
The new age of Ayn Rand - spking
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/apr/10/new-age-ayn-rand-conquered-trump-white-house-silicon-valley
======
hprotagonist
>There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The
Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often
engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an
emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real
world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

\-- John Rogers

~~~
IsaacL
Did John Rogers meet many Ayn Rand fans before forming this opinion? Did you?

I'm been an active Objectivist for the last two years and I've met dozens of
others. They're a diverse bunch (I know Objectivist actors, Objectivist
musicians, Objectivist academics, Objectivist finance guys, tons of
Objectivist programmers), but in general, I'd say they're way more friendly,
less cynical and more optimistic than the majority of people I meet. They're
fun to be around and are usually working towards some personally meaningful
life goals.

I do think that teenagers probably shouldn't read Atlas Shrugged -- they're
too likely to take away a shallow understanding of the message. I first read
it just before my 25th birthday, and I think it's best read in your mid-20s,
when your youthful idealism starts crashing into practical reality.

~~~
IsaacL
I posted these links elsewhere in the thread, but I think they'll be of
special interest to HN readers, who might want to know about the more
technical aspects of her philosophy.

An index of her thoughts on many topics:
[http://aynrandlexicon.com/book/conceptual.html](http://aynrandlexicon.com/book/conceptual.html)

A graduation speech which summarises her views on philosophy in general:
[http://fare.tunes.org/liberty/library/pwni.html](http://fare.tunes.org/liberty/library/pwni.html)

Her most technical work, her theory of concept-formation (and the book that
sold me on her ideas): [https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Objectivist-
Epistemology...](https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Objectivist-Epistemology-
Expanded-Second-ebook/dp/B002OSXD8C)

------
arkis22
I would like to recommend Atlas Shrugged to anyone who has not read it.

It is long, and it is indeed preachy, but she nails so much about the human
condition.

I do think that most people that complain about her don't really understand
her work. In her eyes capitalism is an intrinsically _personal_ system,
individuals helping each other.

The heroes of the story all have their companies named after themselves, while
the "bad companies" are bland things like associated steel. Her point is that
as soon as you divorce the individuality from capitalism, you get these bad
outcomes. At the end of the day companies aren't companies, they're people.

To drive this home, the USSR treated people as interchangable inputs. If
that's your policy you are completely ignoring people's individuality. Are
they lazy? smart? work hard? People are not interchangable, and by respecting
that the US outspent the USSR.

This "personal" capitalism is far different from the way our multinationals,
governments, or even people, act today.

~~~
ue_
>This "personal" capitalism is far different from the way our multinationals,
governments, or even people, act today.

As a Socialist myself, I have wondered: how does capitalism become personal?
Is it possible to achieve this? Let's assume for a moment that Marx was wrong
about exploitation; how does wage labour, unexploitative, take the form of
personal relation?

From my point of view, I was thinking that the division of labour will create
an impersonal relationship, so much so that the worker will not see his own
labour in the final product. How does personal capitalism fare with division
of labour and automation?

I want to keep an open mind rather than to steer this ideologically, so I hope
you are not put off by my differing viewpoint.

~~~
Danihan
How is capitalism, or any financial system, ever not personal?

At its core, capitalism is simply the codification of a win-win transaction
between two or more parties. I work for your company, you pay me X salary.

Whereas socialism is the codification of a win-lose, non-consensual
transaction. You're doing well, give me your money so I can give it to a third
party, or else.

Of course there are negative externalities to worry about, contractual
enforcement, etc. But those don't change the core philosophies.

~~~
dragonwriter
> How is capitalism ever not personal?

A review of the works criticizing the dominant system of the mid-19th Century
industrialized West by cobtemporaries who coined the name "capitalism" to
describe that system would answer that question.

> At it's core, capitalism is simply the codification of a win-win transaction
> between two or more parties.

No, at its core capitalism is the arrangement of government, property rights,
and legal system to preferentially serve the interests of the holders of
capital over others. Hence the name.

