Ayn Rand, Objectivist Principles and Capitalism

Discussion in 'Business & Economics' started by kmguru, Mar 9, 2014.

  1. kmguru Staff Member

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    Our Republicans are at it with Ayn Rand for Capitalism. While I understand Capitalism, I did not get Ayn Rand's philosophy (That is also presented by Terry Goodkind in story books). So, any smart person here, please explain Capitalism with respect to her Objectivist Principles...I missed the connections...thank you.
     
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  3. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    You've read Atlas Shrugged - including the 52-page-speech - and still don't understand? Or you haven't read her work and want a freebie?

    She admired capitalism because she thought it was the opposite of communism, which is what she thought had deprived her of the nice upper-middle-class life she thought she was entitled to. Emotionally, she had a lot of issues about sex and power. Intellectually, she was groping for the unified field theory - like all of them. She wanted to base all belief and social organization on a foundation of reason (except, she would have spelled it Reason) and fairness. She believed that we ought to be free, competitive and logical - thus, society would naturally be led by the most competent and force would never be necessary.

    Biggest problem: She understood nothing of psychology and didn't take the trouble to read history. In the philosophy, there are enormous holes. But there is also an awful lot of ego-honey to attract frustrated young people and deluded elderly doctors.
     
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  5. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Very well said and to that I would add she knew nothing of economics or business.
     
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  7. elte Valued Senior Member

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    I don't think she understood fairness either. Fairness would involve social policy to help the less fortunate and to compensate for a tilted playing field.
     
  8. kmguru Staff Member

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    Thank all of you pointing me in the right direction. I am an Engineer. Anything that helps me in my Industrial Ecosystems is what I go after. I got interested with Ayn Rand because our Libertarians and other Republicans using the Philosophy to improve Business and Society (and think about all the posting from BillyT)>

    I did my work in China in 1983 which took this long for China to get up there...I did Namibia recently and it is going just great so far...with some new ideas...

    And so, I wanted to find out if I can Learn new things...

    What we have here, with respect to Ayn Rand is:

    Fairness - not going anywhere...In my system, I do have firmness but fairness...and good risk management for the society as a whole, which is part of the fairness.

    Economics and Business - Coming from USSR, it is dificult to understand them for her. My system is designed in full on both as it is the Business. Economics is a Business Intelligence to my thinking.

    Jeeves - I did not read any of her books. They were thick and I may have gave up after say two pages. Normally, I read the first and last chapter of any book and that tells me what it is all about. If it is interesting to my JOB, I can. After all, I am an Engineer that have done every type of Fancy Engineering known to Mankind over the years...and so I wanted a freebie...thank you...

    I like everything Jeeves said and that "unified field theory". By the way, unless you have been reincarnated in say Five Billion years of Earth Time and accumulated all the data (Akashic Records)...you would not know what it is let alone develop the system that humans can understand..in Math or simple English. Stephen Wolfram has tried and no one understands his book "a new kind of science". Just a thought on that.

    Basically it is a book like any religious books that people take it and use it to develop the society hoping food will drop in to their mouth from heaven (as long as you are paying the religious people)- in any shape you want. As I develop my system, I am having similar issues in Africa, part of Middle East, and Europe too with similar type of groups hoping Manna could fall from sky without any type of Engineering structure, let alone understand Chaos and/or Order.

    This is how societies Collapse (Jared Diamond). By the way, when I was teaching my Industrial Ecosystems in China, 30 years ago, two countries asked for it...they were USSR (which said, China is dirt poor, and hence NO) and Tanzania that bitched about White folks...Now we know what happened to each.

    Thank you again...
     
  9. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Ironically, Randian's are among the least objective folks around. In spite of their rhetoric, history and empiricism is just not their gig. No one of merit took Rand seriously during her lifetime. It was only in the 1990's when the Koch brother billionaires, who inherited their wealth, began pumping Rand by spending millions of dollars each year promoting her books and conditioning academic grants on promoting her work did Rand come into the public discourse.
     
    Last edited: Mar 9, 2014
  10. kmguru Staff Member

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    11,757
    KOCH...that is really interesting...thanks.

    As a believer of God, I never believed in Evil. I think there is Chaos and Order (Babylon 5). So, It is necessary to have about 10% Chaos to maintain New Order from Old One as Order is Static. So, KOCH getting involved in this type of Chaos may not really provide better Order...it could go the other way...as is happening Now...for USA ...
     
  11. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    LOL

    ... and that bit about the Koch brothers.. hahaha.... ah, too funny.

    Ayn believed most people "think" (if you want to call it that) in stings of illogical gibberish - and this is where she was absolutely correct. She greatly admired Aristotle. Following Alexander's death Aristotle was chased out of Athens to Chalcis (family property), you know, because of "impiety" (IOWs he was slandered). A year later, the man who brought humanity logic died and the masses promptly forgot the crazy old kooks ideas (for about 400 years).

    Have a re-read of your thinly populated thread, I think you'll find Ayn was on to something....


    Oh, Joe, by the way, could you rephrase your anti-Koch post as a syllogism?

    "Randians" hahahahaha.... LOL, ah, yes, very funny.
     
