What was ayn rands first book

State regulation of the market, she argues, is responsible for corrupting both state and market institutions, just as political regulation of religion or religious regulation of politics , wherever it exists, corrupts both state and religious institutions. Regulation creates the opportunity for the trading of favors between politicians and religious leaders, and politicians and businesses. She does, of course, praise capitalism or semi-capitalism for creating widespread prosperity, but this feature is itself explained only by the fact that it leaves individuals free to produce in peace.

She holds that for a short period in the nineteenth-century America came closer to a laissez-faire system than any other society before or since, but that capitalism remains an unknown ideal. Some critics complain, however, that in her non-fiction c Rand does not always recognize the aristocrats of pull in the real world—business leaders who lobby politicians for subsidies for themselves and restrictions on their competitors Rothbard ; Johnson In such a society, competition and opportunity will flourish, and prevent concentration of power in a few hands.

Is it true, however, that rational interests cannot conflict, or that, if they do, it follows that rights must also conflict? We think that whenever two or more people have a rational interest in one good, there is potential for conflict, and sometimes that potential is actualized. To show otherwise, Rand considers a situation in which two people apply for the same job, and the better candidate gets the job. There is no conflict of interests here, she argues, because the better candidate has earned the job, and the loser cannot rationally wish to have been given the job.

Both points are well-taken. But what if the employer is not rational and gives the job to the somewhat less qualified applicant because, say, he reminds the employer of his long-lost brother?

Or, what if the two candidates are equally qualified, and the hiring committee chooses one over the other by tossing a coin? In both cases there is a conflict of interests between two rational applicants. The second possibility, that of two equally qualified candidates, she does not consider at all. Rand would be on firmer ground if she were to argue that there is no necessary conflict between rational interests, that is, that it is not in their nature to conflict.

When they conflict, it is due to contingent factors, such as only one job for two equally qualified people. In any case, a conflict between rational interests does not entail a conflict between rights, since, as Rand herself points out, neither party has a right to the job. Such a government is minimal, limited to protecting us from criminals and foreign aggressors, and enforcing individual rights and contracts with the help of the police and armed forces, using objectively defined civil and criminal laws and courts.

Accordingly, the government may use or threaten force only in retaliation against those who initiate or threaten force directly or indirectly. Statism in all its forms, from unlimited democracy to a mixed economy to dictatorship, is at odds with our status as independent, rational beings, as ends in ourselves. The fountainhead of all progress is the human mind, and the mind does not function well when forced. There is a judge to arbitrate disagreements, but there has never been any need for arbitration.

Anarchist critics, such as Roy Childs [] and Murray Rothbard , have argued that a territorial monopoly on law and force government is not necessary, because people can establish a just and effective legal system in a competitive market of security providers see Long and Machan The Law Merchant, a body of law established and enforced in private courts by the merchants of various countries, illustrates the possibility of an effective voluntary legal system. Cox a and b. The trader principle states that a voluntary, mutually beneficial exchange between independent equals is the only basis for a mutually respectful and rational relationship b: The trader principle applies to emotional relationships as well.

It would seem, however, that the trade between parent and child is unequal, given that the child receives both pleasure and material support from the parent.

And it is unclear how the trader principle applies at all when a severe disability renders a beloved child or spouse a source of pain rather than pleasure. Branden One literary critic argues that Dagny is the first, and perhaps only, epic heroine in Western literature because of the grandness of her vision, her courage and integrity, her unusual abilities, and her national importance Michalson In all three novels, it is the heroine who has the power to choose which of the men who love, admire, and desire her and only her she will have.

Her relationship to the feminist movement, however, was more complex. Branden ; Presley ; Sheaffer ; Taylor Another objects that Rand has internalized a masculine conception of human nature and virtue, and then created her ideal woman in light of this conception Brownmiller ; Glennon Brown At least as offensive to many are the violent sex scenes in her novels, especially the infamous scene in The Fountainhead that many regard as rape, where Howard Roark has sex with Dominique in spite of her resistance.

Those who reject the charge of rape argue that in the s and 50s, when Rand wrote her novels, it would have been seen as rough sex rather than non-consensual sex McElroy ; Sheaffer Rand holds that our actions need guidance by a vision of the fundamental nature of the universe and of the efficacy of human thought and activity—a vision that can be grasped directly rather than requiring the conscious repetition of long chains of abstract reasoning.

The chief function of art is to meet this psychological need by expressing abstract conceptual values and metaphysical truths in concrete perceptible form. There is controversy among Rand scholars as to whether what is re-created in art is certain elements of reality or reality as a whole, i. While art can be used to convey information or to advocate a position, such functions are secondary to its chief task: providing an object whose mere contemplation brings spiritual fulfillment. Hence Rand does not regard her own novels primarily as vehicles for her philosophy, though of course they are that inter alia.

Given her own worldview, Rand favors literature with a strong plot as a way of expressing purposeful human action in a world of causal regularity, and stories involving value-conflicts as a way of expressing the importance of free choice; hence her preference for romantic as opposed to, e. Aristotle concepts egoism ethics: virtue incommensurability: of scientific theories justification, epistemic: foundationalist theories of libertarianism moral realism reference rights substance.

Introduction 1. Ethics 2. Social-Political Philosophy 3. In her own words, her philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

Her novels show the importance of striving to be the best we can be: Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all.

As she puts it: Metaphysically, life is the only phenomenon that is an end in itself: a value gained and kept by a constant process of action. Animals of many species risk their own lives for the sake of reproduction, or for protecting their young or even their group.

But even if survival were the ultimate goal of other species, it need not be ours. Even if our own survival needs were the source of all our values, it would not follow that survival must be the ultimate psychological and moral goal to which all our other values are merely necessary means.

