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September 16, 2007
The Legacy of Ayn Rand

In his long-awaited memoir – out tomorrow in the US – Greenspan, 81, who served as chairman of the US Federal Reserve for almost two decades, writes: ‘I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.’
[…]
[A] survey of Iraqis, which was released last week, claims that up to 1.2 million people may have died because of the conflict in Iraq – lending weight to a 2006 survey in the Lancet that reported similarly high levels.
Greenspan admits Iraq was about oil, as deaths put at 1.2m

—

Shortly after “Atlas Shrugged” was published in 1957, Mr. Greenspan wrote a letter to The New York Times to counter a critic’s comment that “the book was written out of hate.” Mr. Greenspan wrote: “ ‘Atlas Shrugged’ is a celebration of life and happiness. Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should.”
Ayn Rand’s Literature of Capitalism

Posted by b on September 16, 2007 at 18:23 UTC | Permalink
Comments

she was a monster. she wrote monstrously. she created monster.
greenspan is one of them

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 16 2007 18:35 utc | 1

I remember when I was in college and this book came around — I couldn’t get through the first chapter of that potboiler.
I would maybe have compared it to Hubbard’s “Battlefield Earth” except that piece of crap hadn’t been written yet.

Posted by: Chuck Cliff | Sep 16 2007 19:00 utc | 2

Ayn Rand is the prophet of those for whom the Free Market is not a mechanism, but an ideology. Back then it was viewed as the counter-ideology to Communism.
I like the market, but I view it only as a mechanism: it can be useful in balancing supply and demand and in directing capital to where it can do the most good. But it is a human construct, not some abstract law of nature as the Randians seem to view it.
And as such, the market is to be kept in check and altered and even restricted when it ceases to be of benefit to the people who use it. Even ol’ Adam Smith, often seen as the father of the free market, reminded us that markets are there to serve the people, not the other way around.
And ol’ uncle Adam was writing to promote a less restricted market vs. state-supported monopolies and cartels, like the corn laws or the British East India Company. Their modern equivalents are the state-parasites like Halliburton, Blackwater or the defense industry.

Posted by: ralphieboy | Sep 16 2007 19:17 utc | 3

ANN’S LEGACY
1998 – Internet’s never going to stop going up! Everyone needs a personal website!
1999 – Your investment is 100% liquid at all times.
2000 – “Irrational Exuberance”
2001 – Dot-Con Bomb! Who Knew (TM)? Only suckers sell on a dip. Hold and go long.
2002 – Timing the bottom is everything!
2003 – Aliens invade Iraq! Forget everything we told you about Internet! (and who told it to you)
2003 – Housing is never going to stop going up! Everyone needs a place to live!
2004 – Your investment is 100% liquid at all times.
2005 – “Irrational Exuberance”
2006 – Credit-Con Bomb! Who Knew (TM)? Only suckers sell on a dip. Hold and go long.
2007 – Timing the bottom is everything!
2008 – Aliens invade Iran! Forget everything we told you about Housing! (and who told it to you)
2008 – ________ is never going to stop going up. Everyone needs a ________!
2009 – Your investment is 100% liquid at all times.
2010 – “Irrational Exuberance”
2011 – ________ Bomb! Who Knew (TM)? Only suckers sell on a dip. Hold and go long.
2012 – Timing the bottom is everything!
2013 – Earth destroyed by Asteroids! Kaput to Endless Cycle of Con Death and Rebirth.

