Galt's Gulch & Trust
Radley Balko | May 6, 2008, 9:12am
NPR reports:
John Allison, CEO of banking giant BB&T, calls Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged "the best defense of capitalism ever written." He says that Rand changed his life, and he's working to ensure that the deceased author isn't left out of the nation's college curricula.
Since 2005, the BB&T Charitable Foundation has given 25 colleges and universities several million dollars to start programs devoted to the study of Rand's books and economic philosophy. In January, the company announced it was donating $1 million to Marshall University in West Virginia.
The money would establish a course dedicated to Rand's Atlas Shrugged and Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, and help create the BB&T Center for the Advancement of American Capitalism on campus.
I'm not sure I see the problem, here. Hell, my alma mater had classes on pornography, the Beatles, and the music of Frank Zappa (note: I consider this a good thing). It would be one thing if BB&T were establishing an entire econ department staffed only with Objectivists. But an elective class on the virtues of capitalism that exposes students to Rand's ideas doesn't seem all that nefarious. Of course, some people disagree:
Rick Wilson, a sociology instructor at Marshall and head of the West Virginia Economic Justice Project, says that Rand's philosophy, objectivism, is based on the view that selfishness is the only moral value.
"[Objectivism] goes against the collective wisdom of the human race, I think, pretty much everywhere," says Wilson. "I think it's a curious interpretation of philanthropy to use corporate money to promote, really, an extreme philosophy."
I'm not sure when it became accepted logic that corporate philanthropies should only fund ideas and causes that are hostile to free markets. But that certainly seems to be the prevailing sentiment in the philanthropy world. And Rand's weaknesses aside, I'd say you could make a pretty good case that capitalism, the economic system that accepts and harnesses self-interest, has served humanity pretty darned well.
Jeff Taylor blogged about a similar Allison gift to UNC-Charlotte last March, and wrote about BB&T's lead-by-example capitalism in 2006.
joe | May 6, 2008, 12:39pm | #
Oh, Randian, get off the high horse.
The last time you decided to talk down to me, I pwned your ass over your silly assertion that Rand wasn't opposed to unions, and that The Fountainhead didn't depict them in a bad light. That argument, I'm afraid, has "the kind of hands that would drop things all over the kitchen."
You want to argue with me, argue with me, but it is long past time you got it through your head that I know what the fuck I'm talking about.
She never said they did anything to deserve it, just that whatever their set of circumstances, it doesn't mean that they are somehow entitled to what YOU earn.
No, she went quite a bit further than that. If you don't have money yourself, and don't deserve anything anyone else has, then you don't deserve those things. The only way to deserve something is to be able to secure it in the competetive marketplace, and if you haven't done so - if you are without - then you don't deserve it.
Deserving? At who's expense...at who's labor, joe, are you deserving of these things?
Now you're just repeating her argument, and as a matter of fact, confirming the statement I made that you so smugly insisted was wrong: that Rand and her -roids believe that people do not deserve even a minimal level of material life, if they have not achieved it themselves, regardless (as you so kindly pointed out) of the circumstances that produced that situation.
Yes, the material wealth they do not own belongs to someone else - this is utterly irrelevant, and in fact confirms, my point: that she does not believe the poor have any claim at all to any aid from anyone else.
Congratulations, you told me I was wrong about her attitude towards the poor, confirmed that I was right, and even provided the justification she provides for the belief that I accurately described.
Fluffy | May 6, 2008, 1:03pm | #
Joe,
First of all, the "unions" discussion was with me, not with A_R, and you hardly pissed all over me. I was right, and you were wrong. There is simply no way to answer my definitive rebuttal to you: that the novel Rand would certainly have acknowledged as the high point of her life's work is about a strike.
But I think the fact that you define support for unions as support for NLRB-supported unions colored the discussion in ways I did not perceive directly at the time.
But with regard to your point here:
Yes, the material wealth they do not own belongs to someone else - this is utterly irrelevant, and in fact confirms, my point: that she does not believe the poor have any claim at all to any aid from anyone else.
No, it isn't irrelevant. There is a distinction one has to make here:
It is possible for people to be poor through no fault of their own.
But the fact that this is possible does not give us any information about their
right to any particular piece of property.
To provide the poor with property, you both have to give it to them, and you have to take it from someone else. How can you possibly assert that the "taking away" part has no bearing on the justice of the situation? That half the transaction is
irrelevant?
One rather easy way to get around that contradiction, which doesn't seem to have occured to Rand, is to cease assuming that those in need deserve their poverty
To me I think the obvious answer is [as usual] to draw a distinction between individual action and group action or state action.
Consider a situation where someone has without provocation hit me in the back with a club, but later is contrite about it and profusely says that they are sorry.
It would be
justice for that person to suffer some sort of punishment or to provide me with some kind of compensation. [The discussion of exactly what kind of punishment or compensation would take us far afield and isn't really relevant here.]
It would be
charity/mercy for me to forgive them and demand no punishment or compensation at all.
Now, most people would say that either outcome here is consistent with virtue. If I obtain justice, I am just. If I show mercy, I am merciful. Both of these are regarded as good, and as virtuous.
Rand said, No - you have to obtain justice. If you don't demand justice, you are pissing on the virtue of justice itself. You are helping injustice to exist in the world.
