... Recommend this page to a friend. Ayn Rand Says... A society without an organized government would be at the mercy of the first criminal who came along ... and who would precipitate it into the chaos of gang warfare. An emotion tells you nothing about reality, beyond the fact that something makes you feel something. An individualist is a man who says: "I will not run anyone's life - nor let anyone run mine ... I will not rule or be ruled. I will not be a master nor a slave. I will not sacrifice myself to anyone - nor sacrifice anyone to myself." Any alleged "right" of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right. As far as the issue of actual pollution is concerned, it is primarily a scientific, not a political, problem. In regard to the political problem involved ... if a man creates a physical danger or a harm to others, which extends beyond the line of his own property, such as unsanitary conditions or even loud noise ... and if this is proved, the law can and does hold him responsible. And if the condition is collective, such as in an overcrowded city, then appropriate and objective laws can be defined, protecting the rights of all those involved - as was done in the case of oil rights, air-space rights, etc. But such laws cannot demand the impossible, must not be aimed at a single scapegoat, such as the industrialists, and must take into consideration the whole context of the problem ... i.e., the absolute necessity of the continued existence of industry ... certainly if the preservation of human life is the standard. Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men. Competition is a by-product of productive work, not its goal. A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others. Do not make the mistake of thinking that a worker is a slave and that he holds his job by his employer's permission ... He does not hold it by permission - but by contract, that is, by a voluntary mutual agreement ... A worker can quit his job; a slave cannot. Even if smog were a risk to human life, we must remember that life in nature, without technology, is wholesale death. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values. If it were true that a heavy concentration of industry is destructive to human life, one would find life expectancy declining in the more advanced countries. But the opposite is true; it has been rising steadily ... Anyone over 30 years of age today, should give a silent "Thank you" to the nearest, grimiest, sootiest smokestacks you can find. If some men are entitled by right to the products of the work of others ... it means that those others are deprived of rights and condemned to slave labor. In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In Western Civilization, the period which was ruled by mysticism is known as the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages ... It was an era of mysticism, ruled by blind faith and blind obedience to the dogma that - faith is superior to reason. I will assume that you know the nature of that period and the state of human existence in those ages ... And the Renaissance was specifically the rebirth of reason, the liberation of man's mind, the triumph of rationality over mysticism. "Twas a faltering, incomplete, but impassioned triumph that led to the birth of science, of individualism, of freedom ... The Renaissance broke the rule of the mystics. "Renaissance" means "rebirth." Few people today will care to remind you that it was a rebirth of reason - of man's mind. It is not justice or equal treatment that you grant to men when you abstain equally from praising men's virtues and from condemning men's vices. When your impartial attitude declares, in effect, that neither the good nor the evil may expect anything from you - whom are you then betraying, and whom are you then encouraging? It is only because physical force is barred from social relationships that men need an institution charged with the task of protecting their rights under an objective code of rules ... And this is the task of a government - of a proper government ... its basic task, its only moral justification and the reason that men do need a government. And this government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of physical force under objective control, and that is, under objectively defined laws. It is the metaphysically given that must be accepted: it cannot be changed. It is the man-made that must never be accepted uncritically: it must be judged, then accepted or rejected and changed when necessary. Know that every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship ... needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation's troubles, and then use as a justification of its own demand for dictatorial powers ... So in Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen. Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice. And the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man - by choice; he has to hold his life as a value - by choice; he has to learn to sustain it - by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues - by choice. Neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims. Just as man is free to attempt to survive by any random means, as a parasite, a moocher or a looter, but not guaranteed to succeed at it beyond the range of the moment - so he is free to seek his happiness in any irrational fraud, any whim, any delusion, any mindless escape from reality, but not guaranteed to succeed at it beyond the range of the moment nor to escape the consequences. No man can have a right to impose an unchosen obligation, an unrewarded duty or an involuntary servitude on another man. There can be no such thing as "the right to enslave." On three of the rules governing the mechanics of compromise: In any conflict between two men (or two groups) who hold the same basic principles, it is the more consistent one who wins. In any collaborationbetween two men (or two groups) who hold different basic principles, it is the more evil or irrational one who wins. When opposite basic principles are clearly and openly defined, it works to the advantage of the rational side; when they are not clearly defined, but are hidden or evaded, it works to the advantage of the irrational side. Philosophy studies the fundamental nature of existence, of man, and of man's relationship to existence ... As against the special sciences, which deal only with particular aspects, philosophy deals with those aspects of the universe which pertain to everything that exists. In the realm of cognition, the special sciences are the trees, but know that philosophy is the very soil which makes the forest possible. Since time immemorial and pre-industrial ... "greed" ... has been the accusation hurled at the rich by the concrete-bound illiterates who were unable to conceive of the source of wealth or of the motivation of those who produce it. The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value [period] Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. Now these are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute of altruism, is self-sacrifice, which means ... self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction, which means - the self as a standard of evil, and the selfless as a standard of the good ... Regretfully, Buddy's Lubavitcher rabbi friend will totally disagree with this. Last sentence inserted by Buddy, of course. The end does not justify the means. No one's rights can be secured by the violation of the rights of others. The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence ... And a proper government is only a policeman ... always acting as an agent of man's self-defense ... and as such, may only resort to force only against those who start the use of force. To deal with men by force is as impractical as to deal with nature by persuasion. To the extent that a man is guided by his rational judgment, to that extent ... he acts in accordance with the requirements of his nature and, to that extent, succeeds in achieving a human form of survival and well-being; but to the extent that he acts irrationally, he then acts as his own destroyer. Under a proper social system, a private individual is legally free to take any action he pleases (so long as he does not violate the rights of others), while a government official is bound by law in his every official act. A private individual may do anything except that which is legally forbidden; a government official may do nothing except that which is legally permitted ... The Virtues of Selfishness (1963) Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. When - "the common good" - of a society is regarded as something apart from and superior to the individual good of its members, it means that the good of some men takes precedence over the good of others, with those others consigned to the status of sacrificial animals. When I say "capitalism," I mean a pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism - with a separation of economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as a separation of state and church. The following is more difficult; I'm still scratching my head on it: Existence does exist ... and the very act of grasping that statement implies two corollary axioms: that something exists which one perceives and that one exists possessing consciousness, consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists. If nothing exists, there can be no consciousness: a consciousness with nothing to be conscious of is a contradiction in terms ... A consciousness conscious of nothing but itself is a contradiction in terms: before it could identify itself as consciousness, it had to be conscious of something. If that which you claim to perceive does not exist, what you possess is not consciousness. So we return to ... Menu ... or to the ... King’s ... I Have a Dream.