Objectivism & Politics, Part 5

Politics and the non-rational 1: non-logical conduct. In 1962, Rand wrote the following in a letter to a fan:

It took decades of collectivist philosophy to bring this country to its present state. And it is only the right philosophy that can save us. Ideas take time to spread, but we will only have to wait decades—because reason and reality are on our side. (Letters of Ayn Rand, 596)

We find Rand in this passage making two very broad assumptions:

1. That’s Rand’s own philosophy represents “reason and reality.”
   
2. That rational ideas (that is, ideas based on “reason and reality”) spread quicker than non-rational ideas—presumably because most human beings prefer “reason” to "non-reason."
   

In the previous Objectivism and Politics post, I showed how rationality can be compromised by lack of specific knowledge. In the next series of posts, I intend to explore the influence of the non-rational in politics. I will begin by explicating a category of action identified by Vilfredo Pareto: non-logical conduct. James Burnham, in The Machiavellians, describes the distinction between logical and non-logical conduct as follows:

A man’s conduct (that is, human action) is “logical” under the following circumstances: when his action is motivated by a deliberately held goal or purpose; when that goal is possible; when the steps or means he takes to reach the goal are in fact appropriate for reaching it…

If … any one or more of the conditions for logical conduct are not present, then the actions are non-logical.

Actions may, for instance, have no deliberate (i.e., conscious) motivation at all. This would be true of all or almost all of the behavior of animals; and Pareto, in spite of the prejudice of rationalists, believes it to be true of a surprising percentage of human actions [a view that is now receiving empirical support from cognitive science]. Taboos and other superstitious acts, which are by no means confined to primitive peoples, are obvious examples, as are many rituals, sports, courtesies. Human beings simply do things, without any [conscious] purpose at all; it is natural for them to be active, whether or not there is any consciously understood point in the activity.

Very common, also, are cases where the purpose or goal is impossible. The goal may be transcendant—that is, located outside of the real spatio-temporal world of life and history… On the other hand, the goal, if not impossible in strict logic, may nevertheless be impossible for all practical purposes, granted the nature of the real world…

Finally, action is non-logical when the means taken to reach the goal are in fact inappropriate to that purpose. If … the carpenter tried to pound his nails with a sponge, then his means would be inappropriate, no matter how suitable he might himself think them. So, too, if … a democratic electorate believed that by voting a change of parties in power they might be guaranteed an era of endless prosperity.

Everyone knows that a certain amount of human conduct is non-logical. Pareto’s stress is on the enormous scope of the non-logical—his book lists many thousands of examples, and each of these could suggest a thousand more of the same kind… Pareto not only shows that non-logical conduct is predominant; his crucial point is that the conduct which has a bearing on social and political structure … is above all the arena of the non-logical. What happens to society, whether it progresses or decays, is free or despotic, happy or miserable, poor or prosperous, is only to the slightest degree influenced by the deliberate, rational purposes held by human beings. [193-196]

There exists a tendency in Objectivism to deny or belittle non-logical conduct. Rand tended to believe that human conduct is logically derived from an individual’s “premises.” This, in any case, is the implicit reasoning behind Rand’s view that human beings are the product of their premises. It is also behind her view that capitalism is incompatible with altruism and mysticism. She even went so far as to imply that non-logical conduct is impossible: “Capitalism and altruism are incompatible,” she characteristically wrote; “they are philosophical opposites; they cannot co-exist in the same man or in the same society.” It is difficult to take this statement altogether seriously; but it does betray the drift of Rand's sentiments, which is clearly opposed to the whole idea of non-logical conduct.

Pareto has some interesting comments on those who either deny non-logical conduct or regard it, as Rand apparently did, as scandalous:

In certain writers the part played by non-logical actions is suppressed altogether, or rather, is regarded merely as the exceptional part, the “bad” part. Logic alone is a means to human progress. It is synonymous with “good,” just as all that is not logical is synonymous with “evil.” But let us not be led astray by the word “logic.” Belief in logic has nothing to do with logico-experimental science; and the worship of Reason may stand on par with any other religious cult, fetishism not excepted…

In the eyes [of these cultists] every blessing doth from “reason” flow, every ill from “superstition.” Holbach sees the source of all human woe in error; and that belief has endured as one of the dogmas of the humanitarian religion, holiest of holies, of which our present-day “intellectuals” form the priesthood. All these [cultists] fail to notice that their worship of “Reason,” “Truth,” “Progress,” and other similar entities is, like all cults, to be classed with non-logical actions. [The Mind and Society, §300, §303-304]

Pareto’s remarks on this subject are helpful in several respects. They remind us that Rand is not the first philosopher to sing the praises of that vague, cognitively empty philosophical abstraction known as “reason”; and they also remind us that Rand’s very commitment to “reason” is itself non-logical, based, not on Pareto’s logico-experimental method (i.e., science), nor even on the pragmatic, trial-and-error reasoning of everyday life, but merely on Rand's own sentiments and wishful thinking and on her insufficiently detailed knowledge of "things in general."

Getting Mediaeval

Despite the lipservice paid to "reality", Rand's philosophy is primarily a verbalist one straight out of the Middle Ages; that is, due to the unfortunate influence of Aristotle on her epistemological method, Objectivist arguments quickly reduce to Scholastic hairsplitting over the meaning of words. Here is a classic example from a thread we mentioned earlier over at Diana Hsieh's Noodlefood. A commenter, Frank, is understandably confused by Peikoff's apparent volte-face on the ethical obligation to assist someone in trouble. In response Richard Lawrence of the Objectivist Reference Center gets mediaeval on him:

"I don't think anyone here is claiming that there is a *duty* to provide assistance. 'Duty' and 'obligation' are distinct concepts, and it is possible to have obligations without having duties."

"Duty" and "obligation" are "distinct concepts"? Really? Let's see what Dictionary.com says:

du⋅ty   
1. something that one is expected or required to do by moral or legal obligation.

Or perhaps the OED:

duty
1. a moral or legal obligation.

Clearly a hugely important "conceptual" distinction!

Objectivism & Politics, Part 4

"Reason" in Politics. Ayn Rand once described “rationality” as “a commitment to the fullest perception of reality within one’s power and to the constant, active expansion of one’s perception.”  Using Rand’s description as a standard of rationality, how should the following assertions be judged? Which statements are “rational” and which are not?

1. Fear of flying is irrational because many more people die in automobile accidents.
   
2. A house with guns represents a greater danger to your child than a house with a pool.
   
3. Rudolph Giuliani drastically cut crime in New York with his innovate “broken window” policing strategy.
   
4. “Reason is man’s only means of grasping reality and of acquiring knowledge.”
   

Which statements would an individual with a “commitment to the fullest perception of reality” likely accept? Answer: probably none of them. While all the statements seem plausible and even “reasonable,” they all rest on certain factual inaccuracies. Let us examine each statement.

1. Fear of flying as irrational. While it is true that many more people die in car crashes (40,000 per year) than in plane crashes (less than 1,000), it does not therefore follow that flying is safer than driving. The per hour death rate of driving versus flying is about equal. So neither form of travel is any riskier, in terms of mortality, than the other.

2. Guns more dangerous than swimming pools. Not according to the evidence. In the United States, about 550 children every year die in swimming pools, while 175 children a year die from playing with guns.

3. Giuliani’s broken window crime strategy. According to statistical analysis, it is not likely that Giuliani’s policing strategy had all that much to do with the drop of crime in New York. Economist Steven Levitt has found that New York’s drop in crime was largely due to four factors: more police officers, more criminals in prison, the waning of the crack of epidemic, and the passage of Roe vs. Wade.

4. Reason the only means of knowledge. Before this claim can be validated, we have to tease out the meaning of the word “reason.” Defining reason as “the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses” simply will not do, because there may be other alleged “means of knowledge” that do the same thing, like intuition or (allegedly) “mystical” experiences. So how are we supposed to distinguish the kinds of identification/integration that takes place under reason from the kinds of identification/integration that take place under other mental processes? We will assume, from various hints dropped throughout the Objectivist literature, that Rand means, by reason, basically deductive logic, “induction”, probability reason (although Rand never mentions it), scientific method, and conscious-directed concept-formation. We’ll assume that reason does not include, as Rand herself put it, any “non-rational, non-definable, non-identifable means of knowledge, such as 'instinct,' 'intuition,' 'revelation,' or any form of 'just knowing.'" With this description of reason in hand, does it follow that “reason” is the only means of knowledge? No, not if we abide by the evidence. Cognitive science has found plenty of evidence for intuitive forms of knowledge that don’t rely on conscious inferences. As the experimental psychologist Guy Claxton notes:

The greater part of the useful understanding we acquire throughout life is not explicit knowledge, but implicit know-how [i.e., Rand’s “just knowing”]. Our fundamental priority is not to be able to talk about what we are doing, but to do it—competently, effortlessly, and largely unconsciously and unreflectingly. And the corresponding need for the kind of learning that delivers know-how ... is not one that we outgrow. The brain-mind's ability to detect subtle regularities in experience, and to use them as a guide to the development and deployment of effective action, is our biological birthright.... Yet we ignore or disparage ... [unconscious intelligence] at our peril, for it turns out that there are things we can learn through this gradual, tacit process which d-mode [i.e., conscious reasoning] cannot master; and also that d-mode, if used over-enthusiastically, can actively interfere with this way of knowing.

