Strangelove

In a meritocracy, people are rewarded to higher positions based on their merits. Most businesses operate as a meritocracy, they need to for their survivial. Although the government of Singapore is dictatorial, that government is surprisingly un-authoritarian. Business thrives because the Government lets it. Although at the same time. there are many insane and innane laws that direct the social laws in that nation (I think we all know about Singapore's hatred of gum as being one of the more humorous examples). Although I like some aspects of Singapore's Government, other elements are far from ideal. I had assumed that Objectivists would prefer if in an ideal nation, the government was run like business. We don't all get to vote for people to join the office because, being only people we are capable of being swayed by wrong arguments, capable of falling into the trap of emotions, and capable of making uninformed choices. It would be to dangerous to give "the people" the power to elect officials. Instead, government would be a profession, one that a person had to apply to be accepted into, and one that they would need to dedicate full time services to. Government would of course require strict constitutional limits to stop it from falling into totalitarianism and tyranny. I assume the closest thing to a positive portrayal of this is Heinlien's Starship Troopers.

Sorry for the double post, but another thought occured to me. What about Ayn Rand's very own "We the living"? Its ending certainely does not depict life as it "ought to be" but I doubt many people on the board here consider the novel not worth reading because it does not champaion Objectivist values to the same extent as FH or AS. (I have not read WTL, I just know the basic plot outline)

Democracy works on rewarding people into positions of power based not on their merit, but on how popular they are (as shown through voting). Does this means that Objectivists would prefer, in an ideal society, to have no direct Democracy and instead have some sort of pseudo-authoritarian leadership that was more meritocratic? (Singapore comes to mind)

First off, thanks for all the replies, I have only read FH and am still going through AS, so I have not had time to get to The Romantic Manifesto. I notice that people say that Picasso draws with the skill "of a five year old" and that "Anyone can draw that". But isnt the point that no one before Picasso drew that way, or that Picasso was the first to depict life in that way? Or even if I five year old could "draw that way" that Picasso drew better? (I am not familier with all of Picasso's works, just his earlier ones). Also, if art was only to depict human success and life as it ought to be, I imagine there would be far less variety in art galleries. I do believe firmly in the peer review being present in art, I would not want any old so called "modern" artist to simply mess with some dung to make a sculpture if it means nothing, but surely it is acceptable to express oneself in other artistic means, not just Romantic. For example, the book covers of Fountainhead and Atlas shrugged both used very Romantic images untill the very recent Centenial editions, to celebrate the 100th anniversay of Ayn Rand, and those new book covers are certainely not "inferior" covers. Also, when Art has to serve politics (or in this case, philosophy) by only showing what man should be like, wouldn't it deny other artists from being able to express someselves in a unique and possibly groundbreaking way? In a way, it seems ironic, because when people say "Romantic art is the only art worth depicting", it sounds like the Dean from FH saying "All great architecture has already been created". (I have not yet read the exert from the Romantic Manifesto that was posted, but I will get around to it soon, thank you for posting)

Would that mean that Objectivists regard works such as Picasso's Guernica as "inferior" because it does not realistically portray human suffering adequately by being abstract as oppsed to realistic, or would it still be considered a "good" piece of art that is just not 100% in line with Objectivist logic?

I recently discovered Objectivism and have many questions, for example, I am surprised that Rand seems to have more contempt for the American right then I thought she would. How is "The Ominous Parallels"? It seems a bit different from the other non-fiction texts that are part of the ARI's library.

Although I understand that an unregulated economy would create the greater technological advancement, I am still unsure about how quickly that would realistically happen. Example, at the moment, even though nuclear energy is cleaner, environment-polluting-coal is cheaper. Rather then sit around and wait for tech advancements to come around to solve the problem (my understanding is that the recent "clean coal" trend is a euphamism) wouldn't it make more sense simply to to place higher tax on coal plants and less tax (or none at all) on nuclear plants? I understand that theoretically, all we have to do is wait for a tech to come along that makes clean coal a reality, but since that takes time, wouldn't it make practical sense to force a change to get an immediate benefit, as opposed to waiting for an unknown ammount of time for an advancement that may not come when it is most needed?

What would be regarded as the main differences between the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) and The Objectivist Center (TOC)? I am somewhat aware that their division exists partly due to fallouts Ayn Rand had with some of her colleagues, but do the two institutions complement each other, or are they in competition with each other? Do they servce different needs entirely? EDIT: Damn, I forgot to capitalise the acronyms, I can't seem to be able to do that in the edit function...

Hmm... Michael Moore has many of Toohey's qualities...

It is understandable why Objectivists would be against legislation that would hinder economic activities (such as the flawed Kyoto protocol) since more often then not, the anti-Greenpeace route is often the most profitable. However, there are times when consequences of unrestricted industry are damaging to all partied concerned, such as acid rain. Since it is generally more profitable to be a major polluter, as opposed to investing a lot of money into being eco-friendly, to what extent would objectivists be able to tolerate environmental legislation? Or, if they can not tolerate any environmental legislation, what incentives would they suggest do exist to lessen unecessary environmental damage?

Sometimes it seems as if the "Romanticist" art that Objectivists love, seems to be regarded as the "correct" way of presenting art. Is it just regarded as appropriate for the novels, or do Objectivists have broader claims of Romanticist superiority over "other" art?