Ayn Rand's Contribution to the Cause of Freedom
Rand's influence on the libertarian movement is incalculable; despite her own frequent antipathy toward that movement and even toward the word "libertarian," Rand played a crucial role in helping both to create new advocates of laissez-faire and to radicalize existing ones; Rand encouraged libertarians to view their standpoint as an alternative to, rather than a branch of, conservatism, and to base the case for liberty on moral principle and not on pragmatic economic benefits alone. Rand's influence on popular culture is likewise enormous; an oft-cited Library of Congress survey of "most influential books" placed Atlas Shrugged, a book that Mises himself praised, second only to the Bible.[Full Article]
Comments (24)
I haven't read any of Ayn Rand's books, but I already have some qualms with her. First of all, I do not believe that ethical egoism is a very good foundation for libertarianism. Ethics are fine and I think that Rand has made some good points against altruism, however, I believe that libertarianism is best as a theory of law. The other thing about Rand was her cultish belief that all governments need to do is adopt the correct philosophy (her's of course). Instead of Rand seeing governments as incompatible with her philosophy entirely, she said that anarchy wouldn't work and attempted to critique it using cliche arguments. Aside from the problems with her arguments against anarchy, the problem with this line of thinking is that governments are not in the business of adopting philosophies. Governments merely expropriate, consume, destroy and re-distribute wealth (with different types of regulation falling into any of those categories). Governments will appear to adopt a particular philosophy (say egalitarianism) , when in fact they will merely use this as an excuse to continue their war on private property. If more Randians followed in the Tannehill's footsteps then we could call it a genuine freedom movement.
Published: February 2, 2005 1:54 AM
"the most courageous man in America."?!
Surely Ayn Rand wasn't a courageous MAN
By the way, has anyone read MISES, FRIEDMAN AND RAND: A METHODOLOGICAL COMPARISON, by Edward W. Younkins. It is online at http://www.quebecoislibre.org/05/050115-19.htm
'Ayn Rand's methodological approach overcomes the false alternatives of rationalism and...' What do you think is wrong with this?
In particular I think it would be helpful for you to clarify the meaning of rationalism, and its implications.
Published: February 2, 2005 6:55 AM
Another great post. I especially enjoyed the link to "Mozart Was A Red". Ah Murray! I have printed both to slip into my copies of Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead as resources for my children and other readers.
Rand has some lovely prose in favor of liberty and was one of my indirect paths to Mises and Rothbard. Her life story is a cautionary tale against philosophical zealotry that we should take to heart.
Published: February 2, 2005 7:14 AM
A fine discussion, Roderick.
I should note that my own writings on the Ayn Rand Centenary are now linked conveniently from my "Not a Blog":
Index to Essays on the Ayn Rand Centenary
Published: February 2, 2005 7:22 AM
I believe the tale of a Library of Congress survey is an urban legend.
There was a Book of the Month club survey in which Atlas Shrugged came a distant second to the Bible which may be the root of the legend.
Tragically, though, one must acknowlege that while Rand's philosophy is both true and unique, where it is unique it is not true and where it is true it is not unique. (Wish I could remember who originated that phrase...)
regards,
Shirley Knott
Published: February 2, 2005 9:49 AM
I think of Ayn Rand as my personal "gateway drug" to anarchy. Her works were some of the first strident defenses of capitalist and individualist philosophy that I was exposed to, and they heavily influenced me for years, and still do, even though I have deep-seated disagreements with some of her stances. I have moved from unconcerned, to capitalist, to libertarian, to anarchist, but her work helped start the ball rolling. For that influence I am very grateful. I’ll address three items of disagreement here – objective value, anarchism, and altruism.
One of her disciples wrote a critique of libertarianism that was almost entirely based on libertarianism defining value as subjective, rather than objective, and I think this difference is the crux of the antipathy between the two movements. I have come to believe that all value is subjective, and that subjective differences in value judgments are the underlying cause of all capitalist exchange. This is trivially proved by the fact that exchange takes place at all! If both parties assigned equal value to both $5.49 and a #2 combo, there would be no restaurants, because neither party would see any gain in the exchange. From that standpoint, trying to ascertain an objective frame of reference, and to use that objective frame of reference as a defense of capitalism, is fundamentally flawed.
Her critique of anarchism used a straw man approach, and has been handled thoroughly by other philosophers. Aside from the unrealistic expectation that a government will be reigned in by its own self-restraint, her min-archist position is compromised philosophically because it allows the camel’s nose under the tent – now it’s just a question of time before the entire beast is inside.
