I started Atlas Shrugged and couldn't get past the first hundred pages. It was years ago (back when I considered myself more of a libertarian), but I remember it just being a very dull read.
A trailer for the Atlas Shrugged movie is out, though, and I find it interesting to watch, not knowing all the ins and outs of the plot myself: a railroad is facing trouble; it wants to buy better inputs from a supplier that makes a superior product; competitors don't like that supplier; government doesn't like and wants to hamstring that supplier; the supplier gets annoyed by obnoxious family members; the supplier and the railroad company owner are impressed by truly impressive inventions; individuals resist a government that tries to boss them around.
Is this all? I thought it was supposed to be more distinctly libertarian than that. This seems to be a plot that anyone that's not a Marxist can appreciate. Am I missing a fundamental plot element? A while ago I noted a tendency for people to commit what I called a "presumption of ideological orthogonality". The presumption of ideological orthogonality is when people say "I adhere to X-sim, and I believe X, so those people who do not adhere to X-ism and who I disagree with must believe not-X". In reality, belief systems are not orthogonal. They have considerable overlap. A great example I like to point to is The Communist Manifesto. The average mainstream person usually agrees with six or seven of the ten planks of The Communist Manifesto. Does that make them a Communist? Of course not. Belief systems are not orthogonal and just because I think it's probably reasonable to outlaw child labor and have a progressive income tax, I'm not a Communist because I still don't think the means of production should be own collectively.
What does this have to do with Atlas Shrugged? Well, given what I see in the trailer (and a little review on Wikipedia) of a plot I've never been that invested in learning about, I'm totally on board with Reardon, Galt, and the rest of them and I'm not a fan of the government in the book or Reardon's whiney family. Does that make me a Randian? I would imagine not. So why is this considered so revolutionary and libertarian? Is there an underlying plot line I'm missing? Is all the uniqueness and Objectivism crammed in that one speech that everybody quotes?
If the government acted like that, and if our whole society was so suspicious of individual achievement like that I (and a lot of other non-libertarians and non-Objectivists) would consider "going Galt" too!!!
And I have one lingering question... what would Stephan Kinsella have to say about the IP rights that Hank Rearden claims to Rearden Metal? Hmmmm...
Saturday, February 12, 2011
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It just illustrates how libertarian the world has become. When Rand was writing her major works they were a slap in the face to the dominant paradigm. It was a bit like being an atheist in the 18th century. Now Rand pervades the culture so much that this movie doesn't seem so radical - and she does pervade the culture (the creators of Craiglist, CNN, the Whole Earth Catalogue, etc. all drew heavy inspiration from Rand).
ReplyDeleteOr to put it more succinctly, we, the libertarians, are winning. :)
ReplyDeleteOh, and I've never read any work written by Ayn Rand.
ReplyDelete"A great example I like to point to is The Communist Manifesto. The average mainstream person usually agrees with six or seven of the ten planks of The Communist Manifesto. Does that make them a Communist? Of course not."
ReplyDeleteI suppose you know the famous Marx quote: "I don't what I am, but I am surely not a MARXIST!"
Kinsella has aggressively debated IP with Randians for quite some time.
ReplyDeleteYes, there is more to it. The plot is about producers acting in a society that hates them. The theme is the role of mans mind in that society and the moral is that such actions are supremely virtious, which makes the producers the protagonist heroes and the society the antagonist villians. Try the audiobook, sometimes that can make a difference.
ReplyDeleteAlso, your notion of "ideological orthogonality" sounds very impressive but it is fundamentally flawed. Reality is not orthogonalital and therefore neither is truth. Ideas may or may not be true but to the extent that they are true they will not be orthogonal, by definition. False ideas can by any "ogonal" you want but I dont think Mickey Mouse would really care, nor would anyone else.
What you are attempting to do is to compare ideas by their non essential referents and you are making an inductive generalization (e.g. all ideas are orthogonal) based on that, such non essentials often overlap in the same way that many objects have the same attribut (such as color) but that does not define what they are, ideas work the same way only they reside within the mind. I suggest you read Ayn Rands Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology for a more complete explanation.
RS -
ReplyDelete1. Right - that's nice that creative producers are to be admired and a society that hates creative producers is an immoral society. I just didn't realize that the point of Atlas Shrugged was so utterly banal. Who's going to contest that? I think it was Rand's own editorialization that established her as a radical - but the plot itself doesn't strike me as being all that radical (certainly it is uplifting).
