Now let me define the difference between economic power and political power: economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value; political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction.

True enough in left-wing market anarchy. It’s not true under capitalism though. An employer may use their ability to offer a reward to dependent employees as a tool of control. A lowered wage may be enacted to punish the dissenting worker. Political power also bolsters capitalists, so a strict separation of them under capitalism isn’t present. Not to mention that employer-employee wage labor often involves government on the side of the employer.

If not forcibly suppressed, there may still be employer-employee wage labor in a free society. The liberating effects of a freed market would render the power dynamics involved much more egalitarian though. This would render the destructive form that can be taken by economic power above relatively null and void. It may not be entirely eliminated, but it would be significantly reduced than under capitalism.

Under left-wing market anarchy, power would also be much more dispersed. The decentralizing effects of market forces would render concentrations of power unstable or unworkable. The ability to inflict damage on others through economic means would be tempered by massive market competition. There would be tons of independent producers and cooperatives of producers to deal with. This would make it easy to avoid a producer who is economically abusive.

Such economic abuse in left-wing market anarchy might take the form of demanding far too much for a product or denying someone access to economic resources for bigoted reasons. Freed markets would be one, but not the only, way of dealing with this scenario. One can also imagine a social boycott or protest as a means of ensuring people aren’t exploited. Oppressive power need not always be fought with coercive means. It depends on the form such power takes. There would be no institutional home of aggression in left-wing market anarchy, but there might be instances of power projection like the above. It’s also true that rogue individuals or collectives might try to initiate force, but the power of a left-libertarian culture would render this less likely.

In working for the realization of left-wing market anarchism, one shouldn’t lose sight of the above. The analysis of power dynamics is crucial for understanding what freedom looks like. All are welcome to add their own analysis of said dynamics in the comments section below.

Al writes:

In economics, both orthodox Communism and Libertarianism are equally wrong, callous, and dangerous examples of ideological blindness, a set of principles taken to an extreme that caused many people to die. Both are more alike than either set of fanatics (as both set of true believers are) would want to admit. Both fall back on the same defense of “there has never been a true or pure form”of their system. Both systems clearly failed. Communism only lasted 70 years in the first nation to have it, and killed tens of millions with purely man made famines and extreme repression. Libertarianism and its influence on US conservatism takes the greatest share of blame for extreme economic inequality, the Great Recession, and most financial elite crime waves of the past 30 years.

As usual with many critics, he fails to take account of different brands of libertarianism. He only refers to a seemingly singular “libertarianism”. This will be written from a left-libertarian market anarchist perspective. The cliched “you claim your system has never existed in pure form” is trotted out. Democracy has probably never existed in pure form either, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t viable. There have been particular libertarian policies implemented with some success such as drug decriminalization. It may be true that the full libertarian package has never existed in systematic form, but this doesn’t mean it can’t exist. Liberal democratic societies never did and now do.

It’s partially unfair to pin economic inequality on libertarians, because they have hardly been in charge. Some libertarians will justify inequality, but there is good reason to think that freed markets would produce less inequality. That will be the subject of a future blog post. As for blaming the Great Recession on libertarianism; it’s once again worth pointing out that libertarians aren’t in charge. A detailed examination of why libertarians aren’t to blame for economic recessions or depressions will have to come later though. Libertarians oppose fraud by financial elites or anyone else, so it’s silly to blame us for the crime wave emanating from said people.

The question then becomes, to what degree should there be a mixed system? The slogans of libertarians and many conservatives that “government is the problem” or “regulation doesn’t work” are easily proven wrong, and fairly foolish falsehoods.

