The Idiocy of Ayn Rand

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Analysis of Ayn Rand

The analytical discussion here will consist of gathered observations concerning some of Ayn Rand’s philosophical standpoints. I have recently read through a translated book catering to her philosophy, which is objectivism. While I’m still in the process of finishing it, I have completed my accumulative prognosis of one particular section-capitalism. Her viewpoints concerning capitalism are rather distorted and a bit eccentric to say the least. Since I am a revolutionist and resent capitalism in every respect, I initially took a personal stance while reading the section. However reverent I defend and support individual liberty in the demoralized abyss of capitalism, I will approximate logical criticism.

Some of her philosophical contentions regarding capitalism suffer myriad of flaws, but I have extracted the most pertinent and significant portions to portray how she views it.

From the beginning of the section Rand establishes her theory about the correlation of morality and politics. She explains that politics derive from morality and subsequently offspring economics. Because of this derivative nature of morality, it in essence, creates economics. This theory is quite jumbled, and further contemplation of it reveals its senselessness.
Firstly, Morality is an inherent virtue present in the human condition and constitutes good behavior and righteous decisions preserving the dignity of human life and its proclivities. Politics is based primarily on situational or practical behavior and more subjective decisions concerning right or wrong. Granted Politics and morality could share SOME similarities in terms of strictly right and wrong behavior, but politics are certainly not inherent in human nature. Politics are an external value relating to societal and group organizational means and morality is a virtue relating to innate human characteristic.
Secondly, economics do co-exist with politics, but it is truly the progeny of capitalism. Since morality lies within natural human structure, politics lie within human subjectivity. And economics are solely the foundation of capitalism which is simply assets and monetary acquisition, and do not link in any way to morality. External is not internal, but Rand seems to think so. Furthermore, she presupposes that capitalism is in fact human virtue, by claiming that “moral IS the practical”. In other words, she quite blatantly assumes that capitalism is a virtue and a natural state, which starts from morality and becomes economics. But as comprehended, politics and economics are external entities and function only as superficial mechanics for the subsistence of society. Morality is not superficial and exists centralized in the human heart. She’s attempts to justify the workings of capitalism by circuitously linking it to morality and ultimately stating that capitalism is MORAL, which is preposterous.
Thirdly, she continues her harangue by claiming that since morality is interrelated to capitalism, any person who is a capitalist must formulate a philosophy to assist them to endure and concretize their position as a capitalist. So, by creating a personal philosophical ideal that supports being a capitalist, one can work within capitalism “righteously”. This banter of justification towards the disposition of a capitalist, is more or less a stance of her own veneration to it, and a dismiss of any other ethical argument that might be made against how it is not righteous. Because capitalism is appropriately money and materialism, which are irrelevant to real human life, there is no logical way to convince oneself, by philosophical ideologies or otherwise, that attaining money is a moral and meaningful way to live. Again, she simply disregards the distinct significance of the internal as opposed to the external, based on her own nepotism.

Now that we have dismantled the basis of how she perceives capitalism, we will delve into the ideas of how she defends it.

I have gathered that Rand’s idea of freedom is not only narrow-minded but also shallow and banal. She has congealed several views on it and its relation to capitalism, and disseminated them to the public in hopes of acquiring a positive response and a non-argumentative audience. We will look into the most significant of these hackneyed stances and explore them thoroughly.

  1. Rand begins by explaining that since capitalism is a MORAL system, any action or choice one makes while operating in the system of capitalism is deemed as a free person. Moreover she states that the “free” market is a corollary to a free mind. Because capitalism is the ONLY moral system, she rejects any other system whether moral or immoral to oppose it, which maintains her nepotism for it. She goes on to claim that when someone operates inside a system of capitalism, that person may USE others to assist them in their monetary gains, as long as, of course, they have a “righteous” philosophical ideal.

