Happy 50th, Atlas Shrugged

[Roxanne Appleby]

Rand and the Right

By BRIAN DOHERTY

Because of her opposition to New Deal government controls, novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand started off thinking of herself as a conservative. By the time her blockbuster novel, "Atlas Shrugged," was published 50 years ago this week, she'd changed her mind. She decided she was a radical -- a "radical for capitalism," that is.

Conservatives, she'd come to believe, were insufficiently principled in their defense of a free society and once the novel was out, the official conservative movement turned its back on her.

While "Atlas Shrugged" was a ferocious defense of certain values shared by many conservatives, then and now -- limited government, economic liberty and the primacy of individual rights over perceived collective needs -- National Review's editor and conservative movement leader William Buckley found the novel's intransigence and Godlessness, alarming. He assigned communist-turned-conservative Whittaker Chambers to review it.

After squinting at this sweeping, thousand page-plus epic, portraying America's collapse thanks to a rising tide of unlimited government, economic restrictions and the subordination of individual rights to perceived collective needs, Chambers pronounced his judgment. With a sighing, refined hostility, he found it "silly," "preposterous" and hateful. "From almost any page," he declared, in a bizarre and oft-cited passage, "a voice can be heard . . . commanding: 'To a gas chamber -- go!'"

Mr. Buckley and his National Review were trying to build a politically viable postwar right, including a border fence around respectable conservatism. Rand's ferocious and uncompromising opposition, not only to any government action beyond protecting individual rights, but also to religion and tradition for its own sake, put her outside that fence. She was too absolutist, too outrageous, too faithless.

After that Chambers review, Rand saw mainstream conservatism as her avowed enemy. Meanwhile, a distinctly libertarian political and intellectual movement was on the rise, one enormously influenced by Rand. Yet many conservatives still loved her, even if as a sometimes guilty pleasure, especially on college campuses

Her daring, root-and-branch assault on the postwar liberal welfare state consensus made her beloved even among a rising generation of young conservatives, without making them full-bore Objectivists (her name for her philosophy). For just one example, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his new memoir that Rand's "vision of the world made more sense to me than that of my left-wing friends," although he "didn't fully accept its tenets."

And Rand was, despite her exile from the conservative movement, a fan of Barry Goldwater, the modern Right's first serious presidential candidate. She told him "I regard you as the only hope of the anti-collectivist side on today's political scene, and I have defended your position at every opportunity." For his part, Goldwater said that "I have enjoyed very few books in my life as much as . . . 'Atlas Shrugged.'"

Rand and a fair number of her closest followers were notorious for casting into outer darkness anyone who might agree with everything she advocated, but not for their reasons, properly deduced from the facts of reality. This perceived dogmatism helped make her seem a silly character to many, liberal or conservative. And yet, when it came to Goldwater, Rand wrote something wise that conservatives should contemplate, and return the favor: "If he advocates the right political principles for the wrong metaphysical reasons, the contradiction is his problem, not ours."

In other words, when it comes to politics, politics is more important than metaphysics. And Rand had plenty to offer conservatives about politics that is still salient.

Even when reinforcing her exile from respectable conservatism in a 1967 National Review feature story, M. Stanton Evans recognized that "there are a number of subjects on which Miss Rand is right . . . Foremost among these is that class of issues having to do with the secular conditions of freedom." He notes her "excellent grasp of the way capitalism is supposed to work" and her "powerful" critique of "bureaucrats, planners, and social engineers." Also, her "effective" satire of "the intellectual flux and slither in which modern relativism seeks to bury moral issues."

That's a great list of virtues, and exactly what modern conservatism needs, in the political and cultural wars of today. Rand's virtues as a political thinker and polemicist touch on the most important matters of modern politics.

She recognized, not merely that government shouldn't take as much from us as it does, but also that it can't justly and pragmatically do as much as it currently tries to do. As government spending, even under Republican rule, grows faster than ever before; as new plans to further bureaucratize American health care arise; as the benefits of free trade and free movement of capital and labor are under continued assault -- Rand's consistent, passionate and even heroic defense of American freedom is sorely needed.

