Ayn Rand Institute accepts $1m PPP loan from The State
reuters.com
reuters.com
Actually this is the argument they used: https://newideal.aynrand.org/to-take-or-not-to-take/
The rest of the article is complete confabulation trying to say that if the government didn't do anything the crisis wouldn't have been a big issue, which is a speculative assumption that goes contrary to evidence. In any case, if the government didn't create a PPP, they would be much worse off. Therefore, it is hypocrisy and not restitution.
The economy did not collapse in the vast majority of countries, due to governmental intervention. Those countries also have much less infection.
You're conflating things. You are making it sound like they are blaming the spread of the virus on the lockdown. It does not say that in the article. In fact, the article laments "America’s unpreparedness, the slowness of our response, and the byzantine maze of regulations." To the extent that it does blame the government for the spread, it doesn't blame it on the quarantine but on regulations preventing the medical industry from working efficiently. It does criticize the "entire nation under house arrest," but only as an outcome, distinct from part of the problems spreading the virus.
None of those problems can be fixed by less government.
And the places that recovered economically the quickest are those that locked down more and earlier.
Also, as the link you posted says, it's those that have savings that lose from government printing money. The Ayn Rand institute does not have enough in savings for the PPP to be merely restitution. In fact, the PPP is a huge net positive for them.
That entire article is seldom more than lies and rhetoric.
However, it does show that they are willing to bend against their principles. In the words of a great movie "Principles only mean something when you stick to them when it's inconvenient." [2]
[1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ayn-rand-social-security/
If you follow the philosophy that as long as you do not have the power to change your material circumstances that you should follow your interests, your philosophy is no more useful than nihilism.
Politicians operate much the same. They find one set of economists or another to support whatever policy they've already settled on.
On its strongest form - many people tend to form an opinion first, based on whatever biases they have, and then go out and look for arguments in support of it. Including writers of this article. They decided to take the $, and then assigned someone to write a blog post to justify it :)
> As is well known, but seldom publicized, the growth of state power has enmeshed doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and biomedical firms in an ever-tightening web of regulations. Their every move is held suspect. Commercial test developers were prevented from getting early access to samples of the novel coronavirus, while the government bungled its own testing. Even when private hospitals want to add more hospital beds, they have to plead with government overlords for permission to do so.
Once the budget for the loan program was fixed, taking the loan wasn't going to cost us all any more money.
The gas station is full today, but the marginal electrical care affects the supply/demand curve for gas today and in the future. If the current point of the supply/demand curve drops too low, supply will start to shut off.
Hence, electric cars are only "pointless" in the past before they were invented.
So it's not like they are "forced" to temper down their principled stand against socialist interventionism (and only in exceptional circumstances, we are led to believe). It's more like that principle stand just doesn't exist, and never did exist. It's just a matter of who gets to benefit from it.
BTW, it's not like any support is needed for this observation - but just a tasty morsel from the recent news:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/07/fossil-f...
That's no reason not to get some of your money back when it's available.
It's not possible to accurately argue "she would have received a better/more efficient education in a free market society" because that's a counterfactual.
In fact, it's probably more likely that she dedicated her whole life to overreacting against socialist economics in her writing precisely because she had been exposed to Stalinism/communism.
>"It's not possible to accurately argue "she would have received a better/more efficient education in a free market society" because that's a counterfactual."
Do you mean to say that nobody can ever argue that a historical counterfactual might have been preferable? This would seem to be a rationalization of history, through a refusal to consider alternatives.
Obviously anyone can make any statement/argument, but without the ability to verify it, it doesn't carry much weight.
"after her initial objections, she allowed social worker Evva Pryor, an employee of her attorney, to enroll her in Social Security and Medicare"
I do not think it was wrong of her to take government handouts in her later years. What was wrong, is wrong, is how her acolytes continue in the modern day breaking down that same system for others.
Evil evil people. Confused and and sad old lady.
Not only hypocrisy but also economic illiteracy.
Money != Wealth.
How terrifying that people like this get so powerful in a super state like the USA. Craven greed mixed with such refusal to deal with what is real mixed with heartlessness on a industrial scale.
Breathtaking
How powerful do you think the Ayn Rand Institute is? From what I can see they are a marginally influential think-tank.
Wonder what they are gonna do with this handout?
So that's what this recipient, & every other, will be spending the money on – unless they choose to either repay it, or defraud the program.
I thought they were philosophically opposed to government handouts?
By that logic, anyone who unsuccessfully campaigns against tax cuts should continue to pay the previous (higher) tax rate.
And yes, the same for those who argue against tax cuts. They give up their principles by not sticking to them when they are inconvenient.
But there's also a practical concern: it's not possible to keep track of all counterfactuals / hypotheticals when it comes to tax/welfare laws. In Ayn Rand's case, she couldn't afford to live without social security in her later years (if the reports I read are to be believed). We frequently don't have the means to be consistent in our principled stands.
I know it's easy to throw around "force", but in the end, one lives in a democratic country.
Also, I think it's fine to argue against the current state of laws. It's not as if we are actually a democracy (at the federal level, the founding fathers didn't give us any direct democracy tools and those who could vote were an elite subset of the population). Even today we suffer from bad laws drafted by special interests and voted into existence by those who accept campaign contributions from those who drafted the laws.
There is little in the form of "direct democracy" in our current system of legislation.
I have been reading up on these people and the belief is that only those who oppose welfare and taxation are morally OK to take it.
I will stop pointing out the astounding hypocrisy of the Randites when they accept that collective security is better than every dog for itself.