Well , first off, Thank You. I guess that she had a stingy childhood that continued in her later years, sure you live for yourself first, um- no Shit , but I believe that humans beings are social animals that rely on altruism a lot in our lives. I'm no fan of selfishness or Alan Greenspan (also a Ayn Rand follower) and that guy from the Chicago school of economics- Friedman - who was also a fan of Ayn Rand, using Rand's Economics and political philosophy the USA helped to over throw Salvador Allende and installed Pinochet (our type of guy) in Chile on 9-11-73 , the first 9-11 that we don't talk about, because we (USA) are the greedy ones who did not want democracy and socialism to flourish in South America. Ayn Rand does make some good points, but she also makes many errors in my opinon, she reminds me of that line from "WALL STREET" ~ Greed is Good ~  

Now, that sounds good in principle, and I personally agree with you in that I hate moochers and people that use self pity as a roadblock to their personal growth.  I will have to borrow from folklore to reply, however, 'everybody needs somebody, sometimes'.  You and I hold the same morals now, but I had immigrated here.  When we arrived we relied on others for support for the first few months or so.  Prior to integrating in the society, I relied on others giving me the benefit of doubt.  If everyone lived for themselves I wouldn't be where I am now. 

Communism sounds good in principle also, but this ultimate capitalism polar opposite cannot be the answer either.  The ideal self sustaining system has to be closer to the center.  While communism failed miserably, it is not without it's noteworthy benefits.  And in an ideal communist society value is being recognized differently.  You may not make a LOT more money, but you receive a LOT more respect and recognition.  Also since we're idealizing here, in said utopia everyone's basic needs have been looked after, so really, making more money is just the gorilla's equivalent of smacking your chest.  

Of course in reality this doesn't work because humans tend to be greedy pricks, and every leader ends up hoarding everything for themselves, hence the dictatorships, and so on and so forth.  Realistically the opposite is true for what you're proposing, because we're all pricks deep down inside, and it's only a matter of time before some asshole starts abusing the power gained by being more valuable, to hurt others that have less actualized value.

In the end, it is human nature that prevents any idealized system from actualizing.  We're left with the best of the worst system that we have in place today.  Far from perfect, but just good enough so it survives, I guess you can look at it as organic evolution.  As long as it survives long enough to pass the memes over to the next generation, it is good enough

There are some parts of Ayn Rand's philosophy that I disagree with, but as a whole, I enjoyed it thoroughly. Just like you, Atlas Shrugged helped shape some of my worldview when I read it.   

In what way is helping another person in need inconsistent with living for yourself? Ayn Rand was not against helping those in need. She was against society forcing people to be charitable. I assume that you did not take a gun and point it at the people who helped you to gain their assistance, that they helped you on their own volition. I would also hope that you have repaid those who assisted you in some manner. I once found myself in a position where I relied on charity to pay some medical bills, I have since repaid that charity with substantial interest.

There is nothing wrong with charity, there is a lot wrong with institutionalized altruism; expecting and forcing one person to sacrifice for another. Charity, when accepted, should be taken with an appreciation and understanding that it is at the benevolence of the donor. In Atlas Shrugged the difference is illustrated by the expectation of charity in Reardon's wife and brother (who ironically seeks Reardon's charity to support an organization that is trying to destroy Reardon's business) and the assistance that Dagny receives when she first arrives at the valley. The former is expected by the receiver as a matter of course, with no capability or intention of offering anything in return including love. The latter is given and received with the full intention of repaying the generosity at the earliest opportunity.

If you have read my previous posts on the subject you know I am a huge supporter of charitable organizations. I see private charity as the logical replacement of the few government programs that actually help those who need it. It is a shame that so many people hurry to government force in the name of the "public good" but those same people donate very little of their own money to charity. I find it ironic that when I attend a high dollar charity event the majority of the people there are inevitably us "greedy" and "selfish" Ayn Rand types. (well not all of them are Ayn Rand types. Some are Christians that reject Ayn Rand because she was an atheist, but we are all generally the "greedy and rich" business owners.) Sometimes you come across a left winger that is consistent which I respect. If you are going to tell me I have to give almost half my money for the "public good" the least you can do is lead by example.

Then there are others like our illustrious President who donated shit until he decided to run for president. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/us/politics/26taxes.html  In 2004 the Obama's made over $200k and donated a whopping $2500. 

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2009/04/obama-and-biden-release-tax-returns.html

Even now he only donates 5-6% of his income. Personally, I would be embarrassed if I was him and I certainly wouldn't have the audacity to come out and suggest the everyone in America has to "sacrifice" for the greater good. To me it is just evidence that most of those who profess to be seeking the public good are really just seeking their own personal power. /tangent

I generally agree with her principles. But in reality, things are not so black and white.