Conservative protestations against government are often hypocritical and insincere. It’s also true that these questions require defining what constitutes a problem and by what standard of value doesn’t regulation work. The New Leftist historian, Gabriel Kolko, documented the purpose regulations served in concentrating economic power and resources:

As Gabriel Kolko demonstrates in his masterly The Triumph of Conservatism and in Railroads and Regulation, the dominant trend in the last three decades of the nineteenth century and the first two of the twentieth was not towards increasing centralization, but rather, despite the growing number of mergers and the growth in the overall size of many corporations,

toward growing competition. Competition was unacceptable to many key business and financial leaders, and the merger movement was to a large extent a reflection of voluntary, unsuccessful business efforts to bring irresistible trends under control. … As new competitors sprang up, and as economic power was diffused throughout an expanding nation, it became apparent to many important businessmen that only the national government could [control and stabilize] the economy. … Ironically, contrary to the consensus of historians, it was not the existence of monopoly which caused the federal government to intervene in the economy, but the lack of it.1

He also writes:

This article argues some basic humanitarian principles should be applied to economics and the human and humane spheres or politics, ones so obvious it seems absurd to have to make them explicit:

1. Helping people obviously helps people more than not helping them.

2. Watching out for and preventing or stopping abuse and harm is obviously better than not watching and not stopping abuse and harm, or even refusing to look and denying harm exists.

3. Generosity and selflessness are obviously better than stinginess and selfishness,

4. Democratic control obviously is better than elite control.

There is nothing in these four points that a libertarian could not embrace. There are ways of helping people that don’t require government or state intervention. These approaches are known as mutual aid societies. The prevention and stopping of abuse is compatible with libertarianism, because we believe said action is a justifiable response to rights violations. Some libertarians are egoists, but this is not the only ethical viewpoints that has been adopted. The rational egoist definition of selfishness as elaborated by Ayn Rand is not what you typically refer to as egoism. It pertains to not sacrificing others to yourself or yourself to others. Libertarians have an admittedly uneasy relationship with democracy, but the left-wing market anarchist position is democratic in the sense that it grants everyone an equal right to control their own lives and make decisions affecting them. That’s all for now. Stay tuned for my next blog post on this article!

She writes:

By 1987, Ayn Rand acolyte Alan Greenspan had taken over as head of the Federal Reserve, and free market fever was unleashed upon America.

Alan Greenspan was indeed one of the original acolytes of Ayn Rand, but he deviated from pure laissez faire by becoming head of the central bank called the Federal Reserve. The notion that a “free market fervor” emanated from a statist institution like the Federal Reserve is absurd. It may have been in the direction of relatively more freed market freedom, but a fervor implies a massive revolutionary shift. Something I highly doubt occurred, but I am open to evidence otherwise.

The next thing worthy of discussion she wrote was:

People in U.S. business schools started reading Ayn Rand’s kooky novels as if they were serious economic treatises and hailing the free market as the only path to progress

Ayn Rand’s novels do touch on economic themes like corporatism and government management or regulation of the economy. It may not be a full blown economic treatise, but it doesn’t deserve to be dismissed. This left-libertarian market anarchist doesn’t believe the free market or freed market is the only path to progress. A healthy dose of civil society is essential to my theory of political economy and positive change.

Since the ‘80s, the top salaries and pay packages awarded to executives of the largest companies and financial firms in the U.S. have reached spectacular heights. This, coupled with low growth and stagnation of wages for the vast majority of workers, has meant growing inequality. As income from labor gets more and more unequal, income from capital starts to play a bigger role. By the time you get to the .01 percent, virtually all your income comes from capital—stuff like dividends and capital gains. That’s when wealth (what you have) starts to matter more than income (what you earn).

Wealth and income are related. You can also be said to earn wealth too. It doesn’t simply refer to what you already have. I agree that more wealth being acquired through capital rather than labor is a problem, but I don’t see government or the state as the solution. Freed markets will ensure that the only way of getting an income or obtaining wealth is through labor. They will also ensure that the wage of labor is its full product.

Another thing she writes is:

Wealth gathering at the top creates all sorts of problems. Some of these elites will hoard their wealth and fail to do anything productive with it. Others channel it into harmful activities like speculation, which can throw the economy out of whack. Some increase their wealth by preying on the less well-off. As inequality grows, regular people lose their purchasing power. They go into debt. The economy gets destabilized. (Piketty, and many other economists, count the increase in inequality as one of the reasons the economy blew up in 2007-’08.

