Who Isn't John Galt? Part 2

Since the posting of my recent John Galt piece and all of it's ensuing commentary, I thought I would clarify a few things that may not have come across in the original article.

Firstly, I am not anti-Capitalism; I am anti-greed and evil. This country has been built on Capitalism and there are a great many people who work hard, pay taxes and amass great fortunes, which is terrific for them and for the country. America has made it possible for people to rise from nothing and reach the highest of heights and it is part of what makes this a great country: opportunity. Capitalism offers opportunity to those who seek it and many of those people have great intentions, good hearts and solid ethics and morals. However, there have been far too many examples of evil and greedy people who will stop at nothing to rook, cheat and swindle as much as they can, giving a bad name to honest Capitalists and the system as a whole. This is why we have and need regulation and financial oversight. A couple of "Capitalist Pigs" and all of Wall Street can look like a trough, when in fact there are many honest and hard-working people who contribute positively to Wall Street and the economy. A few bad apples can tarnish undeserving reputations in any industry, but in an industry where you deal with peoples homes and life savings, you are hitting them where it hurts the most. The term "Wall Street" itself has been used recently as a scapegoat for a cadre of evil and greedy people who tanked whole banks and institutions (and almost the entire economy) in their greedy quest for more money, more money, more money. It is that drive- the "Panzer tank mentality" I spoke of -- which I am wholly against. I am totally behind the drive for success and I feel sorry for the good folks out there that can and do make "Wall Street" a positive economic force and have been maligned along with the bad apples. Partly it is the media to blame; they love a juicy scandal but have little interest or incentive in promoting positive stories. This is why you hear every detail of Bernie Madoff's ills and barely a peep about the financial planners and wealth managers who have done a sterling job steering their clients through the wreckage.

Rand's Atlas/Fountainhead world was imaginary and it worked in black and white to elucidate her philosophical points. It was as much pro-Capitalism as it was anti-Communism/Socialism, a product of her Russian upbringing and direct experiences. But Rand's philosophies are only as good or bad in action as the moral and ethical underpinnings of the person practicing it. Objectivist ethics may be based on rational egoism but still are driven by good or evil impetuses. Though I used Bill Gates as an example of altruistic capitalism, one commenter pointed out that Gates has done wrong by Microsoft's labor force, which may be true. I'm not suggesting Bill Gates is perfect but let's be blunt: without his initial inspiration and act of creation, there wouldn't be a Microsoft labor force at all! Not to say that Gates or anyone should treat their employees less than fairly but it does bring up a valid point: There is a huge benefit to capitalism that most people don't mention, which is that a capitalist employs great numbers of people who in turn make a decent wage and pay taxes themselves. By creating tax-paying jobs and paying their own taxes, the capitalist helps make a stronger and more vibrant country. Bill Gates may not have started out as a capitalist but as of this writing, Microsoft employs roughly 60,000 people in the US and tens of thousands more abroad. Once those new Microsoft-branded stores open around the country, expect those numbers to rise even further. Capitalism creates jobs and employed people pay taxes, as do the corporations that hire them. This cannot be understated in its impact on our economy and the our country's workforce.

There were those who posted about having to "share" their earnings with those who had "no hand in it at all" and they are truly living in a fictitious reality. To think you are unconnected to your fellow tax-paying citizens is a falsehood that should be dispelled when you drive along the tax-funded streets or need a tax-funded police car or fire crew to help you out of a jam. Maybe you got your start in a tax-funded public school, or got a tax-funded Pell Grant to go to college. Maybe you are now rich enough to not need tax-funded Medicare or your monthly tax-funded Social Security check, though you surely collect it anyway. Or maybe you invested everything with Madoff and have now been saved by that publicly-funded safety net. You know, the one that was meant for the "other people" until you needed it to survive. You cannot take for granted how much of the foundation of our society is funded by taxes even as you take umbrage with how your representatives collect and spend those taxes. If you want to live in a world with no taxes yet somehow keep the infrastructure and institutions that make America great, you are living in the wrong country.