  12. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    “Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a person's sexual choice is the result and sum of their fundamental convictions. Tell me what a person finds sexually attractive and I will tell you their entire philosophy of life. Show me the person they sleep with and I will tell you their valuation of themselves. No matter what corruption they're taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which they cannot perform for any motive but their own enjoyment - just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity! - an act which is not possible in self-abasement, only in self-exultation, only on the confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire. It is an act that forces them to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and accept their real ego as their standard of value. They will always be attracted to the person who reflects their deepest vision of themselves, the person whose surrender permits them to experience - or to fake - a sense of self-esteem .. Love is our response to our highest values - and can be nothing else.”
    ― Ayn Rand


    People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I’ve learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one’s reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one’s master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person’s view requires to be faked…The man who lies to the world, is the world’s slave from then on…There are no white lies, there is only the blackest of destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all.”
    ― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged


    “The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone.”
    ― Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness


    “The truth is not for all men but only for those who seek it.”
    ― Ayn Rand
     
  13. kmguru Staff Member

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    11,757
    How can you take these items and design Advanced Ecosystems in Business for the Planet...or say just do Capitalism? -- that is where I have problem with...thanks...
     
  14. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    If humans can't even keep themselves from seeking others to keep them happy then they won't ever be happy themselves within their own selves. They can't just be happy themselves.

    There are humans that want to ensure that their lives are devoted to helping this planet and therefore do what they themselves can do to do so. Some may find that by designing ecosystems makes their lives complete for they find happiness within that field of work. Others might find balancing the books their bliss in life do to buying and selling products made from eco friendly things they sell. They know others need things to survive so they try to supply things that they need for a happy life.
     
  15. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    With the recent posts of the Randians (i.e. Michael & Cosmictraveler), I think you have the confirmations you need. Ayn Rand was a novelist who quickly faded into oblivion and now in recent years has been revived by a few billionaires as a cult figure and used as a tool to advance a political ideology. Each year the Ayn Rand Institute buys, virtually the entire print production of Atlas Shrugged, and gives them away to students.
     
  16. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    The U.S. Libertarian Party was founded in 1971, a decade before Rand died. The early libertarian leaders were quite inspired by her works.

    The sound-bite definition of libertarianism is "fiscally conservative but socially liberal." In those days the country had adopted a wide variety of socially liberal policies, so the libertarians felt little need to talk about that half of their platform. They were more worried about fiscal issues, which easily put them in Rand's camp.

    It wasn't until a couple of decades later when the War on Drugs was in overdrive and Waco and Ruby Ridge happened that the libertarians began to realize that social liberalism had lost its inertia. At that point the LP became a true third party, arguing for fiscal conservatism from a government that had already added a zero to the national debt in a time of peace and prosperity, and arguing for social liberalism from a Democratic President, the first pot-smokin', draft-dodgin', rockin'-and-rollin', free-lovin', intellectual Rhodes Scholar hippie to occupy the White House... who was making war on one-percenters.

    It's not clear if this took them out of Ayn Rand's camp, since she was not around to comment on it. But their intellectual wing, such as the editors of Reason magazine, still quote her and hold her up as a litmus test.

    I failed the test and abandoned the Libertarian Party when the latest issue of Reason felt that it had to run six articles to comprise a "balanced debate" on the subject of vaccinations! What kind of loonie birds see any merit in the anti-vaccination movement??? That's not "conservative," it's idiotic.

    Next time, I'm voting Green. At least they understand what's important! And it would be cool to have a Jewish female president.
     
  17. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    Rand was a hack. her entire ideology was based on her own sociopathy and the childhood tramua of the communist revolutions effects on her family which she lamented more for the lose of privilage and prestige than any real regard for freedom. her entire concept of the world was the wealthy were inherently better than everyone else. there not a whole lot of good in her ideas. Libertarianism defense of elitism, privilage, and corporate power can probobly be traced back to in the early days its linking with rand. though thankfully they exhibit these tendecies to a far lesser degree than objectivists. randian thought held the rich should do what ever they wanted and everyone else could take a hike.
     
  18. kmguru Staff Member

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    11,757
    yes...
     
  19. kmguru Staff Member

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    Thank you. What happened is that I reorganized the Ecosystems in 2000, from my work in China in 1983 to use them globally as China did very well on that low level initiation by me.

    Then 9/11 happened. Everything went haywire...I could not do anything for USA, Africa, India and Eastern European countries. Finally I started a 60 project work in Namibia and now 14 projects are underway. In the mean time, I keep an eye on BillyT items and the Rand injection in GOP. It bothered me. So, I wanted to know what is the issue. My Ecosystems project uses new ideas to mix with old so that we can develop without getting killed for it. That is my core believe...

    At this time, I also contacted to some visionaries in the Intelligence Department that said, 9/11 should not have happened. That means, my project would have run in due course and we would not have all the BillyT materials here...

    It is an interesting part of Chaos and Order in the Time space, but I was told that even if it was late...everything would be just fine in the long run...as key people know what is happening and slowly things will settle down...

    So, thank you all...we can make it go...very well...
     
  20. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    haha.... I'm sure there's a cartoon on the idiot box you may be interested in if you look hard enough.
     
  21. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    Are you capable of something other than personal attacks? Rand was elitist like your hero Von mises
     
  22. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    You mean like this?
    Every single one of your sentences is logical fallacy. Every one of them.
     
  23. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Well, that's a Problem that many Engineers have. (Irrational capitalization is another, but it's shared by other occupational groups.) You cannot judge a body of work that you have not read, thought about, discussed and compared to other contemporary literature. If thick books with many pages generally turn you off, there is a very good chance you have no points of reference. And that leaves you basically at the mercy of more literate people to inform you and influence your opinions.
    Pity.
     

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