As We Endure Through COVID-19 Lockdowns, Dems Gear Up for ‘Climate Crisis’ Authoritarianism

If you think I overreacted in calling Donald Trump’s invocation of the Defense Production Act a dangerous precedent, consider Barack Obama’s comments regarding Trump’s rollback of Obama’s auto mileage regulation. 

In Obama Compares Climate Change To Coronavirus, Rips Trump Rule Change, the Daily Caller’s William Davis reports:

Former President Barack Obama compared climate change to the coronavirus pandemic and criticized President Donald Trump for rolling back one of his administration’s key climate initiatives.

“We’ve seen all too terribly the consequences of those who denied warnings of a pandemic,” Obama tweeted Tuesday. “We can’t afford any more consequences of climate denial. All of us, especially young people, have to demand better of our government at every level and vote this fall.”

On April 8, 2020, the New Jersey Star-Ledger editorialized:

President Donald Trump on Sunday again pushed an unproven therapy for COVID-19, defying the advice of Dr. Anthony Fauci. It came two days after he said he will not wear a mask, defying the advice of the CDC. Science doesn’t much impress the man.

His response to the crisis has left America lagging behind the rest of the world.

When he’s criticized on this, he attacks.

Do you notice a pattern? It’s exactly his response to the climate crisis. Ignore the science. Ignore any wisdom from outside our borders. Attack the critics.

My emphasis.

Criticism of Trump is certainly within reasonable opining. But, there it is again; tying the COVID-19 crisis to the “climate crisis.” The two are not analogous. The first is a genuine emergency. The second is a political tactic of the criminal socialist Left. Expect the drumbeat to grow ever more intense. 

On March 31, I wrote:

The Democrats’ Green New Deal already envisions a World War II-like central mobilization of the nation. The chance of them getting away with the authoritarian scheme has now gone from slim to likely, in my view. Who could stand in the Democrats' way, and on what grounds, after a Republican president sets the precedent of stretching the DPA to the point of virtually unlimited usage? Under cover of a health crisis, Trump declared himself “a wartime president,” and justified his invoking of the DPA as "essential to the national defense"!!! If the Defense Production Act can be invoked in response to a health emergency, then why not in a climate emergency, or any event that any future president decides to attach the emergency label too? 

It appears the Democrats have gotten the message loud and clear. If ever a lawsuit to challenge the constitutional validity of a federal action were warranted, Trump’s invocation of the Defense Production Act to fight the health emergency without first getting congressional authorization, this is it. 

Mirriam-Webster defines emergency as “an unforeseen combination of circumstances or the resulting state that calls for immediate action." COVID-19 is a true emergency. Climate, on the other hand, is “the average course or condition of the weather at a place usually over a period of years as exhibited by temperature, wind velocity, and precipitation.” [My emphasis]

However the actions taken by our public officials is ultimately judged, clearly some immediate governmental action to the pandemic was warranted. But the severe restrictions on our social freedoms due to COVID-19 is an immediate action that will be short-lived. Nobody likes the current emergency restrictions on our freedoms. But the unfolding of the pandemic, its progress, and its inevitable end can be tracked by all on a day-to-day observation. The restrictions are sufferable because the current pandemic is a true emergency with an observable beginning, peak, and diminution. In theory, anyway.

But “climate emergency”, on the other hand, is a dangerous and disingenuous contradiction-in-terms. Climate change takes years, even decades, to ascertain. Taking immediate, freedom-crushing action on the erroneous basis of a climate “emergency” (or “crisis”) would last for years and years. As we wait indefinitely for climate results, an entrenched dictatorship will take hold. It would be the end of freedom. And it would be a huge hit to our prosperity. As Alex Epstein put it bluntly in a recent interview, "Just as we're seeing [many of us] be [temporarily] poor by the COVID-19 lockdown, we would see [all of us] become permanently poor with the Green New Deal." It would be the end of America in all but name. The stakes are enormous.

Related Reading:

Did Trump’s Defense Production Act Invocation Clear the Way for the Democrats’ ‘Climate Crisis’ Authoritarianism?

‘Climate Crisis’: The Dem’s Path to Totalitarian Socialism

Related Viewing:

Obama Draws Exactly the Wrong Lesson on Pandemic Preparedness--Alex Epstein

NJ Food Council Calls Out Environmentalists for their Anti-Humanism

New Jersey has no statewide ban on so-called “single use” plastic bags. But many municipalities have imposed local bans. Many are now calling for temporarily suspending these bans for health reasons, and some have done so, believing that reusable grocery bags increase the likelihood of coronavirus spread. 