  2. She attempts to make a viable argument of defense by explaining that the presumed evils of capitalism (i.e. monopolists, corporations, self-serving employers) are the reparation of “statism” and not “capitalism”. That statism is in fact the fascist, totalitarian dictatorship that robs people of their freedom and their rights to work within the system of capitalism, and that capitalism instead, is truly regulated and spawned from the “public” and protected not by unruly unjust officials of “state” power, but of responsibly, noble legitimate governmental figures, which makes it a free, moral system. so, as long as there is a just government upholding one’s freedom as a capitalist, one will feel secure in their productive pursuits because their rights are “justly” protected. So capitalism is the republic and the state is the tyranny.

  3. Rand states that one can be creative as a capitalist and make free choices as to how they wish to dispense of their money and other acquisitions. Because this system is moral it retains human virtues and supports “rational” self-interest. After all, it is only rational that men fulfill their needs through an influx of material and fiscal gains, rather than denying that they need them. And as long as they gain these needs “justly” they should be unfazed and continue to increase their wealth.

  4. An extraction of a direct quote is: “capitalism is incompatible with intrinsicism”. Her elaboration of this statement is that people who are abnegators or passive cannot thrive as capitalists, because capitalists are people of metal activity and alacrity. In other words, people who wish to abstain from capitalism are deemed worthless and unnecessary to its system of production.

  5. This quote truly exemplifies Rand’s outlook on capitalism and its relation to the human condition “The dollar is the currency of a free country, a symbol of free trade and therefore of a free mind.”

We will expound on all of these components that epitomize her philosophy on capitalism, and make some very obvious, crucial corrections to them.

Rand’s perception of morality must first be brought to a better understanding; it is a cauldron of contradiction. As it can be agreed, morality is inherent in the human condition, it simply means goodness, honesty and human decency and capitalism is simply an external system of production and material assets. By claiming that capitalism is moral, Rand directly claims that a system based on money and merchandise and trade and mass consumption is inherent in the human condition. This conveys her trite view of what morality is. If she is to base the goodness of the human heart on artificial materialism and money, she perpetuates that the function of humanity is simply to create money and materialism. Furthermore, the creative process is a sacred process that happens only when a person is uninfluenced by any system of production, and may create unaffected by any government or law. She seems to believe that creativity may only be “allowed” by those “justly” in power, and only if that creativity works in accordance with the system of production can it be “free” creativity. Any logical philosopher who understands human nature can contend that creativity is a natural occurrence, and that capitalism is an artificial occurrence, Rand not only mistakenly conceptualizes creativity but also inadvertently misunderstands how to philosophize it in the first place.

She approves that since a system like capitalism can only progress and move forward it is computed that it works as a “natural” machine and should be recognized as such. However, she pays absolutely no mind to the sheer catastrophic consequences that capitalism wreak on the natural world and animal species, considering it is a system of consumption, and she also fails to acknowledge that BECAUSE capitalism is a constant enduring machine of progression it will only become more and more uncontrollable and destructive. The relentless continuity of such a social machine that consumes every natural resource, will eventually devastate, wipe out and deplete the only planet that it can and will ever function on. Whether or not this glaring reality ever enters her mind is highly questionable.

Her argument concerning that the intrinsic cannot be incorporated in capitalism continues to conflict against her own views of morality. Again, morality is a natural inclination of the human condition, so if she explains that since capitalism is the only moral system and morality is inherent in humanity, why would capitalism not also be inherent in humanity? Intrinsic means “inherent” or “natural”, so by stating that intrisicism is not compatible to capitalism she evidently negates her own clause that is a natural and moral system. Moreover, she supports any capitalist as being moral and rejects any and all people who don’t contribute to capitalism without realizing that, that vilification and scorn towards non-contributors lacks morality in itself. One is quite literally forced to wonder if Rand understands what morality is at all. And if she is to base something as intrinsic as human nature on competition (i.e. capitalists against self-abdicators.) than she is to reduce morality to mere mechanics of big business, rivalry and monetary possession, which would also reduce a human being to nothing more than a device for production, which is what capitalism does to people anyway.