Claxton's views are fairly well supported by experiments in cognitive science. Unconscious cognition (more commonly known as intuition) is well documented in the literature. It turns out, then, that Rand was wrong on this issue and that reason is not the only means of knowledge.

Looking back on our list, what do all four errors have in common? Well, in the first place, they are all plausible assertions—that much we can admit on their behalf. Any intelligent individual would likely consider each one a reasonable position to hold and might even be surprised that anyone would challenge all of them. The source of the error in all four cases involves an over-reliance on general information, which is used as the basis of premises from which common sense inferences that seem both reasonable and “true” are drawn. If many more people are killed in automobile accidents than on airplanes, doesn’t it make sense to conclude that traveling by airplane is safer than traveling by car? If we equate “reason” with science, logic, and clear thinking and we equate “unreason” with arbitrary assertions relating to altogether fantastic things, blistering contradictions, mystical revelations and other palpable absurdities, doesn’t it make sense to assume, with Rand, that “reason” is the only means to knowledge? But in relying merely on reasonable inferences based on general knowledge, we are failing to demonstrate a “complete commitment to the fullest perception of reality,” that is, we are not being rational in the Randian sense!

Much reasoning done about politics by laymen is precisely of the reasonable-inferences-from-general-knowledge variety. It may seem true to a reasonable person. Yet this very quality of “reasonableness”—based, as it is, on incomplete and partial information—merely serves to conceal ignorance of important details and facts. Rand, even at her most reasonable, never got beyond this general knowledge stage. Her political reasonings, as we shall see, are therefore empirically unreliable.

Rand's Ethics: Now They're Deontological?

Rand's epistemology is still probably her biggest intellectual trainwreck, but her ethics is a close second. It's so confused not even the top dogs can seemingly get their heads around it. For example, over at Diana Hsieh's Noodlefood one of Leonard Peikoff's Q&A podcasts is transcribed as follows:

Episode 41: 10:25 - 11:37

Q: Am I morally obligated to call for help if I see someone in a car accident or experiencing a heart attack?

Peikoff: This is obviously from someone who does not know what the Objectivist view of selfishness is. Absolutely yes, you are morally obligated. If you have chosen to live in a society of human beings and your mode of survival depends on your trade with them then you have to value human life so far as it's not guilty or criminal to your knowledge. In that case if you know no evil about a person and no sacrifice is involved then only a psychopath would turn away from such cases. And that would mean besides all the psychological things a direct contradiction of the value of human life. You can't value your life and decide to live with others of your species and say, "They're nothing to me, I don't care if they live or die." That's self-contradiction.

Actually, I think the closest Rand gets to "absolutely morally obligated" in these situations is a grudging "may be permissible" and no better in "The Ethics of Emergencies" (I don't have my copy handy), although it must be said this is a typically confused Randian essay. Can anyone supply a quote from anywhere in Rand which says helping a stranger in trouble is an "absolute moral obligation" or similar? If not, looks like the Doctor is freestyling, although I note that as usual Peikoff gives himself a have-it-both-ways-clause with the "no sacrifice involved" qualification whilst not providing us with any actual examples of what a "sacrifice" might be. At any rate, weasel-wording aside, the only thing that's clear about Rand's ethics is that little is clear about them.

(hat tip Objectiblog's Neil Parille)

Socialism: Not So Bad, Say Americans.

While "Atlas Shrugged"'s rise in the bestseller lists has been duly hyped as a sign of the times, it also seems that surprisingly few Americans are opposed to socialism. In the latest Rasmussen poll, only 53% of Americans favoured capitalism over socialism. This seems to be the result of a mix of factors, the state of the economy for one, and the understandable distrust of the financial elites who have consistently portrayed themselves as the apogee of capitalism. However, just as the "Atlas Shrugged" hype seems to have been strongly driven by the media (with endless plugs by Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh to name a few) a good deal of this softening attitude may be simply be a media phenomenon too - an unintended consequence of Republican PR tactics that have, since the fall of the Berlin wall, started portraying Western Europe (eg France, Germany, Sweden, Britain etc) as "socialist", and recently Barack Obama too. Trouble is, Western Europe is hardly the former Soviet Union, and Obama is hardly Stalin. In fact, they're both actually kinda...popular, whether to visit or to vote for. We might speculate that "socialism" isn't now associated in American's minds with the total government ownership of the means of production - for example, in another poll only 15% of Americans think a wholly government-managed economy is best - but instead with a set of popular programmes also regularly denounced as "socialist" by Republicans such as Social Security, Medicare, and the regulation of big business which despite being interventionist, still leave the vast majority of the economy in private hands. In other words, in their enthusiasm Republicans may have accidentally made "socialism" more or less equivalent to a mixed economy controlled by a representative democracy. Not so bad at all.

The Dubious Parallels, Continued

We've already discussed the dubiousness of Atlas Shrugged's relevance to the current economic crisis, which seems to be largely due to a confusion between cause and effect. Now the great William K Black, investigator and author of the '80s S&L expose "The Best Way To Rob A Bank Is To Own One", accuses CEOs and management of a calculated dishonesty that lies at the heart of the problem.

WILLIAM K. BLACK: The FBI publicly warned, in September 2004 that there was an epidemic of mortgage fraud, that if it was allowed to continue it would produce a crisis at least as large as the Savings and Loan debacle. And that they were going to make sure that they didn't let that happen. So what goes wrong? After 9/11, the attacks, the Justice Department transfers 500 white-collar specialists in the FBI to national terrorism. Well, we can all understand that. But then, the Bush administration refused to replace the missing 500 agents. So even today, again, as you say, this crisis is 1000 times worse, perhaps, certainly 100 times worse, than the Savings and Loan crisis. There are one-fifth as many FBI agents as worked the Savings and Loan crisis.

BILL MOYERS: You talk about the Bush administration. Of course, there's that famous photograph of some of the regulators in 2003, who come to a press conference with a chainsaw suggesting that they're going to slash, cut business loose from regulation, right?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Well, they succeeded. And in that picture, by the way, the other — three of the other guys with pruning shears are the...

BILL MOYERS: That's right.

WILLIAM K. BLACK: They're the trade representatives. They're the lobbyists for the bankers. And everybody's grinning. The government's working together with the industry to destroy regulation. Well, we now know what happens when you destroy regulation. You get the biggest financial calamity of anybody under the age of 80.

(Italics my emphasis).

Hat tip to Calculated Risk.

Objectivism & Politics, Part 3

Pareto and the Objectivist. G. Stolyarov, a “science fiction” writer strongly influenced by Rand, wrote a review in 2004 of Pareto’s The Rise and Fall of Elites which allows a convenient glimpse of the contrast between ideological and non-ideological forms of thinking. Stolyarov, like most Objectivist ideologues, is more interested in finding “intellectual ammunition” to support preconceived positions than he is in discovering truths about the real world of fact; and as a consequence, he falls into several misrepresentations and errors of fact and analysis. Pareto, Stolyarov claims, “repeatedly and eloquently demonstrates aversion and loathing” to the “socialist elite.” Stolyarov obviously approves of this alleged “aversion and loathing” and wishes to make Pareto an intellectual ally. But before doing this, he must acknowledge that Pareto’s “groundwork ... is immensely shaky.”

[Pareto’s] basic premise with respect to human nature is that people’s motivations are inherently irrational and based on sentiment rather than logic, and that any reasons that individuals ostensibly present for their actions are in fact post-rationalizations. To this my response to Pareto would be a paraphrase of Rand: “If you do not consider people capable of genuine rational judgment, do not check their premises, check yours.” Certainly, some individuals, perhaps most of those who lack a systematic worldview, do act on whim and impulse, and Pareto may well have been one of them, which might have led him to attribute his own inner state to all others. Indeed, he had not presumed to use rational thought to justify the very premise about people’s sentimental motivations! He merely stated that the matter is out of the scope of the given treatise.

This a typical example of muddled Rand-inspired analysis. First, we find the mania for polarizing arguments. Pareto, complains Stolyarov, believes in the “inherent irrationality” of human motivation. But that isn’t quite true. Human motivation is not, for Pareto, “irrational,” but “non-rational”—an important difference. Nor is Pareto required to use “rational thought” to justify his view: his book is not a treatise on psychology, and he addresses the issue in greater detail in The Mind and Society, which Stolyarov conveniently ignores. Even more curious is Stolyarov ad hominem attack on Pareto. Despite all their virtuous noise about logic, rank and file Objectivists frequently resort to ad hominem arguments, particularly of Stolyarov’s type. Stolyarov simply cannot admit that perhaps Pareto had reached his judgment about human beings from his own personal experience and his extensive knowledge of history! No, the only possible explanation is that Pareto himself is an irrationalist!

Yet if this is so, why does Stolyarov spend the rest of his review extolling Pareto’s analysis and making use of Pareto’s intellectual tools for his own ends? If Pareto’s “inner state” is that of an irrationalist, then what can he possibly say that is of any value to a follower of Rand, particularly when what Pareto says about elites is partially based on the very theory about human nature which Stolyarov, in deference to Rand, presumes to reject?