Posted by: Lotka Volterra | Sep 16 2007 19:44 utc | 4

rand was a contemptible cretin who in a hollow world looked like a thinker – & prepared to the toupeed john bolton – perhaps she was
a monkey could have scribbled sentences more thoughtfully than rand with her feet
she based her hollow thought of an even hollower man the fascist architect who loved nazis only a little bit less than he loved himself. his byuildings like his model albert speers thoughtlessly tell the people who is boss.
these small time senators of sense imagine the people do not possess an imagination – on the contrary they are just units of leshe to be exploited or pissed on as has been the habit of elites since the middle ages
while thinking themselves as ô so refined – their vulgarity outlives them
however there is a book by james agee & walker evans thats speaks of the rich life of the people – its comprehension is concise & its elaboration is magnificent – it is called – ‘let us now praise famous men’

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 16 2007 19:49 utc | 5

O Ayn! Come cackling to me, extinguish your cigarette on my arm, and I will tell you how much I have had to suffer to understand your bitterness. I haven’t trusted Ayn since she detached her head from her body. How can anyone trust someone like that?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 16 2007 20:37 utc | 6

Greenspan was thirty, or thirty-one years old when he wrote down his thoughts that human “parasites” should die. What Charles Dickens could have made of Scrooge Greenspan.

Posted by: Anonymous | Sep 16 2007 20:56 utc | 7

I read Atlas Shrugged when it first came out and was fascinated by it. I was 14 at the time and I’m sure that the book still has great appeal to 14 year olds of any age.
I tried to read it again in my thirties and found the prose so execrable that I was unable to read more than a few pages. Her books are nothing but a Left Behind series for capitalists–pure drivel.

Posted by: rumspringa | Sep 16 2007 22:07 utc | 8

the right has never had the songs or the music
writers, on the other hand – have often veered to the right because for the most part they want to protect privilege. there have been those in europe – very often dandies whose inner life was so impoverished, their public politcal postures were extremist
in the thirties in france – the whole ‘literary’ clan was infested with forms of fascism & anti-semitism whether it was gide, celine, brassilach, drieu la rochelle, paul morand or rebatet. their putrid prose has its defenders, of course but they are with the exception of celine, completely talentless & celine while possessing great invention possessed almost no imagination & absolutely no humanity
today they have their inheritors whether it is houellebeq or dantec. they too possess little talent & have used whatever rhetorical abilities into convenient but manic tracts. history will ignore them – they are in the end, without consequence
the english language has fostered in the 20th century whole reams of paper that have been devoted to this or that object of hatred. notably they always choose easy targets & are often hand in glove with the major medias. even worse their is a literature that ignores what is happening in the world && imagines the endless circles of self as more interesting than the struglles & destines of the people in the world they ‘live’ in
german, italian & spanish culture has been much more hotly contested space between those who would defend the ‘interests’ of the people & those who attack them
what the literature of the right has in common – whether it is borges or it is amis – is that it possessses no music at all. they are words on a page. of endless pages. that we will soon cram into the holes in the wall of our world
rand is a subspecies of this kind of ‘literature’ & ron hubbard is not such a bad comparison – it is after all prose so horrible – it is a form of punishment to read it & you need to be hosed down after reading it
in our time this subspecies finds its space in the media as commentators of this & that – of which they usually know nothing at all & they spread their spleen with the complicity of ‘journalists’ who use them for cover – meanwhile hiding their own lack of either purpose or talent