2. I can barely comprehend your second paragraph, but you seem to think I'm saying ideology is orthogonal. My whole point is not and that the people who "presume" that there is "ideological orthogonality" are wrong to. If you think I am saying that ideas ARE orthogonal, you really need to re-read the post (and perhaps the initial post that I reference).
I think entrepreneurs competing vigorously in a free market - getting fabulously rich if they succeed and poor if they fail - and expressing and profiting off their creativity is a wonderful thing. I feel like that's not enough to make me a Randian, but if it is then I've been misunderstanding Rand.
ReplyDeleteI've always thought of Rand as a libertarian with a certain degree of rationalism-fetishism (ie - Objectivism). What I get out of this trailer and a review in various places of the plotline of Atlas Shrugged is "creativity and industry are good and a society that looks down upon that is evil". It's a great message, but it's not one that will really distinguish you from the crowd.
Let me put it this way - judging by the Randians I see and I hear I would have figured if I actually read through Atlas Shrugged the book would frustrate me or piss me off.
ReplyDeleteNow that I look into it after seeing this new trailer, I get the impression I might really enjoy and agree with the book.
1. "...creative producers are to be admired and a society that hates creative producers is an immoral society".
ReplyDeleteThe book does more than just point this out. It establishes WHY society feels this way and identifies the ideas behind it, that was what made her a radical.
If youd dont think this really distinguishes her from the crowd then name one other book or movie prior to Ayn Rand that held a businessman, banker or industrialist as a moral hero in the truest sense of the word.
And perhaps her "why" would be what would end up being unsatisfying.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what your test is supposed to prove. We think of heros as being more singular personalities, and I think there are enough people being creative in pursuit of their trade that it's not considered quite so singular. What we don't do is put up creative entrepreneurs as the villains in our novels either, though. When businessmen are villains, it's for character flaws largely incidental to the fact that they are businessmen.
I think if you think more broadly about "entrepreneurial people", those sorts of people are heroes of novels all the time. But I think you're right - businessmen and industrialists per se aren't, but I don't think that's because they're looked down upon. That seems like quiet a leap.
I'll certainly note that Rand put businessmen center stage and that was likely a notable new sort of character. I'm not sure of that, but it seems likely enough. I don't think that means that we all were suspect of entrepreneurs before Rand. For every Gordon Gecko there's a Bruce Wayne, and neither of them were defined by the fact that they were businessmen anyway - they were defined by what kind of men they were. I would be careful not to read too much into the background of characters.
2. your right, I switched your use of the word "orthogonal" but that still does not really change my point. If I understand you correctly, you seem to be arguing that because sometimes concretes of certain ideas happen to juxtapose then that means that the underlying principles do as well? That is like saying a blue chair lacks "chairness" because the table near it is also blue. Blueness is neither the defining characteristic of chairs nor tables but you see to be saying that because they both share the attribute of the same color then they must somehow be the same i.e. the share something fundamental which makes them similar.
ReplyDeleteWhat I am saying is that this is a mistake. You are abstracting away the wrong attributes and then comparing thier non-essentials and concluding that the underlying object share something significant when they do not.
but what exactly is it that makes a character flawed or notable? why is one given moral credit while another deserves moral scorn? that is what is at the heart of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. It is taken for granted that certain actions are evaluated as moral and others are immoral, as if this knowledge is something that just appears out of nowhere, accepted uncritically.
ReplyDelete"And perhaps her "why" would be what would end up being unsatisfying".
im sure it would to someone who was absolutely sure that truth is unknowable (this "truth" being somehow excluded of course) then any answer to the question of "why" would naturally be unapealing, since it would not be considered as true, to such a person.
RS - no, again you're getting me exactly backwards. I'm arguing against the tendency to say "the blue chair is blue and the blue table is blue, so the blue chair and the table are the same thing" OR the tendency to say "the blue chair is a chair and the blue table is a table so the chair cannot be blue because the table is". Both of those are bad logic, and yet people do that with ideology all the time. They assume that because I'm not a libertarian I don't embrace markets. Or sometimes they assume that because I embrace a central bank and child labor laws I'm a Communist. It turns out I'm neither.
ReplyDeleteIf Atlas Shrugged were merely a story about a railroad executive and an iron supplier running away from government, it would garner little praise indeed.
ReplyDeleteIt would more appropriately be understood as Objectivist philosophy as embodied by characters in a novel. She expresses her philosophy through the characters in Atlas Shrugged, and it is her philosophy that is unpopular.
