Posted on 07/04/2009 10:32:05 AM PDT by GoodDay
Despite a number of differences I have with Ayn Rand on issues of religion and philosophy, her 1957 magnum opus, "Atlas Shrugged," definitely steered me away from the leftist upbringing I had, and introduced me to the world of conservative ideas and authors: Ludwig von Mises, Henry Hazlitt, Milton Friedman, Isabel Paterson, and many others.
Universally panned by literary critics of the day, "Atlas" was, nevertheless, a bestseller in 1957, and continued to sell about 100,000 copies a year for 51 consecutive years. 52 years later -- just after the inauguration of zerobama -- "Atlas" has apparently tripled its sales and has been flying off the shelves at bookstores.
For those who have never read it, "Atlas Shrugged" -- originally titled in its draft form "The Strike" -- is about a mixed-economy United States falling rapidly into full-fledged socialism. As it does so, all the highly competent people of individual accomplishment -- in business, science, and the arts -- mysteriously start to resign their positions, quit their jobs...and disappear. Naturally, the disappearance of these achievers -- these "Atlases" whose productivity carries the rest of the world -- causes the crash of the economy and society in general to occur ever more rapidly. Why these people are disappearing and where they are going is the core of the plot...which I certainly won't give away. Love her style of writing or hate it, "Atlas Shrugged" is relevant and essential reading today.
I read it twice in rapid succession in high school, lo these many years, and am now rereading it in light of the aggressive attempts at a socialist coup in our country. There's a passage toward the beginning of the novel that flabbergasted me, since it predicts with great accuracy the "bailout mentality" started by Bush and continued and augmented under zerobama. The passage also describes how industry is complicit with government in its own regulation and what it expects to gain from it (i.e., protection from competition).
The scene has to do with attempts to regulate the railroads, an industry that plays a starring dramatic role in the novel, as well as being an effective visual metaphor for goal-oriented achievement in general.
Here is an excerpt of Miss Rand's description of the regulation from "Atlas Shrugged":
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"The proposal which they passed was known as the 'Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule.' When they voted for it, the members of the National Alliance of Railroads sat in a large hall in the deepending twilight of a late autumn evening and did not look at one another . . .
. . . No railroad was mentioned by name in the speeches that preceded the voting. The speeches dealt only with the public welfare. It was said that while the public welfare was threatened by shortages of transportation, railroads were destroying one another through vicious competition, on 'the brutal policy of dog-eat-dog.' While there existed blighted areas where rail service had been discontinued, there existed at the same time, large regions where two or more railroads were competing for a traffic barely sufficient for one. It was said that there were great opportunities for younger railroads in the blighted areas. While it was true that such areas offered little economic incentive at present, a public-spirited railroad, it was said, would undertake to provide transportation for the struggling inhabitants, since the prime purpose of a railroad was public service, not profit.
Then it was said that large, established railroad systems were essential to the public welfare; and that the collapse of one of them would be a national catastrophe; and that if one such system had happened to sustain a crushing loss in a public-spirited attempt to contribute to international good will, it was entitled to public support to help it survive the blow . . .
. . . The Anti-dog-eat-dog-Rule was described as a measure of 'voluntary self-regulation' intended 'the better to enforce' the laws long since passed by the country's Legislature. The Rule provided that the members of the National Alliance of Railroads were forbidden to engage in practices defined as 'destructive competition'; that in regions declared to be restricted, no more than one railroad would be permitted to operate; that in such regions, seniority belonged to the oldest railroad now operating there, and that the newcomers, who had encroached unfairly upon its territory, would suspend operations within nine months after being so ordered; that the Executive Board of the National Alliance of Railroads was empowered to decide, at its sole discretion, which regions were to be restricted . . ."
The first time I read AS I was very impressed. The second time, many years later, I was not. Atlas is not so much a novel as a very long philosophical tract. Since it is not a novel her characters are ultimately not very interesting. The heroes have no vices and the villans have no virtues. It just became an effort of will to get to the end of the book.
Also, I really don’t think too many would want to live in society ruled by the likes of Dagny and Hank Reardon. Since, they are ubermenchen they are not put up with the untermenchen cluttering up the landscape. They or their successors are going to throw the lessers into the furnaces for the good of society and personal improvement.
