When Atlas Shrugs, People Listen... But Why?
The ones who got us into the economic mess we're in thought Atlas Shrugged was a primer for modeling a society--rather than just a work of (bad) fiction. Their solution to the problems they caused? Read Atlas Shrugged...
It is no small irony that conservatives, whose agenda is supposedly to make us all to live in the past, don't remember what the past was actually like. Take, for example. the sudden interest amongst the "Whiny Right" in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Lately, conservative pundits have been bringing up this book as a prescient window from the past into today's economic predicament. According to them, if we only followed the precepts Rand laid out in this book, the real source of our economic problems would just go away, and we would have a perfect laissez-faire capitalist society run by selfish people who only give a damn about themselves. And that, of course, would be good (according to them), because all of those outside of that group of people are just "moochers" who unjustifiably take the "wealth" these people produced (i.e., from the Ponzi schemes and the tangled mazes of fabricated fictional financial instruments they created).
There's just one problem with this sudden rise in cheerleading for Ayn Rand from the Whiny Right: Rand's doctrine was what these people followed during their stay in power over the course of the last thirty years! We did follow those precepts, and this is where they got us.
Even before Obama was sworn into office, the Whiny Right was already posturing about their love of Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged. Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal wrote an article back in January entitled Atlas Shrugged: From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years. He mentioned that during his stay at the Cato Institute (a libertarian spin farm posing as an "objective"--no pun intended--source of economic wisdom, with a bias against economic regulation as deep as the Institute for Creation Science's bias against evolution), they would call those who hadn't yet read Atlas Shrugged "virgins". (Perhaps this was meant to indicate that they hadn't yet been mindf--ked.) Moore opined that "if only Atlas were required reading for every member of Congress and political appointee in the Obama administration. I'm confident that we'd get out of the current financial mess a lot faster." But in stereotypical conservatives-can't-remember-the-past fashion, he forgets that the book was "required reading" for people like Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan, who might be considered the... shall we say architects (Howard Roarks?) of the economic debacle we are in today. In other words, reading Atlas Shrugged is not what will get us out of this mess, it is the very thing that got us into it.
(Of course, when Moore appeared on The Colbert Report during the "Doom Bunker" segment last week, he admitted that if something, somehow, were to prove that his ideas on economic policy and doctrine were wrong, "I would have to rethink everything I believe in." As Colbert noted, we can only pray that never happens... but there really isn't any need to when dealing with Whiny Right, is there?)
To use a metaphor of sorts, imagine that an expatriate from a foreign country--say, Russia--detested how food was made in her native country, had her own ideas about such things (for argument's sake, we'll call her "Rachel Raynd") and fled to come to America. Once here, she wrote a cookbook (entitled "Atlas Sauteed") describing the "right" way that food should be made, complete with recipes and photos of her completed creations. Millions of people bought the book (and also bought large SUVs and/or pickup trucks in order to carry the huge tomes back home), and praised it. The pictures inside the book "proved" that these were great magnificent delicious recipes. But when several prominent chefs decided to serve food based on the recipes in the book, thousands of people suffered severe food poisoning and became extremely ill. Not heeding these somewhat obvious warnings, the chefs continued to prepare food according to these recipes, and many more became ill. When a government agency ("No, no, please no!!!!") came in and shut down the establishments using these recipes, the proprietors became enraged--"Why are WE being punished because other people got sick?"--and announced their idea of a solution. There was a cure for what befell all those sick people. Where would we find this cure? Why, in the back of that same cookbook! (In fact, in the last 60 or so pages, in which chef Jean Gaulte decries the notion that the illness of the people he fed is his concern--these, after all, were not productive people who created meals, these were simply the people who paid for and ate them. Mere human beings, not chefs like him!)
What is the allure of this book? Rand is a horrific author, even more tediously verbose than... well, than me. 
Her capabilities in constructing an engaging narrative and producing poetic metaphor are severely limited. (How much "metaphor" can you squeeze out of "A = A"?) Her philosophy is derivative and unoriginal, and most of those she cribs from would spin in their graves if exposed to her work. And that philosophy is not conveyed to us through action (as a good author would do) but through plodding speeches offered up by her flawless heroic fictional characters.
So why do conservatives see this book as a bible, a primer on how society should be organized? Perhaps it is the same set of factors that leads fans of Lord of the Rings (et al) to show up to movie premieres (or for that matter, to work) in full costumed regalia, to take on the names of their favorite characters... in other words, these Randroids are just another set of nerds who believe their pet favorite fantasy fiction (which is all Atlas Shrugged is) is real! Good fantasy and science fiction work because their stories may be fictional, but they resonate metaphorically in the real world. Atlas Shrugged simply pretends that the fantasies of the author are reality. It is a pathetic eugenic fiction vainly attempting to rationalize the notion that society can be divided up into productive people and "moochers", and that only members of the former group are "deserving".
Isn't it funny how the advocates of this philosophy all happen to imagine themselves, objectively of course, to be the productive, intelligent ones who are taken advantage of by the other worthless moochers who just don't work as hard as they do? How did that happen?)
Poking fun at Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged is kind of like shooting fish in a barrel. Stephen Colbert's segment on the subject last night, Rand Illusion, was dead on, mocking the book's ridiculous conceit about the "people who make society work" (you know: the CEOs, the hedge fund managers, the politicians, and the pundits) going on strike and creating their own island nation--a nation, as Colbert describes it, "of self-interested, Type-A, me-firsters who will never suffer the indignity of working in the interests of anyone else". Matt Ruff also parodied Rand's philosophical ideas in his book Sewer, Gas, and Electric.
