A letter from Ayn Rand

[maxparrish]

What I find interesting is that the niece was virtually unknown to her aunt, yet the amount she was asking to borrow, for a dress, was equal to $247.52 in todays terms. http://www.davemanuel.com/inflation-calculator.php

Now I don't know about you folks, but even one of my immediate siblings would need a pretty good reason for asking big sister for $247.52 cents. I have helped all of my brothers at various times and in considerably larger amounts for items of tangible value. A dress does not fit that criteria for me, personally, although I am aware that articles of clothing of the rich and famous may auction for ridiculous prices.

From my perspective, the aunt took considerable time and effort to try and educate her niece about the manner in which debt enslaves us and limits our future options. To become indebted for something as frivolous as a piece of clothing at such a young age does not set the tone for future personal finance management. Rand remains a controversial figure but she did understand some interesting aspects of the psychology of economics.

It's heartening to read a response that is not "Rand owes...Rand is greedy...Rand is heartless...blah blah blah). Rand is not only addressing the psychology of economics, but the importance of leading an ethical life with character.

Rand's view that you should keep your promises, that you if you borrow from another you should make sure it is for a good reason, and that you should pay back your debts - something that is rather old-fashioned to forum's modern altruists.

 

[Medicine Man]

What I find interesting is that the niece was virtually unknown to her aunt, yet the amount she was asking to borrow, for a dress, was equal to $247.52 in todays terms. http://www.davemanuel.com/inflation-calculator.php

Now I don't know about you folks, but even one of my immediate siblings would need a pretty good reason for asking big sister for $247.52 cents. I have helped all of my brothers at various times and in considerably larger amounts for items of tangible value. A dress does not fit that criteria for me, personally, although I am aware that articles of clothing of the rich and famous may auction for ridiculous prices.

From my perspective, the aunt took considerable time and effort to try and educate her niece about the manner in which debt enslaves us and limits our future options. To become indebted for something as frivolous as a piece of clothing at such a young age does not set the tone for future personal finance management. Rand remains a controversial figure but she did understand some interesting aspects of the psychology of economics.

It's heartening to read a response that is not "Rand owes...Rand is greedy...Rand is heartless...blah blah blah). Rand is not only addressing the psychology of economics, but the importance of leading an ethical life with character.

Rand's view that you should keep your promises, that you if you borrow from another you should make sure it is for a good reason, and that you should pay back your debts - something that is rather old-fashioned to forum's modern altruists.

He also believes that privately-owned businesses should be allowed to deny service to whichever minority the owner chooses.​

 

[Ford]

Rand is not only addressing the psychology of economics, but the importance of leading an ethical life with character.

An ethical life with character apparently also includes extramarital affairs.

 

[maxparrish]

Rand is not only addressing the psychology of economics, but the importance of leading an ethical life with character.

An ethical life with character apparently also includes extramarital affairs.

But not without her husbands consent. That said, few practice everything they preach -

 

[Ford]

An ethical life with character apparently also includes extramarital affairs.

But not without her husbands consent. That said, few practice everything they preach -

Of all the really messed up aspects of Ayn Rand's life, the affair might just be the worst. It was - for lack of a better term - a four way affair...the justification based upon the bullshit notion that Rand and Branden were somehow destined to be together because they were both the smartest, most ethical people in the world.

 

[untermensche]

But not without her husbands consent. That said, few practice everything they preach -

Few claim to be enlightened leaders of a better way.

 

[Jarhyn]

All said, Aynalists (better than 'Randians' as a name, I think) are the laughing stock of the ethical/philosophical community. The only ones who openly support her bullshit are those who have some need to justify wealth by way of lottery.

 

[bigfield]

The irony of the letter in the OP is that everyone owes someone else a debt that they will not repay.

 

[arkirk]

I want you to understand right now that I will not accept any excuse—except a serious illness. If you become ill, then I will give you an extension of time—but for no other reason. If, when the debt becomes due, you tell me that you can't pay me because you needed a new pair of shoes or a new coat or you gave the money to somebody in the family who needed it more than I do—then I will consider you as an embezzler. No, I won't send a policeman after you, but I will write you off as a rotten person and I will never speak or write to you again.

$25 and a promise that Auntie Ayn will never speak or write to you again?

Take the money and for goodness's sake don't even think about paying it back!

My thoughts exactly! She want to loan the girl $25 and then over a year get back $49. Usurious bitch!

 

[Bomb#20]

Those who refuse to do arithmetic are doomed to talk nonsense.

- John McCarthy

 

[untermensche]

It's heartening to read a response that is not "Rand owes...Rand is greedy...Rand is heartless...blah blah blah). Rand is not only addressing the psychology of economics, but the importance of leading an ethical life with character.

Rand's view that you should keep your promises, that you if you borrow from another you should make sure it is for a good reason, and that you should pay back your debts - something that is rather old-fashioned to forum's modern altruists.

Should parents present their children with a bill for all money's spent to raise them?

