Posted on 08/28/2010 7:06:10 PM PDT by Mojave
This past spring, the Financial Industry Inquiry Commission held hearings on the world's recent financial crisis. The star witness was Alan Greenspan. The Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan translated Greenspan's typically elusive testimony this way: "I didn't do anything wrong, and neither did Ayn Rand by the way, but next time you might try more regulation."
There were obviously many reasons for the Great Recession. But I believe Noonan got to the root of one particular evil.
Fortune magazine once labeled Greenspan "America's most famous libertarian, an Ayn Rand acolyte." (While Rand formally rejected libertarianism, libertarians nonetheless admire her.) But today, both libertarians and Randians are disassociating themselves from Greenspan as quickly as Wall Street.
No problem the author of this stupid book says: "at the core of the right-wing ideology that Rand spearheaded was a rejection of moral obligations to others."
That's demonstrably false. Here's one Rand quote that backs me up:
"The Objectivist ethics holds that the actor must always be the beneficiary of his action and that man must act for his own rational self-interest. But his right to do so is derived from his nature as man and from the function of moral values in human life—and, therefore, is applicable only in the context of a rational, objectively demonstrated and validated code of moral principles which define and determine his actual self-interest. It is not a license “to do as he pleases...” Rand from "The Virtue of Selfishness"
Then there's this from "For The New Intellectual": "Do you ask what moral obligation I owe to my fellow men? None—except the obligation I owe to myself, to material objects and to all of existence: rationality. I deal with men as my nature and theirs demands: by means of reason. I seek or desire nothing from them except such relations as they care to enter of their own voluntary choice. It is only with their mind that I can deal and only for my own self-interest, when they see that my interest coincides with theirs. When they don’t, I enter no relationship; I let dissenters go their way and I do not swerve from mine. I win by means of nothing but logic and I surrender to nothing but logic. I do not surrender my reason or deal with men who surrender theirs."
It sounds like Rand had some pretty solid ideas about her moral obligations to others to me. The author of that stupid book is lying when she said that Rand 'rejected' moral obligations to others. She just doesn't like what Rand had to say. Therefore the author is a bold faced liar.
Anything else I can do for you?
“Do you ask what moral obligation I owe to my fellow men? None—except the obligation I owe to myself, ...”
Pretty narcissistic to me. Epic fail regards refutation of the quote you claimed was a lie.
The link is in Post #3. It is a seven page long hit piece that seems to blame the economic mess on Rand and defend government debt as a good thing. The author is very shifty about supporting Christian ethics in finance and yet still seems to defend our godless government.
Epic fail.
Objectivism rejects forcing others into subservience in the name of “moral obligations”, not the obligations themselves.
We have a Government that has no regard for our Constitution, but they were put there by a Citizenry who also have no regard for our Constitution, either through deliberate action or ignorance.
The moral purpose of a man’s life is the achievement of his own happiness. This does not mean that he is indifferent to all men, that human life is of no value to him and that he has no reason to help others in an emergency. But it does mean that he does not subordinate his life to the welfare of others,...
Rand certainly did not 'reject' moral obligations to others. She simply had a diametrically opposed idea of what those moral obligations are than what this Burns person thinks.
So she slides in a bald faced lie in order to try to remove any discussion of Rand's philosophy from the table. It's a cheap parlor trick used by liars and politicians. Sorry, I repeated myself there.
There’s a book written by Barron’s editor Gene Epstein called “Econo-spinning”. It has chapters exposing BOTH Greenspan and Paul Krugman as charlatans....Greenspan AND Bernanke never made a single prediction that came true...and both made predictions based on a rosy accessment of their own monetary policy.....
What were you just saying about oversimplification?
Why didn't you post the rest of that quote. Here it is in context:
Do you ask what moral obligation I owe to my fellow men? None—except the obligation I owe to myself, to material objects and to all of existence: rationality. I deal with men as my nature and theirs demands: by means of reason. I seek or desire nothing from them except such relations as they care to enter of their own voluntary choice. It is only with their mind that I can deal and only for my own self-interest, when they see that my interest coincides with theirs. When they don’t, I enter no relationship; I let dissenters go their way and I do not swerve from mine. I win by means of nothing but logic and I surrender to nothing but logic. I do not surrender my reason or deal with men who surrender theirs
What's narcissistic is thinking that you can deal honestly with people by means other than reason and logic. It's reason and logic, or it's guns. There is no other choice.
Rand made hers. It seems also that you've made yours. You lose. Nice try, but you lose.
Refraining because of concern for their welfare is.
You utterly make no sense. I’m saying if you want to follow your concept of morality, with your personal labor and money, to ANY extreme, that’s *fine* as long as you don’t demand others do too. And that is Rand’s moralty in a nutshell.
Rand, a materialistic atheist, couldn't face that necessary consequence of her pseudo-philosophy. Kmart Nietzsche.
Thanks.
Using the “logic” of the article Alan Greenspan was a disciple of Ayn Rand, and Judas was a disciple of Jesus ...
no need to develop the argument further.
Ayn Rand was brilliant, but her philosophy was incomplete. We all need something beyond our individual existence to devote ourselves to. But we must choose it by our self, and not delegate that power to the government, the press, or anyone else.
Altruism meets sublimation and denial. Or evil misrepresenting itself. One or the other.
“Refraining because of concern for their welfare is.” (altruistic)
I haven’t been drinking tonight, so i can’t follow this at all.
Wow. Talk about not getting it. I'd say it's hard to believe but considering who I'm conversing with I guess it's not.
One doesn't refrain from taking other peoples things by force or fraud out of some misguided concern for their welfare. One does because that's the morallly correct thing to do and for no other reason.
It's also in your own, rational self interest "selfishness" if you will, because if you engage in that sort of behavior by extension then everyone else can. If that happens your society ends in ruin and slaughter.
So your in favor of forcing others into subservience?
Greenspan had a charlatan as his mentor.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.