In many cases, people can't be productive because they don't have access to the means of production. What happens in this liaise-fair capitalism is a small number of capitalists end up buying all land, water, minerals, energy, etc... Since the earth has finite size, they create a monopoly, often keeping out more productive alternatives. How can a man be a productive farmer if there's no available land or water for him to be productive with? Does Ayn Rand ever address this issue?

What if your lifestyle requires that you own a big house, many cars, etc... So you have to use lots of resources and create a lot of pollution for your lifestyle vs. someone that is less productive. What right do you have to use more resouces and pollute the earth more than others? Do you own the earth?

With this libertarian philosophy, you don't up with a meritocracy where the most productive win. With this type of capitalism, those that control the resources and the political system end up winning. To have a true meritocracy, we would need to have public ownership of all natural resources that could only be leased for productive usage beneficial to everyone.

Such a lifestyle would be against objectivist principles though. As the philosophy emphasizes achievement and purpose, I'm pretty sure that Rand would consider someone who just hoarded property while producing very little of value to be a bad "second-hander," as she calls them i.e. the person with this lifestyle justifies his existence with material possessions and other peoples' opinions of him.

I guess the problem is there isn't a way of preventing this from happening in liaise-fair capitalism. So, even though she would hate something like this happening, the very economic system she promotes kind of makes it inevitable. Perhaps she thinks only objectivists that don't waste resources would be able to stay at the top.

and again more recently. As some one hinted up thread, I found the characters to be singular, undeveloped puppets who showed all the depth of Dan Brown's finest. I couldn't work out who I disliked more - Dagney ' Choo Choo' Taggart or Francesco D'anconia, lord of hydraulics. You'd almost think nothing had ever been discovered by curious, weird amateurs growing penicillin in beer fridges or nobodies trying to make softer riding tyres for invalid sons.

I agreed with some elements of Rand's thinking but disagreed with plenty. I know she was making a point but the complete lack of recognition for the dispossessed aborigine, for the simple, meaningful contributions of faceless people, galled me. When I was younger I did not see this but on the second go it was in my face from the start. You were either an industrialist who moved the world, or a leech, according to Rand. I didn't finish the book in the second instance because I thought she was being a major pain in the arse.

For every steel magnate with dreams of creating the perfect metal, there's some guy getting up at 3am to bake bread or plow his fields, or a mother waking up to feed her kid, or some guy driving around in a missionbeat van putting blankets over drunks. Success is not necessarily about relentless production, as the melting ice caps and fast vanishing forests would tell us if they could. As a closed system, Earth needs balance.

Now I have most the whining out of the way, I certainly got a lot of pleasure from her visceral techno worship. Seeing a big ship or a powerful train is a profound experience and I have a girl mate who was so moved at Cape Canaveral during a shuttle launch that she burst into tears. Point is, these are human qualities shared by all - they are not the personal domain of pin-dicks like John Galt. Nor is the presence of a social conscience the telling quality of a pinko leftie bloodsucker.

Anyone who agrees implicitly with Rand's philosophy should read Douglas Stewart's poem 'Mending the Bridge'. And anyone who thinks average Joe gives no fuck about the quality of his spend should ask themselves why so many of the cars on the road are being made in Japan. Companies that make crap fail. Companies that exploit their staff deserve to fail. Ethical winners use robotics and manic R&D. Perhaps Ayn Rand would approve.

Does she ever address the issue of who should own the earth? Is her philosophy pretty much if you got the money to buy it up or an army to take it, you can do with it what you please? This is where most libertarians/conservatives are total hypocrites, because they believe having money or their God grants them special rights to unlimited access to the earth's resources. So they have their special rights while leftists are ridiculous for claiming welfare and education rights.

i have never read any ayn rand. 

number one, from what i've been told of and read about the philosophy of "objectivism" (a name which seems to make no sense), it was neither original nor sophisticated.  the idea that every human working for his or her own benefit will cumulatively benefit society goes back at least as far as adam smith. 

number two, novels should just not be that long.  in my experience, after plowing my way through the stand, the brothers karamazov, east of eden, finnegan's wake (which i admit i abandoned well before the halfway point), and other massive novels, i've found that those over 300 pages or so inevitably have about a 1:3 ratio of actual interesting material versus self-indulgent chaff that could have easily and beneficially been excised.  a master novelist can make a point without beating you over the head with it.  flannery o'connor, for example, could pack more pith in a 25-page short story than most novelists can in 150 pages.

Based on everything I have heard about Rand and her works, I have far more important things to do with my time than engage with such super-simplistic ideas.

She seems worse than Karl Marx at making incredibly naive and uninformed and hopelessly optimistic assumptions about human nature.

Of course there would be some ideas which I would agree with, to an extent, but they are extrapolated to an absurd degree, and she seems to ignore so many important aspects of human nature and society that I could not take her seriously, or anyone who 'worships' her as the Goddess of Libertarianism.

That is the problem with most of these economic theories.  All of them.  People are not all the same and they are not all motivated by the same desired outcomes.  Hell, people aren't consistently motivated during a single day, let alone throughout their entire lives. 