To the person who opined that creating art for one's own purpose is "artistic masturbation," you must not have a large record collection, if any at all. Almost every album you own is a product of "artistic masturbation" on some level. Yet you hope for one "gift" from an epic landscape, as if any of that art was made as a present to you. Most great art is self-indulgent work that is only great because it's truth, honesty and merit was up to the artist who created it, not a bunch of armchair critics expecting "gifts." You don't deserve the music and books on your shelves, including Douglas Adams. And to the person who doesn't know how I could "twist and pull any artistic moral goodness out of Ayn Rand," you are obviously not an artist. Of course you don't know, though hopefully my piece might enlighten you on the subject from an artists viewpoint. No twisting or pulling necessary. Ayn Rand herself could not have imagined or even intended the freedom her philosophy gives to artists and yet, it has an undeniable effect which I share with many in the artistic community, from poets to painters to photographers to musicians. This was the intended point of my original piece: Rand's influence on Artists. Her architect Howard Roarke is as positive a role model as any artist could find in real life and I'm thankful that Rand thought to create him. And as Roarke himself might posit: You, like everyone, are entitled to your own feelings, opinions and judgements. And we are entitled to completely ignore them.

Someone else posted a comment that said while I grasped the quote "Do not sacrifice yourself to others," I missed the boat on the second half: "Do not sacrifice others to yourself." Does that mean do not trample on others in your own quest? Because that is what I inferred from it and I didn't miss it at all. Dick Cheney, however, missed an entire fleet of boats on this one.

Lastly, I heard back from some of the Ayn Rand/Objectivist organizations, including goingjohngalt.org, and was glad to receive their feedback. One gentleman remarked that that word "capitalist" has been "ruined by people who think that money is more important than human rights and human dignity" and I think he is on the money, to coin a phrase. Again, I am not anti-capitalist, though a certain professor took me to task for the tone of my piece. Perhaps if I replaced every instance of the word "capitalism" with the word "greed" he might not have taken such offense. Capitalism without empathy can wreak horrible results, though no one is saying one has to be altruistic to be a "good" capitalist. There is a gray area between empathy and greed and certainly many examples all along that spectrum of capitalism. We hope for the best of humanity among capitalists while suffering from the worst of greed among them. For every group of people helped by Bill Gates charity, there are others in ruins from Bernie Madoff's greed. It must be hard for Objectivists to defend capitalism without simultaneously defending the Madoff's of the world but both Objectivism and capitalism are worth defending in the long run. Bernie Madoff is surely not.

The professor who excoriated me for my tone pointed out that the same freedom/creativity accorded to the artist Roark in The Fountainhead is similarly granted to industrialists/businessmen in Atlas Shrugged, which is a valid point. He went on to say that I unfairly lauded that freedom when applied to the artist while not affording the same respect when applied to the capitalist. I see his point, but I still feel that the worst bad art can do is ruin your mood while the worst bad capitalism can do is ruin the world. So while I can appreciate the freedom/creativity for both artists and industrialists, the intrinsic fundamentals of good and evil applied to the worlds of art and capitalism produce vastly different results on the devastation scale. This same professor told me that "it doesn't seem to me that you've really *read* Ayn Rand, just taken away some vague, positive images. Go back, and see what the characters you like are really like." I have read and re-read both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and am secure in what I took away from them, both positive and negative. And I realize that her works do need to be re-read along the way because as our perspectives grow, so does our capacity to take even more from those books. Certainly the next time I read them, I will be much more aware of the capitalists and their philosophies; perhaps the next time you read them, you'll be more aware of artists and theirs. And if I may add: regarding the extreme nature of Howard Roarke's reactions -- blowing up buildings and whatnot- I understand the principles behind them but I think any rational human being sees Roarke's acts as being severe illustrations of his principles, not examples to follow in "real life."

To finish, I will say that if my original piece felt like an anti-capitalist rant, it was not my intention and I apologize to the well-meaning and successful capitalists out there reaping their just rewards. But to those whose hearts are black with greed, whose souls lack conscience and whose bank accounts grow from the pain and suffering of others, may you rot in hell. The Madoffs and Stanfords of the world give a bad name to both humanity and capitalism and it is my hope that they endure whatever karmic blowback is headed their way. The issue is really the age-old good vs evil battle that has played out in every corner of the human race throughout history. Your intent and character drives your ambitions and actions and depending on whether it is based on good or evil purpose, the outcome will tell the tale.