True. Notice how none of the “heroes” have kids. I wonder how many guys would want to enlist so Massa Hank and Missus Dagny can protect their booty. Her philosophy is not all wrong. There is much good to what she says about the capitalist system. Its just that he wants to take human nature OUT of he equation.
The earliest set of laws we have, the Code of Hammurabi,have penalties for cheating businessmen and minimum wage requirements. Some baseline of regulation has always been necessary and always will be.
That does not mean that gov’ts are great. They are necessary and have a legitimate job to do. My biggest beef is with the laisse faire crowd.
parsy, who thinks Rand is great, but to be read with maturity
What a silly statement to make in reference to Ayn Rand. She never intimated that humans are "islands." She emphasized that we are individuals with our own brains and therefore are not part of some hive mentality. Our moral responsibility is to ourselves and those to whom we freely obligate ourselves.
She also was an advocate for capitalism which, of course, cannot prosper unless we provide what others want when they want it. You sound as if you'd be much happier at D.U..
Really? See I'd rather live under a Government of laissez faire types than what we have now or will concieveably have in the future.
Lurker, who thinks that parsy doesn't really think very much before he posts. L
Rand’s aetheism is where I have the real difference with her philosophy too. Other than that, I am pretty much in full agreement with her.
I spent years at sites like DU helping to marginalize them. Being a conservative, does not, to me, mean that I have to buy into the laisse faire philosophy like a, like a, Oh, i know, like some drone over at DU buys into all that liberal crap.
Think about this. Capitalism is based upon one of the Seven Mortal Sins, “greed.” One of the sins that will bring a person down. From Adam Smith onward, there has been the idea that capitalism can work “unregulated” by the power of countervailing greed. This is nonsense and if you don’t see the problem with unregulated and under-regulated markets in this current crisis, then you have got some blinders on as tight as any of the BO crowd.
capitalism may be the best thing going, but it ain’t perfect by a long shot.
parsy, who really does think about this stuff
You have been living under some of these laisse faire types. That is why Wall Street and the mortgage bankers just went under and why we all will soon be getting a monthly gov’t stipend for basic living necessities.
parsy, who is waiting for his gov’t check
Huh? What the hell are you babbling on about? What "marginalization"?
Being a conservative, . . .
I hear that a lot -- but only from you. Except for some put-on hawkishness here and there, I doubt others on FR would claim you're very conservative about anything.
. . . does not, to me, mean that I have to buy into the laisse faire philosophy. . .
Actually, it does. "Conservativism" = "freedom." The Freedom Philosophy -- also called "laissez faire" -- is the conservative philosophy.
like a, like a, Oh, i know, like some drone over at DU buys into all that liberal crap.
From your other posts here on FR, you appear not too different from those liberal-crap-buying drones at DU.
Think about this . . .
Coming from you, this should be fun.
Capitalism is based upon one of the Seven Mortal Sins, “greed.”
Wrong. Capitalism, under DIVISION OF LABOR, requires that we each earn our bread by SERVING OTHERS IN THE MARKET. I think that's rather altrustic, don't you? The more one serves others, the more successful one becomes. Big fat corporations like IBM, Microsoft, Apple, etc. serve the consumers in the market. That's how they got big and fat and rich. (And if they got big and fat and rich not by serving others in the market but rather by a government bailout, then they are, by definition, not acting in a capitalistic manner but in a socialistic one -- socialism being the system in which government owns businesses outright, or grants them special privileges, or protects them from the market, or sets their wages, or sets their prices, etc.).
One of the sins that will bring a person down.
Yep. Just as it brought down Lords and Nobles in Ye Olden Times when everyone lived on self-sufficient estates in which altruistic exchange for the purpose of serving the wants and needs of the serfs was forbidden. Greed took the form of simply stealing from other estates. Thank GOD we have division-of-labor and capitalism, where everyone's good is achieved by each person providing a good or service needed or wanted by someone else.
From Adam Smith onward, there has been the idea that capitalism can work “unregulated” by the power of countervailing greed.
