Letters and Answers
The Philosophy Newsletter is a very variable enjoyment, but it comes as a shock to see the ridiculous self-centred balderdash of Ayn Rand still being put forward as a worthy basis for a way of life.
Her influence on the world of business, economics and government has been entirely bad, in that it justifies greed and selfishness as the basis of a way of life. Her philosophical image of the world has been the basis of the trend over the recent decades for the rich to get richer and the poor poorer, because the rich believe they deserve their "rewards", and they can use their money to influence government policy in their favour and create or destroy governments.
Her "individualists" are seen as struggling against others to achieve a better quality of life and keeping the world going by filling wage packets and paying taxes, but that is rubbish.
The vast majority of them start off rich anyway, and those that become rich make their fortunes by finding new ways of acquiring wealth without directly competing with their established rivals.
They make sure they don't fill any more paypackets than they absolutely have to and put as little in as they can get away with.
They demand lower taxes and find ways to avoid paying them wherever possible.
I could go on at length, but that would mean looking carefully - even scientifically - at what is happening in the real world.
Putting that stuff up as the basis of a philosophical argument is making philosophy look ridiculous.
Sid Gould
