A new contributor to the Debate Board has made a big noise of late. Using the language of Objectivism, 'capitalist pig' has forwarded classic Right-wing 'libertarian' views. For those unacquainted with Objectivism, a short synopsis follows.
Objectivism was a popular undergraduate 'philosophy' during the 1964 Barry Goldwater campaign.(1) Although most Right-wing libertarians no longer take Objectivism's founder, novelist Ayn Rand, seriously, the presence of one-time Objectivist newsletter contributor Alan Greenspan in the upper echelons of American finance does prevent her doctrine of extreme laissez-faire from being relegated entirely to the dustbin of history.(2) Quite the contrary, a current push is on to repopularize Rand in our 'free market,' merger-frenzied, stock-market-bubble, ideological climate.
Objectivism is a supremacy doctrine, based on the allegation that 'the source of production is man1s mind'(3), i.e. that since only 'smart people' (scientists, entrepreneurs, and artists) invent the technological advancements and comforts enjoyed by civilization the 'stupid people' (wage-workers) should be grateful to receive even the smallest downward trickles of such benevolence.
Although it is a step up from Nietzsche's somewhat cruder---but better written---doctrine (might is right), it is steeped in the common 19th century lore that workers should only be paid what they 'would have' produced had no brilliant minds invented anything (i.e. the entire industrial revolution apparatus).
(Such distinctions, of course, are impossible to make---other than arbitrarily---because the industrial revolution irreversibly merged all relations of labor and technology. To treat them as if they could be separated for individual analysis---one potato for you, five potatoes for me---is as disingenuous as treating food and diamond earrings as being equally 'elastic' market components.)
The classic form of this idea (brains is might) was presented in Atlas Shrugged. In this novel, all the inventors and business men decided that they were tired of taking crap from the wage-workers and 'collectivists' so they all went on strike. Needless to say, without all the great minds illuminating life for all the inferior 'brute' laborers, civilization collapsed somewhat in the manner anticipated by Charlie Manson.(4)
Some problems with this assumption. Division of labor (since the Industrial Revolution) has made the production and circulation of goods contingent upon a vast, interconnected workforce predicated upon low- or no-skill laborers (assembly-line productivity) who are, predictably enough, paid 'what they1re worth.' Without these workers, however, even the most brilliant inventions cannot be produced (crafts-era productivity), distributed, or enjoyed by anyone. If everyone was brilliant, however, then no-one would be 'qualified' for low-skill repetitious work, an essential predicate of mass-production. Therefore, through the mechanism of supply and demand, quality education is put out of the reach of most people, thus providing a low-skill workforce as well as an ideological justification for paying them so little.
Other tenets of Objectivist 'theory' assert the following points:
1. People deserve what they get. (Biological determinism.)
2. If a worker is unhappy with his or her job, then he or she should quit. If a consumer is unhappy with the conditions of a sale, then he or she should refuse to buy it (including food, etc.). All trade is voluntary, therefore equitable.
3. Only individual self-interest motivates superior performance. (Businesses should forbid teamwork because it lowers the quality of individual achievement.)
4. Collectivism is 'altruism,' not rationalization of resources social and material. (This, along with the assertion that the Nazis were 'socialists,' is the cornerstone of Rand's shell-game epistemology.)
5. Altruism 'is the morality of cannibals devouring one another.' (5) Rand was especially consistent in associating cooperative behavior with 'primitive' behavior, thus drawing out racist components of corollary supremacy beliefs. See the 'Witch doctor' motif in For The New Intellectual, Signet, 1961, pp. 10-62.
6. Government intervention is simply a scheme for the 'undeserving weak' members of society to seize the hard-earned rewards of those who work harder, have more ability, are superior, etc. (Logical conclusion: U.S. military presence in oil-rich lands therefore should be withdrawn; oil companies should incur the natural free-market expenses of providing their own militaries instead of forcing taxpayers to maintain operating costs of oil companies.) This premise infers that the 'weak' are running the country (ruling class).
7. Government intervention should be limited to protecting private property (once it has been violently wrested from the 'inferior' minds of Native Americans, Mexicans, etc. and then codified as 'private property' under 'civil law'). This is a denial of dialectics (social and economic evolution), which qualifies Rand as an absolutist.
8. 'For woman qua woman, the essence of femininity is hero worship---the desire to look up to man.'(6) (Argued against women in the democratic process; again, this is a denial of dialectics.)
