Ayn Rand Quotes About Property

• There is no such dichotomy as 'human rights' versus 'property rights.' No human rights can exist without property rights.

  Ayn Rand

  Rights, Dichotomy, Humans

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.219, Penguin

• Without property rights, no other rights are possible.

  Ayn Rand

  Rights, Property, Property Rights

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.394, Penguin

• The difference between [socialism and fascism] is superficial and purely formal, but it is significant psychologically: it brings the authoritarian nature of a planned economy crudely into the open. The main characteristic of socialism (and of communism) is public ownership of the means of production, and, therefore, the abolition of private property. The right to property is the right of use and disposal. Under fascism, men retain the semblance or pretense of private property, but the government holds total power over its use and disposal.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Power, Men

• The essential characteristic of socialism is the denial of individual property rights.

  Ayn Rand

  Rights, Essentials, Denial

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.465, Penguin

• The right to life is the source of all rights -- and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Men, Rights

  Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.380, Penguin

• It is true that the welfare-statists are not socialists, that they never advocated or intended the socialization of private property, that they want to 'preserve' private property-with government control of its use and disposal. But that is the fundamental characteristic of fascism.

  Ayn Rand

  Government, Liberty, Use

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.202, Penguin

• Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.

  Ayn Rand

  Rights, Recognition, Individual

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.17, Penguin

• I do not seek the good of others as a sanction for my right to exist, nor do I recognize the good of others as a justification for their seizure of my property or their destruction of my life.

  Ayn Rand

  Life, Rights, Novelists

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.78, Penguin

• Under fascism, citizens retain the responsibilities of owning property, without freedom to act and without any of the advantages of ownership. Under socialism, government officials acquire all the advantages of ownership, without any of the responsibilities, since they do not hold title to the property, but merely the right to use it -- at least until the next purge. In either case, the government officials hold the economic, political and legal power of life or death over the citizens.

  Ayn Rand

  Responsibility, Government, Political

• Just as man can't exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one's rights into reality, to think, to work and keep the results, which means: the right of property.

  Ayn Rand

  Work, Mean, Reality

  Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.2260, Penguin

• It is a policeman’s duty to retrieve stolen property and return it to its owners. But when robbery becomes the purpose of the law, and the policeman’s duty becomes, not protection, but the plunder of property - then it is an outlaw who has to become a policeman.

  Ayn Rand

  Law, Purpose, Return

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.443, Hamilton Books

• The only proper, moral purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence - to protect his right to his own life, to his own liberty, to his own property and to the pursuit of his own happiness. Without property rights, no other rights are possible.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Men, Rights

  Ayn Rand (1964). “The Virtue of Selfishness”, p.30, Penguin

• There are four characteristics which brand a country unmistakably as a dictatorship: one-party rule, executions without trial or with a mock trial for political offenses, the nationalization or expropriation of private property, and censorship. A country guilty of these outrages forfeits any moral prerogatives, any claim to national rights or sovereignty, and becomes an outlaw.

  Ayn Rand

  Country, Party, Rights

  Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.388, Penguin

• The doctrine that 'human rights' are superior to 'property rights' simply means that some human beings have the right to make property out of others.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Rights, Doctrine

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.395, Penguin

• No individual or private group or private organization has the legal power to initiate the use of physical force against other individuals or groups and to compel them to act against their own voluntary choice. Only a government holds that power. The nature of governmental action is: coercive action. The nature of political power is: the power to force obedience under threat of physical injury-the threat of property expropriation, imprisonment, or death.

  Ayn Rand

  Government, Organization, Choices

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.43, Penguin

• The right to agree with others is not a problem in any society; it is the right to disagree that is crucial. It is the institution of private property that protects and implements the right to disagree - and thus keeps the road open to man's most valuable attribute: the creative mind.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Creative, Mind

  Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.370, Penguin

• The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, and to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law.

  Ayn Rand

  Army, Government, Law

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.812, Hamilton Books

• Any material element or resource which, in order to become of use or value to men, requires the application of human knowledge and effort, should be private property-by the right of those who apply the knowledge and effort.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Order, Effort

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.394, Penguin

• Man holds these rights [life, liberty and property], not from the Collective nor for the Collective, but against the Collective - as a barrier which the Collective cannot cross... these rights are man's protection against all other men.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Rights, Liberty

• Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

  Ayn Rand

  Country, Gun, Doe

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.316, Hamilton Books

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