Yes we all act in self-interest, and no one acts for PURELY altruistic purposes. However, some place more value on the needs of others than themselves, to the extent of forsaking things such as a full belly, a corporate job, material wealth, etcetera, and these people are referred to in the vernacular as “altruists.� Perhaps they see a “selfish� reward in the afterlife and act “altruistically� because of it. Perhaps, having made their millions, they feel compelled to “give back� through philanthropy. Maybe they see the value in charity as PR. As long as it’s voluntary, there’s nothing wrong with that in my book. I think Ayn might have disagreed. She characterized the subordination of one’s own interests to those of others as “altruism� and rejected it. Is that subordination voluntary or coerced? If voluntary, feel free to reject it for yourself, personally – but you don’t have the right to denounce it for anyone else, because value is subjective.
I think any framework we humans try to force the world into, through our force of rationality, is flawed, simply because our intellect is limited. Besides, expecting a rational universe simply because we use rationality to describe our empirical observations of the universe carries its own baggage, doesn’t it? I’m with Ayn in seeking a rational basis for explaining reality, but I think I respect the limits of rationality a bit more than she does.
Published: February 2, 2005 9:49 AM
I believe the tale of a Library of Congress survey is an urban legend.
There was a Book of the Month club survey in which Atlas Shrugged came a distant second to the Bible which may be the root of the legend.
From the Library of Congress website:
Books That Made a Difference in Readers' Lives
Respondents to the Survey of Lifetime Reading Habits, conducted [fall 1991] for the Book-of-the-Month Club and the Library of Congress' Center for the Book, cited the following when asked to name a book that had made a difference in their lives:
1 - The Bible
2 - Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand
Published: February 2, 2005 10:51 AM
Aside from the problems with her arguments against anarchy, the problem with this line of thinking is that governments are not in the business of adopting philosophies.
This is simply wrong. Governments are groups of individuals, and, as Rand was fond of pointing out, everyone, even those who explicitly reject whatever they believe philosophy to be, is guided by some philosophy.
One of her disciples wrote a critique of libertarianism that was almost entirely based on libertarianism defining value as subjective, rather than objective, and I think this difference is the crux of the antipathy between the two movements.
Both you nor this anonymous disciple are confused. That economic value is subjective is a positive statement. The normative question of how people should value something is not within the scope of economics. I'm quite certain that I've read something in which Mises acknowledged that. But it is within the scope of philosophy, and it is in this normative sense that Rand said that value is objective.
In other words, people can place a higher value on the services offered by a gangster rapper than on those offered by a classical pianist, and that will affect market prices, but they certainly shouldn't. This was a backlash against the trends of moral relativism and multiculturalism, not a revolt against economics. She probably misapplied this a bit (Rachmaninov good, Beethoven malevolent), but she had it right for the most part.
She characterized the subordination of one’s own interests to those of others as “altruism� and rejected it. Is that subordination voluntary or coerced? If voluntary, feel free to reject it for yourself, personally – but you don’t have the right to denounce it for anyone else, because value is subjective.
Rand's attack on altruism was primarily an attack on the notions of self-sacrifice as a moral imperative and other-sacrifice as a moral right. She actually did regard charity as a minor virtue, and once said something with which any Austrian would agree: "It may be better to give than to receive, but it is far, far better to produce" (wording may be wrong).
Rand understood that the best way to serve one's fellow man (not that that was her primary concern) is to lead a productive life. In light of this fact, notions such as "giving back" are incoherent, and often dangerous, since industrial titans rarely seem to have the economic acuity necessary to philantropize wisely.
Published: February 2, 2005 11:06 AM
I would like to remind those anarcho-capitalists who seem to reject Rand completely because of her endorsement of a minimal state that the person after whom this website is named also explicitly and in no uncertain terms rejected anarcism and endorsed a minimal state. Indeed , unlike Rand, he even endorsed taxation and conscription as legitimate means to uphold such a state.
Anyway though, despite her shortcomings both in regard to her personality and her philosophy she was still a positive force (The same cannot however be said of some of her contemporary followers) and Atlas Shrugged is one of the best fiction books ever written.
Published: February 2, 2005 11:52 AM
"I would like to remind those anarcho-capitalists who seem to reject Rand completely because of her endorsement of a minimal state that the person after whom this website is named also explicitly and in no uncertain terms rejected anarcism and endorsed a minimal state. Indeed , unlike Rand, he even endorsed taxation and conscription as legitimate means to uphold such a state."
While that is true, I would say that the distinct different between Mises and Rand is that Mises' ideas were improved upon by Rothbard and other subsequent Austrian scholars (Hoppe & Block for instance) who do reject the state entirely. As for Rand, I do not believe that there is a counterpart scholar in the Randian movement. Hence, to my knowledge, the Randians continue to believe that government just needs to adopt the correct philosophy, while many Austrians have moved on to ancap.
Published: February 2, 2005 12:12 PM
I think Rand is the most overrated libertarian of all time. Her most lasting legacy is a group of anti-liberty wackjobs at ARI and the fact that people who would have become libertarians anyway liked her books. Without breaking any new intellectual ground she added a great deal of horrible baggage to the movement.
