Rand and Capitalism

[Rusting Car Bumper]

What is the Randian Objectivist justification for capitalism?

[Ray Moscow]

I suppose it comes to "Who can stop me?"

[gamera]

An odd mixture of really amateurish metaphysics and of the fabrication and valorization of the concept of the "individual" as the source of all value.

On the metaphysical side, Rand argued that all "facts" were "objective" and discernable through reason (ignoring everything we know about how human cognition works and epistomology, and her claims couldn't survive 3 pages of Being and Time).

Of course, this valorization of reason was a particular discourse to claim a certain political reality was indisputable. Namely, that the world was harsh deterministic place with winners and losers, and the point was to win against the iron mistress that is nature. Barthes calls this the naturalization of history. Rand is the classic case.

In this atomistic context, Rand further atomizes human existence with the unsupported claim that society is just an assemblage of individuals (and that indeed society doesn't exist). Individuals are the ground of all knowledge and value, and are fully independent of society (which doesn't really exist since all it is is other individuals).

This gambit legitimizes greed and selfishness, which is of course the real political agenda of her entire framework. Self-interest is by definition the highest value, since individuals are the ground of all value in Randspeak.

None of this would get her a passing grade in Philosophy 101, but of course, that wasn't her intent. Her intent was to promote a political philosophy that moralized wealth and allowed the rich to exploit the poor with moral impunity. Hence her wierdly oxymoronic book, The Virtue of Selfishness.

The irony of all this is that it turns on itself. If selfishness is rational, and if the poor and weak are inevitable losers in the game of life, then it is rational for them to kill the rich people, or trick them into being altruistic.

In short, her morality leads to no coherent analysis of human conduct, but basically makes anything acceptable.

[Preno]

Rand is completely irrelevant as a philosopher, why would anyone be interested in her justification of capitalism? I'd sooner subject myself to Lacan and Zizek than Rand, at least they are somewhat relevant.

[premjan]

The fact that Rand was pissed off at communism, mainly.

[gamera]

The fact that Rand was pissed off at communism, mainly.

So much for the objectivity of objectivism.

[Rusting Car Bumper]

Well, I am not philosophically ignorant to say they least. In addition, I've read a bit of Rand but not her economic works.

I have read Virtue of Selfishness but I'd have to disagree just slightly with gamera. i recall she said life was held of the highest value. I'm recalling that from memory so I could be wrong. Anyhoo that's all pedantic gaming.

I still am trying to get a good sense of her reasons for capitalism. I have a good grip of her metaphysics and I understand her ethics fairly well. (Her ethics don't hold up for snot.) However, i don't see how you get to capitalism from her ethics.

[SteveF]

I dunno, it's probably in Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series somewhere.

[gamera]

Well, I am not philosophically ignorant to say they least. In addition, I've read a bit of Rand but not her economic works.

I have read Virtue of Selfishness but I'd have to disagree just slightly with gamera. i recall she said life was held of the highest value. I'm recalling that from memory so I could be wrong. Anyhoo that's all pedantic gaming.

I still am trying to get a good sense of her reasons for capitalism. I have a good grip of her metaphysics and I understand her ethics fairly well. (Her ethics don't hold up for snot.) However, i don't see how you get to capitalism from her ethics.

You give her too much credit. Her reasons for capitalism are rationalizations for her own agenda. If it had suited her personality and situation to defend Pol Pot, she'd be right there with the appropriate novel and publication.

There's no there there.

[Dlx2]

What is the Randian Objectivist justification for capitalism?

"Wah. Stalin stole my daddy's shop in Poland. Wah."

[Quizalufagus]

To be frank, I don't think that there is an Objectivist justification of capitalism. Capitalism is axiomatic within Rand's framework (specifically, axiomatic within her ethical schema).

[Cabal]

I've only read Atlas Shrugged and the blurb in the back, but the two immediate flaws that come to my mind are:

1. She states there is no such thing as "special knowledge." A statement which sounds to me suspiciously like special knowledge.

2. All the capitalists she dreamed up in her books are all fantastically talented people who want to do nothing but express their talents to the full. A good idea in theory, but rather idealistic - just ain't gonna happen.

[gamera]

What is the Randian Objectivist justification for capitalism?

"Wah. Stalin stole my daddy's shop in Poland. Wah."

Honestly, it really reduces to this. Rand had an anticommunist agenda, and thus devised a rather sophomoric philosophy to rationalize her agenda. It's no deeper than that, and she doesn't make good faith arguments.

[Cabal]

Honestly, it really reduces to this. Rand had an anticommunist agenda, and thus devised a rather sophomoric philosophy to rationalize her agenda. It's no deeper than that, and she doesn't make good faith arguments.

Here's the thing, people keep saying this, but according to the blurb in her novels (potentially biased, of course) it says she was actually for the Kerensky governance, but not the Bolshevism which followed - if this is true, I think this should temper the "anti-communism" criticism a little?