There are ways to address the above problems without using government or state power. In a left-wing market anarchist society, the productive would be able to keep the product of their own labor. The disconnect between labor and results would not exist, so it would be more difficult to make a ton of cash to hoard. One would have to be continually innovate or rely on the cooperation of newly empowered fellow workers to make staggeringly high levels of money to put away. Speculation can also refer to forecasting the future direction of things, but I see the author as talking about speculation in the context of finances.

Which brings us back to Friedman’s view that people naturally get what they deserve, that reward is based on talent. Well, clearly in the case of inherited property, reward is not based on talent, but membership in the Lucky Sperm Club (or marriage into it). That made Uncle Milty a little bit uncomfortable, but he just huffed that life is not fair, and we shouldn’t think it any more unjust that one person is born with mathematical genius as the other is born with a fortune. What’s the difference?

Actually, there is a very big difference. It is the particular rules governing society that determine who amasses a fortune and what part of that fortune is passed on to heirs. The wrong-headed policies promoted by libertarians and their ilk, who hate any form of tax on the rich, such as inheritance taxes, have ensured that big fortunes in America are getting bigger, and they will play a much more prominent role in the direction of our society and economy if we continue on the present path.

She is partially right that inherited property or wealth has nothing to do with talent. I’d only add that it might represent talent in the form of manipulating the person who gives the wealth away. The rules of society do indeed determine who gets a fortune, and those rules deserve to be changed in the direction of left-wing market anarchism.

What we are headed for, after several decades of free market mania, is superinequality, possibly such as the world has never seen. In this world, more and more wealth will be gained off the backs of the 99 percent, and less and less will be earned through hard work.

Which essentially means freedom for the rich, and no one else.

We don’t live in any society with free market mania. I otherwise agree with her assessment. Look to my next blog post for an explanation and justification of the economic perspective underlying this assessment of Lynn Stuart Parramore’s article.

To friends I stated that what was morally required is not what is legally required. This post is an exploration of my evolving thought on this issue. In the process of thinking further about it, I discovered a revised train of thought. As Ayn Rand stated:

“Rights” are a moral concept—the concept that provides a logical transition from the principles guiding an individual’s actions to the principles guiding his relationship with others—the concept that preserves and protects individual morality in a social context—the link between the moral code of a man and the legal code of a society, between ethics and politics. Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.

Let me note that I only partially agree with Ayn Rand’s statement above. Legality can relate to morality, but it doesn’t, of necessity, have to. It’s possible for something to be immoral without being a violation of a libertarian law code. This is due to the fact that the only legal obligations one has are to respect the individual rights of others You may have non-consensual moral obligations that are only legitimately enforceable through non-violent means. This would still be eminently libertarian as long as people were being pressured for rational and individualistic pro-liberty reasons. The obligation to help customers without discriminating on grounds of irrational bigotry comes to mind. No one can be ethically forced to help another through legal force, but a person can be non-violently pressured to do so. Other examples include an obligation to engage in contextually justified mutual aid. You can’t rightfully have the product of your labor seized for this purpose, but you still have a moral obligation to do so.

A libertarian law code completely divorced from morality would be a nihilist one. How can you justify the defensive use of force that would be permitted by such a code without invoking a moral reason? You can’t. It would mean that libertarianism was nothing more than a subjective preference with no moral weight. That is no basis for building a substantive legal system. Libertarianism is a value laden ideology and this is preferably reflected in its laws. In the absence of this, it would simply be authorizing a coercion filled subjective brawl among competing wills. That kind of Hobbesian scenario is not conducive to liberty. It’s compatible with a chaotic tyranny. A world where different warlords or feudal lords compete for power and control over others would be created. Do I contradict myself by claiming that non-moral libertarian law is nihilistic and that morality is not of necessity related to legality? No, because I am not claiming that all of morality needs to be the basis of a legal system. I just argue that some moral rules need to inform the legal foundations of a libertarian society.