Stranger still, Stolyarov finds in Pareto an important Objectivist principles: the sanction of the victim! Can this really be? Can an individual whose inner state is confounded with irrational motivations be capable of anticipating a discovery of Rand by a half century? Well, not quite. While there are points of similarity between Pareto’s view and Rand’s on this issue, there are important difference as well. For Rand, the sanction of the victim occurs when the victim accepts the morality of the victimizer. According to Rand, businessmen allow themselves to be attacked because they agree with the morality of the attackers. That is not quite Pareto’s view. Pareto believes that businessmen who allow themselves to be attacked are merely cowards who are afraid to fight. Any agreement with the morality of their attackers is merely a rationalization to hide this pusillanimity.

Stolyarov concludes by attempting to enlist Pareto as a supporter of an optimistic scenario in which free market values triumph over the leftist elite:

If Pareto’s theory is to be extended to today’s conditions, the socialist/hippie elite is clearly in decline.  No more does it arouse college campuses in waves of violent activism [that’s because there’s no draft]; no more do its youngest heirs champion “saving the world” (though the hippies could only have ruined it), but rather they seek to pay ritual homage to left wing principles in order to get acceptance into elite academic institutions and thus “get ahead in life.” Gradually, the young elites are falling prey to the rising doctrines of materialism, self-interest, and prudence, which are to overturn all remaining vestiges of socialism. Government continues to expand and redistribution of wealth continues to occur, but this more due to cultural inertia rather than any deliberate, devious, and coordinated scheme from the New Deal or the Great Society. In the meantime, a growing, vigorous, dynamic, principled, and broad-based ideological backlash is emerging [Really?]; it covers multiple constituencies, as Pareto said it well might; from the neo-conservatives to the libertarians to the Objectivists, [but Objectivists hate libertarians!] the advocates of limiting government, liberating free enterprise, and making more room for individuals to exercise their own self-responsibility, are colorful, creative, industrious, and vocal personalities. The spokesmen of the leftist elite, on the other hand, are bland, predictable rehashers of the same credos they had espoused forty or even seventy years ago. [But this rehashing is very effective at stimulating the sentiments of the lower classes.] They have nothing new to offer, and are gradually themselves being infused with bits of free enterprise materialism in their personal lives, if not their explicit statements. [In other words, they are perfect exponents for a European style welfare state.]

Alas, those very same “bland, predictable rehashers” of the Left have retaken power and are in the process of extending government well beyond what FDR or LBJ would, in their wildest dreams, ever imagined. Stolyarov’s analysis, posted in 2004, does not, in retrospect, appear in the least prescient. Where did he go wrong? Well, to start out with, perhaps Pareto was right after all about human beings being motivated by non-rational sentiments. Stolyarov also failed to note that, unlike Italy at the turn of the last century, American society is not threatened by any violent domestic faction. Stolyarov’s “socialist/hippie elite” is not going to be attacked with force by any neo-conservatives, libertarians, or Objectivists any time soon. As long as they feel safe, the Left will continue to hold its own on the political stage.

Note that Stolyarov omits the religious right among his “multiple constituencies” opposing the “socialist/hippie” elite. Here is another possible source of error in Stolyarov: he would like to see the Left opposed by a “rational” elite. In this wish, he clearly misunderstands Pareto’s position. Pareto doesn’t necessarily conclude that all non-rational motivations will have a bad issue. Some may prove helpful. In politics, one can’t be too squeamish about alliances. The religious right was an important component of the Reagan revolution. Reagan doesn’t beat Carter without the help of religious conservatives. This very alliance, however, is regarded as sinister by Leonard Peikoff and other orthodox Objectivists, who regard it as a precursor of a theocracy! They believe they can “change the culture” by refuting Kant’s obscure subjectivist philosophical legerdemain. What would Pareto think of such a view? He would find it silly and patently non-rational. He might even suspect it of being a mere rationalization of powerless intellectuals afraid to own up to their own powerlessness. What do Objectivists want? A society in which all initiation of force is verboten. How do they expect to reach this state of affairs? By doing what intellectuals do best: caviling about obscure ideas. How wonderfully convenient! Too bad it isn’t true.

Are You A Rand Cultist? Take Our Simple Test.

It's often hard to distinguish people who like Ayn Rand's books and find her work as a general inspiration from those who, at the other extreme, fit in with what Jeff Walker called the Ayn Rand Cult. So the ARCHNblog has created a simple litmus test to help tell the fans from the Randroids. The first three statements are from Nathaniel Branden's description of the original '60s cult, the rest are derived from Rand herself or various of her orthodox followers, such as Leonard Peikoff or Harry Binswanger, or from the ARCHNblog's own observations. Give yourself a point for every statement you agree with.

1) Ayn Rand is the greatest human being who has ever lived.

2) "Atlas Shrugged" is the greatest human achievement in the history of the world.

3) Ayn Rand, by virtue of her philosophical genius, is the supreme arbiter in any issue pertaining to what is rational, moral, or appropriate to man’s life on earth.

4) Acceptance of Objectivist epistemology is essential to mankind's future survival on earth.

5) Immanuel Kant is the most evil person who has ever lived.

6) Immanuel Kant deliberately set out to cause the Nazi Holocaust.

7) Nathaniel and Barbara Branden are only slightly less immoral than Immanuel Kant.

8) James Valliant's book "The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics" is a profound, brilliantly argued expose of the above.

9) Modern physics, such as Einstein's theories, are philosophically corrupt and must be urgently replaced by a new physics based on Ayn Rand's epistemology.

10) Words have "true" meanings that are only available to superior Objectivist philosophers, whose job it is to inform those in lesser disciplines, such as scientists, of these true meanings. Where these special true Objectivist meanings clash with conventional dictionary meanings, those conventions are false and corrupt.

11) Ayn Rand invented a new, Objectivist super-logic which incorporates the standard bi-valent logic formalised by Aristotle, yet dramatically improves on it, solving among other issues Hume's problem of induction.

12) Ayn Rand is the only true Objectivist that ever lived, and will ever live. Everyone else is merely a student of Objectivism.

0 points = Congratulations, you are an Ayn Rand fan who while rightly inspired by her vision of productivity, reason, and human achievement is nonetheless sensible enough to have avoided her various cultic incitements.

1-6 points = Amber light: definite Randroid tendencies. However, this may be avoided by taking a suitably hard-nosed approach to her work, especially in epistemology and human nature where her defective theories are most evident to the critical eye.

7-12 points = Ultra-Randroid, and proud of it. You are welcome to debate with us here at the ARCHNblog (despite the fact you would be giving your sanction to our evil by doing so) but to be honest you'd be better off talking to a deprogrammer.

Actual 2&1/2 Year Old.

Far be it from us to introduce some reality into Rand's self-deluded musings, but...

(hat tip Neil Parille)

Ayn Rand: An Objectivist Since 2&1/2 Years Old

Along with other fascinating comments, in this interview with Tom Snyder, Rand revises the age she discovered her philosophy of Objectivism to the age of a mere 2&1/2 years old - a big downgrade from the previous 12-ish she claims elsewhere.

(at 8:08)Tom Snyder: When did you discover, or think up, or allow Objectivism to become your philosophy?

Rand: From the time that I remember myself which was two and a half, the first incident I can remember in my life I was two and a half...and from that time on the the present I never changed my convictions - only at two and a half I didn't know as much as I know now, but the fundamental approach was the same. I've never had to change.

This must surely be one of Rand's most bizarre, self-mythologising claims ever - and there's a fair bit of competition for that honour.

"An Air of Intellectualism"

Former Objectivist Lee Stranahan over at The Huffington Post skewers  Objectivism as not just "wrong or misguided" but "destructive and dangerous":

For decades now, Rand's work has given comfort and ammunition to brazen bozos like Rush Limbaugh and McCain economic advisor Phil "Don't Worry Be Happy" Gramm. Its defense of selfishness and unrestricted capitalism provided an air of intellectualism to bad behavior and horrible policy.

Update: This triggered a predictable response from Ayn Rand Institute follower Jim May over at something called The New Clarion, where May amusingly equates Stranahan with those other supposedly evil, Rand-hating opportunists...you guessed it...Nathaniel Branden, Barbara Branden, and David Kelley...

Objectivism & Politics, Part 2

Introducing Vilfredo Pareto. My examination of Rand’s politics will focus on just two aspects of Rand’s theory: (1) the quality (or lack thereof) of its reasoning and (2) the difficulties of implementing this theory. In order to make my case on both these aspects, I will have to rely heavily on the work of the Italian social scientist, Vilfredo Pareto. He’s made occasional cameos on this blog before, but now we have to become more familiar with the so-called “Karl Marx of the bourgeoisie.” From the excellent “History of Economic Thought” website, we learn the following:

After graduating top of his class in 1870, ... Pareto worked as the director of a railway and the managing director of an iron and steel concern, the Società Ferriere d'Italia in Florence. While in Florence Pareto became increasingly frustrated with government regulators.... He sided with the radical democratic movements and the liberals whom, he believed, would replace privilege with meritocracy, restore real democracy, pursue free trade and true competition. Pareto made an unsuccessful bid for office on an opposition platform in 1882.

