Roughly 10 years after reading most of her books and having lived enough to have some perspective on the world, I'm convinced the country needs more Rand and less collectivism. As we approach another major milepost on the road to serfdom with the more formal adoption of the principal that health care is a right and not just a good or service, it makes sense people are uneasy and interested in what alternatives there might be to such a world.

Yes of course her plots were embarrassingly melodramatic but they did a good job of illustrating her principles and what could exist. What if everyone needed to provide value to others or to convince others of the merits of providing them with charity in order to survive? Before the welfare state how did people survive? Is a country really better off with an "everyone survives with a basic level of services, no matter how horrible their decisions" ethos or should a certain percentage be allowed to slip through the cracks as a way of encouraging everyone else to examine what they are doing and make better choices?

Think about the way the government alters incentives. Currently our government taxes people based not on their citizenship or residence (a "head tax") but on how much property they own, how much money they earn, how much money their businesses make and what they buy. The tax revenues are used partially for basics such as law enforcement and national defense (the limited goals of any legitimate government) but also on need-based entitlements like education, housing, health care and food. The worse the decisions a person makes in his or her life, the more he or she is given in handouts. Have a baby you can't afford? Some schmuck who made better decisions with his life will be forced to work more so junior can eat, have a place to live and go to school, pay for health care, etc.

Rand was right about democracy having become a pack of wolves and a couple sheep voting on what to eat for dinner. Rand's fantasy of the sheep shielding themselves and leaving the parasite wolves to starve or canibalize themselves is not particularly productive in showing us or future generations how to maximize individual freedom and responsibility. Rand made wrong assumptions about the ability of even the lowest socioeconomic people to adjust in order the survive as shown by the welfare reforms of the late 1990s. It's not that they were incapable of working; the change of incentives created by the promise of a welfare check before the reforms had perversely discouraged them from achieving their potentials. But Rand's stories do remind us that we don't need to agree with the ideas that entitlements are rights and that a morality based on collectivism is in any way superior to one based on individualism. It is difficult for a person living today to see how we could ever move to a system which attempts to maximize individual liberty instead of the economic parasitism promoted by the left or the theology based limitations embraced by social conservatives but I celebrate Rand, with all her faults, for keeping the dream alive.

"Have a baby you can't afford? Some schmuck who made better decisions with his life will be forced to work more so junior can eat, have a place to live and go to school, pay for health care, etc. "

The problem is that we are going to pay, one way or another. When that kid grows up and can't feed himself, and turns to crime, we will pay. And not just in money -- when he hurts someone's child, wife, sister . . . we can throw him in prison (where we pay for him again) but the human damage has been done.

There are tradeoffs in a free society. Would I perefer that no babies were born other than into stable situations? Of course. But there is no way to ensure that happens. And given the option between paying for health care and education for that child, or paying for his incarceration (or execution some day) and the damage he does along the way, I'll take the former.

I suppose Rand's solution would've been to nuke Australia back to the Stone Age and ship all the undesirables there and let them fight it out amongst themselves.

I don't know if Rand ever wrote about criminal justice matters. As an attorney who has worked both on the prosecution and now the defense sides of the aisle, I think that would likely make an interesting read. I'm confident that she would start with the premise that the purpose of any legitimate government is to protect the rights of its people against aggressors both domestic and foreign. Where she might go from there, I don't know. My sense is our current criminal justice system of mixing social work and traditional punishment is not a fait accompli working from the first premise. Potentially you could execute all criminals or treat them as civil judgment creditors (either with the civil collection rules in place today or a kind of judicially-enforced servitude/restitution system such as forced labor camps or enhanced garnishment procedures) or buy an island and do a penal colony or pay some other country to take them and strip them of citizenship or just strip them of certain rights or some other option.

The problem with Rand is she is simple minded but that is how one sells popular books and political program. Those problem comes with those who continue to take Rand and run with it and in so doing contribute to the dumbing down of our society. They aren't even consistent. Believe it or not even liberals get the concept of individualism and sane government should of course look for the balance that maximizes both social needs and individual rights. If such an open minded approach were possible I suppose we would have a little bipartisanship but most of her "devotees" aren't open minded and certainly not captains of industries but parasites on and useful fools for a right wing corporate political class. Oh lookie, she supported abortion rights. Isn't that consistent with letting the individual do something instead listening to the same people who won't allow it complaining that you "have a baby you can't afford"?

Do you even know what "the dream" is?

"Is a country really better off with an "everyone survives with a basic level of services, no matter how horrible their decisions" ethos or should a certain percentage be allowed to slip through the cracks as a way of encouraging everyone else to examine what they are doing and make better choices?"

What you're talking about here is Social Darwinism. That came long before Rand, during the gilded age in this country. It's all about justifying the uber-rich's lifestyle that requires thousands of wage slaves. The poor are just inferior people, so that's their station in life.

It's nice that you can believe that hard times only befall those that make 'bad choices', that it has nothing to do with external forces or bad luck. My experience has been that good people can have bad things happen to them, no matter how smart they are or how hard the work, or how good their choices seem to be.

A society is judged by the way it treats its infirm, elderly and the young. There is no room for compassion in either your or Rand's philosphy. It's one of mankind's better virtues. Selfishness and greed never will be seen as such.