I hope I've cleared some things up, answered some questions and perhaps provoked some more. It is obvious that Ayn Rand incites a lot of dialog amongst people who have read her works and others who evidently have not. Whether you are an artist or a capitalist (or both) I hope you consider some of the viewpoints represented here and continue the dialog. Thanks for reading and responding.

Comments

[martinchill]

"Objectivist ethics may be based on rational egoism but still are driven by good or evil impetuses."

that's the essence of my comment in the first thread.

you probably could have made your points about capitalism and artistry without even bring rand into it.

[awilshire]

There are a couple of points I agree with you on in this piece. It is my belief that greed could possibly bring a nation down by crippling its economic system. I think we've seen plenty of evidence of that in our country lately, with the Madoff-esque schemes that seem to have come out of nowhere.

It seems to me that this country was founded by capitalism. However, it's always been wrapped up neatly and presented as a quest for religious freedom. I think it's time that we stop taking things at face value, and start looking deeper, until we uncover the truth.

There will always be a battle between good and evil in every aspect. All we can really do is hope that good wins more than evil!

[Majik Rat]

I was going to go point-for-point debunking your pro-socialism rant, but since you couldn't even do a 30 second google search on Rush lyrics to be sure that you were attributing the correct song, somehow the rest of what you said lost all credibility. "Live for yourself/There's no one else more worth living for" are lyrics from the Rush song "Anthem", not "Freewill."

[Robbie Gennet - Huffpost Blogger]

First of all, you were totally right and that was a complete bonehead move. I changed the Neil Peart quote to it's rightful song, "Anthem." I stand guilty and, as a long time Rush fan and musician, I vow on the nose of Geddy Lee I won't let it happen again. However, to completely discount my credibility based on that mistake seems kinda harsh, especially if you are a fellow Rush fan, as you seem to be. So Majik Rat, please- enlighten us all with your point-for-point debunking of my essay (which I highly doubt you bothered to read) along with it's previous counterpart (ooh Counterparts is a Rush album! how clever, I know) Come on buddy, roll the bones (another one!) and start "debunking"...

PS-
“Well, I know they've always told you/
Selfishness was wrong/
Yet it was for me, not you, I came to write this song/”

[Majik Rat]

Well, as long as you swore on the nose of Geddy Lee, I suppose all is forgiven. You make some good points and, although I do not agree with many of them, I do respect them.

But you have peppered an intellectual discussion about the writings of Ayn Rand with politically-driven rhetoric which serves only to detract from, rather than enhance, your arguments. You choose Dick Cheney, George Bush and Alan Greenspan to personify the selfish behavior which is “inherent in right wing thinking.” The “rampant deregulated capitalism” is all their fault.

However, in 2006 Bush, Greenspan and McCain all warned that Fannie and Freddie were out of control and pushed for stricter regulation. Not a single democrat voted for it in committee so it never made it to the floor. In fact, Frank, Schumer, Pelosi and Reid all spoke out against it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63siCHvuGFg&feature=related

Interestingly, the top 3 recipients of campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie are democrats (Dodd, Obama and Kerry). Here’s a complete list:

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/09/update-fannie-mae-and-freddie.html

The democrats in Congress refused to regulate companies that were making huge campaign contributions to them - the very entities that were at the forefront of the collapse of the financial markets. But you disingenuously blame the woes of society on Dick Cheney and Alan Greenspan. Such partisan rhetoric contributes little toward an actual solution to the problem.

[Sam Tenney]

Thanks, these articles clearly show a mind engaging Rand's revolutionary ideas and making a serious attempt to understand them.

I think you are getting at a very important point when you make the distinction between good and bad capitalists. The most relevant part of Atlas is the distinction between Taggart/Boyle and Dagny/Rearden. The former are constantly creating schemes and passing laws in order to screw competitors and siphon money into their own pockets. They are motivated by purely social considerations, wanting to look like the big shots without having to think or put forth any effort. The motivation of the latter pair is shown most vividly on the first run of the John Galt Line, where their love for their ability to create real values in service of their lives is clear. Money for them is a just reward for their great productivity, but it isn't the primary purpose.

