Well, much can be learned from her, but she was a radical Libertarian/Rationalist.
She certaily sees this issue clearly. Look at Freakonomics. They get the economics, but it hasn’t stopped them from pushing liberal schemes.
The great mistake here is in assuming that economics is a science which can be isolated from moral, philosophical and political principles, and considered as a subject in itself, without relation to them. It can’t be done.
The best example of that is Von Mises’ Omnipotent Government. That is precisely what he attempted to do, in a very objective, conscientious, scholarly way. And he failed dismally...”
Well, then.
I actually haven’t read Omnipotent Government. Maybe it is in fact in that work that Mises doesn’t address moral, philosophical and political principles.
But he does in Human Action. It seems a bit disingenuous for Rand not to note that. Most likely, Mises didn’t intend Omnipotent Government to be his Summa.
(Of course, this shows one of the problems on our side of the ledger. Everyone has to always one up everyone else, and put others down. Rand basically says that Mises is an idiot here. Which sort of means that Rand is the only one with any answers.
And that differs her from Nietzsche just exactly how?).
This is the moral premise accepted by most people today, of all classes, all stages of education and all political parties.
How are you going to sell capitalist economics to go with that? How are you going to get them to accept as moral, proper and desirable such conceptions as personal ambition, economic competition, the profit motive and private property?
It can’t be done. Their moral ideal has defined these conceptions as evil and immoral. So modern men are consistent about it. Our “common gooder conservatives” are not. It’s one or the other.
She is so right is so very many ways. But in the above quote, she is wrong. There IS a way to associate capitalistic self-interest with the spiritual command to help one another. And that solution is:
PRIVATELY.
Because if there is one thing human history has proven to humans over and over and over and over again, much to their misery and drenched in oceans of blood, is that GOVERNMENT IS NOT THE RIGHT TOOL FOR SOCIAL AID.
Government, in its essence, is nothing more than the power to DESTROY. The ONLY definition of a "good" government, therefore, is one that destroys the right things, at the right time, in the right way – and leaves absolutely EVERYTHING ELSE alone.
THAT is freedom. THAT is the enablement of prosperity and the massive voluntary social aid that results. THAT is the terrific success of the American Revolution, that collectivist have fought to destroy from within and without for 230+ years, literally from the moment of its birth.
And now, in the age of psychotropic prescription drugs, massively psyoped media, globally networked computers, near-total surveillance, nuclear and scalar weapons, spacecraft, and God knows what other things under black ops, the human race has reached its final test. Because under the present technological circumstances, if collectivism wins, the human race cannot survive those powers in the hands of the totalitarian lunatics who will control them.
And the totalitarian lunatics will not survive their concept of "winning," either, because their dreams of a global prison will not be sustainable into the future, because THEY are not sustainable, and WILL use their weapons on each other. After all, not having any boundaries is their creed. Why believe that creed would be abandoned once they "win"? They still will have each other to deal with... and they all get along SO well.
Jesus said for us to love each other as He loved us. I don't recall him becoming the CEO of a MultiCorpGov in the Middle East to express His love. But I do recall that he gave His instruction as a command.
Commands are not optional.
Ayn Rand ping.
I wished I had learned and read of her a long time ago.
Ayn Rand’s letters were as lengthy as her books! I have read Atlas Shrugged three times since college in the 60’s and it usually takes me 2-3 months to get through it, reading part time before bed each night. It is a long slog but one of the best books I’ve ever read. I didn’t understand it much in college, not having much in the way of real life experiences yet. But the second time I read it in the Air Force, it solidified my conservative views. The last time I read it was at the beginning of Obama’s reign of terror in 2009. It read almost like a news report of what Obama was doing to the country. I am thinking of tackling the book again soon. It is so insightful about what we are going through in the country right now. This lady was 50 years ahead of her time in her thinking. Everyone who has not read the book, should put it on their bucket list to read before they die.