I’ve been hearing about Ayn Rand and Objectivism lately, especially as it relates to capitalism. Since I knew
very little about the philosophy, I decided to look into it. I watched several video interviews of Ms.
Rand that I found on YouTube, as well as read about the principals of her
philosophy. Here is a breakdown of those
principals, as I understand them.
- Man should rely only on his rational mind to decide how to behave; not faith or emotion.
- Man should do what is in his own best interest, and not be ashamed of that. In fact, it is man’s primary moral obligation is to achieve his own well-being, i.e. pursue his own happiness.
- Other ethical principals in which man should base his behavior are: rationality, honesty, justice, independence, integrity, productiveness, and pride.
- The government has no right to collect taxes from citizens. Any money that the government has should be given to it by its citizens on a voluntary basis. It is wrong for a government to force people to pay taxes.
- The government should do nothing at all to interfere with capitalism. Capitalism and the government should be totally separate, and not have anything to do with each other. Therefore the government should make no regulation restricting what corporations can do.
I could talk about all of these points as they relate to
mankind and societies in general, but I’m going to limit this blog to talking about how they
relate to capitalism.
Like so many philosophies, this may sound good in theory,
but simply wouldn’t work in reality. I
say this because in order for this philosophy to work, everyone would first have
to use logic and reason when making decisions. We know that all human beings do not do this,
and will not do this. So already to me,
this philosophy is unrealistic.
It also assumes that everyone must behave by following the
moral & ethical principles that the philosophy lays down. However, we know that it is not realistic to
think that all men will do this. Not
everyone is going to be honest and behave with integrity, and it is completely naive
to believe they will. Some men will do
what is in their own best interest, even if that means being dishonest and behaving
with no integrity.
The same is true for corporations, since we know that the
only reason for a corporation to exist is to make a profit. Every decision a corporation makes is based
on making a profit. It cannot take
honesty or integrity into account. It
has no morality. This is simply the way
a corporation is, based on its very design.
Therefore, a corporation cannot be expected to behave in any other way
other than to do whatever will result in it making a profit (and as much of a
profit as possible).
If we cannot expect corporations to behave with honesty and
integrity (a.k.a. “do the right thing”) then we as people must be able to
create rules that will force them to.
No government interference inherently means that followers of this philosophy believe that corporations will be able to police themselves. This is idea is just as foolish as
thinking individual men would be able to police themselves.
Let’s take a sports analogy.
Imagine a football game where there were no referees. Let’s say the players have all agreed that
they can police themselves, and therefore referees are not necessary. All players agree that they won’t break the
rules, and therefore there is no need for anyone to be there to enforce the
rules. Even if rules are broken, the players promise to admit
when they violate the rules, and thus there is no need for referees to be
there. Can you imagine what chaos there
would be at the game? Do you believe
that a player would admit it every time they committed a penalty? In a close call, would a player admit it if
they didn’t really catch the ball before it hit the ground? Of course not. They don’t do these things now, even with referees there. Every time there was a close call, a player would
say what was in the best interest of his team.
So, when a questionable situation arose, how would the game proceed? It wouldn’t.
It would be chaos in a matter of moments, and come to a halt. The idea that the game could be played with
any sense of normalcy is completely
unrealistic.
Now let’s go back to corporations. To think that corporations would police
themselves and always do the right thing is also completely unrealistic. Corporations do things that are against the
best interest of people all the time, and to combat this, people need to make
rules saying that corporations cannot do this.
Imagine a world where there were no corporate regulations; where they
could do anything they wanted. Do you
really think corporations would always do the right thing, if it didn’t coincide
with them making as much profit as possible?
Of course they wouldn’t, and it is extremely naive to think they would.
I find it ironic that the main tenant of Objectivism is that
man should use his rational mind to make decisions, when it is completely
irrational to believe that corporations will behave with honor and integrity if
men do not force them to.
For these reasons, I reject Objectivism’s view on capitalism. When I use my rational mind to examine it, I
see it is not realistic at all.
Agree? Disagree? I welcome your comments. As always, please be respectful.