You say that the Taggart/Boyle/Madoff types are the reason we need financial regulations. I disagree. They are the reason we need laws against fraud and any other type of initiation of force. When we have regulations in the form we have them now, we have honest productive businessmen having to follow rules created at the arbitrary whim of politicians. As in Atlas, this is the mechanism by which government turns real productive business into popularity contests, where the winner is the man with the most friends in Washington and the most ruthless willingness to stab backs.

[lemuelhuer]

"It must be hard for Objectivists to defend capitalism without simultaneously defending the Madoffs of the world ..."

Not for anyone familiar with Objectivism or Ayn Rand's writing. She viewed capitalism as the economic consequence of the morality of one pursuing values on one's own merits. She did not view capitalism as an end in itself (a very libertarian interpretation), nor did she advocate the accumulation of wealth by any means available to ambitious men. There's no blurring the line between legitimate businessmen and con artists.

Rand vilified those who pursued success through criminal means - i.e. used force or fraud to obtain a value - therefore the "Madoffs" of the world do not qualify as capitalists in the full Objectivist view. Capitalism is free trade -- free primarily from criminality, whether perpetrated by competitors, clients, partners, or the government charged with establishing justice and maintaining a peaceful and free environment in which moral people can trade value for value.

As evil as she portrayed the government officials in Atlas Shrugged, the harshest portrayals were of those businessmen who resorted to evil means to destroy their competitors. Her heroes were not "Madoffs", her *villains* were. The only way one can equate a "Madoff" to a heroic capitalist is to have a compartmentalized, disintegrated, context-less, or (at best) incomplete understanding of Rand's philosophy.

[Robbie Gennet - Huffpost Blogger]

Well put! And the "compartmentalized, disintegrated, context-less, or (at best) incomplete understanding of Rand's philosophy" sounds very much like the brand of so-called "capitalism" that has been perpetrated by many of those con men and swindlers. It would seem that what works well on paper is often corrupted by the "human element" working their morally dubious, sociopathic shell games on their fellow man. Thanks for your comments.

[JJPierce]

I think part of the problem here is terminology. "Altruism" as condemned by Rand was an absolutist ethic formulated by Auguste Comte which ordained that the individual live ONLY for others. She contrasted this with "benevolence," which values the well-being of others as well as one's own. But that is easy to overlook, because Rand was so obsessive in defending the virtue of "selfishness" and "greed," surely knowing that these words don't mean the same to most people as she maintained they did to her. If you want to see a true icon of a benevolent capitalist in fiction, look to Andrew Undershaft in Bernard Shaw's MAJOR BARBARA (Gabriel Pascal's 1941 movie version is terrific!).

Another point that has to be made is that, generally speaking, neither those who love capitalism or those who hate it make any distinction between Bill Gates and, say, Ken Lay. REAL capitalists actually PRODUCE something. Can anybody seriously argue that we haven't gotten our money's worth out of personal computers? What have we gotten from Ken Lay or the vultures of Wall Street? Gordon Gecko famously quipped that greed is good, but less famously expressed his contempt for producing value ("I create nothing. I own.). There's a fundamental distinction that has to be made between productive capitalism and its counterfeit on Wall Street and Washington -- where our own version of Russia's Putinism reigns, as witness those no-bid contracts Cheney steered to his pals at Haliburton for shoddy work.

[mtnrunner2]

Robbie,

I appreciate your attitude of dialogue on the topic of Ayn Rand. Her ideas do incite a lot of discussion but much of it is based on misinformation, and you have informed yourself.

Regarding the way we should handle the "bad apples" of commerce however, I beg to differ on some points.

First, freedom and/or "greed" do not cause economic troubles like the one we are currently suffering the consequences of. Greed is impotent without opportunity, and government distortions on markets are what made the glut of credit available: low Fed rates, loose lending by Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, the Community Reinvestment Act, etc. Left to their own (market) devices, capitalists would have told risky borrowers "Loan denied!", which of course is the whole raison d'être for these initiatives: to *circumvent* market forces, because they were deemed insufficient to meet the goals of certain desired social policies.