The final thing to discuss is when things are both moral and legal. This happily resolves the problem of whether to make something ethical mandated by law. The enshrinement of ethics into law allows one to discharge their moral obligations without fearing punishment. It’s precisely valuable for this reason. One example is murder. It’s both immoral and preferably illegal to commit an act of murder. Another example is rape. It’s once again both immoral and preferably illegal. We could multiply these examples further, but I wish to bring this post to a close. I encourage my readers to leave comments and think critically about what I’ve written. It’s always fun to receive feedback and constructive criticism. I only ask that my readers respectfully reply rather than insult me. I look forward to your responses!

What is the nature of this obligation?

The first thing to notice is that it is unchosen. I never agreed not to aggress against others. Others never agreed not to aggress against me. So if I struck you and you objected, you would not accept as my defense, “I never agreed not to strike you.”

Even an explicit agreement rests on an unchosen obligation. Let’s say you lent me five dollars, I refused to repay the loan, and when you demanded repayment, I said, “Why am I obligated to repay the money?” You would probably reply, “Because you agreed to repay me.” If I replied, “True, but when did I agree to abide by my agreements?,” what would you say? If you said that failure to repay constituted aggression, and I replied that I never agreed not to aggress against you, we’d be back where we started.

Of course this would point the way to absurdity — an infinite regress of agreements to keep my agreements. We would get nowhere. There has to be a starting point.

If I were to ask, “Why do we owe it to others not to aggress against them,” what would you say? I presume some answer rooted in facts would be offered because the alternative would be to say this principle has no basis whatsoever, that it’s just a free-floating principle, like an iceberg. That would amount to saying the principle has no binding force. It’s just a whim, which might not be shared by others. In other words, if a nonlibertarian demands to know why he is bound by the unchosen NAP, libertarians will have answers. Their answers will differ — some will be more robust than others — but they will have answers. At least I hope so.

Now if we have an unchosen obligation not to aggress against others and that obligation is rooted in certain facts, this raises a new question: Might the facts that impose the unchosen obligation not to aggress also impose other obligations? If one unchosen obligation can be shown to exist, why couldn’t the same foundation in which that one is rooted produce others?

To the question “Why do we owe it to others not to aggress against them,” I would respond along these lines: because we individually should treat other persons respectfully, that is, as ends in themselves and not merely as means to our own ends. But some libertarians would reject that as too broad because it seems to obligate us to more than just nonaggression. They might answer the question this way: “Because one may use force against another only in defense or retaliation against someone who initiated the use of force.” But this can’t be sufficient because it amounts to a circular argument: To say that one may use force only in response to aggression is in effect merely to restate the nonaggression principle. One shouldn’t aggress because one shouldn’t aggress. But the NAP can hardly justify itself.

So we need a real justification for the NAP, and the one I’ve offered seems like a good start. The NAP is an implication of the obligation to treat persons respectfully, as ends and not merely as means. Of course this also requires justification. Why should we treat other persons respectfully?

Many libertarians, though certainly not all, approach the question of just conduct — specifically, as it relates to the use of force — from egoistic considerations, such as those provided by Ayn Rand. They say we should never aggress against others because doing so would be contrary to our self-interest: the dishonesty required by a life of injustice would be psychologically damaging, and we’d eventually run out of victims.

Socrates and Plato saw a problem with the first part of this answer. If one could act unjustly toward others while appearing to be just, could unjust conduct serve one’s self-interest? Egoistic libertarians can be asked the same question. What if you could lead an unjust life with a guarantee of the appearance of justice? Must dishonesty be damaging? The same people who would say yes to that question, however, would also say that a person who spins a complicated web of lies to keep the Nazis from learning he is harboring Jews in his attic won’t suffer such damage. If that person can escape harm, why not the unjust liar? Saying that one set of lies is for a good cause doesn’t strike me as an adequate answer. How would a good cause save someone from the harm of “faking reality”?

So it seems that a simple self-interest model doesn’t take us where we want to go: to the unchosen obligation to respect people’s freedom, or more broadly, to treat persons as ends and not merely as means. I would be a little uneasy if a libertarian told me that it is only his self-interest that prevents him from clubbing me on the noggin and making off with my wallet.