But the most poignant mockery of Randroidism comes from Douglas Adams, best known as the author of the five-book Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy". In one of those books, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Adams describes a race from the planet Golgafrincham, who had a similar idea to the one in Atlas Shrugged, only in reverse. They decided their species could be divided up into three groups: the "A" group being the brilliant (self-proclaimed, of course) leaders, scientists, artists and so on, the "C" group being those who worked, who did and made actual concrete things of value, the "B" group being everybody else--the hairdressers, management consultants, TV producers, insurance salesmen, telephone sanitizers, etc.--whom the wise "brilliant" people objectively deemed useless. And the brilliant people "invented spurious tales of impending doom" conveyed to the masses leading to an announcement that everyone would need to leave the planet, and that the three designated groups would be gathered onto their own respective "arks", with the "B-Ark" leaving... er, shall we say, "first". Thus the remaining people of Golgafrincham, having "rid themselves of the useless third of their population, ... stayed firmly at home and lived full, rich, happy lives... until they were all suddenly wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone."
Maybe such a scenario, or a variation of it, really is in our best interests. Perhaps, if the self-proclaimed brilliant deserving people did go on strike, did stop inventing specious manufactured ways of "creating wealth" from vapor, we would be the better for it. And perhaps if they did go off together to an island and form their own nation based on their social and economic "principles"... it would be the best season of Survivor ever!
But if they bring their guns with them, it probably wouldn't last more than a few episodes.
- Colbert Nation - Tonight's Word: Rand Illusion
- Atlas Shrugged: From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years (from The Wall Street Journal)
- Ayn Rand entry on Colbert's Wikiality web site
Hilarious and very well said!! Here's an interesting article on what really might have prevented our current situation and what may be a better way to model economics going forward, from the scientific publication Seed Magazine.
Ecology of Finance
Comment by Misanthropic Scott — March 12, 2009 @ 1:23 pm
The definition of selfishness?
The CEO's, hedge fund managers, the politicians, are not type-A men as you so subtley suggest. Is running a company into the ground in ones self interest if you are the CEO? Is investing billions in shady sub-prime mortgages in anyones self interest? Is selling your country to the highest bidder (lobbyist) in one's own self interest?
Your article addresses these men as the heroes of Ayn Rand's writings and the architects of the mess we are now in. But what you refuse to aknowledge is the government regulations that made all of this current crisis possible.
You forget, if you have read Atlas Shrugged, that the politicians were the plague, that the regulations of the polticians is what ultimately caused the debacle.
Read the book then talk about it. When you think you must find the root of whatever cause you seek to discover. Logic has a beginning and an end.
Comment by firsthander — March 13, 2009 @ 4:52 pm
Shall we start from the beginning, Firsthander?
The "Type-A" label was not my invention, that was from Colbert's lucid description. As a part-time type-A myself, I can't really see why that label is something you see as an issue.
"Is running a company into the ground in ones self interest if you are the CEO?" Sure, absolutely, if you get a golden parachute in the hundreds of millions when the company goes down and no accountability for your actions as you move on to the next company you run into the ground without any consequence to your own career.
Again, it was not "government regulations that made all of this possible," it was the notion that the regulations we DID have in place were irrelevant and ought to be ignored or even dismantled, one of the prime legacies of Reaganomics. Why do you people think blaming everything bad on the government and absolving corporate criminals of responsibility is a reasonable argument? Distrusting the government but trusting corporations is like distrusting institutionalized medicine but trusting drug dealers.
I do not "forget" at all that in Atlas Shrugged "the politicians were the plague"--I simply note that Atlas Shrugged is a work of fiction that is not reflective of reality, and that statements about who Rand considered to be the plague are irrelevant gibberish. She was the author of a fictional book with cardboard characters that did not represent the real world. That you think it WAS representative of the real world is the source of the problem here.
Finally, logic begins with fundamental statements of fact that are the foundation for a process reaching a valid conclusion. Your statements here begin and end with the assumption that Rand's ideas represent a valid image of the world and how it works. The results of conservative politicians over the course of 30 years employing her ideas to the detriment of us all proves that this is not the case. Therefore your argument is not founded on logic. Saying that it is doesn't make it so. Saying "read the book" only serves to support your contention if you assume a priori that the book is true. Kind of like what some people do with the Bible, y'know? (Not surprising, given the way Objectivism is no different than any other religion.)
Comment by Rich Rosen — March 13, 2009 @ 5:44 pm
Firsthander,
I agree with Rich. You've got it all backwards. Of course running a company into the ground can be in the CEO's self interest. The issue with the subprimes in particular made it so, many times over. Before everyone realized they were toxic waste to be avoided at all cost, what people saw in them was a way to buy the subprime known shitty mortgages, "insure" them with credit default swaps (which were unregulated, of course) and then account for them as if they were insured by a real insurance company. This allowed them to take 10 years of profit in a single year and to award themselves (and the traders that work for them) 10 years of bonuses in a single year.
So, yes, it is absolutely in the self-interest of the CEO and the traders to buy crappy mortgages and reap very short term benefits and then suffer the awful fate of being paid many millions of dollars to go away. That is what acting based on self-interest leads to.
