QUORA: 'Why doesn't capitalism work for everyone?'

QUORA: 'Why doesn't capitalism work for everyone?'

I posted this answer:

The question is invalid, because it is based on an invalid premise. Capitalism doesn't "work" or “not work" for or against anyone, and is not intended to do so. That’s collectivist terminology. Capitalism, being individualist in ideological orientation, protects, through a government of limited powers, individual rights to freedom of action. That, in a nutshell, is the meaning of the unalienable individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Capitalism leaves people free to work for themselves. Capitalism, of course, which entails wider freedoms, such as the rights to freedom of speech, freedom of religion (conscience), and right to counsel. In economics specifically, Capitalism means the freedom to work and trade with others, to mutual voluntary advantage, in pursuit of one's own individual flourishing, and to keep and use what property one earns. 

How well this freedom “works” for any particular individual depends on individual moral character, skill, personal circumstances, productive ability, motivation, and a myriad of other factors unique to that individual. As to those few who fail to work even minimally successfully for themselves, that is an empirical question as to why the individual failed, not to why Capitalism didn’t “work” for him. Capitalism recognizes one’s freedom, and that’s it. Obviously, freedom will not “work” for individuals who don’t use their freedom productively. And people whose work is not valued by consumers will not do too well. There is no free lunch in nature, or under capitalism.

In general, virtually everyone does well under this freedom, but to widely varying degrees. Unmotivated people who resent the necessity of supporting themselves can usually find work, thanks to the entrepreneurial energy of business owners who flourish because of their freedom to do so. Motivated but handicapped people have better opportunities thanks to the advance of technology that Capitalist freedom facilitates. Even the people who are unable to work for themselves get along better. The history of  leaving people free as individuals to work for themselves is a history of massive "excess" wealth creation--wealth beyond what an individual needs for personal consumption. This wealth can be and often is used for not just investment and innovation but for charity, as well. In the 19th Century, before the welfare state and when America was much less prosperous than today, private charity was exploding as general prosperity rose.

Of course, we don’t have Capitalism today, except in bits and pieces. Because Capitalism protects individuals’ rights to work for themselves, it is not endearing to moochers, powerlusters, or the envious who resent the need to work and thus resent those who do. This is why Capitalism is constantly under attack. But to the extent we have Capitalism, we have the freedom to pursue what works for us. So, stop waiting for Capitalism to work for you, and go to it. It’s up to you.

Related Reading:

QUORA: ‘Why do you agree or disagree that Capitalism has been responsible for dramatically improving the working class’ standard of living?’

QUORA: ‘Given that I live in a capitalist society, how can I avoid having my labor exploited?’

QUORA *: 'How is capitalism good despite the fact that it creates higher and lower classes?'

QUORA: '[W]hy do we ignore all the examples of capitalism failing, like the major divide between the wealthy and the poor in the US?'

QUORA *: 'How is capitalism good despite the fact that it creates higher and lower classes?'

QUORA: '[W]hy do we ignore all the examples of capitalism failing, like the major divide between the wealthy and the poor in the US?'

QUORA *: 'How is capitalism good despite the fact that it creates higher and lower classes?'

QUORA: '[W]hy do we ignore all the examples of capitalism failing, like the major divide between the wealthy and the poor in the US?'

 

Inequality Has Surged Since 1989, but the Lifestyle Gap Has Shrunk by John Tamny for FEE

 

QUORA: ‘How is capitalism NOT a zero-sum game?’

The Moral Injustice of the Assault on the Space Billionaires

For Reason, Katherine Mangu-Ward writes in Bezos, Branson, and the Billionaire-Funded Race To Make Space a Bargain: Billionaires are going to space. They will help us get there too. She then notes critics of these ventures:

"Here on Earth, in the richest country on the planet, half our people live paycheck to paycheck," complained Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.). "But hey, the richest guys in the world are off in outer space! Yes. It's time to tax the billionaires."

The anger directed at Bezos, Branson, and SpaceX's Elon Musk stands in striking contrast to the high approval long enjoyed by NASA, even though the space agency spent the better part of the last decade unable to get humans off-planet at all while still soaking up billions in taxpayer dollars.

"Should billionaires play out their space travel fantasies," tweeted Rep. Ro Khanna (D–Calif.), a member of the NASA caucus, "or should we invest in schooling, provide healthcare, and create prosperity for everyone?"

