# Ayn Rand for Dummies **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 2, 2009, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078 "2009-11-02T18:16:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 29
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2009, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/561 "2009-11-15T14:37:27Z")
Thanks, **panache45** - I did not know that. Interesting that Rand thought that payment for government could be voluntary, but payment for services other than government was not. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2009, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/562 "2009-11-15T15:00:59Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I think if nothing else, this thread has proven that Ayn Rand and Objectivism are hard to grasp and understand correctly. 😛 Yes, that’s the only possible interpretation. ---
**Author:** ![haymarketmartyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/35a633/32.png) [@haymarketmartyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/haymarketmartyr)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2009, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/563 "2009-11-15T16:57:46Z")
and 100 times more difficult to put into practice. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2009, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/564 "2009-11-16T18:08:37Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > So it sounds like there are some circumstances where, if I am a true Objectivist, I should be prepared to sacrifice myself so that the … group with mutual interests should survive.. No. Rand said that a man dies fighting for freedom because he does not wish to live as a slave. I’m at a disadvantage here because I’m trying to explain some of the tenets of a philosophy that I don’t much believe in. Military defense is certainly one of the weakest points in Rand’s belief system, and it doesn’t seem to me that she really gave the subject very much thought. When you’re trying to create an effective fighting unit, you have to appeal to the most primitive and basic level of the tribal instinct, something that Rand studiously ignored. You are quite right to complain that the concept of “taking one for the team” is hard to justify from a Randian point of view. Nevertheless, for the reason given above, Rand would have seen dying in a defensive war protecting a society that was at least relatively free as perfectly consistent with rational self-interest. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2009, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/565 "2009-11-16T18:26:17Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Aren’t you “context dropping” as well, by assuming that all threats are equal? Should an Objectivist have rushed to the recruiting office to commit himself to the invasion of Grenada in order to counter the threat to his freedom, given that the threat was so minimal as to be essentially non-existent? > > . No. Rand never said you should turn your brain off whenever someone proclaims a military threat and unthinkingly accept it as a duty to serve in the military. She was very much opposed to the Viet Nam war on the grounds that the war did not serve America’s real security interests and was not justified on the grounds that we were supposedly protecting the South Vietnamese from the Communists. In her view, it is always your responsibility as an individual to assess such threats and decide if a war deservers your participation or support. In Objectivism, the individual is always ultimately responsible for making such judgments. Or any other kind of judgment, for that matter. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2009, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/566 "2009-11-16T18:33:45Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > And if I can extort taxes to pay for a military (I still haven’t heard anyone say that the military should be funded by donations), then why can’t I also extort taxes to pay for public education? It’s not entirely clear how Rand intended that governmental expenses of any kind should be paid. She did at one time speculate about using state lotteries to fund state expenses. She also said that the rich should bear the financial burden of supporting the military because the rich derived most of the benefit from it. Exactly how that was supposed to be done, she never said. Bear in mind I don’t actually advocate Objectivism. I don’t think the durn thing will fly either, Orville. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2009, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/567 "2009-11-16T18:45:58Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > From “The Virtue of Selfishness”: > > _”In a fully free society, taxation – or, to be exact, payment for governmental services – would be voluntary. Since the proper services of a government – the police, the armed forces, the law courts – are demonstrably needed by individual citizens and affect their interests directly, the citizens would (and should) be willing to pay for such services, as they pay for insurance._ I had forgotten that. :smack: Thanks for the reminder. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2009, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/568 "2009-11-16T18:56:45Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I’m not really a Randist either, but ISTM that yes, it would. Because after all, it is in my own rational self-interest to be defended. And to be defended without paying for it seems exploitative. > > You are paying for a service. One group of people is specializing in defending, like the police do now. It is in my interest to be sure that there is enough incentive that someone who has those kinds of talents is drawn to use them in ways that benefit me as well as everyone else, and the soldiers and sailors and police as well. > > I don’t know that Rand objected in principle to taxation, if that is what you mean. Sure. You can argue, and many people do, that the benefits of an educated populace are sufficient to be a goal of everyone’s enlightened self-interest. > > Regards, > Shodan So if forcing someone to pay for something that is in that person’s rational self interest (as determined by objective standard of what is in their rational self interest), I can force them to pay for the education of poor children even if they don’t want to? Can I force them to pay for health insurance that they don’t want but may be in their rational self interest to have? Can I force them to pay for the health care of individuals who cannot pay for it if it is in their rational self interest to live in a healthier nation that is less prone to epidemics and reduces the drag that health care costs impose on the economy (not trying to hijack the thread and not at all implying that any of the stuff floating around out there bends the cost curve)? Can I force them to not smoke pot because I believe it is in their rational self interest not to smoke pot? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2009, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/569 "2009-11-16T19:05:58Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > From “The Virtue of Selfishness”: > > _”In a fully free society, taxation – or, to be exact, payment for governmental services – would be voluntary. Since the proper services of a government – the police, the armed forces, the law courts – are demonstrably needed by individual citizens and affect their interests directly, the citizens would (and should) be willing to pay for such services, as they pay for insurance._ > Most people would agree. The only debate is whether public education best achieves that goal. So even if people should be willing to pay taxes voluntarily, it is not obvious to me that people would in fact pay those taxes voluntarily. How do you get past the freeriding problem without making taxes mandatory? Or is this one of those places where Randientology works better in theory than in practice? How exactly would you propose we educate a populace without public education? Do we assume that every parent has the resources and the will to educate their children? Do we assume that the children themselves will take actions in their rational self interest to get themselves edcuated? What is the alternative to public education that would result in as educated (if not more, considering how bad you think public education is, the alternative must be better) than what we get today? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2009, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/570 "2009-11-16T19:08:52Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I think if nothing else, this thread has proven that Ayn Rand and Objectivism are hard to grasp and understand correctly. 😛 Yeah, or it cold be that rand and “objectivism” do not make sense outside of the stylized circumstances of a novel. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2009, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/571 "2009-11-16T19:15:44Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > It’s not entirely clear how Rand intended that governmental expenses of any kind should be paid. She did at one time speculate about using state lotteries to fund state expenses. She also said that the rich should bear the financial burden of supporting the military because the rich derived most of the benefit from it. Exactly how that was supposed to be done, she never said. > > Bear in mind I don’t actually advocate Objectivism. I don’t think the durn thing will fly either, Orville. Now I am starting to think that Rand was twisting her philosophy to mean whatever she wanted it to mean when she was talking. I understand Adam Smith and the concept of enlightened self interest but some of the recent posts reconciling rand with public education and military funding seems to be blurring the line beetween rational self interst and enlightned self interest. At the same time I am having trouble distinguishing between rational self interst and “unenlightned self interest” (the sort of thing that results in “tragedy of the commons”). I have heard explanations of why rational self interest is not the same and unenlightened self interest, but I have not been able to clearly disinguish the two in prqactice even though irecognize the differences in theory. Perhaps it would be useful for someone to distinguish between enlightneed self interest and rational self interest as a start. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2009, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/572 "2009-11-16T21:33:16Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Now I am starting to think that Rand was twisting her philosophy to mean whatever she wanted it to mean when she was talking. Well, not all the time, but she could be pretty slippery when it suited her. Rather than make the effort to give up smoking, she decided there were epistemological flaws in the medical research showing that tobacco use was dangerous. Sometimes at the end of talks and lectures, she would defiantly light up a cigarette to show her contempt for said research. She almost died from lung cancer. I think I’ve pretty much said every thing I have to say here. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/573 "2009-11-17T01:08:18Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > Well, not all the time, but she could be pretty slippery when it suited her. Rather than make the effort to give up smoking, she decided there were epistemological flaws in the medical research showing that tobacco use was dangerous. Sometimes at the end of talks and lectures, she would defiantly light up a cigarette to show her contempt for said research. She almost died from lung cancer. > > I think I’ve pretty much said every thing I have to say here. Could it be that she honestly believed that the research was flawed? ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/574 "2009-11-17T01:32:48Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > Well, not all the time, but she could be pretty slippery when it suited her. Rather than make the effort to give up smoking, she decided there were epistemological flaws in the medical research showing that tobacco use was dangerous. Sometimes at the end of talks and lectures, she would defiantly light up a cigarette to show her contempt for said research. She almost died from lung cancer. > > I think I’ve pretty much said every thing I have to say here. In all fairness . . . a whole lot of us smoked back then, and the research was far less conclusive than it is now. I didn’t quit until 1979. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/575 "2009-11-17T18:24:33Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > In all fairness . . . a whole lot of us smoked back then, and the research was far less conclusive than it is now. I didn’t quit until 1979. Its kinda like global warming right now. All the most credible evidence suggests that global warming is a problem but there are commercial interests that really don’t like those results so they have produced all sorts of reports saying that global warming is not problem. If you have incorrect information you may very well come up with incorrect conclusions even if its blatantly incorrect information so long as it reinforces what we are inclined to believe to begin with. But seriously. If we have decided that we can force people to pay taxes for something that is in their rational self interest (paying for the military) and we think this premise can be extended to public education and perhaps we can extend it to universal health care. Perhaps we can even extend it to prohibiting people from recreatioally using heroin or smoking cigarettes. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/576 "2009-11-17T21:13:16Z")
