When Ayn Rand Collected Social Security and Medicare, After Years of Opposition

http://www.openculture.com/2016/12/when-ayn-rand-collected-social-security-medicare.html

by severine • 10 years ago

27 34 10 years ago

dmfdmf• 10 years ago

She answered this question regarding accepting public scholarships but the principle is the same. The money was taken from her by force so she had every right to recoup her losses.

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/government_grants_and_scho...

good_gnu• 10 years ago

The recipient of a public scholarship is morally justified only so long as he regards it as restitution and opposes all forms of welfare statism. Those who advocate public scholarships, have no right to them; those who oppose them, have. If this sounds like a paradox, the fault lies in the moral contradictions of welfare statism, not in its victims.

Basically things that Ayn Rand hates are bad--except when Ayn Rand does them and then it's because the things are unreasonable, not Ayn Rand.

LyndsySimon• 10 years ago

Rand was extremely influential to me, but you're absolutely right on this. I stopped calling myself an Objectivist long ago because I kept getting into arguments with others who took the label over things that Rand did that are blatantly against her first principles, but that Rand held a contradictory position.

In particular, Rand supported US foreign aid to Israel in her later years despite strongly denouncing the concept of foreign aid in its entirety prior.

ajss4• 10 years ago

Ayn Rand didn't use force to take anyone's money. That's what she hated. When those who took her money offered her a small portion back, her philosophy didn't require her to refuse it.

Like if she was in a forced labour concentration camp, her philosophy wouldn't require her to refuse to eat the food she was offered.

wavefunction4• 10 years ago

It wasn't taken by force but instead by Rand's personal complicity and implicit consent by living within a society that has decided to enact the Social Security and Medicare programs and levy fees and taxes associated with those programs. And given that she received more than she put in, there was no principle for her to stand behind.

dominotw2• 10 years ago

given that she received more than she put in

Do you by any chance have the numbers ?

kolbe5• 10 years ago

If that's the case, then I hope you will be just as eager to take personal responsibility for the US's war crimes, if the day of reckoning ever comes. But I have a feeling you will instead try to focus on your personal efforts to end US wars, rather than get sucked into the implication that being a US citizen made you a de facto supporter of the war crimes.

stale20023• 10 years ago

She was against it. She specifically did NOT give the government her consent. But she was forced to pay it anyway under threat of jail.

If you threaten to kidnap people and put them in a cage, you can't go around saying you have their "consent" when they give in to your threats.

loki49152• 10 years ago

By your logic, any slave in the Old South who didn't try to escape the plantation "consented"to whatever was done to them.

ajss4• 10 years ago

You don't think government taxes by force? What about all the people imprisoned for not paying their taxes?

She became a wealthy woman from her successful books, so she paid far more in than she ever took out. Her estate was valued at about a million dollars when she died in 1982. Her total receipts from social security $14,000.

DoodleBuggy2• 10 years ago

You pay for social security and medicare your entire working life with a separate direct tax. It is not an entitlement or a handout, it is quite similar to a pension.

grandalf2• 10 years ago

It's supposed to be. But due to demographic shifts and dishonest officials the program now requires ample supply of young workers in order to be able to pay out the benefits to older workers. Inevitably, benefits get cut.

If trends continue, the program will eventually turn into pure welfare.

DoodleBuggy2• 10 years ago

Most of the supposed difficulties with social security and medicare are entirely manufactured by politicians to push some specific agenda for an industry who would benefit directly from particular changes, if not privatization.

FICA is essentially just an automated savings program, it's not particularly complex.

grandalf2• 10 years ago

Social security was supposed to be an investment program so the benefits were earned after years of contributions.

The problem is, demographics have changed and so it became a welfare program. To make matters worse, it became unsustainable without significant cuts, which makes the payroll tax not a required investment but a regressive penalty.

kolbe5• 10 years ago

This argument, which I see come up every few years, is disingenuous and misleading propaganda at best. I don't even like Ayn Rand, but to have her name smeared by anti-intellectual shit like this so much worse than the overly-simplified libertarian utopias she tried to convince us could exist.

Edit: apparently I need to have a supporting argument for why this is "anti-intellectual shit" or else I face a ban or something. The reason: Ayn fought to change the US into something that fit her vision of a properly organized society. She failed to make that change, and the US continued to be organized in a manner that she very much disagreed with. The fact that she participated in the legal framework that she was subjected to doesn't make her a hypocrite, nor does it imply that she changed her opinion of welfare states at the end of her life. The fact that the author of this article comes to this conclusion, or the fact that he even thinks its noteworthy to rub in her face her failures to insight the changes wished for, is anti-intellectual shit.

throwayawnotime• 10 years ago

citation needed. Inspired by Rand's naive theories, greenspan and his ilk did indeed implement a policy of robbing those producers of wealth that did not also happen to be owners of politicians. That is a fact in my books. Interesting article thanks for the post.

kolbe5• 10 years ago

What are you asking me to cite? Did you mean 'explanation'?

ajss4• 10 years ago

Robbing producers of wealth that did not also happen to be the owners of politicians is directly contrary to Rand's moral system.

dang2• 10 years ago

disingenuous and misleading propaganda [...] anti-intellectual shit

This is the kind of thing the HN guidelines refer to as name-calling and ask you to edit out: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Indeed if you did edit it all out, this comment would arguably be reduced to nothing. Please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN.

grzm• 10 years ago

s/substantive/unsubstantive/ ?

stale20023• 10 years ago

If someone threatens to put you in a cage if you don't give them your money, are you a hypocrite for getting your money back from them that they took from you, at a later date?

woodruffw• 10 years ago

That's akin to Nozick's argument, not Rand's.

If Rand wanted to prove a point, she should have sued for her money instead of collecting it in a tidy monthly check. The former would be completely frivolous, but also necessarily consistent with her ideology. As it was, collecting social security and then confabulating the reasons reeks of intellectual bankruptcy.

ajss4• 10 years ago

Her reasons were given a long time before she ever received social security (1974). Rand's moral system did not require her to file lawsuits that had no chance of success.

stale20023• 10 years ago

No, Rand wants everything to be determined by lawsuits. But if the law/governmemt is corrupt, there is no reason to just sit there and take it while you are being abused.

This is a fully consistent argument.

It is morally OK to steal money from thieves who took your money.

disposablezero• 10 years ago

"If all men were angels, no government would be necessary." -James Madison

Since Tragedy of the Commons and the reality of human nature, libertarianism is a dog-whistle for utopian anarchism ("rugged individualism"), a nearly polar-opposite over-reaction to another failed utopian system: communism. The proven (still flawed, and often recalibrating) workable middle-ground, balancing competing tyrannies is something approaching democratic socialism... America though is currently much more on the libertarian side for poor people and welfare state for the rich due to the undue, corrupting influences of billionaires' lobbyists and their money (tax code, corporate welfare, etc.) In countries like the UK, France and other parts of Europe there is guaranteed healthcare... In America, if you are dying in an ER and broke without Obamacare, you will likely be forced into bankruptcy from hospital bills.

craigvn• 10 years ago

The real question is, if her welfare expenses equaled or exceeded what she had "stolen" would she have stopped taking it back and been happy to die?

When Ayn Rand Collected Social Security and Medicare, After Years of Opposition

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