In 1889, after the death of his parents, Pareto quit his job and moved to a villa in Fiesole... From his retreat, he began writing numerous polemical articles against the government and gave public lectures at a working man's institute. He was quickly targeted as a troublemaker by the authorities. Trailed by police, intimidated by hired thugs, his lectures were often closed down and his applications for teaching jobs blocked (incidentally, being well-trained with the sword, a crack shot with a pistol and equipped with an aristocratic sense of honor, Pareto never let himself be physically intimidated).

[Pareto] would later take up economics and succeed Léon Walras at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.] In a famous 1900 Rivista article, Pareto suddenly changed direction. Heretofore a radical democrat, Pareto now decided to declare himself an anti-democrat. The disturbances of the 1890s in Italy and France led Pareto to realize that, far from restoring true democracy, meritocracy and promoting social welfare, the radical movements were really just seeking to replace one élite with another élite, the privileges and structures of power remaining intact. The struggle was not for a good society, but a squabble among élites over whom exactly was to ... govern. And the ideals and theories they claimed to fight for? Just propaganda, Pareto declared, the way upwardly-mobile folks incite the helpless, hopeless mob to take to the streets on their behalf. For Pareto, humanitarianism, liberalism, socialism, communism, fascism, whatever, were all the same in the end. All ideologies were just smokescreens foisted by "leaders" who really only aspired to enjoy the privileges and powers of the governing élite. Pareto decided to have none of it—and went on a crusade to expose the sham of political ideology and doctrine. He condemned socialists of all stripes roundly in a 1902 book, but took particular aim at logically demolishing the "new gospel" of Marxian economics. For Pareto ... the promised "classless" society that would emerge under communism was merely ideological fodder for socialist leaders to lay on their flock.

[Pareto’s] sociological observations also begin to indicate the future course of his ideas. In 1900, Pareto had entered into a brief controversy with Benedetto Croce. Croce had criticized economists' positivistic approach, particularly the assumption of "rational economic man". Pareto defended economists, but, at the same time, realized that the conventional defense was not even convincing ... to himself. Why did the predictions of economics fail to correspond to reality? Why were its policy recommendations, to him logically irrefutable, not adopted? The explanation, he concluded, echoing Georges Sorel, was simply that much of human activity was driven not by logical action, but rather by non-logical action.

Pareto ... moved to Villa Angora in Céligny, near Lake Geneva... Pareto used his time at Céligny to write his Trattato di sociologia generale [known in English as The Mind and Society], which was finally published, after wartime delays, in 1916. This was his great sociological masterpiece. He explains how human action can be neatly reduced to residue and derivation. People act on the basis of non-logical sentiments (residues) and invent justifications for them afterwards (derivations). The derivation is thus just the content and form of the ideology itself. But the residues are the real underlying problem, the particular cause of the squabbles that leads to the "circulation of élites". The underlying residue, he thought, was the [most fruitful] object of sociological enquiry.

If we focus on Pareto’s career, up until at least the late 1890s, we might be able to make something of an Objectivist hero out of him. After all, he was director of a railroad and steel concern, and he was a champion of economic freedom and an opponent of “intervention.” He fought to educate working man in the principles of freedom and even showed in courage in facing up to attempts by the government to intimidate and silence him. But in 1900, something happened to Pareto that made him much less the Objectivist hero. What happened? Why did Pareto suddenly lose all his idealism and become so “cynical” (as his critics claim) of human nature, particularly the human nature of political elites?

The answer is really quite simple: it is yet another case of the proverbial “mugging by reality.” Pareto, from his own experience, found that trying to convince large numbers of people (whether workers, intellectuals, politicians, whomever) was a hopeless endeavor, and that his attempts to change the social order through arguments based on sound economic reasonings were a waste of time. Instead of trying to change society, he would seek to understand it. In his The Mind and Society, he examined literally hundreds of “theories, theologies, cosmogonies, systems of metaphysics, and so on,” with the idea of trying to “gain some knowledge of the forces which are at work in society — that is, of the tendencies and inclinations of human beings.” The result is an impressive compendium of the non-logical and non-rational in human nature. In four long volumes, Pareto builds a massive empirical case for the important role that "non-logical conduct" plays in human life and in the social order. By demonstrating the logical and empirical ineptitude of most of the theories put forth by intellectuals and philosophers, Pareto gave ample evidence that rationalization, rather than rational pursuit of truth, is what governs most of what passes for thought outside the hard sciences. After reading his massive treatise, it is difficult to ever again to swallow the romantic notion that social conditions can be changed by winning philosophical arguments.

These Are John Galts Speaking...

Dr Helen interviews three people who claim to be "going Galt." Apparently in reality this means anything from deliberately taking less well paying jobs through to giving up your health insurance (Shome mishtake, shurely? - Ed) to giving up smoking. Yes, really!

Note: segment starts around 9 mins in.

Objectivism & Politics, Part 1

Starting Point. Fred Seddon, in his review of my book, Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature, chastised me for “not willing to consider ... normative political theory.” But as a matter of fact, I do consider it: I simply don’t consider it very highly. The trouble with normative political theory is that it too often degenerates into wishful thinking and unwitting rationalization. Those philosophers and social commentators who indulge in it become far more interested in defending their preferences than in understanding the political scene. What ought to be overshadows what is. Insight is sacrificed on the altar of advocacy.

Rand’s admirers brag about how prescient they find her on social and political issues. But her record (and that of her leading disciple, Leonard Peikoff) hardly bears up well under critical scrutiny. In October, 1963, Ayn Rand claimed that Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater “may become very much worth supporting ... most particularly because he seems to be our last chance to preserve two-party government.” In her last public appearance, Rand claimed that “the threat to the future of capitalism is the fact that Reagan might fail so badly that he will become another ghost, like Herbert Hoover, to be invoked as an example of capitalism’s failure for another fifty years.” After Rand passed from the scene in 1982, her leading disciple, Leonard Peikoff, continued the tradition of dubious commentary about politics. In 2004, Peikoff claimed that “there is no longer a mass base or any crusade for big government” and that “Bush is working to achieve a massive entrenchment of [Christian] fundamentalism into our government and political system.”

These statements by Rand and Peikoff strongly suggest a lack of judgment about political reality. Rand and Peikoff are ideologues who judge politics on the basis of their own unrealistic moral ideals. They are focused so intently upon how things ought to be that they haven’t a clue on how things are or are likely to be. Indeed, if they understood politics realistically, as the Founding Fathers and the Italian Elite School understood politics, they would realize that their political ideals, their “normative” politics, are unrealistic and therefore “utopian.”

My criticism of Objectivist political theory will have a realistic and naturalist base. My focus will be on whether Rand’s political theories can be realized in the world of experience and fact. The starting point will be human nature as it is discovered by the experimental sciences. The philosopher George Santayana gave voice to this position as follows:

There is a double force in repeated the old axiom that man is an animal. In the first place we confirm our initial naturalism, and place man among the wonderfully various living creatures that feed, fight, and reproduce themselves on the surface of the earth. But there is a second implication in that axiom that is no less important. An animal has inward invisible springs of action called instincts, needs, passions, or interests; and it is only in relation to these psychic springs of action that Powers and Dominations can be distinguished. The ... agent in politics is ... an inner proclivity to action and passion that animates [the individual], and that I call the psyche...

This topic, which might seem academic and speculative, is of great moment for the understanding of politics, especially in the present era. The literary philosophy and the psychological novels which have been dominant in modern times assume, if they do not teach, that thought is something substantial and self-developing; that it has no origin or milieu except in other thoughts; and even sometimes that the evolution of this ideation in a vacuum is itself guided by dialectic [i.e., by logic—which is more or less what Rand’s view of the matter amounts to in the end]. Nothing could be better calculated to keep politics in a fool’s paradise of verbal reasoning. [Dominations and Powers, 14-15]

That is precisely where we find Rand’s politics: in a fool’s paradise of verbal reasoning. The following series of posts on “Objectivism and Politics” will seek to demonstrate this assertion.

Colbert on Rand

Stephen Colbert over at the comedy channel skewered Rand last week in a segment entitled "The Rand Illusion." As usual with Colbert, he is far more interested in drawing laughs than in being fair; he is, after all, a comedian, not a critic or philosopher. Colbert's best dig comes at the expense of John Reale, whose site goingjohngalt.org contains a solicitation for programming work.

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

The Word - Rand Illusion

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Political Humor

Rap Battle
NASA Name Contest

Hoisted from Comments: Galt's Splashin' Safari

In comments, Michael Prescott discovers a new character in Galt's Gulch:

Galt steered the sedan around a wide curve, through a sun-flooded glen lined with aspens. Dagny leaned back, surrendering to the warm current of air that kissed her face. Then suddenly she jerked upright in her seat.

"Stop the car! Oh, please stop!"

Chuckling, Galt shifted into park. Dagny threw open the passenger door and leaped out, took two quick steps forward, then stopped, gazing in astonishment at the tall, gaunt figure who stood before her on the side of the road.

"It's you, isn't it?" she whispered. "You're here in Galt's Gulch, too."

