New World Blog
Ayn Rand Redux
By Colin Greer on October 01, 2009
Ayn Rand is popular again. Her most popular novels Atlas Shrugged from 1957 and The Fountainhead from 1943 are still being bought in large numbers. While it's plainly fashionable for right wing activists and pundits to bandy about her ideas to discredit the Obama administration, it's worth remembering one thing...
The American right sees Atlas Shrugged as an almost prophetic masterpiece that describes "the economic lunacy" of the bailout and economic stimulus plan. As Stephen Moore (formerly of the CATO institute) explains in the Wall Street Journal, the warning of Atlas Shrugged is clear - the more government tries to fix things, the more they break. "When profits and wealth and creativity are denigrated in society, they start to disappear -- leaving everyone the poorer," he says, concluding that the abolition of income tax would be a much better policy idea.
Two new biographies of Rand and maybe even a new film, are in the works. The cult of Ayn Rand has inspired think tanks like the Ayn Rand Institute, and The Atlas Society, and she has numerous followers in high places, notably including Alan Greenspan (former chairman of the Federal Reserve and soloist for the out-of-tune hymn to the inexorable free market). A copy of Atlas Shrugged may have been one of the more popular accessories at recent TEA parties.
Ayn Rand was an immigrant from Russia who worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter. Ironically, her followers nowadays tend to hate both immigrants and Hollywood. If I could run a mandatory e-harmony, I’d have Lou Dobbs meet Ayn Rand. I’d have Glenn Beck meet Ayn Rand. She's the lady off the boat who invented a powerful free market imagery for them.
But remember: She wrote fiction!
In Rand’s novels the heroes pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. They made big profits in unfavorable economic climates. Try pulling yourself up by your shoelaces. It can’t be done. Its all story telling, with no basis in documented experience. And of course, she does not consider the collaborative context (school, roads, community) that make individual success possible. Rand's own life was a cauldron of broken connections, sexual indulgence, war on other people’s marriages, and narcissism of atomic proportions. Nothing new to show business. But pressing social issues are not show business. There is no real economics in Rand, and certainly no moral logic.
About the author
Name
Colin Greer
Biography
Dr. Colin Greer has been the President of The New World Foundation since 1985. He was a Professor at Brooklyn College, CUNY, and has written several books. Colin Greer has participated in and directed several studies of U.S. immigration and urban schooling policy and history (at Columbia University and CUNY), and Chairs numerous organizations. See full biography, here.
Comments
Rand was not only a novelist,
Rand was not only a novelist, she was a playwright, screenwriter and philosopher. A list of some of her non-fiction works:
Rand, Ayn.Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. New American Library, 1967.
A collection of twenty of Rand’s essays on politics, history, and economics. Also includes two essays by psychologist Nathaniel Branden, three by economist Alan Greenspan, and one by historian Robert Hessen.
Rand, Ayn. Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. New American Library, 1979.
Rand’s theory of concept-formation. Also includes an essay by philosopher Leonard Peikoff on the analytic/synthetic distinction.
Rand, Ayn. Philosophy: Who Needs It. Bobbs-Merrill, 1982.
A collection of Rand’s essays on the nature and significance of philosophy.
Rand, Ayn.The Romantic Manifesto. World Publishing, 1969. Paperback edition: New American Library, 1971.
A collection of Rand’s essays on philosophy of art and aesthetics.
Rand, Ayn. The Virtue of Selfishness. New American Library, 1964.
A collection of fourteen of Rand’s essays on ethics. Also includes five essays by psychologist Nathaniel Branden.
Rand's creation is Objectivism. The philosophy of rational self-interest. It's popular among conservatives seeking rationalization for deregulation, laissez faire capitalism, small government, selfishness and dogfighting. Although Objectivism has taken some knocks over the years, her work in the science continues to inspire. Pia Varma, Penn Gillette, Alan Greenspan, even the creator of Spiderman draw inspiration from Rand's philosophy.
Conservative politicians love cherry-picking Rand almost as much as they love cherry-picking the bible, having precious little actual knowledge of the contents of either. (Strange bedfellows, really, considering Rand rejected religion as "mysticism".) Rather like Greer cherry-picked his own limited knowledge on Rand to produce this grossly inaccurate piece of crap.
If Greer and AlterNet want to play nasty names, they should stick to baiting FOX News. Or at least spend five minutes "googling" the topic they pursue in order to, at least, try to bolster the impression of something less than gross ignorance and functional illiteracy.
Ayn Rand advocated capitalism
Ayn Rand advocated capitalism and the free market, but she did not advocate anarchy or unfair laws.
