A very scurrilous article called
This is what happens when you take Ayn Rand Seriously by Denise Cummings has elicited many comments. The article itself sets up many a straw man interpretation of Ayn Rand's ideas and makes some incredibly obvious false statements about her ideas. I have commented rather extensively in the comments following it. Here is one of my comments in reply to other comments opposing Ayn Rand's ideas:
Blaming businessmen for their business practices is one of the frauds
most commonly used to justify governments that micromanage our lives
and prevent us from individually choosing our own values and pursuing
them in a rich and robust private sector. The bogeyman businessman is
all too often the false justification for forcing us to give up our
individually optimal choices for the sake of one-size-fits-all laws and
regulations which are not enforced on the friends of big government, but
are often enforced on those who just want to get on with their lives.
Average
Joe is always free to start his own business, except that governments
make it hard for him to do so and will require him to spend huge blocks
of time on paperwork and tax him at every turn. Big government
institutes many of its regulations more for the purpose of preventing
the formation of small businesses and for preventing them from competing
with bigger businesses who find it much easier to comply with the
80,000 pages of new regulations each year. Of course, even some big
businesses are not favored by Big Government, such as the fossil fuel
businesses.
It is only when a business is allied with big
government that it can get away with mistreating employees and
customers. A really free market always offers alternatives, as people
take advantage of their freedom of association and either start
competing businesses or turn to existing competitors or make suitable
substitutions. Of course government should prevent the actual use of
force or fraud throughout our society. But, what we find is that
government itself is the abuser and uses much too much force and
defrauds the citizens on a routine basis.
To which one Paul Ruggiero, who often shows up whenever Ayn Rand is the subject, replied:
"Bogeyman businessman" - how about tobacco companies? Was it rational
to sell products to people that the company knew were addictive and
highly likely to kill them over time? Where was the "self regulation"
or rational or moral nature of this?
Businesses can mistreat
employees or their customers very easily without the help of government.
You are making a lot of assumptions about free market capitalism in
your argument without stating them. Many of your assumptions though are
not true. State some, and I'm happy to knock them down.
Rand's
ideas about companies are unfortunately not true. She assumes that
without govt interference all businesses would be rational. This is
crap.
To which this patient soul replied:
The left likes to picture the businessman as frequently a predator
and government as a protection against these powerful and many
predators. Yes, bad people can be found in the business world, but they
are actually much less likely to be bad than the politicians and
bureaucrats of the government which wields much more power than do
businessmen.
Tobacco is addictive and I have never used it for
that reason and for health and hygiene reasons. Everyone else also has
had this choice, whereas when government runs up the cost of energy or
denies me paying a high school summer intern less than the minimum wage,
I have no choice. I am forced to comply. It is worse to be robbed of a
choice and forced to comply than to be offered a product I should not
choose to buy.
Let us also note that government, your tainted
angel, long subsidized tobacco farming. It also delighted and still
does in the taxes it collects on this dangerous product.
Rand
absolutely does not assume that all businesses will be rational or that
those that are usually fairly rational will always be so. She also does
not assume that all purchases of goods and services will be rational.
The trades of the free market and private sector generally are akin to
freedom of speech. We do not assume that everything everyone says will
be rational or true. We know it will not be. But, there will be a rich
diversity of ideas and knowledge in that flow of speech in a free
society. People are free to evaluate what others have to say and
incorporate or reject viewpoints and ideas according to their own
choice. The same is true of the many products and services offered in
the private sector.
To the degree that the customer chooses badly, he
will be hurt. But he is also free to choose wisely and to benefit
greatly from good choices. It is stultifying to be so terrified of
making bad choices that one refuses to allow oneself the opportunity to
make good choices. I have confidence that most people make more good
choices than bad ones and that they benefit greatly from the diversity
of choices offered by the free market, just as we benefit greatly from
the rich and diverse flow of ideas and information we are offered due to
freedom of speech. Just as we tend to stop listening to people who
always rattle off nonsensical viewpoints, so do most people refuse to
buy goods and services from companies that do not meet their needs. Bad
products and poor service tend to bring an end to the company that
offers them.
Now, I understand that you think that most people are
bad and will fleece everyone else at every opportunity. You also have
no confidence in the people to be mostly rational consumers. I do not
think so. Then you turn around and seem to believe that the same bad
sellers and consumers are capable of choosing good representative
politicians and good government policies to protect these basically
incompetent people. Your inconsistency could not be more apparent.
To which a good man (Threnody) added:
Savin' this one.
Echoes of Bastiat
"When it is time to
vote, apparently the voter is not to be asked for any guarantee of his
wisdom. His will and capacity to choose wisely are taken for granted.
Can the people be mistaken? Are we not living in an age of
enlightenment? What! are the people always to be kept on leashes? Have
they not won their rights by great effort and sacrifice? Have they not
given ample proof of their intelligence and wisdom? Are they not adults?
Are they not capable of judging for themselves? Do they not know what
is best for themselves? Is there a class or a man who would be so bold
as to set himself above the people, and judge and act for them? No, no,
the people are and should be free. They desire to manage their own
affairs, and they shall do so.
But when the legislator is finally
elected — ah! then indeed does the tone of his speech undergo a radical
change. The people are returned to passiveness, inertness, and
unconsciousness; the legislator enters into omnipotence. Now it is for
him to initiate, to direct, to propel, and to organize. Mankind has only
to submit; the hour of despotism has struck. We now observe this fatal
idea: The people who, during the election, were so wise, so moral, and
so perfect, now have no tendencies whatever; or if they have any, they
are tendencies that lead downward into degradation."
The comments following articles misrepresenting and misunderstanding Ayn Rand's ideas are often very interesting. There really are huge numbers of people who either cannot understand her or who are endlessly eager to misrepresent her ideas. Many people become so deeply rutted in their line of "thought" that they literally are unable to see any other viewpoint, especially when that viewpoint fundamentally differs with all of their own reference points. The most blatant inconsistencies in their own viewpoint go totally unrecognized and unaddressed. Even when you bring such a person to admit they have a problem through hours of discussions, by the next day almost everyone of them will have found some way to forget that they admitted a severe inconsistency the prior day.
Few people can change their worldview after they have held it for many years. It is often claimed that Ayn Rand's ideas appeal only to the young and therefor to the immature. It is not entirely true that only the young are greatly influenced by her ideas and it is certainly not the case that her ideas only attract interest from the immature. But, there is a reason why so many individuals who do become interested in Ayn Rand's ideas do so when they are young. It is because such a large fraction of those older are mired in deep ruts in the mud of ideas they have held a long time and which have so distorted their view of the world that they cannot see or will not see the truth anymore.
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