This was the subject of a NJ Star-Ledger guest column by Linda Doherty, CEO of the New Jersey Food Council, We’ve got to use plastic bags during the pandemic. Environmentalists should understand this. The Food Council is a trade association representing the food retail industry. The Council has been supportive of the bag bans. 

What got my attention about Doherty’s column is not her support for temporarily lifting the bans. What made me sit up and take notice is her clear identification of Environmentalist groups’ motive in opposing the suspensions:

This simple request to help our stores function during a global public health emergency is blasphemy to New Jersey’s environmental lobbyists. Activist organizations like the Sierra Club, Environment New Jersey and Clean Water Action could care less about the health and safety of workers; they were outraged by the idea of pausing a few local ordinances.

These same tone-deaf lobbyists also have no sympathy for those facing financial hardship as a result of the pandemic. Many of these local ordinances that the New Jersey Food Council is asking a temporary reprieve from place fees on single-use bags, meaning customers without reusable bags pay for every single-use paper or plastic bag. Asking someone who just lost their job, is depending on food assistance programs, or might be facing reduced hours to pay a quarter for a bag is just kicking people while they are down.

My emphasis. I posted these comments:

That these 3 lobbying groups “could care less about the health and safety of workers” and “have no sympathy for those facing financial hardship as a result of the pandemic” is indicative of Environmentalist ideology generally. Environmentalism is fundamentally anti-human. It prioritizes raw nature over human improvement of the natural environment through science, technology, and industry. For further proof of it’s anti-humanism, look no further than it’s campaign to stop all fossil fuel projects in the state. This, on top of opposition to nuclear power. Nat-gas and nuclear provide 94% of NJ’s energy. So-called clean energy is nowhere near capable of replacing fossil and nuclear. Given that energy is the industry that powers all other industries, it is vital to continue to expand fossil fuel infrastructure to guarantee adequate reliable economical energy in the future. What will become of our health and safety and economic security if Environmentalists get their wish? Massive human hardship. But Environmentalists don’t care. Their concern is preserving nature over human mastery over nature. Doherty is absolutely right. But it’s beyond plastic bags. Environmentalists are uncaring and unsympathetic to human well-being, because Environmentalism is ideologically opposed to human progress.

Related Reading:

Mulshine on the ‘National Anti-Pipeline Movement’

The ‘Jihad on Pipelines,’ New Jersey Front

Earth Day: The Anti-Industrial Revolution

Proper Plastic Disposal, not Plastic Bans, is the Solution to Plastic Pollution

The Anti-human Tirade of an Ungrateful 16-Year-old

The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels—Alex Epstein

The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the 21st Century—Ronald Bailey

‘Reopening’ the Economy: It’s Not ‘Money vs. lives,’ or Even ‘Money or Lives’

Since President Trump began talking about “reopening the economy” as quickly as possible, the charge that Trump (and presumably other politicians like the governors of six northeastern states) is more concerned with money than saving lives has been making the rounds. But are people who charge Trump with “putting money over lives” being fair? Should our political leaders be concerned with COVID-19 to the exclusion of any concern for the damage the shutdown is inflicting on what we call “the economy?”

This charge strikes me as cold-blooded. The economy is the field of activity in which people work and trade in support of their lives and flourishing. The lifeblood of the economy is money, the means by which people trade. Just as you are dead without your blood, so the economy is dead without money. Money nourishes the economy, and is just as important in sustaining our lives as blood is in sustaining our bodies. Money is our means to physical well-being. Money represents productiveness. Money is our access to all of the myriad goods and services that we need and desire but that others produce. This includes what we need to protect our health. What is it that we’re counting on to beat the virus? The ability of researchers and companies to produce treatments, testing, vaccines, medical devices, etc., and get it to the people who need it. What makes this healthcare progress work? The lifeblood of the economy--money. 

Additionally, I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that money, like blood, plays a vital role in nourishing our souls and our individual identities. Millions of people have seen their goals and livelihoods and very lives turned upside down by the pandemic shutdown. Not all of us are affected in the same way. For some of us, the shutdown is more an inconvenience than a hardship. But for tens of millions of previously productive people, the suffering must be intense; People whose businesses represent a lifetime investment of time and money at risk of going “up in smoke”, younger people just starting out seeing their careers stalled, people with little savings who are living paycheck-to-paycheck suddenly without a paycheck, peoples' ability to take care of their families crippled. Is it so wrong to consider their plights?