Rand's insistence that all values be rationally chosen made her "bad," in modern conservative terms, on the family and on religion. But if the GOP can contemplate nominating twice-divorced Rudolph Giuliani (who agrees with Rand on abortion rights), conservatives should realize political movements can no longer demand agreement on matters of faith and family. They need to recognize -- as Rand was, ironically, mocked for failing to recognize -- that metaphysics and religion are extra-political.

Why does she matter to modern politics? It's not like she is around for conservatives to seek her endorsement. But it is worthwhile for political activists to remember that Ayn Rand was utterly uncompromising on how government needed to respect the inalienable right of Americans to live their own lives, and of American business to grow, thrive, innovate and improve our lives without niggling interference.

Her message of political freedom was enthusiastic, and optimistic, and immensely popular. No major American political party has embraced her message in full. But millions of Americans have voted for her with their pocket books, and hundreds of thousands continue to do so every year.

On the 50th anniversary of her greatest novel, her advocacy of the still "unknown ideal" of truly free market capitalism is something that America, and the conservative movement, needs to reconsider.

Mr. Doherty is a senior editor at Reason magazine and author of "Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement" (PublicAffairs, 2007).

 

[Handprints]

One of the biggest international bookstores in Beijing had a display rack full of Rand translated into Chinese at the weekend... I don't think she's going to obtain the same foothold here she has in America.

It seems to me that both Rand and the Buckley-derived right commit an error when they propose that the deregulation/privatisation/withdrawal of government from large-scale economic interventions will automatically create greater material benefit for the polity. The error, in my view, is not understanding that such a loosening of the reins only works when there's a substantial amount of functioning economic infrastructure to build on.

My own experience of developing countries which are beginning to embrace capitalism and individual autonomy as their driving model backs this up but I think there was a very public lesson on the subject when the Berlin Wall came down. If we rate the sophistication/extent of economic infrastructure behind the Iron Curtain before the fall, we'd probably all agree that the best-served countries were the showpieces right up against the border of the West: Czechoslovakia, the Baltics, Poland. Next would come Russia itself (there's just so damn much of it to develop!) and distantly-last, the non-oil Stans.

Go forward five years after the curtain falls and those showpiece economies are starting to grow at high speed, with rising incomes and rising trade. Russia is gently moving backwards, with moderate trade growth and falling incomes. The Stans are, for all intents, economically non-existent.

Forward again to 2005 and the showpiece economies (bar the occasional mis-governed mess like Hungary) are powering forward and showing up the Western neighbours. Russia, thanks to an oil boom and the kind of authoritarian development policies Rand would have condemned, has finally found a high gear. The non-oil Stans, almost without exception, are still utterly lost.

What does this tell us about the prerequisites for success - the capabilities, as development economists have been calling them for 30 years - required to make a good go of capitalism? You can add evidence to this argument by listing the non-oil countries which have achieved the largest percentage gains in average annual income over the last 30 years: they all had very good infrastructure in 1975 and have since transitioned to a capitalist economic model. If you look at the worst 50 countries, they all had goat tracks passing themselves off as superhighways in 1975 or have been run at gunpoint for the last 20 years.

I'm not dismissing the importance of political will or the utility of utilitarianism in creating a fast-moving economy: India could - and would - be kicking China's ass as world's top growth market right now had it shown a little more courage and a lot less red tape.

However, unwillingness to accept that there might be more than a philosophical stance involved in a successful transition to capitalism is the main reason that European and developing nation hands fly into the air in frustration whenever the US nominates a neo-con to head a development agency: everyone fears that the new guy is also going to turn a blind eye to 50 years of field experiments, preferring to preach to the home choir.

Hope that's of interest,
H

 

[Pure]

Marx and Engels wrote, with some praise, of "utopian socialists", like Charles Fourier who, on their own and in private--i.e., without starting a practical movement-- designed elaborate worlds where people were treated fairly, where work was not and ordeal and bringer of ill health. Though a dreamer, Fourier helped seed the socialist movement.