~~~
Danihan
Are you saying capitalism cannot exist without government?

~~~
dragonwriter
"Government" is simply whatever actor or set of actors possesses, between
them, a monopoly on the legitimate use of force; you can't have human society
without government and you can't have capitalism without society, so, sure,
you trivially can't have capitalism without government.

More deeply, capitalism is not only incidentally tied to government through
the necessity for society, but more deeply through the dependency on a
specific model of property rights being enforced by government.

------
awptimus
I love articles like these because it's nothing but regurgitated BS by people
who don't get Rand, about people who aren't really 'devotees'.

Writing caricatures of people and ideas and how those caricatures of people
ideas relate to each other is great.

Here's an honest sentence "Paul Ryan, who has never really done anything the
protagonists of Rand's novels would, is said to have liked the book a lot"

~~~
CalChris
Similarly, I hate articles like this because she will always be defended by
people who don't quote her atrocious writing or summarize her mediocre ideas.
Instead we are told that we don't get what you won't say.

~~~
awptimus
Give one example of a "mediocre idea."

~~~
Frondo
"There is one word that is forbidden in this valley: the word 'give.'" \--
Atlas Shrugged

~~~
awptimus
And this single line you plucked out of Atlas Shrugged is mediocre because?

~~~
CalChris
Because you asked us to "give" you an example.

~~~
awptimus
And it's mediocre because?

------
DArcMattr
If only this were true.

I worked at the Ayn Rand Institute, and still keep tabs with their activities
and their progress.

If Ayn Rand's ideas were as widespreadly acknowledged and held, then we'd see
a distortion free economy, not a series of spin jobs all geared towards
acquiring political power.

~~~
res0nat0r
It seems her philosophy these days has been converted to: screw everyone else
and how can I get as rich as possible? Which is no wonder why most of the CEOs
and politicians in the article adore her so.

~~~
ffk
Can you describe what her philosophy was originally?

~~~
jamst174
I was a huge Ayn Rand devotee until I realized it tried to see the world in
black and white...and we don't live in a black and white world. This is my
view of her philosophy after reading Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead
multiple times as well as all her other essays and smaller fiction books. Like
most other philosophies such as communism, it can sound good in theory and
works on a small scale if everyone agrees to play by the rules. It would never
work in a country of 330 million people.

The idea is that the free market is able to solve every problem. Businessmen
will serve their own self interests but that is OK because in the process -
others will benefit via the goods they produce and the jobs they provide. So
businessmen will always offer fair wages and benefits to their employees
because if they don't, those employees will go work for another business owner
that does offer them and will get the benefit of more motivated workers. The
best workers will always be offered the best wages, again because this
benefits the owners bottom line to have the best employees. (collusion between
businesses to depress wages, people stuck in locations with few employers and
no competition for wages, the reality of businesses paying off politicians -
are just a few real world flaws here IMO)

As far as regulation goes - the government does not need to be involved there.
The free market will sort it out! Businesses that offer dangerous products
will not get any customers so the incentive is there to only provide safe
products (of course, what happens to the people that initially buy those
products before people find out how dangerous they are or never find out about
the dangers at all until it is too late? How do you fight a polluter that
ruins the water source in your town, especially if they are also the main
employer?).

As far as social programs - again, the government need not be involved there.
All the rich (as well as the other people just trying to get by) will help
their neighbors out of the kindness of their own hearts. Or not! Being forced
to be altruistic ruins the whole point and regardless of the benefit to
society, is one of the worst sins to a Randian. There are many references to
money being taken from the wealthy via force - at the end of a gun. How a
society handles the disabled, the poor, the elderly - if everyone doesn't out
of the kindness of their own hearts - was never really addressed and was the
final flaw for me. Just let them die I guess?

I'm sure I'll get some flack for this from the true believers and many will
say I have it wrong. I guess I'd say that it is a great personal philosophy if
you want to use it that way, but to try to apply it to governing or to any
large scale modern society is impractical and, in the end, just downright
cruel. Just one man's thoughts.

~~~
cknight
What struck me most in Atlas Shrugged was Rand's focus on rail. By giving the
Taggart family a self-built, privately-run transcontinental rail network, very
little of the story mentioned roads at all (there was one road trip, as I
recall). It seems quite possibly intentional, as the use of a road system
implies that taxation and collective action are actually needed, undermining
one of her main points.

I can't help but feel that environmental issues also put a nail in the coffin
of her philosophy, but to be fair, it wasn't a big deal back in her time.
Atlas Shrugged made no mention of the negative externalities of any of the
businesses being run, from steel mills to mining and oil. As soon as a
business's externalities impact others, moral issues are raised.

------
duckingtest
Villains in Atlas Shrugged may appear ridiculously one-dimensional and
simplified, but then one look at Venezuela today should convince anyone they
are indeed realistic.

That's not accidental - after all she lived in the early USSR and seen it all
with her own eyes. That's how life under socialism really is - envy and
brutality combined with breathtaking incompetence.

