# Did Ayn Rand sincerely believe that Objectivism would be good for mankind? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 17, 2013, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ayn-rand-sincerely-believe-that-objectivism-would-be-good-for-mankind/663784 "2013-07-17T20:32:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2013, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ayn-rand-sincerely-believe-that-objectivism-would-be-good-for-mankind/663784/101 "2013-07-22T18:48:45Z")
> [@Learjeff](#): > > Please don’t stay out. I found your post interesting. I’m not surprised to hear your assessment of her intelligence. > > My bottom line is that Rand is worth reading, even though I have some fundamental disagreements with her positions, and despite my criticism of AS as literature. (It doesn’t meet Nabokov’s nearly universally acknowledged acid tests for literature, but I’ve enjoyed a lot of great books that didn’t meet those criteria.) > > Plus, I very much agree with Rand that there is a limit to productive capacity, but there is no end to need, so any attempt to base an economic system on need is doomed. While I tend to be in favor of a single-payer health care system (despite being fiscally conservative), this fact worries me. I agree with most of your points. I enjoyed Atlas Shrugged as a story first and foremost. It was just this interesting mystery - I found it quite difficult to understand what was going on. I also liked the heroes - Mary Stuish as they were, they were still presented sympathetically. Much of the ‘philosophical’ content I didn’t pay attention to at all. It was only when I later noticed that there were plenty of newspaper articles and politicians that actually sounded a lot like her ‘villains’ in AS that I thought she may have a point. I suspect **panache45** doesn’t want to get involved because most threads involving Ayn Rand contain so much venom being spewed at her ideas and those who defend them, and so little understanding. Witness this thread and **Amateur Barbarian** ’s posts for instance. It doesn’t seem like a productive way to discuss things. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2013, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ayn-rand-sincerely-believe-that-objectivism-would-be-good-for-mankind/663784/102 "2013-07-22T18:58:20Z")
> [@bldysabba](#): > > Unless you choose to go on strike, as people in Atlas Shrugged do. Which is also a legitimate response if you don’t approve of how your tax money is spent. I think you’ll find taxpayers can’t go on strike. When soldiers try that, it is not a strike, it is a mutiny; when taxpayers do, it’s tax evasion. A “legitimate response” in the civil-disobedience sense, one might argue, but not in any other. > [@bldysabba](#): > > ETA: Not that taxation has much to do with sacrificing your life. Many appear to disagree. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2013, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ayn-rand-sincerely-believe-that-objectivism-would-be-good-for-mankind/663784/103 "2013-07-22T19:08:09Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I think you’ll find taxpayers can’t go on strike. When soldiers try that, it is not a strike, it is a mutiny; when taxpayers do, it’s tax evasion. A “legitimate response” in the civil-disobedience sense, one might argue, but not in any other. No, the ‘strike’ in Atlas Shrugged was just people refusing to do productive work when all the gains went to a system that they did not like. As the Soviet Union discovered, you cannot force people to do work. There’s a decent argument to be made that all she’s doing with the novel is setting up a system of perverse incentives within which people stop working when they do not see a benefit. And given the performance of socialist economies (I have first hand experience of India ) I’d say she has a point. Specifically with India for instance - during our great experiment with socialism when the state was liberally using its legitimate power to tax, people didn’t go on strike, disappear and go to Galt’s valley - they went on strike, disappeared and went to the US. All our best and brightest, who, had they been allowed to live for themselves, could have been productive members of society and done far more for the poor of the country by not actually directly living for them - are now the highest earning ethnic group in the US. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2013, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ayn-rand-sincerely-believe-that-objectivism-would-be-good-for-mankind/663784/104 "2013-07-22T19:34:51Z")