I would say anyone who disparages political leaders who are keeping the economy front and center of their concerns cannot claim to be concerned with lives. Concern for money and concern for the sick are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they cannot be separated. It’s not “Money over lives,” or even “Money or Lives.” It’s money and lives, because money--or, more precisely, the root of money, productive economic activity--is life. Ultimately, as was recently pointed out by a Princeton bioethicist, The 'False Debate' About Reopening the Economy Is the One That Ignores the Enormous Human Cost of Sweeping COVID-19 Control Measures:

We are currently impoverishing the economy, which means we are reducing our capacity in the long term to provide exactly those things that people are talking about that we need—better health care services, better social-security arrangements to make sure that people aren't in poverty. There are victims in the future, after the pandemic, who will bear these costs. The economic costs we incur now will spill over, in terms of loss of lives, loss of quality of life, and loss of well-being.

Despite his crudeness, I believe Trump and other politicians who are giving serious thought to revitalizing economic activity, even as they remain concerned as COVID-19 continues to rage, are the ones who have their priorities straight. There is much more to the COVID-19 crisis than only the people that are seriously ill with coronavirus. There is the moral "commandment" First, do no harm. Only those with a balanced approach to social policy are actually putting lives first.

Related Reading:

“Francisco’s Money Speech”, from Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Healthcare and the Role of Money

Money vs. Wealth: Which is the Cart, and Which is the Horse? Ask Gilligan

Ayn Rand on a Modern Dollar Bill? Who Better Deserves the Honor?

Related Viewing:

What Is Our Covid-19 Goal? | Alex Epstein

Earth Day: a Pro-Human Perspective

As I've said in past years, Earth Day grew out of the New Left's anti-industrial revolution. It's still true that Earth Day carries a bias against industrialization, man's great achievement at turning a hostile natural environment brimming with potential into a great place to live.

Here is my post from last year:

Earth Day: The Anti-Industrial Revolution

Here are four articles celebrating man's great industrial achievement:

Forget “Earth Day”…Celebrate Life On Earth Day!--Michael Hurd 

THIS EARTH DAY, SHRUG OFF ENVIRONMENTALIST FEAR AND GUILT—Amanda Maxham for The Ayn Rand Institute 

An Unnatural Amount of Happiness — Why I Celebrate Transforming the Earth--Alex Epstein 

5 Environmental and Human Trends Worth Celebrating This Earth Day--Ronald Bailey
Peak population, expanding forests, more abundant resources, falling air pollution, and plenty of farmland.

‘Medicare-for-All’ is no ‘Solution’ to Pandemic-Related Job Layoffs

In a 3/19/20 New Jersey Star-Ledger letter to the editor titled Layoff threat proves need for Medicare for All, Nate Hutchinson of Hoboken, NJ wrote, in part:

Hoboken is threatening to lay off 79 municipal employees to fix its budget deficit, citing (among other factors) the rising cost of providing these employees with health insurance, which is administered by a private (for-profit) third party. At a recent city council meeting, many of those threatened with layoffs described the hardships they would face if they lost their jobs and their health coverage.

Hutchinson’s solution; Medicare-for-All to “provide health coverage to every U.S. resident that is free at the point of use and lower national health spending in the process.”

Criminal socialists of the American Left have been exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to push this line. I fired off this letter to the Star-Ledger:

To the editors,

Some are citing the Covid-19 pandemic as “proof” of the “need” for Medicare-for-All because many who are losing their jobs in this health emergency will also lose their health insurance. If we already had Medicare-for-All, the argument goes, this would not be a problem. 

But Medicare-for-All would outlaw private health insurance, strip 180 million Americans of their health insurance and force them into a government program whether they agree or not, an immoral (and probably unconstitutional) approach. Worse, Medicare-for-All would essentially enslave the doctors and regiment the entire healthcare industry under a coercive monopsony from which there is no escape, stifling innovative healthcare progress.

That said, employer-based health insurance is a real problem for people losing their jobs. The moral, rights-respecting solution would be to revise the tax and regulatory laws so that health insurance is treated like homeowners, auto, and other types of insurance. What the Covid-19 pandemic actually proves is that if these reforms had been done years ago, the loss of a job wouldn’t mean loss of health insurance.

