I heard of Ayn Rand before I read Virtue of Selfishness. I knew that her philosophy dealt with ethics and metaphysics. I also knew that she used it as a front to promote laissez-faire capitalism. To that end, I don't see it as a genuine political philosophy, but rather an intellectually shallow pseudo-philosophy tempered by Cold War paranoia and excessive capitalist romanticism. Glancing over her definitions and insight into the terms, she demonstrates a crude understanding of history, yet invests considerable insight into her moral philosophy. That said, it's not strictly a unique concept. No new modes of thought have been introduced. It's a quilt sewn together from previously existing concepts. Then she slapped a label on it and said "Yay! It's mine!"
There are several conditions Rand assumes in her (numerous) arguments. I will only address a few topics which are of interest to me.
Chapter 14: The Nature of Government
In chapter twelve, Rand opens by stating that a 'truly free' society must be consistent with the notion of individual rights. In this context, 'truly free' serves as a handy euphemism for laissez-faire capitalism. Rand argues that only this brand of capitalism can best exercise individual rights, because it incentivize persons to act in what she claims to be their 'rational self-interest', which is some sort of compromise between arbitrarily fulfilling each petty whim and acting out of selfless concern. In chapter fourteen, Rand asserts that the only entity mortgaged to enforce the protection of these rights is a state to which the governed express consent, and, in turn, to which statecraft is subordinated.
The author assumed that since this hierarchal structure was brought about my 'democratic' activity, it's necessarily democratic (i.e. decentralized and subsumed to the interests of the governed). Her naiveté is precious. A monopoly on force is required to preserve a democratic society; this is what she fundamentally asserts. You can see that the two notions contradict one another. Further, the polity she illustrates ostensibly resembles a democracy, but constituents are systemically excluded from the majority of the political process. The best the masses can hope for is to ratify pre-formulated policy decisions. Other than that, public involvement in state affairs is extremely limited. This is representative democracy, and, the sort Rand appends to her philosophical praxis.
One crucial assumption Rand makes is that a government is necessarily statist. I will be loose in my usage of the term here since views on what a 'State' is are wide and varied. It spans a range of political phenomena that in one way or another involves a monopoly on the usage of force. It matters not under what conditions a state claims legitimacy; that's not my concern, be it democratic or monarchist. Her assumption can be contradicted very easily. In popular vernacular, government is understood to mean 'state': the two are interchangeable. Yet self-government is also a form of government. When I speak of self-government, I refer to voluntary association, a concept which figures prominently in socialist literature, and distorted by right-'libertarians'. Individuals band together under free agreement to realize goals of common interest to them. This implies that political interest is decentralized and directly controlled as opposed to being appropriated by illegitimate monopolies.
A 'democratic' State, say Canada, claims its legitimacy on an ahistorical basis known as the 'social contract', the one proposed by John Locke as a thought experiment (his aim was to frame discussion on this basis from which future societies could possibly arise). The modern-day democratic state defines the 'public interest' on this basis, which serves as a convenient surrogate for private elite interests. Even the outcome of policy which incidentally coincides with this stated aim is an epiphenomenon of the mechanisms which underlie the democratic framework. Larger democracies rely on public goods (i.e. 'good policy') to obtain and remain in power. Nominal democracies such as North Korea offer a limited array of mechanisms, both in number and scope, to manage state affairs at the popular level, whilst remaining beholden to private interests, extinguishing the need for 'good policy' since private interests are secured at the expense of the public.
This is not to say that democracies are as equally despicable as dictatorships. The binary classifications of the 'realist' school of international relations simply fail to capture then nuances between differing 'democracies' and fail to highlight the similarities between how a 'dictatorship' and a 'democracy' function. Suffice it to say, I have no illusions that our government is as publicly accountable as most think it to be. I recommend The Dictator's Handbook for a in-depth explanation of this issue. In fact, the theory propounded by the book serves as a viable alternative to the realist school of thought, and can account not only for how states function, but even corporations and charities.
There are several shortfalls I've alluded to which undermine the liberatory potential of a democratic conception of statism. You elect a hand-picked (he's elected by the party) once over a period of time. He's not immediately recallable. In order to kick him out office, you have to wait a few years. He doesn't sufficiently represent the public interest, but as we've seen, this is a moo t point since the public interest is farcical at best. He has a platform on which you elect him. You can't adopt one policy without accepting another. There's no guarantee that anyone of your preferred policy will be acted upon, and if so, executed sufficiently to retain your loyalty. Civilians are excluded from the drafting process; they cannot review or suggest changes to proposed legislation. You cannot decide whether or not to go to war, or how to allocate spending. This public overview substituted with that handy euphemism, the 'public interest'. These are just some of the issues present with 'representative' democracy.
Finally, I don't think the right to the initiation of force necessarily underpins all conception of government (which disqualifies statism). I should note that the model Rand proposes is hierarchical since only one entity has the right to the means of force. This creates social relationships based around the usage of force, contrary to what Rand wishes to accomplish. There are several means besides the initiation of force which can be used to diffuse tensions peacefully. I understand that the purpose behind retributive punishment is to enforce normative expectations (those which underlie the societal framework). I believe this approach is excessive. If, as Rand asserts, man's highest faculty is reason, he should be predisposed to using reason and dialogue to resolve disputes. Force is a possible choice, but should it remain the focal point to which justice is subordinated?
