An article in The New York Times recently cited the late Ayn Rand as an icon of some our ultra-rich. Perhaps reading of some of her works would be of some benefit in understanding her. Watching a certain movie (that she loathed) is not enough.
Rand’s contempt for religion (she used the term ‘mystic’ in a broad, negative sense) appeared to have alienated many conservatives who were persons of faith. Her disdain for victim disarmament (in the guise of ‘gun control’ would please many contemporary conservatives but her admiration for the gold standard would please only economic survivalists. Fully-convertible currency is no longer a possibility but gold does remain as a de facto standard of value. When she wrote her two major works, it was a serious crime for U. S. citizens to own gold bullion or coins that were not part of a collection. This New Deal offense against economic liberty has been remedied.
She was not that great a writer in terms of development of complex characters except for those in the middle of her scale of social morality. The heroes (Howard Roark and John Galt) are pure and perfect and the villains (such as Ellsworth Toohey) are examples of collectivist evil. Those in the middle of the scale ended to be weak and often corruptible. Yet while she may be faulted on character development, her zeal for defeating collectivism makes her a hero in the cause of liberty. Her books are important works that are worth reading and have changed quite a few minds for the better.
In The Fountainhead, there are two powerful figures who raised themselves from poverty. One had the more difficult time because of his dedication to principle; he would not compromise. The wealthy publisher and entrepreneur knew how to play the game and compromised to hasten his financial rise. He had title to the property but had lost control to a pipsqueak dedicated to collectivism and suppression of individual freedom.
Atlas Shrugged is a hymn to free enterprise but how many of our captains of industry and commerce are closer to the villains than the heroes? Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie were imperfect, as are all humans with one exception (if we are to believe Dostoyevsky) but did create industrial empires that created product. They truly earned their wealth. How many of our contemporary CEOs follow in this path?
There are ‘entrepreneurs’ with neither the love nor the feel for the product. Henry Ford was a car guy and so was Walter Chrysler. David Buick invented the overhead valve engine but was soon pushed out of the corporate nest and could not afford to buy a car with his name on it late in his life. General Motors became more interested in the bottom line than the product. Men such as Zora Duntov and John deLorean did their best to restore some excitement but bean counters had the final say.
The same was true of the aviation industry. Glenn L. Martin was a pioneer but his company was taken over by money-men who installed George M. Bunker to run the place. Martin was a quirky skinflint but he loved airplanes. Now his once sprawling plant near Baltimore is a shrunken remnant of its former self. The same can be said of the Grumman facility on Long Island.
We have money changers on Wall Street who have become wealthy moving paper around. They differ morally from bookies only in their collection techniques. The third generation of CEOs of many large companies would not be admired by Ayn Rand. They care only about the bottom line and tend to be devoid of either a love of product or respect for free-market principles. They really seem to love Big Brother and cater to the bullying of bureaucrats who impose new rules and quotas on them that further certain trendy agendas. They contribute to candidates who are anti-freedom but who can be rented long enough to provide them some pork. Their short-term self-interest trumps any principle. These neo-entrepreneurs can play games with stock options and demand huge salaries. It the company does poorly under their mismanagement, money saved by dumping workers will more than cover the cost of their comfortable platinum parachutes.
Ayn Rand would neither be pleased nor amused by these latter day ‘capitalists’ who would validate Lenin’s belief that they would bit for the contract to supply the rope for their own hanging. Today, they would probably attempt to outsource rather than produce domestically.
