#collectivism

Don’t Fear “Collectivism”

https://jacobin.com/2024/04/collectivism-individualism-socialism/

> The socialist objective of securing shelter, leisure time, and economic well-being is about creating a foundation upon which everyone can pursue their dreams, curiosities, and ambitions — without having to constantly worry about their mere survival.

#socialism #collectivism #individualism #jacobin #economics

What exactly is the root of all good? Ayn Rand vs. St. Paul and Jesus Christ, in Chapters II-IV in Part II of Atlas Shrugged. It’s highly interesting, if not terribly surprising, that in combatting the spirit of altruism and selflessness, Rand understood she had to move beyond safe critiques of the socialists, planners, and world-improvers of the day, and take on the New Testament ethics, and even the Christian God-man Himself. This is very much in keeping with the (highly distorted) influence of Nietzsche on her worldview. The wedding of James Taggart and Cherryl Brooks is the occasion for a not-too-friendly party, crashed by the initially affable Francisco d’Anconia. But after an offhand remark by Bertram Scudder that money is the root of all evil, and d’Anconia is but the product of money, d’Anconia launches into a famous quarter-hour tirade about how money is the root of all good. Other than wondering, Is he drunk?, my concern was to look for the hinge holding the speech together. “Money is the root of all good”—“Money is the product of virtue”? Do Objectivists seriously hold to that? Is that how money works in observable, everyday life? As Francisco d’Anconia would say, “Check your premises”. As I‘d hoped, Ayn Rand is too good a writer to omit the glaring flaws in d’Anconia’s sweeping claims, albeit couched as minor caveats. Oh, there’s just one or two little exceptions… ”Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men’s vices or men’s stupidity? … If so, then your money will not give you a moment’s or a penny’s worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame.” Fraud? Catering to vices? Taking advantage of men’s stupidity? When most critics speak of capitalism, those are some of the things that come to mind. Atlas Shrugged famously fixates on a band of competent industrialists, who provide obviously useful services to mankind. Where does this leave the entire entertainment industry, with its mix of brain-melting, lowest common denominator trash, plus all kinds of pornography? How about big tech and social media, which promotes not rational thought and decisionmaking, but addictive experiences and algorithms even the most intelligent have trouble pulling away from for a few hours? And as for fraud and other kinds of manipulation—it is a fact that most big name capitalists in the mold of Rand’s heroes succeed not despite, but by partnering with the government to make their money. One thinks of Elon Musk, who might have sold a fraction of the electric vehicles and photovoltaic panels without extensive subsidies. Rand further admits the lie when, in case anyone missed it, she has d’Anconia cover his grounds by addressing the exact words Our Lord used, rather than just the popular abbrevtaion. “Or did you say it’s the love of money that’s the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men.” Really? When I think about the love of money, which folks aren’t as shy about as in 1957 when Atlas Shrugged appeared, I think of a film I have never seen, but have seen too many gaudy t-shirts celebrating, Scarface, which I find has a fitting quote: “In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women.” I am pretty sure this drug dealer loved money, and for him it wasn’t “a reminder of shame”. Rather, it seems to be just what St. Paul was speaking about in I Timothy: “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” So if it isn’t the love of money d’Anconia is praising, what is it? When I began this book then set it down years ago, I didn’t know what Rand was up to, but now I have read widely enough to know. I think there should be an arch over the Ayn Rand selection of the bookstore-library: “Do not read this until you have read After Virtue, by Alasdair MacIntyre. “To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your efforts for the efforts of the best among men.” That is obviously not greed, not selfishness, but virtue ethics. D’Anconia even gives away the lie later, when he asks Hank Rearden “‘Are you proud of the rail of the John Gait Line?’ “‘Yes.’ “‘Why?’ “‘Because it’s the best rail ever made.’ “‘Why did you make it?’ “‘In order to make money.’ “‘There were many easier ways to make money. Why did you choose the hardest?’ “‘You said it in your speech at Taggart’s wedding: in order to exchange my best effort for the best effort of others.’” ”There were many easier ways to make money,” so what can be motivating Rearden but the drive to make the product that is the most useful for humanity at-large? Rearden denies it, but his actions, and Rand’s praise of ‘selfishness’ and working for profit, do not make sense without of altruism. Not one of a self-effacing kind, of course, but as MacIntyre so carefully explained in After Virtue, the key characteristic of virtue is that it not only makes life better for the one developing it, but for everyone around him: it is by definition non-zero-sum. So why go through the effort of mischaracterizing virtue ethics as selfishness, while including some hardly-touched-on carve-outs that would exclude so much that is a staple of really-existing capitalism? Rand is an apologist for individualism, and while she is able to pass off some industrialists who are clearly a benefit to civilization as selfish profiteers, applying virtue ethics to sexual matters would send the whole edifice crashing down. I’ve already detailed Rand’s absurd philosophy of romance: Hank and Dagny, loathesome as they are, clearly love one another, but claim to be motivated only by selfishness, even in the bedroom. There is no “To love a thing is to know and love its nature“ here, because they would have to admit