To continue,
The difference between “statism” and “capitalism” is, as Rand states, dictatorship. This is logically untrue for the following reasons: 1. Capitalism is a public dictatorship ENFORCED by the state. 2. A state is based on instituting various policies that, according to Rand, control and hinder a capitalist’s freedom, but since capitalism is also a creation by the state, given to the public, it can only be an unruly system in which to pillage freedom. She attempts to formulate this clever little distinction, defending capitalism by pointing the finger at a state as a whole without understanding that capitalism is simply a system controlled by any and ALL officials or powerful representatives who control a state. She very immaturely enthuses that since capitalism was historically founded on such a trivial illusionary label as “free enterprise” that it naturally belongs to the public and not any other despot of governmental control. Whether she would like to come to terms with it or not, capitalism simply CANNOT be controlled, owned or regulated by the public in any way. If the public did control it, there would be chaotic and dysfunctional messes of our trades and products and merchandise, being handed and sold and bought to anyone who looked or acted professional. The only way capitalism can function is through the policing of powerful figures, whether or not they are just or unjust means nothing to how manipulative and indoctrinating the system of capitalism is.

Freedom in Rand’s mind exists in the system of mass production instead of outside in the natural world. Her explanation of freedom is making choices that constitute “free” material gain and that those particular choices also derive from ones own ability to see that monetary acquisition defines a person’s individuality. This idea of freedom is impossible to be taken seriously. The following question Rand may have trouble answering: If one enters a business for himself, the business owner will forever have to abide by policies, rules, regulations and other various impositions which monitor and control his every move strapping him down to compliance. So regardless of the nature of his business venture, how he handles it, or what he has been permitted to do with it, he will be forced to comply and conform to the demands and expectations of societal and governmental rules. So how is obedience, freedom? The answer is obedience is just that-obedience, not freedom. They are not one and the same. Individual freedom comes from ones own ability to makes choices that are not controlled by any government, just or unjust, and what makes his choices free are not given to him by a system or government, but made by his own disposition, even if they oppose a government. If Rand defines freedom by obedience to a system of production, which she apparently does, her idea of freedom contradicts what freedom is and has been for centuries-autonomy. One cannot have autonomy within an overruled system such as capitalism if their choices and moves are limited to suit a regime, they can only function and adhere.

Lastly, her quote listed in the fifth item, illustrates Rand’s comical, illogical, irrational and quite frightening observation of humanity. If she believes that the freedom of the human mind correlates to money, she essentially claims that we were simply placed on this earth to do nothing more than make money and in the process somehow, someway, convince ourselves that we are “free” doing it. Should you listen to this woman?

This concludes my analysis of Ayn Rand’s section of capitalism.

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You probably depart with objectivism right there. Let me first say I am no fan of Rand, though I read Atlas Shrugged (twice) and The Fountainhead and have perused the Objectivist Epistemology. There was a time when I was struck by her literary power.

But I want to address your claim and avoid debating Rand. I want to put forth my own assertion that “the human condition” is constructed from a social contract based on maternal and familial interpersonal relationships and the customs of the society in which one is brought up. And subsequently then, morality must be socially constructed as well, since it certainly stems from the human condition.

One version of “the human condition” is what happens if we leave a human to fend for themselves. Throughout history there have been examples of the occasional “Wild Child”: a human not raised by other humans. Any discussion of the morality of this human condition would be mostly empty in the context of the political framework of capitalism or any other ism for that matter. The child is a non-entity from any moral point of view.

After a child is psychologically born by inheriting a personality from its primary caregiver, it begins to make its way in the world based on the customs of the tribe or society it is in. In this way, it is taught (and it learns) right from wrong and this is where morality comes from. Virtue is practiced and learned in this context and there is nothing really inherent about it. It only inheres in the framework, i.e. the rules and mores of society, that it is raised in.

Economic systems aren’t exclusive to capitalism. They include cooperative, centralized, socialized, and many other forms that aren’t capitalism.

I wanted to bring these structural points up before trying to digest your whole post, because your premises need work. I think a lot of substantial arguments can be brought to bear against Rand, and I commend your enthusaiasm, but I think coming at it from an opposing moral angle makes more sense than trying to defeat her by starting with (my apologies) your short-sighted definitions of morality and economics.

