency of Wealth), 5) (Destroys social safety net), 6) (Marx's Capital), and item number 7) (Onora Oneills consent) from my response. Realize that there was more but I was restricted in length.