Sincerely,

Michael A. LaFerrara

Hutchinson concludes with a complaint “that private health insurers use their political power to block any reforms. Hoboken’s city workers deserve better than this. So do the rest of us.”

Political clout? Who the hell is Hutchinson to speak for “the rest of us?” Who the hell is he to advocate using “political clout”—the point of a governmental gun— to impose his Medicare-for-All on the rest of us? 

Kudos to the private health insurers for exercising their First Amendment rights to lobby to block the implementation of this monstrosity. Private health insurers would be among the biggest victims of Medicare-for-All. They use their First Amendment rights of freedom of speech, assembly, and petition to defend themselves. But whenever a person or group of persons defend their own rights, they defend the rights of all. These insurers speak also for those of us who want to preserve the remnants of freedom and individual rights that still remains in American healthcare.

* [NOTE: I sent this letter in on 3/19/20. As of 3/28/20, it was not yet published. I would change one word. In the first paragraph, I would change the word “the” in the phrase “the argument goes” to “one,” so as to read “If we already had Medicare-for-All, one argument goes, this would not be a problem.”]

Related Reading:

Moral Health Care vs. Universal Health Care by Lin Zinser and Paul Hsieh for The Objective Standard

How Doctors Broke Health Care by Christy Ford Chapin for Reason.com

As ObamaCare Failures Pile Up, Get Ready for the Mother-of-All Healthcare Battles

To Start With, Single Payer is Immoral

The Problem of the "Unemployed and Uninsured"

The False Alternative to the 3rd-Party-Payer System

Blaming the Remaining Fragments of Healthcare Freedom for Problems Caused by Government

Why a “Right” to Health Care is a Moral Travesty by John Hersey for The Objective Standard

Coronavirus. Government-Mandated Economic Shutdowns. But is there a Third, More Fundamental Cause of the 2020 Economic Crisis?

I can’t answer that. But I can speculate.

Today’s economic collapse brought to mind a statement from an acquaintance during a long exchange on Facebook some time ago. In defending democratic socialism, the acquaintance said in 2018: “I fear we are headed for a collapse in the near future.” She was referring to an economic collapse, and blamed her fear on technology and  “unrestrained capitalism.”

I answered her misplaced blame in detail. But I never replied to her fear. The discussion was long and involved, so I never got around to it answering that fear. In view of the crisis we’re experiencing now (2020), I thought I’d post what I wanted to say back in 2018. Here is what I would have replied:

“I fear we are headed for a collapse in the near future.” 

Of course we’re going to have another collapse. The government’s interference into the economy has only increased since the 2006-2009 housing bust/financial crisis, which itself resulted from massive interference from the Federal Reserve, Fannie and Freddie, regulatory mismanagement, and the politics of “affordable housing.” What will cause the next collapse is anybody’s guess. But be assured that imbalances due to government policy are building up. This doesn’t mean the current (2018) prosperity is not real. But alongside the prosperity we’re having, the imbalances are building and danger is gathering beneath the surface. Trump’s regulatory reductions and corporate tax cuts will help, but will not nearly be enough.

FAST FORWARD: 

Sure enough, we got the catalyst--the coronavirus. A secondary, more serious catalyst is the massive shutdown of the economy engineered by our political leaders (It remains to be seen if this will ultimately cause more harm than good). These certainly are important factors. But I believe one of the biggest causes is getting too little notice. While those two are getting the public’s attention, a third and probably more important catalyst is greatly exacerbating the crash--the years of near-zero interest rates engineered by the Fed. These artificially low rates have incentivized massive increases in debt, both for individuals and for businesses (not to mention government), well beyond what people would do if markets set the rates. This huge mal-allocation of resources is now unwinding, giving a huge push to an already falling economy and stock market.

Let me focus on one sector--individuals. Typically, savers have reasonable low-risk interest-bearing options. But with interest income shriveling up, people have for years been looking for other options. That has meant common stocks. Hence, many people have been piling into stock market investments out of desperation for better yields. 