Her books may have been "influential" but influential how. Lots of people liked them and were "influenced" but didn't even become moderately libertarian? Wow, that is really great. I posted a more civil version of this post on my blog today.
Published: February 2, 2005 1:20 PM
A nice article on Rand, who aside from any gains in popularity in recent years is still largely mis-quoted and mis-understood, I believe.
I've read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, ranking them as two of the best books I've ever read.
I would urge other here (and elsewhere) read her stuff before you bash her writing skills, references or philosophies. Regardless of whether you fully agree with her every point, you'll be better off for having read her work.
Published: February 2, 2005 1:23 PM
I just read Rothbard's "Mozart Was A Red", how funny. However, if Rand was like that personally, I'm quite sure I would not have enjoyed her company.
Regardless, I have read her most popular fiction and found it to be very entertaining and insightful. I haven't read her other works and do not currently have any of them on my "to be acquired" book list, so I am quite satisfied with the fiction she has written for entertainment.
Published: February 2, 2005 1:52 PM
If liked that, check out "The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult" on LRC.
Published: February 2, 2005 2:08 PM
For Brandon:
The critique of Libertarianism by Peter Schwartz appears in “The Voice of Reason� published 1989. It’s one of about a half-dozen of her non-fiction collections I own, in addition to Fountainhead and Atlas. I wasn’t sure of the author and was too slothful to look it up the first time. The critique centered on libertarianism’s “moral relativism� and the opinion of objectivists that moral value is “objective.� Yes, the normative question of how people should value something is not within the scope of economics, and I apologize for using a specific economic argument when I should have used a moral one. It seems self-evident through observation of human action that morality is relative, and to suggest that a single rational mind can create a coherent moral structure that encompasses all humans seems the height of arrogance. She’s not really an atheist, her “higher power� is human rationality in general, hers specifically. Morality is, I believe, part of culture, and I think Hayak wrote at length about that in “between reason and instinct.�
I agree with her attack on the notion of other-sacrifice as a moral right, hence my comment of “is the subordination coerced?� However, I think Rand's attack on the notion of self-sacrifice as a moral imperative is off-base. Now, if she wanted to attack specifically the notion of self-sacrifice as a moral imperative enforced by the government, it seems to me her beef is with the government. She may not agree with some stated “moral imperative,� it may not fit her worldview, but if some other person adopts such a notion voluntarily, Rand is in no position to question its morality for that other individual.
"It may be better to give than to receive, but it is far, far better to produce." If “better� is defined from a utilitarian point of view with a goal of maximizing the average standard of living, I can buy that. But which of those is “better� from a moral perspective is a personal choice for an individual. “Rand understood that the best way to serve one's fellow man (not that that was her primary concern) is to lead a productive life.� What is “best� in this case? What is “productive?� Who are these “fellow men?� “Industrial titans rarely seem to have the economic acuity necessary to philanthropize wisely.� Really? In whose eyes? It’s their money.
For Stefan:
I openly acknowledged Rand’s continued influence on my personal philosophy but simply stated I had some areas of disagreement. I consider her a positive force and I agree that some of her contemporary “followers� are off the beam from where she was. My respect for the Austrian school can be summed up thusly: our two indoor cats are named Murray and Mises (Murray is irrepressible). I do reject their endorsement of the minimal state, however. Just because I learned from someone, enjoyed their writings, respect their work, doesn’t mean I think they’re right in every instance.
“Atlas Shrugged� was a very influential work of fiction in my life, and I loved it. I have the copy I bought before I married, my wife has her copy, we’ve got it on tape, even. I wouldn’t consider it “good� from a literary standpoint, though, the action is slow, the characters are wooden, and the forty-five-minute monologue, oh please, the average American would have turned off the radio two minutes into it.
Published: February 2, 2005 2:09 PM
A video of a performance of "Mozart Was a Red" is available as well:
http://www.mises.org/Media/?action=category&ID=40
Published: February 2, 2005 2:11 PM
By all accounts, Rand was a great novelist. Beyond that, maybe a good critic. A "great philosopher"? I can't iamgine what Rand contributed to philosophy that hadn't been dealt with more deeply (substantively) and more coherently by Rothbard, Nietzsche or her acknowledged master, Aristotle (and countless others what ever one may think about their conclusions).
I can understand fondness for Ayn Rand based on appreciation for her novels. But even as critic Rothbard is far better. As philosophy, "Objectivism" strikes me as a kind of re-inventing the wheel and treading where others have tread more fruitfully before.
Published: February 2, 2005 2:29 PM
When I say "I do reject their endorsement of the minimal state, however" I was referring specifically to Mises and Rand, who both made that endorsement. Re-reading the post, my flawed paragraph structure might have lead some to believe I was rejecting an Austrian stance. I realize that many current Austrians are anarchist and the current Austrian school makes no such endorsement, even though Mises did.