9. Capitalism is presently corrupted by mixed economies (i.e. government 'safety nets' that coddle the 'undeserving weak' and 'stupid'), thus it is an 'unknown ideal.' The assumption is that complete deregulation will be best for everyone because free markets are the only way to insure that each individual has 'choice.' (7) Such assumptions logically recommend the dismantling of Social Security, product liability, even Federal Deposit Insurance (which ostensibly will prevent the next Stock Market Crash from devolving into an extended depression). Such assumptions are based on the belief that all social interactions can, and should, have a market value.
10. If people aren't happy with the reigning economic structure, they can either work harder (become 'men of ability') or leave the country (as the King George of England once suggested to Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, et al.).
The popularity of Objectivism was---and remains---largely confined to universities. The reasons for this are to found in Rand's tireless assertions that 'industrial wealth [is] the product of man1s mind' (8) and '[a] country without intellectuals is like a body without a head.'(9) Not only are such pronouncements flattering for students to hear but they are also plausible because (middle- and upper-class) students, living in the prosthetic environment of a campus, are not directly exposed to either the production process or the circulation sphere of capitalism---and, therefore, have no way of knowing where, or how, surplus value originates.
This is not to infer that Objectivism is characterized by rigorous thinking. Quite the opposite. Ayn Rand had a conspicuous habit of criticizing concepts she didn't understand. Notable examples are her critiques of John Rawls' Theory of Justice and B.F. Skinner's Beyond Freedom and Dignity. In the case of the former, she actually admitted that she didn't even bother to read a word of the book (10). Both were critiques of book reviews of the books she critiqued,(11) not exactly a study habit encouraged on any American campus.
The strength of Rand's arguments come from the probability that her (young, conservative) audience is even less acquainted with the ideas that she first explains and then attacks ('straw man' technique). For example, when Objectivists assert that all trade (between people or nations) is equitable because it is voluntary,(12) she assumes that the person she is addressing has not read one word of Marx's intricate yet definitive examination of why this does not necessarily have to be the case. (Capital, vol. 1, pp. 559-60, and vol. 3, p. 238, International Edition, 1967.) It is easy to disregard ideas you either don't know or don't understand.
In short, Objectivism is a sort of 'cliff note' intellectualism for people too busy, lazy, or stupid to actually be intellectuals. The contradiction of a supremacy theory predicated upon the 'superiority of smart people' that itself is characterized by poor scholarship and logical inconsistencies has, of course, delighted liberals and other Left-wingers for years. For 'management' class (or wannabe management-class) kids who subscribe to Objectivism (the 'challenge to 2,000-and-a-half years of cultural tradition'), it provides a simplistic, narcissistic justification to expropriate as much surplus value from workers as biologically possible and politically feasible.
A word to the wise guy...
Notes:
1.'When it comes to America, I'm proud to be an extremist' (Goldwater campaign speech). Johnson won by a landslide simply by inferring that Goldwater couldn't be trusted with the Bomb (Daisy Ad). See Rand's endorsement of Goldwater in her published letters.
2. Greenspan has never publicly disavowed Rand. See Time, 15 June 1987, p. 51.
3. Nathaniel Brander & Barbara Brander, Who Is Ayn Rand?, 1964, Paperback Library [one distinguished publishing house!], p.172.
4. After 'darky' kills off 'whitey' in a global paroxysm of race genocide, black people won't know how to run the world that's been left behind in shambles, so they will welcome the Manson Family's appearance from hiding in desert and ask them to run the world. See Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry, Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders, Norton, 1974, p. 246.
5. Rand, 'The Sanction of the Victims'[1981], The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought, New American Library, 1988. p. 151.
6. 'About a Woman President' [1969]The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought, op. cit., p. 268.
7. Greenspan, 'The Assault on Integrity' [1963], Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, op. cit., pp. 118-21.
8. Rand, For The New Intellectual, op. cit., p. 40.
9. Ibid., p. 12.
10. Rand, 'An Untitled Letter,' Philosophy: Who Needs it [1973], Signet 1984, p. 109.
11. Rand, 'An Untitled Letter,' ibid., pp. 102-19; also, 'The Stimulus and the Response' [1972], ibid., pp. 137-61.
12. Harry Binswanger, '"Buy American" is Un-American,' Ayn Rand Institute, http://www.aynrand.org/objectivism/american.html, 1997.