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 16 2007 23:22 utc | 9

Ayn Rand’s books and philosophy spawned six decades of business books that variously exhort their readers to build and perform and become and excel and fulfill and march to a different drummer and become roaring, unrestrained Titans striding through the free marketplace listening only to the sound of one Invisible Hand clapping, and clapping for them alone.
Her fatally flawed philosophy, Objectivism, has the human creature look out through their eyeballs upon this ‘bricks n’ mortar world and believe then and there that, “What I do out here is who I am!”
Talk about disassociation! What a wheel of misfortune for hollow people in an industrialized society to grind their immortal souls upon.
No place there for Right Livelihood, ethics beyond the self and surroundings, no place there for ecology or planet-wide understanding of consequences. If a butterfly flaps its wings in Mexico, and causes a typhoon in Taiwan, only the act of flapping its wings has any meaning, and only to the butterfly, and that’s all that matters.
Pure existential rot. Narcissism, and the acting out of frustrated infantile power fantasies.
This is where the six martini lunch came from. How else can you live in a world where all you are is the sum of your money?
Any human being who has reached advanced old age, and rests in the shade of a long life, will tell you — all that remains is who you are, then and there in the shade. Not what you did, not how much you did, not who you knew, not how much you have, and not where you were. Just who you are.
That’s all you have, that’s all you get to take along into the next world, and that’s all that happened while you were in this one. You became who you are as you step into eternity.
She was a product of her times, a product of dysfunctional human relationships, a product of existentialism, an ideologue enslaved by her own logic as much as her many disciples are.
What she did was imagine an ideal world, and then she destroyed real lives trying to fit them into it. It was never her fault that they failed to fit; it can never be her world that is at fault. It is their weakness and inability to fit in that is at fault. They deserve whatever happens to them.
On her last living day, she knew no more of herself than what she ardently wished she could create, and that is not very much for any human being to know.

Posted by: Antifa | Sep 16 2007 23:47 utc | 10

Ayn Rand quote:
“But, in fact, a man’s sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself.”
makes me wonder what she would think of men who like ladies with big butts.
or maybe this particular quote only applies to objectivists
or maybe theres an objectivist within every soul, silently yearning to be freed — possibly from big butts

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Sep 17 2007 2:39 utc | 11

Waaaal, as the house O’ist I guess I should say something.
People read Rand at all ages, young, middle aged, old. I’ve conversed with 100 or so of these folks, I mean the ones for whom Objectivism makes a lot of sense. They come from all walks of life, mostly middle class, not rich, not poor. Airline pilots, engineers, hairstlyists, salespeople, software nerds, scientists, students. No one remains unmoved, that is: their lives are changed by Rand, if they accept her Aristotelean foundation and the notion that each of us has a natural right to life and liberty. I doubt that anyone on MOA would argue against either principle — that reality is real, and that each man, woman, and child deserves to prosper.
I’m comfortable at MOA because Objectivism, at bottom, enjoins one to think think think. Not very controversial or cruel to use your noodle.
About the literature, each to his/her own taste and tune. I find it hard to read “We The Living” because it’s intensely sad. “Atlas” is an old friend, but overwrought and polemical. Her real achievement was “The Fountainhead.”
See An Eggshell Armed With Sledgehammers”
Wolf DeVoon

Posted by: Wolf DeVoon | Sep 17 2007 5:01 utc | 12

Never had much to say about Ayn Rand, guess her contribution was she legimated american individualism (&exceptionalism) by cult-ifying it. And like advocates of libertarianism or minarchism, often reveal their true colors through a big appetite for hero worship and unwitting authoritarianism – or cultism. Anarchism, on the other hand, with its penchant for individualism is grounded, tempered, and informed (like communism) by aboriginal human legacy.
I don’t recall any human history of free roaming individuals, devoid of social obligation.

Posted by: anna missed | Sep 17 2007 7:20 utc | 13

More Greenspan, backpaddling and showing his true face. Not the careful WaPo headline wording: Greenspan: Ouster Of Hussein Crucial For Oil Security

Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said in an interview that the removal of Saddam Hussein had been “essential” to secure world oil supplies, a point he emphasized to the White House in private conversations before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Greenspan, who was the country’s top voice on monetary policy at the time Bush decided to go to war in Iraq, has refrained from extensive public comment on it until now, but he made the striking comment in a new memoir out today that “the Iraq War is largely about oil.” In the interview, he clarified that sentence in his 531-page book, saying that while securing global oil supplies was “not the administration’s motive,” he had presented the White House with the case for why removing Hussein was important for the global economy.
…

Posted by: b | Sep 17 2007 7:26 utc | 14

Greenspan was on 60minuites tonight and low and behold no mention of Iraqi oil at all. Almost nothing on bush as well. Interesting that the little randian would want anything at all to do with foreign intervention (not that this was his first), unless of course in his view hero (authoritarian) worship is so contrived that the worlds most imperial statist state is so personified as the great harbinger of individualism, in a sort of benito mussolini sort of way. Who was in love with statism.
And also, he pretty much admitted that all his syntactical verbosity was nothing more than a ploy to evade and confound his critics.
What a guy.