And yet, self-interest still might provide an answer. Roderick Long tackles this problem in his extended essay “Reason and Value: Aristotle versus Rand” (PDF). What Long shows, to my satisfaction at least, is that Rand’s notion of self-interest as expressed in her nonfiction essays is too flimsy to support the libertarian prohibition on aggression and the general injunction to treat people respectfully. To be more precise, Long shows that Rand’s explicit writings on ethics are a tangle of at least three different and inconsistent defenses for the nonaggression principle (one of them Kantian — how’s that for irony?).

Before we get to this, however, we must invoke an important distinction that Long emphasizes: instrumental versus constitutive means to an end. An instrumental means is external to the end. A constitutive means is intrinsic to the end; we can’t imagine the end without it. Long uses the example of a man dressing up for evening out (where “dressing up” includes a necktie). Shopping for a tie is an instrumental means. Wearing the tie is a constitutive means — it is part of what we mean by “dressing up.” One can dress up without shopping for a tie, but one cannot dress up without wearing a tie.

We can look at justice, which includes respect for other persons’ rights, in both ways. Does respect for their rights serve our self-interest merely because we would earn good reputations and others will cooperate with us? (This is Thomas Hobbes’s position.) Or is respecting their rights also a constituent of living a good human life? The answer is crucial. In the first case, one’s self-interest could be served by acting unjustly so long as one could appear to be just. In the second case, one could not flourish by acting unjustly even if one could go undetected. As Socrates suggested, it is preferable to live justly with a reputation for injustice than to live unjustly with a reputation for justice.

Long shows that Rand has both instrumental and constitutive elements in her nonfiction writing on ethics; in some places she says a person’s goal should be survival, while in other places she speaks of survival “qua man.” It isn’t entirely clear whether individuals should aim at the longest possible life regardless of the type of life or at a particular type of life regardless of its length. (Her novels appear to take the latter position — suicide is even contemplated by heroic characters.) If it’s the first, then violating someone’s rights might occasionally be to one’s self-interest. Imagine that at 4 a.m. you pass an alley in a deserted part of town where a man is passed out and a hundred-dollar bill is sticking out of his pocket. The chances of getting caught are zero. Do you take the money? If not, why not? An instrumental model of justice should say to take the money. A constitutive model would not.

It might be said that a rational person acts on rational principles even if in particular cases his or her self-interest is not served. But Long points out that such “rule egoism” ends up being no egoism at all, since the rule is followed regardless of its consequences. This approach is deontological, not teleological, as Rand would want it. So the reply is inadequate.

What are the grounds for accepting the constitutive model of virtue, including justice? Turning to Aristotle, Long writes,

For Aristotle, a human being is essentially a logikon animal and a politikon animal.…

To be a rational animal is to be a language-using animal, a conversing animal, a discursive animal. And to live a human life is thus to live a life centered around discourse.

Our nature as logikon is thus closely allied with our nature as politikon. To be apolitikon animal is not simply to be an animal that lives in groups or sets up governments; it is to cooperate with others on the basis of discourse about shared ends.…

Being politikon is for Aristotle an expression of being logikon; just as logikon animals naturally conduct their private affairs through reason rather than through unreflective passion, so they naturally conduct their common affairs through public discourse and rational persuasion, rather than through violence.…

Thus, Long adds, “To violate the rights of others, then, is to lessen one’s humanity.… To trample on the rights of others is never in our self-interest, because well-being cannot [quoting Aristotle] ‘come about for those who rob and use force.’”

One’s goal is to flourish by achieving excellence in those things that make one human — Aristotle says that “the task of man is a certain life, and this an activity and actions of soul with logos.” One cannot flourish if one lives in a nonhuman way. If this sounds like Rand, it’s because her fictional characters understand it, even if her nonfiction essays do not express it unambiguously.

Long concludes,

A truly human life, then, will be a life characterized by reason and intelligent cooperation. (Bees may cooperate after a fashion, but not on the basis of discourse about shared ends.) To a logikon animal, reason has value not only as an instrumental means to other goals but as an intrinsic and constitutive part of a fully human life; and the same holds true for cooperation. The logikon animal, insofar as it genuinely expresses logos, will not deal on cooperative terms with others merely because doing so makes others more likely to contribute instrumentally to the agent’s good; rather, the agent will see a life of cooperation with others as an essential part of his own good.

