The Wall Street Journal has an interesting column that asks whether Ayn Rand, the famous libertarian novelist and philosopher, is a net plus for the free-market movement. This seems like an odd question. After all, her books (especially Atlas Shrugged) have been hugely influential, exposing countless people to a libertarian message. But the author has a good point. Her philosophy’s emphasis on individual freedom is laudable, but she makes herself an easy target by asserting that this requires über-individualism and leaves no room for altruism. Indeed, I’ll always remember being somewhat put off by the scene in Atlas Shrugged where one of protagonists rents, rather than lends, his car to a friend. And even though I’m rarely in a church, her insistence that atheism was a necessary component of her philosophy also struck me as odd (not to mention needlessly exclusionary).
Rand seems to be roaring back. Sales are surging—Brian Doherty, author of “Radicals for Capitalism” (2007), recently calculated that in one week in late August, “Atlas” sold “67 percent more copies than it did the same week a year before, and 114 percent more than that same week in 2007.” Two buzzed-about Rand biographies hit the shelves this fall, and an “Atlas” cable miniseries is reportedly in the works. Designer Ralph Lauren recently listed Rand as one of his favorite novelists, and CNBC host Rick Santelli, whose on-air antibailout rant inspired hundreds of “tea party” protests across the nation, admitted the same. “I know this may not sound very humanitarian,” he said, “but at the end of the day I’m an Ayn Rand-er.” …But in an age where hope, change and warm-hearted marketing clearly resonate, is revitalizing and glorifying Rand’s acerbic “virtue of selfishness” doing the free-market movement any good? Doubts are starting to emerge. Leonard Liggio, a respected figure in libertarian circles and a guest at Rand’s post-“Atlas Shrugged” New York get-togethers, sees value in Rand but admits she wasn’t a bridge builder. …Others, however, go further. “Rand has this extremist, intolerant, dogmatic antigovernment stance,” says Brink Lindsey of the libertarian Cato Institute, “and it pushes free-market supporters toward a purist, radical vision that undermines their capacity to get anything done.” …How are free markets best “sold”? A more compelling approach flips Rand’s philosophy on its head, explaining how everyone, especially society’s neediest, benefits from economic liberty. It’s a compelling story about how freedom and prosperity can change lives for the better. And Ayn Rand is of little help in telling it.
As an economist, I certainly don’t pretend to be an expert, but Rand’s philosophy seems vulnerable. And her personal style apparently was less than perfect. But, returning to the main issue, surely Rand has been a net plus for the cause of liberty. I’m not a Randian (not even sure what that entails), but I have probably given copies of Atlas Shrugged to about 50 people over the years. Simply stated, the book is a very compelling introduction to the idea that government is corrupt, that it attracts (and benefits) corrupt people, and that redistributionism is a corrupt philosophy.
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Hi, this weekend is nice in favor of me, because this time i am reading this wonderful informative paragraph here at my house.
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Another utter interesting post!
I never read Ayn Rand. I think compassion is the single most important quality for human coexistence.
Compassion is more important than love: You never rob the old lady money because you feel compassion without actually loving her. You never murder because you feel compassion for the victim and its family eventough you never love them. And the list goes on. Compassion impedes people to perpetrate crimes. And if compassion lacks, fear of a God is another way of impeding crimes. But if there is no God and no compassion then how crime will be avoided?
I am myself quasi atheist since one cannot deny the existence of God but if God existed then proving its existence should be quite easy and it is somehow strange that its existence has not been proven.
But a philosophy that disdains compassion and promotes atheism is a quite dangerous philosphy because 2 of the main ways to curb crime are rejected. And one expects that such part of a philosophy will be rejected by human beings.
I think it is pretty clear that exorbitant taxes and regulations -i.e. politicians exorbitant power over us- created the so called “Third World” along with it the income inequality typical of the “Third World”. But compassion is such a desirable quality that socialist politicians increase their exorbitant power over us by alleging that they are “compassionate” toward the poor that in fact they themselves created.
“Atlas” is difficult for moderns to read as it is so set in the feelings and customs of the ’30s, ’40s and 50’s and it is so full of “coincidences” and “improbablities” (like only one bridge over the Mississippi and truly abandoning your mother as Reardon does). I recently re-read it after 40 years and really wanted to dislike it and you know what? I found myself easily shedding my pickyness, stripping away her dramatic events and not being bothered by the coincidences. The underlying message breaks through all that and scares the hell out of you. Rand was a Hollywood script writer for a while and couldn’t break free of that style, but the woman was right, so amazingly right. Don’t fight the book and it’s instructive nature comes through with stunning clarity.
I really like this blog. Please continue the great work. Regards!!!
Yes I would agree with that assessment of the 25-cent car rental by Brianna.
However, there is a tounge and cheek secondary slant, on top of the deep meaning.
It’s like if you spent a week with a group of people who used slang and called each other gross nicknames. You’d be sick of it. So you might make a funny little ironic agreement with your mate after arriving home, “Let’s call each other Sir or Miss or by our full names and speak over-elegantly for a while.”
The Strikers have heard how they are obliged to “give” so often, they just want to hurl about now. So in the Valley the agree to not use the word or do the action of giving.
Rand studded Atlas with many ironies like that, which most people do not get. The “Lot’s Wife” reference is one of them.
With regard to the “renting the car” scene… well, I don’t have my copy on me, but I’ll paraphrase:
“You mean to tell me that Midas Mulligan, who is worth perhaps $200 million, is renting his car to you for $0.25?”
“Yes”
“Good heavens, couldn’t he loan it to you as a courtesy?”
“There are no laws in this valley. It is just a place where we come to rest. But there are certain customs, strictly observed, because they pertain to the things we come here to rest from. So I will warn you now that one of the words here which is never used is the word ‘give’.”
What Galt attacked in this section was not merely the idea of loaning out as a courtesy, but the idea that it was REQUIRED of Mulligan to loan out his car as a “courtesy” because charging Galt rent would be mean and selfish. Objectivists typically have no problem with charity, generousity, benevolence, or loaning something to a friend. It is altruism, specifically the idea of sacrificing greater values to lesser ones and yourself to others, that they abhor. It was this concept that Galt and the others went to the valley to escape, and would therefore allow no touch of in their own realm.
Rand did not hold that “government is corrupt”, she did not put forth a “libertarian message”, you did not grasp the ironic humor in the ‘renting the car’ scene, there is no such thing as “uber” individualism, there is nothing good about altruism (the real, actual, root, original altruism of Comte and Kant) and how would you ‘include’ theists in a philosophy that is completely atheistic?
. . . now headed to the WSJ to see what they got wrong.
John Donohue
Pasadena, CA