The Role of Government in Society According to Objectivism
Created | Updated Aug 4, 2003
Note: Everything in this article is presented as fact; please remember this is the Objectivist view when reading.
Politics describe the principles of a proper social system, including the function of government in society. Politics are crucial to the survival of man, because it greatly affects his being: living in the right society, a man can be prosperous; living in the wrong society however, can prove fatal.
The only proper method of choosing the right politics is to apply one’s code of values to it. If man’s life is the moral standard of value, and that its preservation is his major goal, then a proper society would be one which benefits his survival.
The basic principle of politics is individual rights. Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.
A right is a moral principle sanctioning and defining a man’s freedom of action in a social context; a right is a sanction to independent action. A right is something that cannot be alienated or infringed. For example: a criminal might rob and hurt a man, but the victim is always in the right, the criminal in the wrong.
For a society to be moral, it has to identify a sphere of influence in which the individual is sovereign without question.
The right to life is the right to sustain and protect one’s life. This is man’s fundamental right. It has three major derivatives:
-The right to private property: the right to: gain, keep, use, and dispose of material values.
-The right to the pursuit of happiness: the right to live for one’s own sake and fulfillment.
-The right to liberty: the right to think and choose and act in accordance with one’s judgment.
Man is a certain kind of living organism - which leads to his need of morality and of man’s life being the moral standard - which leads to the right to act by the guidance of this standard i.e. the right to life.
Reason is man’s basic tool of survival - which leads to rationality being the primary virtue - which leads to the right to act according to one’s judgment i.e. the right to liberty.
Unlike animals, man does not survive by adjusting to the given- which leads to productiveness being a cardinal virtue- which leads to the right to use, keep, and dispose of the things one has produced i.e. the right to property.
Reason is the attribute of the individual, which demands, as a condition of its function, un-breached allegiance to reality - which leads to the ethics of egoism - which leads to the right of the pursuit of happiness.
All rights rest on the fact that man’s life is the moral standard. Rights are rights to the kinds of actions necessary for the preservation of human life. Just as it’s only the concept of life that makes values possible so it’s only the requirements of man’s life that make morality, and thus the concept of rights possible.
All rights rest on the ethics of egoism. Rights are an individual's title to his life, his liberty, his property, and the pursuit of his own happiness. Only a being who is an end in himself can claim a moral sanction to independent action. If man existed to serve an entity beyond himself, whether God or society, then he would not have rights but only the duties of a servant.
Rights are all deductions from the duty of self-preservation.
A group can have no rights other than the rights of its individual members. In a free society, by joining a group, a man can neither gain special rights, nor lose any rights. The principle of individual rights are the only moral bases for all groups or associations. A group in itself has no rights. It has only the rights of its individual members.
The rights of man can only be breached by the initiation of physical force (including its indirect forms such as fraud). Whoever refrains from the initiation of physical force, necessarily leaves the rights of others un-breached.
The initiation of physical force is the only evil man can perpetrate against another that negates the victim’s tool of survival (reason) i.e. which literally stops the action of human self preservation i.e. which contradicts the right to life.
Only the crime of force is able to render its victim helpless. The moral responsibility of an organized society therefore lies in a single obligation: to banish this crime i.e. to protect individual rights.
Individualism is the emphasis on the individual. In social issues, the individual is the unit of value. Politically, an individualist social system is one that upholds individual rights.
If society is to protect man’s rights, then it must have an organized body with the power to do the job. Such an agency must banish coercion by itself using force against the force wielders. This agency is the government.
Society is only a collection of individuals. The powers of government therefore must be chosen by the individuals who created it.
In a proper society, the government is the servant of the individual, not their ruler. Specifically, the government is an agent of man’s self defense. The government cannot initiate the use of force against innocents; it can only use force in retaliation against those who initiate its use.
The government is created to protected individual rights. This purpose entails only three governmental functions: the police (to protect men from criminals), the armed forces (to protect men from foreign invaders), and the law courts (to settle disputes among men according to objective law.
The government has a monopoly on coercion. If it undertakes to enforce its ideas on a free society, it thereby loses its moral basis for existing.
Government should not try to regulate the realm of production and trade. In doing so the government is violating the individual's right to dispose of his creations as he will. In this instance as in others, the goal of government is to make wealth possible by the protection of freedom.
The purpose of laws is to protect the individual from two potential tyrants: the government and the mob.
