It is not very inspiring to fight for the freedom of the purveyors of pornography or their customers. But in the transition to statism, every infringement of human rights has begun with the suppression of a given right’s least attractive practitioners. In this case, the disgusting nature of the offenders makes it a good test of one’s loyalty to a principle."

- Ayn Rand (Free Speech - Ayn Rand Lexicon)

Washington, D.C.-- “Despite overwhelming evidence that government policies caused the current financial crisis, Congress is blaming businessmen,” said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “What’s worse, the capitalists who have been shackled with unprecedented regulatory burdens are unable to defend themselves morally. Though the events are different, this pattern of abuse and submission is straight out of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

“The cycle starts with government intervening into the economy and imposing regulations and controls on business. This distorts the free market, leading to economic dislocations. When the problems caused by these distortions inevitably follow, everyone blames the free market and its greedy capitalists. The proposed solution? More government controls. Over the years, conservative critics of creeping government have repeatedly exposed this illogic but have always been helpless to explain why the cycle keeps repeating, decade after decade.

“The pattern keeps recurring because businessmen are willing to take the blame. From capitalism’s inception, its defenders have been morally disarmed by the widespread view that self-interest is morally suspect, and disinterested service to others is a moral ideal. So each new spate of controls has been grudgingly accepted as a fair price to pay for society’s toleration of the selfish pursuit of profit.

“Atlas Shrugged depicted a society in economic collapse due to this recurring cycle, and today’s parallels are obvious. Government manipulation of money, credit, and lending standards over several decades caused the mess we’re in. Now, the offered solution is more of the poison that sickened the economy--more bailouts, more cheap money, more government-guaranteed loans, and above all, more regulations.

“This chronic cycle will not end until businessmen accept that their production of profit is neither immoral nor amoral--it is the capstone of moral virtue. Once they shrug off the role of scapegoat, businessmen can demand with moral certitude that government punish fraud and enforce contracts but refrain from interfering with voluntary trades among consenting adults.

“When America’s markets are finally free of all coercion--in other words, when laissez-faire is achieved--financial crises such as the one we’re experiencing will never happen again.”

### ### ###

Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. He is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and a contributing editor of The Objective Standard. His articles have been featured in major newspapers such as USA Today, the Houston Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Providence Journal and the Orange County Register. Dr. Brook is often interviewed on radio and is a frequent guest on a variety of national TV shows, having appeared in the new Fox Business Network, FOX News Channel (The O’Reilly Factor, Your World with Neil Cavuto, At Large with Geraldo Rivera), CNN (Talkback Live and the Glenn Beck Program), CNBC (Closing Bell and On the Money), and C-SPAN. Dr. Brook, a former finance professor, lectures on Objectivism, capitalism, business and foreign policy at college campuses, community groups and corporations across America and throughout the world.

To interview Dr. Brook or book him for your show, please contact Larry Benson:
949-222-6550, ext. 213
media@aynrandcenter.org

For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARC’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Center is a division of the Ayn Rand Institute and promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”

Copyright © 2008 Ayn Rand® Center for Individual Rights. All rights reserved.

That love is reverence and worship and glory and the upward glance.Not a bandage for dirty sores.But they don't know it.Those who speak of love most promiscuously are the ones who've never felt it.They make some sort of feeble stew out of sympathy,compassion,contempt and general indifference and they call it love.Once you've felt what it means to love as you and I know it-the total passion for the total height-you're incapable of anything else

One can't love man without hating most of the creatures who pretend to bear his name.It's one or the other.One doesn't love God and sacrilege impartially.Except when one doesn't know that sacrilege has been commited.Because one doesn't know God.

The book is one of the best if not the best i have read till date.The book makes you realize that humanity will always have the two classes,those who create and those who eat the creation and the creator.It shows you that belief in yourself is more important belief in anything else.Life is what we make out of it.

The egoist in absolute sense is not the man who sacrifies others.He is the man who stands above the need of using others in any manner.He does not function through them.He is not concerned with them in any primary matter.Not in his aim,not in his motive,not in his thinking,not in his desires,not in the source of his energy.he does not exist for any other man-and he asks no other man to exist for him.This is the only form of brotherhood and mutual respect possible between men

The book gave me the confidence that I am right.Thinking is the way to live and for us to survive we need to think.The book showed me that the path is the same for everyone,when one desires to achieve something,there is always the society,one which doesn't have a particular source,except within each and everyone of us.There maybe a lot of parasites but our aim is to create.The parasites can feed on and on,yet they can never drain out the energy of those who are born to create.

man cannot survive except through his mind.He comes on earth unarmed.His brain is his only weapon.