> [@bldysabba](#): > > No, the ‘strike’ in Atlas Shrugged was just people refusing to do productive work when all the gains went to a system that they did not like. As the Soviet Union discovered, you cannot force people to do work. There’s a decent argument to be made that all she’s doing with the novel is setting up a system of perverse incentives within which people stop working when they do not see a benefit. And given the performance of socialist economies (I have first hand experience of India ) I’d say she has a point. Specifically with India for instance - during our great experiment with socialism when the state was liberally using its legitimate power to tax, people didn’t go on strike, disappear and go to Galt’s valley - they went on strike, disappeared and went to the US. All our best and brightest, who, had they been allowed to live for themselves, could have been productive members of society and done far more for the poor of the country by not actually directly living for them - are now the highest earning ethnic group in the US. If India’s experiments with socialism have ended badly, how have the Communists had so much electoral success in Kerala? ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2013, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ayn-rand-sincerely-believe-that-objectivism-would-be-good-for-mankind/663784/105 "2013-07-22T19:58:50Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > If India’s experiments with socialism have ended badly, how have the Communists had so much electoral success in Kerala? Interesting that you should bring that up - I’ve just responded to someone else touting Kerala as a communist success. I’ll quote that in its entirety. > [@Profits are a tax on labor](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/profits-are-a-tax-on-labor/663283/241): > > Kerala owing its ‘success’ to communism/socialism is a fucking terrible example. Unless you’re using it as an example of the _post hoc ergo propter hoc_ fallacy. The state owes most of its high social indicators to a head start over other Indian states, and, ironically, private property. This head start was provided by enlightened monarchs(the Travancore family) who encouraged land ownership by peasants and several resulting reform movements(Narayana Guru et al), meant by the time the British left India, indeed by the time socialism was even invented, Kerala already had among the richest peasants and most advanced social structures anywhere in India. In fact, the post-independence turn to communist parties (which btw later alternated quite frequently with India’s big tent party - Congress) meant that it became much more difficult for private enterprise to flourish there, and resulted in a huge displacement of Keralites. The Keralite diaspora is famous and respected throughout India(and also widespread in the middle-eastern oil economies) - but I think it’s a shame that so many of these educated, healthy people were driven from their home state by an ideology that actively hampers economic growth. For a long time, much of Kerala’s economy ran on remittances sent by the diaspora, and things are only now changing. Note also that the communist party has been powerful in Kerala, but they have by no means swept all elections. In fact, since 1982, they’ve effectively alternated power with the Congress, and before that too their power was nowhere near absolute. And at present, the government is not communist. The one place where the communist party was all powerful until recently was West Bengal. That was due to land reforms they carried out in the 50s, after which the communist party sat back and chilled. Since the rest of India was also by and large socialist, there wasn’t a huge gap in growth. After India’s liberalisation though, it became increasingly clear that the communist party wasn’t delivering, and after trying one moderate communist, they finally voted them out of power last year. To sum up - there are no governments formed by communist parties in India today, and at the national level too they have very few seats - they are practically irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2013, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ayn-rand-sincerely-believe-that-objectivism-would-be-good-for-mankind/663784/106 "2013-07-22T20:08:28Z")
To add briefly to that since I’m on the topic - much to my chagrin, instead of having learnt from our mistakes, the party that rules India today - the Congress - is still governing very much in the old mould of promising the treasury to the voters while neglecting the economic growth that brings in the treasury in the first place. In a democracy, it is far too easy for the incentives for politicians to be set up like this. We’ve suffered because of it in the past, and we’re suffering again today. I can only hope they get voted out next year before they do even more damage to the economy. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2013, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ayn-rand-sincerely-believe-that-objectivism-would-be-good-for-mankind/663784/107 "2013-07-22T20:15:34Z")
> [@bldysabba](#): > > To add briefly to that since I’m on the topic - much to my chagrin, instead of having learnt from our mistakes, the party that rules India today - the Congress - is still governing very much in the old mould of promising the treasury to the voters while neglecting the economic growth that brings in the treasury in the first place. 😕 One hears only good things, lately, about India’s economic growth. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2013, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ayn-rand-sincerely-believe-that-objectivism-would-be-good-for-mankind/663784/108 "2013-07-22T20:29:34Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 😕 One hears only good things, lately, about India’s economic growth. Well, if you define lately as the 15 years before 2011 yes. Growth in the last financial year has dipped to 5% (and considering how far behind we are, that’s low) and that dip’s largely because reforms(to do away with the socialist era restrictions and regulations) have stalled out. Mostly because government doesn’t like giving away power, and pretty much the only policies being enacted are populist ones with an eye on elections. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2013, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ayn-rand-sincerely-believe-that-objectivism-would-be-good-for-mankind/663784/109 "2013-07-22T20:50:27Z")