I have had some bizarre conversations with self-proclaimed Objectivists. Imagine someone who actually has a dog and thinks that animals are all stimulus/response in a B. F. Skinner way. If you believe that, why have a dog? If you believe that, I wouldn't want to be your dog. I can't even really imagine someone who has a cat feeling that way. Though, many who do not have cats seem to think they're not social creatures. They're wrong, of course. But, I can understand the misunderstanding. Cats are social in ways that many people have trouble recognizing. But, at least one of these cultists actually had a dog. How much more obviously can anyone show their emotions and thoughts than a dog does? Everything is so out in the open with dogs. And yet, these people have come to believe that non-human animals have no feelings. I couldn't believe that a conversation with these guys about morality could actually have a whole pile of these morans asserting very strongly that we have no moral obligation to animals.
It seems to me that the whole Objectivist thing really gives people strange ideas, as strange as those of fundamentalists from any of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic sects and stranger than most run-of-the-mill, non-foaming-at-the-mouth, members of religions. I know that Objectivists tend to espouse atheism (as I do) but Rand's tenets embody all the very worst aspects of religion in general. I recall that I once referred to her as "L. Rayn Hubbrand." It seemed very appropriate at the time ... and still does.
Comment by Misanthropic Scott — March 14, 2009 @ 9:32 am
Another great article noting how following Rand's philosophy is possibly the worst idea ever:
The Last Person On Earth To Turn To Now Is Ayn Rand
Understand what "Going Galt" really is: the people with power, accumulated through inheritance, deception, collusion, or coercion, who have control in one form or another of the "means of production", tell the rest of the world that they will only resume their work -- which provides goods for people, employs people, etc. -- if they get their way, if the world agrees to follow their stilted self-centered view of how society and its underlying economy should work.
This is nothing but economic blackmail. Contrary to the notion that Going Galt is some noble proud effort by the true elite to show society how it ought to work -- it is a telling example of the stupid, selfish, whiny, crybaby behavior of these unworthies, these people who bitch about government "entitlements" given to people (like health care, police protection, education, etc.) when they themselves feel entitled to get their childish whiny way.
The reason they hate unions is because unions form a wedge that the people who do the actual work for these lazy slobs use against their employers' unabrogated power.
The reason they whine about the terrible "trial lawyers" who sue corporations when their actions cause others harm is because they don't believe they SHOULD be held accountable for such things.
The reason they hate government oversight is because such oversight, if applied robustly, would put constraints on the kinds of deceitful things they do to make a profit.
When we hear these people bemoan the terrible awful government regulations impeding them from "doing what they want", know what it is that they want - to act with impunity, to absolve themselves of responsibility to those who employ, to those they sell their products to, and to society at large.
They want to Go Galt? I say hell, they should go for it. I'm all for starting a movement encouraging those B-Ark charlatans (to use Adams' metaphor) to run off to an island and form their own society -- is there a word for a "society" comprised solely of the anti-social? -- which would disintegrate under its own weight in microseconds. The reality of Atlas Shrugged is that its pompous cardboard anti-social characters are the antithesis of anything resembling a hero, that despite Rand's fantasies about how the world really works, the world they would produce if left to their own devices -- and thank goodness we don't! -- would be a hell on earth. Rational selfishness is, as we've seen from the actual behavior of these rationally selfish fools, as oxymoronic as military intelligence -- or that other forcibly conflated term, "compassionate conservatism."
Comment by Sviergn Jiernsen — March 16, 2009 @ 9:05 am
Thanks to Mike Huben, keeper of the Critiques of Libertarianism web site and blog, for linking to this post in his own article on what's wrong with the Going-Galt "movement". He also links to two great cartoons on the subject from In Contempt Comics and from Some Guy with a Website.
Comment by Rich Rosen — March 17, 2009 @ 11:45 am
Rand's book was a moral argument about productive and responsible people, rather than "the wealthy" or "powerful" who want to coerce others into paying for them. What you are attacking is something else, i.e. Strawmen.
Of course Colbert realizes that there is a rather nasty, but not altogether unfair, portrayal of people just like him in the book, and he wouldn't want anybody reading that and associating it with the benevolent and progressive ways of destroying America now in vogue.
Of course Atlas is a piece of fiction, some people are bound to misinterpret it, some find it inspirational with ominous parallels to real world happenings, some find it badly written and one-dimensional.
I have yet to meet any conservative or libertarian who saw this piece of fiction as "their Bible", and I hope I never will.
Comment by AuH2O — March 22, 2009 @ 3:47 am
Thanks for your comment, AuH2O. (I get it, GoldWater. LOL!) Somehow, it never fails during an argument about Rand that someone introduces the "straw man" fallacy by referring to other people's "straw man" arguments that are, in fact, not straw men at all. Kind of a logical Moebius strip inside an Escher painting.
Yes, AS was a moral fable about "productive and responsible people", but the story line erroneously conflates the very two groups you mention as if they were one. It would be either naive or disingenuous to claim that the "moral" of the book was merely a social one, which is what you seem to be implying. And the point is that this "moral" is speciously founded on that erroneous conflation, applying the adjectives "productive and responsible" onto a class of people who are generally unworthy of those labels.
Who among us has in their lives NOT had to deal with the "unproductive and irresponsible"? - Family members who won't deal of their own problems and force you to take care of things for them with a total lack of appreciation on their part, friends who consistently get themselves into trouble owing to their irresponsibility leaving it to you to rescue them, colleagues who don't do their fair share and burden you with the bulk of the workload. But Randists take this experience and extrapolate that the entire human race is justifiably divided into the "productive and responsible" (a group that just happens to include them) and everyone else, and building from that a eugenic rationalization for greed and selfishness. They pretend that the human experience can be distilled into a division between them, the supposedly productive and responsible, and the rest of the world. This is not reasoning worthy of a label etymologically derived from the word "objective". This is just crybaby whining about how they are underappreciated and underrewarded relative to everyone else.