sex is the procreative act, and that children are best reared in stable mother-father homes—and for all the clothes and jewelry Hank buys for Dagny, he is a doubly shameful failure, for 1. He has, has tried to have no children by his wife, Lillian, and 2. He has not even fathered any with his beloved (or at least pleasing) mistress, Dagny. He is a failure where even the residents of Starnesville that he so pitied are major successes next to him, with troops of barefoot children running around even after they’ve reverted to a primitive barter economy. In spite of these glaring contradictions and shortcomings, Atlas Shrugged is one of the most successful pieces of propaganda of all time, with The Fountainhead almost solely responsible for the marginal-but-influential-and-fanatical Objectivist movement, a materialistic, evangelical cult of selfishness. The debate between collectivism and individualism is a feature of the human condition that will always be with us, but I have my doubts that just the sort of antipatriotic, antifamilial individualism professed by libertarians, and even moreso Objectivists, will still be around five hundred years from now. Yet, even then, I expect their equivalent of the Penguin Library will feature Atlas Shrugged, with extensive footnotes explaining economic conditions that will be as obscure as guild politics, and making sure the reader catches the logical gaps and the back-and-forth shifts between the commonly accepted and rather pickwickian senses of key phrases in Rand’s arguments. Areturn to Jesus, Who remains in the background in Atlas Shrugged, and true to form has remained there in my post, too, even as I confronted Rand’s take on His words. In Rearden’s speech at court in Chapter IV, in drawing out the ultimate stakes of state coercion and demands of self-sacrifice, Rearden says, “If it were true that men could achieve their good by means of turning some men into sacrificial animals, and I were asked to immolate myself for the sake of creatures who wanted to survive at the price of my blood, if I were asked to serve the interests of society apart from, above and against my own—I would refuse, I would reject it as the most contemptible evil, I would fight it with every, power I possess, I would fight the whole of mankind, if one minute were all I could last before I were murdered, I would fight in the full confidence of the justice of my battle and of a living being’s right to exist.” This seems like a clear reference to, and rejection of, Jesus’ demand that His followers take up their crosses and follow him. Following Nietzsche, Rand rejects the rightness of and need for substitutional atonement. Returning to the party scene, this is how d’Anconia dealt with a woman who took objection to his speech, but could not explain why. “‘Señor d’Anconia,’ declared the woman with the earrings, ‘I don’t agree with you!’ “‘If you can refute a single sentence I uttered, madame, I shall hear it gratefully.’ “‘Oh, I can’t answer you. I don’t have any answers, my mind doesn’t work that way, but I don’t feel that you’re right, so I know that you’re wrong.’ “‘How do you know it?’ “‘I feel it. I don’t go by my head, but by my heart. You might be good at logic, but you’re heartless.’ “‘Madame, when we’ll see men dying of starvation around us, your heart won’t be of any earthly use to save them. And I’m heartless enough to say that when you’ll scream, “But I didn’t know it!”.—you will not be forgiven.’” Rand’s is an ethic where there is no forgiveness for sins, in this world or in a next. I wonder, though, if the lack of mercy stems from Rand’s famously schizophrenic cast of characters: they are all either good or evil; she has a hard time portraying anything in the middle. And while she is no doubt right that virtue and vice are largely inborn, she rarely has true character development, where something that was merely latent is drawn out in a person. According to Christianity, God offers His grace to every person, and every person may meaningfully respond, obtain mercy for his sins, and gain life everlasting in Heaven—and not just because God chooses to praise what is blameworthy, as Lillian says a few times. The believer can actually change and be transformed by grace, which is why Christians are called to extend love, again and again, to unrepentent, unworthy evildoers, in the abiding hope that one day their hearts will change. Rand’s characters are static, and she appeared to judge real people in the same way—in another major break from the virtue ethics tradition she relied on to differentiate between good and bad moneymaking, virtuous and vicious greed; hence hers is a hopeless philosophy. But the good woman quoted above, though she may have been an air-head, or just repeating common jargon, had a mustard seed of understanding: even though she couldn’t pick out what was flawed in d’Anconia’s rant (I may have had trouble myself, were it not written down), but knew in her heart that it was abhorrent. So have hope yourselves, ye men of the true Right: Objectivism, always a little quirky and now kinda passé, is not a tenth as hated as the our perennial religious and ethical ideals, denominated as White Christian Nationalism label or what have you, but we are the ones who hold that moral betterment and self-improvement is possible for every human creature, and are always ready to warn him against that root of evil that leads to personal ruin, avarice. What great man would not make some sacrifice of himself, to help others in so healing and bringing out their own very best? Pics are Francisco d’Anconia, a 2009 silver round with his teaching issued by LibreCoins, and from Scarface. #AynRand #AtlasShrugged #Objectivism #StPaul #JesusChrist #Jesus #Christ #loveofmoney #rootofallevil #money #greed #avarice #selfishness #individualism #collectivism #atonement #rhetoric #Scarface #AlasdairMacIntyre #AfterVirtue #virtueethics #virtue #mercy #forgiveness #character #WhiteChristianNationalism #literature #books
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