Aristotle’s book on friendship in the Nicomachean Ethics beautifully elaborates on this point.

If this is right, we owe respect to others’ humanity, via respect for their rights, because the activity manifesting that respect is a constituent of our own flourishing as logikon and politikon animals. We owe it to ourselves to owe it to others. This Aristotelian insight points to an interpersonal moral realm in which the basic interests of others meld in important ways with our own. “To the extent that we are logikon animals,” Long writes, “participation in a human community, together with a shared pursuit of the human good, is a constitutive part of a truly human life.”

But does this show that we owe anything more than nonaggression? It seems so. We abstain from aggressing against others because, as logikon and politikon animals, we flourish by engaging the humanity of other individuals. Clearly, abstaining from aggression is not the only way to engage their humanity, just as aggression is not the only way to deny their humanity. Thus these Aristotelian considerations entail the obligation to treat others respectfully broadly.

One last question remains: Is this obligation broadly to treat other persons as ends and not merely as means a libertarian matter? It is, at least in this way: The obligation broadly to treat other persons as ends and not merely as means is validated by the same set of facts that validate the nonaggression principle. Nonaggression is simply one application of respect. Thus a libertarian society in which people generally thought that nonaggression was all they owed others would be a society that should fear for its future viability qua libertarian society.

Finally, I’m sure libertarians do not have to be reminded that nonaggressive affronts against persons may be responded to only in nonaggressive ways. Neither governmental nor private force may be deployed to counter peaceful offenses. Why not? Because the rule of proportionality dictates that force may be used only to meet force. In other words, some obligations are enforceable and others are not.

(While thinking about this article, I profited mightily by conversations with Gary Chartier.)

Let us turn to dictionary.com for a definition of nihilism:

ni·hil·ism:
1. total rejection of established laws and institutions.
2. anarchy, terrorism, or other revolutionary activity.
3. total and absolute destructiveness, especially toward the world at large and including oneself: the power-mad nihilism that marked Hitler’s last years.
4. Philosophy,
a. an extreme form of skepticism: the denial of all real existence or the possibility of an objective basis for truth.
b. nothingness or nonexistence.
5. (sometimes initial capital letter) the principles of a Russian revolutionary group, active in the latter half of the 19th century, holding that existing social and political institutions must be destroyed in order to clear the way for a new state of society and employing extreme measures, including terrorism and assassination.

The term nihilism will be used to refer to definitions “a” and “b” under philosophy. It will most definitely not be used to describe anarchism or anarchy.

Dictionary.com also provides us with a definition of egoism:

e·go·ism:
1. the habit of valuing everything only in reference to one’s personal interest; selfishness (opposed to altruism ).
2. egotism or conceit.
3. Ethics. the view that morality ultimately rests on self-interest.

Only if having objective values is equated with selflessness does it make sense to see nihilism and egoism as the same thing. An egoist can believe in rationally validated principles or values that are more than just subjective preferences. Self-interest is not equivalent to believing in nothing. Ayn Rand’s brand of egoism included the belief in an objective reality and morality.

I have known several egoists who evidenced no signs of nihilism. They could be as thoughtful and caring as anyone else. The notion that the two are the same thing is not borne out by empirical observation of actual egoists.

What implications does this have for left-libertarian thought? Should we left-libertarians embrace egoism? That isn’t a question I have an answer to. It certainly deserves further reflection and debate. I personally remain undecided on the question. It’s up to others to jumpstart a debate on it.

If the above question is answered in the affirmative; the next one is what brand of egoism to adopt. The egoism of Rand or Stirner? I leave that as an additional question for my readers to ponder.

Let’s examine a case of cruelty first:

“[The Native Americans] didn’t have any rights to the land and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using…. What was it they were fighting for, if they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their “right” to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or maybe a few caves above it. Any white person who brought the element of civilization had the right to take over this continent.” * Source: “Q and A session following her Address To The Graduating Class Of The United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, March 6, 1974″

Ayn Rand endorses the European conquest and genocide of the Native American population here.

