As one who has been historically affiliated with the Right of the political spectrum, it has been difficult for me to watch a chastened Republican intelligentsia take refuge in the Objectivism of Ayn Rand. At first, I thought it was mentioned by chance in the coverage of Jack Kemp’s death (the underprivileged never had a stronger advocate than Kemp, by the way). I then picked it up again in this article in The National Review. It is an article about the CEO of BB&T, a bank out of North Carolina that I actually do business with in my day job. Here is a telling excerpt:
However, simply because Rand doesn’t endorse altruism for altruism’s sake, many people misconstrue her to be amorally selfish. Rand “doesn’t view ethics as self-sacrificial,” Allison says,
“she views ethics as a rational means to success and happiness. If you described her in principle, she would say that you shouldn’t take advantage of other people because that is unethical behavior and self-defeating. But you also shouldn’t self-sacrifice. What you really need to do is run your life in relationship to other people in context to what she calls the trader principle. The trader principle is about what I call creating win-win relationships. We trade value for value and we get better together, and we find these common grounds where we can get better together.”
From my study and interest in the anthropology (doctrine of mankind) of the Reformation, it seems to me that the charge of selfishness is quite common and lacks insight. The wrong critique, in my opinion. The real problem with Rand’s Objectivism is her anthropology. It’s not that people (not just free-market capitalists) are selfish. Everyone knows that and it is a fact that does not change. The problem with Rand is that she believed that people are rationally self-interested. In other words, people have free will and the mind is totally in the driver’s seat with regard to moral disposition.
According to the Reformation (and Reformer Philip Melanchthon, in particular), “The will chooses what the heart desires and the mind justifies it.” In this formula, the mind (along with the will) is enslaved to the heart and is tertiary (at best) in importance. According to Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?” Romans 3 might also give a clue.
The breakdown of Rand’s high anthropology became evident in this present recession that exposed a foundational rot in the reliance on the market to regulate itself. Even Alan Greenspan– a personal disciple of Rand’s- (in a statement of disarming humility) acknowledged this:
“Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief…. The whole intellectual edifice [of risk-management in derivative markets]…collapsed last summer.” Asked whether his ideological bias led him to faulty judgments, he answered: “Yes, I’ve found a flaw. I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I’ve been very distressed by that fact.”
– Alan Greenspan at a congressional hearing in October 2008
So, do we embark on a massive project of hyper-regulation in response? No, I don’t think so. There is also this cosmic power called “the Law”, but that is another post for another time. Let us simply take the anthropology of the Reformation from the conceptual and apply it as if it is actually true. The heart of man is in the driver’s seat and that makes our self-interest wholly irrational.
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9 responses to “I Heart Wall Street”
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Browder, really, thank you for this wonderful and thoughtful post. The Melanchthon quote is just so perfect in light of Rand’s view on ethics.
Really interesting stuff, Browder. It made me think of a Christian book that is currently floating around here in NYC called “The Treasure Principle”. It’s about giving, but the way in which it exhorts the reader to give is through what it calls “enlightened self-interest”, that God wants us to use our so called “enlightened self-interest” to give because we know that our generosity and good works on earth will result in a larger mansion in heaven. Totally “if – then” and tit for tat stuff.
Anyhow, your points about the fallacy of rational self-interest completely applied to “The Treasure Principle” too. It always comes back to that pesky human nature:)
Thanks man.
Hey Browder–Becca Chapman, our pastor’s wife–spoke extensively on Rand during our Lenten series here. One of the main points was that people are self-interested, but in no way rational. I read _The Fountainhead_ in high school and found the protagonist so cold, so removed from real human life, that I found him terrifying, not inspiring. Interestingly, Rand’s family’s life was destroyed by the Bolsheviks. Under the communist rule, her parents were forced out of homes and their businesses were stolen. So was it purely “rational” that she was a devout capitalist.
Another thing… She was an extra in King of Kings. Can you believe it?
The ancient Greeks seem to have made a god-story out of every irrational force that rules the human heart. They were probably a lot closer to the truth than Rand, and certainly a lot more interesting to read for that very reason (no pun intended). …an extra in King of Kings?…God obviously has a keen sense of irony.
Aaron, you are spot on about the “rationality” of Rand. Her family business in Russia was taken over by the Communist government. What an impact that must have been on a young girl.
Michael, I think you’re right. We can learn a lot more about life from Greek mythology.
Seriously, is that book “Wicked at Heart” real???? The cover is amazing. It’s like Wild at Heart but waaaaay cooler.
Totally, Bonnie! I want that book!
I did a Cultural Apologetics paper on Rand in seminary and got to ponder this at length. While I think she falls short, I think her position is quite robust beyond what people would expect. The Greenspan statement does not really count against Rand. He had to repudiate a lot just to take such a statist position as he had. You can’t consider the market as it was laissez-faire. There were all kinds of interventions disqualifying it from that.
My key caution is that we offer this a Two Kingdoms reading. What Rand falls short on the most is the first table of the Law. For the second table, her Anthropology will require some very careful weighing. (As will Melanchthon’s. He gets Justification like nobody else. But when he’s dealing with what he thinks natural law teaches, head for the hills!) And how these things might be read in light of Virtue Ethics might be worth a discussion, too.