There's no such thing as "regulated capitalism." "Capitalism" = "free exchange under division-of-labor." To regulate capitalism is simply to abolish it and replace it with socialism, even if only incrementally. This incremental socialism always makes things worse than they were before, but its advocates will always tend toward the imposition of more socialism, until finally capitalism is abolished entirely and replaced with all-round central planning.
This is nonsense and if you don’t see the problem with unregulated and under-regulated markets in this current crisis, then you have got some blinders on as tight as any of the BO crowd.
OK, I'll bite: I DON'T see the problem with "unregulated and under-regulated markets in this current crisis" (or any other crisis for that matter) and I guess I have blinders on...so why don't you NOT be greedy (you know how that brings a man down) and help me -- and all of us conservatives and libertarians and classical liberals here at FR -- to understand these issues that you claim you "really do think about." Do be generous with your precious time and your vast knowledge and share your enlightenment with us!
capitalism may be the best thing going, but it ain’t perfect by a long shot.
Bingo. I knew you were a fraud from your posting in my recent "Atlas Shrugged" thread, but your statement here about "perfection" nails it. Real conservatives live in the real world and have no use for a concept like "perfection" when it comes to human institutions. In answer to your idiot truism that capitalism "ain't perfect," we will say that government regulation of a part of voluntary exchange under division-of-labor is even LESS PERFECT than laissez faire...even from the standpoint of its advocates...and that full-fledged socialism (central planning of all economic activity) is less perfect still. Laissez faire is about as perfect as you're going to get. It's only libs, trolls, frauds, etc., who harp on "perfection" because they don't live in the real world; they live in a fantasy utopia in which (as the Marxians claimed) there is no scarcity of goods, and labor will transform itself from "work" into "a sheer pleasure." It's this utopian, un-real-world aspect of the liberals' thinking that ultimately makes them so dangerous. Once they get that "vision" of utopia, there is nothing they won't do to try to achieve it: from incremental hampering of voluntary exchange on the market to gulags and psychiatric prisons. It's all done to make laissez faire "just a little more perfect."
parsy, who really does think about this stuff
GoodDay, who doesn't believe that for a second, and who intends to have a grand old time exposing parsy for the fraud and the troll that he believes him to be.
Parsy,
Regarding the parasites on the system- those are exactly the people who in Ayn Rand’s view support bailouts and are least likely to go on strike against the socialist system. The capitalists who go on strike against overbearing government are the ones who are contributing and producing rather than suck on the government or any other teat.
I’m a slow typer on laptop, so I will respond in parts to make it easier to read.
First: Being a conservative, . . .
I hear that a lot — but only from you. Except for some put-on hawkishness here and there, I doubt others on FR would claim you’re very conservative about anything.
I am conservative about most things. I believe in strong defense. I believe in strong criminal justice system. I believe welfare should be very limited in time and for the purpose of moving the recipient to work. I believe in limited government. That is not the same thing as NO gov’t. My vehicle has a bumper sticker that says ‘Gun Control Means Using Both hands. I voted for Nixon in 72 and stayed GOP thru Bush in 2000. I became a democrat AFTER dumb*ss Bush signed the bankruptcy reform bill, something so heinous that even Clinton wouldn’t sign it.
Where I depart from most conservatives is in the economic area.
parsy, who is going on to part deux
You must REALLY love Obamanomics ....
Partly true. I just think that parasites come in all shapes and income classes. I do not worship the entrepreneur. I have known too many of them, and way too many are mostly greedy, selfish twits, who do not mind using others to make a buck.
That makes them little different from the poor lazy bums except they have more get up and go. I have also met a few people here and there who realize that business’s most important resource REALLY is their people, and reward them well. These people are few and far between.
Why capitalism works is that the greed is somewhat offset by the greed of customers/employees and that the damage to social structure is reduced. Under statist systems, the greedy bums just tear up stuff and produce little in return.
parsy, who is typing his little fingers off
No. But he may end up the luckiest son of a gun in the world! His useless crap and played bill, if it passes may unintentionally produce good results by putting Americans back to work in idiotic useless jobs, which is what so many jobs were before the crash.
parsy, who is waiting to see.
