Sparring With the Cult of Ayn Rand

Joshua,

Holding your own? I’ll contest that.

In the radical capitalist politics of Ayn Rand, less regulation is merely a direction. It requires, in principle, that there be no regulations at all that would interfere with voluntary exchanges. And until that occurs, the dire consequences of intervention will remain endemic.

Furthermore, that radical requirement rests on a more fundamental ethical principle: that volitional (and fallible) human beings whose basic means of life is action guided by reason require protection from the fallible choices of others by guaranteeing them autonomy in the application of their own reason to their own actions in the service of their own life.

So while you are out there trying to guess the short term consequences of more or less regulation in the tangled web of violations of that principle in which we victims dwell, the Objectivists are way ahead of you, knowing that in the long run all interference in that autonomy by physical force or the threat thereof is immoral and therefore impractical from the get-go.

Occasionally the likes of C. Jeffrey Small will be glad to explain how your package-deal definition of free market capitalism erroneously equates it with mixed economies and show you how an exclusive preference for freedom over force will produce the very consequences you desire but that unwittingly prevent whenever you opt for force (regulation by incompetent bureaucrats) over freedom (entrepreneurs unleashed ).

After all, Objectivists wholly reject the theory vs. practice dichotomy, and debunking it is a favorite contact sport. The underlying argument, however, will always be that capitalism is not right because it is practical, but rather that it is practical because it is right.

Prior to Rand, capitalism was recognized only as an economic system, and that continues today among those who, like you, only know of Rand from skimming through her novels or gorging on the hearsay of her critics. What Rand has provided, however, is a systematic and comprehensive ethical foundation for a capitalist political system that necessitates the capitalist economic system. You cannot attack Rand’s ethics-based radical capitalism by reference to the half-baked, partially free market economics of what you used to think capitalism was when no one knew better. Like a pre-Gallilean’s understanding of the sun and the earth, you are operating on a pre-Randian understanding of capitalism.

Capitalism, the political system, defends individual rights by prohibiting the use of force by any individual or the government itself to interfere in any voluntary socio-economic interrelationship — a mandate I summarize to be:

No person may initiate the use of physical force or the threat thereof to gain, withhold, or destroy any tangible or intangible value of another who either created it or acquired it in a voluntary exchange.

Under a capitalist government there would be no regulatory agencies at all. There would be only private companies who would compete to be the most reliable certifiers of trustworthiness and transparency. There would be no government ransoms. There would be no such thing as “Too Big to Fail” and no bailouts if they did. There would be no Fed to artificially inflate or deflate any ratio of any kind. There would be no escape from caveat emptor — no escape from freedom.

What relevance could your three examples from the quagmire of interwoven tyrannies possibly have to the structural integrity of Rand’s politics? If you had whined to her of such things, she would have simply replied, “you asked for it, brother!”

The ghost of your satire was a Fata Morgana that emanated from your own false assumptions about her philosophy. Not unlike the cheap shot in your title. If you want to keep the Objectivist ideologues at bay, don’t wave the little flag that says, “I’m an idiot, come and get me.” Intellectual independence is a primary virtue of the Objectivist ethics. To the degree any overenthusiastic fan engages in actual cultish behavior, they self-disqualify ipso facto. So sticking the cult-word on Rand is the first clue that one is clueless.

A good satirist has to do his homework first just like the rest of us.

TRB: The system you argue for, which I suppose surpasses the one that Mr Small advocated in terms of its radicality (yes, i just invented that word, deal with it), is every bit as alien to the human psyche as that of communism. You haven’t “come and gotten me” in the least, although you’ve done a very job at fleshing out the objectivist POV.

What you’ll never agree to is that human beings have always and will always subjugate each other, in life and especially in business. This has always been the case and always will be. The trick is in finding the balance.

And don’t pretend that in the modern world that economic harm isn’t every bit of the threat that physical harm used to be.

thx for sharing and joining the debate

Capitalism is a system in which people are free to produce and trade without govt interference. The purpose of govt in Ayn Rand’s view is to outlaw the use of force as a way of people dealing with one another. It exists as a retaliatory force and acts only to protect individual rights. It protects us against domestic criminals and foreign threats.

“Regulation,” *as the term is most commonly used today* is the use of force not in this manner. It is the govt INITIATING the use of force against those who are violating no one’s rights for supposed social purposes.

Every alternative to capitalism is just some exploiting others with force.

Socialism, for example, is a system in which the able and productive are forced to spend their lives in service to those who are not able and productive.

As such, socialism is just another kind of slave society.

Virtually all the supposed “horrors” commonly attributed to capitalism are really caused by departing from capitalism–the present financial and economic collapse being a perfect example, its primary cause not being “Wall Street greed,” but govt intervention in the economy by Freddy Mac, Fannie Mae, and the (govt created) Federal Reserve.

