Ayn Rand and the worship of selfishness

The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.

Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.


A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.

 The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone.

 To reduce you to a body, to teach you an animal's pleasure, to see you need it, to see you asking me for it, to see your wonderful spirit dependent on the upon the obscenity of your need. To watch you as you are, as you face the world with your clean, proud strength - then to see you, in my bed, submitting to any infamous whim I may devise, to any act which I'll preform for the sole purpose of watching your dishonor and to which you'll submit for the sake of an unspeakable sensation ...I want you - and may I be damned for it!
 
If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing.


― Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand

The word "Freedom" has now taken on a narrow meaning within the mainstream of American opinion: "What I personally want I must have" It's the concept that has always been used by small children, thieves, dictators and ancient kings. It's the chant of infants " Gimme; it's mine and you can't have any."

Ayn Rand in "Atlas Shrugged" popularized Rand's philosophy of Objectivism: advocating rational selfishness and free markets(unregulated). I like Paul Krugman's view of this philosophy: "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." 

 
Reagan, Greenspan and Milton Friedman became great fans of Rand and her thoughts  have popularized the Libertarian movement and heavily influenced Paul Ryan and the Tea Party, The Supreme Court and right wing extremists. Rand's early years were spent in Stalinist Russia  and this clearly influenced her hatred of Governments and her obsessive faith in the good will of rich and powerful men acting in a free and unregulated economic system. She claimed that in such a privatized system there never would be a need for regulations and social legislation because the economic system would work so well. She died in 1982 before events proved how utterly wrong she was about human nature. I wonder whether this rigid ideologue might have changed her views if she had lived to observe the rape of Russia under Yeltsin, the greed driven destructive behaviour of Wall Street and British bankers that came close to destroying the economies of the West, the alarming rise in unemployment in a deregulated laissez-fare market and the obsessive greed of an oligarchy intent on keeping it all.

 Mike Wallace interviewed her in 1959 and taking the time to listen to some of these You Tube tapes will give you an idea of what an ideologically narrow and naive woman she was.  A rigid ideologist, just like the communists she detested, she was determined to fit all human affairs into a simplistic model. Her model simply rejected government and replaced it with a blind faith in the leaders of laisez-faire capitalism.

Her influence still dominates the thinking within Wall Street, the Republican Party and the Supreme Court. No doubt her philosophy has provided a justification for the selfish values of wealthy men like the Koch Brothers and many others like him; gave birth to the Tea Party and popularized and strengthened the Libertarian movement. She was a pro-choice atheist, and viewed all religions and beliefs in the supernatural as barriers to reason so I am sure she would have been puzzled by the Tea Baggers (and most mainstream Republicans) who have blended her "Objectivism" in with a curious reinvention of evangelical Christianity, a contempt for intellectuals, blacks, the poor and foreigners, and a love for the military.

Rand's beliefs continue to dominate Republican political thinking in America despite the alarming wealth gap widening between the 1% and the rest of America. Freedom is now all about me. Rand vigorously rejected any form of social conscience and the Social Contract as influenced by John Locke in the Declaration of Independence and refined by the eminent American philosopher John Rawls as purely signs of human weakness. 
 

It is hard to conceive of a functioning democracy based on a philosophy of selfishness and laissez faire capitalism run by an oligarchy of wealth, free from any restraints. As described in Ayn Rand's writings it advocates a rejection of the social reforms of the 20th century and reduces the role of the nations state to that of a modern Sparta. Not a promising outlook.

It's Theft, Feudalism is Back

Ayn Rand: The only social system that fully recognizes individual rights is capitalism. When I say "capitalism," I mean a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism—with a separation of state and economics.

the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness or rational self-interest

The disciples of Ayn Rand and laissez-faire capitalism, Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan and Reagan were the culprits who kicked off this mess and for the next 20 years Bush I, Clinton and Bush II ably guided by Greenspan and a dominant Republican congress joined the ride. It was quite a trip with a systemic enrichment of 1% of the population while flattening middle class earnings and reducing the buying power of another 40% of the population. It's what happened in the period leading up to the Great Depression.

I don't know what the outcome is going to be from this meltdown but I can't see a simple turnaround because in America greed has trashed the system and it has to be rebuilt.

We have returned to an 17th century feudal model where the wealth of the nation has gravitated to a small number of powerful people. The reality is that deregulation released those with power from any constraints on their desire to have more. Like the dukes and kings of old they took as much as they could; and if there was more they would take that too.

It's theft when a young hedge fund manager can earn in 10 minutes what the average worker earns in a year or many times the income of a Nobel Prize winner, the President of his country or that of an internationally renowned artist. It's theft when CEOs of merchant banks and hedge funds become overnight billionaires and Presidents of large organizations now average incomes eight hundred times that of an average worker. Forty years ago it was only 30 to 40 times an average workers wages. Its theft when they influence politicians to remove inheritance taxes and promote flat taxes so they and their children can take it all home. It's theft when they hide their ill gotten gains in offshore tax havens (and most do) so that they and their corporations can avoid paying their fare share. And its theft when each year they manage to gain a bigger share. (A 2007 study of the Congressional Office Bureau found the wealth of the richest 1 percent of Americans totalled $16.8 trillion, $2 trillion more than the combined wealth of the lower 90 percent of the population)

Now dumping public funds on financial institutions to flood the market with easy credit again and subsidizing mortgages and car buying avoids the basic issues facing working families and will at best put a temporary halt in the inevitable collapse that is bound to continue. The reality is that the wealth of the nation has been stolen, workers have lost buying power over the past twenty years, and unless that changes another frenzy of credit buying will just repeat the cycle.

America has to rebuild with a different model and I have my doubts they can do it. Too many powerful people have an inbred belief in laissez-faire capitalism and have too much to lose. That means, I believe, despite the good intentions of Obama, it is going to get a lot worse. If Merkel has her way the same will happen in Europe.