One of the things that I do miss about living in Florida for the past five years was the occasional (but in retrospect, not often enough) opportunity to get together with Bob and Lou Poole for dinner (they lived about twenty-five miles away). Here are his thoughts on the influence of Ayn Rand.
7 thoughts on “Defending Free Markets”
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I have moderate libertarian leanings. Thinking about it, I’d have to say Ayn Rand was almost non-existent to me as an influence. I believe I read “Anthem” while in high school, but I didn’t absorb libertarian ideas from that. When I finally got around to reading “Atlas Shrugged”, it was a good though overly long story. But I’ve never bought fully into its ideas. Heinlein or Niven would have been much more influential.
In any case, I think the real influence on me was the Foresight Exchange, a play money betting and prediction market (which I’ve played since 1994, including a predecessor) and the related writings of Robin Hanson. Actually seeing such a market work well (for example, to predict the viability of a proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem or the outcome of the OJ Simpson trial) despite a small number of traders and some other restrictions, was a real eye-opener. There are many more such markets, including a few real money ones, to chose from now.
The point though is that actually seeing a market in action, working as advertised, really changed my view towards them. That in turn has changed my political views. I lost the few economic-oriented socialist beliefs I had since they universally scorned a market mechanism. And it corroded the few social conservative beliefs I had as well (for example, removing any objections I had to punishing gambling and other victimless crimes).
Honestly, I’ve never liked Ayn Rand’s writings or Objectivism generally. I simply couldn’t agree with the outright selfishness, and mental smallness, frankly, of its characters or concepts. Rand’s inability to imagine anything more important then herself basically killed its ability to have any sway with me. The human ego is a small, limited creature. She also appeared completely blind to the proper role of government, which does exist.
I think Ayn Rand always seemed shortsighted to me, even as a “youth” in my second year of college (when I first encountered her), because of my Christian upbringing. I am not a faithful adherent to the Church by any means, but I can read the history books as well as anyone and can see that Christianity’s allegorical wisdom regarding the sins residing in every man has a lot of merit. Evil exists and without an ethical police power it can seriously harsh your mellow. Pure laissez faire capitalism, without the restraint of law, results in non-governmental monopolies, often enforced by violence.
I think Socialism and Objectivism have similar failings. Socialists seem to think that humans will always do the wrong thing when profit is available, but the right thing as long as they work for the government. Objectivists think the exact opposite of that. But of course they’re both wrong, since humans always behave the same, no matter where they work. It’s just the incentives and available rewards that differ.
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*I got through to the end of this comment and thought “You know, I really should say “Ayn Rand”, rather than just “Rand”, given the forum …
For me, the great turnoff was her idea of what was her gratuitous use of the term “evil”. For example, if I chose to donate my time or money to certain causes, she’d consider that evil. Based on that, I decided to ignore her opinions on morality.
I was influenced by Ayn Rand, but yes the concept of altruism baffled her. On the other hand I completely agree that society assuming you owe it whatever its needs, is just theft (radical idea now a days in DC) – but there is something called a social contract. The point of society is to facilitate everyone acheaving their goals, not the other way around.
Surprised Milton Friedman didn’t come up as inspiring people for libertarians?
Can’t think of a current philosopher with Ayn R levels of impact?
“For example, if I chose to donate my time or money to certain causes, she’d consider that evil.
No Karl, that isn’t what Ayn said at all. If you donate your time and money to get something meaningful that has value to YOU out of it then it is not a sacrifice on your part. Its when you do something as an outright sacrifice that provides no warm fuzzy feeling of glowing satisfaction then you are in effect being coerced into giving up something that does have value and not getting any in return. That is a fundamental evil when someone is being actively coerced, whether knowingly or not, to give away something and get nothing — that is theft.
Perhaps you should watch Ayn’s interview with Mike Wallace where she specifically addresses this. Also I believe John Galt specifically talked about sacrifice and made the distinctions pretty clear. Finally, in a speech Ayn gives at the University of Wisconsin in 1961 she says, “The Objectivist ethics proudly advocates and upholds rational selfishness……human good does not require human sacrifices and cannot be achieved by the sacrifice of anyone to anyone. It holds that the rational interests of men do not clash—that there is no conflict of interests among men who do not desire the unearned, who do not make sacrifices nor accept them, who deal with one another as traders, giving value for value.”
Josh, this frequently comes up with Ayn Rand. She’s said a lot of stuff over her life. I prefer clearer argument. She’s normally too demanding of my time.
But that is the clear argument. She is saying what we sacrifice is actually why we’re selfish. It is not an argument as to what we should be, it is clarifying what we already are.