Posted by: anna missed | Sep 17 2007 8:09 utc | 15

anna missed, you’re overlooking the fact that 60 Minutes does NOT do live interviews. Given Dan Rather’s run-ins w/Bu$hCo, you may have been witnessing the effects of the editor; or perhaps CBS simply refused to ask him in the first place. His memoir should be titled “Profiles in Cowardice”. If he strenuously objected to Bu$Co’s policies he damn well should have spoken out when it might have mattered; or at least he could have gone down fighting for vaguely sane ec. policies.

Posted by: jj | Sep 17 2007 9:30 utc | 16

Human greed and self-interest is a force of nature, one that can be harnessed to turn the engines of commerce. But so is flowing water: it can be useful when turning a turbine or irrigating a field, but a different matter when it bursts the levees and floods the 9th Ward…
That is the role of the government: to act as the levees that keep human greed channeled. When government grows weak and is undermined, then we see exactly what happens.

Posted by: ralphieboy | Sep 17 2007 11:07 utc | 17

Alan Greenspan slapped…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 17 2007 12:23 utc | 18

WolfDeVoon,
I have known people whom such as you mention, whose experience with Objectivism had a positive influence on their lives as it had on mine. Usually, they were people who had ambivalence about selfcare, everyone else was more important. I was so consumed with ‘social obligation’ as to be oppressed by it. There was nothing else but what others wanted and how I could please them or serve them. But, like myself, those who at first found inspiration in Rand latter found her limitations and her spite. Sometimes, when caught in one extreme, one has to go to it’s antithesis to be freed from both. All in all I have to say that Objectivism is childish pseudo science and it’s influence on society has been negative in total.

Posted by: Iron Butterfly | Sep 17 2007 12:29 utc | 19

I housed with a nest of Objectivists in Bloomington, Indiana in the late 70’s and spent a lot of time arguing over Ayn Rand and economics with them.
Objectivism and unfettered free-market capitalism would be the ideal solution if we human beings were simply hatched out as fully-formed adults, fitted with a basic education chip and then sent forth to fulfill our destinies as we saw fit.
But homo sapiens are born helpless, many of us require help all our lives – at least to some extent – and even more of us die in a helpless state. That does cause us to put a lid on individualism and think socially. And I still think that the ultimate criterion for judging a society’s success is how it treats its weakest members.

Posted by: ralphieboy | Sep 17 2007 12:56 utc | 20

See today’s Democracy Now: Kline ties it all together in discussing her Shock doctrine. the rise of disaster capitalism.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 17 2007 13:25 utc | 21

Looks like another blow to Free Enterprise:
Blackwater loses license to kill
Time to gnash your teeth, Randists and admit that some things just cannot be entrusted to the “free market”….

Posted by: ralphieboy | Sep 17 2007 14:22 utc | 22

Krugman
A Surge, and Then a Stab

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 17 2007 14:37 utc | 23

ralphieboy
wonder how long that interdiction last or how blackwater disguises itself to stay in place because they aare as entangled in this mess as thier masters in washington

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 17 2007 15:23 utc | 24

rg,
I’m sure they can just re-incorporate under a new name: Whackblotter, Eau de Noir or Schwarzwasser…I’m sure they are not going to let anything as ineffective as the Iraqi government get in the way of turning a profit.

Posted by: ralphieboy | Sep 17 2007 16:13 utc | 25

I still think this event will have bigger repercussions than you think. After all, the war — that is to say, its coverage — is really theatre for the US sheep, and this is clearly bad theatre.