"Why, yes, Miss Taggart," the man said with a knowing smile.

"You know me?"

"We all know you, if only by reputation. But I'm surprised you know me."

"Of course I do. You're Will Koch, CEO of Holiday World & Splashin' Safari, the last of the fully rational theme parks."

Will Koch inclined his head gravely.

"I used to go there every summer," Dagny said breathlessly. "I would ride the giant water slide and swim in the endless pool - always wearing my Holiday World water wings, of course. It was my refuge from the looters and the hell they'd made of the world."

"As it was meant to be," Will Koch said. "We had a strict no-looters policy. Anyone who had accepted government funds for any reason was barred from admission. I refused to allow my water slide and the other attractions, the products of my intelligence and my dedication to reality, to serve the amusement needs of the parasites and moochers. But when the government told me I had to stop screening visitors and admit anyone with the money to pay - regardless of the source of that money - then I knew I would have to close the park. It was the hardest decision I've faced in my life. I'm honestly not sure I could have gone through with it on my own. But that night, as I sat alone on one of the giant lily pads long after the park had closed, out of nowhere he appeared." He nodded toward Galt, still seated behind the wheel of Midas Mulligan's roadster. "By the time he finished speaking to me, dawn was breaking ... and my decision didn't seem so hard anymore. I took a last walk through the Jungle Jim Maze and left that park and never looked back."

"But how can you stand it?" Dagny moaned. "Leaving it all behind?"

Will Koch smiled, a radiant smile of morning, the smile of a child awakening on a perfect summer day. "Oh, but I didn't, Miss Taggart. I brought it all with me. The plans, the blueprints, the marketing strategies, all of it." He tapped his forehead. "I carry them here. And now, here in this valley, I'm building a new Holiday Park and Splashin' Safari theme park, a recreation place for the men of the mind - and only for the men of the mind. It will be my gift to the producers of society, and my monument to them - a more lasting monument than anything I could have built in the looters' world. It's the proudest accomplishment of my life. Would you like to see it?"

"Yes, please, very much."

"It's right over there," he said, pointing to a small mud hole, three feet wide and six inches deep, ringed by disorderly piles of sapling branches.

"Oh." Dagny felt a brief plunge of disappointment. "It's a bit small, isn't it?"

"Well, what the hell do you expect? I'm a CEO, Miss Taggart. I've never worked with my hands in my life. I don't have a clue how to actually build anything. I got the job because I know how to schmooze the shareholders at the annual meeting. That's how all of us got our jobs. Besides, it would take a small army of construction workers to build an actual theme park, and we have no construction workers in Galt's Gulch. No sanitation workers, either - but that's another story. You don't really believe that a handful of disgruntled corporate executives could build a theme park, much less a whole community, without the proper equipment, training, or skills, do you? Only a small child would buy a crazy story like that."

"Yes," Dagny said, accepting the hard, bright logic of his words. "Yes, of course you're right."

Will Koch smiled. "So ... would you like to go for a dip?"

Objectivism & Economics, Part 23

Conclusion. In The Virtue of Selfishness, Rand makes the following remark:

[T]he Objectivist ethics is the moral base needed by that politico-economic system which, today, is being destroyed all over the world, destroyed precisely for lack of a moral, philosophical defense and validation : the original American system, Capitalism.

We’ll ignore whether the statement about capitalism being “destroyed all over the world," which, even if it were true when Rand made it, is hardly true any more. Our focus instead regards Rand’s view of “moral base” or moral foundation. What Rand means by moral base is a set of ethical arguments that can be made on behalf of capitalism. She is declaring that Capitalism requires moral rationalizations to survive. She appears to believe that if these rationalizations are good (i.e., logical and “rational”), capitalism can survive. If the rationalizations are bad (i.e., illogical and irrational), capitalism cannot survive. In other words, the survival of capitalism depends on how it is defended verbally.

The economist Wilhelm Roepke had a very different view concerning this matter of moral “foundations” and the like. Roepke is little concerned with abstract theories and other such editorial page verbiage. He is more focused on character and conduct. What sort of moral standards do people have to live up to in order for a free market to flourish? “Is it enough to appeal to people’s ‘enlightened self-interest’ to make them realize that they serve their own best advantage by submitting to the discipline of the market and of competition?” Roepke asks. He answers:

The answer is decidedly in the negative. And at this point we emphatically draw a dividing line between ourselves and … a school which we can hardly call by any other name but liberal anarchism, if we reflect that its adherents seem to think that market, competition, and economic rationality provide a sufficient answer to the question of the ethical foundations of our economic system.

What is the truth? The truth is that … we have made it abundantly clear that we will have no truck with the sort of economically ignorant moralism which … always wills the good and works the bad [i.e., “socialism” in the broad sense of the word]. But we must add that we equally repudiate morally callous economism [i.e., capitalism based on self-interest], which is insensitive to the conditions and limits that must qualify our trust in the intrinsic morality of the market economy. Once again, we must state that the market economy is not enough….

Self-discipline, a sense of justice, honesty, fairness, chivalry, moderation, public spirit, respect for human dignity, firm ethical norms—all of these are things which people must possess before they go to the market and compete with each other. These are the indispensable supports which preserve both market and competition from degeneration. Family, church, genuine communities, and tradition are there sources. It is also necessary that people should grow up in conditions which favor such moral convictions [and] fosters individual independence and responsibility as much as public spirit which connects the individual with the community and limits his greed. [Humane Economy, 123-125]

Rand, it goes without saying, would have strongly disagreed with Roepke. She had no use for traditional values or such things as “public spirit” and “connection” with community. Nor would she have approved of putting limits on greed. For Rand, greed is good, and any limits on greed are merely gratuitous concessions to altruism and “self-sacrifice.” She regarded “trade” as “the only rational ethical principle for all human relationships, personal and social, private and public, spiritual and material,” She would probably have disagreed with Roepke’s assertion that society “cannot be ruled by the laws of supply and demand [i.e., by trade].” Nor would she have been willing to accept any limits on her precious ethical principles.

Who is right on this issue? Is it enough to convince everyone they ought to be selfish? Could a society based primarily on enlightened self interest and Rand’s “trader principle” lead to greater wealth and happiness for individuals and society? Or would it simply bring about moral degeneration and collapse?

The evidence strongly suggests that Rand is wrong on this issue: that society cannot be based solely or primarily on enlightened self-interest and the trader principle. The majority of people are not rational, and self-interest, if left to its own devices, quickly degenerates into predatory behavior. Consider Enron, for example. Enron was governed by self-interest and greed. Jeffrey Skilling, Enron’s Chief Operating Officer, believed that “all that matters is money… You buy loyalty with money. This touchy-feely stuff isn’t as important. That’s what drives performance.” And so Enron was run merely as a money making machine by people lacking the “ethical norms” that come from community and tradition. “You were really less thought of if you got a percentage, even if it was 75 per cent of your annual base pay,” noted one ex-employee. In tapes that became public in 2004, Enron employees are heard asking electric companies to shut down production in order to maintain prices. And why shouldn’t they have cut power to increase profits? After all, it was in their self-interest! Another exchange involves “all the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers of California.” In yet another tape, Enron traders watching a California wildfire are heard shouting “Burn, baby, burn." It was in Enron’s self-interest for California’s electrical infrastructure to be seriously damages by fire: so let it all burn, regardless of who gets hurt (or even killed). Self-interest, it turns out, is not always so benign. Nor can it be counted upon to make people honest or benevolent toward others. Morality cannot depend, as it does in Rand’s Objectivist philosophy, on self-interest and verbiage about honesty. Arguments about the “rational” self-interest of honesty will not convince people to refrain from defrauding and harming others. If the institutions of society don’t instill the values of honesty and empathy for others into the very moral fibre of the individual, “rational” arguments will prove useless.

Dammit, Just Go Already!

Seems like the whole "Going John Galt" meme currently going around the interwebs is not so new after all (we've already commented a few months back). Take this heart-rending story from all the way back in post-Enron 2002, where businessmen in Kansas were apparently feeling so victimised they had to form a kind of Randian support group - where they "fantasized of a modern-day strike of thinkers and creators".

"We are the producers of society," says Will Koch, CEO of a development company that owns the Holiday World & Splashin' Safari theme park in Santa Claus, Ind.

That was seven years ago. When will all these wannabe-John Galts get around to actually leaving?

Huemer vs Ghate

Earlier this week skeptic Michael Huemer debated Rand's ethics with the ARI's Onkar Ghate. Audio here. Give us your score for both sides in comments.

(hat tip Neil Parille)

Objectivism & Economics, Part 22

Ayn Rand's insistence on the separation of the economy and the state means that she opposes all regulations, even those that would prevent serious market failures with widespread externalities. Indeed, there is a tendency among Objectivists to deny that regulations can ever have a positive effect. The implicit argument is that, because regulations infringe on individual rights, they are immoral; and since Objectivists insist on equating the moral with the practical, this suggests that any infringement of "individual rights" must lead to bad results (such as aversely affecting millions of people). But if this isn't true, if certain types of financial instruments produced by the market lead to extreme financial dysfunction which harms millions of people, shouldn't the government seek to regulate those financial instrumen? Martin Hutchinson over at prudentbear.com presents a convincing argument for regulating the CDS (Credit Default Swaps) market:

In the early years of the London insurance market, it was possible to buy a life insurance policy on a complete stranger. Then insurance companies noticed the high incidence of unexpected homicides among their lives assured, and the concept of insurable interest was devised, codified by the Life Assurance Act of 1774. Today, you can’t buy a life insurance policy unless you can demonstrate some loss by the assured party’s death. The business is safer that way!

