I don’t understand Ayn Rand. She pretty much defined modern libertarianism, with Objectivism. However, the Ayn Rand Institute favors a “dog eat dog” world and has been the basis for neo-conservatism.
She made contributions to Satanism.
Probably a cognitive error on her part when formulating her concept of Capitalism. She understood capitalism as best she could in the absence of Subjective Value. That seemed to be the underlying component she was missing. By the time people started to point htis out to her she seemed to old, stubborn, proud, what have you…
And as far as Libertarianism goes. What was ‘Libertarianism’ when she was developing objectivism? Did it even exist when she started writing? If it did how mature was it? She didn’t have the good fortune or of growing up reading Human Action ect…
Watch this 
She knew Rothbard.
I’m pretty sure she knew of Mises as well. But that doesn’t mean she understood any of their works or their general arguments. For that matter I think she wrote Fountain Head and Atlas Shrugged before HA was very accessible in the US. MES was also not published until 1962? Much of the Austrian Economics Library was not yet consolidated or widely accessible in the US at the time she was formulating her philosophy. Shoot, I’m lead to believe that even several prominent economists didn’t know much of Austrian Economics until the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century.
Putting things in a time-line you could see how Rand may have missed much of this.
This is akin to saying that Charles Darwin made contributions to Nazism.
Don’t remind me how awesome Rand should have been. I LOVED her premesese but when looking outwards at the world she suddenly turned into a total bitch
Actually he did
What’s a “dog eat dog world”? And everything she wrote is completely incompatible with neo-conservatism (and I do mean everything; liberals and conservatives construe the meanings of ideas all the time). Your wikipedia article doesn’t have Rand listed as any sort of contributor/influence to Satanism. I do generally trust wikipedia, but not if something is lacking a citation, I merely set it aside as “rumor”.
Any idea can be taken out of context and misconstrued to mean something entirely different from the author’s original intent or meaning.
I think that at one point she admitted she was a libertarian, although I’m not sure to what degree. I know that ultimately she refused to be characteristic under the same name as the anarcho-capitalists (i.e. Murray Rothbard), because she believed them to be misguided (she believed that anarchism was synonymous with collectivism). I don’t believe she was very open to new ideas, other than her own (that’s what I get from George Reisman’s introduction to Capitalism).
Libertarianism kind of existed before Rand (see “Radicals for Capitalism” for a good history of this). Branden reports that when Rand was coming up with a term for her philosophy, he offered up “libertarianism”, but she didn’t like it, as she thought it sounded ‘made up’.
She would never admit to being a libertarian, nor would any of the Orthodox Objectivists. (in fact, associated with libertarians can get you excommunicated, it seems). She, in fact, denounced libertarians because they didn’t all conform to Objectivist views (some libertarians came to libertarianism from other philosophies) and she accused us of ‘stealing her ideas’.
She knew Rothbard, but didn’t like him because he was an anarchist. She met Mises and they didn’t get along, tho she always promoted his economic views. Objectivist pretty much always followed austrian school economics (no idea what they thought of chicago shool econ).
Well, Alan Greenspan was both an objectivist and a monetarist.
Am not sure what economic school that Greenspan would place himself in.
Chicago School doesn’t have a problem with the Fed, per say.
Greenspan had an article in Rand’s book “Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal” where he spoke in favor of the gold standard. Ron Paul says he once asked him if he takes back what he said in it (this when he was still the Fed Chair). Apparently, Greenspan still agreed with what was in it, for what’s that worth.
If you don’t understand Ayn Rand, then it is probably because you have not read her works. If you think that ARI promotes a “dog-eat-dog” world then you definitely do not understand Rand’s philosophy or ARI’s mission.
To the extent that Rand’s ideas have informed Neo-conservativsm or Libertarianism is the extent to which those movements have hijacked her ideas. Rand explicitly denied any affiliation with Libertarians on several occasions, and it is safe to say that she would not have endorsed Neo-cons in any way. If either of these groups try to credit her with their founding ideas, then they too have failed to understand her philosophy.
In the same way it is disingenuous to say that Rand “made contributions to Satanism.” Again, any resemblance in ideas between Objectivism (Rand’s philosophy) and Satanism is because the latter was influenced from the former (as the Wikipedia article you linked to says: “The author claims the influence of Ragnar Redbeard and Ayn Rand among others.”). This does not mean that Rand was a Satanist, or that she agreed with any of the (erroneous) conclusions and principles that Satanists hold. As someone else rightly pointed out, Darwin did not “make contributions” to Nazi ideology; the Nazis took some of his ideas and got the wrong conclusions.
