htaunay et al, do not be so quick to discount Rand’s solutions. It is way too easy to make false assumptions about the nature of “Capitalism" as she defines it.
First you have to realize that Politics is but one of a philosophy’s necessary 5 interdependent branches: 1. Metaphysics, which answers the question “what is the fundamental nature of everything?” 2. Epistemology, which answers the question “how do I know that or anything else?" 3. Ethics, which answers the question “given #1 & #2, how should I act in order to achieve the fulfillment of my nature?” 4. Politics, which answers the question “what kind of relationship consistent with #3 should there be between me and others when living in a society?” 5. Aesthetics, which answers the question: “how can I experience concretely the the product of my abstract conclusions in #1-#4 before they are actual, and of what value would that be?”
The validity of any philosophy depends on 1) consistency of conclusions drawn within and between each of the branches and 2) consistency of those conclusions with the actual facts of reality.
So, half of the task in grasping Rand’s radical Capitalism is understanding what its principles are vs. all the other versions of Capitalism. The other half requires understanding how they rest on and derive from her Ethics. While it is easy to inform yourself of her political principles, you can neither validate them nor argue successfully against them without dealing with the ethical principles from which they are derived.
For instance, a Capitalist government, in Rand’s view, may not fund itself through taxation. 99% of her critics will argue that is impractical; but her Ethics, recognizing human fallibility, demands individual autonomy in the pursuit of one’s life, and inherent in claiming the right to autonomy is the obligation to grant it reciprocally to all others.
Therefore, the only job allowed or required of the government is to secure that autonomy for all by forbidding/preventing/punishing the use of force by anyone against others for gain. Since taxation is the use of force by one group against another group for gain, it is inherently immoral, and the immoral may never be argued to be “practical” under any circumstances.
If you cannot devise a way to fund the government without using force, you don’t get a government! If you want to know how to fund a massive worldwide service like Rand’s minimalist government in which those with money pay for it voluntarily while the poorest get it for free, just ask Google or Facebook, who have been there and done that.
Here are 13 fact based conclusions supporting radical laissez-faire Capitalism as the only moral form of government:
the metaphysics: 1) The existence of living organisms is conditional on self-generated selection and exercise of certain actions consistent with their specific nature in the face of alternatives.
2) The most fundamental of all alternatives for all living creatures is life or death.
the epistemology: 3) Of all living creatures, only a volitional human can initiate the selection of which alternative to pursue and how to pursue it.
the ethics: 4) The choice (deliberate or implied in all other choices) to pursue the fundamental alternative of life over death implicitly establishes one’s life as one's fundamental and primary goal.
5) One's fundamental goal is implicitly the standard of measure for all values one acts to gain or keep in its pursuit.
6) Therefore, that which contributes to one's life (consistent with one's nature, as opposed to mere vegetative existence) is necessarily "the ethical good", and that which detracts from it is "the ethical bad".
7) Since the identification and evaluation of goals/values is slow and deliberative while everyday life is spontaneous, the long run pursuit of life necessitates a hierarchical code of values in principle (ethics) to guide (by programming emotions) one's spontaneous choices in any alternative faced, and it requires one to opt, in each concrete instance, for that which is the higher value per that code in lieu of the lower one (the morality of egoism).
8) Man's singular means to fulfill these requirements of his nature in the pursuit of life is by applying the product of his reason to his actions in the production and exchange of values needed to survive and flourish consistent with the nature of the human being he is.
the politics: 9) The extension of that individual ethic to the social context of an individual living in a society of other volitional (and therefore fallible) men requires that one seek to preserve one's own autonomy over the application of one's own reason to one's own action in the pursuit of one's own life ( = freedom from the fallibility of others).
10) The only threat to a man's pursuit of his life in that context would be the initiation or threat of physical force by others to coerce certain choices of action against his will thus diminishing or negating the above defined individual autonomy.
11) The single most fundamental political alternative is therefore not left vs. right, or liberal vs. conservative, but rather: freedom vs. force (autonomy vs. coercion).
12) Therefore, it is morally imperative that each individual human being living in a society of men advocate and sustain, to the best of his efforts and extent possible, a third party institution authorized to remove the use of aggressive force from all human interactions within its jurisdiction.
13) A moral government must therefore guarantee that:
No person shall initiate the use of physical force or threat thereof to take, withhold, damage or destroy any tangible or intangible value of another person who either created it or acquired it in a voluntary exchange, nor impede any other person's non-coercive actions.
Note that every interrelationship, every exchange of values, tangible or intangible among those who are acting in their own rational self interest must be voluntary. Further, in every voluntary exchange of values, both parties profit. Each gives up something he values less to get something he values more, and they do it without using force. That is the essence of a free market!
Thus, no one can oppose Ayn Rand’s politics without sooner or later embracing the use of force against others for their own gain.