The New Republic

When you stop and think about many of these points, they're hilarious and completely idiotic. - They weren't atheists, they venerated greed and the powerful. Sounds like a religion to me. - I would love to see the "job creators" congregate and try to run a society themselves. In my 25+ years in the technology industry, the "leaders" can barely understand the business they're in (too often have zero clue about it). Modern businesses rarely have guys at the top that started at the bottom and know what makes their business tick. Seeing some Wall Street billionaire or CEO trying to get his PC to operate when it breaks or even run a garbage truck (the peons aren't there anymore do that) would be outright slapstick. They'll die within a few days of thirst anyways (they wouldn't know how to operate a water treatment plant since the leeches are gone) or they'd turn on each other quickly (too many alpha personalities in too small a space).

- tmmats

August 14, 2012 at 3:53pm

What kind of sick phluck gravitates toward this kind of philosophy? That is not a rhetorical question.

- Mikelawyr22

August 14, 2012 at 4:43pm

Who gravitates to a philosophy that venerates greed, proclaims that success is always due solely to your greatness, and that the only things holding you back are the small-mindedness of others and whatever vestiges of conscience and sympathy you have for such losers? Why, egotists and sociopaths, of course. This may have something to do with a campaign event Romney held in Florida today, where he again railed against the "you didn't build that" meme, saying that if a student makes the honor roll, of course it's right to celebrate the kid's hard work-and it's just as self-evidently ludicrous to thank the school bus driver for any part in making that possible. The actual quote: "I realize that he got to school on a bus and the bus driver got him there, but I don't give the bus driver credit for the honor roll. I give the kid credit for the honor roll." There appears to be no middle ground in Mr. Romney's mind between acknowledging that someone else helped and saying "Oh, I guess you did contribute. Well, since I didn't do this 100% on my own, that means I've failed; I may as well hand over this award."

- janus

August 14, 2012 at 5:11pm

Did the crowd go wild for that idiocy, I wonder? A smart six-year-old would immediately ask, but what about that student's teachers? Did they have anything to do with it?

- ironyroad

August 14, 2012 at 5:43pm

Obviously in RomneyLand the kid's parents didn't help, nor did the teacher, nor the taxpayers that financed the school. Nope, no way, the kid did it all him/herself. He/she discovered all of man's knowledge while they were at it too. Since Romney himself was likely an "honor roll" student, we can ask him to explain to us leeches the Theory of Relativity. What a maroon, a true ijit.

- tmmats

August 14, 2012 at 6:49pm

Yeah, I wondered about dismissing the input of good teachers, as well. As if anticipating tmmats, he did go further later in the event to make clear that yes, NO ONE helped; he shortly thereafter named people who made the roads the school bus drives on as also not being deserving of any credit whatsoever. And, shamefully, yes, the crowd did go wild at this idiocy.

- janus

August 14, 2012 at 7:01pm

It strikes me as no surprise that a country that via it's victory in the second world war and outlasting the U.S.S.R. in the Cold War, followed by it's relative subsequent wealth, would fall for something like Rand's work. As I look at that picture of Sheldon Adelson on the TNR site, all I see is someone (also as a representative of those like him) who's blind to realities of limitations of those successes. Not that Adelson is a disciple of Rand, but he seems to benefit from parts of society that believe in her work.

- jet

August 14, 2012 at 7:31pm

The strangest thing about Objectivism is its name. It should be called Subjectivism. The universe was created solely for each of its devotees. Rand called her bizarre philosophy Objectivism, because she wanted people to believe it was reasonable. "Objectivism" is a bat-brained cult. Rand, when asked once if she was a fascist, replied that she had spent her life glorifying the individual, so how could she be a collectivist fascist? That answer is another indication of how weak her thinking processes were. Any rigid, uncompromising belief system is fascist. The Bolsheviks, whom she constructed her whole philosophy to reject, were fascists. But her beliefs were just as rigid and unforgiving as Lenin's and Stalin's. She was a fascist. She ruthlessly purged any member of her cult who disagreed with her on the smallest point. And, as the article points out, she stunk in more areas than her thinking processes. From early middle age on she rarely bathed; she had food on her clothes; and she smoked incessantly. That combination must have made her almost unbearable to get near. But then, being Ayn Rand, she went into perplexed conniptions when her young lover, Nathaniel Branden, threw her over for a comely Objectivist student of his. She couldn't understand why he would reject such an obviously superior being as herself. She did reach an important goal in her life. She became a struttin' fool of an egomaniacal man.