The irony is that NASA takes our money without our consent to finance a space program that no ordinary citizen could ever hope to access. Yet when Branson, Musk, and Bezos spend their own wealth with the explicit goal of one day selling ever-cheaper tickets to all comers, that's when congressmen get grumpy. [my emphasis]

These Capitalist billionaires earned their fortunes. “Earning money” is something alien to these grumps. But these entrepreneurs earned their $billions by producing vast amounts of wealth, not to mention millions of jobs, for ordinary folks. They are now investing their fortunes in creating a new industry with the promise of untold new wealth and jobs for generations to come. 

Yet political criminals like Sanders and Khanna, who see industry only as milch cows while they themselves produce nothing—no wealth, no paychecks—want to tax these entrepreneurs’ wealth away for their pet wealth transfer schemes. This is injustice. Yet the worst thing about these assaults against the space billionaires is the moral premise underpinning them. They are being punished for their success and deprived of the pursuit of their own happiness because others need it. That is the altruist premise that ends in universal poverty. That is worse than unjust. That is hatred of the good for being the good. 

Mangu-Ward concludes:

Bezos, Branson, Musk, and others have overtaken a wildly expensive, ineffective government program and built a competitive industry, driving down the cost of getting a kilogram into Low Earth Orbit by 44-fold already. Which billionaire goes to space first, how high he flies, how big his rocket is, or how much of his income went to taxes last year—none of that matters. What matters is what the rest of us are going to do with access to those same spacecraft and bigger, better, and weirder ones in the years to come.

Kudos to Jeff Bezos and his Blue Origin, Richard Branson and his Virgin Galactic, and Elon Musk and his SpaceX -- and to hell with their mediocre, envious, nihilistic little critics.

Related Reading:

The NJ Star-Ledger's Barbaric Smear of Charles Koch

QUORA: 'How is becoming a billionaire even possible, chronologically?'

How is it Possible that ‘1% control over 95% of the wealth?’ It’s Not, and They Don’t.

All Earned Wealth, No Matter How Big the Fortune, is Deserved Whether ‘Needed’ or Not

Inequality Has Surged Since 1989, but the Lifestyle Gap Has Shrunk by John Tamny for FEE

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

From the NYT newsletter 7/21/21: Billionaires going to space is an expensive waste, Jacob Silverman argues in The New Republic. [But it’s their “waste.” We all “waste” money on pursuing our values. Mind your own damn business, Jacob] Liz Wolfe of Reason disagrees, writing that the feats will yield spinoff technologies that will improve life on Earth.

Related Viewing:

"The Unrelenting Beauty of Wealth Inequality" by John Tamny

100 Years Ago this July, a Deep Depression Ended. Why Was it Not ‘Great?’

A few years ago, I read a great book by James Grant, the publisher of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer and a regular CNBC contributor. The book is The Forgotten Depression: 1921: The Crash That Cured Itself. I reviewed it for The Objective Standard in September of 2015. 

Yes. There was a depression in 1920-21, as the country emerged from a wartime, inflation-infected economy. As Grant explains, the Federal Government’s laissez-faire approach to the depression of 1921, under both the Wilson and Harding Administrations, let economic adjustments work themselves out without government intervention. This “hands-off” approach led to a quick end to the economic collapse, and a sharp, job-filled, decade-long, innovation-rich economic expansion followed. This was the exact opposite of the Hoover/FDR approach to the depression of 1929-30, which led to the exact opposite result--a decade+ long Great Depression. I quote from my review:

As Grant observes:

The 1920–21 affair was the 14th business-cycle contraction since the panic year of 1812. Commercial and financial disturbances of one kind or another occurred in 1818, 1825, 1837, 1847, 1857, 1873, 1884, 1890, 1893, 1903, 1907, 1910 and 1913. . . . “In this period of 120 years,” according to a contemporary [congressional] inquest, “the debacle of 1920–21 was without parallel.” (pp. 5–6)

“So depression it was,” Grant concludes. “What would the government do about it?”

It would implement settled doctrine, as governments usually do. In 1920–21, this meant balancing the federal budget, raising interest rates to protect the Federal Reserve’s gold position and allowing prices and wages to find a new, lower level. Critically, what it would not do was what the Hoover administration so energetically attempted to do a decade later: There would be no federally led drive to maintain nominal wage rates and no governmentally orchestrated work sharing. For this reason, not least, no one would wind up affixing the label “great” on the depression of 1920–21. (pp. 71–72)

Nor would many people remember it. 