Getting down to specifics, I'm curious as to precisely what you mean when you talk about people "just like" Colbert and a "nasty but not altogether unfair portrayal" of such people in Atlas Shrugged. This sounds like a snide ad hominem innuendo made in a deliberately unclear way. What portrayal are you referring to? Which characteristic are you maligning? And you speak of "destroying America" in an equally unclear manner. What exactly is destroying America? Again, obviously what brought America to the state we are in now IS the actions of people who believed Atlas Shrugged WAS a textbook for how economies and societies ought to be structured. We can thus, objectively, say that the presumptions upon which their socioeconomic principles rest are flawed. I would thus conclude that an effort to continue employing such principles is the force that would be considered to be destroying America. (What is it that keeps some people from admitting that? A total obstinacy about admitting they're wrong and accepting the very notion of change?)
Atlas Shrugged does not have "parallels" to real world happenings, if anything it has what would best be called "perpendiculars" that butt head on INTO the wall of reality, hard. The only thing "ominous" here is the rabid dogmatism of those whose pathological dogma failed us all in its real world application, as they insist that we all cling to that dogma as fiercely as they do--lest we be accused of "destroying America".
Rand's most glaring flaw was her stilted binary thinking: either society works to help its members (bad) or it lets its self-proclaimed geniuses have their way and do what they want no matter what the consequences (er... good?). No surprise that those who find her philosophy reasonable share that trait. If you're trying to say that Atlas Shrugged is simply about some sort of conflict between "productive and responsible people" and their supposedly unproductive and irresponsible counterparts, this is simply not borne out by the storyline, and it is certainly not the opinion of most of the book's fans. The point, if any, of Atlas Shrugged is to draw a rationalized social demarcation between the so-called "productive and responsible" and everyone else, dividing worthy from unworthy, using this as a justification for pretending that their lives are not enmeshed in and dependent on society as a whole. This is a "point" founded in loaded biased irrationality.
J. K. Galbraith noted that "the modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." Randists seem to think they have found it but, objectively speaking, they have not. Not by a long shot.
Comment by Rich Rosen — March 23, 2009 @ 1:03 am
From a mutual friend who usually prefers to remain anonymous on blogs, there is apparently a programming language based on the morals of Objectivism called Objectivist C.
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Objectivist_C
Comment by Misanthropic Scott — October 30, 2009 @ 3:23 pm
The "producers" of society are not those who transfer wealth or drive billion dollar companies into the ground. Producers are those who provide value to society. This value can range from a new type or design of cell phone to a great new meal at the local diner to excellent counseling services (or even an entertaining blog or television show). CEOs and money managers can certainly be included, but are not included merely due to his or her title. They are only included if they, too, provide value to society.
Typically, they are rewarded for the value they have created. Colbert has made a lot of money for the entertainment product he has produced. The local chef who has created a get meal receives customers who pay for that meal. You, perhaps, have even received payment for the software you have developed.
This is the central idea in AS. Certain members of society produce value and are compensated. Admittedly, it is incredibly simplistic into which the complexities of our society must be taken into account, but only true Marxists would desire any other ideology at their core.
Consider yourself as a analogy for Reardon. You've spent 20 years developing a piece of software that will revolutionize society. During those 20 years, you've spent countless muti-day marathons at your keyboard and ruin numerous relationships. Finally, you have it perfected.
But due to the current economic crisis, several things occur. IBM and Microsoft lobby the feds to outlaw or severely restrict sale of your software because they would not be able to compete and would be forced to lay off 1000s of workers. When you still manage to sell copies and after further lobbying, Obama decides that your program is so important to the future of this country, the feds appropriate it and distribute it freely to all of society.
Regarding the rest of your post...
I simply don't understand. I simply don't understand what is wrong with being selfish.
And your points about objectivism being proven wrong due to Reagan and Greenspan causing the current economic crisis is simplistic at best, flat out wrong at worst. In addition to Greenspan keeping the fed rate too low for too long, there were plenty of liberals demanding the easing of credit standards. But in both of those factors is the interference of government with business.
I also don't understand what's wrong with the current "economic crisis". Recessions are as much a part of life as breathing and I want no part of a system that prevents all recessions. Every one of those banks should have been allowed to fail. By propping those banks up, the government has implicitly stated that "if you're big enough to cause systemic risk, then take all the risks you want 'cause we've got your back." If those banks failed, it would be a long, long time (70 years as history tells us) before banks got that stupid again.
And finally, you and I are so fundamentally wired differently that it is simply incredible to read your thoughts.
Comment by John Galt — December 8, 2009 @ 11:19 pm
In response to the objectivist individualist who chose the very unique individualistic name of "John Galt"...
The "producers" of society are not those who transfer wealth or drive billion dollar companies into the ground.
Agreed. And you said we had no common ground. I'm starting to think perhaps we agree on quite a lot of things.
CEOs and money managers can certainly be included, but are not included merely due to his or her title. They are only included if they, too, provide value to society.
Ah, I see, they "are only included"... by whom? In what list saying who's included and who isn't? Is there a government agency that regulates who gets included in this list you speak of? Or is inclusion just a matter of their own declaration of inclusion? I'm not sure who you imagine drives and organizes this list of who's included and who's not. Does it happen naturally, via the "free market"? Or do those CEOs and money managers decide to include themselves, because they can? (I think it's the latter. What do YOU think?)
Typically, they are rewarded for the value they have created.