I love this book,for all that it says.And the truth is that we all here for a purpose and that purpose,is the goal of the self.It is not the goal of the masses we are here to fulfill but THE GOAL- to do what we want to do the most.If you haven't read this book,read it.And think while you read.

Picture from here.

I exist because I think.

The light shines the brightest

Of the Individual

An individual is borne with rights and civil liberties— and I call these human essentials as man’s basic means of existence. I define existence as man’s reason for being. To live, man must exist first. Existence, therefore, is the prerequisite for the aforementioned rights.

To simplify, man’s basic means of existence are equal to human rights— the right to live, to property, to liberty, to his pursuit of happiness. Without these man cannot exist well, because if a tyrant rooted out one of these rights, say— his right to liberty— then man would live like a prisoner, caged, followed, surveyed, and detected, and deprived of freedom to think and to socialize with other human beings- he is deprived of free will.

Without these essentials for existence, man will not grow academically, as he is only fed with state-controlled information— he will not improve economically since he is deprived of choice like what course to take or what career to pursue— also, he will live in a system where laissez faire is considered evil while planned economy is considered the best mode of production.

But existence is different from survival. The second depends upon the first. Man can no longer survive if he’s dead. Hence, man’s basic means of survival are what some theorists or bunch of knee-jerk “intellectuals” call as “basic needs” like shelter, clothing, food, security and so on.

I say these are the basic tools for survival because man needs them not just for comfort but also to survive in the jungle-like world. Did you know how man created all these tools for survival? All of these came into being— which we are the beneficiaries— because of man’s intellect; because man used his sound judgment, his ability to think and never his ability to feel.

To feel is the indication that man exists, while to think is the indicia that he is man. Take note that I use the word “man” here as the one with complete mental faculties, the thinking being, the creature who is above all living things, and the one who should and ought to live on Earth. This is so because in our world, there are half-humans or humanoids— those who surrendered reason to feeling, individualism to collectivism.

Of Poverty

Poverty is not just about the absence of bread on the table, but also about the inability of parents to send their children to school. Lack of education is one of the reasons why out-of-school youth in the provinces join the Left. It’s the best recruiter of terrorism in the world. Instead of going to school and learn how to improve their lives, some young men in the provinces were recruited to either join the Left or the so-called terrorist groups and learn the ways of their comrades or commanders.

Poverty also makes the poor prone to social injustice and human rights violations, because their lowly economic condition bars them from hospital doors for having no money to pay for hospital bills and renders them vulnerable before the court of justice whose justice system usually moves in slow motion and whose rudders have to be greased with money.

The war on poverty must be based on principle and driven by political will. Mandelan concept suggests that poverty is the result of social injustice, failed governance and mangled rule of law. Under this theory, justice plays a very important rule in national development since poverty is the corollary of rotten economic polices, corruption, weak governance, failed decisions, lack of vision, and political wrangling. Relying on African experience, Nelson Mandela said that “overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life.”

He introduced the concept of trade justice guaranteed and covered by the 1987 Constitution. Trade justice gives everybody the opportunity to grow without undue state intervention and without the state favoring preferred companies and social groups. This concept operates under the system of Laissez-faire or free-market society and it pertains to fair and mutual relations between and among states and to economic ties between developed nations and third world countries.

“Trade justice for the developing world and for this generation is a truly significant way for the developed countries to show commitment to bringing about an end to global poverty,” said Mandela. This kind of justice also demands that trade be done through man’s competence and ability to grow his business and not by means of favor; that it be performed in good faith and not under the grease of bribery, irregularities and under-the-table modes of transaction; and that it be guided by the principle of free and fair competition without the government acting as an arbitrary meddler or interested broker.

Of Democracy

It is an irony that the US that preached and is preaching democracy has the worst human rights record in the world. The US used its veto power against the United Nation’s attempt to prosecute Israel for the war crimes it perpetrated on the Palestinians. It also supported and condoned war crimes and violations of its puppet leaders like Philippine’s Ferdinand Marcos and Panama’s dictator Manuel Noriega. It also supported apartheid in the US mainland and in Africa which resulted in the death and persecution of the black people.

