My View: Why Ayn Rand, Tea baggers and Right Wing Free Marketers are wrong.

[chillspike]

Ayn Rand ignored the fact that civilization and cities arose because the more successful humans employed their success to uplift the rest of the tribe. Ayn Rand's theories undo all that by pitting the individual against the individual and advising everyone to be out for themselves in an "I don't owe you" anything attitude.

Among the Lakota tribe, the successful were EXPECTED to share their food, horses etc, with the weak and the elderly and less successful FIRST. It contributed to tribe cohesiveness. It was just understood that, from sheer numbers and luck (not laziness) that many members of the tribe would not be as successful as others and sharing was the glue to keep the tribe together and strong.

Look at any solitary animal species that can't share or get along for long periods of time with members of their own species. They won't be dominating the world anytime soon.

Rand is patently wrong when she asserts selfishness drives human success. Quite the contrary. Had humans been selfish they would not have been able to organize into large groups and dominate the planet. We would have been solitary animals with very little power on earth and some other group species would rule over us and the earth.

People and natural resources are not all anyones to just benefit themselves. We each benefit from being a part of the human community. We are a species. We have risen as a species. We are not a bunch of cynically selfish individuals pursuing their own wants disconnected from and in ignorance of the requirements of the rest of the group. It is right that those who have been lucky enough to bring in more from nature return the most to the group.

Otherwise you're saying you live completely outside the human species with no relation or obligations to it at all and no interest in its survival as a whole at all.

Do you think the first humans hoarded survival education or demanded payment to teach others hunting or tool making? No, that knowledge was freely given to enhance the survival of the whole group. If they had we would not have even made it out of the trees. But today we hoard knowledge and think putting a price tag on everything is natural. It is unnatural.

Look at any species of social pack animals. Do you think if just the main participants in a kill were allowed to feed that that species would last very long?

To form communities that would cooperate together competition between members of a community had to devolve. And that's how humans EVOLVED. Competition between potential cooperating members of a group must go down. The larger the group, the more competition must go down to sustain the cooperation. If competition starts to rise, as it is now, the group will eventually disband. That's why nations collapse.

The more civilized we become, the lower the competitive levels and the more evolved we become.

Notice that we are more evolved than solitary species. That is because we formed groups. But to form groups, we had to control our competitive instinct.

Thanks to Right Wing ideology like Ayn Rand, Tea Baggers,and Extreme Free Marketers we are losing control of our competitive instinct again and devolving. If this continues, it will collapse the nation.

[mynameiswhat]

1. Well I would say that individuals do succeed because of a certain level of

selfishness, but we as humans are more willing to help others. To become successful you need the drive for yourself and not just for others. I don't get up and go to work everyday for other people, i do it for myself to better my life. But as i become more successful i give more to charities to help others.

[ElboRuum]

2. I agree,

We as a species are successful because we strike a balance between what is good for ourselves, and what is good for the group.

[treestar]

3. Humans always cooperate, too

The Randites don't want to bother with that - it's too messy.