Rand ignores the social relationships that capitalism (especially laissez-faire) creates. The relation of wage-labor means that labor is ceaselessly subjugated to private capital. Workers are coerced into selling their labor-power for pittance whilst the capitalist can hire additional wage-slaves from the expropriated surplus. The socialist would thus disagree with Rand that capitalism entails freedom for this very reason.
There are several conditions Rand assumes in her (numerous) arguments. I will only address a few topics which are of interest to me.
Chapter 14: The Nature of Government
In chapter twelve, Rand opens by stating that a 'truly free' society must be consistent with the notion of individual rights. In this context, 'truly free' serves as a handy euphemism for laissez-faire capitalism. Rand argues that only this brand of capitalism can best exercise individual rights, because it incentivize persons to act in what she claims to be their 'rational self-interest', which is some sort of compromise between arbitrarily fulfilling each petty whim and acting out of selfless concern. In chapter fourteen, Rand asserts that the only entity mortgaged to enforce the protection of these rights is a state to which the governed express consent, and, in turn, to which statecraft is subordinated.
The author assumed that since this hierarchal structure was brought about my 'democratic' activity, it's necessarily democratic (i.e. decentralized and subsumed to the interests of the governed). Her naiveté is precious. A monopoly on force is required to preserve a democratic society; this is what she fundamentally asserts. You can see that the two notions contradict one another. Further, the polity she illustrates ostensibly resembles a democracy, but constituents are systemically excluded from the majority of the political process. The best the masses can hope for is to ratify pre-formulated policy decisions. Other than that, public involvement in state affairs is extremely limited. This is representative democracy, and, the sort Rand appends to her philosophical praxis.
One crucial assumption Rand makes is that a government is necessarily statist. I will be loose in my usage of the term here since views on what a 'State' is are wide and varied. It spans a range of political phenomena that in one way or another involves a monopoly on the usage of force. It matters not under what conditions a state claims legitimacy; that's not my concern, be it democratic or monarchist. Her assumption can be contradicted very easily. In popular vernacular, government is understood to mean 'state': the two are interchangeable. Yet self-government is also a form of government. When I speak of self-government, I refer to voluntary association, a concept which figures prominently in socialist literature, and distorted by right-'libertarians'. Individuals band together under free agreement to realize goals of common interest to them. This implies that political interest is decentralized and directly controlled as opposed to being appropriated by illegitimate monopolies.
A 'democratic' State, say Canada, claims its legitimacy on an ahistorical basis known as the 'social contract', the one proposed by John Locke as a thought experiment (his aim was to frame discussion on this basis from which future societies could possibly arise). The modern-day democratic state defines the 'public interest' on this basis, which serves as a convenient surrogate for private elite interests. Even the outcome of policy which incidentally coincides with this stated aim is an epiphenomenon of the mechanisms which underlie the democratic framework. Larger democracies rely on public goods (i.e. 'good policy') to obtain and remain in power. Nominal democracies such as North Korea offer a limited array of mechanisms, both in number and scope, to manage state affairs at the popular level, whilst remaining beholden to private interests, extinguishing the need for 'good policy' since private interests are secured at the expense of the public.
This is not to say that democracies are as equally despicable as dictatorships. The binary classifications of the 'realist' school of international relations simply fail to capture then nuances between differing 'democracies' and fail to highlight the similarities between how a 'dictatorship' and a 'democracy' function. Suffice it to say, I have no illusions that our government is as publicly accountable as most think it to be. I recommend The Dictator's Handbook for a in-depth explanation of this issue. In fact, the theory propounded by the book serves as a viable alternative to the realist school of thought, and can account not only for how states function, but even corporations and charities.
There are several shortfalls I've alluded to which undermine the liberatory potential of a democratic conception of statism. You elect a hand-picked (he's elected by the party) once over a period of time. He's not immediately recallable. In order to kick him out office, you have to wait a few years. He doesn't sufficiently represent the public interest, but as we've seen, this is a moo t point since the public interest is farcical at best. He has a platform on which you elect him. You can't adopt one policy without accepting another. There's no guarantee that anyone of your preferred policy will be acted upon, and if so, executed sufficiently to retain your loyalty. Civilians are excluded from the drafting process; they cannot review or suggest changes to proposed legislation. You cannot decide whether or not to go to war, or how to allocate spending. This public overview substituted with that handy euphemism, the 'public interest'. These are just some of the issues present with 'representative' democracy.
Finally, I don't think the right to the initiation of force necessarily underpins all conception of government (which disqualifies statism). I should note that the model Rand proposes is hierarchical since only one entity has the right to the means of force. This creates social relationships based around the usage of force, contrary to what Rand wishes to accomplish. There are several means besides the initiation of force which can be used to diffuse tensions peacefully. I understand that the purpose behind retributive punishment is to enforce normative expectations (those which underlie the societal framework). I believe this approach is excessive. If, as Rand asserts, man's highest faculty is reason, he should be predisposed to using reason and dialogue to resolve disputes. Force is a possible choice, but should it remain the focal point to which justice is subordinated?