Rand too, had her dream world, which she called "capitalism". It bore little resemblance to any known form of capitalism, although it was remotely connected perhaps to British capitalism of say 1830 and American capitalism of 1870. But her capitalism was not, essentially, a real historical entity; historical change was of no interest to her. Her capitalism did not evolve, did NOT follow the real paths of transformation of capitalism in England or the US. Her 'utopian' dream, however had some influence.

She would part company with most forms of conservatism. Doherty does NOT mention the most striking, i.e. Ronald Reagan. She correctly saw, as none of her admirers in AH will admit, that he actually favored growth of state power, almost as much as GW Bush.

This kind of leaves her and her loyal band out in the cold in practical terms, having spurned religion and 'social conservatism,' they spurn the Republican party since the 1980s with its militarism and adulation of the "commander in chief." Limited or minimal government is now simply a slogan of folks like amicus without any real connection to the real world of right wing politics.

She was good, in a way, in stressing the individual as hero, a kind of Nietzchean or even Sartrian theme. This is a theme of great merit. As Susan Faludi's new book suggests, however, about the present context: American's want their John Wayne figures, and in a pinch will embrace the tawdriest of knockoffs like POTUS in flight suit and 'mission accomplished' banner.

She favored freedom of choice [re abortion] and, in a moderate way, advancement of women, though her women always swooned, almost masochistically, when ravished by the real heroes, the True Men.

'Atlas Shrugged,' then, has a complicated connection to the American Dream and its mythology. It exercizes a perverse fascination on those want simpler times and simpler answers, and the simplest of moral formulas: Do what's in your rational self interest.

In the real world of evolved capitalism, social democracy, islamic fundamentalism, etc. the emphasis on these 'individual values' leaves her followers without clear direction, e.g. unable to decide whether GWB's invasion of Iraq was a good thing, or whether the US should support dictatorial governments, such as those in Pakistan.

In the present case, Rand's principles seem to have led Roxanne to become a fervent admirer of the totalitarian Chinese government and of policies favoring Walmart-like efforts to flood the US with Chinese goods often produced in near-slave conditions. This governement supports its limited capitalist elite by arresting and imprisoning any workers who don't toe the line, or who agitate in any way for more freedom.

The Randist has no principled way to decide which tyrannies to embrace, in foreign policy, and so ends up sticking to the simple rule of thumb followed by the Republican Party, and supporters such as Roxanne: support the tyrannies that bring the most profits to American business.

 

[XXplorher]

Ooops - too excited (how unruly of me. I'll go back and read the prior posts AFTER I break the rule).

I just read that the ultimate She is set to play the lead...

Must admitt, I never saw Angelina Jolie there. And that might ruin it for quite a few women. But it don't ruin it for me... Uh, nope. (Movie is set to roll, peeps)


EDIT:
After squinting at this sweeping, thousand page-plus epic, portraying America's collapse thanks to a rising tide of unlimited government, economic restrictions and the subordination of individual rights to perceived collective needs,

That’s not what she said. That’s just… NOT, what she said. (Does it matter how accurate that is?)

What she said was… It’s horrifying, how people follow. Where would the world be without the tiny few that progress it forward? And why do they work so hard to be excellent the way they are? In the face of all that resistance. In a world so full of shit. It seems, rather confusing…

But it isn’t. It’s rather obvious. It’s rather… sensible.

(And she explains why they can’t help it. That, they don’t actually do it to propel the world forward. They just do it because they expect excellence. It’s a selfish desire, that benefits all of us… if you’ll allow it.)


I’m not sure I understand why she’s getting filed into ANY sort of ‘declaration’. (She has her own failed following – Objectivism). The only thing I see in her hypocrisy – is that she doesn’t care. She THINKS she doesn’t care (thought). That she needs to fight that hard for the self. But she’s full of shit. Otherwise… she would not have been fighting that hard for the rest of us. She never would have put it in a book. She spent all that time convincing herself that she doesn’t want to help you and me. That she should not owe that to us. And yet… she bled for it.

VERY fucking interesting person.