Second, laissez-faire capitalism renders evildoers ineffective and punishes them, so they are a non-issue. Laissez-faire in commerce would be no more permissive of wrongdoing than our criminal law currently is for murder.

Third, there is the matter of morality. Since actual wrongdoers will be punished, there is no moral reason to restrict them until they actually commit a crime. It would be morally wrong to do so, because it is morally right to live your life, and to think and to act freely on those ideas, provided you allow others to do the same.

[Snowball]

"Second, laissez-faire capitalism renders evildoers ineffective and punishes them, so they are a non-issue. Laissez-faire in commerce would be no more permissive of wrongdoing than our criminal law currently is for murder."

That's absurd, how would that work? And please, don't give me some rubbish about informed consumers making rational choices.

[Tallulah Morehead - Huffpost Blogger]

You are perhaps a bit fortunate that my darling Douglas Adams is dead, though it is a hurt to me every day. I met Douglas a number of times over 20 years, a divine, hilarious man of great wit and far-reaching intellect. He would have been appalled to find his name invoked to defend any portion of Ayn Rand's deranged work. He and Ayn shared devout atheism, a trait I share with both as well, but that is as far as he would have allowed it to go. He would have most certainly objected to being invoked to defend objectivism. And unlike Ayn's books, there is not a single turgid sentence anywhere in the Adams oeuvre

Besides, Ayn completely missed the all-importance of always bringing a towel.

Don't panic.

[Snowball]

I find quite a bit in common with Stalinist Communism and the Randian "Libertarians" of today in that they are both totalitarian systems contemptuous of democracy. There are few institutions that are more anti-democratic, bureaucratic, conformist and stifling of creativity than the modern corporation, as most people, such as myself, who work for one realize. As soon as you enter the factory gates, you lose your freedom of speech and assembly, you are spied upon, subject to arbitrary authority, your bodily fluids are tested to insure that you adhere to certain acceptable behaviors in your private life outside of work and constantly monitored. "Libertarians" do not believe in the right of society to regulate corporate behavior through the democratic instrument of government to ensure that they do not violate the public good or the rights of their workers. The philosophy of "Libertarianism" is but an excuse for oligarchy and petty tyranny. At least with a democratic system of government, we can vote out bad, abusive politicians. Workers can't vote out a bad, abusive CEO.

[ggdwill]

Quit.

[DosGatos2]

"Quit" is a bit glib, don't you think?

As Snowball pointed out: "Workers can't vote out a bad, abusive CEO" bur neither can SHAREHOLDERS, the people who put in the capital, ie., capitalists. Capitalists cannot vote out a bad CEO either! Now you could also say "sell the shares" but that does nothing to improve corporate governance, and bad governance is the same with companies everywhere, absent robust regulation. You might as well say the stock market is a waste of time and tell capitalists to keep their cash under the mattress.

Regulations have a place in Randian thought--to prevent capitalists from being taken by the Jim Taggarts of the world, the Madoffs or other "rotters".

[Ted Rogers]

apology in advance for what it likely a completely unnecessary correction to my previous post:

"capitalism and such creative productivity as Gates' (or once was Gate's) has NO dependence on capitalism or money for that matter." -- used the delete html tag (del) on the first two words "capitalism and" so if they are NOT deleted they should be.

[Ted Rogers]

"I'm not suggesting Bill Gates is perfect but let's be blunt: without his initial inspiration and act of creation, there wouldn't be a Microsoft labor force at all! Not to say that Gates or anyone should treat their employees less than fairly but it does bring up a valid point: There is a huge benefit to capitalism that most people don't mention, which is that a capitalist employs great numbers of people who in turn make a decent wage and pay taxes themselves."

once you say, "let's be blunt," i only need read what's next and stop. capitalism and such creative productivity as Gates' (or once was Gate's) has NO dependence on capitalism or money for that matter.

so if the rest of article gets to that, good; somehow i doubt that it does.