What about her philosophy, communicated through the book, is unpopular.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that her critique of the government's behavior and her critique of the family's behavior in Atlas Shrugged should be broadly popular. Certainly there are other manifestations of her philosophy that are less popular, but what is it in Atlas Shrugged specifically that is supposed to be so radical?
"what is it in Atlas Shrugged specifically that is supposed to be so radical? "
ReplyDeleteHer theory of moral values. She argued that morality is based on both metaphysics and epistemology, that both are necessary for man to conceptualize the ought from the is. From this she developed an objective code of values based on the fact that man is alive and can only survive based on rational thougth and that the problem with post kantian modern philosophy and modern intellectuals is that they evade one or the other or both of these facts and try to rewrite reality by using reason to invalidate reason in order to avoid the necessity of thinking. many people do not like to hear this. also, as a consequence of this theory, she concluded that total and complete laissez fair capitalism is the only moral political/economic system that is compatable with mans nature.
RS -
ReplyDeleteWow - didn't realize that was all in the book.
With respect to this critique of post-Kantians: "they evade one or the other or both of these facts and try to rewrite reality by using reason to invalidate reason in order to avoid the necessity of thinking", it's fairly impressive that she can discern motives and goals so effectively! Wow! I had no idea I was trying to avoid the necessity of thinking!
I would tweak the explanation offered by RS:
ReplyDelete"what is it in Atlas Shrugged specifically that is supposed to be so radical? "
What is unpopular is her theory of morality. She places a distinct emphasis on selfishness and a literal hatred of altruism (here's one reason she's unpopular). She claims that self-interest is the nature of man, and that only acts that enhance one's self-interest are rational. She substantiates her case with a rigorous methodology that would make Austrians blush, working in a sense of Aristotelian metaphysics. Many of her works on existence, ethics, aesthetics, and logic are a part of Objectivism (although not all are included in Atlas Shrugged - ethics is the main point of the novel).
Atlas Shrugged is an attempt to describe her system of ethical behavior by reference to the autonomy of man and the necessity of rational self-interest. Her political corollary is that laissez-faire capitalism is the only social system compatible with the nature of man (and I would push her ethics further and suggest anarcho-capitalism given her own premises).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged#Themes
The altruism point is probably the essential point. Although this is always circular - if you have a subjectivist understanding of self-interest (and perhaps Rand doesn't), you have to consider the possibility of the good of others entering your preferences.
ReplyDeleteEither way, again, how is this expressed in the book? As far as I know, it's that the innovators don't like free-loading family members. If that's all "altruism is bad" amounts too, I think you'll find a lot of people in agreement.
As for this - "She substantiates her case with a rigorous methodology that would make Austrians blush" - you do realize there are a lot of people for whom this doesn't appear to say much, right?
Ultimately we are cycling through the themes that I know are present in Rand... not sure how to put my curiosity about this, and perhaps I just need to read my book for myself (which won't happen in the near future).
its part of Galts speech.
ReplyDeleteyes, it is impressive, she also predicted how the growth and collapse of government is inevitable given certian premises. the recent financial is a result of that, that is why it sold 500K copies in 2009, nearly 60 years after it was published.
I'm sorry - the recent financial crisis is a result of what?
ReplyDeleteRand had a uniquely objectivist understanding of self interest so the "good of others" was only morally relevant if thier interest are in line with with ones own.
ReplyDeletethe recent financial crisis is a result of what?
ReplyDeletevarious government intervention in the market.
OK - that can be accepted with some degree of qualification. I thought you were trying to say something about the inevitable collapse of government.
ReplyDelete@Mattheus "...I would push her ethics further and suggest anarcho-capitalism given her own premises"
ReplyDeleteHer premise for capitalism requires the removal of force from society however, since man has free will there will always be the possiblitly of force so a government monopoly on the use of force is necessary, given metaphysical facts. Moreover, even if 100% of society were perfect in this regard people would still have legitimate grounds to disagree, since our judgement is autonomouse. for these reasons, anarcho-capitalism is explicitly rejected by any and all objectivists, most especially by Ayn Rand
I know she and her fellow Objectivists disregard it. That makes them logically inconsistent. She states that the initiation of force is immoral, and yet she supports an organization that she recognizes initiates force.
ReplyDeleteNot that all people who disagree with anarcho capitalism are inconsistent. Daniel, for instance, probably would not claim that the use of force is illegitimate. He can then consistently advocate government action. Rand cannot.