In a timely article for FEE, The Depression of 1920-1921: Why Historians—and Economists—Often Overlook It, John Phelan explains that the 1921 depression is usually overlooked by both historians and economists. 

Students of macroeconomics will learn about the Great Depression of the 1930s. They will learn that many of the policies routinely used to fight downturns now—fiscal stimulus and expansive monetary policy—were forged in those years. You can earn a degree in economics without ever encountering the Depression of 1920-1921. Yet, initially, it was as bad as that which began in 1929 [and by some measures, by Grant’s assessment, worse] but ended more quickly and was followed by a rapid recovery.

Whereas the policymakers of the 1930s—led by the defeated vice-presidential candidate of 1920, Franklin D. Roosevelt—diagnosed the economic problem facing them as unemployment and deflation, those of 1920 diagnosed it as the preceding inflation. Where policymakers of the 1930s used cheap money and government spending to boost demand, those of the 1920s saw this as simply repeating the errors which had created the initial problem. To them, there could be no true cure that didn’t deal with the disease, rather than the symptoms.

I think, unfortunately, that Phelan is a little soft on the question of why the 1921 depression is usually overlooked by both historians and economists.. He writes:

It is for history to judge who was correct, but it’s undeniable that the recovery of the Depression of 1920–1921 was immensely stronger and faster than that of the Great Depression. Ironically, this may be the very reason it is often overlooked in history and economic courses.

Well, I think 100 years is plenty of time for history to judge. The facts are known. They won’t change. I don’t think it’s ironic that the immensely stronger and faster 1921 recovery is overlooked. I think it’s deliberate. Today’s statist conventional wisdom cannot admit that non-intervention works, and massive government intervention and “stimulus” not only does not work—it makes matters worse. There’s no irony here. Statists control history and economics courses. This is the very reason 1921 is “overlooked,” and the Hoover/FDR Great Depression is the focus! I’m grateful for people like James Grant and John Phelan. We won’t get sound economic policies until history is properly and factually reported and learned.

Related Reading:

The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression  by Amity Shlaes

Memo to the NJ Star-Ledger: Obama Didn’t Cause the Recovery

Hidden in Plain Sight: What Really Caused the World's Worst Financial Crisis—and Why It Could Happen Again—by Peter J. Wallison

THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION by Don Watkins for ARI

BLM’s and the DSA’s Totalitarian Essence Exposed

From the Dispatch, 7/16/21, on the Cuban uprising:

“The people of Cuba are being punished by the U.S. government because the country has maintained its commitment to sovereignty and self-determination. United States leaders have tried to crush this Revolution for decades,” Black Lives Matter said in a statement Wednesday, referring to Cuba’s 1950s Marxist uprising that installed the sitting government. “Instead of amity, respect, and goodwill, the U.S. government has only instigated suffering for the country’s 11 million people—of which 4 million are Black and Brown.”

The whole statement contains laughable nonsense, such as that the U.S. economic embargo “undermines Cubans’ right to choose their own government,” and outright evil such as defending Cuba’s asylum for Assata Shakur, the former Joanne Chesimard convicted of the cold blooded murder of a New Jersey state trooper in 1973 and protected by the Cuban government ever since.

But the reference to that country’s “commitment to sovereignty and self-determination” gets to the heart of BLM’s ideological essence.

There are no collective rights apart from or above the individual rights that make up the collective, whatever the collective’s form. No country can claim sovereignty and self-determination unless it respects its own citizens' individual right to sovereignty and self-determination -- i.e., the inalienable rights to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the property rights necessary to the expression of those rights. Communist Cuba does not and never has respected or secured individual rights, which is the core motivation of the demonstrations. BLM once again exposes its totalitarian essence. 

Also noted by the Dispatch:

“DSA stands with the Cuban people and their Revolution in this moment of unrest,” the International Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America tweeted earlier this week, also in defense of the Communist regime. “End the blockade.”

What about the crushing tyranny that actual individual living, breathing, thinking Cuban people have suffered under and are protesting against? Not relevant, according to collectivism, which holds that the group, rather than the individual, is the standard of moral, economic, and political concern. That’s the evil genius of collectivism—Totalitarian ideologues can spout off about “the people '' while ignoring the economic and political crimes committed against actual people.

Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Socialists of America have totalitarian ideological foundations. Their defense of Cuba’s government and “revolution” have concretized the practical consequences of those ideas. I give them credit for honesty and consistency, Other communist/socialist apologists, such as Democrat Senators Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders, have tried to wriggle out of the fact that socialism is incompatible with individual rights, the only genuine form of liberty. Black Lives Matter and Democratic Socialists of America now sit in a rarefied group, honest socialists that includes people like Robert Heilbroner: They know liberty and socialism are antipodes, and they choose socialism anyway. They won’t let such considerations as liberty get in the way of their noble ideal. 

SUPPLEMENTAL, 7/22/21

It’s been said that Black Lives Matter is not seen by most people who express support for it for what it really is, a violent, totalitarian, racist movement. There’s certainly truth to that statement -- or at least was. Most supporters probably were innocently sincere in their belief that BLM actually was for justice for blacks, especially those victimized by police violence. But no supporters can now be granted a pass based on them being innocent dupes—not after BLM’s statement of support for the Cuban communist regime towards the Cuban protests. Here is an excerpt from a Reason article, In Their Own Words, This Is What It's Actually Like for Black and Brown People in Cuba, in which a disillusioned former BLM supporter awakens:

BLM in particular has been criticized by the right for having Marxist roots. While it is certainly not true that every person involved with or sympathetic to BLM is also a Marxist, the group's support of the communist regime in Cuba has cost it support from people who otherwise identify with the broader civil liberties goals of the movement.

"When they killed George Floyd I remember that all of [the Cubans] in Miami were accusing BLM of being Marxist, of being communist. And I defended them, bro. I would say, 'Look, it's more than that,'" the 25-year-old Cuban activist says in the voice recording. "And now I see that no, it's actually less than that. It's like they have this ideological starting point from which they see the world instead of standing alongside allies and people who are going through the same things they are."

"You feel alone," he adds. "You feel like…I don't know. It's a letdown. It's horrible, really."

All of you remaining BLM supporters, know this: You no longer have the luxury of ignorant innocence. If you support Black Lives Matter, you are supporting evil. Therefore, you are evil.

Related:

QUORA: ‘Is capitalism voluntary?’

A Socialist Confirms that the Basics of ‘True’ Socialism is Totalitarianism

Socialism's Totalitarian Nature Cannot Be Obscured by 'Democratic Socialism'

QUORA: ‘How does Black Lives Matter differ from the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s? Which is stronger?’

Exclusive: Cuban Activist Explains What’s Really Motivating the Cuban People’s Uprising by Brad Polumbo for FEE

No matter what media spin suggests, Marcell Felipe insists that the protests are a rejection of socialism and communism.

‘Unconscious’ Bias and the End of Justice

The Civil Rights Movement of the last century fought against legal discrimination, and won. In the 1960s, legal discrimination was wiped off of the books. The fight against racism continued, of course, and still does. But fighting to eliminate private, cultural racism, with much success, is not enough for some.

The modern so-called Anti-Racism movement is rooted in the idea that racism permeates all aspects of American culture, society, and even government and law, but that it is not overt, but covert. Critical Race Theory seeks, in part, to redress this  “structural” or “systemic” racism.  We got a taste of what that means in practice, from the highest court in New Jersey.

As Blake Nelson reports for NJ Advance Media for NJ.com (In ‘historic’ ruling, N.J.’s top court orders new murder trial saying ‘implicit bias’ tainted jury selection)

New Jersey’s Supreme Court unanimously ordered a new trial Tuesday for a man convicted of murder after concluding there was evidence of “implicit bias” during the jury selection process.

In 2017, the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office singled out one prospective juror for a background check after their request to have him removed was denied, according to court records. They found the candidate, a Black man identified only by initials in court papers, had a warrant and arrested him soon after.

“Based on all of the circumstances, we infer that F.G.’s removal from the jury panel may have stemmed from implicit or unconscious bias on the part of the State, which can violate a defendant’s right to a fair trial in the same way that purposeful discrimination can,” Chief Justice Stuart Rabner wrote in the decision.

The italics are mine. What this means is that there is no evidence of prejudice, bias, racism, or discrimination. It is “implicit bias” because the juror was a black man. If he were white, would the court have “found” any “unconscious bias?” What this means is that the court found no evidence or facts to back up the charge of racial bias. It just had to surmise that the prosecutor “may have” been biased. Imagine what the “may have” premise means in a court of law. What defense attorney will now not try to nullify a verdict based on the idea that bias may have been present. Imagine if a prosecutor implored a jury to return a guilty verdict despite weak evidence because, well, the defendant still may have done it. In the face of “may have,” what becomes of “beyond a reasonable doubt”; What becomes of “innocent until proven guilty”; What becomes of “the rule of law, not of men”; foundational American principles all?