Now under its war on terror, the United States already took down two states— Iraq and Afghanistan— yet it set its eyes on rogue countries like Iran, Cuba, North Korea, among others.

Apart from the use of military force, the US under Bush Jr. enacted vague and sweeping laws that would serve as grease to its ongoing war on terror. This resulted in more human rights violations, the disregard of the privacy of its citizens, and the arrogation of too much power to the Chief Executive.

The evil in democracy lies in the distortion of its meaning and the ongoing confusion of the people.

Of Tyranny

Ideology can be very dangerous, although this fact may be unknown to many, if it’s designed to control the mind of a multitude with the intention to transform the latter into an unwitting and stupid collective block, either to gain power or to maintain the status quo with the intention to build up political, economic and military dominance. It can be considered a fatal virus, more toxic than the smoke Russia’s Chernobyl spewed decades ago, if it is based on political adventurism or political delusion with the purpose of misleading the public.

A rogue ideology is not unlike (or comparable to) a false prophet who is out to deceive people. It is akin to a brittle golden alloy made of inferior steel and gold.

What is more dangerous is when an ideology is poised or decreed by the superstructure (e.g., the government, educational institution or the media) to be genuine, legal and necessary so that it may be easily accepted by the people as part of the existing political norm and social structure for the shrewd purpose of perpetuating the prevailing status quo and the tight hold of those in power.

It has been a well-observed phenomenon that the best way to maintain the status quo is to fuel more political and military clout. This so-called repressive state apparatus works to crush both political and intellectual dissent which could ignite a possible shift of system. This institutionalized deception could breed a series of, or even wholesale, constitutional breaches and violations of the inalienable rights of the people.

Of the True Wealth of Nations

But what is the real wealth of nations? This query literally moved the motor of the world when answered by a group of World Bank environmental economists. In their extraordinary but widely underappreciated report, Where Is The Wealth Of Nations: Measuring Capital for the 21st Century, Kirk Hamilton and his team found that “human capital and the value of institutions (as measured by rule of law) constitute the largest share of wealth in virtually all countries.” Their study concludes that there are three kinds of capital: (1) the natural capital (e.g. cropland, pastureland, etc.); (2) the produced capital (e.g. capital, machinery, etc.); and (3) the intangible capital, which “encompasses raw labor; human capital, which includes the sum of a population’s knowledge and skills; and the level of trust in a society and the quality of its formal and informal institutions.”

Hamilton said that the shares of intangible capital across income classes go about 60 percent in low-income countries to 80 percent in high-income countries. “That accords very much with that notion that what really makes countries wealthy is not the bits and pieces, it’s the brainpower and the institutions that harness that brainpower.” The study also found that “an economy with a very efficient judicial system, clear and enforceable property rights, and an effective and uncorrupt government will produce higher total wealth.” He opined that the rule of law is “partly a question” of efficient legal system, lack of corruption and a degree of transparency.

It is therefore safe to conclude that the economic barometers being used by the Arroyo economic planners are already obsolete and out-of-date. What the government needs is a keen eye to know the real demand of the country and the true will of the people. The system of education must be anchored on what this country really needs and focused on what the Filipino does best. A sincere moral revolution is what is needed more than charter change masquerading as political reforms. But the most important of all is the protection of the rule of law which is the fountainhead of all national wealth. As what Hayek pointed out, “a law should not grant a privilege to a group or person nor should a law discriminate against a group or person.”

National development is only possible if the rule of law is observed, that is, when legislation is passed using the rule of law test; when trades, transactions and contracts are done in good faith and obtained only by consent and not by favors and bribery; when justice and education system pertain to the interest of both the nation and the people; when the government sustains free-trade and fair competition without favoring any business entity over another.

Respect for the rule of law, a philosophical foundation on which a free society is based, is the only key to national development. Poverty—the product of this disrespect— is not to be pointed only to our “heartless” politicians, but to the heartless aim of this nation as well.

Rearden heard Bertram Scudder, outside the group, say to a girl who made some sound of indignation, "Don't let him disturb you. You know, money is the root of all evil--and he's the typical product of money."

Rearden did not think that Francisco could have heard it, but he saw Francisco turning to them with a gravely courteous smile.