Pure communism, socialism, capitalism, libertarianism, objectivism, etc-ism did not, does not, and can not work.  Blended economies are all that exist on this earth with some peppered a little more heavily from one -ism or another.

There's your problem, Jean.

You base your philosophy on the ideas of a one particular group of people recording their ill-informed and often primitive tribalistic myths and taboos, rather that by more direct examination and contemplation of broader reality. Since humans are finite and fallible, any of their writings must inevitably share that significant probability of error, confusion, misinterpretation, imperfect remembrance, misunderstanding of second-hand testimony etc, etc.

At the very least, if you want to go that route, you should compare and contrast the ideas from as many belief-systems as possible.

Even so, such an approach would be one of the most uncertain and error-prone paths to knowledge. So by own criteria, it is not a path to any kid of knowledge.

Nothing is black and white. And in Atlas Shrugged Ayn recognizes that. You have the valley which is her "utopia" which ultimately the heroes decide to leave in an attempt to save the "real" world. Of course there was a lot that was unrealistic in it, it was a work of fiction.

If she did it would have been in the "Virtue of Selfishness" but it has been really long since I read that book and I can't really recall. Ayn Rand WAS against oligarchies although to what extent she believed government should be involved in breaking them up using force I don't know. In the US there is plenty of space and resources that a practical monopoly is virtually impossible without government assistance. Especially in modern times with transportation and relocation being so easy. One might theoretically obtain a monopoly within a small geographical area (as in the gas station in the middle of nowhere) but there is competition within driving distance.

I don't? Exactly who's coercion have I ever defended? I have been an outspoken critic of any company that uses the government as a tool to the point that I attempt to boycott them. As Ayn was as well. The main antagonists in Atlas Shrugged were corporations that were buddy buddy with government goons, not much unlike many of the corporations controlling DC today.

@ Gauche, I actually agree with you on the SS thing. Rather hypocritical, she attempted to rationalize it since money for it had already been taken from her by force but I disagree. Anyone who accepts SS has to recognize that they are leeching off of the current working class. As such, they do not have the moral high ground when that working class decides to cut their benefits or in Bama's words - tell them to take a pain pill because surgery is too expensive. If you rely on SS, you have failed to take care of yourself and you are now relying on the charity and goodwill of everyone else, personally I find that a disgraceful position to be in. 

As for the characters in Atlas Shrugged, yes they were extreme representations of certain personality traits. They were intended to be caricatures to illustrate the differences in what personality traits she considered good and bad rather than realistic characters with a mixture of good and bad traits. This is a common literary device, especially in a book that is critiquing popular politics and society at large.

It isn't, and I don't believe it was meant to be, a complex explanation of the economic system and how it works. If you want that, read The Wealth of Nations. It is a very dry read. Atlas Shrugged is a book that makes many of the ideas of free economies, individual freedom, and the potential evils of the "public good" accessible to readers who might not have a strong background economics or philosophy. To that extent, I think it has been a very successful book and is hardly a waste of time to read, even if you do not agree with the philosophy underlying it. If you simply want some dry philosophy read her non-fiction. 

And I would love to see someone put together a good argument as to why it is moral to use force to take from one person and give to another simply on the basis of need. I have seen much complaining that the book was "too simplistic" no one has actually addressed any of the concepts except EXC. I find it intriguing that a group of people who for the most part are pacifistic, apparently have no problem using government force to take for a wide variety of handouts. I assume that most of you wouldn't go mug your neighbor for the same handouts, yet when the government is the one doing the dirty work you support it. Is there really a difference, besides your conscience? Indeed, it is the one who suggests that we ought not steal from our fellow man who is considered extreme.

For a healthy society, I think it is important that we agree I will not steal from you, if you do not steal from me. Whether you use government or not as the tool makes no difference. It is clear from history that majorities can be tyrannical. Does it matter that the majority went to a poll to vote before using tyrannical force to take from the minority? The end of our freedom started when politicians realized they could buy votes by taking money from the minority and handing it out to the majority. The smallest minority is the individual, protect minority rights before they are gone completely.

Hear, hear!

 I don't begrudge Ayn Rand landing in a social safety net, that's why they exist. Even Ayn Rand was a human being, but she was lucky not to live in the kind of society she promoted. As we all are.

She's not really taken seriously as a philosopher though because the leading ideas associated with her were developed more rigorously by other people.  It's just egoism, which as a moral theory is completely worthless in terms of its ability to resolve conflicts of interest like other moral theories. You really need to have a fundamentally different conception of morality.  If the point of view of morality were self-interest there couldn't be moral solutions of conflicts of interest but for most people the whole point of morality is that it's applicable when there are conflicts of interest. 

It's quite arbitrary I think. As a theory it's of the same type as nationalism or racism. To elevate oneself above all others. It's the realization we are on par with one another that's the reason morality includes recognition of the needs of others and why egoism fails as a moral theory.