- magboy47.

August 14, 2012 at 8:28pm

Atheism "Objectivists reject religion because it isn’t “rational,” and because many faiths preach compassion for the needy. (Ryan, a Catholic, rejects this aspect of Objectivism.)" Ryan like Rand Paul is a hypocrite. Atheism is one of the most important tenets of Objectivism. This should be made clear to the electorate by the media.

- arnon1

August 14, 2012 at 8:57pm

magboy47 "The strangest thing about Objectivism is its name. It should be called Subjectivism. The universe was created solely for each of its devotees. Rand called her bizarre philosophy Objectivism, because she wanted people to believe it was reasonable." This is utter nonsense. Ayn rand called it "Objectivism" to distinguish it from what she considered irrational (romantic) notions of reality which to her included, Communism, Fascism, Christianity, (all religions actually). Did you read her short book "Objectivism" magboy? She considered all rational thinking as emanating from Aristotle and valued (Romantically from my point of view) his law of non-contradiction which she says all religions violate. For a Ryan or a Paul to claim that they are Objectivists as well as religious is absurd.

- arnon1

August 14, 2012 at 9:08pm

Mikelawyr22 "What kind of sick phluck gravitates toward this kind of philosophy?" People who were badly educated which includes lots of people in the media. Let not assume that everyone sees the absurdity of this philosophy as you do. Most don't, and it's up to us to educate them without showing too much contempt for their ignorance.

- arnon1

August 14, 2012 at 9:15pm

"Ayn Rand called it "Objectivism" to distinguish it from what she considered irrational (romantic) notions of reality which to her included, Communism, Fascism, Christianity, (all religions actually)." Because the above were "unreasonable," arnon. She wanted to appear reasonable in contrast to the "non-objective." If she had called the above systems "stupid," she would have called her system "Smart." She lived to present her superior, reasonable intellect in contrast to everything that wasn't a product of her transcendent intellect. I did read Anne C. Heller's wonderful biography of Rand. Heller is an Objectivist, and she explained Rand's philosophy fully. But she is banned from the Ayn Rand Archives, because she is not a 100% True Believer. Ayn Rand was about as objective as Elmer Fudd. Her "reasoning" was totally detached from the real world with real people in it. She was a complete fraud--a hack philosopher.

- magboy47.

August 14, 2012 at 11:00pm

Mgboy,47, I don't disagree that Ayn Rand was not a real philosopher. That's not the point. What I am saying is that coming up simple minded criticisms of her work isn't going to convince people (and some of them are very smart like Greenspan) who fell for her philosophical pretensions. To many middle class (bourgeois people) the philosophy of Marx was equally ridiculous especially in its Leninistic incarnation (same for Fascist thinking) yet they too were able to convince large groups of people many of them geniuses. We are dealing with an ideology and you don't counter an ideology with "facts" or "truth" or "logic." Theirs is a closed system which makes its own facts, logic, truths. You deal with it by opposing it politically, by exploring and publicizing the consequences of the Ayn Rand ideology and then you point out its little contradictions. Simultaneously you keep hammering away at the hypocrisy of an "Objectivist" who says he still believes in god, or is a religious person. The reason that Randians have gotten as far as they did in spite of the contradictions in its system is that few serious people have been taking them seriously enough to publish devastating critiques of its philosophy the way they do of Marxism, or Fascists like Heidegger or Karl Schmitt. It's as if taking Ayn Rand seriously is beyond their dignity. This is why these scary people keep winning elections. No one is telling the electorate how scary they really are.

- arnon1

August 14, 2012 at 11:31pm

...8. Non-physical sexual mores Following their fetishization of rationality, Objectivists believe that sexual attraction should be based on mental acuity and emotional strength, rather than physical attractiveness. Not an inconvenient doctrine, as Jon Chait has pointed out, for some one with “unusual” looks and “abysmal personal hygiene.”... Given my looks--not that I'm mentally acute--this is my favorite tenet.

- basman

August 15, 2012 at 12:08am

I agree, arnon. However, convincing people who want to be true believers is a long and arduous process, and usually they have to find out the truth for themselves. But, yes, we do need damning critiques. Have you read Heller's bio of Rand? Although, she's an Objectivist, Heller points out all the flaws of Rand's system and all of her personal flaws, too. She even suggests that Objectivism is a cult. More than anything, she points out the psychological basis for Rand's ideas--why she needed to say the things she did. And a lot of them had nothing to do with pure reason.