"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Aconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor-- your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money. Is this what you consider evil?

"Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions--and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.

"But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is MADE--before it can be looted or mooched--made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.

"To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except by the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss--the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery--that you must offer them values, not wounds--that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of GOODS. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best your money can find. And when men live by trade--with reason, not force, as their final arbiter--it is the best product that wins, the best performance, then man of best judgment and highest ability--and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?

"But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality--the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.

"Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants; money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

"Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth--the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve that mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

"Money is your means of survival. The verdict which you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money?

"Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money?

"Or did you say it's the LOVE of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is the loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money--and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it."

"Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.

"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another--their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.

"But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride, or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich--will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt--and of his life, as he deserves.

"Then you will see the rise of the double standard--the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money--the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law--men who use force to seize the wealth of DISARMED victims--then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

"Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion--when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing--when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors--when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you--when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice--you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it becomes, marked: 'Account overdrawn.'

"When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world?' You are.

"You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while your damning its life-blood--money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves--slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer. Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers--as industrialists.

"To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a COUNTRY OF MONEY--and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being--the self-made man--the American industrialist.

"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose--because it contains all the others--the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to MAKE money.' No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity--to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted, or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality.

"Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide-as, I think, he will.

"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other--and your time is running out."

Just for shits and giggles:

A Nascente

Ayn Rand

ISBN:  8577750604

"'A nascente' é um romance sobre um herói - e sobre aqueles que o invejam e tentam destruí-lo. A obra de Ayn Rand narra a história da luta do arquiteto Howard Roark, cuja integridade era imóvel como o granito, e de Dominique Francon, a deslumbrante mulher que amava Roark, mas se casou com seu pior inimigo. Rand apresenta uma idéia desafiadora - a de que o ego do homem é a nascente do progresso humano."

Um livro para se ler em conjunto com o "Zaratustra" do profeta de Basiléia, e para aqueles que não são "humanos, demasiado humanos"!

"Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion – when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot."

"One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary."

—Ayn Rand, 1975

More than thirty years have passed and here we are seeing Ayn Rand proven right yet again.  The government has meddled and meddled and meddled and now we have the result... Instead of letting people fail--as they deserve for making bad decisions-- for some reason, the Congress is seeking to allow people to escape the consequences of their actions (or inactions).

The talking chatterboxes on TV blame the free market, Obama blames deregulation, and McCain blames "Wall Street greed"-- but none of them lay the blame squarely at the foot of failed welfare statist policies of Congress and the Presidents.

Enough is enough!  Stop meddling and face facts: Bad decisions have bad consequences. Period.

I'd rather suffer "worse" in the short term and recover more quickly than face a decade of Congressional bullhockey.

“The Federal Reserve is not the solution to the crisis, it is its root cause. By keeping interest rates artificially low and inflating the currency, it created the illusion that homes and subprime mortgages were can’t-miss investments."

“Now, as we bear witness to the wreckage of the Fed’s previous central planning, the solution offered is even more Fed central planning. This is absurd. The way to prevent future credit crises is to get rid of the government’s arbitrary power to determine the money supply and the price of credit, and return to a gold standard.”

--Yaron Brook
Executive Director
Ayn Rand Institute

Hello?  Wake up and smell the coffee-- or rather the evaporating value of our fiat currency!  Dr. Brook is right on with his comments.  The Fed needs to go.  With a commodity based currency (also known as the gold or silver standard), the government is fiscally incapable of running debts and financing the welfare state.

I've commented before on the need of individuals to live WITHIN their means, so now let me say clearly that I support this at a governmental level, most especially!

The alternative is application of the Trader Principle.  This means that the traditional "employer/employee" relationship is not so relevant as the benefits each derives from working together...  i.e., To complete this client project, I need skills X, Y, and Z--so I'll hire you to provide me with them for this project.  The Trader Principle is based on ongoing competency and credibility.  The more consistently you produce effective results, the more valuable you become and the more appreciated.  In this case, "loyalty" is earned by both parties-- not just demanded by one of the other.  The relationship continues as long as it is mutually beneficial--each party being free to determine their own definition of what they find to be acceptable benefit.