I don’t like the way Ayn Rand gets fucked (the way she’s empty like that with the female characters. I find that totally opposite the idea she propels). But it absolutely took me a year to absorb that novel. I ate every page as if it was given to me once, and once only. I would spend a day on a few pages. Every time I picked it up.

I could start spouting all the ‘why’ about that. But… anyone who’s read that book? Is absolutely terrified by its accuracy 60 yrs later.

I love you Ayn.

 

[amicus]

[

I]Happy 50th, Atlas Shrugged[/I]

Yes, I quite agree, Happy 50th, it is an amazing book.

I sometimes muse about the complexities introduced by Roxanne and Handprints in the very basic concept of human freedom.

Both seem to imply, at various times and on various issues, that 'economic freedom', is a good thing all right, but it needs a little tinkering or help from time to time.

Capitalism is merely the economic expression of a self evident moral observation that every human possessing life has a right to that life and the freedom to live that life by choice on an individual basis.

Recently Roxanne advocated a health care plan managed by government; Handprints, above suggests that government should or must provide an infrastructure so that Capitalism can function.

Both are true in a very limited sense in that government should be the only agency authorized the use of force to defend life, rights and property.

Healthcare, like hamburgers, can be provided in ample quantity and quality, thank you, without passing through the coffers of Congress.

Infrastructures can be and were built by private enterprise, thank you, long before Eisenhower's freeway systems.

Wartime creates a different demand for product production, but the factories that were making cars and trucks and refrigerators for civilians simply converted to turning out tanks and planes and weapons; but still, it was the private factories that produced the goods.

As I am impressed by the beauty and symmetry of the natural workings of the Universe, I too am astounded by the beauty of the abstraction of human freedom and its expression in all aspects of life.

I do not know Roxanne's circumstances and I suspect Handprints to be largely driven by the utility of his profession rather than a contemplation of the ethics and morality issues of human freedom.

I suggest that human freedom is a 'work in progress. as it has so recently been discovered and realized in such small degrees.

I thought, long ago, that if only I could express, in clear and basic terms, the fundamental tenets of Objectivism and human freedom, that it would be easily and openly understood and appreciated.

Amicus...

 

[gauchecritic]

From a novel written before 'Shrugged'...

The Great Money Trick (Robert Tressell, 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists')

‘Money is the cause of poverty because it is the device by which those who are too lazy to work are enabled to rob the workers of the fruits of their labour.’

‘Prove it,’ said Crass.

Owen slowly folded up the piece of newspaper he had been reading and put it into his pocket.

‘All right,’ he replied. ‘I’ll show you how the Great Money Trick is worked.’

Owen opened his dinner basket and took from it two slices of bread but as these were not sufficient, he requested that anyone who had some bread left would give it to him. They gave him several pieces, which he placed in a heap on a clean piece of paper, and, having borrowed the pocket knives they used to cut and eat their dinners with from Easton, Harlow and Philpot, he addressed them as follows:

‘These pieces of bread represent the raw materials which exist naturally in and on the earth for the use of mankind; they were not made by any human being, but were created by the Great Spirit for the benefit and sustenance of all, the same as were the air and the light of the sun.’

... ‘Now,’ continued Owen, ‘I am a capitalist; or, rather, I represent the landlord and capitalist class. That is to say, all these raw materials belong to me. It does not matter for our present argument how I obtained possession of them, or whether I have any real right to them; the only thing that matters now is the admitted fact that all the raw materials which are necessary for the production of the necessaries of life are now the property of the Landlord and Capitalist class. I am that class: all these raw materials belong to me.’

... ‘Now you three represent the Working Class: you have nothing – and for my part, although I have all these raw materials, they are of no use to me – what I need is – the things that can be made out of these raw materials by Work: but as I am too lazy to work myself, I have invented the Money Trick to make you work for me. But first I must explain that I possess something else beside the raw materials. These three knives represent – all the machinery of production; the factories, tools, railways, and so forth, without which the necessaries of life cannot be produced in abundance. And these three coins’ – taking three halfpennies from his pocket – ‘represent my Money Capital.’

‘But before we go any further,’ said Owen, interrupting himself, ‘it is most important that you remember that I am not supposed to be merely “a” capitalist. I represent the whole Capitalist Class. You are not supposed to be just three workers – you represent the whole Working Class.’

