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Ayn Rand's use of language

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Marty McFly

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[...]

I compile what you say two ways

  1. socialists who are against forcing socialism upon others (e.g. living on communes and not attempting to restrict the rights of others) will not (if sticking to their principles) commit atrocious acts of force
  2. socialists who are for "minor" acts of force (e.g. minimum wage, progressive taxes) will not (if sticking to their principles) commit atrocious acts of force

I largely agree with the first, but I strongly disagree with the second.

If by "exaggerated", you mean that Rand/Objectivism says that all socialist claimers (i.e. even the ones against using force) are Stalins-in-waiting, I think that is an incorrect belief about Rand/Objectivism (even IF most Objectivist actually do feel that way.)

[...]

A government that contains _any_ controls will eventually turn into one that controls everything and that does require "atrocious acts of force". Controls always require additional controls to "fix" the damage caused by the original ones.

How anybody could classify minimum wage laws and progressive taxes as not being "atrocious acts of force" is beyond me. True, those aren't of the same degree as concentration camps or jailing people for "political crimes", but they destroy vast amounts of wealth and violate people's rights in a very significant way.

Mark Peters

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does that mean that even the caracters would not be realistic? because her "good guys" are very realistic.... there are many Roarks Reardens and d'Anconias in real life.

All of Ayn Rand's characters, good and bad, are "realistic" in the sense that the qualities they embody exist (or can exist) in actual people. People with the same qualities as any given character may or may not exist, but that isn't the point. Ayn Rand's characters weren't the result of copying or modeling after actual people - they resulted from choosing the principles she needed to make her artistic point, and then creating characters embodying those principles.

Those characters ran the gamut from pure good (e.g. Galt) to mixed (e.g. Eddie Willers) to pure evil (e.g., Toohey). Even Roark and Rearden were mixed, though to a far lesser degree than characters like Willers. In the real world there are far more mixed types than pure types, but even so, very few are of the stature of Roark, Rearden or d'Anconia. Pure types, good or bad, are exceedingly rare.

Mark Peters

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No I was not aware that a socialist or communist society can stoop to such levels without the aid of fascist dictators.

Communism is the most murderous idea ever devised. It is not one whit a lesser evil than Nazism. It lasted longer, killed more people, and had more friends in influential Western institutions (some say still does).

25 million in Russia during the Bolshevik and Stalinist eras, roughly 65 million in China under the eyes of Mao Zedong, 2 million in Cambodia, millions more in Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. Such was no accident, but an integral trait of communism philosophy, and its application to politics.

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In fact, I don't have any reason to think that Rand does either, at least in the sense that you seem to be assuming (where "the masses" = people). If you want to understand Rand's view of "the masses", try reading her philosophical writings, for example (Ayn Rand Letter, 20): 'The innocence and common sense of the American people have wrecked the plans, the devious notions, the tricky strategies, the ideological traps borrowed by the intellectuals from the European statists, who devised them to fool and rule Europe's impotent masses. There have never been any "masses" in America: the poorest American is an individual and, subconsciously, an individualist.'

Try to grasp the significance of the statement that there have never been any "masses" in America, a country with 250 million people at the time (also grasp the significance of her use of scare quotes, something that came up elsewhere here in the past day).

I googled Ayn Rand Letter 20 but nothing real came up. is it a book or what? sorry about my ignorance. :(

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I googled Ayn Rand Letter 20 but nothing real came up. is it a book or what? sorry about my ignorance. :(
The Ayn Rand Letter was published monthly for about 5 years, and that quote comes from the essay entitled Don't Let It Go part II, Vol. 1, No. 5 (December 6, 1971).
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The Ayn Rand Letter was published monthly for about 5 years, and that quote comes from the essay entitled Don't Let It Go part II, Vol. 1, No. 5 (December 6, 1971).

Fortunately, it's more easily available than that; "Don't Let It Go" was reprinted in Philosophy: Who Needs It.

Edited by Adrian Hester
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