Am I being alarmist? Considering that the NJ Supreme Court just made up bias out of whole cloth based not on evidence but on “may have,” I think not. This is the Supreme Court of a state, for God’s sake! Basically, the court declared themselves to be mind readers, or omniscient. “I don’t see any actual evidence for deliberate bias. But I just know it’s there. It just must be implicit, or unconscious, or . . . well . . . it just has to be there. Therefore, it is!” That’s the gist of this decision. Is this justice? No. Is this impartiality? No. Is this fair? No. Is this an arbitrary rule? Absolutely. This is a frontal assault on Americanism.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that what the prosecutor did was right. Here’s what happened:

In 2014, Edwin Andujar was accused of stabbing his roommate to death with a kitchen knife.

Andujar is Hispanic, according to online prison records, and lawyers began questioning potential jurors for his trial three years later.

One potential juror from Newark said he was familiar with the criminal justice system because he knew cousins in law enforcement, friends who’d been accused of crimes and others who’d been victims.

That experience meant the potential juror couldn’t be fair, prosecutors argued.

It’s “very concerning” that “his close friends hustle,” one prosecutor said, according to court records. “That draws into question whether he respects the criminal justice system.”

Andujar’s lawyer disagreed, saying “it is not a hidden fact that living in certain areas you are going to have more people who are accused of crimes, more people who are victims of crime,” court records show.

The judge sided with Andujar, concluding that the man “would make a fair and impartial juror.”

The prosecutor’s office then ran a background check.

They found the man had twice been arrested, although not convicted, and he had a current municipal court warrant for simple assault, according to court records.

None of that disqualified him as a juror, Rabner wrote. Yet prosecutors still moved to put him in handcuffs.

This certainly looks like a trick by the prosecutor to get around the judge’s ruling on that juror. I’m no legal expert, But having that juror arrested to get him off the jury certainty looks like abuse of prosecutorial power. That looks like grounds enough to throw the verdict out. So why, then, did the court resort to cheap imagination acrobatics to justify its ruling?

“The record reveals that implicit or unconscious racial bias infected the jury selection process in violation of defendant’s fundamental rights,” the chief justice wrote.

What “record?” The only record I see is prosecutorial abuse. What was “revealed?” It sounds more like a religious-like revelation. How does that prosecutorial abuse “reveal” racial bias? An unconscionable tactic, for sure. But racial bias? The only racial bias I see is in the court’s decision, which is based on the juror’s black skin color. This was an ideological, political decision to supplant rule of law with arbitrary rule of men to advance a racist, unAmerican agenda. With the justice system herein corrupted, what chance will anyone, especially anyone that now finds himself a the disfavored group, such as having “white” skin, have for a fair trial? Shame on the NJ Supreme Court for buying into this anti-justice collectivist evil.  

Related Reading:

The Racism of the ‘Anti-Racists’

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice—Craig Biddle

The Founding Fathers, Not ‘Diversity,’ is the Solution to ‘Our Racialized Society’

DelBarton Student’s 'Diversity' Initiative, Though Well-Meaning, is Based on Counter-Productive Premises

Starbucks/USA Today’s Racist “Race Together” Campaign

QUORA: ‘How does Black Lives Matter differ from the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s? Which is stronger?’

Racism, Idealism, and Justice

The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Related Viewing:

 

John McWhorter: America Has Never Been Less Racist -- Reason interview

QUORA: 'How many libertarians know that Ayn Rand based her philosophy on a famous child murderer?'

 QUORA: 'How many libertarians know that Ayn Rand based her philosophy on a famous child murderer?' 

I posted this answer:

I'm not even sure it's a serious question. If it is, it's the stupidest critique I've ever seen written about Objectivism. As a believer in Objectivism, I’m offended. But unlike “cancel culture” cowards, I’ll meet the question head-on, even though I’m not a Libertarian (whatever that vague term means). 

