THE AYN RAND INSTITUTE is fundamentally opposed to the meaning and purpose of President Clinton's "Summit on America's Future." We oppose it because it is immoral -- not merely impractical. In fact, the Summit is a moral disgrace.

The immorality of the Summit
The Summit will be the highlight of Clinton's campaign for "volunteerism." Americans -- especially young people -- are being urged to do something "worthwhile" with their lives by dedicating themselves to serving those in need. Only by serving, proclaim our leaders, can a person feel morally worthy. Dismissed as immoral -- or, at best, amoral -- are those who pursue their own happiness, holding their own lives as their highest value. Colin Powell considers such people to be on the moral "sidelines" rather than on the moral "playing field" (helping others).
The Summit seeks to establish altruism as the moral law of the land. Altruism is the view that an individual has moral worth only to the extent he sacrifices his own personal interests "for the good of others." The Ayn Rand Institute holds this view to be a perversion of morality.

The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value. Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute is self-sacrifice -- which means: self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction -- which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good.
--Ayn Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It (1982)
The Summit seeks to establish as one's only proper motive in life the motive of guilt. There is to be no joy in achievement -- only guilt, leading the achiever to give up his achievement to the needy, who -- unless they reject altruism -- will, in turn, feel guilty until they give up what they've received to someone needier...and so on ad infinitum. Never mind the illogic of all this: "giving up" is what it's all about.
 
In stark contrast to the altruists, we hold that the moral man is the egoist, the man who practices rational self-interest. Such a man thinks for himself, identifies his values and goals, pursues his dreams. Only such a man has self-esteem because only such a man has a "self."

The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics -- the standard by which one judges what is good or evil -- is man's life, or: that which is required for man's survival qua man.... The Objectivist ethics holds man's life as the standard of value -- and his own life as the ethical purpose of every individual man.... Man must choose his actions, values and goals by the standard of that which is proper to man -- in order to achieve, maintain, fulfill and enjoy that ultimate value, that end in itself, which is his own life....

The three cardinal values of the Objectivist ethics -- the three values which, together, are the means to and the realization of one's ultimate value, one's own life -- are: Reason, Purpose, Self-Esteem, with their three corresponding virtues: Rationality, Productiveness, Pride....

[The virtue of pride] means one's rejection of the role of a sacrificial animal, the rejection of any doctrine that preaches self-immolation as a moral virtue or duty....

The basic social principle of the Objectivist ethics is that just as life is an end in itself, so every living human being is an end in himself, not the means to the ends or the welfare of others -- and, therefore, that man must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. To live for his own sake means that the achievement of his own happiness is man's highest moral purpose.
--Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)

The proof of an achieved self-esteem is your soul's shudder of contempt and rebellion against the role of a sacrificial animal, against the vile impertinence of any creed that proposes to immolate the irreplaceable value which is your consciousness and the incomparable glory which is your existence.
--Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (1957)


The Summit is anti-American
To hold this summit in Independence Hall is a profound insult to Americans and to what this country stands for. "Every young American," says President Clinton, "should be taught the joy and the duty of serving." But substitute the word "German" for "American" and this could be a proclamation by Adolf Hitler. The philosophy of duty, obligation and sacrifice was indeed the philosophy of Nazi Germany. It is emphatically not the philosophy of America. America stands for independence, self-reliance, self-confidence. The Founding Fathers wrote a declaration of independence, not a declaration of servitude. They were champions of "the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." They were not champions of service and sacrifice to the "needy." What made this country great is the freedom of its citizens to pursue their own personal happiness. Great producers -- from Edison to Salk to Bill Gates -- have been motivated by the desire to produce; they are not humble men who work for the good of others. An individual should get moral credit for being truly human, for the values he produces not for what he gives away to others.
America's abundance was not created by public sacrifices to "the common good," but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes.
--Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966)

No creator was prompted by a desire to serve his brothers, for his brothers rejected the gift he offered and that gift destroyed the slothful routines of their lives. His truth was his only motive. His own truth, and his own work to achieve it in his own way. A symphony, a book, an engine, a philosophy, an airplane, or a building -- that was his goal and his life. Not those who heard, read, operated, believed, flew or inhabited the thing he had created. The creation, not its users. The creation, not the benefits others derived from it.
--Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead (1943)

Productive work is the road of man's unlimited achievement and calls upon the highest attributes of his character: his creative ability, his ambitiousness, his self-assertiveness, his refusal to bear uncontested disaster, his dedication to the goal of reshaping the earth in the image of his values.
--Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)

The Summit advocates more of the poison causing the ills of our society. The campaigners for volunteerism would have us believe that altruism is needed to cure such social problems as poverty and the lack of medical care. But altruism is the cause of these problems, not the cure. The number of "needy" people -- those incapable of taking care of themselves -- has steadily increased under the altruistic New Deal, Fair Deal, Great Society, and the "kinder and gentler America." Altruistically based economic regulations and billion dollar "entitlement" programs reduce production, destroy jobs, and reassure people that they needn't work to get what they need: after all, it is supposedly theirs by moral right. Social conflict is on the rise, with an ever-increasing number of groups seeking government favors and handouts. When money and favors are dispersed, what one group gets is by necessity at the expense of another group. The result is hostility, envy and pressure-group warfare. These conditions are products of altruism, for altruism mandates a society of masters and slaves, not a society of free individuals pursuing their own goals and respecting each other's rights.


