When the coal producers used government to gain a monopoly, the market produced oil. When the oil makers used government to gain a monopoly, the market produced natural gas. The market system is the most creative and flexible mechanism the human race has ever created. Capitalism has created the richest world in history.
Excuse me? The geographical locations for the voluntary exchange of goods and services was around for thousands of years before the voluntary exchange of goods and services.... wow.... someone needs to re-educate themselves on what capitalism is.... the sweat of my brow is my capital, a source of wealth each of us is born with.... it can be my ability to dig a ditch or it can be my ability to catch fish, it can even be my ability to coordinate the actions of several different technical specialists to produce a product... that I will trade for other goods and services (food, clothing, shelter, an Ipod) through a voluntary negotiation.... go back to school and learn something Tomato Pa.... your ignorance is showing brother, markets arose to empower capitalistic efficiency... your indoctrination is failing you.
+Bob - Absolute rubbish and nonsense - that you actually believe this bullshit goes a long way toward understanding the intellectual limitations of conservatives...
Barry Stack - Except when we’re smart enough to have them already checked and know exactly why we believe as we do and can logically pick apart the poison in her ideology. Someday you look up the guy from whom she stole her theory, a fellow Russian named Chernyshevsky who also wrote a fictional book in the same vein as “Atlas Shrugged” or “The Fountainhead.” He didn’t called it “objectivism,” though. He named it “rational egoism.” Rand is not at all original and the theories she espoused were prized by guys like Lenin. Interestingly, she used them to frame her version of capitalism while Lenin used it to frame his version of communism. It’s so interesting how Conservatives are so in love with Randian philosophy. However, if everyone embraced it, we could say goodbye to things like the military and other selfless jobs (no one would consider the ultimate sacrifice for the good of the country or community, for example). Why should they? They may give a little, but not to the point of real sacrifice. And God forbid we value sacrifice and view it as an ideal. God forbid we have any expectation of humanity or empathy. Rand saw herself as her own god. She was drunk on being a cult leader and the power she had (for awhile) at seducing younger men who were enamored with her intellect. But even Alan Greenspan has to admit that there is a fatal flaw in the belief system. And that flaw is the idea that people will self regulate out of their own self-interest. The reality is that greedy people will make a run on whatever they can get and drive the system into the ground as long as they can prosper. And it doesn’t matter who suffers in the end - “it’s their own fault for not being smarter, stronger or more ruthless. It’s their fault for being suckers, for having faith in the word of another.” That’s the attitude. “Stomp on the gentle and kind. Stomp on those who refuse to stomp.” Sure, there is the mumbo jumbo that “it’s okay to give - AS LONG AS ...” There is always the disclaimer, the qualifier, the parenthetical contingency. In reality, it’s none of those things. It’s a veiled justifier for not giving a f*ck. It’s a carefully crafted logical sounding apologetic for being a self-centered narcissist. God forbid you take any time, effort or resources to help another person SOLELY because it’s another human being. God forbid someone be kind solely because “it’s the right thing to do.” Because in Randian philosophy, that would be considered being compelled by guilt or expectation. Yeah, I dislike such values a lot; because there is no value in them. Sure, I get the idea of self-care, but I do it because if I’m sidelined, I can no longer serve. It’s a completely different way of approaching life. Completely. Thank God.
Basically, what she is saying is helping others is fine but don't bleed yourself to death in the process at which point you're no help to anyone, including yourself, and don't point a gun at others and force them to give, both of those are wrong. Good advice.
177SCmaro exactly. For example, I used to lifeguard at a super dangerous beach. One time I went to rescue someone and they tried to grab me and push me under. Had I let that happen we both would have drowned. I had to punch them in the nose to get them off. My selfishness was ultimately what was best for both of us.
177SCmaro - That actually is fine advice what you just said, but that is not what she said.... In this particular interview she is pretty old so I do understand her misspeaking and contradicting herself. She does criticize private individuals who choose to donate to charity. Maybe she didn't in the past (?) but in this particular interview, she most certainly does.
