Ayn Rand: Introduction to Philosophy & Objectivism

Argument against Capitalism, from intimidation

CAPITALISM IS:

selfishness

greed

ambition

consumerism

commercialism

materialistic

vulgar pursuit

excessive (wealth / profit)

excessive power (money talks)

cut-throat competition (unfair / dog-eat-dog)

rat-race (constant changes)

exploitation: businessman as slave driver / tyrant

Fat-Cat bankers and Wall Street brokers

machines denounced as “inhuman”

factories denounced as blemish on beauty of countryside

we need to get “back to nature”

Ayn Rand (For the New Intellectual): In the world of “old” money (of nobles and the church), intellectuals did not inquire into the source of wealth or ever ask what made it possible (causality is an illusion and that only the immediate moment is real). They took it as an axiom . . . that wealth can be acquired only by force—and that a fortune as such is the proof of plunder, with no further distinctions or inquiries necessary.

. . . proclaiming this in the midst of a period when a greater amount of wealth than had ever before existed in the world was being brought into existence all around them. If the men who produced that wealth were thieves, from whom had they stolen it?—answer: from those who had not produced it. They were refusing to acknowledge the industrial revolution . . . .