I have to repeat this for the umpteenth time: According to Ayn Rand: in a free society, taxes . . . and everything else . . . are voluntary. Voluntary means: yes, it’s in your best interest to pay taxes, and you should. But you will not go to jail if you don’t. Aside from taxes, voluntary means you pay for services and products you choose to use or support, and don’t pay for what you don’t use or support. The only thing that is mandatory is respecting other people’s rights. If you believe that it’s in your best interest to live in a society of educated people, and you are concerned with your long-term best interest, then you should support education. But education is not the proper function of the government. Private schools . . . even low-cost charitable ones for poor families . . . can educate kids more effectively and efficiently than the government. The government exists to protect your rights, not to educate your kids. If you believe that the family next door should not starve to death, nobody’s stopping you from helping them. Nobody’s stopping a thousand people from helping them. But what they can’t do is steal your money to help them. The government exists to protect your rights, not to feed you. And if you believe the family next door should have access to health care, nobody is stopping you from paying their insurance premiums or their medical bills. Nobody is stopping a million people from helping them. The government exists to protect your rights, not to keep you healthy. And by the way, these are Ayn Rand’s opinions, not necessarily mine. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/577 "2009-11-17T21:32:37Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > So even if people should be willing to pay taxes voluntarily, it is not obvious to me that people would in fact pay those taxes voluntarily. How do you get past the freeriding problem without making taxes mandatory? From Rand’s point of view, you don’t have a free-riding problem. You have enough money to pay for a given government function, or you don’t. If you do, you pay for it; if you don’t, you don’t. > [@](#): > > How exactly would you propose we educate a populace without public education? Private education, presumably. Those without the resources to pay for school have to give something else up, or do without. Same with health care, it would seem - you can pay for other people’s health care if you want to, but no one can compel you to. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2009, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/578 "2009-11-18T23:26:16Z")
Just want to add something I just discovered: On [Leonard Peikoff’s site](http://www.peikoff.com/index.html), he has some Q & As on a variety of topics. One of them is: Q: If Ayn Rand were still alive, would she smoke? A: No. As a matter of fact, she stopped smoking in 1975. When the Surgeon General in the 50s claimed that smoking was dangerous, he offered nothing to defend this view but statistical correlations. Ayn Rand, of course, dismissed any alleged “science” hawked by Floyd Ferris, nor did she accept statistics as a means of establishing cause and effect. Statistics, she held, may offer a lead to further inquiry but, by themselves, they are an expression of ignorance, not a form of knowledge. For a long period of time, as an example, there was a high statistical correlation between the number of semicolons on the front page of The New York Times and the number of deaths among widows in a certain part of India. In due course, when scientists had studied the question, she and all of us came to grasp the mechanism by which smoking produces its effects—and we stopped. Doesn’t this prove, you might ask, that she was wrong to mistrust the government? My answer: even pathological liars sometimes tell the truth. Should you therefore heed their advice? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2009, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/579 "2009-11-19T22:26:50Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > I have to repeat this for the umpteenth time: > > According to Ayn Rand: in a free society, taxes . . . and everything else . . . are voluntary. Wait a minute, so you’re saying that in a country run by Randocrats, I could just decide not to pay my taxes? Sure it would be very unRandite of me but there is nothing that would compel me to pay my taxes and I could freeride. Yeah… OK… I don’t see any problems with that system (any they call communism unrealistic and totally ignorant of human behaviour). > [@](#): > > But education is not the proper function of the government. Private schools . . . even low-cost charitable ones for poor families . . . can educate kids more effectively and efficiently than the government. The government exists to protect your rights, not to educate your kids. The first and last sentence could be read as a Randientologist principles but the middle part seems like a statement of fact, incorrect fact. > [@](#): > > And by the way, these are Ayn Rand’s opinions, not necessarily mine. Sure, I get that but you have been defending a lot of Rand’s theories. Are you now saying that they are as silly as they sound? Taxes are totally voluntary, education would be better provided by the private sector and charities than the government, we can pay our soldier what they are actually worth so that we don’t have to rely on altuistic notions of patriotism, honor, duty etc. I dunno, a lot of what she said sounds like utter crap. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2009, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/580 "2009-11-19T22:30:55Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > From Rand’s point of view, you don’t have a free-riding problem. You have enough money to pay for a given government function, or you don’t. If you do, you pay for it; if you don’t, you don’t. > Private education, presumably. Those without the resources to pay for school have to give something else up, or do without. Same with health care, it would seem - you can pay for other people’s health care if you want to, but no one can compel you to. > > Regards, > Shodan So if you don’t get enough donations for a military then “so be it”? I don’t believe for a second that people will start donating enough money to educate this country’s children and certainly not outside of a religious setting where religious indoctrination (anathema to Rand) would be part of the curriculum. So Randesia would envision a society where we would actually let people die from common ailments because they were too poor to afford care unless there is a charity somewhere that would pay for it? Maybe I am having trouble thinking ourtside the box but I am having trouble seeing how this could possibly work. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078.md?page=28) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078.md?page=30)