That's a very interesting use of the word "typically". I think you meant to use the word "ideally". But I've noticed that Randites tend to imagine that "ideally" translates into "typically" because that's what "typically" transpires in Rand's storylines.
This is the central idea in AS. Certain members of society produce value and are compensated.
And since AS is a work of fiction, indeed it works that way in that world. The fact that it doesn't seem to work that way in the real world is something Randites overlook, again confusing "ideally" with "typically". Why DOESN'T that happen? Is it because evil "Marxists" and "collectivists" thwart the natural efforts of the marketplace to make this ideal a reality? Or is it because the actual natural flow of events, in the absence of appropriate societal controls, is that power will be accumulated greedily by people who believe they deserve it regardless of the actual social value they generate?
Admittedly, it is incredibly simplistic...
LOL! You, Mr. "Galt", are a true master of understatement!
but only true Marxists would desire any other ideology at their core.
Very Foxnewsian of you - make a disparaging statement without any real content or argument, implying pompously that "anyone who doesn't believe as I do is clearly wrong." What is it precisely that you are tangentially implying "true Marxists" believe? Why are those beliefs wrong? What IS your statement but another vacuous smear directed at anyone who disagrees with the holy word of Aynie? In what sense does that empty statement of yours represent OBJECTIVE reasoning and logical argument?
You've spent 20 years developing a piece of software that will revolutionize society. ... [But] IBM and Microsoft lobby the feds to outlaw or severely restrict sale of your software because they would not be able to compete and would be forced to lay off 1000s of workers.
Hmmmm... let's see... how did IBM and Microsoft get to the position they were in to do this kind of influencing and lobbying? Could it be because they were unregulated in their quest for accumulated power? Could it be that they unfairly used that accumulated power to squeeze competitors out of the marketplace, or to buy companies producing resources far better than anything they could produce via their usual tactics of stealing ideas from others solely to run them into the ground and maintain their monopoly positions?
It would seem that you, like Rand, are writing your own work of fiction, as derivative and fanciful as Rand's own work.
I simply don't understand. I simply don't understand what is wrong with being selfish.
Well, one day perhaps you will acquire social skills, desire the company of another person to share your life with, realize that the bodies surrounding you in the crowds you walk through are actually other human beings just like you... only with souls. Yes, you simply don't understand. Perhaps life experience will lead you to some degree of understanding. Perhaps not. But that has no relevance to the points you are trying to make and I have to admit befuddlement at why you interjected this clearly self-disparaging statement about yourself.
And your points about objectivism being proven wrong due to Reagan and Greenspan causing the current economic crisis is simplistic at best, flat out wrong at worst.
It is not "simplistic" (in the same sense that your explanations are admittedly simplistic) to note that Greenspan himself acknowledged that his faith in the marketplace's ability to regulate itself (a nonsense idea derived from Rand) was flawed and was at the core of his strategy in managing the country's economic affairs.
But in both of those factors is the interference of government with business.
You mean the lack thereof... right?
I also don't understand what's wrong with the current "economic crisis".
Well, when your job magically goes away, or when your loved ones suffer a similar fate (despite your being admittedly selfish hopefully you HAVE loved ones... or at the very least people who unselfishly consider YOU a loved one), perhaps you might consider that something is WRONG with an economic crisis. This is a typical example of what I've called "system-ism" versus "people-ism": declaring that the health and well-being of the system is more important than the health and well-being of people. Naturally, those who game the system and use it, selfishly, "win" when the system wins, and the "unproductive" (i.e., those outside the Objectivist's circle) deservedly (sic) suffer. So the moral is... what? Tell us.
Recessions are as much a part of life as breathing and I want no part of a system that prevents all recessions.
Well, I'm sure while you still have a job and while your home is still intact, you will continue to say that. Perhaps that will change when your conditions change. Perhaps not. But given what you've said so far I feel pretty certainly you will selfishly find things wrong with the current economic situation.
If those banks failed, it would be a long, long time (70 years as history tells us) before banks got that stupid again.
And gee, what led to and allowed them to "get that stupid"? Reaganomic deregulation? Arrogant overconfidence in their MotU powers? A lack of proper control over their risk as it applied to the system as a whole and not just their localized sphere of influence?
Objectively, you go back to the root cause to find out why something happened. Ironically, "Objectivists" don't do that.
And finally, you and I are so fundamentally wired differently that it is simply incredible to read your thoughts.
I get that all the time.
But you say that like it's a bad thing. There is room for all kinds of diversity, including diversity of opinion, isn't there? Nah, we probably have very similar wiring. You just don't see the point of taking into account that your situation did not arise in a vacuum, fully formed out of sea foam into self-made John Galt manhood, that your current conditions are the result of those around you who UNSELFISHLY enabled you to get where you are today. Maybe someday you will. More likely not. The cushion surrounding you that enables you to cling to your opinions and voice them with Glennbeckian indignancy despite their emptiness will doubtless continue to insulate you from many realities for some time to come. Good luck with that. It won't last forever, your insulation will eventually crumble and you will be forced to deal with a real world that isn't an imaginary envisioning of the idealized world in an Ayn Rand novel. I guarantee you that much.
In conclusion, you would appear to be guilty of the very same binary thinking that plagues Rand's work. Rand grew up in evil collectivist Russia, and escaped to America where she asserted that ANY notion of contributing to a common good in society is evil, and rationalized how her own selfishness (often evincing itself in her personal life) was noble and good. And like-minded binary thinking people agree. No surprise. She appeals to the whiny complainers who think their obvious "brilliance" is being overlooked while other lesser undeserving people succeed (very "Wile E. Coyote, suuupergeeenius!"), and blame this on an imaginary dichotomy between the productive people (a group that naturally includes them) and the unproductive people (the "others", of course). Dividing people into such groupings is a fool's errand, as Douglas Adams noted in the example I cited in the original post. But that doesn't stop these people.
