Government Grants Loan to Libertarian-Based Ayn Rand Institute – The Great Courses Daily News

By Jonny Lupsha, News Writer

According to Reuters, a federally funded loan program designed to aid small businesses saw at least one surprising recipient. The institute promoting the laissez-faire capitalism of writer Ayn Rand [] was approved for a Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP) loan of up to $1 million, the article said.

The Ayn Rand Institute: The Center for the Advancement of Objectivism in Santa Ana, California, sought to preserve 35 jobs with the PPP funding. The institute referred Reuters to a May 15 article, in which board member Harry Binswanger and senior fellow Onkar Ghate wrote that the organization would take any relief money offered by the CARES Act.

Ayn Rands philosophy in fiction and nonfiction was to promote individualism and unfettered capitalism, denouncing government involvement in virtually every aspect of life.

Ayn Rands beliefs aligned with libertarianism.

Libertarians come in two major clanseconomists and philosophers, said Dr. Lawrence Cahoone, Professor of Philosophy at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA. Economist libertarians typically argue for maximum individual liberty and minimal government interference through a utilitarian economic argumentin other words, that free markets bring the greatest utility or benefit to society.

Philosophical libertarians have prominently been ethical, natural rights theorists, claiming that capitalism is morally required independent of its consequences.

Similarly, Ayn Rands philosophywhich is called objectivismis rooted in humanitys need to survive, which she said is rooted in self-dependence. Dr. Cahoone said that there is an objective standard of value, an objective ethics, in her beliefs, and that rights are how those ethics are applied in society.

Note that rights are primarily not to own things, he said. They are a right to ones own self and own life, which yields rights to pursue interests and purposes. But on that basis, property rightswhich are the rights to use, enjoy, or dispose of somethingare essential.

With Rands emphasis on self-reliance, its no surprise that she was no fan of charity.

Rand hates altruism, Dr. Cahoone said. That is, she hates the tendency to first take as the ultimate moral standard the effects or benefits of my acts on other people. And second, she hates the belief that the highest moral act is self-sacrifice.

Rand believed that if people are precious, their egoistic purposes and freedoms were precious, and therefore selfishness is a virtue. This belief is called rational selfishness, which Dr. Cahoone said is a belief in which selfishness is a moral duty.

So capitalism, for her, is the only moral and rational socioeconomic system in human history. She endorses laissez-faire; no government activity whose aim is more than to protect individuals and their property is just. She wanted a voluntary system of taxation, among mere provision of military and police.

The Ayn Rand Institute said it was accepting the million-dollar PPP loan unapologetically, because the principle here is justice.

This article was proofread and copyedited by Angela Shoemaker, Proofreader and Copy Editor for The Great Courses Daily.

Dr. Lawrence Cahoone contributed to this article. Dr. Cahoone is Professor of Philosophy at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, where he has taught since 2000. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.