> [@bldysabba](#): > > Well, if you define lately as the 15 years before 2011 yes. Growth in the last financial year has dipped to 5% (and considering how far behind we are, that’s low) and that dip’s largely because reforms(to do away with the socialist era restrictions and regulations) have stalled out. Mostly because government doesn’t like giving away power, and pretty much the only policies being enacted are populist ones with an eye on elections. That’s as may be. But even the Stalinist model of totalitarian state socialism does **work,** you know – for limited purposes, i.e., heavy capital formation. In 1924 Stalin took control of a backward, agrarian country, marginally industrialized by the onset of WWI and that little industry devastated by that war and the Russian Civil War, and – by methods which were bloody, brutal, repressive, wasteful, but **effective** – by 1939 had turned it into an industrial power capable of going head-to-head with Hitler’s Germany; and Germany had always been at the leading edge of the Industrial Revolution. **No way** could that have happened, if Russia had had a free-market system during that period. OTOH, central economic planning, lacking the constant corrective feedback of competitive market performance, is spectacularly inept at any kind of fine-tuning. Moreover, it does not encourage innovation very well. No state planner would ever have thought of something like the Sony Walkman, or the Pet Rock, or fabric softener. (Whether that is an argument for or against Stalinism is open to debate.) From [_Economics Explained,_](http://www.amazon.com/Economics-Explained-Everything-About-Economy/dp/0684846411/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-0323301-0796122?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182793941&sr=8-1) by Robert Heilbroner and Lester Thurow: > [@](#): > > The reason it [the Soviet system] did last [as long as it did] is that in the beginning the system very much resembled a military operation. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, Lenin confronted an almost totally disorganized society, and tried at first to build a “socialism” that was partly capitalist – private farming and private small enterprise – and partly socialist, in the form of state-owned banks and large centers of production. Russia staggered along under this mixed system for a few years, without either great success or great failure, but after Lenin’s death in 1924, Stalin took command and rapidly instituted the highly centralized system we have sketched in. > > Stalin’s methods were ferocious and bloody, but they were successful in bringing about an immense accumulation of wealth, much as did the ruthless ways of the ancient pharoahs of Egypt and emperors of Rome or China. The difference was that whereas the latter built palaces and cities, Stalin built factories, steel mills, hydroelectric plants, and railway systems – the ingredients of an industrial economy. The fact that Stalin’s Russia was strong enough to resist Hitler’s armies – and efficient enough, after its reconstruction following World War II, to impress the world with its industrial and military capabilities – shows that Soviet central planning was by no means a failure in its initial years. That is why “military socialism” may yet be a model for development efforts in the future. China is today a semi-military socialism which appears to be successfully negotiating the early stages of industrialization, much aided by a carefully supervised free market sector attached to the planned core. **Hence the collapse of the Soviet system should not lead us to the snap judgment that centralized socialism is no longer on the agenda of the coming century. That is indeed likely to be the case with the North, but it is not a foregone conclusion in the troubled countries of the South.** > > THE COLLAPSE > > But we are ahead of ourselves. After so successful a beginning, why did Soviet socialism finally break down? The answer is that it is a great deal easier to design and build the skeleton of a mighty economy than to run it. Building a steel plant requires good industrial draftsmanship, but running a steel plant requires good industrial management. Management, in turn, depends on the ability to adapt flows of production to ever-changing conditions – the unforeseen contingencies, mistakes, mismatches, shortages, and overruns that are inescapable in any complex undertaking. > > In a market system, these mistakes are repaired and remedied as soon as possible because they cost the factory or store money. Hence suppliers are told to hurry up, or to hold back on shipments, unprofitable items are canceled and profitable ones run overtime, the Yellow Pages are searched for last-minute necessities. None of this can happen in a society planned from top to bottom. When mistakes are made, they bring about a kind of gridlock in the flow of production, so that the pace of Soviet economic production was a never-ending sequence of feast or famine, too much or too little, with no way of remedying the errors other than recasting next year’s plan or seeking the semi-illegal channels of “tolkachi” – fixers. Korea shows the contrast. Up until the 1980s, the North Koreans were actually eating **better** than the SKs. But then NK’s economic growth hit a wall, and SK caught up and kept going. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2013, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ayn-rand-sincerely-believe-that-objectivism-would-be-good-for-mankind/663784/110 "2013-07-22T20:53:58Z")
Of course, as noted above, Rand did not even pretend to be an economist (unlike, say, Milton Friedman, who did); and Objectivism, if and as manifest in the political/social/economic realm, is essentially an ethical position, and its economic performance makes no difference in those terms. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2013, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ayn-rand-sincerely-believe-that-objectivism-would-be-good-for-mankind/663784/111 "2013-07-22T21:05:20Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > That’s as may be. But even the Stalinist model of totalitarian state socialism does **work,** you know – for limited purposes, i.e., heavy capital formation. In 1924 Stalin took control of a backward, agrarian country, marginally industrialized by the onset of WWI and that little industry devastated by that war and the Russian Civil War, and – by methods which were bloody, brutal, repressive, wasteful, but **effective** – by 1939 had turned it into an industrial power capable of going head-to-head with Hitler’s Germany; and Germany had always been at the leading edge of the Industrial Revolution. **No way** could that have happened, if Russia had had a free-market system during that period. > > OTOH, central economic planning, lacking the constant corrective feedback of competitive market performance, is spectacularly inept at any kind of fine-tuning. Moreover, it does not encourage innovation very well. No state planner would ever have thought of something like the Sony Walkman, or the Pet Rock, or fabric softener. (Whether that is an argument for or against Stalinism is open to debate.) > > From [_Economics Explained,_](http://www.amazon.com/Economics-Explained-Everything-About-Economy/dp/0684846411/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-0323301-0796122?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182793941&sr=8-1) by Robert Heilbroner and Lester Thurow: > > Korea shows the contrast. Up until the 1980s, the North Koreans were actually eating **better** than the SKs. But then NK’s economic growth hit a wall, and SK caught up and kept going. Oh I’m well aware of the conditions under which and for which communism works - as you mention, fast heavy capital formation is one of them. However, this does not necessarily mean that _sensible_ capital formation is also implied. So there is no denying that many of India’s heavy capital goods industries would not have come up at all without the model of development we adopted. But if we step back and take a look, the first question that ought to strike us(and it does to many economists), is that for a country as heavily endowed with labour as India is, why did we go the route of heavily capital intensive industries? The resultant skew in our economy, (and the labour regulations that came with) is something that has still not re-balanced to where it should be. As a result, far too little of our labour is involved in the industrial sector, and far, far too much in agriculture - which is relatively unproductive. It’s one of the many reasons for so much poverty in India. And that’s the second big problem - such systems are about as flexible as an elephant in a tutu, and prone to decay. Even assuming they start off in the right direction, once that initial push from the zealous first generation is done, none of the incentives/information is organised in a manner such that the system can manage any course corrections. It’s simply not sustainable. And there’s plenty of empirical evidence of that. ETA: Sorry, just saw your cite already makes points similar to my post. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2013, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ayn-rand-sincerely-believe-that-objectivism-would-be-good-for-mankind/663784/112 "2013-07-22T21:07:36Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Of course, as noted above, Rand did not even pretend to be an economist (unlike, say, Milton Friedman, who did); and Objectivism, if and as manifest in the political/social/economic realm, is essentially an ethical position, and its economic performance makes no difference in those terms. Heh. I hope you’re not saying Friedman _pretended_ to be an economist? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ayn-rand-sincerely-believe-that-objectivism-would-be-good-for-mankind/663784/113 "2013-07-23T00:39:33Z")