Comment by Rich Rosen — December 9, 2009 @ 2:03 pm
There is no magical list of producers vs. non-producers. There is no selection committee. You don't get a star on your lapel.
If a person creates something that is valuable to others, they in turn will exchange other items of value in order to acquire those goods and services.
I use the word "typically" because in my experience, being a producer is rewarded more often than being a non-producer. Through all my working years, I have observed that a productive employee is more often rewarded than a non-productive or less-productive employee. This, of course, is not always the case. That is why I used "typically".
Once upon a time, while in the IT industry, I was on the panel who had to decide who got laid off and who didn't. We evaluated the engineers on a basis of value to the company, e.g. quality of code, productivity, reliability. In my current job, I watched the powers that be decide who to lay off, and it was my observation that they typically chose appropriately - laying off those who were least productive. Even in my most corporate of jobs, a year stint with McDonalds, I observed valuable employees be retained and given favorable treatment over those employees who were not as valuable to the company. This, of course, is not always the case, but it has been my observations that it is the typical order of things. Perhaps some people see this as unfair, I don't know. Or perhaps, if you are the one laid off, you see it as irrational selection.
Surprisingly, I don't watch Fox News or listen to Rush Limbaugh. In my opinion, they are entirely too reactionary. And Glen Beck is one of the biggest idiots I've ever seen on television. But to your point...
My understanding of marxism is essentially limited to the understanding of "to each according to their need, from each according to their ability." I can see where some people may consider that as fair and as a just way to run the world. If that is a person's fundamental ideology, I can understand him or her being opposed to some people receiving more and accumulating wealth. Accordingly, I made my reference to "Marxists" not as a smear, but as a means to identify individuals with a particular view on how society should run. There is nothing inherently offensive about that label and I don't understand why you took offense.
Nice personal attack, btw. You're right. I'm a loner who hates everyone. Actually, I volunteered to help a needy family just the other day. What did I see? Ingratitude, apathy, entitlement. I see those same characteristics nearly everywhere I look.
Your mention of "souls" is interesting and goes to a theory I've had for a while. If liberals would adopt a religious basis for their actions, e.g. "We're helping the helpless because that's what Jesus would do," they would dominate this country's political landscape - and it would give an additional rational basis for their policies.
Let's not forget that the federal reserve is a quasi-governmental entity. Its participation in the market is decidedly governmental influence. Its politically popular to even out the ebbs and flows of the economy.
Furthermore, Congress's giving of inherent security to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in exchange for their expanded lending to less qualified families contributed greatly to the current economic situation.
If my job magically goes away, I'm prepared. I've diversified my income sources and kept my debt low. I've learned to grow, can and cook my own food. Its all perfectly reasonable if you view a job as a temporary privilege instead of a right.
I looked back through my life and tried to ascertain moments of unselfishness bestowed upon me by strangers. I really can't think of any. My early education was provided me by teachers who were paid for their service by tax dollars forced from the population by threats of imprisonment. My later education was paid by me trading my time and services to others in exchange for money which I then handed to universities in exchange for their professors' time. Sure universities are subsidized, but again paid for with tax money wrestled from the population.
And I don't complain that "obvious 'brilliance' is being overlooked while other lesser undeserving people succeed." I complain that as regulation and taxation increase in this country, and as we become a nation of "B-Ark"* travelers, its going to be increasingly difficult to maintain our average standard of living.
* Here's a little Douglas Adams back at ya.
Comment by John Galt — December 27, 2009 @ 2:04 am
There is no magical list of producers vs. non-producers. There is no selection committee. You don't get a star on your lapel.
LOL! That was the whole point. In your previous post you made proclamations about what happens to the "productive" vs. the "non-productive". I noted how spurious those statements were. Your implication was that some force (the "free market"?) somehow led to a "natural" state of affairs in which the productive were justifiably rewarded. But the whole point is that NATURAL forces (accumulation of power by the greedy non-producers with the capital) subvert that ideal. You said "typically, [the producers] are rewarded for the value they have created." But the point was that the word you MEANT to use in that sentence was "ideally", not "typically". This is a point of vocabulary confusion that seems all to common amongst Randites. You don't get that your ideal is not what typically happens, and that there is a demonstrable reason WHY this occurs.
I use the word "typically" because in my experience, being a producer is rewarded more often than being a non-producer.
Then how do you explain the fact that the non-productive folks who concoct spurious fabricated securities with no real world value get seven-digit bonuses annually? Perhaps your experience is... limited? Could it be? Or, to put it another way, maybe should get out more--out of the ivory tower of Randian fiction that seems to form the focus of your "experience". Again, you misuse the word "typically". As "you people" tend to do.
Once upon a time, while in the IT industry, I was on the panel who had to decide who got laid off and who didn't. We evaluated the engineers on a basis of value to the company, e.g. quality of code, productivity, reliability. In my current job, I watched the powers that be decide who to lay off, and it was my observation that they typically chose appropriately - laying off those who were least productive. Even in my most corporate of jobs, a year stint with McDonalds, I observed valuable employees be retained and given favorable treatment over those employees who were not as valuable to the company.