If you are interested in understanding Rand’s philosophy, try Objectivism: the Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff.
Sorry, but like many libertarians, I DO understand her philosophy, and its partually due to read her works that I became a libertarian.
Libertarianism did not ‘hijack’ her ideas. Many of her ideas existed already and were the basis of classical liberal and later libertarian thinking. Keep in mind that her thinking on economics was pretty much just to copy Austrian School economics. Its also important to keep in mind that libertarianism is a political philosophy that allows many people to come under it. Thus you have constitutionists, minarchist, and anarcho-capitalists. You have Austrian School, Chicago School, etc economics. You have natural rights people and those who don’t agree with the idea. You have people who come to it because of their Christian beliefs, and those with no religious beliefs.
There is a reason an early history of the libertarian movement is titled “It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand”, and why many on the non-orthodox Objectivists are quite comfortable appearing at libertarian events. Read a good book on the history of the libertarian movements (such as “Radicals for Capitalism” and you will understand how she fits within the libertarian movement. And she most certainly does.
Really, the only reason Rand rejected libertarianism was that she felt that you had to accept her philosophy in total, and many libertarians don’t. And sadly, the Orthodox Objectivists just blindly follow that lead, in some cases making some ridiculous claims about libertarianism.
Wow, haven’t heard of Libertarians hijacking Rands ideas.
Then you haven’t read Rand or the Orthodox Oists.
One of the reasons Rand condemned libertarians (and libertarianism) is that she thinks we ripped off her ideas. Again, she failed to realize that many of the ideas were already around. Just read, for instance “God of the Machine” and “Discovery of Freedom” by 2 female libertarian contemporaries (and brief associates) of Rand that shows early ideas of libertarianism.
Just because Rand SAYS that libertarian’s stole her idea’s doesn’t mean that they did.
Plus many people who we would consider to be ‘libertarian’ at that time may have been calling themselves liberals or classical liberals.
Uh, that was kinda my point.
Doubt it.
The term “classical liberal” had pretty much died out, except amount the older generation (Mises & Hayek, et al) of that time.
Most people calling themselves liberals were pretty much socialist. It would have been some amoung the so-called “Old Right” who might identify with some libertarian ideas. But most of the people would should call themselves libertarians did so at the time (70s/80s).
If you read “Ayn Rand Answers”, which were taken from her Q/A session after the Ford Hall Forums, they quote a response she gave (warning, its been shown that the book was heavily edited) a denunciation of libertarianism. This is usually the basis for this, plus an article in one of the later Rand collections by one of the Orthodox who denounced libertarianism as a ‘perversion of liberty’, if you can believe it.
I’m not necessarily denying what your saying. I havn’t done research into extensively nor do I care to. I just got very confused with the wording of your post after Roberts. I thought you were trying to make an argument, like Robert, that Libertarianism is a spawn of Objectivism.
the idea that libertarianism is the ‘spawn of Objectivism’ is that when libertarianism ‘really’ got started in the 60s & 70s, many of the people who became libertarians did so because they read Ayn Rand and like what she said, tho most didn’t become Objectivists. Rand was probably the single author most read by those in the movement. Others writting on libertarianism seemed to echo the same themes (Hosper’s “Libertarianism”, Rothbards “For a New Liberty”). Hence, as I noted, an early work on the movement is titled “It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand”.
This is due to most people at the time NOT being aware of the libertarian/classical liberal tradition that stretched back several hundred of years, and included people like Jefferson, Albert Jay Nock, Lysander Spooner, Benjamin Tucker, Mises, Hayak, Hazlitt, and even contemporaries of Rand like Isabel Patterson (“God of the Machine”) and Rose Wilder Lane (“Discovery of Freedom”). This changed as these people became better known, and their works were printed (or reprinted or rediscovered) and read. Since Rand herself wasn’t always familiar with these people (she was associated with Patterson & Mises, not sure about Lane, probably knew of Hayak & Hazlitt), and since many in the libertarian movement seemed (to her) to be ‘copying’ her, but not giving her credit or pushing Objectivism, she didn’t like it.
This is why works like “Radicals of Capitalism” and such are important, so people can understand the background of libertarianism amoung the classical liberal, old right, paleo/proto-libertarians that came before the main movement, and not think the movement just poped up in the 60/70s due to Rand.