Published: February 2, 2005 2:35 PM
steven kane, i hear ya (problems with rand). anyway, get thee to a bookstore and read "atlas shrugged" or "the fountainhead" pronto. skim when you feel you need to (probably the only way to make it). people can rightly quibble with rand all day, but if you want to see some passion for liberty, even in her slightly-warped view of it, give her a chance. it's not a perfect world.
so she was the head of a cult; ignore it. read her novels for what they are: unique and unapologetic defenses of peaceful, profitable human interaction.
Published: February 2, 2005 2:51 PM
Rand's second-rate writing had pretty much the opposite effect on me. After reading Atlas Shrugged I felt I had no choice but to dismiss laissez-faire altogether, for almost a decade thereafter, until I discovered:
Published: February 2, 2005 4:43 PM
I agree with Pete C. that Rand is overrated. But of course, once you read the brillance of Rothbard, the conclusion is that everyone else is overrated. I recommend Jeff Walker's THE AYN RAND CULT. For Christians, I recommend WITHOUT A PRAYER: AYN RAND AND THE CLOSE OF HER SYSTEM, by John W. Robbins.
Published: February 2, 2005 5:27 PM
Happy Birthday Ayn!
Today it has become rather fashionable to bash Rand as being "anarchically incorrect" but this overlooks the fact that she never wished to be remembered as a political theorist. I believe she did fall into the trap of describing herself as a "philosopher" from time to time, but even this was wide of the mark. In fact she was a novelist and a brilliant cultural critic. If she was a "philosopher" it was only in the sense that members of, say, the Frankfort School, were philosophers..and I dare say that most readers of Mises would admit she was a better "philosopher" than any of them. As a cultural critic, once she was lured into the trap of trying to lay down the philosophical foundations of a systematic epistemology...or a systematic anything else, she was soon in far over her otherwise excellent head.
Roderick Long points out her influence on her contemporaries, and I think this is the key point. Younger people, growing up in the age of the internet probably can not immagine what a cultural abyss the mid-20th century had become. The leading philosophy was existentialism with its profoundly antinoetic implications. This type of world-view spilled over into the arts and literature, and it was that, even more than collectivism, which Rand saw as her primary target.
Thus she painted her rhetoric with bold and clear strokes, not the jewlers eye of a technical philosopher...who were a dime a dozen in those days as now and who were powerless to impact on the salient cultural trends. What came across in her writing was a kind of modified realism...which was exactly the right foil to the anticonceptualism of the existentialists. Its not that she knew beans about Aristotle or Aquinas or anybody else...but that was beside the point.
One might say that while she had a very rudimentary understanding of the technical dimensions of either ancient or scholastic philosophy, she understood the cultural struggle that each of those movements conducted against the respective nihilisms of their times. In antiquity it had been the movement of the relativist-sophists, and in the middle ages it had been the occasionalism of the mutakallimin. So even if Rand was not acute enough to judge the fine points between Plato and Aristotle, she had a strong mind and a stout heart...which were the only requisites for defending philosophy against antiphilosophy. This was by no means a trivial or easy task at the height of the "beat generation".
Of course she made mistakes...and some of her rhetorical excesses were in fact a subconcious legacy from the very "fountainhead" of existentialism, Nietzsche. But her letters reveal her to be a rather more warm and convivial person than her public persona would indicate. In the end, even Rothbard came around, granting that while she may not have been a philosopher she was something better...the greatest salesperson of philosophy in our times.
M. Sunwall
Published: February 2, 2005 9:02 PM
Just wanted to say I thought Roderick Long's essay on Rand was by far the best of the claptrap written on the occasion of her 100th centenary. Very well done.
Published: February 3, 2005 10:45 AM
Thanks, Irfan!
On the broader question -- I think Rand's chief failing as a philosopher was her impatience. Once she'd decided an idea was wrong she wasn't willing to go through the careful process of sorting out exactly where the arguments for that idea succeeded and where they failed. And that led her to make sloppy arguments and slur over important distincitons. It also led her to make bizarre claims such as that Immanuel Kant was the most evil man in history, because she couldn't or wouldn't take the time to see exactly what problems Kant was wrestling with, what led him to say what he did, how his line of argument might be improved, etc.
That said, I do think she had considerable virtues as a philosopher. For example, despite her lack of formal philosophic training, and despite the lack of any engagement with the existing literature, she managed to develop, on her own, a theory of reference that anticipates in a number of ways what is generally regarded as one of the chief philosophical achievements of the 20th century, the Kripke-Putnam theory of reference. I think that makes her more than just a salesman -- though a terrific salesman she indeed was.
Published: February 7, 2005 3:19 PM