> [@bldysabba](#): > > Heh. I hope you’re not saying Friedman _pretended_ to be an economist? [He had company.](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Austrian_School) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ayn-rand-sincerely-believe-that-objectivism-would-be-good-for-mankind/663784/114 "2013-07-23T00:40:42Z")
> [@bldysabba](#): > > But if we step back and take a look, the first question that ought to strike us(and it does to many economists), is that for a country as heavily endowed with labour as India is, why did we go the route of heavily capital intensive industries? Because no country since the industrial revolution has grown rich and modern without it, unless it had oil wealth like SA? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ayn-rand-sincerely-believe-that-objectivism-would-be-good-for-mankind/663784/115 "2013-07-23T02:36:47Z")
> [@bldysabba](#): > > No, the ‘strike’ in Atlas Shrugged was just people refusing to do productive work when all the gains went to a system that they did not like. That works when **everybody** does it. You do not seriously believe, do you, that if the Atlases alone withdrew to Galt’s Gulch IRL, (1) the rest of the world could not get along without them or (2) they could have a workable society all by themselves? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ayn-rand-sincerely-believe-that-objectivism-would-be-good-for-mankind/663784/116 "2013-07-23T02:57:37Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [He had company.](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Austrian_School) Milton Friedman wasn’t an Austrian economist. He was a monetarist, and did real economics, with peer reviewed articles and mathematical models and everything. Even got a Nobel out of it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ayn-rand-sincerely-believe-that-objectivism-would-be-good-for-mankind/663784/117 "2013-07-23T03:00:49Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Milton Friedman wasn’t an Austrian economist. He was a monetarist, and did real economics, with peer reviewed articles and mathematical models and everything. Even got a Nobel out of it. I know. (Of course, so did Paul Krugman.) But it was too good not to use, and isn’t any economist inspired by the Austrians just a little tainted in any case? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ayn-rand-sincerely-believe-that-objectivism-would-be-good-for-mankind/663784/118 "2013-07-23T03:18:55Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I know. (Of course, so did Paul Krugman.) But it was too good not to use, and isn’t any economist inspired by the Austrians just a little tainted in any case? 😉 Friedman wasn’t inspired by the Austrians. Friedman said that the Austrian view of the business cycle “has done the world a great deal of harm”, and blamed Austrian economics for the Great Depression. Rothbard called Friedman a “technician of statism” or something like that. Friedman’s main influences were Viner and Knight, neither of whom were in the Austrian school. If you had to pick a school that monetarism came out of, it would be the institutionalism of Veblen. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Farias](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Jeff\_Farias](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Farias)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ayn-rand-sincerely-believe-that-objectivism-would-be-good-for-mankind/663784/119 "2013-07-23T04:13:37Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [Here’s](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/Objectivism) a pretty good introduction to Objectivism – from TVTropes, but it’s actually more in-depth than the Wikipedia page. (Rand actually was a bit more of a philosopher than she generally gets credit for, but also less – she coined her own names for some concepts in apparent ignorance that they already had names.) I followed your link looking for some support of your claim that she had coined her own names in ignorance and I found none. Perhaps you had provided the wrong link, or possibly misread ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ayn-rand-sincerely-believe-that-objectivism-would-be-good-for-mankind/663784/120 "2013-07-23T04:27:08Z")
> [@Jeff\_Farias](#): > > I followed your link looking for some support of your claim that she had coined her own names in ignorance and I found none. Perhaps you had provided the wrong link, or possibly misread Actually, I misspoke. What I was thinking of was: > [@](#): > > Note that Rand herself denied she was a Conceptualist. However, as Saint-Andre ((2002), Conceptualism in Abelard and Rand, Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, Volume 4, Number 1 (Fall 2002), pp. 123-140) argues, this was because she misunderstood Conceptualism. Objectivist philosopher Dr. Carolyn Ray also identifies Objectivism as Conceptualist in her own doctoral dissertation (see chapter 3) (1998), ‘‘Identity and Universals: a Conceptualist Approach’’, Electronically published by Enlightenment. But, that still supports my thesis WRT Rand’s philosophical ignorance. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ayn-rand-sincerely-believe-that-objectivism-would-be-good-for-mankind/663784.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-ayn-rand-sincerely-believe-that-objectivism-would-be-good-for-mankind/663784.md?page=7)