Should we reduce all human interaction to some self-interested capitalist calculation?

Should we reduce ourselves in all aspects of life to uncaring ungenerous agents of profit?

Rand's ethics is not ethics at all. It is greed and stinginess and a lack of normal human compassion.

Life would not be worth living if we all reduced ourselves to Rand's level of maturity. She hadn't progressed beyond the level of a totally self interested three year old. Severely emotionally stunted.

 

[Jarhyn]

It's heartening to read a response that is not "Rand owes...Rand is greedy...Rand is heartless...blah blah blah). Rand is not only addressing the psychology of economics, but the importance of leading an ethical life with character.

Rand's view that you should keep your promises, that you if you borrow from another you should make sure it is for a good reason, and that you should pay back your debts - something that is rather old-fashioned to forum's modern altruists.

Should parents present their children with a bill for all money's spent to raise them?

Should we reduce all human interaction to some self-interested capitalist calculation?

Should we reduce ourselves in all aspects of life to uncaring ungenerous agents of profit?

Rand's ethics is not ethics at all. It is greed and stinginess and a lack of normal human compassion.

Life would not be worth living if we all reduced ourselves to Rand's level of maturity. She hadn't progressed beyond the level of a totally self interested three year old. Severely emotionally stunted.

Worse, it is pure, distilled social Darwinism, disguised cleverly as economics. Humanity moved past Darwinistic concerns millennia ago, but there are always apes like Ayn and her Aynalist toadies who want to go back to it, not because it is right but because it gives their worthless emotional need to be 'alpha' gratification.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Should parents present their children with a bill for all money's spent to raise them?

Should we reduce all human interaction to some self-interested capitalist calculation?

Should we reduce ourselves in all aspects of life to uncaring ungenerous agents of profit?

Rand's ethics is not ethics at all. It is greed and stinginess and a lack of normal human compassion.

Life would not be worth living if we all reduced ourselves to Rand's level of maturity. She hadn't progressed beyond the level of a totally self interested three year old. Severely emotionally stunted.

I agree. What did she build? What did she grow? What did she produce? What did she manufacture? What did she do in the interest of another human being?

As humans grow there are these windows where we develop. When they're missed they're missed. Perhaps in fairness she didn't have the opportunity that others enjoyed and so remained distant and stunted in this sense.

 

[untermensche]

Should parents present their children with a bill for all money's spent to raise them?

Should we reduce all human interaction to some self-interested capitalist calculation?

Should we reduce ourselves in all aspects of life to uncaring ungenerous agents of profit?

Rand's ethics is not ethics at all. It is greed and stinginess and a lack of normal human compassion.

Life would not be worth living if we all reduced ourselves to Rand's level of maturity. She hadn't progressed beyond the level of a totally self interested three year old. Severely emotionally stunted.

I agree. What did she build? What did she grow? What did she produce? What did she manufacture? What did she do in the interest of another human being?

As humans grow there are these windows where we develop. When they're missed they're missed. Perhaps in fairness she didn't have the opportunity that others enjoyed and so remained distant and stunted in this sense.

To be fair she was a novelist and wrote some books.

Unfortunately they are filled with her stunted emotional outlook.

 

[maxparrish]

It's heartening to read a response that is not "Rand owes...Rand is greedy...Rand is heartless...blah blah blah). Rand is not only addressing the psychology of economics, but the importance of leading an ethical life with character.

Rand's view that you should keep your promises, that you if you borrow from another you should make sure it is for a good reason, and that you should pay back your debts - something that is rather old-fashioned to forum's modern altruists.

Should parents present their children with a bill for all money's spent to raise them?

Should we reduce all human interaction to some self-interested capitalist calculation?

Should we reduce ourselves in all aspects of life to uncaring ungenerous agents of profit?

Rand's ethics is not ethics at all. It is greed and stinginess and a lack of normal human compassion.

Life would not be worth living if we all reduced ourselves to Rand's level of maturity. She hadn't progressed beyond the level of a totally self interested three year old. Severely emotionally stunted.

What an strange set of responding questions. If I were to answer "no" to each of your three questions, are we to suppose that "we should" NOT keep our promises or repay what we borrow? This old fashioned idea did not start with Ms. Rand, its been a common sense trait of ethical character for a few centuries.

And since your questions are about a Rand ethics straw man, perhaps you should familiarize yourself with what she actually believed before asking pointless questions, no?

 

[untermensche]

Should parents present their children with a bill for all money's spent to raise them?

Should we reduce all human interaction to some self-interested capitalist calculation?

Should we reduce ourselves in all aspects of life to uncaring ungenerous agents of profit?

Rand's ethics is not ethics at all. It is greed and stinginess and a lack of normal human compassion.

Life would not be worth living if we all reduced ourselves to Rand's level of maturity. She hadn't progressed beyond the level of a totally self interested three year old. Severely emotionally stunted.