@Mattheus,
ReplyDeleteNo, she does not. There is a difference between the initiation of force and retalitory force. It is the same difference between murder and self defense. "Force" is not some floating abstraction to be taken out of any context. The reason it is wrong i.e. the premise behind its moral evaluation is because it threatens life so using force to eliminate the use of force is 100% logically consistent. Anarcho capitalists do not understand the reasons i.e the principles behind their positions so they have no way to make any distinction between using force to counter the use of force. "Force" is simply taken out of context like a floating balloon cutoff from any reality. that is what is logically inconsistant.
RS - what you find, though, is that people like Rand regularly fudge the distinction between initiation and retaliation to get the answers they want.
ReplyDeleteMattheus - I think you're essentially right, althoguh I wouldn't say that I think force is legitimate... that just increasingly seems like an odd way of even talking about the situation to me. What I would say is that coercive force is pervasive and inescapable. Because of that, we need to undestand liberty not as the absence of initiated coercion, but the arrangement of coercions in a way that maximizes human dignity and human potential.
Mattheus, I think you've seen this, but RS you might be interested in this:
http://factsandotherstubbornthings.blogspot.com/2011/02/lovecraft-me-and-jefferson-on-property.html
The fact that Rand says she doesn't support the initiation of force does not guarantee that she knows what the hell she's talking about. This is why approaches like hers are so dangerous - remorseless logicians arguing themselves into bedlam.
this is just more rationalism of the same sort. "property" exists because values exist and values exist because people live and choose to act to stay that way. whether such facts are formally recognized in a legal institution or not does not alter them but the consequences to human "dignity" and "potential" are easily and undisputedly apparent as can be seen in countries that treat those institutions differently. The more drastic the difference the more drastic the consequences.
ReplyDeleteWhat gets fudeged i.e. evaded by people who take the marxist view that all property is theft and therefore "force" is the fact that "theft" is a concept that can only be applied within a context of property i.e. the implicit recognition that a person "ownes" something by right but if no one can "own" anything by right then it cannot be said anything was stolen from them. this is why socialism and communism both advocate the elimination of private property and they always fail because eliminating property means eliminating a persons ability to live. it is the remorseless apologists who evade and ignore this fact that is the most dangerous to free peoples.
RS -
ReplyDeleteIt's absurd that you can consider yourself a rationalist and write things like this: ""property" exists because values exist and values exist because people live and choose to act to stay that way". What does this even mean? How does the reality of valuation imply the existence of property or rights? All that implies is a disposition that a subject has towards and object. It doesn't magically create a power relationship between that subject and that object. For that power relationship, you need the initiation of force.
The "property is theft" idea is useful because it sort of gets at this point, but ultimately you're right - it's circular and doesn't make sense. The right thing to say is "property is coercion" or "property is the initiation of force". It tends to be a very good and efficient coercion and initiation of force to use, as it so happens.
You can only claim that when someone takes your stuff they have violated your right because you have 300 million bullies threatening the use of force on your behalf. That's no different from the gang that says "this is our turf and anyone that sets foot in it is going to get shot".
This is actually a fairly anarcho-libertarian position for me to take. The government is like a gang in this sense. But the whole point is that property is like a gang too. The whole edifice of the market is based on this coercion. That's OK, but let's just not proceed as if this coercion isn't really coercion but other coercions that people advocate to protect vulnerable members of society are Really Bad Things.
i dont consider myself a rationalist, I consider your use of the concepts force and property as rationalistic.
ReplyDelete"How does the reality of valuation imply the existence of property or rights?"
because people act to produce the things they are disposed to value. the very fact that they have done so successfully is the power relationship, not the possibility that others with more physical strength can take it away.
saying that all property is theft is the same as saying that all production is theft. if that were actually the case then where did all of this "stuff" come from? blank out!
Right - I agreed it was circular and wrong to say that "property is theft". I may have said it myself once or twice, but it's equally wrong when I say it.
ReplyDeleteWhat this poorly presented point gets at, though, is a good underlying point. Property rights are necessarily coercive. They are an initiation of force.
you still dont understand. how is production an initiation of force? if I am on a desert island, alone, and I spend my time fishing and building huts, rope and other things who did I use force against? if someone comes along later and takes the stuff away from me who initiated force against whom? how does simply holding the things I made become a positive action with respect to someone else and thier postive action against me necessarily a "reactive" action? is the nature of force predicated on the lack of values that someone holds? it must be so for your assertion to be true? so then explain this form of nihilism.
ReplyDeletebtw, this article is relevant to this discussion.
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=arc_harry_binswanger_the_dollar_and_the_gun