That is the obvious argument that to take back is not hypocrisy in this case. It seems persuasive to me. I'm willing to take back what has been taken from me, when I can get away with it. It's just self defense. I wonder why people reject it out of hand.
This is not based on future taxation, but instead on increasing the money supply that would in theory increase inflation. Unless the Ayn Rand institute has massive cash reserves, it is a huge positive for them.
The rest of the article is complete confabulation trying to say that if the government didn't do anything the crisis wouldn't have been a big issue, which is a speculative assumption that goes contrary to evidence. In any case, if the government didn't create a PPP, they would be much worse off. Therefore, it is hypocrisy and not restitution.
They are specifically saying that the fact that the epidemic has ripped through the country is because the government intervened too much. Not the economic impact, simply the progression of the epidemic.
The economy did not collapse in the vast majority of countries, due to governmental intervention. Those countries also have much less infection.
> They are specifically saying that the fact that the epidemic has ripped through the country is because the government intervened too much
You're conflating things. You are making it sound like they are blaming the spread of the virus on the lockdown. It does not say that in the article. In fact, the article laments "America’s unpreparedness, the slowness of our response, and the byzantine maze of regulations." To the extent that it does blame the government for the spread, it doesn't blame it on the quarantine but on regulations preventing the medical industry from working efficiently. It does criticize the "entire nation under house arrest," but only as an outcome, distinct from part of the problems spreading the virus.
The fix for unpreparedness is not the free market, it is preparedness. Less regulation would not have fixed the issue. No country in the earth managed to curtail this pandemic using less regulation. Making the medical industry work more efficiently didn't help any country. What worked was the public sphere imposing non-pharmaceutical interventions, and distributing massive amounts of tests, in that order.
None of those problems can be fixed by less government.
Yes, the Spanish flu infected 1/3 of the world and resulted in 50 million deaths. It's possible covid-19 will get there as well but we're not anywhere close to that yet.
The Spanish flu had absolutely massive economic effects that would have undoubtedly led to a massive crisis if it wasn't for a minor event called World War One.
And the places that recovered economically the quickest are those that locked down more and earlier.
This statement ignores the dynamic pricing of markets.
The gas station is full today, but the marginal electrical care affects the supply/demand curve for gas today and in the future. If the current point of the supply/demand curve drops too low, supply will start to shut off.
Hence, electric cars are only "pointless" in the past before they were invented.
You can advocate for electric cars and still consider that making good use of an old gasoline car might be less carbon intensive than buying a brand new electric one.
Once the budget for the loan program was fixed, taking the loan wasn't going to cost us all any more money.
The broader point is that, by and large, her ideological stepchildren (even if we can't call them "adherents" per se; you know, the "get the government off the backs of the people" crowd) -- are, when push comes to shove, more than happy to dip their hand at the public till when it serves their self-interest.
So it's not like they are "forced" to temper down their principled stand against socialist interventionism (and only in exceptional circumstances, we are led to believe). It's more like that principle stand just doesn't exist, and never did exist. It's just a matter of who gets to benefit from it.
BTW, it's not like any support is needed for this observation - but just a tasty morsel from the recent news:
In that case why should anyone be against any kind of welfare? If they will take welfare when its in their interest why shouldn't I take welfare when it's in my interest, as well as vote for it to continue existing?
Also, as the link you posted says, it's those that have savings that lose from government printing money. The Ayn Rand institute does not have enough in savings for the PPP to be merely restitution. In fact, the PPP is a huge net positive for them.
That entire article is seldom more than lies and rhetoric.
Even Ayn Rand gladly accepted social security in her later years.[1] That doesn't stop her or her followers from "being against" government welfare.
However, it does show that they are willing to bend against their principles. In the words of a great movie "Principles only mean something when you stick to them when it's inconvenient." [2]
As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it is morally consistent to take something that you paid for, while putting forth an argument that you should not have been made by others to pay for it in the first place.
I read that comment as well, but you are choosing to argue philosophy in a different frame of reference by arguing "morally consistent" versus my "principles".
Except that in this case the Ayn Rand institute, having such low profits and cash reserves, isn't taking something they paid for. They are taking much more than they paid for, even though they didn't have to.
If you follow the philosophy that as long as you do not have the power to change your material circumstances that you should follow your interests, your philosophy is no more useful than nihilism.
There are so many grave misunderstandings of monetary theory, how government functions, or the net value of services provided for government in that article. It's fun to watch them get bent out of shape to justify their actions. In a way, if a parasitically selfish person is going to find a way to justify their selfishness with some pseudo-philosophy, they will find Ayn Rand, if there was no Ayn Rand, they'll find some other -ism supporting their position.