What has happened in our world is not the fault of the market so much as the fault of law-making and law enforcement. The banking crisis was caused by bad law and bad regulation (as in no regulation, in cases) often rammed through legislative bodies where little care was (is) given to understanding the consequences of the laws being passed. Likewise, many authorities or bodies do their "non-regulation" under obscure and often unfair conditions. So it is no surprise that benefectors of loose regulations and unfair laws get away with it. That is hardly the fault of the market itself.
Ayn Rand advocated free markets, yes, but her intention was most certainly fair, free markets. That is a big part of what her novels are about. She advocated limited, democratic, constitutional government with fair, transparent laws and regulations. She recognized the necessity of government and articulated, through her fiction and other writings, that all too often the law and government is "hijacked" by special interests.
Her personal life is rather irrelevant to what her works dramatize.
I think that she was confusing about the issues of social cooperation, kindness and charity. You can still be a "producer" and care about your fellow human beings and work towards a fairer, more equal and kinder society. And yes, we all have to pay taxes whether we like it or not.
The really sad thing, to me, is the number of folks who are perfectly content to watch the homeless on tv and as they drive by in their SUVs and not care to do a thing about it.
I am very impressed with The New World Foundation and it's history.
Thanks very much for the
Thanks very much for the comments. This post was republished on AlterNet where it attracted over 100 comments. Here is a copy of the response I posted there addressing some of the feedback.
Best, Colin.
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Thanks for all the comments.
To the question, have I read Ayn Rand:
Not enough, given what thoughtful people seem to value in her work.
To the question of art and its immunity from moral discourse:
I am dubious about such immunity. Has it not long been legitimate to query whether Shakespeare was anti-Semitic in creating Shylock, or whether Heidegger's thought is contaminated by his Nazi affiliation. These are complex and unresolvable questions but not to be discarded with a refusal to ask them.
About the American tradition of self-reliance, going back to Benjamin Franklin:
We only have to see the current public bailout of private finance to know that self-reliance rests on a foundation of collective strength. And certainly the independent strand in American life is not alone in creating the until recently growing middle class. Collective action and public policy were at least as responsible as the free market for that. Incidentally, racism has as long a history as self-reliance in America so duration is perhaps not the best argument for legitimacy.
Rand's ideals,'rational self-interest' and 'individual rights,' are not embodied in the free market any more than social purpose and collective action are intrinsic to mixed economies. However, the free market is not independent of consciousness and so is an idea that much like the idea of 'the American people,' popular with politicians nowadays, deductively reaches for reality to meet the ideal it represents, and inductively reaches from our feelings of longing for belonging and security.
The super-hero, Spiderman, swinging from up high to save citizens unable to help themselves is a good comic adventure, but in Alan Greenspan's lionization of tycoon treasure hunting, it has not been helpful.
If I have missed in any of Ann Rand's writings--plays, novels, screen plays, non-fiction books, her newsletter--a commitment and imperative to adjust a democratic and humane society, please send me references. I'd be grateful for page references or excerpts. If it's there, I'd like to know. Perhaps my own perspective has clouded my reading.
Nevertheless, her fame and continuing popularity do not seem to be a force for those values in our society. Surely the impulse to philosophy has melted into a secular theology when concepts serve as reality versus serving to investigate the reality which, without ideas, evades consciousness. To use ideas in this latter way was, I believe, Rand's ideal, and it is quite antithetical to reified concepts like self-reliance and the free market. The warnings of John Maynard Keynes that we face "irreducible uncertainty" and of Karl Popper's law of "unintended consequences" are worth remembering to set against the stranglehold of rigid concepts on our public policy and social thought.
Personally, I think Rand's
Personally, I think Rand's Objectivism is disturbing and potentially dangerous. Her attacks on altruism leave me with a bad taste in my mouth. She claims that everyone can and should rely solely on his or herself in life... but I've never seen her account for how a person's upbringing and education (which, having occured during childhood, are beyond the person's control) affect their chances at success in life. She sees government not as a social contract among equal people, but as an 'us' versus 'them' situation, wherein the entire government is basically a parasite. And I think her claims about natural rights of man are problematic, because they aren't clearly based in reason... though she worships reason... and therefore, to me, it's all kind of flimsy. And those are just a few of the many problems I have with her.
BUT, I have to say, I don't think this article does a very good job in articulating the troubles with Rand. The author brings Rand's personal life up as an ad hominem attack on her philosophy -- which, rather than point out her hypocrisy, just sort of bashes her as a person. Plus, the whole "remember guys, it's only fiction!" thing is kind of moronic. It's fiction, yes, but the fiction contains political theory. A story doesn't have to be true for its message to be meaningful.
In the case of Ayn Rand, the message is actually quite disturbing. But you can't argue against it with insipid ad hominems... it only makes Objectivists feel more sure of themselves.
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