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 17 2007 16:52 utc | 26

Whackblotter, Eau de Noir or Schwarzwasser
LOL

Posted by: Bea | Sep 17 2007 17:03 utc | 27

the us needs the extra feet on the ground that these killers provide – so whatever happens is going to be interesting

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 17 2007 17:10 utc | 28

Ayn Rand
represents a brand
designed to wrest the rights from Man.
Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead:
Who cares for parasites left for dead?
it’s our celebration of life and happiness instead.
In pursuit of laissez-faire
Corporate, government, and all things militaire
convinced themselves that law was air.
Thatcher, Reagan, Pinochet,
on Shock Therapy they placed their bet,
as their Liberty on people’s backs was set.
Greenspan: a little man complicit
in all manner of exuberance illicit,
darkened the earth with his life’s visit
But when Man did resist
with organizing, march, and fist
there was little left to call “Objectivist!”
Mankind insisted upon its rights
The military shamed, lowered their sights
And Earth awoke from long, dark nights.
Ayn Rand
represents a brand,
rejected by “No Logo” Man!

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 17 2007 17:27 utc | 29

Funny how today’s news about Blackwater migrated over onto this thread about the legacy of Ayn Rand… very apropos, really, since it is the ultimate manifestation of the philosophy of “I can do as I please, and the rest of the world be damned.” Without Blackwater, the US ability to operate in Iraq will be seriously compromised, I would think. I only hope that whomever in the Iraqi government issued that ruling sticks to it and ensures that it is, in fact, carried out. It would be a very important precedent for other countries to follow.

Posted by: Bea | Sep 17 2007 17:29 utc | 30

Malooga – awesome poem!!!
Thanks.

Posted by: Bea | Sep 17 2007 17:30 utc | 31

Jeg er Dansk Mand,
Jeg drikker sort vand!
Shu Bi Dua (and Blackwater)

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 17 2007 17:34 utc | 32

@Malooga
May I reasonably infer that you are feeling better than you have been the past few days? If so, then I am glad to hear it. I was worried about you.
🙂

Posted by: Bea | Sep 17 2007 17:38 utc | 33

No, I’m avoiding reality today.

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 17 2007 17:40 utc | 34

Privatize, privatize, privatize,
‘Til you must rent your lies,
in this dystopic Lord of Fies!

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 17 2007 17:47 utc | 35

Krugman#23,
He’s got it distilled down to a fine moonshine.
Malooga#29#34,
Looks like your works is already done today, and you do that avoiding reality? Can I join you?

Posted by: anna missed | Sep 17 2007 18:01 utc | 36

With the think tanks at their service
The leaders thought themselves impervious
as they catapulted their propaganda at us.
But we ducked and dodged their feces,
in a brave attempt to save our species,
and all the other little creachies.
For in their fearsome Market
all are slaves before the docket
and saving slaves is never worth it.

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 17 2007 18:13 utc | 37

Bea,
this was the open thread when I ran across the Blackwater news, but it did seem to fit. Under a true Free Market, even the military would be privatized and set to defend the interests of those who fund it.
I live in the Middle Rhine valley, we can see four castles from the bluff below our village – they were built in the days when that very mentality prevailed.
The medieval “robber barons” started out protecting travellers from bandits, after the bandits were wiped out, they continued to charge protection money – for protection from themselves.
Objectivism: dark-age mentality with modern science & technology to implement it. The very thing that Churchill was warning us about in his “finest moment” speech.

Posted by: ralphieboy | Sep 17 2007 18:17 utc | 38

Corporate News Network otherwise know as CNN

An estimated 25,000-plus employees of private security firms are working in Iraq, guarding diplomats, reconstruction workers and government officials. As many as 200 are believed to have been killed on the job, according to U.S. congressional reports.

haha… that ‘fuzzy math’, you know…
I suspect we force the Iraqi government to reissue the license rather quickly after some superficial censure of Blackwater transport planes full of cash are distributed through the proper channels.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 17 2007 18:31 utc | 39

the author of ‘license to kill’ sd on al jazeera that there exist no such licence – & that there exists no laws either in iraq or in the us to control them

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 17 2007 18:44 utc | 40

A.S. Neil’s “Freedom Without License” meets Brave New World.