... Owen proceeded to cut up one of the slices of bread into a number of little square blocks.

‘These represent the things which are produced by labour, aided by machinery, from the raw materials. We will suppose that three of these blocks represent – a week’s work. We will suppose that a week’s work is worth – one pound: and we will suppose that each of these ha’pennies is a sovereign. ...

‘Now this is the way the trick works -’

... Owen now addressed himself to the working classes as represented by Philpot, Harlow and Easton.

‘You say that you are all in need of employment, and as I am the kind-hearted capitalist class I am going to invest all my money in various industries, so as to give you Plenty of Work. I shall pay each of you one pound per week, and a week’s work is – you must each produce three of these square blocks. For doing this work you will each receive your wages; the money will be your own, to do as you like with, and the things you produce will of course be mine, to do as I like with. You will each take one of these machines and as soon as you have done a week’s work, you shall have your money.’

The Working Classes accordingly set to work, and the Capitalist class sat down and watched them. As soon as they had finished, they passed the nine little blocks to Owen, who placed them on a piece of paper by his side and paid the workers their wages.

‘These blocks represent the necessaries of life. You can’t live without some of these things, but as they belong to me, you will have to buy them from me: my price for these blocks is – one pound each.’

As the working classes were in need of the necessaries of life and as they could not eat, drink or wear the useless money, they were compelled to agree to the kind Capitalist’s terms. They each bought back and at once consumed one-third of the produce of their labour. The capitalist class also devoured two of the square blocks, and so the net result of the week’s work was that the kind capitalist had consumed two pounds worth of the things produced by the labour of the others, and reckoning the squares at their market value of one pound each, he had more than doubled his capital, for he still possessed the three pounds in money and in addition four pounds worth of goods. As for the working classes, Philpot, Harlow and Easton, having each consumed the pound’s worth of necessaries they had bought with their wages, they were again in precisely the same condition as when they started work – they had nothing.

This process was repeated several times: for each week’s work the producers were paid their wages. They kept on working and spending all their earnings. The kind-hearted capitalist consumed twice as much as any one of them and his pile of wealth continually increased. In a little while – reckoning the little squares at their market value of one pound each – he was worth about one hundred pounds, and the working classes were still in the same condition as when they began, and were still tearing into their work as if their lives depended upon it.

After a while the rest of the crowd began to laugh, and their merriment increased when the kind-hearted capitalist, just after having sold a pound’s worth of necessaries to each of his workers, suddenly took their tools – the Machinery of Production – the knives away from them, and informed them that as owing to Over Production all his store-houses were glutted with the necessaries of life, he had decided to close down the works.

‘Well, and what the bloody ‘ell are we to do now?’ demanded Philpot.

‘That’s not my business,’ replied the kind-hearted capitalist. ‘I’ve paid you your wages, and provided you with Plenty of Work for a long time past. I have no more work for you to do at present. Come round again in a few months’ time and I’ll see what I can do for you.’

‘But what about the necessaries of life?’ demanded Harlow. ‘We must have something to eat.’

‘Of course you must,’ replied the capitalist, affably; ‘and I shall be very pleased to sell you some.’

‘But we ain’t got no bloody money!’

‘Well, you can’t expect me to give you my goods for nothing! You didn’t work for me for nothing, you know. I paid you for your work and you should have saved something: you should have been thrifty like me. Look how I have got on by being thrifty!’

The unemployed looked blankly at each other, but the rest of the crowd only laughed; and then the three unemployed began to abuse the kind-hearted Capitalist, demanding that he should give them some of the necessaries of life that he had piled up in his warehouses, or to be allowed to work and produce some more for their own needs; and even threatened to take some of the things by force if he did not comply with their demands. But the kind-hearted Capitalist told them not to be insolent, and spoke to them about honesty, and said if they were not careful he would have their faces battered in for them by the police, or if necessary he would call out the military and have them shot down like dogs, the same as he had done before at Featherstone and Belfast.

 

[gauchecritic]

bump for anyone interested