The same consideration must surely apply to the CDS market. The legitimate hedging purpose of CDS today represents only a tiny proportion of contracts outstanding.... With multiple bankruptcies and huge market instability owing at least part of their provenance to CDS, the public policy consideration for closing or at least sharply restricting the CDS market is even clearer than that promoting the restriction of the insurance market in 18th century London (at least taxpayers weren’t expected to pick up the tab for insurance policies on murder victims!)

As a minimum, therefore, CDS writing should be restricted to those holding bond, loan or swap obligations against which CDS might reasonably hedge. CDS should be distinguished from stock short positions and stock options (which have similar theoretical possibilities) because their greater leverage and higher outstanding volume make them uniquely dangerous. Such a market would be highly illiquid, but it would fulfill CDS’s essential function of enabling credit risk transfer. CDS’s other advantages, of demonstrating credit spreads over a public marketplace, allowing the hedging of baskets of similar credits, providing an instrument for hedge fund “investment” and making huge returns for the major dealers, would be lost. However, CDS’s destabilizing effect on global financial markets would also be lost, and the cost to taxpayers of rescues for those major institutions which had either got the CDS market wrong or were victims of CDS “bear raids” would be eliminated.

The free market is a wonderful thing. However, allowing unrestricted free markets in everything, without regard to the real-world economic effect of those markets, is a Whig shibboleth similar to the “Repeal the Corn Laws” unilateral free trade policies that destroyed Britain’s economic strength in the 19th century. The great and economically highly sophisticated Tory Prime Minister Robert Lord Liverpool, a generation prior to the mid-century free traders, also believed in free markets, but was a realist in their application to the world in which he lived.

The real world is messy and does not conform to simplistic equations either mathematical or moral. The wise policymaker will legislate accordingly, providing the maximum market freedom but inserting restrictions where the temptations to malfeasance are too great. The CDS market forms an open and shut case for restrictive regulation.

Objectivism & Economics, Part 21

Uncertainty. Central to the Objectivist philosophy is the notion that certainy is possible. Rand went so far as to suggest that the denial of certainty “means that no knowledge of any kind is possible to man, i.e., that man is not conscious.” It is also generally believed among the Objectivist faithful uncertainty, or “skepticism,” is a morally deplorable philosophical position, an epistemology that paves the way for dictatorship and tyranny.

Despite these rather eccentric views of uncertainty, Objectivists nevertheless recognize that not all knowledge claims are certain. They tend to assume that most knowledge claims made by Rand or by the denizens of ARI are “certain” and therefore can’t be wrong. But Peikoff does admit the existence of a class of claims that are merely “probable” or “possible.”

How does one distinguish between a claim that can be regarded as certain and one that is probable or possible? Peikoff explains: 


Idea X is “certain” if, in a given context of knowledge, the evidence for X is conclusive. In such a context, all the evidence supports X and there is no evidence to support any alternative.

The problem with this “solution” to the issue of certainty is that it evades the “hidden data” problem. When Peikoff talks about “all the evidence,” what does he mean? All the evidence available to one person? to group of people? to all mankind? The most likely interpretation is that he means the single individual. But individuals are limited in the amount of knowledge they know. Worse, they are not aware of what they don’t know, which means they have no way of knowing whether they are in command of all the evidence or not. As Thomas Gilovich points out in How We Know What Isn’t So:

It should be clear that the problem of hidden or absent data ... affects the kinds of inferences we draw and the beliefs we have about everyday life. Oftentimes, the lifestyles we lead, the roles we play, and the positions we occupy in a social network deny us access to important classes of information and thus distort our view of the world.

Another source of hidden data relates to all estimates dealing with the possible outcomes that arise from choices made by human beings. Since human beings exercise volition, it is impossible to know for certain how they are going to behave. Action within a social context magnifies this uncertainty. How, for example, will Obama’s “stimulus” package affect the economy? Since our estimate depends on attempting to figure out how the stimulus will affect thousands of people whom we don’t even know, to regard any such estimate as “certain,” even in the odd Objectivist sense of the word, would be ludicrous. Yet nearly all non-trivial judgments about economics and business are tainted with this uncertainty, since they all involve guessing how people will behave in general situations that are assumed to arise from a given policy.

The businessman is also afflicted by this kind of uncertainty, as the economist Frank Knight has shown:

Take as an illustration any typical business decision. A manufacturer is considering the advisability of making a large commitment in increasing the capacity of his works. He "figures" more or less on the proposition, taking account as well as possible of the various factors more or less susceptible of measurement, but the final result is an "estimate" of the probable outcome of any proposed course of action. What is the "probability" of error (strictly, of any assigned degree of error) in the judgment? It is manifestly meaningless to speak of either calculating such a probability a priori or of determining it empirically by studying a large number of instances. The essential and outstanding fact is that the "instance" in question is so entirely unique that there are no others or not a sufficient number to make it possible to tabulate enough like it to form a basis for any inference of value about any real probability in the case we are interested in. The same obviously applies to the most of conduct and not to business decisions alone.

Knight’s point about the uniqueness of a given situation is an important insight: each instance is unique because (1) of the inordinate complexity of any given social situation and (2) because the outcome of a given decision or policy must depend on how a great many individuals react to it, and it is impossible to have certain foreknowledge about those reactions, because people have volition.

Now Rand believed that innate tendencies don’t exist. If she were right about this, it would be impossible to make any kind of rational estimate about human behavior, and social science would be a futile exercise. Fortunately, Rand was wrong on this issue: human beings do have innate tendencies, and from these innate tendencies one can fashion estimates or guesses as to what is likely to happen under a specific set of conditions. But these estimates are only guesses. Even when such estimates enjoy a high degree of “probability,” it would be gratuitous to regard them as certain. So when Objectivists declare that the current crisis was caused solely by government interference, they are at best making only a guess. They can’t know such a thing for certain. Nor would such a claim constitute a particularly good or even probable guess, since some of the worst financial dysfunction occurred in the least regulated markets.

To sum up: even if certainty were possible, it would hardly matter, because most of things people argue about in economics and pubic policy are not capable of meeting even Objectivism's standard of certainty. Most of the things people argue about can never be known with certainty. If certainty could be attained, there would exist a consensus among the intelligent and the rational. Where no such consensus exists (as on most issues relating to social and economic policy), certainty is also, in all likelihood, impossible.

Thursday Nite Whim-Worshipping

An oldie but a goodie from Byrne and Eno. Video by Bruce Conner.

The Dubious Parallels

Much is being made of the supposed "uncanny similarities" between "Atlas Shrugged" and the current financial crisis. Yet somehow I don't remember the chapter where at a press conference to announce a new initiative aimed at reducing the regulatory burden on banks, "Representatives of four of the five government agencies responsible for financial supervision used tree shears to attack a stack of paper representing bank regulations. The fifth representative, James Gilleran of the Office of Thrift Supervision, wielded a chainsaw." and where "Two months after that event the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, one of the tree-shears-wielding agencies, moved to exempt national banks from state regulations that protect consumers against predatory lending." In other words, contra Atlas, the regulations were being systematically repealed in the years prior to the crisis, not increased.

Caption: "June 3, 2003: Determined to cut red tape and reduce the regulatory burden are (l-r), Office of Thrift Supervision Director James Gilleran, Jim McLaughlin of the American Bankers Association, Harry Doherty of America's Community Bankers, FDIC Vice Chairman John Reich and Ken Guenther of the Independent Community Bankers of America"

The ARI's "Practical" Solution

According to the ARI's press release:

Sales of “Atlas Shrugged” Soar in the Face of Economic Crisis

Washington, D.C., February 23, 2009--Sales of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” have almost tripled over the first seven weeks of this year compared with sales for the same period in 2008. This continues a strong trend after bookstore sales reached an all-time annual high in 2008 of about 200,000 copies sold.

“Americans are flocking to buy and read ‘Atlas Shrugged’ because there are uncanny similarities between the plot-line of the book and the events of our day” said Yaron Brook, Executive Director at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “Americans are rightfully concerned about the economic crisis and government’s increasing intervention and attempts to control the economy. Ayn Rand understood and identified the deeper causes of the crisis we’re facing, and she offered, in ‘Atlas Shrugged,’ a principled and practical solution consistent with American values."

The total destruction - political, cultural, ethical, economic and philosophical - of American society, followed by its total reformation according to the dictates of a 1950s novel; this is what's called a "practical" solution to the current economic crisis?  

Objectivism & Economics, Part 20

Privatization of Roads. Leonard Peikoff on his mid-90s radio show on KIEV in Los Angeles stated his belief that public roads should be privatized. While this view is entirely consistent with Objectivism's laissez-faire dogmatism, it does raise questions concerning Peikoff’s grasp of basic social realities.