TRB

When formulating a philosophy that is meant to define our nature, the nature of the rest of existence, and the relationship of the former to the latter, radical validity is the only goal worth pursuing. Hence, anything less than “radicality” is a cop out.

If the nature of the human psyche is having the capacity of reason as the primary tool of survival, I fail to see how guaranteeing the freedom to use it could be alien to it.

Contrary to your claim, I fully agree that human beings have always subjugated each other, and it is a pretty safe bet they will continue to in the future if allowed to. The trick is not in finding the balance. Sickness is equally inevitable, but who would instruct their oncologist to strike a balance between their cancerous tumor and a healthy life?

The solution to the propensity to subjugate is to throw the entire weight of government against it — to cease to enable it or allow it. Radical capitalism is the first politics defined in the history of man that would have that as its sole purpose and task. One cannot object to it without implicitly advocating the coercion of their fellow human beings for their own purposes.

The only harm of concern in the context of politics is harm to individual autonomy. No human being has any claim on any more than they can produce by applying their own reason to their own actions and gain from trading it with others. The efficiencies of specialized effort and trade in a society can produce enormous swings of benefit and harm, but to the extent they are due to the actions of others, they are gratuitous and irrelevant to the status of an individual’s autonomy.

You cannot harm autonomy except by physical force. And physical force cannot be used without harming autonomy. And if you take sides with a gang of others (like a majority in any given populace) and advocate harming individual autonomy for any purpose whatsoever, you implicitly deny any right to your own. That’s a very bad trade, broker!

You are correct about the regulations that we taken off during the Bush years. They in themselves because damning to our economy because we had other mechanisms to “back up” the risk takers and the “elites” as you like to call them.

The corporate welfare promoted for decades, the injection of tax payer money to prop up these “elites”, and the government use of law and the threat of force to take money from those who did no wrong (poor investments) and give it to those who drove us into the dirt are what she would rail against.

I really think you are missing the point by only looking at the regulations that “prohibit” certain actions on the part of the “elite”. Rand would offer that the other side of the coin is when you have government policies that encourage risky behavior and lack or responsibility when you screw up!

It is my assumption she would have said to get rid of the regulations, but no one gets a government handout and risky investments mean you lose your shirt and possibly go to jail (if fraudulent). Think about that in relation to the “elites”. Do you really think the “elites” would have risked it so much if the institution of government wasn’t there to fix them up with taxpayer money? I’m guessing they would have had a lot longer look at what type of loans (NINJA, Interest Only, and other Liar) they were giving out and to whom. What type of collateral was backing up CDOs and other “shady” investments (Government Freddy and Fanny is who)?

So, yes, Bush sucked. He rolled back certain regulations that were protective for the government sponsored programs pushing more money to unfit borrowers. If you do have programs pushing money out to everyone, you’d better have regulation. If you take that regulation away, while you still have the government pushing more money into the system, of course you’re going to get smart/”elite” people who figure it out and jump all over it (there is not much risk to them since the .gov is backing it). When it fails, then the government is the one who insured the spending, so they pay the claim. But having a government pushing cheap money isn’t capitalism any more than regulation is!

The Fed is a quasi-governmental institution. Fannie and Freddie are quasi-governmental institutions. When the government refuses to regulate itself that is a failure of the government not a failure of capitalism. The CRA was a government regulation of the banking industry; it in no way represented a “liberation” of the banking industry; it required that banks make more loans according to lower standards to people with bad credit ratings; it dictated those standards to the banks; that is regulation, not capitalism. Government backed loans offered to people who cannot afford to pay them back is a failure of government not capitalism; it is the government that could not back them yet sold a lie that the loans were secure. Government backed worthless securities sold as investments by Fannie and Freddie to an already over-regulated financial industry is a failure of government not capitalism; it was government that made people think the securities were good investments when they were worthless. The entire sub-prime crisis is a result of the idea of government re-distribution from the rich to the poor…it was a government-caused crisis. Re-distribution is the Marxist premise of to each according to his needs (the poor need homes) from each according to his abilities (investors in banks must pay). This is not a capitalist premise. The people who backed this entire fiasco from Frank, to Dodd, to Fannie and Freddie (whose Directors were Democrat operatives), to Obama and the Democrats in Congress who protected the scheme of sub-prime lending were not capitalists. They are the very people who are responsible for the crisis that now claim it is a failure of capitalism. They are all socialists. The sub-prime crisis is a failure of socialism, not a failure of capitalism.

Thanks Robert. I have read hundreds of comments this year explaining the fallacies and lies relied on in blaming the crisis on capitalism, but none so comprehensive and efficient as yours.