You've got to be kidding. Francisco D'Anconia and Dagny Taggart were the two most interesting characters in the book, but that's just my humble opinion.
I've read AS three times. First time was when I was 18. It completely changed how I viewed the world, government, people, the economy, etc.. Read it again at 23 and again before the '08 elections. So much of what's in AS has materialized in our government's meddling in our economy, moreso since the current asshole in the white house took over.
The U.S. exists to serve individuals; individuals exist as ends in themselves. They are not the means to your ends, Barney Frank's end (sorry about the pun), or anyone else's end. As I posted earlier, individuals prosper under capitalism only by serving others. The "haves" serve more people, and serve them more efficiently, than the "have nots." That's how a "have not" gets to be a "have."
Gov’t is a necessary evil...
So it has been claimed, but we disagree. Government is a tool -- a necessary tool -- of social organization. There's no point talking about what the need for government would be "if men were angels." Men are precisely what they are, so certain tools are necessary for survival. Government, for example, is NOT a necessary tool, nor a necessary evil, if you're ONE guy surviving on a desert island. When you're ONE guy engaging in exchange with several million other guys and gals, then government becomes a necessary tool, but it's only one tool. There are others (like private property, like freedom, like a stable money supply, etc.).
and if granted too much power, will always trend toward absolute power.
Government always tend toward absolutism even if not granted too much power. It must always be up to some outside, non-governmental force -- in our case, the citizens of the U.S. -- to keep government in check.
That doesn’t equate into a no-limit poker game being the best alternative.
I have no idea what that idiot sentence is supposed to mean. Could you possible translate it into plain English, and then maybe try to relate it to a discussion on economics?
But if you like the idea of a country of haves and have nots,
Laissez faire capitalism creates three broad economic classes: those who have; those who have more; and those who have less. There are no "have nots" under capitalism. Socialism, of course, creates "the haves" (the leaders and the party flunkies) and a permanent class of "have nots" (the people). In this case, the "haves" have acted in a Biblically "greedy" way, by means of expropriating everything from the people. The "have nots" would like to serve the interests of other people by altruistically providing them with cars, and iPods, and computers, and electric rice cookers, and microwave ovens, not to mention bread and beef and chicken and vegetables and fruit. Unfortunately, the "haves" who control everything by means of governmental force will not let the people act altruistically on behalf of their fellow citizens since it threatens their economic control over the whole show.
I very much prefer a country that has super-wealthy "haves", middling "haves", and those who have less...the super wealth of the super-wealthy "haves" constitutes the "wages-fund" out of which the salaries of the "haves" and the wages of the "have less" are paid. Once more: THE WEALTH OF THE SUPER-WEALTHY "HAVES" CONSTITUTES THE DEMAND FOR LABOR -- THE SALARIES AND WAGES -- OF THE "HAVES" AND THE "HAVE LESS." By "spreading the wealth around", you hurt the lower economic classes. Egalitarian socieites are always poor societies.
go south to Mexico or some other 3rd world country. Our soldiers are dying for “freedom”, not just the freedom of a few to make piles of money
What are you talking about now? You meander all over the place. What do soldiers dying for freedom have to do with this discussion? Nothing. You're either trolling or you're simply a moron. (Not that these two things are mutually exclusive, mind you.)
parsy, who thinks Rand is smart but lacks common sense
GoodDay, who thinks parsy lacks both common sense and smarts.
Excellent comments, GoodDay...
Sorry, had two or three other folks to reply to:
Actually, it does. “Conservativism” = “freedom.” The Freedom Philosophy — also called “laissez faire” — is the conservative philosophy.
Capitalism comes in different degrees. Laisse faire is the type with little or no gov’t regulation and some people think it is the only kind conservatives can embrace.
I disagree. There is also the view that capitalism must be regulated or it will eat its young. I think conservatism is at heart basic common sense (although another freeper made a good point that it is a mindset)Common sense IMHO dictates regulation.