The genesis of x does not logically determine the ultimate goal of x. The survivalist view that turns happiness into a mere means to survival entails, quite implausibly, that a long, unhappy life is better than a somewhat shorter but happy life, and just as good as a long and happy one.

Many dictators, including the Pharaohs of the past and the Stalins and Maos of the 20 th century, have survived by making elaborate plans to preserve their lives and their power by using a combination of terror, myth, and bribery. Their gross injustice poses a far greater threat to the lives of their subordinates than to their own. A survivalist ethics can support, at best, a bare-bones Hobbesian morality, not a virtue ethics.

Her rich and challenging picture of human life and virtue in her novels points to a richer and more challenging conception of the final end than mere survival. Neither can be reduced to survival simpliciter. But why will it harm us? Because we have unjustly and irrationally hurt another out of spite, and injustice and irrationality are bad for us. Clearly, then, the wrongness of our action and motivation depends, in the first instance, on what we know it will do to our victims.

This is why we ought to apologize to them, and not to ourselves. As Rand says elsewhere: A right is the sanction of independent action. Rand argues that the only just social-political system, the only system compatible with our rational nature and with the right of individuals to live for their own sakes, is capitalism , b , that is, laissez-faire capitalism—with a separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.

Rand defines government as: an institution that holds the exclusive power to enforce certain rules of social conduct in a given geographical area. Aesthetics Rand holds that our actions need guidance by a vision of the fundamental nature of the universe and of the efficacy of human thought and activity—a vision that can be grasped directly rather than requiring the conscious repetition of long chains of abstract reasoning.

New York: New American Library. Binswanger ed. Binswanger and L. Peikoff eds , New York: Meridian; 1 st edition, Peikoff ed. Berliner ed. Harriman ed.

Schwartz ed. Hull and L. Peikoff, New York: Plume. Garmong trans. Ralston ed. Boeckmann ed. Mayhew ed. Podritske and P. Works by Others Badhwar, N.

Paul ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. New York: Oxford University Press. Salmieri and J. Barnes, H. Benson, L. Binswanger, H. Salmieri and R. Mayhew eds. Bissell, R. Branden, B. Branden, , Who is Ayn Rand? Branden, N. Brown, S. Browne, G. Brownmiller, S. Burns, J. Childs, R. Childs, Jr. Taylor ed. Cox, S. Den Uyl, D. Dipert, R. Feyerabend, P. Flew, A. Gilligan, C. Ghate, O. Gladstein, M. Glennon, L. Gotthelf, A. Lennox eds. Hampton, J. Harrison B. September : 24—34, reprinted in Gladstein and Sciabarra 67— Explore the links below to learn more about this fascinating author's fiction and non-fiction work.

It is the novel in which Rand first presented and dramatized her radical morality of rational self-interest — and which has launched a philosophical revolution. The Fountainhead The powerful novel that made Ayn Rand famous: the story of a rebellious individualist, architect Howard Roark — and his battle to live and work by his own standards.

Anthem A beautifully written and inspiring novelette of a man who, in a totally collectivist future, rediscovers his own sense of selfhood. These early short stories were not intended for publication, but were written while Ayn Rand was still learning her literary craft and gaining familiarity with the English language.

They have considerable charm, however, and contain the seeds of ideas and values that would characterize her mature work. These stories and others are anthologized in The Early Ayn Rand. This short story, set in a Soviet prison camp for political dissidents, dramatizes enduring themes of individualism and love. Night of January 16th This exciting courtroom melodrama ran successfully on Broadway, and is a staple of the amateur stage.

A truly unique feature of this play is that the jury is chosen from the audience—and how they decide the trial is determined by their philosophies. Unconquered Ayn Rand adapted this play from her novel, We the Living. Though it ran on Broadway briefly, it was not successful. It has not yet been published. Reading Lists. What is Objectivism? Personal Application.

Around this time, Rand also completed her first novel, We the Living. Published in after several rejections, We the Living championed the moral authority of the individual through its heroine's battles with a Soviet totalitarian state. Rand followed with the novella Anthem , about a future collectivist dystopia in which "I" has been stamped out of the language.

The result, after years of writing and more rejections, was The Fountainhead. While not an immediate success, The Fountainhead eventually achieved strong sales, and at the end of the decade became a feature film, with Gary Cooper in the role of Roark.

Rand's ideas became even more explicit with the publication of Atlas Shrugged. A massive work of more than 1, pages, Atlas Shrugged portrays a future in which leading industrialists drop out of a collectivist society that exploits their talents, culminating with a notoriously lengthy speech by protagonist John Galt. The novel drew some harsh reviews, but became an immediate best seller.

Around , Rand met with a college student named Nathan Blumenthal, who changed his name to Nathaniel Branden and became the author's designated heir. Along with his wife, Barbara, Braden formed a group that met at Rand's apartment to engage in intellectual discussions. Rand soon honed her philosophy of what she termed "Objectivism": a belief in a concrete reality, from which individuals can discern existing truths, and the ultimate moral value of the pursuit of self interest.

The development of this system essentially ended her career as a novelist: In , the Nathaniel Branden Institute formed to spread her message through lectures, courses and literature, and in , the author and her top disciple launched The Objectivist Newslette r. Her books during this period, including For the New Intellectual and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal , were primarily comprised of previously published essays and other works.

Following a public split with Braden, the author published The Romantic Manifesto , a series of essays on the cultural importance of art, and repackaged her newsletter as The Ayn Rand Letter.

She continued traveling to give lectures, though she was slowed by an operation for lung cancer. Rand was working on a television adaptation of Atlas Shrugged when she died of heart failure at her home in New York City on March 6,