~~~
kesselvon
Too bad no one is really advocating socialism, most people want capitalism
with guardrails (aka Scandinavian social democracy)

~~~
ue_
>Too bad no one is really advocating socialism

I am (on the Internet at least).

------
moomin
I'm always disappointed at how many "fans" of Ayn Rand seem to have read Atlas
Shrugged and decided to emulate James rather than Dagny. They're all in favour
of small government when it suits their rent-seeking interests, but watch
their favoured industry crash and all of a sudden Something Must Be Done For
The Good Of The Country.

------
theseatoms
Her detractors tend to assume too narrow a definition of "selfishness". They
tend to read "selfish" as "self-centered", by projecting their own utility
functions onto others. :P

Altruistic acts can be, and often are, done selfishly.

~~~
undersuit
Isn't that one of the arguments made in The Fountainhead?

~~~
theseatoms
Probably is. It's been a while since I read it.

------
RangerScience
I've been thinking about "failure modes" and "overlapping systems" a lot
recently. It really started with utilitarianism and Utility Monsters, which I
highly recommend looking up real quick.

At first glance, objectivism makes a lot of sense: In one simple situation,
how much easier is it to deal with people when they're clear and certain about
what they want?

But then you start to notice the ways that value system fails (it seems easy
to miss how indirect aid of others helps you).

That stage set - All systems have failure modes. The trick seems to be
layering your systems so that the failure modes _don 't_ overlap; the failure
mode of utility monster could be covered by functioning objectivism; the
short-sightedness of objectivism could be covered by the broad view of
patriotism, etc etc. (Not saying this particular stack works, but trying to
suggest an example of what I'm getting at)

------
forbin_meet_hal
I find Rand tragic.

She had a real opportunity to educate people about a proper relationship
between people and their government, during a time of creeping totalitarianism
and collectivism.

Sadly, she also wanted to create a cult.

The chapter about her in Brian Doherty's "Radicals for Capitalism" most
certainly bore this out. My favorite part was when she sat her husband down
and informed him that the Objectivist philosophy dictated that she should be
allowed to bang her assistant.

------
hirundo
The social virtue of capitalist selfishness is illustrated by the most rapid
drop in poverty in history:

[http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/amazing-chart-shows-
thanks...](http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/amazing-chart-shows-thanks-to-
capitalism-global-poverty-is-at-its-lowest-rate-in-history/article/2562224)

[https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_on_poverty)

This massive decline in misery is far more the influence of markets than
bureaucracies. We should be so lucky as to be in a new age of Ayn Rand.

------
mchlmllr
htaunay et al, do not be so quick to discount Rand’s solutions. It is way too
easy to make false assumptions about the nature of “Capitalism" as she defines
it.

First you have to realize that Politics is but one of a philosophy’s necessary
5 interdependent branches: 1\. Metaphysics, which answers the question “what
is the fundamental nature of everything?” 2\. Epistemology, which answers the
question “how do I know that or anything else?" 3\. Ethics, which answers the
question “given #1 & #2, how should I act in order to achieve the fulfillment
of my nature?” 4\. Politics, which answers the question “what kind of
relationship consistent with #3 should there be between me and others when
living in a society?” 5\. Aesthetics, which answers the question: “how can I
experience concretely the the product of my abstract conclusions in #1-#4
before they are actual, and of what value would that be?”

The validity of any philosophy depends on 1) consistency of conclusions drawn
within and between each of the branches and 2) consistency of those
conclusions with the actual facts of reality.

So, half of the task in grasping Rand’s radical Capitalism is understanding
what its principles are vs. all the other versions of Capitalism. The other
half requires understanding how they rest on and derive from her Ethics. While
it is easy to inform yourself of her political principles, you can neither
validate them nor argue successfully against them without dealing with the
ethical principles from which they are derived.

For instance, a Capitalist government, in Rand’s view, may not fund itself
through taxation. 99% of her critics will argue that is impractical; but her
Ethics, recognizing human fallibility, demands individual autonomy in the
