These two must go hand in hand, governments or collectives who have the power over individuals are at absolute fault. What gives those people the absolute right to take their ideas and stick it into the face of the individuals and say “This is the way to live”? I mean can we agree on this? What are your thoughts?
These two must go hand in hand …
If you do a site search of “anarchism” you will find several existing threads that talk about why anarchism is not compatible with Objectivism. Additionally, much of Rand’s literature explains why a government is necessary for the protection of individual rights.
What are your thoughts?
Anarchy isn’t freedom, and freedom isn’t anarchy.
Anarchy is the result of an absence of any moral standard within a group of people. It is a condition in which one man may harm another with no consequence, save for the retaliatory whim of his victim. No peace can be sustained in anarchy if one person acts against another in such a manner, and soon a system evolves where the one with the biggest stick makes the rules. Essentially, anarchy begets tyranny - it’s probably the fastest means to tyranny, since there are no boundaries within which a power-seeker must cleverly navigate to achieve domination over others without being noticed.
Freedom, on the other hand, is the condition in which men assert their rights, which means they may act in whatever manner they wish so long as they do not violate the rights of others. This necessitates an agency to establish standards and procedures of justice someone’s rights have been violated, i.e. a proper government. A proper government defends individual rights, and does not violate them, lest it become the tyranny it is charged with preventing.
The “limits” to freedom in a capitalist society aren’t really limits, but a recognition of non-freedoms. You are not free to steal from someone; you are free to protect your property from a thief - stealing is not a right, protecting your privacy is.
Thus, if you ever hear of anyone associate Ayn Rand or Objectivism with “anarcho-capitalism”, they’re exhibiting a strong misunderstanding of Rand, Objectivism, capitalism, and anarchy. It’s a non-concept and a contradiction in terms, and as such cannot be made manifest in reality.
These two must go hand in hand, governments or collectives who have the power over individuals are at absolute fault. What gives those people the absolute right to take their ideas and stick it into the face of the individuals and say “This is the way to live”? I mean can we agree on this? What are your thoughts?
What gives competing governments the “right” to do the same? Before you denounce the establishment of a government, you must take into consideration exactly what a government is. Have you ever wondered why our founding fathers implemented a separation of church and state claus into the constitution? A government is the physical manifestation of force, ergo to separate church and state is to separate church with force. To separate state and economics is to separate force with economics. To guarantee that this concentration of force doesn’t get out of control, we delegate specific rights to it via the constitution so that the monopoly of force will only be able to use it in retaliation against the aggressors of force. To oppose this dichotomy of force with certain aspects of society is to support allowing all individuals and private institutions to maintain their privilege of initiating force completely at their own discretion. Would you want to live in a society whereby any business who can afford a private military would have the complete freedom to use it to destroy it’s superior competitor? Or a society were any religion that had the guns can and will force others to convert? The only way we can establish a fully free society is to extract from the individual the ability to initiate force through establishing a government.