Collective rights: A contradiction in terms

— Ayn Rand, Novelist and Philosopher

One problem bedeviling modern political discourse is intellectual chicanery by political con men, facilitated by intellectual befuddlement on the part of the general public.

One abomination arising from this intellectual chicanery is the stolen concept of “collective rights.”

By definition, there can be no such thing as “collective rights.”

Take the sanctimonious rhetoric of the Taiwan independence movement for example. It's bad enough that champions of Taiwan independence bandy about such higher level abstractions as “freedom,” “human rights,” “democracy,” without bothering to identify their concrete referents. At least such higher level abstractions have concrete referents.

What's worse is that champions of Taiwan independence also bandy about such stolen concepts as “Taiwan's right to self-determination.” Such stolen concepts have no concrete referents whatsoever.

To better understand why there can be no such a thing as “collective rights,” and why a collective such as “Taiwan” (or “America,” “China,” or “Japan”) can never have a “right to self-determination,” one only needs to revisit Daniel Defoe's classic tale, “The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.”

Robinson Crusoe was originally published in 1719, and is considered the first novel ever written in English. It is a “faux autobiography” of an English castaway who survives for 28 years on a tropical island before finally being rescued.

Free market economists frequently use Robinson Crusoe to make points about human survival and human rights. One such point is that when Robinson Crusoe first found himself stranded on a desert island, he had no need for rights whatsoever.

It was not that Robinson Crusoe lacked rights. All human beings have rights. All human beings are born with rights. No human being may be deprived of his rights.

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