To me, the real weakness of Rand’s capitalist morality is that it conflicts with any form of what one might call a Christian sensibility being that it’s selfish to the point of hubris.

3

this entire thesis shows gross misunderstanding of Rand’s writing. one of these days i will get out a few books and spend some time refuting it, just for fun. but ill have to be pretty bored to get to that point, because it will take awhile, considering the OP’s almost universal inability to correctly understand anything Ayn Rand said.

4

Regardless of Rand, it’s a pathetic presentation of the nature money and value, and their relationship to human behavior. The OP believes there is a fundamental distinction between what we call “moral” value and the value that is expressed via price equilibrium and marginal utility, when in fact the distinction is completely arbitrary. Such a position requires that one assume there are actions which are infinitely good, because any finite good can theoretically be traded on the market, so long as a technique exists to process the transaction. In fact, what we call “morality” is often just a market correction, wherein reward, in the form of social status, for products and services are distributed in leiu of money, because such a transaction technique does not exist or is prohibitively expensive. Nonetheless, it is the invisible hand which is guiding such “morality.”

5

If you ask me all libertarians that believe in the dream of a libertarian economy or even worse a people free of government at the other end of the political lunacy scale, are idiots they only become rational the less they talk about their bilge or expect it to ever become a reality. They should call the Austrian school the Austrian mental asylum for the criminally unrealistic economic model. I mean with little input or laissez faire economic policies as Raegan and Tatcher called them back then the banks crippled the world economy, imagine what would happen if we just had no regulation at all or input and let those herd animals run like stampeding cattle. As far as I’m concerned if you ever believe any of this nonsense has a hope in hell of being implemented in the real world you’re not proper in the head. Personally I don’t know why anyone would want to read her self centred garbage in the first place, and can only agree with the OP that she was a total idiot, with a delusional vision that few care about or ever will.

6

i agree with you, but playing devils advocate an opponent of rand may point to a fundamental difference of type between varying values. such as a type as material and a type as immaterial. in the sense that you cannot trade immaterially per dollars immaterial values, one could say that such values, which do indeed intervene upon human behavior and desiring, are noneconomic, and that ergo rand’s placement of economic (transactional/productional) value at the heart of human behavior is fallacious.

of course i disagree with that. there are no immaterial values which cannot be materialized. in fact, the idea of a value itself is contrary to “immaterialism” in that a value must represent a THING which is of a BENEFIT in some way or another, even if the only way this benefit arises is because aquiring the value itself is productive of satisfaction of a desire, even arbitrary or harmful desires. the only values which cannot be traded are values which are unique to one individual alone, but even in this case the value must be PRODUCED via material or intersocial processes, in which case the individual himself can always economically generate and form material relations such that he either aquires or secures further the unique value in question.

rand correctly identified that all human values are derived/produced from material conditions. therefore rand is not mistaken when she claims that economical transaction based upon materialist productions is the heart of human behavior, morality, purpose, happiness and meaning.

rand viciously hated the libertarian movement. she often accused it of plagerizing her ideas for their own ends, and butchering them in the process. if you actually read any of her essay writing regarding political economic thought it becomes immediately apparent that she is NOT a libertarian, a conservative, or an anarchst, in any form.

7

You are, of course, correct. There is no value which is not associated with material action or object, because there is nothing which is not material action or object. Only the infinite is immaterial, which is why I said that such a position requires that one assume there are actions/objects which are infinitely good, which is obviously stupid (not to mention idolatrous!)

The only criticism I care to hear of capitalism is a pragmatic one, where the critic cite’s irrationality as the flaw. People have an addictive tendancy, which I think leads to what Keynes called price stickiness. Nevertheless, that makes addiction the failure of man, not capitalism. Pure capitalism, ruled by the invisible hand, is preserved as the ideal of the enlightened society. Government is the necessary evil that is only necessary because of man’s failure in that regard.