SOURCES:
-Peikoff, Leonard; OBJECTIVISM: THE PHILOSOPHY OF AYN RAND.
Politics describe the principles of a proper social system, including the function of government in society. Politics are crucial to the survival of man, because it greatly affects his being: living in the right society, a man can be prosperous; living in the wrong society however, can prove fatal.
The only proper method of choosing the right politics is to apply one’s code of values to it. If man’s life is the moral standard of value, and that its preservation is his major goal, then a proper society would be one which benefits his survival.
The basic principle of politics is individual rights. Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.
A right is a moral principle sanctioning and defining a man’s freedom of action in a social context; a right is a sanction to independent action. A right is something that cannot be alienated or infringed. For example: a criminal might rob and hurt a man, but the victim is always in the right, the criminal in the wrong.
For a society to be moral, it has to identify a sphere of influence in which the individual is sovereign without question.
The right to life is the right to sustain and protect one’s life. This is man’s fundamental right. It has three major derivatives:
-The right to private property: the right to: gain, keep, use, and dispose of material values.
-The right to the pursuit of happiness: the right to live for one’s own sake and fulfillment.
-The right to liberty: the right to think and choose and act in accordance with one’s judgment.
Man is a certain kind of living organism - which leads to his need of morality and of man’s life being the moral standard - which leads to the right to act by the guidance of this standard i.e. the right to life.
Reason is man’s basic tool of survival - which leads to rationality being the primary virtue - which leads to the right to act according to one’s judgment i.e. the right to liberty.
Unlike animals, man does not survive by adjusting to the given- which leads to productiveness being a cardinal virtue- which leads to the right to use, keep, and dispose of the things one has produced i.e. the right to property.
Reason is the attribute of the individual, which demands, as a condition of its function, un-breached allegiance to reality - which leads to the ethics of egoism - which leads to the right of the pursuit of happiness.
All rights rest on the fact that man’s life is the moral standard. Rights are rights to the kinds of actions necessary for the preservation of human life. Just as it’s only the concept of life that makes values possible so it’s only the requirements of man’s life that make morality, and thus the concept of rights possible.
All rights rest on the ethics of egoism. Rights are an individual's title to his life, his liberty, his property, and the pursuit of his own happiness. Only a being who is an end in himself can claim a moral sanction to independent action. If man existed to serve an entity beyond himself, whether God or society, then he would not have rights but only the duties of a servant.
Rights are all deductions from the duty of self-preservation.
A group can have no rights other than the rights of its individual members. In a free society, by joining a group, a man can neither gain special rights, nor lose any rights. The principle of individual rights are the only moral bases for all groups or associations. A group in itself has no rights. It has only the rights of its individual members.
The rights of man can only be breached by the initiation of physical force (including its indirect forms such as fraud). Whoever refrains from the initiation of physical force, necessarily leaves the rights of others un-breached.
The initiation of physical force is the only evil man can perpetrate against another that negates the victim’s tool of survival (reason) i.e. which literally stops the action of human self preservation i.e. which contradicts the right to life.
Only the crime of force is able to render its victim helpless. The moral responsibility of an organized society therefore lies in a single obligation: to banish this crime i.e. to protect individual rights.
Individualism is the emphasis on the individual. In social issues, the individual is the unit of value. Politically, an individualist social system is one that upholds individual rights.
If society is to protect man’s rights, then it must have an organized body with the power to do the job. Such an agency must banish coercion by itself using force against the force wielders. This agency is the government.
Society is only a collection of individuals. The powers of government therefore must be chosen by the individuals who created it.
In a proper society, the government is the servant of the individual, not their ruler. Specifically, the government is an agent of man’s self defense. The government cannot initiate the use of force against innocents; it can only use force in retaliation against those who initiate its use.
The government is created to protected individual rights. This purpose entails only three governmental functions: the police (to protect men from criminals), the armed forces (to protect men from foreign invaders), and the law courts (to settle disputes among men according to objective law.
The government has a monopoly on coercion. If it undertakes to enforce its ideas on a free society, it thereby loses its moral basis for existing.
Government should not try to regulate the realm of production and trade. In doing so the government is violating the individual's right to dispose of his creations as he will. In this instance as in others, the goal of government is to make wealth possible by the protection of freedom.
The purpose of laws is to protect the individual from two potential tyrants: the government and the mob.
SOURCES:
-Peikoff, Leonard; OBJECTIVISM: THE PHILOSOPHY OF AYN RAND.
