Ayn Rand Quotes
A businessman cannot force you to buy his product; if he makes a mistake, he suffers the consequences; if he fails, he takes the loss. If bureaucrat makes a mistake, you suffer the consequences; if he fails, he passes the loss on to you.
Rand, Ayn. Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. New American Library, 1966.
Most societies have debated the relative roles of authority and accountability in government operations. Most appointees and civil servants complain that authority is too concentrated at the top—that they do not have enough authority to do their jobs properly. Meanwhile. Most citizens and service recipients complain that the officials and civil servants are not accountable and should not be given much authority. In this hypothetical society of the future, Doc Smith depicts what would happen if BOTH of these complaints were addressed totally. Most of the people who complain about the existing systems find that they have to be careful of what they wish for. Solving these problems might create a world that is far worse.
Ayn Rand was a Russian-American writer and philosopher. She is known for her two best-selling novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and for developing a philosophical system she named Objectivism. Born and educated in Russia, she moved to the United States in 1926. She had a play produced on Broadway in 1935 and 1936. After two early novels that were initially unsuccessful, she achieved fame with her 1943 novel, The Fountainhead. In 1957, Rand published her best-known work, the novel Atlas Shrugged. Afterward, she turned to non-fiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own periodicals and releasing several collections of essays until her death in 1982.
