Posted on 07/29/2002 4:09:43 PM PDT by RJCogburn
A recent New York Times article (July 21, 2002) focused on Alan Greenspan’s remarks to the effect that “infectious greed” is responsible for recent business scandals, and that more government regulation might be needed. These views, the piece points out, seem to contradict the philosophy of his mentor, Ayn Rand, and his own statements of four decades ago. For Rand, laissez-faire capitalism is the system in which individuals produce goods and services that they trade with one another based on mutual consent, not on the use of force or fraud. Capitalism is a moral system based on respect for the equal rights of individuals to pursue their own rational self-interest, and it rewards people for their achievements.
Political philosopher and Ayn Rand expert, Dr. Edward Hudgins notes, “Rand was virtually alone in celebrating the virtues of productive, innovative individuals and the wealth they create. She emphasized that businessmen at their best will first and foremost love their work and the challenge of creating products and services that earn them profits. If that’s greed, it’s to be praised! Rand also singled out for condemnation businessmen who seek money by any means, including fraud, or government handouts and special favors. If that’s greed, it’s to be damned!"
Hudgins, who is Washington director of a think tank devoted to Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, observes that the deceitful practices of WorldCom and Enron pale beside similar fraudulent practices of the federal government. Further, government regulations helped drive WorldCom into bankruptcy. "While new laws might be needed to punish fraud, new regulations would only make matters worse. The recent scandals show that a free market and a free society must be based on a sound and ethical infrastructure. Adopting the morality of capitalism will help prevent both corporate and government scandals in the future," says Hudgins.
Copyright, The Objectivist Center. For more information, please visit www.ObjectivistCenter.org.
The effect of a minimum-wage law is to make totally worthless the labor of anyone whose labor is not worth the minimum wage. It does have the effect of raising wages for other people, by reducing the supply of labor. While some people will benefit in this short term by the elimination of wage competition, it will in the end cause both prices and taxes to rise so as to lose most or all of the supposed benefits.
gotta disagree with you. greed is bad, part of the human condition, and part of our sinful nature. we all gotta deal with this flaw in human nature, some more than others.
while man sinned and greed (among other flaws) followed, god set up capitalism as a means to allow people to invest and build wealth -- and to put those less fortunate soul who have no capital to be able to make a living.
capitalism capitalizes on our human need to have wealth. fraud is wrong, i think it is a form of lieing which is denounced, but helping others while you become wealthy is the system god set up.
take that socialists of the world!
To a Christian greed is not good, if greed is considered the placing of one's material indulgences at the center of one's life.
The Christian strives to exercise wise stewardship of what rightfully and ultimately belongs to God--beginning with the Christian's own mind, soul, and body.
Randians reject the notion of stewardship because they reject God. They view themselves as accountable to no one but themselves and consider any activity acceptable if it does not involve the use of "force" against another. They foolishly believe "force" has a fixed and simple meaning easily discerned and readily agreed to by all.
Randians exalt self and nurture greed. Liberals exalt the state and foster feckless dependence. Christians exalt God and strive for wise stewardship.
Doesn't have quite the same impact as "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." eh?
Bump for hermaphrodite children.
I do not consider myself an objectivist though Rand is a heroine of mine. Your comment is just plain wrong, however. There are many activities that I believe they would not consider acceptable even if done without 'force'. You must know that.
To me, the most interesting and totally ignored part of Atlas Shrugged is when Hank talks to the union boss. They are both bewildered by the government involvement in the business because they themselves had reached an equilibrium (workers had adequate representation). Unions are now the whipping boys of conservative think tanks and Repulicans at large. The ideal situation is when workers and their employers have compatible power in the deciding of working conditions. We agree that no one government entity should have obsolute power; the very idea of powers corrupting tendencies on man. On the same hand we quote Ayn Rand but forget an important, established fact in her novel, the fact that unions existed.
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