Ayn Rand's Objectivist philosophy has been touted by her detractors as the philosophy of self-interested selfishness.
Her four epistemological principles are:
1. Metaphysics: Objective reality of the world and the objects in it.
2. Epistemology: Reason as the one and only key to understanding.
3. Ethics: Self-interest in what behavior is but also what it should be.
4. Politics: Capitalism through the performance of deeds by individuals who are self-interested.
In the early 1960's, a student asked a spokesman for Objectivism what would happen to the poor in an Objectivist's free society.
The spokesman answered, "If you want to help them, you will not be stopped."
If one reads Rand's works, Atlas Shrugged, or The Fountainhead, one will conclude that this would be the answer Ayn would have given to that student as well.
What do you conclude from the answer given by the Objectivist spokesperson?