- magboy47.

August 15, 2012 at 12:20am

The reason that Randians have gotten as far as they did But have they? Outside of America she is virtually unknown and even in America exactly what has she or her philosophy accomplished in practical terms? Many rich are selfish bastards who would despoil the environment in a heartbeat regardless if Rand had ever lived or not so even claiming a ton of teabagging crap for her doesn't cut it in my book.

- blackton

August 15, 2012 at 1:32am

Strictly anecdotal evidence, but the handful of Randians I've known are just not particularly nice people to be around.

- nunziobal

August 15, 2012 at 4:30pm

Regarding the student on the honor roll, Romney and the "objectivists" might argue that ALL students have the benefit of the school bus and the benefit of teachers. So, though the student's parents shouldn't complain about paying taxes to pay for school buses and teachers, to the extent the honor roll student has surpassed other students witht those same benefits, he/she deserves full credit for that accomplishment. But it is not true that all students have the same familial and cultural support. So, to the extent the honor roll student has surpassed students without the same familial and cultural support, he/she does not deserve full credit. But what is being overlooked here, and what truly invalidates Rand's philospophy, is that intelligence and other talents that allow people to out-perform other humans are ascribed, not achieved, characteristics. As such, they confer no moral desert whatsoever on the persons who possess them. THAT is the normative case for a partial redistribution of wealth. Dhurtado

- NR143296

August 15, 2012 at 11:56pm

This article is perhaps the worst hatchet job I have seen on TNR to date. It contains many misrepresentations on Ayn Rand's views and the tenets of Objectivism. Mr Zuylen-Wood has either made little or no effort to understand Objectivism or is an intellectual fabulist. It is difficult to believe that such tripe could garnish approval from the TNR editorial staff. In this assortment of rubbish, I will address one critique in particular which merits serious discussion - the so called “greed is good” attack. A key aspect that needs to be understood when considering this argument is the definition of “greed” (a term Mr. Zuylen-Wood never bothers to define). If “greed” is defined as “the insatiable desire to acquire value one has not earned through legitimate means”, then Objectivism is clearly against it. Objectivism holds that the legitimate gains of an individual are their private property and it is certainly not greedy to assert right to the fruits of your own labor. Conversely, it is greedy to assert a right to your neighbor’s property which you have not earned. It is in fact Altruism that supports this form of greed. Mr. Zuylen-Wood states that “Objectivism is a self-fulfilling rationale for life’s injustices: Winners deserve to be winners because they are winners.” The very opposite is in fact true. Under Objectivism, an individual can only “win” if they create value. Only Statism, favored by the leftist Mr. Zuylen-Wood, arbitrarily declares winners and losers. Once more, the article turns the truth on its head. Mr. Zuylen-Wood has not produced a single valid logical criticism of Objectivism. A subject he knows little about and understands even less.. or perhaps he is merely feigning idiocy to score ideological points with the TNR home crowd.

- Nicomachus

August 16, 2012 at 1:31am

...But what is being overlooked here, and what truly invalidates Rand's philospophy, is that intelligence and other talents that allow people to out-perform other humans are ascribed, not achieved, characteristics. As such, they confer no moral desert whatsoever on the persons who possess them. THAT is the normative case for a partial redistribution of wealth... This bit is misconceived or poorly stated or both. First, a first normative first principle here is that people in free markets ought to be able to keep some goodly proportion of the fruits of their labour. Without this foundation all normative social reckoning is lost. Second, given this first principle, the distinction between ascription and achievement goes to nothing relevant here since "As such they confer no moral desert" misstates the issue. It's not talent that confers desert, it's achievement having regard to whatever talent, and having regard to whatever else is proximate to achievement, one possesses. Third, the "normative case" for partial redistribution of wealth proceeds from the above stated first principle standing in conjunction with the truth of "you didn't build that." Which is to say, what that "you didn't build" is: is the social facilitation of you's exploitation of his gifts to produce value others willingly pay for. One's being blessed by nature, or by whomever or whatever, has no bearing on that case. If it did, what would we call it: an innate-God-has- been-kind-to-me tax?

- basman

August 16, 2012 at 10:23pm

NR143296, I think I see what you are saying. You mean “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” Aside from being a totally immoral construct that repudiates free will and enslaves the capable to the inept, I believe that approach has already been tried, with disastrous results. This fact alone should disqualify, but it is always good to understand the mechanism of action.

- Nicomachus

August 17, 2012 at 12:56am