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Taking out the Trash: Ayn Rand and The False Gods of Objectivism
- By Dimitrije Kostic
Objectivism is a nominal "philosophy" molded around the turgid,
unreadable novels of one Ayn Rand. The main characters of Rand's novels
extol the supposed virtues of selfishness, egotism, and capitalism. For
instance, John Galt, the protaganist of Atlas Shrugged, leads a strike of
intellectuals and the discord--resulting, of course, from the subsequent
slide into socialism--illustrates the central importance and virtue of the
industrialist class. This self-canonized high priestess of Objectivism
waves her wand, and confidently intones that, for example, "city smog and
filthy rivers...are not the kind of danger that the ecological
panic-mongers proclaim them to be." [1] Her flock of true
believers--typically white, wealthy, spoiled brats in college who've never
anything about capitalism not written by her--take their cue and respond
that "multiculturalism is racism in a politically correct guise." [2]
But we all know the Wizard of Oz was a charlatan. And once you glimpse
behind the curtain of detached philosophy, the blind, naive faith in
capitalism that drives Objectivism is exposed. That's what I really
learned at a lecture given by Andrew Bernstein called "Global Capitalism:
The Solution to Global Oppression and Poverty." He never bothered to
define what makes an economy capitalist, but assured us that "enormous
benefits" flow from "capitalism's nature." Among the benefits he cited
were an end to the international slave trade and the abolition of child
labor in the United States, even though it was actually centuries of
popular agitation--movements these same Objectivists regularly decry--that
brought an end to these horrific excesses of unbridled capitalism. And
what he couldn't ignore or lie about, he whitewashed.
For example, we
were told in glowing terms how British colonialism conferred the comforts
of local infrastructure--railroads and so forth--to India and, although he
didn't say this explicitly, we are to assume this excuses the mass
enslavement of the population. He stated, incorrectly, that social
welfare programs in Hong Kong did not exist and that health care is
entirely privatized [3]. And on and on.
But it's worse than just petty lying. The "reason" that Objectivism pays
so much lip service to is nowhere in view. Its followers will not
acknowledge, for example, the staggering failures of private corporations
to provide any health care to more than 40 million Americans and
affordable health care to any of the rest. Instead they offer ludicrous
defenses of doctors' "moral right to be free" to ignore the "invalid
notion of an individual 'right' to health care" [4] and they drown out
inconvenient facts and internal contradictions in their arguments with
shouts of "collectivism!", "socialism!", and "altruism!"; slanders Rand
herself often employed.
The monotonous use of Rand's vocabulary reflects
her messianic stature in the Objectivist movement, even twenty years after
her death. Excerpts from her mediocre books adorn Objectivist webpages
and clutter their soliloquies. There's a lot of unspoken tension between
this fawning idol worship and the atheism Objectivists commit themselves
to.
This cult of personality, though generally marginal, does hold some allure
among the left, because of its idiosyncratic advocacy of an end to the war
on drugs, protection of civil liberties, a loosening of the two-party
death grip on American politics, and its rhetorical veneer of reason.
But make no mistake: Objectivism is fundamentally Stalinism, reupholstered
to couch capitalist sensibilities. No improvement in our society will
ever come from a movement claiming that selfishness is the highest human
virtue.
Dimitrije Kostic is a graduate student in mathematics at Texas A&M;
University. He can be reached at dkostic@math.tamu.edu.
Notes
[1] http://environmentalism.aynrand.org/quotes.shtml
[2] http://multiculturalism.aynrand.org/
[3] See http://www.hmiworld.org/past_issues/
March_April_2002/forum.html;
Dr William Ho, the chief executive of the Hong Kong Hospital Authority,
criticizes Hong Kong's medical system, which is actually run in part by
the government and in part by the private sector. Whatever the (mixed)
successes of that system are, it is clear that Bernstein was
misrepresenting the nature of health care and welfare in Hong Kong.
[4] http://www.aynrand.org/medialink/mylife.shtml
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