pursuit of one’s life, and inherent in claiming the right to autonomy is the
obligation to grant it reciprocally to all others.

Therefore, the only job allowed or required of the government is to secure
that autonomy for all by forbidding/preventing/punishing the use of force by
anyone against others for gain. Since taxation is the use of force by one
group against another group for gain, it is inherently immoral, and the
immoral may never be argued to be “practical” under any circumstances.

If you cannot devise a way to fund the government without using force, you
don’t get a government! If you want to know how to fund a massive worldwide
service like Rand’s minimalist government in which those with money pay for it
voluntarily while the poorest get it for free, just ask Google or Facebook,
who have been there and done that.

Here are 13 fact based conclusions supporting radical laissez-faire Capitalism
as the only moral form of government:

the metaphysics: 1) The existence of living organisms is conditional on self-
generated selection and exercise of certain actions consistent with their
specific nature in the face of alternatives.

2) The most fundamental of all alternatives for all living creatures is life
or death.

the epistemology: 3) Of all living creatures, only a volitional human can
initiate the selection of which alternative to pursue and how to pursue it.

the ethics: 4) The choice (deliberate or implied in all other choices) to
pursue the fundamental alternative of life over death implicitly establishes
one’s life as one's fundamental and primary goal.

5) One's fundamental goal is implicitly the standard of measure for all values
one acts to gain or keep in its pursuit.

6) Therefore, that which contributes to one's life (consistent with one's
nature, as opposed to mere vegetative existence) is necessarily "the ethical
good", and that which detracts from it is "the ethical bad".

7) Since the identification and evaluation of goals/values is slow and
deliberative while everyday life is spontaneous, the long run pursuit of life
necessitates a hierarchical code of values in principle (ethics) to guide (by
programming emotions) one's spontaneous choices in any alternative faced, and
it requires one to opt, in each concrete instance, for that which is the
higher value per that code in lieu of the lower one (the morality of egoism).

8) Man's singular means to fulfill these requirements of his nature in the
pursuit of life is by applying the product of his reason to his actions in the
production and exchange of values needed to survive and flourish consistent
with the nature of the human being he is.

the politics: 9) The extension of that individual ethic to the social context
of an individual living in a society of other volitional (and therefore
fallible) men requires that one seek to preserve one's own autonomy over the
application of one's own reason to one's own action in the pursuit of one's
own life ( = freedom from the fallibility of others).

10) The only threat to a man's pursuit of his life in that context would be
the initiation or threat of physical force by others to coerce certain choices
of action against his will thus diminishing or negating the above defined
individual autonomy.

11) The single most fundamental political alternative is therefore not left
vs. right, or liberal vs. conservative, but rather: freedom vs. force
(autonomy vs. coercion).

12) Therefore, it is morally imperative that each individual human being
living in a society of men advocate and sustain, to the best of his efforts
and extent possible, a third party institution authorized to remove the use of
aggressive force from all human interactions within its jurisdiction.

13) A moral government must therefore guarantee that:

No person shall initiate the use of physical force or threat thereof to take,
withhold, damage or destroy any tangible or intangible value of another person
who either created it or acquired it in a voluntary exchange, nor impede any
other person's non-coercive actions.

Note that every interrelationship, every exchange of values, tangible or
intangible among those who are acting in their own rational self interest must
be voluntary. Further, in every voluntary exchange of values, both parties
profit. Each gives up something he values less to get something he values
more, and they do it without using force. That is the essence of a free
market!

Thus, no one can oppose Ayn Rand’s politics without sooner or later embracing
the use of force against others for their own gain.

------
kapauldo
Most "Objectivists" use the philosophy to justify turning a cruel eye toward
those who need help, by equating their own lot in life to hard work. Its self
elevating and impossibe to penetrate.