Though this has nothing to do with Objectivis­m or the current debate, I’ll comment anyway. You are guilty of major context-dr­opping. Rand did not idolize a serial killer, but abstracted an apparent individual­ist character trait of [ William Edward] Hickman’s for the purpose of creating a profile for a potential novel character (which was never written). Isolating an attribute from an otherwise monster does not imply supporting the monster. People have often commented on the charisma of Hitler. Acknowledging that demagoguery and charisma often go together is not an endorsement of demagogues, or a condemnation of charisma. No one would accuse someone of basing their beliefs on a racist mass murderer simply for observing that Hitler had charisma. Plenty of great leaders had charisma. Likewise, just as admiration for the intelligen­ce of a master thief does not imply idolizatio­n of the criminal or his crime nor invalidate the virtue of intelligen­ce. How often do we read about a serial killer whose neighbors are shocked that such a “good neighbor and family man” could be such a cold-blooded killer? Does this mean that those neighbors’ beliefs are “based on a “famous serial killer?” Don’t make me laugh.

So it was with the 23-year-ol­d Ayn Rand in regard to Hickman. It should be noted Rand’s musings on Hickman are part of her private notes, published for educational purposes. They are not part of Objectivism, Rand’s developed philosophy. In Rand’s case, she observed an element of independence in Hickman’s character, and mused about a fictional character infused with that trait. Being an advocate of independence, it shouldn’t be surprising that she zeroed in on that element of Hickman. Plenty of good people have an independent mind. That doesn’t make independence a vice. I don’t believe that other people should exist for me, nor do I think they should. That belief is certainly better than being a parasite who believes the world owes me a living or happiness. Does that mean that my philosophy of life is based on Hickman? Give me a break.

Rand abhorred the depravity of Hickman's behavior, of course, and said so. Hickman is discussed extensively in "Journals" on pages 22, 27, 36-39, and 40-44. On page 22, I quote from editor David Harriman:

Hickman served as a model for Danny [Renahan, a character in Rand's "The Little Street"] only in strictly limited respects, which AR names in her notes. Danny does commit a crime in the story, but it is nothing like Hickman's. To guard against any misinterpretation, I quote her own statement regarding the relationship between her hero and Hickman:

"[My hero is] very far from him, of course. The outside of Hickman, but not the inside. Much deeper and much more. A hickman with a purpose. And without the degeneracy. It is more exact to say that the model is not Hickman, but what Hickman suggested to me."

A question like this indicates a mind at an intellectual dead end. Unable to refute Rand’s ideas, the dead ender resorts to guilt by association and context-dropping.  Isolating and abstracting out a particular statement or character trait that one considers admirable is not an endorsement of that person’s life in full. Isolating and abstracting out is all that Rand did. 

Context is always crucial, and it’s right there in its entirety in “Journals of Ayn Rand”. It was 1928. One should take care to take isolated bits from never-inte­nded-for-p­ublication private journals and twist something ridiculous out of it. That statement is not an endorsemen­t of murder, as your quoting it absurdly implies. The totality of her published writing is an unequivoca­l condemnati­on of the initiation of physical force in human relationsh­ips, which she regarded as an unmitigate­d evil. How does that jibe with idolizing a killer? To believe that is to put yourself in the market for the Brooklyn Bridge.

Typical of her opponents, the questioner resorts to the cowardly ad hominem fallacy. It’s easy to cherry pick errors of thought or character flaws of thinkers, real or imagined. But Rand was 28 years old. Her philosophy was not fully developed until three decades later. Her chosen philosophical heir, Leonard Peikoff, systemized her philosophy in Objectivism, the Philosophy of Ayn Rand, published in 1993. The life and passing private thoughts of any intellectual can be anecdotally picked apart. But Rand’s philosophy is not called “Randism.” It is officially titled Objectivism, Rand’s own choice. If you’re going to critique Objectivis­m, then just do it. If you can find one shred of evidence that Objectivism is based on Hickman or any murderer, I’d love to see it. You can’t, because nobody can.*  To say that “Ayn Rand based her philosophy on a famous child murderer” because of musing in her private notes is a sign of a person who does not know what s/he is talking about and is at a mental dead end.

* [By the way, the link provided along with the question is of no help. Thom Hartmann’s article should be disregarded by anyone who objectively wants to make her own independent judgement on Objectivism. Hartmann’s screed boils down to an attack on Capitalism by a person who can’t refute Rand’s powerful defense of Capitalism on the merits.]

Related Reading:

Introduction to Objectivism from the Ayn Rand Institute

Books to Aid in Understanding Rational Selfishness

Did Ayn Rand Support the ‘Native American Genocide’?