Rand and Marx

[GoodSarmatian]

If Ayn Rand is 'a political thinker' then every teenager with an opinion is a poltical thinker.
She was an obscure hack and if it wasn't for the internet and Bioshock she'd be practically unknown outside of the United States.

 

[Monsterzuma]

Soviet Union vs. Somalia, take your pick.

 

[Alassius]

Marx created a well-constructed, fairly self-consistent philosophical interpretation of the world. His problem was that he took too much confidence in the practicality of his work, not that the work itself is not good by the standard of philosophy. It's phenomenal, in fact. Marx is right up there with Plato, Aristotle, Kant, or Hegel.

What did Ayn Rand do besides writing bestseller novels?

 

[_random_]

She also wrote some poorly selling novels.

 

[holy king]

If Ayn Rand is 'a political thinker' then every teenager with an opinion is a poltical thinker.
She was an obscure hack and if it wasn't for the internet and Bioshock she'd be practically unknown outside of the United States.

this. if it wasnt for this very forum i would still be oblivious to what an ayn rand is. (same goes for obscure, long forgotten austrian economists.)

i still dont know all that much about her, but i think my assessment of her as someone who wrote some obscure novel about some gal taking over some railroad company or something isnt all that inaccurate and that hardly makes her a "political thinker" in any meaningful sense of the word.

 

[CELTICEMPIRE]

I'm not a follower of Rand, but if I had to chose, it would be Rand. I've read some very hateful quotes by Karl Marx that really give me a poor view of him.

 

[_random_]

May we see them?

 

[holy king]

hateful quotes?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

"A bummed in the gob a day, keeps the lolbertarians at bay" - Karl Marx.

 

[useless]

Keep in mind the fact that Marx was a Jew, and so what have also been the victim of anti-Semitic and hateful behaviour...

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I'm not a follower of Rand, but if I had to chose, it would be Rand. I've read some very hateful quotes by Karl Marx that really give me a poor view of him.

What ?! You can't study economics, politiical science or history without getting exposed to Marx. the man has contributed much more than just 'communism'.
What has Rand ever contributed apart from a very simplistic mock philosophy

hateful quotes?

He hated a lot of people and groups. Croatians, Gypsies, Germans (he called Germans 'the dumbest people under the sun').
He also wasn't fond of parlamentarians and called them 'fleas hatched in the liquid manure of democracy'.

 

[ParkCungHee]

I don't think I'm stretching things to say Marx was the best damn historian ever.

 

[CELTICEMPIRE]

"The Jews of Poland are the smeariest of all races." (Neue Rheinische Zeitung, April 29, 1849)
"What is the Jew's foundation in our world? Material necessity, private advantage.
"What was the essential foundation of the Jewish religion? Practical needs, egotism." (Ibid, p. 40)

 

[Huayna Capac357]

Marx was Jewish...

 

[useless]

"The Jews of Poland are the smeariest of all races." (Neue Rheinische Zeitung, April 29, 1849)
"What is the Jew's foundation in our world? Material necessity, private advantage.
"What was the essential foundation of the Jewish religion? Practical needs, egotism." (Ibid, p. 40)

Marx was a Jew himself.

 

[_random_]

Besides, the entire point of Rand's "philosophy" was that you should really only give a damn about yourself, so using "hate" as a pretense for disliking somebody worse than Rand doesn't really seem to work.

 

[useless]

Her philosophy is that literally everyone else is an enemy, that you should fear, hate and despise, someone you should compete with, just to survive.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Rand is the Daily Mail of Philosophers, Marx is the Times (pre-Murdoch) or Guardian.

 

[Monsterzuma]

What did Ayn Rand do besides writing bestseller novels?

i think she deserves some credit for tutoring Alan Greenspan, the most influential and widely revered clown in modern history who provided a fathomless barrel of laughs and decades of entertainment to people world wide by creating the world's biggest ponzi scheme and having it implode again while his cute and callow successor was on the job.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

It's an emergency! We need an economist!!!