Rand ignores the social relationships that capitalism (especially laissez-faire) creates. The relation of wage-labor means that labor is ceaselessly subjugated to private capital. Workers are coerced into selling their labor-power for pittance whilst the capitalist can hire additional wage-slaves from the expropriated surplus. The socialist would thus disagree with Rand that capitalism entails freedom for this very reason.
This criticism forms the core tenet of socialism which advocates worker's control of the means of production (factories, tools, etc.). The profound disadvantage to laissez-faire capitalism can be summed up as state-sanctioned monopoly on the means of life (tools for labor, recreation and expression) to the extreme.
I oppose this brand of capitalism because it unfairly raises dependency on the means of life, which are involuntarily used. In order to continue living, we continuously expend our resources (e.g. earn wage to purchase necessities from a commodity market, earned through labor power), which requires usage of the means of life, but since it's oriented toward profit in a capitalist society, the process is alienation (from labor product, other workers, the labor process, so forth) as opposed to fulfillment.
Individuals in a socialist society would have more recreational time available since a large portion isn't concentrated into selling your labor-power for someone else's benefit. The portrait painted by right-“libertarians” is an idealistic caricature of capitalism as a given number of individuals freely agreeing to trade resources. This, ironically, captures the essence of truly free-market interactions as opposed to merely capitalist ones which claim to be free-market. The situation is complex; I won't reproduce it here for sake of brevity. Suffice it to say that right-“libertarians” and other capitalist apologists are living off in a romantic dream world which never was. In short, I think Ayn Rand is delusional.
Chapter 12: Man’s Rights
Rand opines about what principles constitute a “right”, who/what can protect them, and how such rights can be applied. The author correctly asserts that the issuance of rights implies an obligation. Because ‘collectivist’ rights (like “the right of every family to a decent home”) are altruistic, she reasons, they are tantamount to slave labor. Fair enough, though I think the comparison is a tad dramatic.
She writes:
“The right to life means that a man has the right to support his life by his own work (on any economic level, as high as his ability will carry him).” I would add that individuals can co-operate in the labor process, too. It's not an obligation, but a contract formed under free agreement.
“The right to property means that a man has the right to take the economic actions necessary to earn property, to use it and to dispose of it; it does not mean that others must provide him with property.” I disagree with the first statement. It's very vague in what constitutes the concept of 'property' and how one 'earns' it. Is my T-shirt property, or is it a possession? 'Dispose' of under what conditions? What constitutes disposal (destroying it, relinquishing it)? It doesn't follow that if I 'own' some property that I can use it however I like. If I build a play center in a vine-yard, is that the most efficient use of the grounds, or is it better suited toward harvesting? There are practical as well as political aspects to this issue.
Now this chapter is interesting because it concentrates a robust, individualistic focus on economic rights. Right-“libertarians” and other conservatives profess a naïve account of rugged self-sufficiency, as illustrated by Rand here. I read a response by someone far more articulate than myself in this instance when he wrote: “[I]n every case, individuals are preceded by other communities […] Rugged, self-sufficient individuals, to the extent that such people actually exist, come out of skilled and supportive communities that foster these skills and capabilities. They don't spring out of the ground fully formed, nor do they invent themselves whole-cloth such that they owe 'nothing' to their social environments.”
The point is well-illustrated. It's touching to think that even a newborn is an important 'individual', but realistically, they have not yet developed preferences, skills, talents and interests that would meaningfully distinguish them from another newborn. These particular sets are attained through self-discovery and nurtured by supportive communities (friends, teachers, parents etc).
The whole spiel about how universal health-care (for instance) is evil, because socialism is scientifically proven not to work. We even see apes -- our closest cousins -- imposing private property laws and exploiting workers. It's a bit silly, no? Conservatives (the far-right ones) rely on the romantics of 'individualism' to the extreme to argue against, well, anything remotely beneficial for the population. Ron Paul is a pretty good example of this. As much as I respect him, his assumptions about reality are questionable. In his mind, only the government is capable of committing discriminatory acts, for some reason. If it's in the private sector, deal with it.
To quote an article on the subject (see footnote), “a libertarian by definition opposes discrimination because libertarians oppose the state. [Ron Paul] cannot imagine social power exerting itself through any other form.” I'm certain that's the driving reason behind why he's opposed to the Civil Rights Act (he claims the anti-segregation clause infringes on individual freedoms because it's government-sanctioned integration. It sounds reasonable until you realize other social forces outside the state can infringe on liberties).
You can see, then, how taking a certain concept too far can distort critical thinking (especially if the concept in question precludes it in its configuration). This is precisely where Rand fails in her assessment of individual rights. That’s a minor criticism of Rand , too. I haven't even begun to cover the problem of capitalist property rights, which I won’t expand on for sake of brevity. That's a topic for another time.
Footnotes
Jonathan Chait. “How Ron Paul’s Libertarian Principles Support Racism”.
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/01/how-ron-pauls-libertarianism-supports-racism.html
January 2, 2012. New York