What an strange set of responding questions. If I were to answer "no" to each of your three questions, are we to suppose that "we should" NOT keep our promises or repay what we borrow? This old fashioned idea did not start with Ms. Rand, its been a common sense trait of ethical character for a few centuries.

And since your questions are about a Rand ethics straw man, perhaps you should familiarize yourself with what she actually believed before asking pointless questions, no?

Life is short. I've read her absurd novels and seen whatever interviews of her that exist.

What more do I need to know to demonstrate she was not a self absorbed emotional child with a clever rationale for her immaturity?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I agree. What did she build? What did she grow? What did she produce? What did she manufacture? What did she do in the interest of another human being?

As humans grow there are these windows where we develop. When they're missed they're missed. Perhaps in fairness she didn't have the opportunity that others enjoyed and so remained distant and stunted in this sense.

To be fair she was a novelist and wrote some books.

Unfortunately they are filled with her stunted emotional outlook.

Exactly. Not quite The Old Man and the Sea material.

 

[maxparrish]

Should parents present their children with a bill for all money's spent to raise them?

Should we reduce all human interaction to some self-interested capitalist calculation?

Should we reduce ourselves in all aspects of life to uncaring ungenerous agents of profit?

Rand's ethics is not ethics at all. It is greed and stinginess and a lack of normal human compassion.

Life would not be worth living if we all reduced ourselves to Rand's level of maturity. She hadn't progressed beyond the level of a totally self interested three year old. Severely emotionally stunted.

I agree. What did she build? What did she grow? What did she produce? What did she manufacture? What did she do in the interest of another human being?

As humans grow there are these windows where we develop. When they're missed they're missed. Perhaps in fairness she didn't have the opportunity that others enjoyed and so remained distant and stunted in this sense.

She discovered, wrote, and established a philosophy of individual, social, and economic life. She produced a literature of enlightenment to the benighted, an illumination of the nature of evil in contemporary society. For tens of millions she has provided a foundation of learning that influenced and informed their lives (e.g. Greenspan, Ryan, etc.) and like Friedman and Buckley she was a crucial counter-weight to the overwhelmingly liberal zeitgeist of the 60s and early 70s.

She was for youthful millions the first opportunity to break free of mind deadening liberalism - and the enormous antipathy to her legacy is a marker of her success.

 

[Jarhyn]

I agree. What did she build? What did she grow? What did she produce? What did she manufacture? What did she do in the interest of another human being?

As humans grow there are these windows where we develop. When they're missed they're missed. Perhaps in fairness she didn't have the opportunity that others enjoyed and so remained distant and stunted in this sense.

She discovered, wrote, and established a philosophy of individual, social, and economic life. She produced a literature of enlightenment to the benighted, an illumination of the nature of evil in contemporary society. For tens of millions she has provided a foundation of learning that influenced and informed their lives (e.g. Greenspan, Ryan, etc.) and like Friedman and Buckley she was a crucial counter-weight to the overwhelmingly liberal zeitgeist of the 60s and early 70s.

She was for youthful millions the first opportunity to break free of mind deadening liberalism - and the enormous antipathy to her legacy is a marker of her success.

Of course her bankrupt social Darwinism is popular among those who already enjoy 'privileged' status. Her survival of the fittest and her concept of fitness coincides with our basest ape instincts to get to the top, smash all leaders, and ultimately propagate genes which care nothing for their vessels.

It's popular because it sells the lie that you can be a good person while being a disgusting animal and breaking from every philosophical advance of the last hundred thousand years. It's popular because it's a long sigh of giving in, and giving up the fight for our best interests against our base desires. It's selling something that really does feel good, right up until it kills you and everything you ever cared about.

 

[fromderinside]

I agree. What did she build? What did she grow? What did she produce? What did she manufacture? What did she do in the interest of another human being?

As humans grow there are these windows where we develop. When they're missed they're missed. Perhaps in fairness she didn't have the opportunity that others enjoyed and so remained distant and stunted in this sense.

She discovered, wrote, and established a philosophy of individual, social, and economic life. She produced a literature of enlightenment to the benighted, an illumination of the nature of evil in contemporary society. For tens of millions she has provided a foundation of learning that influenced and informed their lives (e.g. Greenspan, Ryan, etc.) and like Friedman and Buckley she was a crucial counter-weight to the overwhelmingly liberal zeitgeist of the 60s and early 70s.

She was for youthful millions the first opportunity to break free of mind deadening liberalism - and the enormous antipathy to her legacy is a marker of her success.

Attracting immature people and supporting their 'needs' as an authority immature child figure is not 'establishing' (quaint choice of words that) a philosophy nor is her writing any different from that on Wells or Huxley in terms of reality (none of them reflect reality).

As for whether we've moved beyond social Darwinism is wrong. We've moved away from it. If there is any doubt that we'd do differently if we were under resource shortage conditions just wait until our water depletion of aquifer resources reaches climax.

Contribution of global groundwater depletion since 1900 to sea‐level rise
http://aquadoc.typepad.com/files/konikow_2011b-1.pdf