- published: 26 Sep 2014
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Statism (French; étatisme) is a term used by political scientists to describe the belief that a government should control either economic or social policy or both to some degree. Statism is effectively the opposite of anarchism. Statism can take many forms. Minarchists prefer a minimal or night watchman state to protect people from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud with military, police, and courts. Some may also include fire departments, prisons, and other functions.Totalitarians prefer a maximum or all encompassing state.Limited government, welfare state, and other options make up the middle territory of the scale of statism. Some anarchists use the term statist in a derogatory sense.
Some statist analyses use a dichotomy between state and society, viewing the state as a homogeneous institution capable of using political power to force policy on a passive or resisting society. Such an analysis depends on an elitist theory of power rather than a pluralist theory of power; that power is exercised by individuals and competing organisations within society.
Ayn Rand ( /ˈaɪn ˈrænd/; born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum, February 2 [O.S. January 20] 1905 – March 6, 1982) was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism.
Born and educated in Russia, Rand moved to the United States in 1926. She worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood and had a play produced on Broadway in 1935–1936. After two initially unsuccessful early novels, she achieved fame with her 1943 novel The Fountainhead. In 1957, she published her best-known work, the philosophical novel Atlas Shrugged. Afterward she turned to nonfiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own magazines and releasing several collections of essays until her death in 1982.
Rand advocated reason as the only means of acquiring knowledge and rejected all forms of faith and religion. She supported rational and ethical egoism, and rejected ethical altruism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and opposed all forms of collectivism and statism, instead supporting laissez-faire capitalism, which she believed was the only social system that protected individual rights. She promoted romantic realism in art. She was sharply critical of the philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her besides Aristotle.