The issue of road privatization illustrates some of the weaknesses of the laissez-faire position, particular on the issue of whether economic behavior can be effectively regulated by mere self-interest. There are basically two main issues: (1) whether the private sector would find it profitable to build roads into undeveloped or underdeveloped areas; and (2) whether private ownership of roads might lead to gross abuses that would greatly inconvenience consumers.

(1) Sometimes infrastructure (such as roads, canals, railroads) is required before a given locality becomes productive. It is not unlikely, for example, that if no road existed between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, private companies would be able to raise the capital necessary to build one. Yet if there had been no road between Las Vegas and Los Angeles to begin with, it’s not clear that Las Vegas would have become the glitzy mecca it has developed into. Hence, building the road before it is needed helps bring about the very development that would render the road profitable later on via private means.

(2) While it is entirely reasonable to think that many people (or maybe even most people) could be trusted to run private roads through self-interest alone, it is grossly implausible to believe that every individual owner of private roads can be trusted. There are always going to be at least a few people who will use their property in ways that seriously harm the so-called public interest. What if the road to my house, for example, was inherited by a radical leftist, or a white supremacist, or an extreme environmentalist? What would prevent such a person from discriminating against any individual he doesn’t like? What would prevent the radical leftist, for instance, from refusing to allow conservatives to use his road? Or the white supremacist from refusing to allow blacks to drive on his street? Or the extreme environmentalist from refusing anyone to drive a car on his property? How would you like to be unable to get to your place of residence because the owner of the road to your home doesn’t, for one reason or another, approve of you? “But the market punishes such irrational people,” advocates of private roads might say. “They will lose control of their road, eventually.” Eventually? How long is “eventually”? One month? One year? Ten years? In the meantime, you can’t access your own property. There’s a very good reason for making roads public property. They are too important to be placed in the hands of whimsical private interests. Rational self-interest cannot be assumed to work in all cases, because not all people are rational.

But what if the advocates of the privatization of roads are willing to make an exception for residential streets? Shouldn’t we at least have highways privately owned? Not at all, for the same logic holds. I live in one of the more isolated areas in the country, along the northern coast of California, in Humboldt County. On one side I am faced by a treacherous Pacific Ocean, a grave yard of many a ship, and all other sides, by steeped, rugged, mountainous terrain. There are only four roads leading out of western Humboldt County: one to the south, one to the north, and two to the east. Suppose these roads were private. In that case, they could be sold. What if some left-wing billionaire (a cross between, say, George Soros and Al Gore) got ahold of all four of those roads: what would prevent him from basically shutting the roads down? After all, they are his property: he may do with them as he pleases, the public be damned!

I haven’t even mentioned the very real possibility of monopoly abuses of roads. Given the immense costs of building the road (and the immense difficulties of acquiring the property for that road), many highways would constitute natural monopolies that could easily be used to exploit consumers.

Even though society may be little more than a collection of individuals, this doesn’t mean there aren’t broader interests shared by most of the individuals in that society. One of the interests that all rational individuals in a society share is to live in a society where roads aren’t at the mercy of the individual whims and eccentricities of private owners.

Greenspan Capitulates

”It may be necessary to temporarily nationalise some banks in order to facilitate a swift and orderly restructuring,” he said. “I understand that once in a hundred years this is what you do.”

- Alan Greenspan, Financial Times

This must be a very difficult retirement for the former Fed chief.

Taking Ideas Seriously - Pt 1

Regular contributor Neil Parille reviews the Objectivist approach to intellectual history.

Objectivists claim to “take ideas seriously.” According to Rand and her followers it is ideas (more specifically abstract philosophical ideas such as metaphysics and epistemology) that determine the course of history. As Rand put it in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (“ITOE”) concerning “the problem of universals”: “[T]he fate of human societies, of knowledge, of science, of progress and of every human life, depends on it. What is at stake here is the cognitive efficacy of man’s mind.” (ITOE, p. 3.) Yet despite the supposedly supreme importance of ideas in the Objectivist schema, how well do they deal with intellectual history in practice?

Rand’s first work following Atlas Shrugged was a lengthy essay entitled “For the New Intellectual” which appeared in a book of the same name published in 1961. In this essay Rand traced the history of philosophy and its generally deleterious effects on history through brief (and not entirely accurate) descriptions of thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Hume, Kant and Spencer. The first book written by an Objectivist philosopher other than Rand was Leonard Peikoff’s The Ominous Parallels in which Peikoff blamed Nazism on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant.

Although Objectivists often present their views dramatically and hyperbolically, the Objectivist claim about the influence of thinkers on the course of history is not new with Rand (nor, in a rare display of modesty, did she claim it was). For example, the historian Christopher Dawson wrote in his 1953 work Understanding Europe: “What we all tend to forget, however, is the way in which even the most irrational phenomena in the modern world . . . have been conditioned and in some sense created by the ideologies of the past, so that behind the modern demagogue and dictator there stands the ghost of some forgotten metaphysician.” (Dawson, Understanding Europe, p. 152.) Other examples are Richard Weaver’s contention that Western culture got off the wrong track with medieval nominalism and Eric Voegelin’s thesis concerning the influence of Gnosticism on revolutionary ideologies.

The Objectivist version of intellectual history is problematic on a number of grounds:

First, is it really the case that the fate of knowledge depends on the right theory of concept formation? History doesn’t bear this out. To take one example, consider the “fate” of mathematics in the twentieth century. No one can deny the tremendous progress that mathematicians made even though there was no agreement as to the conceptual foundation of mathematics or even the definition of a number. Nor does it appear that physics and chemistry (both heavily mathematical) suffered as a result of this conceptual logjam, contrary to what Objectivist “super logic” might suggest if knowledge is contextual and hierarchical. Is there any reason to doubt that science and technology will continue to make progress even if the Objectivist theory of concept formation remains unheralded?

In addition, a review of individual thinkers and scientists would likely show that a substantial majority did not sympathize with Objectivist or proto-Objectivist ideas. No less than the twentieth century’s greatest scientist, Albert Einstein, considered himself a Kantian. Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead made seminal advances in logic in their massive Principia Mathematica. Whitehead went on to found the school of thought known as “process theology” writing, among other works, Religion in the Making. Another example is Nicholas Copernicus, who famously advanced the heliocentric view of the solar system in 1543’s De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium. Copernicus was a Catholic prelate trained in scholastic theology. Upon a visit to Italy he came under the influence of neo-Platonist mathematicians. It doesn’t appear that Copernicus’ philosophic background prevented him from making one of the most important discoveries in astronomy.

Of course, one could easily conjure up various philosophies that would be destructive of scientific progress (such as the belief that studying the natural world is immoral), but history shows that science is compatible with a variety of philosophical approaches and that a certain eclecticism in method might even be desirable.

Second, Objectivists often look for philosophical explanations for rather mundane events. In a 2007 post I drew attention to Peikoff’s defense of Rand’s claim that the streaker at the 1974 Academy Awards was a Kantian nihilist, when in fact he was a publicity seeker intent on making a statement about public nudity.

Third, Objectivists tend to reduce historical change to a few philosophical ideas and ignore other, non-philosophical factors. For example, in The Ominous Parallels, Peikoff barely mentions the Treaty of Versailles, which fueled German resentment. This, combined with mistakes made by anti-Nazi German politicians and the Great Depression, were far more responsible for the rise of the Nazis than the influence of Kant.

Fourth, for all the Objectivist bluster about “taking ideas seriously,” Objectivism is destructive of the understanding and enjoyment of ideas. The Objectivist approach simplifies and caricatures the history of ideas to such an extent that one wonders at times why Objectivists would study ideas other than their own. This point was made by David Gordon is his review of The Ominous Parallels:

“There is, I think, a deeper flaw in Peikoff's approach to intellectual history than his errors, however grave, about a particular thinker. One has no sense, when reading Peikoff, that Kant (or any of the other thinkers he condemns) was responding to serious intellectual problems. If, for example, Kant differed with Aristotle, the thought never seems to have occurred to Peikoff that he may have had some legitimate reasons for doing so. Peikoff gives us a history of philosophy with the arguments left out. Someone unfortunate enough to derive all his knowledge of Kant from Peikoff's pages would have no conception at all of why Kant's successors regarded him as a profound thinker rather than the proponent of ‘a perverted theory that no one could mean.’”

Fifth, there is a tendency in Objectivist circles to make the thought of various thinkers conform to what the Objectivist theory of history would suggest rather than letting them speak for themselves. To take just one example, Objectivists often portray the ancient Greeks (whom they admire) as secularists when their society was religious to an extent hard to appreciate today.

In the second part of this post I will compare Leonard Peikoff’s The Ominous Parallels with Christopher Dawson’s discussion of Hegel in Understanding Europe and Ludwig von Mises’ discussion of the rise of Nazism in Omnipotent Government.

- Neil Parille

Thomas F. Bertonneau's criticism of Atlas Shrugged

Rand is rarely subjected much in the way of vigorous literary criticism, as most of the criticism is quickly dismissive or shamelessly adulatory. Hence Thomas F. Bertonneau's "Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged: from romantic fallacy to holocaustic imagination," published in the conservative periodical Modern Age (Fall, 2004), comes as a welcome addition to the very small collection of intelligent, insightful criticism of Rand's fiction.