Altruism leads to dictatorship
The distinction between "voluntary service" and "forced service" is a false one. Already the veneer of "choice" is slipping: Clinton has called for volunteerism to become mandatory in the high-school curriculum and a requirement for high-school graduation. Dictatorship is a consequence of the morality of altruism. If it is moral for us to live for others, if each of us is morally the property of others, then there is no moral restriction against forcing us to live for others; it's only a matter of time before we are forced. If one has a duty to fight for his country, then his country is morally just when it drafts him into the army. If we are morally obligated to give our money to the poor, then the state is justified in collecting that money. If we have a duty to live our lives for the needy, then the state is perfectly justified in collecting our lives and using them as it sees fit. Under the morality of altruism, there are no individual rights, for such rights are rejected as too personal, too private, in essence: "selfish." And indeed they are selfish. It is no coincidence that every tyranny in history is based on altruism: sacrifice to the state, sacrifice to the community, sacrifice to the volk, the nation, the race -- and on through the bloodbaths of history. And it is no coincidence that the freest country in history -- the United States of America -- was founded on an individual's right to the pursuit of his own selfish happiness.

The social system based on and consonant with the altruist morality -- with the code of self-sacrifice -- is socialism, in all or any of its variants: fascism, Nazism, communism. All of them treat man as a sacrificial animal to be immolated for the benefit of the group, the tribe, the society, the state.
--Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966)

Altruism is incompatible with freedom, with capitalism and with individual rights. One cannot combine the pursuit of happiness with the moral status of a sacrificial animal.
--Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)


Altruism is the enemy of true benevolence
"Sacrifice" means just that: human sacrifice, the giving up of your self, of your life to someone else who has a moral claim on it. Under altruism, each man becomes a threat to his neighbors, for every man is both a potential exploiter and a potential milch-cow. Your only choice is to "get them before they get you." This is not benevolence: this is a war of all against all. Altruism creates not a society of independent men trading value for value but rather a constantly changing intermix of masters and slaves. Men do not respect each other as competent, rational individuals but as incompetent men unable to survive on their own.
The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves. The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption. It is impossible in concept. The nearest approach to it in reality -- the man who lives to serve others -- is the slave. If physical slavery is repulsive, how much more repulsive is the concept of servility of the spirit. The conquered slave has a vestige of honor. He has the merit of having resisted and of considering his condition evil. But the man who enslaves himself voluntarily in the name of love is the basest of creatures. He degrades the dignity of man, and he degrades the conception of love. But that is the essence of altruism.
--Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead (1943)

Charity is not evil
The Ayn Rand Institute does not oppose charity per se; the Institute itself is a charity, gaining its support from voluntary contributions. Helping others is appropriate as long as it is not a sacrifice and as long as it is not taken as the basis of an individual's moral worth.
My views on charity are very simple. I do not consider it a major virtue and, above all, I do not consider it a moral duty. There is nothing wrong with helping other people, if and when they are worthy of the help and you can afford to help them. I regard charity as a marginal issue. What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue.
--Ayn Rand, Playboy interview (March 1964)

Individualism vs. Collectivism
America has been a beacon of hope for the truly oppressed throughout the world. They have come here to escape dictatorships and tyrannies; they have come here to live their own lives, where they aren't owned by the state, the community, or the tribe. Now Clinton wants us to be owned by whoever claims to be more needy. In so doing, he is advocating a morality of duty and service that was the basic morality of the worst of those tyrannies: Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia -- the very same morality which justified the slaughter of young people in Tiananmen Square -- young people who wanted nothing more than to live their own lives.
The "common good" of a collective -- a race, a class, a state, was the claim and justification of every tyranny ever established over men. Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive.... The most dreadful butchers were the most sincere.... Nobody questioned their right to murder since they were murdering for an altruistic purpose. It was accepted that man must be sacrificed for other men. Actors change, but the course of the tragedy remains the same. A humanitarian who starts with declarations of love for mankind and ends with a sea of blood. It goes on and will go on so long as men believe that an action is good if it is unselfish.
--Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead (1943)

At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke their chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by his race. But he broke their chains. He declared to all his brothers that a man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take away from him, no matter what their number, for his is the right of man, and there is no right on earth above this right.
--Ayn Rand, Anthem (1938)

Now look at me [Comrade Taganov]! Take a good look! I was born and knew I was alive and knew what I wanted. What do you think is alive in me? Why do you think I'm alive? Because I have a stomach and eat and digest the food? Because I breathe and work and produce more food to digest? Or because I know what I want, and that something which knows how to want -- isn't that life itself? And who -- in this damned universe -- who can tell me why I should live for anything but for that which I want? Who can answer that in human sounds that speak for human reason?
--Ayn Rand, We the Living (1936)


THE PRESIDENT'S CALL for national service is a slap in the face of every individual. We are not our brothers' keepers. We have a right to the pursuit of our own happiness. No individual belongs to another. In the words of Ayn Rand's hero in The Fountainhead: "I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life."
 
The Ayn Rand Institute is working to reestablish the true meaning of the Declaration of Independence: an individual's moral right to the pursuit of his own personal happiness, his right to every minute of his life.