How the Ayn Rand-Loving Right Is Like a Bunch of Teen Boys Gone Crazy
Society? There’s no such thing as society. There’s only what I want right now, which is the ultimate good in my universe. And what I want right now is more time on the XBox, pizza money, and the keys to the family car.
The future? If I pursue everything I want now, then the future will magically take care of its self. Dinner will appear. So will clean socks and the next-gen XBox.
I’m dying of laughter
LIBERTARIANISM: A NOVEL
I am, within the confines of reason, elated to announce to you that Libertarianism: A Novel has finally been completed and may be found at the above link. This long-awaited aesthetic treatise on the philosophy of FREEDOM and LIBERTY, with a special introduction by none other than Ludwig von Mises, should serve to clarify the various misgivings of those who would seek to castigate individual self-determination and the glory of the free market. Consider this as a warning: to approach this text as anything other than a TRUE INDIVIDUAL one must be willing to risk all of one’s systems and values. The truth is not political, it is just correct.
Special thanks to Sam Stein for cover design/layout, and to Evelyn Pappas for putting me in touch with Ludwig von Mises.
Sharing of the text is encouraged and indeed almost obligatory, though not without the proper adjustments to allow for perpetuation of the free markets whose praises every word contained herein can be said to sing.
It’s in my rational self-interest to recirculate this for all my new followers since the time of the initial writing, that they may grasp fully the burgeoning sensation of LIBERTY as I have here captured it in all its glory.
(Source: hookedonsemiotics)
Happy Birthday Ayn Rand!
(Source: shitthatlibertarianssay)
Hello new followers
My name is john galt. I’m the man who’s taken away your victims and thus destroyed your world. You’ve heard it said that this is an age of moral crisis and that Man’s sins are destroying the world. But your chief virtue has been sacrifice, and you’ve demanded more sacrifices at every disaster. You’ve sacrificed justice to mercy and happiness to duty. So why should you be afraid of the world around you?
Your world is only the product of your sacrifices. While you were dragging the men who made your happiness possible to your sacrificial altars, I beat you to it. I reached them first and told them about the game you were playing and where it would take them. I explained the consequences of your ‘brother-love’ morality, which they had been too innocently generous to understand. You won’t find them now, when you need them more than ever.
We’re on strike against your creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. If you want to know how I made them quit, I told them exactly what I’m telling you tonight. I taught them the morality of Reason — that it was right to pursue one’s own happiness as one’s principal goal in life. I don’t consider the pleasure of others my goal in life, nor do I consider my pleasure the goal of anyone else’s life.
I am a trader. I earn what I get in trade for what I produce. I ask for nothing more or nothing less than what I earn. That is justice. I don’t force anyone to trade with me; I only trade for mutual benefit. Force is the great evil that has no place in a rational world. One may never force another human to act against his/her judgment. If you deny a man’s right to Reason, you must also deny your right to your own judgment. Yet you have allowed your world to be run by means of force, by men who claim that fear and joy are equal incentives, but that fear and force are more practical.
Perfection
LIBERTARIANISM: A NOVEL
I am, within the confines of reason, elated to announce to you that Libertarianism: A Novel has finally been completed and may be found at the above link. This long-awaited aesthetic treatise on the philosophy of FREEDOM and LIBERTY, with a special introduction by none other than Ludwig von Mises, should serve to clarify the various misgivings of those who would seek to castigate individual self-determination and the glory of the free market. Consider this as a warning: to approach this text as anything other than a TRUE INDIVIDUAL one must be willing to risk all of one’s systems and values. The truth is not political, it is just correct.
Special thanks to Sam Stein for cover design/layout, and to Evelyn Pappas for putting me in touch with Ludwig von Mises.
Sharing of the text is encouraged and indeed almost obligatory, though not without the proper adjustments to allow for perpetuation of the free markets whose praises every word contained herein can be said to sing.
(Source: hookedonsemiotics)
lulz
Hitchen’s destroys objectivism.
Ayn Rand (via ummagumma-)
Here, Rand posits that anything but unfettered capitalism is doomed because of the internal contradictions in other systems. Hilariously enough, her concepts uniquely apply to the “free-trade” version of Class Hierarchies. Let’s take a look at this idea, condition by condition.
First, “When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion.” Remember what a job is. It’s a decision to sell your “labor power”, or time, in order to be earn a living wage. But, Rand along with other free-market gurus ignore that managerial-labor relations start not with labor entering into a contract, but instead with an empty stomach. Human beings, who are thrust into a system in which they work or perish have no choice but to sell their labor power. That’s compulsion. The only way to avoid this is to have a welfare state in which individuals may freely choose whether or not they wish to work.
“when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing”. I’m not sure where to begin. How about the endless examples of patent law, or general “intellectual property” rights. Or, even better Credit Rating Agencies and the entire financial sector. The idea that our productive forces are largely dictated by financial entities which are truly self-serving and, in actuality produce nothing seems to perfectly fit Rand critique.
“when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors”. You mean like the product corporate campaign finance in all of its forms? Or, as i mentioned in a previous post Credit Rating Agencies overrating private debt, while undervaluing public debt? Or the numerous examples of corporate bribery, especially in the developing world?
“when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you.” There are multitudes of examples of failed businessmen who have still accumulated personal fortunes, despite their destitute performance. Corporate and Capital failure most often hurts working people, not those who don’t “work”, but “organize” instead.
“when you see corruption being rewarded”. Corruption is a means toward a reward for an individual - by definition it’s about skewing the laws which govern environments toward your interests. This is overwhelmingly true in capitalism, in which corporate embezzlement, collusion, patronage and general cronyism emerge the more markets are deregulated. If a profit incentive is held on the highest pedestal, it’s only natural to expect that goal to be pursued even beyond ethical limits.
“and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice”. The numerous examples of companies like Monsanto silencing small farmers, or other giants like Enron and British Petroleum finding an incentive to hide secrets from stockholders and pension fund investors alike demonstrates the propensity for capital to engage in this sort of behavior.
“you may know that your society is doomed”. I can only hope you’re right.
Rand speaks with broad generalizations, forgetting that the devil, capitalism, is in her details.
(via splinterinyoureye)
Yup, it’s really hard not to read this and apply basically every flaw to capitalism.
(via rykemasters)
It’s hard to read anything ayn rand and then not burst out laughing.
Libertarian girls drive me wild.
There is nothing sexier to me than a girl who reads, loves music, is an intelligent, and most of all, Libertarian!
And loves cargo shorts
As long as they aren’t plaid cargo shorts.
They weren’t today
Libertarian girls…. like ayn rand?
(Source: lost-and-searching-in-america)