This is hardly a new thought. Look up Hammurabi’s Code from about 3,500 years ago.Look at the business regulation therein. The regulation was necessary because of human nature. There had to be laws about putting your thumb on the scale because.....have I got your attention.....drumroll.....businessmen would put their thumb on the scale to cheat their customers!This was true 3,500 years ago and it is true now. People in Babylonia would water down their beer! And build shoddy houses if they could get away with it. And there are minimum wages because if there weren’t, employers would screw the poor sheepherders.
Now, in this infinitely more complex society, with international trade, and the fact that we do business with people who are hundreds or thousands of miles away from us, you think you can get by WITHOUT regulation??? Pull your head from your nether region.
The de-regulation crowd pushed like heck to make it easier for mortgage bankers to process mortgages with less regulation. WHOOPEE! You, me, the rest of our country and our descendants have several trillion dollars to make up.
So push the laisse faire stuff if you want to, blame the gov’t for all the problems, but if you are honest, you will at least take a look at the greedy, sorry a** POS’s on Wall Street, and ask yourself what their part in this is. And if you decide that they have a part in it, then you will have to agree that some regulation is necessary and that this is common sense and does not make one a liberal....just a smart conservative.
parsy, who will work on more.
Dang it, goodday, what I lack is typing skills! I am still working on the other one.
parsy, who’s fingers are bleeding
Wrong. Capitalism, under DIVISION OF LABOR, requires that we each earn our bread by SERVING OTHERS IN THE MARKET. I think that’s rather altrustic, don’t you? The more one serves others, the more successful one becomes.”— socialism being the system in which government owns businesses outright, or grants them special privileges, or protects them from the market, or sets their wages, or sets their prices, etc.).
That’s the way it is supposed to work. The invisible hand thing. But the bread one earns is paid by the boss or the customer. And a clever and greedy boss can up his take by passing his costs onto someone else. So give the guy frying the eggs in Waffle House $6.55 per hour, and let society pick up the rest of what it takes the guy to live.
Frankly, the serf system worked better than this because at least the serf had the basics of life at the time. During slavery days, many slaveowners would free their slaves when they hit old age. Noble gesture? Hardly. No production so pass the cost along. Southern legislatures had to pass laws prohibiting the practice because of the cruelty. Still happens today. Many employees are fired right before their pension rights vest. Or are kept at less than full time hours to avoid having to pay benefits.
The problem is that the division of labor is good. And capitalism is good. Its just that dark side needs to be addressed. Too many conservatives fail to see the dark side.
parsy, is going to part trois
And it's not so much a philosophical tract as it is an extended allegory...much like "The Divine Comedy" of Dante (and no, I'm not comparing Rand to an immortal like Dante). The reason her heroes have no vices is that her heroes are personifications of certain virtues...why would a virtue have a vice? One can say something similar about the antagonists.
Also, I really don’t think too many would want to live in society ruled by the likes of Dagny and Hank Reardon.
I wasn't aware that Dagny and Reardon want to "rule" in any sense. They want to be left alone and left free to produce -- with better products, better train service, and lower prices for everyone else. In what sense is that a negative for you?
Since, they are ubermenchen they are not put up with the untermenchen cluttering up the landscape. They or their successors are going to throw the lessers into the furnaces for the good of society and personal improvement.
Yes, well, that was a line pretty much straight out of the 1957 review by Whittaker Chambers which appeared in the National Review. I think Rand makes it clear that what makes a mensch an ubermensch is precisely the fact that he doesn't want to exercise physical control over other people, but wants rather to be left free to produce. I don't remember reading about any Hank Reardens or John Galts or Ellis Wyatts who seek cushy government positions in order to "rule." They wish to get rich, true; but "rule"? No. You're obviously confused over the difference between political power and economic power. Had these "ubermenschen" wanted to rule by means of throwing the untermenschen into furnaces, Rand would have made them do so; instead, she makes them ESCAPE the clutches of the untermenschen -- the James Taggarts and the Orren Boyles -- by going ON STRIKE and letting the rest society fall apart. The point of Atlas Shrugged is that the only chains really holding the Hank Reardens and the Dagny Taggarts to the James Taggarts and the Orren Boyles is their moral code; a force within them. If they drop that moral code...that is, if they decide to "shrug" . . . then nothing is really holding them.
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