In a Trader Principle environment, work becomes more "project focused" because employment is more of an ongoing series of projects-- with each one being evaluated objectively.  And with either party able to decide whether to continue the relationship or not.  The highly competent can be confident in their career path because either their current employer or another one will gladly work with them.  The incompetent or lazy person can be confident that their employment will come to an abrupt end.  The competent employee can be confident that when the unexpected happens, their job will still be theirs when they return because the employer places value on their work and wants to continue working with a known/credible producer.

Right...

Shameless self-promotion...

You have heard me go on about Ayn Rand and “Atlas Shrugged”.

Here is a chance to see first-hand how it all came together for me…

Radford University 2008 Entrepreneurial Economic Summit.

I am this years keynote speaker discussing:

“Entrepreneurs, Intrapreneurs and them Corporate Fellas - The Laws of Natural Selection”.

Brian Patrick Cork ]]> http://hcroi.wordpress.com/?p=96 Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:05:16 +0000 Brian Patrick Cork http://hcroi.pt.wordpress.com/2008/10/08/radford-university-entrepreneurial-economic-summit/ You have heard me go on about Ayn Rand and "Atlas Shrugged".

Here is a chance to see first-hand how it all came together for me...

Radford University 2008 Entrepreneurial Economic Summit.

I am this years keynote speaker discussing:

"Entrepreneurs, Intrapreneurs and them Corporate Fellas - The Laws of Natural Selection".

Brian Patrick Cork

Given the striking similarities between Objectivism and Libertarianism, it would stand to reason that Ayn Rand would have welcomed Libertarians with open arms. However, she instead cast them aside as irrational and dangerous because they didn't as a group perfectly agree with her.

Ever since Rand's dismissal, Libertarians have loved to dismiss her passively in the course of conversation. "Oh, The Fountainhead was okay, I guess, but Tooey was such a straw man!" "Rand said some smart things, but I don't understand why so many people are so infatuated with her." This way, they can feel superior to her and roll their collective eyes at Objectivism just as much as Objectivist roll their individual eyes at Libertarianism.

Expect the Libertarian in the room to make some snide, patronizing remark about Rand whenever Frank Lloyd Wright or BioShock comes up in conversation.

The Fountainhead is available at Amazon for $14.99. To Order click here
Amazon Product Pages contain a lot of other details on this product as Customer Reviews, Sales Ranking, Special Offers, Alternate products that customers are going for and much more.Want to read these details? click here

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Other Products of Interest

• Ayn Rand - A Sense of Life
• The Passion of Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead
• The Virtue of Selfishness
• Atlas Shrugged (Centennial Ed. HC)

http://www.sproutmeansgrow.com/FLprezElection.pdf

These are the candidates on the Florida ballot but many - if not most - are on other states' ballots as well.

Edward Younkins har skrivit en bra kritik av Hayek utifrån objektivistisk synpunkt. Han har i andra artiklar försökt integrera österrikisk nationalekonomi med objektivismen, i likhet med en annan ekonom, George Reisman (författare till Capitalism). Exempel finns här, här och här (den sista om aristotelikern Carl Menger, den österrikiska skolans grundare).

Lindsay Perigo har även han objektivistisk kritik av Hayek, med intressanta kommentarer här.

Kung nais mo raw tunay na makilala ang isang tao, huwag kang makinig sa kanyang mga sinasabi kundi sa kanyang mga kilos at reaksiyon.

Kaya nga pinag-aaralan din sa komunikasyon ang mga non-verbal ways ng pakikipagtalastasan at ito yung nag-aaccount sa 70% ng communication effectiveness. Mas mataginting daw kasi ang nais ipahiwatig ng mga sulyap ng mata, lawak ng ngiti, bilis ng hakbang, ikom ng palad, biling ng ulo, laglag ng balikat at tono ng boses.

Pero kung likas din na artista at artistahin, pasensya pero maaari ka ring malinlang. Pero kahit artista, kung wala sa harap ng camera at nasa normal na sitwasyon, ay makikilala mo rin siya kanyang mga ipinapakitang kilos.

Dahil ang tao ay likas na makasarili. At dahil makasarili, hindi mo rin agad makikita ang tunay na pagkatao kasi nga sinasarili niya. Hehehe.

In general, una niyang iisipin ang kanyang sarili -- kasama nito ang sariling mga pangarap, adhikain, kinabukasan, o anumang gusto nilang mangyari.