Politicians operate much the same. They find one set of economists or another to support whatever policy they've already settled on.
On its strongest form - many people tend to form an opinion first, based on whatever biases they have, and then go out and look for arguments in support of it. Including writers of this article. They decided to take the $, and then assigned someone to write a blog post to justify it :)
> As is well known, but seldom publicized, the growth of state power has enmeshed doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and biomedical firms in an ever-tightening web of regulations. Their every move is held suspect. Commercial test developers were prevented from getting early access to samples of the novel coronavirus, while the government bungled its own testing. Even when private hospitals want to add more hospital beds, they have to plead with government overlords for permission to do so.
"after her initial objections, she allowed social worker Evva Pryor, an employee of her attorney, to enroll her in Social Security and Medicare"
I do not think it was wrong of her to take government handouts in her later years. What was wrong, is wrong, is how her acolytes continue in the modern day breaking down that same system for others.
Rand's education was made possible by communists - both monetarily and also by fighting for the right of women to enter higher education. Always deliciously ironic to see.
This is an important point and should not be downvoted.
It's not possible to accurately argue "she would have received a better/more efficient education in a free market society" because that's a counterfactual.
In fact, it's probably more likely that she dedicated her whole life to overreacting against socialist economics in her writing preciselybecause she had been exposed to Stalinism/communism.
I'm having some difficulty understanding your statement:
>"It's not possible to accurately argue "she would have received a better/more efficient education in a free market society" because that's a counterfactual."
Do you mean to say that nobody can ever argue that a historical counterfactual might have been preferable? This would seem to be a rationalization of history, through a refusal to consider alternatives.
“the government has no wealth of its own…. It can only redistribute the wealth of others.”
Not only hypocrisy but also economic illiteracy.
Money != Wealth.
How terrifying that people like this get so powerful in a super state like the USA. Craven greed mixed with such refusal to deal with what is real mixed with heartlessness on a industrial scale.
I believe she started with doing plays in cities using WPA money to fund them, they were mock jury trials performed as stage plays to entice the human into more civic behavior.
If you want these "Payroll Protection Program" loans forgiven – that is, to receive the 'handout' – the funds must to be spent 75%+ on payroll expenses during the covered period, with a remainder spent on mortgages/rent/interest/utilities.
So that's what this recipient, & every other, will be spending the money on – unless they choose to either repay it, or defraud the program.
The play you are referring to is "Night of January 16th", but I cannot see any reference to your comments as to its funding (in the Wikipedia article). Do you have a citation for that?
By choosing to lobby for less taxation/redistribution and taking advantage of the benefits they lobby against they are folding on their principles.
And yes, the same for those who argue against tax cuts. They give up their principles by not sticking to them when they are inconvenient.
But there's also a practical concern: it's not possible to keep track of all counterfactuals / hypotheticals when it comes to tax/welfare laws. In Ayn Rand's case, she couldn't afford to live without social security in her later years (if the reports I read are to be believed). We frequently don't have the means to be consistent in our principled stands.
It seems like your 'practical concern' results in a ratchet against those in favor of simpler systems (of taxation, regulation, and welfare). The advocates of complexity can always renege, while the advocates for simplicity must always suffer.
Criticizing the Ayn Rand Institute for taking a PPP loan is flawed in the same way criticizing Ayn Rand herself for taking Social Security benefits during her retirement is flawed. In both cases, there are things the government forced upon Americans. You cannot avoid paying the taxes that fund social security without going to prison. In many cases, you could not avoid going to prison for keeping a non-essential business open through the pandemic. It's not a hypocritical endorsement of welfare expansion to simply take back from the state what they forcibly took away from you.
I think they are using "force" in the "the state has a monopoly on the use of force" sense.
Also, I think it's fine to argue against the current state of laws. It's not as if we are actually a democracy (at the federal level, the founding fathers didn't give us any direct democracy tools and those who could vote were an elite subset of the population). Even today we suffer from bad laws drafted by special interests and voted into existence by those who accept campaign contributions from those who drafted the laws.
There is little in the form of "direct democracy" in our current system of legislation.
That the policy was arrived at democratically doesn't change the fact that if something is taken from you, it is morally consistent to take it back, while arguing that the policy of taking in the first place is wrong.
I see your point, but in let's face the fact that Ayn Rand has always railed against what she called "mob rule" - for her I suppose the ideal democracy is one where we vote with our money.
I don't know why you'd be downvoted, this is absolutely right and explicitly what she believed. That if you've had something taken from you it is absolutely your right to take it back. To not would be self-sacrifice - for what? You can still argue that it shouldn't have been taken in the first place. It's consistent.
Actually this is the argument they used: https://newideal.aynrand.org/to-take-or-not-to-take/