177SCmaro Wow She Knew The College Campuses We're Leftist Pussys and this was when Jimmy Carter Was President n the Energy Crisis around 78 or 79.Im a Independent now I voted Trump Proud of My vote. I left the Democrat Party They lost their Fucking Minds ,The Clintons and Obama Destroyed The Democrat Party They r the Party of Wall Street, Silicon VALLEY, Big Pharma,Military Industry Complex, Identitie Politics, Open Borders,Amnesty, Islam,World War 111 with Russia, Horrible Trade Agreements NAFTA, GATT, WTO, Over 230 Defected Japan Trade Deals, South Korea Trade Deal, Columbian Trade Deal, Panama Papers, TPA , Pushed Hard for TTIP, TPP and Other Horrible Deals .Jimmy Carter Was Just a Bad President not Corrupt as Fuck Like Last 2 Democrats. The Bushes Fucked up the Republican party absolutely a Embarrassing Family and 2 Horrible, and War Mongering, Horrible Trade Policy's, Immigration Policy's, Banking Policy's , Foreign Policy's Bill Clinton was Worse With Trade Policy's, Economic Policy's, Banking Policy's Repealed Glass Stegille Banking Act, Deregulated Wall Street for 8 Years, Investment Act ,Ended N Recession, His Policy's Collapsed The Economy n 08, He Shipped Millions of Jobs over Seas with His Trade Policy's, He has horrible Foreign policy Bogged Down N Somalia, Bosnia was a Hoax War, He Was Bombing Costco, also Bombed Tens of Thousands of Civilians n Sudan, After Passing Sanctions so Harsh on Iraq it starved killed over 500, 000 Iraqi Children and innocent Iraq Civilians and They Should be Starving No 1 n Iraq .Then A 3 Year Bombing Campaigns on Afghanistan and Iraq So 6 Military Conflicts with Bill Clinton, He Gutted welfare, Exploded the Prison Population expanded the War on drugs 3 Strikes ur out With The Crime Bill, Crush The Unions He Balanced The Budget on the Back Of The Middle Class and Poor People.The Reagan Administration was Better than The Bushes , Clintons, Obama,Jimmy Carter, Ford, And Nixon .But My Critic Of Reagan Administration. ALL though He Had the 2nd Most Jobs Created Ever ,He Did Amnesty n for 3 Million Illegal Immigrants would B like 5 to 6 Million Today .He we had BS Free Trade Agreements that Made The Income Gap Wider with Immigration and Trade Policy's,I Agreed With Him Cutting the Corporate Small Business Rate from 48 Percent to 34 Percent it was Raised to 35 PERCENT But But a Policy that Stuck .Also I Agreed Cutting Taxes Not as Much as Reagan Administration and a Spending all that money On the Military along with Democrats Tripled Spending .The Top Rate Was 69.8 Percent He Cut First To 50 Percent It Did Well also Then Cut it down to around 40 Percent or 36 Percent which is Cool but He then Cut The Top Rate From 69.8 Percent to 28 Percent .He Has To Raise Taxes Cause Democrats Tripled Spending ,Reagan was Trying Trying to out spend The Soviet Union on Military and We didn't need to ,He armed Al-Qaeda along with Bin Ladin against Russia,Jimmy Carter Started The Policy Failure. REAGAN could have cut Taxes From 69.8 to 50 Percent Like He did then To 38 or 36 Percent. AND not spend most so Much Money on the Military, and Yes We Had 16 Million Jobs Created under Reagan Administration, And GDP was 3.5 Percent Well Same amount of Jobs or More would have been Created ,There would have been less Debt ,and Not Deficits .Now Democrats controlled The House and Senate. THE Tripled Spending Reagan did Try stopping that ,Also the military Spending wss Stupid The Soviet Union was not Coming affter us .And the Tax Rate was Cut Way to Much I Can see 36 PERCENT to get a Boom then Raise is slowly Ovsr 8 Years Up to 42 Percent Getting Rid of Carried ,Special Interest Loop Holes and Most Deductions for Billionaires .
177SCmaro Exactly. Most rational human beings have a sense for this. College kids and nutty tenured professors have no clue what it takes to succeed in the real world.
Yes, no I also know about her from what I read. We have to be careful about the whole picture. She was no saint, nor did she have any solutions as she believed.
Phil Donahue was never fit to share a stage with Ayn Rand. However, I have to hand it to Phil; at least he allowed her to speak without interrupting. Today, the Left will interrupt and shout you down, once you say something, anything, that they disagree with.
That's exactly what missinformed capitalists do, once corrected on their vague and narrow understanding of Socialism, they will interrupt you every time you try to insert any further arguments by making baseless accusations. I have debated many bourgeoisie shitbags, you are no different.