Sige, para maging kapani-paniwala, maglalagay ako ng source.

Ayon kay Ayn Rand, selfishness is a virtue. Ito yung sentro ng mga pamoso niyang nobela. Pero ang selfishness na tinalakay dito ay may ibang pakahulugan sa alam nating pagkamakasarili at hindi ang selfishness na madalas nating ihalintulad sa kasakiman.

Sa mga hindi pa nakakabasa ng mga libro ni Ayn Rand, inuulit ko, hindi ito yung selfishness na madalas, kahit pinagkakatago ng mga kurakot, ay naamoy pa rin ng mga taong ang ginagawa naman ay ibulgar sila.

Iba rin ito sa hindi pagcocontribute o pagseshare ng mga kaalaman dahil nais mong ikaw lang ang nakakaalam at ikaw lang ang umunlad dahil sa kaalamang iyon. Halimbawa nito ang monopolyo o kaya ay sa simpleng halimbawa, ang hindi pagsasabi sa iyong mga kasama ng nais na timpla ng kape ng iyong boss dahil gusto mong ikaw lang ang nagtitimpla ng kape niya, kahit pa nakabakasyon ka ng isang buwan.

Hindi ito yung selfishness na lagi nating inihahalintulad sa pag-iisip sa sarili, at tanging sarili lamang, na pati kunsensya mo ay ayaw mong kausapin. Na ang iyong gawa o pagiisip ay ganito, "Ako lang, hindi ikaw, pero kung ikaw man, ako pa rin."

Kumbaga, para maging virtue ang selfishness, kailangan mo pa ring maging rasyonal at kaya mong sabihin at ipakita ang kahalagahan ng iyong sarili at ng iyong mga gawa, na tama at may silbi ka bilang tao, at dahil dito, nagiging kapakipakinabang kang miyembro ng sosyedad. Ganito ang sistema ng Objectivism. Ang pagpili ng isang gawa o desisyon base sa rason (hindi emosyon), na hindi mo kailangang isakripisyo ang iyong sarili para sa iba o ang iba para sa iyong sarili.

In short, malaya kang maging ikaw. Parang si Dr. House. Although may mga episodes na kakikitaan din siya ng karampot na emosyon, kadalasan pa ring umaangat ang kanyang rasyonalidad, at ito ang nagiging  daan upang maging epektibo siyang doktor. At pamoso siya hindi dahil sa kaweirduhan niya kundi sa kanyang galing.

Ibig sabihin lang, hindi mo kailangang manahimik o magtago dahil hindi mo kailangang manahimik o ilihim ang isang bagay na alam mong rasyonal at may silbi, na magpapatunay din na isa kang kapakipakinabang na nilalang, at karapatan mo ito.

Ganito din ang prinsipyo ng mga bidang karakter ni Rand. Si Howard Roark na isang arkitekto na hindi niya kinompromiso ang tingin niyang tunay na kagandahan ng isang istruktura kahit pa dumating ang panahong wala ng magpadisenyo sa kanya. Si John Galt na nakaimbento ng mas matibay, mas mura, at mas magaan na elemento kaysa bakal at hindi sumuko kahit pa isumpa na siya pati ng gobyerno.

Isang kahihinatnan din ng Objectivism ang free market. Na may karapatan ang bawat isang ipakita ang kanilang mga gawa, malaya itong suriin at batikusin, at malaya ang bawat indibidwal na mamili ng para sa kanya.

Naalala ko nga yung isang rason kung bakit tila hirap na hirap ang ilang ahensya ng gobyerno (o ilang tao na humahawak dito) sa pagtanggap ng F/OSS.

Sa pag-iimplement kasi ng mga proyektong Open Source, hamak na mas maliit ang kailangang budget kahit pa higit na mas kapakipakinabang, mas madaling gamitin, at mas mataas ang seguridad ng mga teknolohiyang nasuri at nagamit na ng mga indibidwal na gumagamit at naniniwala din dito. At dahil mas maliit ang kailangang i-invest sa mga proyektong Open Source, wala ng alokasyon para sa kurakot.

Kaya mahirap itong tanggapin ng mga taong ang pagiging makasarili ay kasinghulugan ng kasakiman.