Again, you seem to like wallowing in your own lack of experience as if it represented... the "typical". In my experience, which clearly from the sample you choose to provide is a lot deeper and more extensive than your own, I have witnessed "hatchet men" called in to destroy groups, departments, and divisions with blunt instruments, not on the basis of anything involving merit or worth, but based on which cuts would provide the most short-term gain, in the most typically shortsighted way imaginable. (Now THERE'S at last an appropriate use of that word!) The genuinely TYPICAL experience is that corporate thinkers, the ones with the power to decide things for others, have the most shortsighted limited vision. The genuinely TYPICAL experience is that the ones with the most power are the ones least qualified to make decisions, and yet they DO make decisions in their own self-interest which is basically a cover-my-ass mentality--the opposite of the long view that comprehends and accounts for causation and consequence. The genuine lesson to be gleaned from such experience is that the more power people are given, the more they need to be reined in and monitored lest they either take advantage for themselves or screw things up for everything else. (Or, as often as not, both.) Are you genuinely going to cite experience at a fast food chain as your "most corporate" experience? ROFLMAO!
My understanding of marxism is essentially limited...
Say no more. You just made my point for me. Your understanding is limited. That is TYPICAL (in the true sense of the word) of those Randites who scoff at anything representing the evil "collectivism" associated with a common public good. It is the very binary thinking I justifiably hammer Rand for espousing. Her understanding was limited. And so is yours. So, let's move on to areas where hopefully understanding is less limited.
Accordingly, I made my reference to "Marxists" not as a smear, but as a means to...
Blah blah blah. NOT as a smear? Let's read what you actually said rather than watching you backpedal here:
only true Marxists would desire any other ideology [than mine] at their core.
You refer (rather pompously) to your chosen ideology as the objectively correct viewpoint, and then make a disparaging statement about those who would hold to another ideology. What tone, other than a disparaging one, could be ascribed to your assessment of those who hold a different ideology to your supposedly objectively correct one? "Only true Marxists"--what could you have meant by that if NOT the typically disparaging remark that comes from Randites about people who espouse a contrary viewpoint to their own. It's so funny: Randites love to whine about how others engage in "personal attacks" when those others are simply pointing out flaws in their assertions, yet they see no problem with casual off-hand disparagement of this form.
Nice personal attack, btw.
See what I mean?
You're right. I'm a loner who hates everyone.
LOL! Who cares how much of a loner you are or how many people you hate? Let us recall: YOU are the one who brought up, for no reason pertinent to the discussion, your view that there is nothing wrong with being selfish! "I simply don't understand, I simply don't understand what is wrong with being selfish." Such an unnecessary yet overt self-disclosure of a large gap in your social learning, it was almost like you applied your own "KICK ME" sign to your own back. YOU brought up, for whatever reason, this notion about how YOU feel there's nothing wrong with being selfish. Good for you! Rock on, selfish non-friendless non-loner! I'm sure this works well for you and your loved one (probably one in the same). Talk to me more about how you feel there is nothing wrong with being selfish. I will continue to accommodate your apparent wish to have this disclosure appropriately ridiculed.
YOU brought up, out of nowhere, your own lack of understanding about what's wrong with being selfish, something that is plainly apparent to most reasonable adults with a social life. In showcasing this lack, and how proud you are to be that lacking, you invite this upon yourself.
Actually, I volunteered to help a needy family just the other day. What did I see? Ingratitude, apathy, entitlement. I see those same characteristics nearly everywhere I look.
It's called a self-fulfilling prophecy. It behooves me to ask: if this is the pattern you have experienced, "typically", in your life, why did you try this one more time "the other day"? To "prove" to yourself your twisted view that no one appreciates sacrifice, altruism, charity, and kindness? Who was this needy family you tried to help? In what way did you try to help them?
Your anecdote is nonsense, irrelevant, pointless. It demonstrates nothing except your own self-selecting limited view of social interaction. Try again.
Your mention of "souls" is interesting and goes to a theory I've had for a while. If liberals would adopt a religious basis for their actions, e.g. "We're helping the helpless because that's what Jesus would do," they would dominate this country's political landscape - and it would give an additional rational basis for their policies.
I wish I understood what the point of this interjection was. This is a "theory" you have? A theory about what? Proving what? Demonstrating what? It's just too funny. The only "rational basis" anyone needs to help others is the notion of enlightened self-interest that drives religious AND non-religious people to, as you say, "help the helpless". My mention of "souls" was only interesting in that it compared people with them to people without them. And by "soul" I meant nothing more than the recognition of the shared experience of being human, of the interdependence between us all that forms the foundation of civilization, without which we would be "soulless" animals grunting and pointing and living by that "free market" paradigm known as "might makes right"--something those "soulless" people don't seem to have a problem with... right?
Since you brought this up: do YOU see helping the helpless as pointless? I mean, being of the persuasion that selfishness is good, I would assume the answer to that question is yes. But tell us. Be honest. Say it without reservation. Out loud.
Let's not forget that the federal reserve is a quasi-governmental entity. Its participation in the market is decidedly governmental influence. Its politically popular to even out the ebbs and flows of the economy.
Why might that be? Enlightened self-interest? An understanding that there is such a thing as a common good, resources like an economic system that we all share, have a stake in, and owe something to (as in "dues")?
If my job magically goes away, I'm prepared. I've diversified my income sources and kept my debt low. I've learned to grow, can and cook my own food.
I'll bet you now even wash your own clothes now. Wow, that's really impressive. I'll bet you even have your own mountain cabin in the woods, because you would never pay rent, or property taxes, since those things would be admissions of an obligation to society. (Actually, I think it far more likely that you live in your mom's basement than in a mountain cabin, but whatever.)