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^ i disagree. government is not a necessary evil. government is, however, necessary for capitalism. its not about government being ‘evil’ per se, but that governmental structures are almost always evil in their statist manifestations and overreaching for power.

capitalism cannot exist without political and economic rights for all people. you need the right to your property, to keep what you earn and dispose of it as you wish. you need the right to free expression, speech/writing/etc so that there are not arbitrary powers dictating values or terms of economic exchange. and you need police and court systems to protect property rights and mitigate disputes involving theft or fraud. while you have the right in pure capitalism to enter into economic transaction with anyone you wish for any reason whatsoever (provided that all parties involved freely consent), you do not have the right to misrepresent or misappropriate or lie regarding the terms of that agreement; such fraud is the use of economic force against another and constitutes theft of their property. therefore you need RATIONAL and NECESSARILY MINIMALIST government systems of Constitutionally protected and enforced rights such that free market forces are allowed to manifest and work within a system that is (relatively, as much as possible) free from the use of force on one person from another.

it is the use of force, physical force or coersion/threats or monopolies etc, that undermines and destroys capitalist economic systems. government is force by definition, as its word is law and it has a legal monopoly on the use of physical and legislative force. government also does not compete and therefore has a total economic monopoly as well, where it chooses to enter the marketplace. government therefore needs to exist, but in a rationally limited way.

the libertarian myth is that government is a necessary evil. it is that myth which is what ayn rand rejected, and one of the reasons why she hated libertarianism. anarchy is no better than slavery, she thought, because it IS slavery, slavery to the use of force by another against yourself. if you are not secure in your person and property and your right to trade and dispose of your talent, energy and wealth as you see fit, then you are not free at all. rand saw political rights as deriving FROM economic rights, and she (correctly) identified limited constitutional government as the only way that such rights can be upheld.

government is not evil, despite what libertarians or conservatives or anarchists would have you believe. government is GOOD! but only the proper STRUCTURE of government is good; due to its nature as a forceful isntitution, and as what rand calls the only legal monopoly on the use of force (the “placing of the use of retaliatory force under objective control”), government must be carefully restrained and tied only to serve the necessary functions of providing and safeguarding the liberties and an overall society of safety, while at the same time maximizing individual freedom for all people as much as possible, within this framework of simply, salient and consistent rights and legal legislation/enforcement.

9

Just as the acquisitive drive/will to power that is the failure of man, not of communism. It may be a perfect model for pure transaction - say, automated electronic interactions; in as far as capitalism is a system designed for use by man, its failure to deal with addiction is a failure of the system.

10

Capitalism isn’t a system designed for use by man, it’s the natural state of man. Addiction brings the necessity of government, but government doesn’t remove the addiction, it only trades freedom for order.

11

I think you’re splitting hairs. Entire political philosophies can’t be summed up in two words, but “necessary evil” is as good a characterization as you’ll find. The point is to allow and encourage the natural efficiency of our self-interested relationships. Any talk of anarchy is moot, as some power will emerge at the top, and surely become oppressive, up unto the inevitable revolution. So we initiate representative governments, to ensure that this oppressive monopoly only effects the minority, not the majority. Still, the oppressed minority is hardly the ideal, especially in comparison to an openly competitive market, which oppresses most those who contribute the least, which is not only just but initiates progress.

12

“Natural state”? This raises a few questions - Is this an 18th-century idea to match “natural rights”, or do you really think that pre-civilisation humankind were an economically-inspired band of free marketeers? Or does capitalism include the violent assertion of power over others and organisation into family-based hierarchical groups?

Secondly, is it any more desirable or better-fitted to modern life for being “natural”?

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I don’t see anything ‘natural’ about working 40 hours plus a week in a mind numbingly boring job doing menial labour. Being stuck in this state of affairs has driven me to suicidal thoughts on countless ocassions. Contemplating suicide because one becomes little more than an appendage of the assembly line is not natural, but madness. ‘Natural’ my arse.

14

Send in the clowns. :frowning:

15

And whose fault is it that you have such a mind-numbing job? If you lived in a truly free economy, you would be free at any moment to seek new employment elsewhere, which better suited your needs and temperment.