So you want the government to regulate Uber out of existence and regulated the ability of companies to merge - do you think this is a proper role of government in a capitalist society or are you saying it is time to move to a socialist style of an economy more controlled by the government?
'"It is only an act of government that you can keep competitors out of your field." That's the bottom line.' - Donald What about mergers and acquisitions? What about targeted market suppression? How is that the bottom line?
One is a voluntary exchange of private property (except taxes) between two parties The other is an outside group imposing restrictions on how private property can be created, distributed and sold. They are two completely different things that are not equivalent at all. Some regulation is necessary but don't reduce both down to the same thing because they aren't
It's pretty simple. Go with human nature and things work out. Take care of the "self" first (else you have nothing to offer others). Then comes family, friends, neighborhood, city, state, nation. It spirals out from the individual. The socialist system goes against human nature. It starts at the nation level, which is backward. The more central government you have, the less efficient the results become. You end up hurting more than you help.
FR - When people refuse to see reality for what it is then you're damn right I'm going to see myself above those neurotics. Thomas Glynn didn't rise to your bait because he took it as a compliment and walked off.
I have to give Donahue credit. He's a Liberal who had the guts to ask a lot of people he disagreed with to his show. He didn't condemn without even considering the debate. I can't imagine how she would view the state of the world , and of America , today.
Jarl S the services you mentioned are not profitable, under no world could these 3 produce profit. We as a society pay for these 3 for basic services that could not have been provided to everyone equally by a profitable company.
I'm not sure that fire any of these cannot be run as a profitable company. Buy "fire insurance" at your local fire brigade of choice. No - insurance, no firetruck shows up at your house. Maybe shows up at your neighbours if they paid to protect them. Anyhow - what about: Food safety and regulation (making sure the foods you eat wont harm you). Medicine/Drug safety (making sure the medicine does what it is supposed to and dont harm you) Environmental protection (making sure the local factory dont dump e.g. mercury in your drinking water)
+Unkraut "Jarl S obviously not stupid boy " - OK! But do you then agree that taxes are needed in order for these services to operate? I.e. the "Taxes is theft" slogan is a shallow and hollow one?
Jarl S Government Military and police are stupidly expensive and most fire services are volunteer, aren't they? Not sure those are examples you want to use to show government is good at spending money they took by force prudently.
Phil Donahue wants to help people. He should. He should goto his bank account, drain it and turn it into welfare checks. Great. No he wants to keep his bank account and reach into the Peoples Bank Account which is on continuous overdraft protection and feel good about himself by being generous with the money needed to pay all the interest and bills of the country.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. thanks for that, not laughed so hard in ages, you are aware of this thing called human nature?
She could be a bit too harsh at times, and her philosophy is perhaps further right than I'm comfortable with, but she is at her best here: her warnings against state-based altruism is very chilling, and her experience is very direct, in that regard, coming from Eastern Europe, fleeing Russia.
The job of an interviewer is to challenge: play devil's advocate. The problem with Phil Donoghue is he has drank the socialist coolade and is incapable of understanding or appreciating her rigorous rational.
Yes - today too - Ayn Rand is a GREAT message for the 21st century to counter the parasitic forced equity of the Marxist left. Her message lives on in the hearts and minds of logical, liberty loving people who appreciate independence and the liberty to choose independence instead of suffocating socialist altrusim.
Shekelwitz Subvertstein Godchosenlampshadeberg You’re not clever, you’re a fucking idiot. PS, funny that you ignorant anti socialism dummies never mention Denmark or Sweden. Only Cuba, which has absolutely nothing, or Venezuela, which only has oil, at a time that the price of a barrel of oil is down to something like 50 cents. Moron.
Shekelwitz Subvertstein Godchosenlampshadeberg They are social democracies, they all have good pay and good benefits. As far as I know they don’t let any of their citizens fall into poverty the way we do.
Thank you Phil! You actually let the women explain her points! This type of open, unabridged debate is sorely missed in this country now. The days of Gore Vidal vs William Buckley are long since past.
Ayn Rand was a genius. Atlas Shrugged should be mandatory reading for seniors in high school. Oil companies' profit margins are among the smallest (percentages) of any industry in the world, and their products are arguably the most important.
Sleuth ,, what you're not realizing, or don't know, is that Tesla has been subsidized by the federal government. So it's the same principle Rand is talking about...
