Ayn Rand

I was always puzzled as to how she found her way into that magical world where one gets rich delivering public lectures.

I had never heard about her husband before.

I knew that, in the mid-1950s, she took on one of her students as her lover; as it happens, the married psychologist who wrote the first major work on #selfesteem, no doubt based in large part on Ayn Rand herself.

Turns out her decades of high self-esteem were fortified by ongoing massive doses of amphetimines, as would also be so with David Koresh and Timothy McVeigh.

The romance fizzled; her lover found another; the amphetamines somehow stopped; and she lived her final years in a debilitating depression.

Copied from Facebook

Armed Stories

May 10 at 10:35 AM

She wrote 1,000 pages saying selfishness is virtue and government assistance is theft. Then she got lung cancer and quietly collected Social Security under a fake name. Nobody was supposed to find out.

Alisa Rosenbaum was twelve years old when Bolshevik soldiers seized her father's pharmacy in St. Petersburg.

The year was 1917. The Russian Revolution had begun. Her family—prosperous, middle-class, Jewish—watched everything they'd built disappear overnight.

The new communist government declared private property theft. They confiscated businesses, redistributed wealth, promised equality through force.

Alisa's father went from successful pharmacist to powerless citizen. Her family went from comfort to near-starvation.

She never forgot what collectivism looked like when it held a gun.

By 1926, twenty-one-year-old Alisa had graduated from university and secured something almost impossible: a visa to visit relatives in America.

She boarded a ship, promising Soviet authorities she'd return.

She never did.

In America, she changed her name to Ayn Rand—possibly from her Remington Rand typewriter—and decided to become a writer.

Her message would be simple: the individual is everything. The collective is death.

For seventeen years, Ayn struggled. She worked odd jobs in Hollywood. She married Frank O'Connor, an actor. She wrote screenplays nobody wanted and novels publishers rejected.

In 1943, after twelve rejections, "The Fountainhead" was finally published.

The novel told the story of Howard Roark, an architect who refuses to compromise his vision for anyone. He'd rather destroy his own building than see it altered by committees.

The philosophy was clear: never sacrifice yourself for others. Never bow to the collective. Self-interest is virtue.

"The Fountainhead" became a massive bestseller.

Fourteen years later, Ayn published "Atlas Shrugged"—1,168 pages arguing that productive individuals carrying society on their shoulders should shrug off the parasites demanding sacrifice.

The book's heroes are industrialists, inventors, capitalists. The villains are government bureaucrats, altruists, anyone demanding others sacrifice for the "greater good."

Ayn's philosophy—Objectivism—could be summarized simply:

Reality is objective. Reason is supreme. Self-interest is moral. Capitalism is the only just system. Altruism is evil.

Government assistance? Theft dressed as compassion.

Social programs? Parasites stealing from producers.

Asking successful people to help the poor? Immoral sacrifice of the able to the incompetent.

"Atlas Shrugged" sold 30 million copies. Ayn became a cultural phenomenon. She gathered devoted followers who called themselves "The Collective" (ironic name for individualists).

She gave lectures. Wrote essays. Appeared on talk shows. Built an entire movement around rational selfishness.

She was brilliant, charismatic, and absolutely uncompromising.

If you questioned Objectivism, you were expelled from her circle. If you deviated from her philosophy, you were declared irrational. If you suggested charity might be good, you were labeled a parasite.

Ayn Rand preached pure, uncompromising capitalism with religious fervor.

Then in the 1970s, Ayn—a chain smoker for decades—developed lung cancer.

Medical bills mounted. Treatment was expensive. She was in her seventies, her earning power diminished.

Quietly, without announcing it publicly, Ayn Rand began collecting Social Security.

She also enrolled in Medicare.

The woman who'd written 1,000+ pages arguing government assistance was immoral theft was now accepting government checks.

She did it under the name "Ann O'Connor"—her married name—hoping her followers wouldn't find out.

When confronted, Ayn's justification was tortured rationalization:

She'd paid taxes her whole life. The government had stolen from her through taxation. Therefore, taking Social Security wasn't accepting charity—it was "restitution" for theft.

She'd opposed these programs, but since they existed and she'd been forced to fund them, she had a right to get her money back.

It was, she insisted, completely consistent with Objectivism.

Her critics saw it differently.

For decades, Ayn had preached that accepting government assistance was immoral. That proud individuals should never take what they hadn't earned. That self-sufficient people don't need handouts.

She'd written characters who'd rather starve than accept charity.

She'd built a philosophy declaring that sacrifice for others was evil—which logically meant accepting others' sacrifice for you was equally wrong.

But when she got sick and needed money, she took the checks.

The hypocrisy was staggering.

And it revealed something essential about Ayn Rand: her philosophy worked beautifully when you were young, healthy, and successful.

It collapsed when you were old, sick, and needed help.

Ayn Rand died on March 6, 1982, at age seventy-seven.

At her funeral, her followers placed a six-foot dollar sign next to her casket—the symbol of capitalism she'd championed.

She was buried, having collected Social Security and Medicare benefits for years while maintaining publicly that such programs were immoral.

The contradiction defines her legacy.

Ayn Rand's ideas influenced generations. Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve Chairman, was her devoted follower. Silicon Valley libertarians quoted her. Politicians invoked "Atlas Shrugged" as prophecy.

Her philosophy gave intellectual cover to pure capitalism. It made selfishness sound noble. It transformed greed into virtue.

But it also ignored a fundamental truth that Ayn herself eventually faced:

Everyone gets old. Everyone gets sick. Everyone eventually needs help.

The fierce individualist who declares she needs no one inevitably discovers otherwise.

Ayn preached that strong individuals carry society. That the productive shouldn't sacrifice for the weak.

Then she became weak. And she accepted sacrifice from others through government programs.

She could have refused Social Security on principle. Could have relied entirely on savings and book royalties. Could have practiced what she preached, even while dying.

Instead, she rationalized. Called it "restitution." Collected checks while maintaining her philosophy hadn't changed.

The woman who'd watched Bolsheviks confiscate her father's pharmacy built a philosophy opposing all collective action.

Then she used the collective's safety net when she needed it.

That's not necessarily hypocrisy—people are allowed to change their minds.

But Ayn never admitted she'd changed her mind. Never acknowledged the contradiction. Never said, "I was wrong about safety nets."

She just took the money and rationalized it.

Maybe that's the real lesson of Ayn Rand:

It's easy to preach self-sufficiency when you're self-sufficient.

It's harder when you're seventy-seven with lung cancer.

Philosophers who build systems around being strong rarely account for what happens when they become weak.

Ayn Rand wrote 1,000 pages saying selfishness is virtue and government assistance is theft.

Then she got sick and collected Social Security under a fake name.

The individualist who needed no one died having accepted help from the collective she despised.

The philosopher of selfishness survived her final years through programs funded by others' sacrifice.

The ultimate irony: the woman who preached independence ended up dependent.

And she never admitted it.

She just cashed the checks.