The “natural” state of man is to be self-determining of his life. We have the capacity for choice, motivation, decision, creativity, productive action and purpose - and to the extent that we use these, we generate happiness and fulfilment in our lives (i.e. our emotions are geared to reward us with satisfying feelings when we perform life-sustaining behaviors). To the extent that we do not exercise these capacities and act passively, out of inertia or laziness or frustration or apathy (as it seems you are doing with your job, which you admittely hate) then we generate unhappiness and the lack of fulfilment.

If you want to sum up the natural state, or natural purpose of a man’s life, it is self-actualization, to act and create your destiny. Do what you want, what makes you happy, what makes you a better more satisfied person. Do what evolves you. But in a free economy, it is up to you to find this path for yourself. It is up to you to determine your own destiny. If you have neglected to do this for yourself, dont blame the system itself. Capitalism is a system of individual choice and freedom of self-determination, and of course this also includes self-responsibility. If you balk at being self-responsible, then there is no one to blame for your unhappy, mind-numbing, suicidal-thought-provoking life but yourself.

Life is not free, nothing is given and there are no free lunches, but by designing an economy around the concept of human choice and self-motivation, we can engineer some degree of freedom into life for ourselves. We are NOT slaves with no possibility for escape, we are NOT stuck forever in jobs that we hate with no way to get out, we are NOT degraded into a life with no purpose or destiny or desire for achievment. . . unless we accept those things ourselves.

In capitalism it is the individual who has the most determining effect on his own life. In the case of people who are unable or unwilling to exercise this wonderful freedom, they will of course become bitter and always point the finger - anything to keep from looking in a mirror and seeing where the real fault lies.

16

Ayn Rand ate my hamster!

The woman’s dead and so are her dreams.

I am a slave to the banks every whim. :unamused:

17

That is because our system is not a capitalist system. The banking problems are not due to the free individualistic nature of our system, which is almost nonexistent at this point - they are due to the massive government beauracracies that dictate every aspect of financials and banking. Large government breeds corruption and government-business collusion. Large government activity in the economy (i.e. large monopolistic activity) destroys competition, and therefore the individual consumer is cut off from his one means to effect change to these companies, and to ensure that they treat him well.

Capitalism, as a system of guaranteed individual rights and rationally limited government, could not allow these banking monopolies to exist. A monopoly can only thrive in a free economy with the consent of the masses willingness to purchase its products - once a monopoly begins to harm its customers, or offer less than desirable services, people move to a competitor, of which there are many in any free system as incentives for profit (particularly in previously monopolized fields) are too great for there not to be, and the harmful large company (in this case, the banks) are finished.

Only an economic system with collusion between government and business can sustain these sorts of problems that we are experiencing now. You cannot blame capitalism for these problems, as there is almost nothing capitalistic about our systems left.

18

This is a fiction. Monopolies (explicit, or agreed between the largest players) can exist under free trade; above a critical percentage of a large market, the power of a company to exclude its competitors and (importantly) dictate market conditions overcomes the ability of new competition to start. They can afford to cut prices below competitive rates and force and keep small players out of the market, sufficiently that no-one would rationally invest in such a new competitor. The economic gaia theory is no truer than the biological one - agents that can modify the environment to suit themselves throw out the equilibrium of competition.

19

The problems are with our unwillingness to learn from history.

History always repeats.

20

You presuppose that capitalism is the proper vehicle for the achievment of happiness and/or self-actualization. Capitalism is little more than a mathematical formula to create profit. Renting out one’s labour power to produce useless junk that people don’t really need is not, for myself anyway, the path to self-actualization. Even if I was the manager of a successful company (which I was at one stage), this isn’t self-actualization; all it is is a production of commodities and/or services for people to consume. Hardly the path to happiness/self-actualization.

Your argument also hinges on the wonderful, but often critiqued, notion of free will. Of course we would all love to determine our lives in every single aspect, but we are “thrown into the world” with a pre-existing mode of existence (social/political/economic mores), hence the world determines us rather than we determine it.

The reality is that every state needs a slave class. The lowly worker is a neccesity. Although in some countries we are able to move between the classes, it still requires a slave class regardless; hence there can be no self-determination for the majority.