Now, I love stocks. They are a great way for average people to ride the coattails of business growth and entrepreneurial “prime movers” and build wealth over time. But thanks to the Federal Reserve’s near-zero rate policies, a lot of money has flowed into the stock market that shouldn’t have gone in--that is, has gone in for the wrong reason, yield. This means that a lot of people have put a lot of money into stocks that they normally would not have. This over-investment has made these people ripe for panic, and that panic is showing up in the stock market crash. This problem is particularly acute for retirees. Retirees, to put it bluntly, have been royally screwed for most of the last 20 years, when the Fed first reduced interest rates to near zero following 9-11. Retirees, who need a lower risk investment strategy and thus less stock exposure, were incentivized into taking on much more risk that prudence dictates. They are now adding substantially to the panic selling according to what I’m hearing on CNBC, the financial news program.

I believe that the acquaintance mentioned above was right, but not for the reason she believed. It’s not unrestrained capitalism (which doesn’t even exist, but should), but central planning, that is the problem. A collapse was going to happen. If coronavirus didn’t come along, something else would have, eventually.

As I said, I can’t say how the various factors influenced the current crisis. Economics is complicated. This period will be analyzed for years to come. But I am convinced that as long as the government coercively interferes in the natural workings of the market, and meets each crisis with more of the same, there will always be a realistic “fear we are headed for a collapse in the near future.”

Related Reading: 

A Tale of Two Bubbles: How the Fed Crashed the Tech and the Housing Markets: “Central Bankers appear to have learned little from recent history.”—Luka Nikolic for the Foundation for Economic Education. [This article was published on August 10, 2019. It is almost prophetic.]

The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure—by John A. Allison

A Free Market is the Only ‘Natural Order of Things’

Related Viewing:

The Pandemic and the Economy—with Onkar Ghate, Yaron Brook, and Rob Tarr from ARI

Free Speech Wins in NJ

In my post of April 9, 2019—NJ’s ‘Dark Money’ Bill an Attack on Intellectual Freedom—I highlighted a New Jersey Star-Ledger guest column written by two activists who are normally on opposite ends of the political spectrum. David Keating, president of the Institute for Free Speech, and Amol Sinha, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, joined with Americans for Prosperity to express strong opposition to a so-called “Dark Money” bill that would force political activist groups to expose their donors.

The bill banning anonymous donations passed, but met a barrage of lawsuits opposing the law on free speech grounds. 

Good news: Free speech won. The bill is dead. As NJ.com reported, the Controversial N.J. law to unmask secret campaign donors is officially dead. As Brent Johnson and Ted Sherman reported on March 12, 2020:

Multiple groups filed lawsuits seeking to overturn the law. That included the conservative group Americans for Prosperity as well as more liberal groups, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Illinois Opportunity Project, a nonprofit that seeks to educate the public about policy.

The Liberty Justice Center, a nonprofit that aims to protect peoples’ First Amendment rights, called Wednesday’s development a major victory for free speech.

“Adopted under the guise of transparency, these laws are designed to allow opponents of advocacy groups to intimidate and harass the organizations’ supporters," said Patrick Hughes, the group’s president and co-founder.

“All Americans should be free to support causes they believe in without an invasion into their privacy through excessive government reporting requirements or retribution from their opponents.”

Jeanne LoCicero, the New Jersey legal director for the ACLU, also praised the death of the measure.

“All nonprofits should be able to communicate about issues of public concern without fear of being subject to invasive disclosure rules," LoCicero said.

Both Murphy’s office and the state Attorney General’s Office declined to comment.

This bill may be dead. But the battle to retain our free speech is not. Politicians are aching to curtail free speech, press, assembly, and petition. Fortunately, the courts are by and large on the side of the First Amendment. The fight to prevent the political class from neutering the First Amendment goes on. Kudos to the groups that went to court to kill this latest assault on free speech.

Related Reading:

Why Free Speech and Spending on Speech are Inextricably Linked

Murphy’s Veto of NJ’s ‘Dark Money’ Ban Should Be Unconditional

Kill New Jersey’s ‘Dark Money’ Ban

NJ’s ‘Dark Money’ Bill an Attack on Intellectual Freedom

NJ’s ‘Dark Money’ Bill is an Assault on Free Speech

The Anti-Free Speech Fallacy of ‘Dark Money’

‘Dark Money’ is Free Speech. Protect It

The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech--by Kimberley Strassel, especially Chapter 2, “Publius & Co.”