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 17 2007 18:48 utc | 41

@Malooga, you Must learn to ration yourself. If you keep your nose in an outhouse, you’ll lose yr. ability to smell, but won’t affect the social structure that keeps people w/out plumbing. Read some Alice Waters, etc. on how they balance things. Or Force ¥ourself to do things everyday that replenish you. Think of the people you admire & ask yourself how they keep themselves functioning? You’re no good to anyone if you let yourself burn out, so please either learn to take care of yourself, or ask yourself why you’re incapable of doing so & focus on that. Remember we’re only on the lip of the cliff now…things are about to explode in America…they’re just hoping to delay them til Jan. ’09…

Posted by: jj | Sep 17 2007 19:37 utc | 42

This thread is one hell of a read.. Thanks!
On Blackwater: Does anyone really think they’ll pay any attention to the Iraqi Govt? Hugh story, but I think it will get little play.

Posted by: ben | Sep 17 2007 20:39 utc | 43

Funny,,, always thought of Ayn Rand as an observer and a prophet not an advocate.
And I thought the mysterious ‘John Galt’ was a metaphor for ‘Human nature’, the greedy spectre that would eventually put the stamp of the dollar sign on the whole United States.
What a dummie I was. But I was young when I read “Atlas Shrugged”.

Posted by: pb | Sep 18 2007 2:19 utc | 44

To even concieve that Maliki could kick Blackwater out of Iraq means beleiving he is Commander In Chief of US forces in Iraq, besides the US is in hiring mode right now:
A week ago today, Gen. David H. Petraeus started his rounds on Capitol Hill, reporting that security in Iraq was improving to the point that a small number of troops could begin coming home by year’s end.
But 10 days ago, his commanders in Baghdad began advertising for private contractors to work in combat-supply warehouses on U.S. bases throughout Iraq because half the soldiers who had been working in the warehouses were needed for patrols, combat and protection of U.S. forces.
“With the increased insurgent activity, unit supply personnel must continue to pull force protection along with convoy escort and patrol duties,” according to a statement of work that accompanied the Sept. 7 request for bidders from Multi-National Force-Iraq.
Walter Pincus teases out this little gem

Posted by: Sam | Sep 18 2007 3:22 utc | 45

Ayn Rand, the ideological bodice-ripper.
rgiap reminded me of how dreadful her prose was. To see it again, I went to her website:
Howard Roark on p. 2 of the Foutainhead:

He stood naked at the edge of a cliff. The lake lay far below him. A frozen explosion of granite burst in flight to the sky over motionless water. The water seemed immovable, the stone flowing. The stone had the stillness of one brief moment in battle when thrust meets thrust and the currents are held in a pause more dynamic than motion. The stone glowed, wet with sunrays.
The lake below was only a thin steel ring that cut the rocks in half. The rocks went on into the depth, unchanged. They began and ended in the sky. So that the world seemed suspended in space, an island floating on nothing, anchored to the feet of the man on the cliff.
His body leaned back against the sky. It was a body of long straight lines and angles, each curve broken into planes. He stood, rigid, his hands hanging at his sides, palms out. He felt his shoulder blades drawn tight together, the curve of his neck, and the weight of the blood in his hands.


etc. Argh. Sorry. For da quote. It seems to speak to ppl though (beyond story lines, ideology, philosophy.) Very odd. The thrill of self-hood, in adolescent wordy prose… I guess that is it.
I noted that on her site that what you can access is practically only ‘audio’ versions – does that mean that they think fans no longer read? Good news if so.
Antifa made some great points.

Posted by: Tangerine | Sep 18 2007 14:25 utc | 46

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