Quotes by Ayn Rand on Politics, Society, and the Nature of Government

 

* A society that robs an individual of the product of his effort, or enslaves him, or attempts to limit the freedom of his mind, or compels him to act against his own rational judgment – a society that sets up a conflict between its edicts and the requirements of man’s nature – in not, strictly speaking, a society, but a mob held together by institutionalized gang-rule.

* Life on a desert island is safer than and incomparably preferable to existence in Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany.

* If men are to live together in a peaceful, productive, rational society and deal with one another to mutual benefit, they must accept the basic social principle without which no moral or civilized society is possible: the principle of individual rights.

* Man’s rights can only be violated by the use of physical force. It is only by means of physical force that one man can deprive another of his life, or enslave him, or rob him, or prevent him from pursuing his own goals, or compel him to act against his own rational judgment.

* The precondition of a civilized society is the barring of physical force from social relationships – thus establishing the principle that if men wish to deal with one another, they may do so only be means of reason: by discussion, persuasion, and voluntary, uncoerced agreement.

* In a civilized society, force may only be used in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. All the reasons which make the initiation of physical force an evil, make the retaliatory use of physical force a moral imperative.* Under a proper social system, a private individual is legally free to take any action he pleases (so long as he does not violate the rights of others), while a government official is bound by law in his every official act. A private individual may do anything except that which is legally forbidden; a government official may do nothing except that which is legally permitted. This is the means of subordinating “might” to “right.” This is the American concept of “a government of laws, and not men.”

* Since the protection of individual rights is the only proper purpose of a government, it is the only proper subject of legislation: all laws must be based on individual rights and aimed at their protection.

* Such, in essence, is the proper purpose of a government: to make social existence possible to men, by protecting the benefits and combatting the evils which men can cause to one another.

* The proper functions of a government fall into three broad categories, all of them involving the issue of physical force and the protection of men’s rights: the police, to protect men from criminals – the armed services, to protect men from foreign invaders – the law courts, to settle disputes among men according to objective laws.

--from Ayn Rand’s essay The Nature of Government (December 1963)

The War

 

Life is an on-going battle between liberalism and illiberalism. This has been so for 2600 years, ever since the Greeks discovered and invented reason. This contest is true for every individual and society which is decently aware of Western liberalism. The philosophy, culture, lifestyle, and attitude of liberalism wages a pivotal and never-ending war against its right-wing and left-wing opposites.

"Conservatives" are really reactionaries against liberalism. "Progressives" are really regressives against liberalism. The old ideas and institutions which the Right seeks to hold onto aren’t worth conserving, and are inferior to the liberal alternatives. The new ideas and institutions which the Left seeks to move towards don’t constitute progress, and are inferior to the liberal alternatives. Both conservatism and progressivism are irrational and immoral.

Both the right-wing conservatives and the left-wing progressives are fatuous and depraved enemies which seek to replace and destroy the philosophy, culture, lifestyle, and attitude of liberalism, along with its dynamic, heroic, healthy, and happy practitioners and civilizations. But decently educated liberal individuals and societies have a formidable amount of tools and power with which to defeat their Rightist and Leftist enemies.

Quotes from Ayn Rand on Politics and Group "Rights"

 

• Just as the notion that “Anything I do is right because I choose to do it,” is not a moral principle, but a negation of morality – so the notion that “Anything society does is right because society chose to do it,” is not a moral principle but a negation of moral principles...”

• Since only an individual man can possess rights, the expression “individual rights” is a redundancy (which one has to use for purposes of clarification in today’s intellectual chaos). But the expression “collective rights” is a contradiction in terms.

• A group, as such, has no rights. A man can neither acquire new rights by joining a group nor lose the rights he does possess.

• Any group that does not recognize this principle [of individual rights] is not an association, but a gang or a mob. Any doctrine of group activities that does not recognize individual rights is a doctrine of mob rule or legalized lynching.

• [T]his doctrine [of collective rights] rests on mysticism...on the social mystique of modern collectivists who see society as a super-organism, as some supernatural entity apart from and superior to the sum of its individual members.

• A nation, like any other group, is only a number of individuals and can have no rights other than the rights of its individual citizens.

• Just as an individual’s right of free action does not include the right to commit crimes (that is, to violate the rights of others), so the right of a nation to determine its own form of government does not include the right to establish a slave society (that is, to legalize the enslavement of some men to others). There is no such thing as “the right to enslave.”

• Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).

--from the essay Collectivized “Rights” (June 1963), by Ayn Rand

Quotes from Ayn Rand on Politics and Individual Rights

 

• If one wishes to advocate a free society – that is, capitalism – one must realize that its indispensable foundation is the principle of individual rights. If one wishes to uphold individual rights, one must realize that capitalism is the only system that can uphold and protect them.

• [T]here is no such entity as “society,” since society is only a number of individual men...”

• The United States [when it began] held that man’s life is his by right, (which means: by moral principle and by his nature), that a right is the property of an individual, that society as such has no rights, and that the only moral purpose of a government is the protection of individual rights.

• The concept of a “right” pertains only to action – specifically, to freedom of action. It means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by other men.

• [Thus] the right to property is a right to action...it is not the right to an object, but to the action and the consequences of producing or earning the object. It is not a guarantee that a man will earn any property, but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it.

• The concept of individual rights is so new in human history that most men have not grasped it fully to this day… [S]ome men assert that rights are a gift of God – others, that rights are a gift of society. But, in fact, the source of rights is man’s nature.

• Rights are conditions of existence required by man’s nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work.

• The [American] Declaration of Independence laid down the principle that “to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.” This provided the only valid justification of a government and defined its only proper purpose: to protect man’s rights by protecting him from physical violence.

• A civilized society is one in which physical force is banned from human relationships – in which the government, acting as a policeman, may use force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use.

• Any alleged “right” of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right. No man can have a right to impose an unchosen obligation, an unrewarded duty or an involuntary servitude on another man. There can be no such thing as “the right to enslave.”

• Observe, in this context, the intellectual precision of the Founding Fathers: they spoke of the right to the pursuit of happiness – not of the right to happiness. It means that a man has the right to take the actions he deems necessary to achieve his happiness; it does not mean that others must make him happy.

• Any undertaking that involves more than one man, requires the voluntary consent of every participant. Every one of them has the right to make his own decision, but none has the right to force his decision on the others.

• There is no such thing as “a right to a job” – there is only the right of free trade, that is: a man’s right to take a job if another man chooses to hire him. There is no “right to a home,” only the right of free trade: the right to build a home or to buy it.

• There are no “rights” of special groups, there are no “rights of farmers, of workers, of businessmen, of employees, of employers, or the old, of the young, or the unborn.” There are only the Rights of Man – rights possessed by every individual man and by all men as individuals.

• [R]ights are moral principles which define and protect a man’s freedom of action, but impose no obligations on other men.

• Private citizens are not a threat to one another’s rights or freedoms. A private citizen who resorts to physical force and violates the rights of others is a criminal – and men have legal protection against him.

• A government is the most dangerous threat to man’s rights... When unlimited and unrestricted by individual rights, a government is man’s deadliest enemy.

• [T]here are, in fact, no “economic rights,” no “collective rights,” no “public-interest rights.” The term “individual rights” is a redundancy: there is no other kind of rights and no one else to possess them.

--from the essay Man’s Rights (April 1963), by Ayn Rand