Its all perfectly reasonable if you view a job as a temporary privilege instead of a right.
Why do I feel a pang of concern that WHEN this person gets shitcanned from his job (and such an anti-social personality is BOUND to have this happen to him sooner or later) the end result will be something tragic, for himself and for others? Why does it feel so clear that what he calls the "perfectly reasonable" notion of a "job as a temporary privilege" will not be so perfectly reasonable to him when he loses his, probably in his mind because he was passed over in favor of some lazy unproductive person?
And I don't complain that "obvious 'brilliance' is being overlooked while other lesser undeserving people succeed." I complain that as regulation and taxation increase in this country, and as we become a nation of "B-Ark" travelers, its going to be increasingly difficult to maintain our average standard of living. (Here's a little Douglas Adams back at ya.)
A total misunderstanding, of course, of Douglas Adams and the notion of the B-Ark. You obviously didn't read what I noted about Adams' parable so I'll try to say it again, more simply so that you get it this time: the Golgafrinchams had a similar idea to the one in Atlas Shrugged but in reverse. Instead of having their "productive" people leave and "go on strike" to "show" everyone how valuable THEY were (and how valueless everyone else was), they concocted a scheme in which their society was divided into two groups of productive people (the "A" and "C" categories), and one group of non-productive people (the ones they would put on the B-Ark). According to the productive folks, those non-productive people were so stupid, so dumb, so inferior, yuk yuk yuk, LOL and ROFLMAO and ha ha ha, that they would fall for the "invented spurious tales of impending doom" and willingly leave the planet, "first", on the "B-Ark". The ingenious productive people would thus "rid themselves of the useless third of their population" and live happily ever after. The flaw in their objectivistically brilliant thinking: they were "all suddenly wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone"--something that might have been avoided had they recognized that those telephone sanitizers they sent off on the B-Ark were apparently just as important to the functioning of society as they were, those self-proclaimed geniuses (like yourself) who do the "real" "productive" work... like inventing those spurious fabricated securities with no real world value and getting seven-digit bonuses for doing so.
What you don't get, and apparently what you never will get, is that society is a web of interdependence, and if you imagine that you stand on your own, that you are a "self-made man", that you can survive without others, that blind selfishness is a reasonable attitude for a human being to have, in light of all we know about the human race, then you are just a brazen raving fool whose blindered thinking about other people reduces you to being the kind of narrowminded automaton justifiably called a Randroid.
I looked back through my life and tried to ascertain moments of unselfishness bestowed upon me by strangers. I really can't think of any.
I think on that note, we can end this discussion. Clearly you are as selfish and shortsighted as the corporate dogs whose accumulated power endangers the rest of us. You can't think of any, you say. Fantastic. That doesn't add anything to your argument. It simply subtracts from the value of any opinion you might have to offer on these issues.
But please, for Rand's sake, come up with a better handle than "John Galt". Nothing showcases how UN-individualistic you are than using the name every other individualistic objectivist uses to show how individualistically objectivist they are.
Comment by Rich Rosen — December 28, 2009 @ 9:18 am
I have typically (is it ok for me to use this word?) worked for small businesses. I referenced McDonalds as my "most corporate job" because it was the largest corporation for which I have ever worked and it is often accused of horrendous employee relations.
If I was willing to agree that free market capitalism breaks down at the large scale, to-wit: multinational corporations, global economies, are you willing to agree that it works decently on the small scale: local businesses, local economies, etc...?
You certainly seem in favor of governmental regulation. But how, exactly, do you regulate? Are there also not unforeseen consequences with regulation?
Perhaps we could focus on a single topic. Is it ok to want to discuss a more specific topic? Or is that Randian of me?
If its ok to proceed, health care is a timely topic; however, I need to know what exactly you think the problem with health care is in America? Unequal access? Quality of care? Life expectancy?
Comment by John Galt — December 29, 2009 @ 12:18 pm
Oh, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny (sic), you just don't get it, do you?
I might agree that the "smaller scale" is a better operating model for capitalism that works better than the larger scale, but in framing your question this way you again miss the whole point: that unregulated laissez faire inevitably leads to the larger scale because the "natural" unregulated inclination of the clowns who run these businesses is not to focus on the business itself but to ensure the "defeat" of the competition they fear so much. "It's not that I don't like to lose, it's that I don't like to see anyone else win." That could be the motto in a nutshell for the real world examples of large scale Randian capitalism, couldn't it? And the reason that, to prevent such people from accruing so much power that they tilt the balance to the point of making it impossible to rein in their abusive behaviors, regulation is NECESSARY, whether you personally happen to like it or admit it or not.
"Are there not also unforeseen consequences with regulation?" I'm sorry, was that question intended to make a logical point in favor of your position? Because it certainly didn't. Are you asserting that acknowledging that a process might have "unforeseen consequences" is reason to abandon it? Is that all the logical ammunition your position has left?
Well, let's make this clear: I'm not here to engage you personally in petty "debate" on small topics or large. Historically here, you have avoided answering the pointed questions directed at you regarding the big topics. Why should I expect that your behavior will be any different regarding the smaller topics? No thanks, "John", have a nice day, have a nice life, and may A = A to you and yours.
Comment by Rich Rosen — January 12, 2010 @ 5:42 pm
All in all, "John", the contempt and dismissal that Objectivism deserves can be summed up thusly:
"It is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps."
Comment by Rich Rosen — January 18, 2010 @ 5:13 pm