Here's the first in the previously-alluded-to series of videogame over-analyzations. For those purists out there: fret not. We don't plan on doing these all that often. Our primary focus is and will always be Cartoon Over-Analyzations.

Unfortunately, the closest any of the staff has gotten to playing BioShock is: about five years ago, one of us got half-way through System Shock 2. Accursed monkeys! Along with rave reviews, BioShock attracted a flurry of discussion pertaining to Objectivist elements subtly and not-so-subtly within. Busy game site Kotaku presented an excellent article in early 2008 which discussed the pertinent themes primarily through interviews with the president of the Ayn Rand Institute, Yaron Brook, and the game's designer, Ken Levine.

"It seems to me that [Levine has] misrepresented what Ayn Rand believes and her ideals beyond objectivism," [Brook] said. "He's setting it up to fail. He believes, based on what I've read, that any system that is absolutist is ultimately going to lead to disastrous effect. Any system of black and white, any system of ultimate morality. In many cases that true. But I think what lessens the game is that misinterpretation of objectivism."

Et cetera. Would you kindly check it out.

No Gods or Kings: Objectivism in BioShock >Catena Ex Situ

Keeping in mind Smith's philosophical and economic views, it can be easy to imagine Smith as the producer for "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." It is a great example of how the free market, driven by competition, can benefit many people, particularly those in need. The need is met by local companies, large retail companies such as Sears, and volunteers. For many, the capitalistic system is moral and necessary. However, not everyone feels that the morally good aspects of the free market outweigh its immoral aspects.

http://philosophynews.com/whip/adam-smith-tv-producer-or-french-high-school-teacher/

-- Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead.

The real beauty of our cities---and the ethereal beauty of their brains---is to be seen from above, and at night.

In cities like New York, the view can be had for a few dollars from some sky-kissing tower in Manhattan. In cities like Mysore, the view can be had for free from the eternal, expansive Chamundi Hills.

As the key milestones of the kingdom come aglow every Dasara to the oohs and aahs of tourists, you have to wonder, though: why have our modern maharajas, diwans and Rasputins---the politicians, the bureaucrats, the town planners, the builders, the developers, the real-estate brokers---failed to come up with a single structure that could stand the test of time?

Why, in other words, is their/our urban vision constricted to "mini"-Vidhana Soudhas, "hi-tech" bus shelters, and obnoxious welcome arches?

Photograph: Karnataka Photo News

Also read: Biggest, largest, highest, mostest. Anywhere

View an amazing portfolio here: London at night

Born as Alisa Rosenbaum to secular Jews in St. Petersburg, Ayn Rand lived through the entire Russian Revolution, not escaping to the United States until 1926. The novel We the Living, published in 1936, reveals the core of Ayn Rand's personality; later in life Rand preached joy with the utmost fanaticism because of the agonizing pain that forged her outlook on life.

Kira Argounova is the novel's young protagonist. With the reds winning Russia's civil war, Kira returns to Petrograd from the Crimea with her family. The textile factory of Kira's father has been nationalized, and their mansion has been seized for the use of public housing in the name of the common good. We forget that before the communists, Russia's economy was less advanced than others, but it was not barbaric. Russian civilization after all produced Mendeleev, Tchaikovsky, Pushkin, Tsiolkovsky, Markov, Aivazovsky, and countless other individuals of great genius. This should be obvious, but many leftist intellectuals believe socialism failed in Russia because its people were stupid-- Russian communism could not succeed in their fairy tale without the help of the smart, advanced Germans. This hides the fact that if socialism works, it should work anywhere. Communism was a step back for Russia, a retardation of progress.

Anyway, Rand's plot revolves around one theme -- Kira's struggle to live under a sacrificial regime of spiritual collectivism. The struggle to live is not identical with the struggle to survive.

Rand exhaustively captured the weighty, tragic, and solemn atmosphere of Russia under progressive leadership. Rand inextricably integrated the novel's environment with the novel's action. Consider long waits at the cooperative for rotten food. Rickety Primus stoves for cooking millet day after day. Lice. Cholera and bad water. Leaks. Inane propaganda peeling off the surfaces upon which it was written. Bad shoes. Bad matches. No sugar. Being forced to share your housing with strangers. Political purges in the University. Denial of employment for having a bourgeois background. Grime. Crime. Decay. Rust. Drabness. Everything falling apart. As the years pass, the novel relentlessly displays an endurance test.  While Rand tended to be long-winded and redundant in other works, in We the Living, the effect is total and menacing.