Campaign Finance: Free Speech, Not Disclosure, is the Main Issue

Making Private Donations Anonymously is a Right

This Quora Answer Shows Why Ayn Rand Was Right About Altruism

In my answer to the Quora question, “Is Ayn Rand wrong about altruism?,” I wrote:

It is important to understand that Rand’s understanding of altruism is derived from Auguste Comte, the 19th Century philosopher who coined the term. To Comte, altruism is an uncompromising, absolute duty to “live for others” in every circumstance and at all times, always putting the interests of others above one’s own, no exceptions: “[F]rom every point of view,” Comte wrote, “the ultimate systematisation of human life must consist above all in the development of altruism.” 

This absolutist concept of altruism created by altruism’s founder obviously clashes with the mushy way the term is commonly used, which mixes self-sacrifice [Comte-ism] with self-interest driven generosity—a mixture Rand referred to as a “package deal” and which she viewed as corrupt. Some people might think that the mixture is workable. But Rand saw this package deal as akin to mixing poison in with one’s food—altruism as poison for human morality. 

In another answer to the Quora question, Is Ayn Rand wrong about altruism?’‘, Greg Larsen posted:

She was absolutely wrong.

As many of the other answers here have pointed out, altruism carried to ridiculous exteme [sic] is self destructive. However, Rand believed and argued that any gesture of altruism whatsoever was already ridiculous extreme.

When you are young and strong and lucky, the attitude “I have mine, and you would too if you hadn’t made bad choices, “ seems good.

But bad stuff happens to people who don’t deserve it.

It is better for all of us if we internalize a philosophy that we need to share our good fortune, so that we can expect help when our fortunes turn.

Most of us actually know or feel that to some extent.

I don’t give so much to charity that my wife and I are endangered by it, but I do give.

This is why altruism is so corrupting. Like most people, Larsen packages together altruism with good-will generosity. Thus, opposing altruism means opposing good-will generosity, which leads to “never help anyone”—a position that Ayn Rand never advocated. Notice how quickly Larsen jumps from bait to switch; from “any gesture of altruism is bad” to never helping anyone who ran into underserved “bad stuff.” Larsen’s grave error is that he uncritically swallows the “package deal.” Rand indeed “believed and argued that any gesture of altruism whatsoever was already ridiculous extreme.” That’s because altruism, by definition, mandates the “ridiculous extreme” of self-sacrifice. 

Larsen seems to agree. Notice that Larsen himself acknowledges that he would never go to the “ridiculous extreme” that altruism demands. Notice that Larsen does not “give so much to charity that my wife and I are endangered by it.” Precisely the point. Larsen values sharing his good fortune, but only because he expects the recipients to return the favor should the tables be turned—and only if it does not entail a personal sacrifice! 

Well, why not? If a “gesture of altruism” is sometimes good, then why doesn’t he sacrifice his good fortune to the point of being “endangered by it,” and with no expectation of anything in return, ever? There is no non-sacrificial altruism. Altruism by definition demands precisely to do what Larsen himself refuses to do--give so much to charity that my wife and I are endangered by it!

Quoting again from my answer:

Whether out of deceit or ignorance, Rand has been vilified as an enemy of social harmony because of her anti-altruism. This is grossly dishonest and unjust. Rand opposed altruism precisely because it is incompatible with social harmony, which depends on universal respect for each person’s moral right to pursue the values his own life depends on. Agree with Rand or not on the merits, but fairness demands that one understand precisely what Rand was attacking when she attacked altruism. It is the undiluted, literal, pure altruism of Comte to which Rand refers, and the influence of which Rand seeks to unpackage from human morality. With this in mind, I do not believe that Ayn Rand was wrong about altruism. 

Larsen’s completely wrong-headed answer proves decisively why Rand was uncompromising in seeking to remove all influence of altruism from human morality. As she observed, altruism corrupts one’s moral view to the point of making “kindness, good will, or respect for the rights of others . . . impossible,” precisely because altruism is to morality what poison is to food. Larsen falls for the altruist trap: He equates altruism with non-sacrificial good will, and then jumps to the false assertion that by opposing altruism uncompromisingly, Rand rejects good will. Larsen is flat out wrong.

Related Reading:

Altruism—the Ayn Rand Lexicon

The Virtue of Selfishness—Ayn Rand

QUORA: Is Ayn Rand's 'Selfishness' 'the middle between altruism and selfism?'

Books to Aid in Understanding Ayn Rand's Rational Selfishness

The Link Between "Control, Power, or Socialism" and "What's Morally Right"