Imagine a bunch of Randians in a foxhole. Her every man for himself philosphy wouldn't even work in wartime.

duck wrote: "Before the welfare state how did people survive?"

Well, many didn't. You have the blithe assurance born of ignorance. Everything was not hunky-dory before the awful "welfare state" came about.

Life expectancy at birth in the US in 1901 was 49 years. Malnutrition was rampant. Infectious diseases tore through the population and killed hundreds of thousands every year. What happened to change all that? Much of the improvements are due to the "welfare state" you take for granted. Sanitation, the Pure Food and Drug Act, the public health infrastructure, scientific research coupled with public campaigns to vaccinate children, safer transportation due to gov't regulation, etc. In other words, welcome to civilization.

Is is that really all that hard to imagine that people without a welfare state would buy insurance and join social, professional and community groups to manage risks and be there to help others in need? I do these things even today. Nothing would stop people from helping each other voluntarily. To pretend that a system using the force of the state to penalize those who achieve to benefit those who can't or won't provide for themselves is somehow morally superior to a system based on individual liberty and personal responsibility is wrong.

This seems to be where the discussion breaks down. If the rights of the individual are not paramount, any "social good" popular with enough people will trump the rights of those designated to be sacrificed to that goal. As I indicated earlier, small "L" libertarians get grief from both the left and the right. Both sides pretend to be the champions of individual rights but neither is willing to look honestly at the restrictions they support. The left opposes freedom to contract and other economic liberties. The right oppose many social liberties.

On the point of abortion, I don't know whether that debate fits neatly into this discussion. Either one believes a person and the rights of the person begin at birth or at some other point and affords the protections of those rights to the fetus/baby at the time the rights vest. Rand chose birth. Others choose other points in time.

"Is is that really all that hard to imagine that people without a welfare state would buy insurance and join social, professional and community groups to manage risks and be there to help others in need?"

Is it really that hard to imagine people getting together and deciding to pursue the common good and general welfare together? And to do that they institute a government of the people, by the people and for the people?

Libertarians are the same as everyone else. They define the government's proper role. Why they believe that they are the only ones who actually know what the government's proper role is is a mystery to me. Otherwise we settle the question by, oh, having the people elect representatives. Too bad you don't like what the vast majority likes.

Which gets us back to the earlier point about today's America being about interest groups voting themselves benefits at other peoples' expense. I would suggest democracy is ultimately unsustainable under these circumstances. Either the hosts will find a way to purge the parasites or the parasites will kill their hosts.

The common good and general welfare? If you can't obtain what you want through reason or trade, you shouldn't be able to take it by force. If you want to give, do so voluntarily through charity. If you want to take, find someone who is willing to give. Don't use flowery language to glorify what is essentially legally sanctioned theft. If you are simply power-hungry, start a business which provides value to others and call the shots. Don't promise to take from Peter to pay Paul and call it the public good.

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

duck:

Is is that really all that hard to imagine that people without a welfare state would buy insurance and join social, professional and community groups to manage risks and be there to help others in need? I do these things even today. Nothing would stop people from helping each other voluntarily. To pretend that a system using the force of the state to penalize those who achieve to benefit those who can't or won't provide for themselves is somehow morally superior to a system based on individual liberty and personal responsibility is wrong.

This seems to be where the discussion breaks down. If the rights of the individual are not paramount, any "social good" popular with enough people will trump the rights of those designated to be sacrificed to that goal. As I indicated earlier, small "L" libertarians get grief from both the left and the right. Both sides pretend to be the champions of individual rights but neither is willing to look honestly at the restrictions they support. The left opposes freedom to contract and other economic liberties. The right oppose many social liberties.

On the point of abortion, I don't know whether that debate fits neatly into this discussion. Either one believes a person and the rights of the person begin at birth or at some other point and affords the protections of those rights to the fetus/baby at the time the rights vest. Rand chose birth. Others choose other points in time.

This demonstrates my point that Rand and "Randies" are simple minded. Does the "paramount" right of the individual always trump the right of the group? Can I dump motor oil in our drinking water if it easier than recycling it? Do you think "Liberals" are uninterested in individual rights Is government by definition non consensual if even one person disagrees with the decision of the rest? Whole groups have no right to limit an individuals actions but a fertilized embryo trumps all. The "Randies" historical ignorance is appalling and their philosophical inconsistency blatant. Rand chose the individual right to abortion, not birth as you claim.

"Either the hosts will find a way to purge the parasites or the parasites will kill their hosts."

Get help

duck wrote: "If you can't obtain what you want through reason or trade, you shouldn't be able to take it by force."

Your screen name is the wrong water fowl. What a goose you are!

Is this how you argue in your work? Do your clients a favor and go Galt on them. Withhold your talents so no one may "steal" from you. I'm sure they'll come begging you to grace them with your gifts. And hold your breath while you wait for that to happen.

Rand chose birth as the point at which rights vest in an individual.

You quote the preamble but ignore the fact that the rest of the document is about the government having enumerated powers with many many limitations and prohibitions. The fact that the Supreme Court has abdicated its duty to strike down unconstitutional laws since Roosevelt's court-packing threats doesn't change the text of the document.