I don't think she was right. I think that charity/mercy can in fact be a virtue - but only if I am the one who gets to make the decision. If I want justice, and you, Joe, come along and say, "No, I want to show everyone I am a nice guy, so I am going to deny you justice and let this guy go without punishment, so that everyone will sing the praises of King Joe," that would NOT be virtuous. You would be denying me justice, and also not exercising true charity/mercy, since it wasn't yours to exercise. You've stolen the virtue of charity/mercy, as it were.
If we apply this rationale to other instances of the conflict, we end up with a situation where it would be virtuous for me to help the poor, but it is NOT virtuous for you to take my property to help the poor. Which fits a bit more nicely into general libertarianism and answers some of the "human nature" objections raised above.
NP | May 6, 2008, 1:18pm | #
Fluffy,
One small nitpick before I start: I seriously doubt that Rand's fiction would be acceptable in a different time and place. The best of Greek tragedies don't suffer from what you admit are Rand's weaknesses as a writer of fiction: didacticism, narrow characterizations, and even lack of naturalism, as they are "natural" in their own context. But I digress.
I see that you have already dealt with probably my main beef with Rand, that she regarded charity as a vice or at least something short of a virtue--"the rendering of what is not deserved," as you put it. Now this is a complex subject, one that does require more than just a short paragraph or two to explore in depth, but here's, in brief, where she's wrong.
1) Since Rand defined one's own happiness as the ultimate moral purpose in life, by her logic one's financial assistance to the less fortunate, whether they deserve it or not, would be a moral decision as long as it makes the giver happy. Of course, one's giving money to an undeserving person--or agent, it might be argued in this case--only for the sake of his/her happiness would be an immoral decision, but not according to Rand's definition. Yeah, this is a pretty simplistic example, but you get my point.
2) A related point: Exactly who deserves charity and who does not? Surely, most would agree that those who can make a valuable contribution to society--say, someone who is unemployed or homeless but has up-to-date professional skills--deserve our help, whereas those who don't--crack addicts or, in everyday parlance, bums--do not. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I doubt Rand would or, in fact, did distinguish between these two different types of "charity."
Let me go a step further. I'd argue that even those we often label as bums often deserve our charity, because their very existence teaches us a valuable lesson on the virtue of hard work and self-respect, and also because making sure that everyone is fed and at least has a home, as long as we have the economic means to do so, is good for many reasons, including PR. (No country wants the top ranking for homelessness.) As you can see there are many ways people can engage in charity and pursue happiness at the same time, so trying to define charity as "the rendering of what is not deserved" or in some other narrow nomenclature strikes me as fruitful as trying to define what is liberal, conservative or libertarian. Again correct me if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge Rand never bothered to explore these nuances.
Rand is derided, and not just by the philosophical community, not because of "her use of axioms to bypass fundamental metaphysical debates" but because of her weaknesses I highlighted above. Hopefully I've made a convincing counterargument.
joe | May 6, 2008, 1:23pm | #
Fluffy,
I was right, and you were wrong. You mean why you said she didn't depict the strikers in The Fountainhead in a negative way, and I threw the "hands that would drop things all over the kitchen" lady in your face, and you didn't have an answer? Was that where I was wrong?
There is simply no way to answer my definitive rebuttal to you: that the novel Rand would certainly have acknowledged as the high point of her life's work is about a strike. Except for the part where I answered you, and you didn't have a response. Revenge fantasies are best when you shoot the bad guy with his own gun.
A strike is an action, and you're right, she isn't opposed to that action. What she was opposed to, like you apparently, is such actions by the "bad guys," while they are perfectly justified by the "good guys."
Also, you need not repeat back to me Rand's position on whether poor deserve aid. I understand it quite well, thank you. I just disagree with it. Pointing our her justification for WHY the poor do not deserve aid doesn't refute my contention that she believes the poor do not deserve aid (that is, have a right to it). In fact, it confirms what I wrote, that she believes the poor do not deserve aid simply by virtue of being our fellow human beings in whose place we could easily be.
I understand why she holds this position, just fine. I just disagree with her.
How can you possibly assert that the "taking away" part has no bearing on the justice of the situation? That half the transaction is irrelevant?
I wrote that it is irrelevant to the question "Does Rand believe the poor deserve material aid?" That is a yes/no question, and we all understand that her answer is no. Explaining to me WHY her answer is no is irrelevant to the yes/no question.
By the way, the example you chose to demonstrate her view of the poor - someone who assaults you with a club - also serves to make my case. You are arguing that it is just for the poor to suffer the pangs of poverty, just as it is just for an assailant to suffer for his violence. It is this very point that we disagree on - I don't consider that to be the case, because I don't consider the failure, in all circumstances, to have material wealth to make the pangs of poverty just punishment. I don't believe the poor choose their poverty the way an assailant chooses to attack someone.
In my opinion, which is different from Rand's, it is right for you to decide whether to kick your assailants ass, or not. It is not right for you, or me, to decide that someone should live in poverty.
Yes, what I'm going here is equating the duty to care for one another with the duty not to assault them. As an earlier commenter pointed out, we are not tigers, we are social creatures, and we all depend on the society around us.
You disagree that the poor have a right to aid. You disagree that everybody has a duty to provide aid. In other words you, and Rand, disagree with me and most of humanity about what the poor deserve, what they have a right to, what rights they have that we all must respect.
And that's what I said at the beginning.