Sleuth Tesla doesn't work at all. It is completely subsidized by taxpayer dollars. Tesla can't build or sell a single car without a government subsidy propping him up. He is an utter fraud.
In fact, Tesla gets subsidized from the taxes paid by his own competitors! That's how perverse your Big Government Social Engineers have screwed up our so called "Capitalist" system. Capitalism doesn't really exist in any meaningful way in this country anymore. I prefer the term "Free Markets" myself. Let the Marxists have their Capitalist whipping post.
Tesla is still a niche market. It doesn't really compete with the big companies. At least 20 to 30 more years will be needed for solar or electric power to become mainstream.
The beginning of this clip really explains what pushed Ayn Rand to develop her philosophy of objectivism (which I do not support). Growing up seeing Communism and Nazism being implemented by the state asking everyone to set aside self-interest in the name of the state and collectivism, Ayn Rand developed objectivism as a direct opposite philosophy. She believed that if everyone acted in self-interest instead of in service to the collective, it would be much harder for the state to take complete control. Objectivism to her was a way to fight totalitarianism. I don't believe in her philosophy of objectivism, but in this clip she is right about everything else they discussed. It is almost impossible to create a monopoly without help from the govt. We should be thanking oil companies for providing the energy that powers most of our economy, not hating them and having the govt act as impediments to them. And Commnism and Nazism were socialist movements build upon the superiority of the collective over the individual.
Daniel Younan You do realize that Rand, like the rest of us, was forced at gunpoint if necessary, to pay into welfare, SS, etc. Right? And you also understand that's not a free-market. You are blaming the victim for using the system she is forced to use. This is like, in principle, calling a slave who advocates for freedom a hypocrite for eating the food provided by the slave owner. You really need to think about what you said a little more than not at all.
You do realise that welfare is meant for people who actually need it. It was not meant for opportunist failed actresses. I don't know how to reason with you folks. She took money meant for disabled/needy people. That's the true nature of the objectivist ideology. Hedonistic, self-centred greed. Why didn't she just pick herself up by the boot straps and work hard like she tells everybody else to? She wasn't even capable of doing that herself...
Daniel Younan I repeat, You do realize that Rand, like the rest of us, *was forced at gunpoint if necessary, to pay into welfare, SS, etc.* Right? If you chase down a mugger after he stole your wallet and you took back your money how the hell does that make you a thief stealing from the poor? ...fucking moron...
Tomato Pa "Rand chose to become a US citizen. She could also try to become a citizen of some other country. That's equivalent to an employee trying to find an employer that would exploit him less." Except it's not as an employee/employer is a voluntary relationship. Citizen/state is not a voluntary relationship. Rand becoming a US citizen was the moral equivalent of a slave being allowed to choose a master with a less heavy hand and someone like you claiming that is freedom.
Since rational people get angry with criminals for their predatory choices, and criminals insist they have no choices because we're all equally victims who should therefore tolerate the diverse differences between the kind of victim who attacks innocent others first, and those who don't, they insist pity is always good and anger is always bad.
Is Phil really that dense that he can't understand the simplicities of what she is saying? Agree or not, she is presenting her case in the simplest of terms and he keeps exaggerating her points to absurdity because he is either trying to trip her up or, more likely, that intellectually stunted that he really can't follow along. Better stick with "Who's The Daddy?" episodes Phil, because anything even remotely high-brow is not your forte'.
MS Rand is 100% correct. Oil companies today have increased oil supply while the prices in real money have dropped dramatically!! The interviewer clearly is of low intellect!!
Lol...they're talking about gas at $2.50/gal as if it's doom and gloom...nowadays that's a great price here in California. *_Sigh_* Dem's were da daze....
A huge percentage of the cost of that gallon of gas is state and federal taxes and NOT gross income to the producer. In Commiefornia it is even higher. Remove the onerous regulations and the producer could fire a thousand tax lawyers from his payroll and lower the cost of the product even more.
It's around 27% in CA. Not huge, but a good amount. Comes out to almost 77 cents a gal. So today I'd be paying $2 a gallon instead of $2.77 where I live. Getting rid of it would be nice, but when gas was $4/gal here or higher that 77 cents didn't seem to make a dent.