Toil, the communists believe, is the highest aim of our life.

In ending the curse of capitalism, communists believed in building a new a humanity. Certainly communism appears as a giant black monolith of evil when viewed from afar. However, Rand showed that communism, upon inspection, resembles a swarm of weak and pathetic roaches, each sacrificing for the sake of sacrifice. Rand now looks like a prophet, for the USSR was the only society in human history to collapse, after millions upon millions dead, because of its own inner rottenness. This kind of evil, while menacing in outcome, is not menacing in spirit. It is the bland worship of mediocrity and the lifeless contempt for the extraordinary.

For the first time in Petrograd, Kira heard the "Internationale." She tried not to listen to the words. The words spoke of the damned, the hungry, the slaves, of those who had been nothing and shall be all; in the magnificent goblet of the music, the words were not intoxicating as wine; they were not as terrifying as blood; they were as gray as dish water."

Kira Argounova wanted to be an engineer. Kira wanted a personal career. Kira wanted to walk into a store and buy an item because of its beauty. Some things in life are sacred, Kira believed, because they are mine. Kira felt reverence for her own life and wanted to best possible, not just as a dream, but for *we the living* here on Earth.

Kira gets purged from the engineering school for the sole reason that her father used to employ others. As a result, Kira ends up working a series of menial government jobs just so Kira and her boyfriend, Lev Kovalensky, can survive. The Westernized Kovanlensky, called Leo by those who know him, is a son of a Baltfleet Admiral that was recently liquidated by the progressive government. Kovalensky, unable to find any work because of his aristocratic background, eventually catches tuberculosis. Even though healthcare is free, Kovalensky cannot get his name on the overflowing waiting lists.

Trade with money had been replaced by trade with favors. Transactions occurred by diplomacy, not exchange, in greedless progressive Russia. Kira ends up sleeping with Andrei Taganov, an acquaintance, in order to obtain the favors necessary to send Leo to the Crimea to receive treatment and rehabilitation. Taganov, a student and a member of the G.P.U., falls in love with Kira.

Comrade Taganov has principles. He has dedicated his life to communism; he genuinely believes sacrifice now will improve his fellow man. Rand described Taganov in the most heroic terms. Taganov, however, is not destined to rise in the Communist Party. Comrade Pavel Syerov, in contrast, will rise, precisely because he has no principles. Comrade Syerov believes in temporary compromises like the NEP, an open-minded attitude truer to the nature of the progressive vision than Taganov's. Syerov takes full advantage of the perks of being a Party member, and also is not above purchasing items on the black market. Syerov, like Stalin, does not have a single principle other than do what is expedient for the range of the moment. In the mold of Trotsky, Andrei Taganov, like Brainy Smurf, was destined to be thrown out of the collective for having ideology. In a true progressive society, it is best not to have any ideas at all beyond what the authorities say right here, right now.

The three major characters each choose a tragic fate. A healthy Leo, continuing his perverse and self-destructive behavior, gets himself into trouble with the authorities again, setting off a chain of events which leads to a confrontation between Andrei and Kira. Through a vicious argument, Andrei learns that there is more to life than selfless duty to a cause; it is not the Party that loves Kira, but himself. After the fight, with his faith in his life's mission demolished, Andrei takes it upon himself to arrange for Leo's release. This accelerates Andrei's expulsion from the Party. With both his public and private goals lost, Andrei commits suicide. The Communist Party had a large ceremony for him, where everyone indifferently sang an empty song about dying as a devoted victim for the brotherhood of mankind.

Leo continued on his self-destructive path, ultimately leaving to the Caucasus as a gigolo, never to see Kira again. It isn't as if Leo hated Kira; his soul extinguished by the communists, he just stopped caring about anything at all.

Kira became determined to leave the country. After much sacrifice, she accumulated the means to get near the border. An attempt to reach the frontier during a cold night results in a bullet from a border guard, and death.

We the Living is tragic, but not sentimentally tragic. A sentimentalist would prompt us to have pity for the characters, as if we ought to commend ourselves for having pity. Rand's tragedy conveyed something different -- a sense of loss, a potential unrealized. We will all die, Kira discussed earlier. It doesn't mean we must spend all our hours preparing for it.