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Comment by sabon | Hacker News Reader

Finishing "Atlas Shrugged". While ideas and the spirit of the book have aged only slightly, the way of writing seems way too pretentious for our times. But overall the book is interesting. From historic and ideological point of view.

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Ayn Rand was able to name so much of what I've felt growing up. While she may have used the literary technique of exaggeration to heighten the contrast between her philosophical views of moral vs. immoral, I don't think she took it "too far" as others are commenting. I think that's like saying Philip K. Dick took the ideas of technological advances and psychic ability too far in his story, "Minority Report", or like saying Pablo Picasso took multi-perspective simplicity too far in his Cubist paintings. Of course they did, it's part of their literary freedom. Exaggeration helps to make an underlaying principle become self-evident by speeding along conclusions that could eventually be drawn from observation.

I took her meritocratic stance seriously until I heard her defend inherited wealth, which is ridiculously inconsistent.

"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." - I think she's still basing it on merit. While I disagree with some of what she says, and she says a lot, she does a decent job of staying consistent.

It would be consistent if everyone who was fit to inherit actually did inherit. But that is not the case. Some of those who are fit do not inherit and others do. What is the basis for this inequality? Birth.

She destroys the idea of meritocracy that she herself presented so eloquently and discredits libertarianism as yet another excuse for those born wealthy to keep their wealth.

If an hair is not equal to his money it destroys him? Come on, what does it even mean to be "equal to money"? And how can someone who does not inherit wealth even prove that he or she is "equal to the money"? That's just the kind of fluffy nonsense that moral philosophers are so infamous for.

I don't think you would enjoy reading Rand (either you haven't yet read any of her work and are going based solely on what you read in this thread, or you just completely didn't understand her work).

As she argues, money is a means of trading human production and value. To be equal to your money is to provide production and value to society equal to the value of your money. According to Rand, if one who is barely capable of ever making more than $30k per year were to inherit $5m, it would not end well. And actually lottery statistics support this pretty consistently.

How does that explain why it is consistent that some get the opportunity to start out wealthy and some do not?

You don't seem to get what I'm saying at all. Among those who are willing and able to provide production value are some who get a boost from inherited wealth and some who do not.

Do you consider that fair or consistent with a merit based society? I do get perfectly well what Ayn Rand says in her books, and based on that her stance on inheritance is grotesque.

I think that according to Rand, fairness is a moot point when it comes to this situation. She is saying that if you are capable of achieving wealth, then you will achieve it no matter where you start from in our society. She also explains that those who are capable of achieving are concerned only with their own achievements and awards, and those of others only so far as they help to achieve their own.

If you put all of this together, you end up with the person of achievement not caring where others started (or what they inherited) in relation to themselves. Fairness only holds value when the person getting shafted cares enough to give it value.

Besides, Rand's argument is that over the long run, it really doesn't matter, as the person who is capable of producing great wealth will do so, with or without an inheritance. The person who is not will quickly squander it all and end up right back where they started. Her point is simply that an inheritance does not change one's ability to produce.

Well, she's a fiction writer. Me shrugs.

Rather teleological argument from Ms Rand. If the heir manages to keep the inheritance, then they deserved it, however if they lose it, they weren't worthy. Perhaps a new "Ayn Rand" inheritance tax is in order; those heirs who fail to double their inheritance within, say, 5 years, must donate them to needy, friendless orphans, these then have their chance for five years. Imagine all the stimulating entrepreneurship! Now excuse me while I go patent some alloys.

Her defense of inherited wealth amounted to the right of the creator of the wealth to dispose of it as he/she chooses. If he leaves it to his children, fine, if he gives it to a house for stray cats, fine,it's HIS choice because he earned it.

That's self defeating. It's like saying that a democratic society has the right to democratically abolish democracy.

Ayn Rand's philosophy is that of a free economy that stresses the importance of the individual. A democracy is a political institution that stresses the rule of the majority. Rand idealized the self-sustaining individual. A democracy by definition cannot be sustained by one individual. So, it's a difficult analogy to make.

A better analogy would be like saying that a king has a right to abolish his monarchy.

Also, it is only self-defeating if the original goal was only to amass the wealth.

To continue the analogy to this point, a king abolishing his monarchy would only be self-defeating if his only goal was to be a king. However, if his goal as king was to make life better for his country, then abolishing his monarchy in favor of a democracy would be a very good move and not self-defeating at all.

Likewise, if the person's original goal was to produce and then dispose of the rewards as he wished, then doing so is not self-defeating. It's only self-defeating if his original goal was to simply have wealth.

<edit> The other part of Rand's argument is that the individual has the right to dispose of their wealth however they please, because they produced it and they own it. A democracy would only have a right to dispose of itself provided it was the democracy that created itself in the first place. </edit>

That's a pretty fatalistic argument. I think meritocracy has merit and I don't want it to self destruct. That's why, like other principles, this one needs exceptions as too.

Set theory is very useful but it needs an exception to survive Russel's paradox. You can't let useful things become useless just to uphold some moral rule.

I don't think she was exaggerating.

Atlas Shrugged was a formative influence during my late teens, but Rand is above all things an extremist. Still, she had some good ideas, she communicated them well, and she got me into philosophy. If you take the best parts of Rand and leave the rest, you'll be well served.

For a time, I considered this my bible. But it's too idealistic, and goes a long way on some fairly iffy assumptions.

It's still compelling as hell, though.

Ayn Rand was a philosopher. And like most philosophers, she started out with some good ideas and over applied them to everything in life, which leads to some scary conclusions.

My favorite Rand book was Anthem. It was short and therefore didn't have space to extrapolate Rand's ideas to their scary conclusion.

I just finished reading Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo. It is just as long and pompous as Atlas Shrugged, but of the exact opposite philosophy. Those two books make for some interesting comparisons.

I once listened to a 80-hour overview of the world's great philosophers, given by modern professors.

What amazed me was how many of them came up with a good idea that was new and revolutionary -- and then spent the rest of their life taking the damn thing too far. I guess great people fall so much in love with their great ideas that it never occurs to them that the most important piece is finding the boundaries for where their work applies and where it does not.

>I guess great people fall so much in love with their great ideas that it never occurs to them that the most important piece is finding the boundaries for where their work applies and where it does not.

Well said.

I think many ("normal") people would benefit from listening to this, but more importantly, by practicing it.

Link for the interview?

What's the series called?

Link for those who requested: http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/CourseDescLong2.aspx?cid=470

Looks like it's on sale -- you download audio or pick up the CDs for around a hundred bucks (DVD also available)

Then there's Wittgenstein, who did the same thing, except twice and with entirely separate ideas. He's the philosophical equivalent of one of those bands that makes a major stylistic change halfway through their career, lose a bunch of their fans, and pick up an entirely different set of fans.

What's interesting is that Ayn Rand thought Victor Hugo was the best novelist ever. She also thought that the philosophy in Les Miserables was at odds with his "sense of life".

She also thought that Frank Lloyd Wright's philosophical and political ideas were at odds with his architecture.

Reading the same thing at the moment. But right after reading The Fountain Head, which I like way more. Maybe because than these ideas were all fresh and new for me. But now it is just too romantic. I can understand why she takes this idealistic approach, but it is just that it doesn't read that good in this great length. I am at the point where she discovers Atlantis and they think they live in the old US.

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