*Jakob* Sure, if you compare the price of Wonder Bread then to now. But the cost of one of my current PC's back then would have been in the 100's of thousands. Having a color TV in my vehicle that could playback movies that were in the theater months ago would have cost 100's of thousands of dollars. Having a color TV in my home that was bigger than 50" would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Having a phone that fits into my pocket with included long distance would've cost 100's of thousands of dollars. The poor nowadays have what millionaires back then would've paid millions for. *Sigh* Dem's _weren't_ da daze, lol.
Only under the minimum wage law. If there were no minimum wage law and workers were able to negotiate their pay, inflation would be reflected in that pay.
She is not right about competition either. We now have seemingly competition between different products that are owned by the same group of companies. There is no real competition.
"In a free society nobody can become a monopolist." --Ayn Rand's pipe dream On the contrary, in many sectors market forces push towards consolidation and monopoly. It's called economies of scale. (Also, today countries [NOCs] produce 75% of the world's oil and hold 90% of reserves.)
The eventual outcome of free market capitalism is one person holding all of the wealth and everyone else having nothing. It's more or less a mathematical certainty with the way capitalism works.
A thought experiment: Six families leave on a boat in order to settle on a deserted, but bountiful island, totally isolated from society. They agree in advance to section up the island in 6 equal slices - like a pizza - one for each family. A central circle is agreed on as a common grounds (so they can visit each other without passing over each others properties). Each family settles on the island and grows crops and raise animals for food. Life is good. However it turns out that only one family have a steady supply of fresh water (it springs from this property). This family startes to "sell" this water to the other families for goods. They do not have to do any work to supply the water. One basket of eggs or a sack or grain and you get to take all the water you want for a week. Because of this the "water family" does not have to grow their own crops or do any labor to support themselves. They have many children with their steady supply of food, and in order to support their children they start to increase the price on water - knowing that their five neighbors have no alternatives. One day the eldest son declares himself king of the island. Anybody disagreeing will lose their water. What would be the appropriate action here? Is the "king" a man of great virtue? (he controls the resources and holds power) Should the neighbors overthrow the king - kill the family and make the water free to all on the island?
I think Phil missed a key point in what she was explaining. The oil companies (I use that because that is what they were talking about) have the power they do because government has made it possible for them to have it. Somehow somewhere legislation has been passed "for the good of the people" that these companies need to have the power they do. Without some type of government protections there would be more competition among the oil industry. The government taxes big oil and then in turn taxes the consumer of big oil products. Question, do the people need big oil as bad as the government needs big oil?
Such decency in a host with a different opinion to allow the guest to give a full argument without interruptions and attacks is no longer seen in media today.
Habitual altruism is not cannibalism, it's self-inflicted slavery. What people call "altruism" is really only the same ages-old stance of "buy-you-low to sell-me-high" subjective and adversarial hypocrisy that criminals always take towards their victims, where they insist that suicidal masochism should be their (victims) highest moral virtue, and hurting the criminals' feelings by "offensively" daring to accuse them of their crimes should be the only real crime. But real altruism, also known as empathy, charity, or "Love," is the most coldly-calculating intellectual stance one can take. It's the simple desire to disarm one's potential enemies - to cancel their fear and negate their greed, by making them feel safe and happy, respectively. It only becomes suicidal masochism when those others don't go along and reciprocate. Under the Golden Rule of Law social contract, we only have one right - to not be attacked first - and one responsibility - to not attack first. Those who choose to break this contract, abdicating their responsibility, give up their right.
Hillel the Elder says like this, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And when I am for myself alone, what am I? And if not now, then when?" (Pirkei Avot 1:14). Balance is everything.
Altruism is immoral. You should go first. You should take care of yourself first and foremost if you decide to help others. As a moral virtue altruism fails miserably. It is the same as charity with someone elses money, because is the moral thing. The say of the owners of the money is irrelevant. But altruism is the excuse of the state or all those who want to look virtuous to rob all of us for the sake of virtue.
I wish debates were like this these days. Look at that: She gets to say her entire point, he speaks in clear concise sentences and gives her the benefit of the doubt. I don't quite agree with everything they're saying, but I like both of them because they sound like are actually interested in what the other thinks.
