The Purpose of a Government

Throughout chapters 12, 13 and 14 of the Virtue of Selfishness, (Man's Rights, Collectivized "Rights" and The Nature of Government respectively), Rand discusses and elaborates on the principle of individuals' rights. She defines rights as,

• the concept that provides a logical transition from the principles guiding an individual's actions to the principles guiding his relationship with others
• the concept that preserves and protects individual morality in a social context
• the link between the moral code of a man and the legal code of a society, between ethics and politics (Rand 108)

She states that moral law in society is created with the purpose of upholding individual rights and uses the Democratic Party and their efforts to create an economic bill of rights (individuals are entitled to objects such as material wealth) as an example. Rand is strongly against this idea and responds by declaring all individuals have the freedom to pursue property and material wealth however no individual has the right to property or good health. In the following chapter Rand continues to discuss individual rights but focuses on the nature of rights and collectivized rights. She goes on to explain that societies do not have rights, only the individuals within the societies hold any rights and argues against the idea of collectivized rights (the rights belong to the group and not to the individuals). She says that in that situation, the rights belong to some people within the group but not all, that "rights belong to some men, but not to others-that some men have the 'right' to dispose of others in any manner that they please" (Rand 120) and therefore, some individuals are denied their fundamental freedoms.

With the background of individual rights in place and Rand's opinion, I read chapter 14 (The Nature of Government) and found it quite interesting. She states that individual rights can only be violated by the use of physical force. "It is only by means of physical force that one man can deprive another of his life, or enslave him, or rob him, or prevent him from pursing his own goals, or compel him to act against his own rational judgement." (Rand 126) Because of this, we need a government to construct a code of rules to define and judge crimes and create punishments and consequences for crimes that are committed. Something like this cannot be left up to personal discretion.

Throughout these chapters I felt Rand's bias towards the subject. I do not disagree with what she argues however the time in which she wrote this is extremely relevant to what she is saying. Rand was born in 1905 and died in 1982. She witness the rise and fall of Nazi Germany and its affects soon afterwards. Rand uses Germany as an example various times throughout The Virtue of Selfishness and states that Nazi Germany is an extreme example of how dictatorships do not promote individuals' rights and it only leads to destruction of their citizens and the society as a whole. "A nation ruled by brute force is not a nation, but a horde." (Rand 121) Since she lived through this time period, Ayn Rand was able to construct a persuasive and well formulated argument.