Bertonneau begins by detailing Colin Wilson's reaction to Rand. Wilson had thought little of Rand at first, but then decided to give Rand a chance by reading Atlas Shrugged. Although he was hardly an uncritical admirer, he rather liked the book, and thought he had found an ally of sorts. As Bertonneau explains:

As Wilson had "always detested the 'fallacy of insignificance' in modern literature, the cult of smallness and meanness, the atmosphere of defeat that broods over the twentieth-century novel," he "was delighted by the sheer health of Ayn Rand's view." (13) He can even understand, he writes, what Rand means when she extols that virtue of selfishness for which so many applaud or revile her, depending on their perspective: "Selfishness has always been man's vital principle--not in the sense of ... indifference to other people but in the sense of intelligent self-interest." (14) Yet while Rand might lay claim to "a considerable intellect ... it is ... narrow and incurious" so that, "having established to her own satisfaction that all that is wrong with the world is lack of faith in reason and its muddled ideas on self-interest and altruism, she seems to take no further interest in the history of ideas."

Wilson's critical remarks are spot-on. Indeed, I would go further: it is precisely Rand's "narrow and incurious" intellect that constitutes, for me, her worst flaw. It helped turn her philosophy into a weird cult and isolated Rand from scholars and intellectuals who, while sympathizing with some of her philosophy, were far better informed than she was and could have helped her avoid some the embarrassing errors that disfigure her Objectivist ideology. The hostility with which Wilson's letter (and later his essay on Rand) were greeted by Branden and Rand demonstrate an over-sensitivity to criticism that is as unappetizing as it is creepy.

Bertonneau's assessment of Atlas is mixed in its appreciations: he finds plenty to both praise and criticize. He sees the novel as a sacrificial narrative/revenge fantasy:

Atlas Shrugged is, up to a limit, a true revelation of redistributive rapacity, even of the old call to sacrifice in its twentieth-century ideological manifestation; the novel is, up to a limit, a true revelation of ideology as a reversion to the most primitive type of cultic religiosity, collective murder as a means of appeasing a supernatural principle. It is also--it is primarily--a sacrificial narrative, as most of popular, as opposed to high, narrative ever has been and probably always will be. It follows that the novel's borrowed premise is sacrifice: Rand invites us to view with a satisfying awe the destruction before our eyes of those who have mistreated the protagonists, with whom she has invited us to identify. The standard Arnold Schwarzenegger or Clint Eastwood thriller achieves its effect by no different means. Michael Moore's movie Fahrenheit 9/11 works in the same way.

Bertonneau finishes his criticism by examining the infamous tunnel scene in Rand's novel. He notes curious new evidence (from Rand's journals) suggesting "that Rand must have had actual people in mind as models of those who die, with time enough to feel the pain of their deaths."

I assert that Rand plausibly thought of [Hollywood screenwriter Robert] Sherwood ... when she sent the adenoidal, second-rate playwright to his death in the Tunnel. The parallelism leads us to suspect that in the Tunnel episode Rand composes a cataclysme a clef. And what then does Atlas become but a grand fantasy of godlike revenge, a theater of resentment assuaged, a daydream of limitless ego?

ARI's Lockitch Disparages Rand's Views on Evolution

Dr Keith Lockitch, resident fellow of the ARI, in last year's essay "Darwin and the Discovery of Evolution":

One widespread claim that the opponents of evolution have advanced is the notion that evolution is “just a theory”—that is, that evolution is just a speculative hypothesis...The first thing to say about this claim is that it is not true; evolution is not “just a theory,” that is, a theory with no evidentiary support. Even worse than the falsehood of the just-a-theory claim is the fact that it represents a grave injustice. To declare that evolution is “just a theory” is to imply that Charles Darwin was “just a theorist”—that he was some sort of armchair scientist, spinning out scientific guesses in a vacuum instead of drawing his ideas from careful observations of nature...Darwin was not ‘just a theorist’ and evolution is not ‘just a theory.’”

Ayn Rand:

"After all, the theory of evolution is only a hypothesis."

Slight problem.

Objectivism & Economics, Part 19

Rearden/Mouch dichotomy. It is well known—nor would Objectivists disagree—that many businessmen want government help. What are all these bailouts and stimulus plans that we have seen in recent months but crony capitalism at its most perfervid? Nevertheless, Rand and her disciples have given this unappetizing phenomenon a strange twist. They claim that only businessmen of “lesser ability” go to the government for help. There are, in the Objectivist world-view, mainly two types of businessmen: Rearden types who only wish to be left alone, and Mouch types who are incompetent and require government help to get on in the world. “It is only with the help of government regulations that a man of lesser ability can destroy his better competitors,” claimed Rand—”and he is the only type of man who runs to government for economic help. [CUI, 108, emphasis added.]

The facts, however, tell a different story. Businessmen, whether competent or not, generally have no scruples about seeking government favors. Nor are they doing so merely for defensive reasons, to protect themselves from harmful government interference, as Rand herself suggested. Nearly all businessmen, whether competent or incompetent, brilliant or mediocre, seek government favors and largesse. Indeed, in the 19th century, it’s difficult to find any major ones that aren’t, at least in some degree, “tainted.” Rand mentions Vanderbilt, James Hill and Edward Harriman as examples of competent businessmen who did not seek government favors. She defends Vanderbilt’s bribery of the New York state legislature as merely “to buy the removal of some artificial restriction.” Yet that is hardly the case: Vanderbilt often bribed politicians to get special privileges or to gain an edge against his competition. And he also actively sought government business during the Civil War, hiring out dangerously sub-par and undermanned boats to transport Union troops.

Raising capital, particularly for capital intensive industries such as railroads and steelworks, is an extremely difficult and arduous task. It was impossible for capitalists in the nineteenth century to raise the capital from purely private sources, so various methods, often involving government largesse in the form of tariffs and land grants, were used. Other popular methods involved various forms of financial chicanery, such as watering down stocks, or seizing a business by intentionally sabotaging it, as James Hill and his cronies did with the Minnesota and Northwestern Railroad Company. In a sense, the old charge of nineteenth century industrialists being “robber barons” has a grain of truth in it. Yet, whatever their level of spoliation, whether through government aided means or through sheer fraud, they nevertheless are responsible for building the country, using their ill gotten gains to capitalize their respective industries.

Objectivism & Economics, Part 18

Limits of free-trade. Ayn Rand and her followers are well known advocates of free trade. In her Playboy interview, Rand explained:

The essence of capitalism’s foreign policy is free trade—i.e., the abolition of trade barriers, of protective tariffs, of special privileges—the opening of the world’s trade routes to free international exchange and competition among the private citizens of all countries dealing directly with one another..

Although Rand’s primarily rationalization of free trade rests on moral arguments, nonetheless, Objectivists also contend that free trade is, in terms of economic efficiency and productivity, superior to protectionism. Yet this view is not as irrefragable as laissez-faire and other free trade zealots tend to believe.

The Italian social thinker Vilfredo Pareto, who, early in his career, had been a fervent advocate of free trade, adopted a more impartial view later in life. Although Pareto continued to maintain that protectionism destroys wealth, he came to understand that it had other effects which, under special circumstances, might make up for the wealth lost through the imposition of trade barriers. As Pareto explains in his mammoth The Mind and Society:

We find that protectionism transfers a certain amount of wealth from a part, A, of the population to a part B, through the destruction of a certain amount of wealth, q, the amount representing the costs of the operation. If, as a result of this new distribution of wealth, the production of wealth does not increase by a quantity greater than q, the operation is economically detrimental to a population as a whole; if it increases by a quantity greater than q, the operation is economically beneficial. The latter case is not to be barred a priori; for the element A contains the indolent, the lazy, and people, in general, who make little use of economic combinations; whereas the element B comprises people who are economically wide-awake and are always ready for energetic enterprise—people who know how to make effective use of economic combinations. [§2208]

Pareto’s theory explains why protectionism helped, rather than hindered, wealth creation in 19th century America. American protectionism transferred wealth from agricultural interests to industrial interests—that is, from those who would’ve used the wealth primarily to buy consumer goods to capitalists who invested the money in industrial production. Hence the great success of American capitalism during the latter half of the nineteenth century despite the high tariffs. Entrepreneurial capitalism works best when capital is transferred into the hands of those best fitted to use it. When protectionism manages to accomplish this end, it can be economically beneficial. When protectionism achieves the opposite effect and transfers capital from those best fit to use it to those least fit to use it, the results are economically pernicious.

The typical Objectivist position is that protectionism always diminishes economic efficiency. As Objectivist write Dave Holcberg puts it: [Protectionism] destroys more jobs than it creates because the overall productivity of businesses is diminished by the higher costs imposed on them.” This view, however, flies in the face not merely of the experience of 19th century American capitalism, but of Pareto’s theory, which states that, under special circumstances, protectionism may create more wealth than it destroys.

Joey Rothbard on the Rothard/Rand schism

In this audio recording, Joey Rothbard gives us a laugh-out-loud portrait of the Murray Rothbard/Objectivism schism, including the famous accusations of plagiarism directed at Rothbard.

(hat tip Neil Parille)