I considered this way of thinking when I was 11 years old when I read Atlas Shrugged. I outgrew it. Grow up. This is just an excuse to justify screwing everyone else and "not feeling guilty." However if one who believes this would suddenly decide to change and be altruistic, without doing the work of getting to know himself or herself, the shift would still be for shallow, externally gratifyingly selfish reasons: the accolades, the feeling of being a good boy or girl...still external, childish reasons. Please look more deeply than what people think about you (the simplistic altruism) and please look a world with totally unchecked forces, the lawless old west, where whoever has the biggest gun can control the freedoms of everyone else, where murderers, child molesters, and rapists can do what they want and continue to do what they want without any chance of punishment, or look at where the company pays you and then sells you everything you need at inflated prices, thus getting their money back, because you are in a certain locale and need a job. The real cannibalism is eating others for your own gratification, which is what this philosophy proposes. When I was young, I was taught and used to think that unions were "socialist evils." Then I worked in a nonunion manufacturing company. I saw minimum wage workers scarred from acid burns and fires. The company made them sign an agreement not to sue when they hired on, but (oh so big of them) if an employee became injured, it ensured them a job for life (at minimum wage, which oh-by-the-way would not exist, either, if Ayn Rand's "philosophy" became government policy). There was a minimum of one fire, explosion, or toxic gas leak once per shift at this company, all never reported to government, media, nor anywhere else. Many people had been hurt. Some had been killed. I was very young and became very depressed to think that this was the way the world was. I was joyfully relieved when, after two years, I found another job. Working there, in a professional, respectful environment full of hard working, intelligent engineers, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. The first company was the only major employer in the area for many miles. I was lucky. I did not get hurt and I could move. Not everybody could due to family. How is letting a company like this do whatever it wants to employees freedom? It is freedom for whoever has the money. It is not freedom for a young person starting in life who has to find a job in his or her area. It is okay to injure, maim and kill people to save money? Tell me, do you call this Christian? I know that management all called themselves Christian. I would beg to differ. As a starting point to try to think of something more, consider enlightened self-interest. If we lived in a world that is healthy, peaceful, and prosperous, then YOU will be healthy, peaceful, and prosperous. And if you call yourself a Christian, do you really think "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." fits with this philosophy? You may not fully understand why this is the Golden Rule, but if you profess to be a Christian, and you also are a follower of Rand, how, in God's name, do you reconcile allowing entities that ? While to "sacrifice' or give to others for the sole purpose of feeling good about yourself is as not giving anything at all, there is a deeper understanding and reason for doing so. It takes a lot of work to reach this understanding. It requires getting completely honest with your true self and not looking for shallow excuses or external approval.
Deborah Dunlap The "lawless old west" was anything but lawless. Your understanding of history has been fundamentally flawed by Hollywood. It might not be your fault, it's a primary trait of lefties to skew history whether intentionally or not.
She was IRONCLAD. She went on television during the Oil shortage (during Carter stagflation & the OPEC blockade) and told them that everything they were complaining about was their own fault for building up an altruistic welfare state (which resulted in default on gold and stagflation). Giving children bitter medicine.
I heard her out and her logic is tragically flawed. It's really sad to think that people believe this nonsense about the self correcting free market. She's wrong about everything and she's a corporate idealist. In the real world, those who have money have the power to influence the govt. I'll use as much evidence as she does to back my claim...
Yeah, and they have that same power no matter the system of government, and will continue to have it as long as money is valuable and people keep buying their goods and services. Which do you want to have power in your life, greedy assholes without armies, or greedy assholes with armies? Existence is fundamentally unfair, and to be is to suffer. The question is how to mitigate those factors as best we can. No system is perfect, and so system ever will be, but there are degrees of imperfect, and socialism ranks lower on that scale than capitalism as demonstrated by history and current reality.
spracketskooch we don't have to be stuck to binary options. It's not a matter of socialism vs capitalism. It's using all of the tools we have to evolve as a species. Democratic socialism would be nice. In the US we already have some socialism (Medicare, Military, Police, etc) but you'd be hard pressed to find democracy. Until libertarians and liberals can unite on the right to privacy, the desire for clean water air and food, and ending military conflicts we will continue to be ruled by the wealthy few under the guise of binary choices that end with the same result.
Sean Morgan Government is the problem because they are bought off by corporations. We can theoretically vote our way to fixing the problems of government but we have no say when it comes to our corporate masters.
What she's saying is a stretch. self sacrifice is perfectly fine if it's your own choice. She equates forced self sacrifice (Nazism)with choosing to do so (a nun working for free at a Catholic clinic). That's idiotic. Her economics is on point though.
+Tomato Pa because being forced to do something with the government is difference than choosing to do business with a private entity. Don't want a product from wal-mart? You can go down the street and buy it from somewhere else (or don't, your choice). If wal-mart wants to stay competitive, they must compete their prices with those around them because I have the option to go elsewhere. It's not just wal-mart or bust. If I wanted to do business in a country however, it's either their way or the highway. I can't walk down the street to another government agency and "compare prices or level of service". Forced contract with the government is different because they are a real monopoly with the power to keep it at all cost.
Negrolas Maybe she meant that one should first make sure that oneself is self sufficient before helping others. A millionaire donating $5000 wouldn't be self sacrifice but a person living paycheck to paycheck doing that would be.
Vaibhav C Anil well that's my problem. Comparing that to forced sacrifice, like dictators and Nazism is ridiculous. Yes, she might not understand it and personally think it's wrong but to compare it to Hitler? absolute nonsense. Maybe that person doesn't value wealth like she does and they are perfectly happy living paycheck to paycheck AND giving some things up for people. That's not the same thing as stalin and what he did to the Ukrainian farmers. Such a silly notion.
It's perfectly fine to help people. It's what we're here for. It's not okay to force people to help others. It's not okay to force others to accept your help.
Typically, she's not really giving any logical arguments for her point of view but only giving her personal list of grievances. She's saying, " If only everyone would do as I say everything would be alright ". That's not a real philosophy.
She was on medicare and collecting social security at the time of this interview -- a hypocrite to boot. She's like L. Ron Hubbard, a charlatan peddling mediocre science fiction as philosophy.
+Bren Lynne She paid in. I intend to collect at retirement.Been paying in 37 years and counting.Not collecting is altruism.And that would have been ironic.
Yes, she paid in (coerced under force, she'd say) so she is totally entitled to collect. She was advised to as medical expenses would have wiped her out financially, being the #1 reason for bankruptcies in the US. When she was no longer capable of acting as a selfish individual, she found herself dependent on the civil collective. She could have chosen to simply die a martyr, instead she abandoned her philosophy, in deed if not word. I guess she misses the point that those prohibitively high expenses are the result of a capitalist profit-driven health care system, and only a public social system makes them affordable. You know, the kind of system most of the advanced developed world enjoys?
Trump is roundly criticized for wanting to put America first. Today he told the members of the UN to put THEIR respective countries first as well. This is the message Rand has championed.
I like how the hack talks to her like she's a clueless old lady and then it dawns on him that he's really out of his depth and she's the one talking down to him.
Yea, Phil, the reason the Oil man can't charge 2.50 a gallon by fiat, is because when people can't make it to work, they can't produce. When businesses can't produce, they don't need power and they don't ship anything. Oil man suddenly finds himself with a lot of oil and no food. Oil IS NOT MONEY. And of course someone will interject that even though the above is accurate and plausible, it doesn't matter because of mal-intent. Oil man will jack prices just to keep the little man down. The low to no-government society has a solution to that as well: Bread CEO, Trucking CEO, and Mining CEO get together and go knock on Oil Man's door. And when he answers they paint the back wall of his foyer with his gray-matter. Providing a good incentive to Oil Man's replacement to keep the ship running smooth. No war. No catestrophic shortages. just one idiot dying for one idiot's own mistakes. Imagine that....
She's a genius. And today she's ever more spot on. With social media if you are an unethical businessman, society can exercise it's vote by rapidly spreading word.......something that did not exist until the world wide web became......world wide.
It is so tiring to disprove again and again the same economic sophisms which have been disproved for two hundred year! Ayn Rand must have had inexhaustible patience.
Man sacrificing wasnt a concept we invented. It is what men do as needed. We protect the tribe, the city, the family, and that involves risking our lives. This is natural, if we lived as selfishly as possible we would lose more ultimately. So we sacrifice if needed
She lived on social security. Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman.
I like be how Phil obviously doesn't agree but is polite and respectful to her anyway. There are a lot of SJWs and "journalists" who should take a lesson from that.
Brilliant point on how a possible monopolist in an industry like petroleum would be vulnerable to competition from equally large players in other industries. If Exxon somehow became the only producer in a free market by eating up all competition, and then proceeded to charge $5 a gallon, I bet we'd see our favorite bookseller/online retailer/grocery store mogul, Amazon.com, open a refinery or two (and deliver fuel to your house via drone?).