A contrasting example is provided by:

At the time, Rand and husband, Frank O’Connor, lived in a rural area north of Los Angeles, now part of Chatsworth. Rand hired Haruno as a cook—even though June says her mother couldn’t cook very well and in spite of Rand already having a cook. Ryoji was also hired to help Frank with the flowers that he grew on the property—even though Mr. Kato had no previous experience gardening. Ten-year-old Ken was a bit young to be hired for anything. As for June, though she had just graduated high school, and had no experience, Rand hired her as well, to come to the house every weekend and do typing. In addition to paying a salary to June, Ryoji and Haruno, Rand also gave the family two rooms in her house so they had a place to live. Damn, apparently she didn’t know that generosity was against her own philosophy. No one told her. But then, she was such a monster, who would dare? In addition to the Kato family another resident in Rand’s home was Maria Strachova, an elderly refugee who had taught English to Rand as a child. Rand took her in for a year.

Ayn Rand performs acts of kindness and geneorosity here.

Which one is the real Rand? Both. She was a complicated human being like the rest of us.

Nacida Alisa Rosenbaum en San Petesburgo, Rusia, el 2 de febrero de 1905, Rand llegaría a ser una de las principales voces del siglo XX a favor de la libertad humana.

Después de vivir la Revolución Rusa y el caos económico y la represión política que trajo (acontecimientos que luego reflejaría en Los que Vivimos) Rand huyó de la Unión Soviética a Estados Unidos en 1926 para empezar su carrera como guionista, dramaturga y novelista. Dividiendo su tiempo entre Hollywood y Nueva York, la fieramente anticomunista Rand empezó a desarrollar una filosofía de un individualismo ético y filosófico y a conocer a líderes de la libertaria “vieja derecha” como John Flynn, Henry Hazlitt, Rose Wilder Lane, H.L. Mencken, Isabel Paterson, Leonard Read y un compañero refugiado del totalitarismo europeo, el economista austríaco Ludwig von Mises.

El éxito popular de Rand vino con El Manantial (1943) y La Rebelión de Atlas (1957), dos novelas filosóficas épicas siguiendo el modelo de Dostoievsky que rápidamente le hicieron uno de los autores más polémicos del siglo. La entusiasta audiencia que trajeron estas obras le permitieron construir un movimiento político-filosófico basado en el sistema de pensamiento que ella llamó “objetivismo”, y la atención de Rand desde entonces se dedicó consecuentemente a la no ficción: dedicaría el resto de su carrera a editar una serie de periódicos objetivistas y a escribir ensayos filosóficos, comentarios políticos y crítica cultural.

Rand siempre resaltó la importancia de poner los argumentos políticos en un contexto filosófico más amplio, insistiendo que ella no era “ante todo una defensora del capitalismo, sino del egoísmo” ni “ante todo una defensora del egoísmo, sino de la razón”.

La influencia de Rand en el movimiento libertario es incalculable: a pesar de su propia frecuente antipatía hacia ese movimiento e incluso hacia la palabra “libertario”, Rand desempeñó un papel esencial en ayudar tanto a crear nuevos defensores del laissez faire como a radicalizar a los existentes. Rand animaba a los libertarios a ver su punto de vista como una alternativa al conservadurismo y no una rama de éste y a basar la defensa de la libertad en un principio moral y no sólo en beneficios económicos pragmáticos. La influencia de Rand en la cultura popular es igualmente enorme: una encuesta de “libros más influyentes” de la Biblioteca del Congreso de Estados Unidos frecuentemente citada, ponía a La rebelión de Atlas en segundo lugar sólo detrás de la Biblia.

Rand debía mucho de su éxito a lo poderoso y directo de su estilo de escritura. Era una maestra en lo que uno de mis colegas llama la reductio ad claritatem, la “reducción a la claridad” (es decir, el método de refutar una postura escribiéndola claramente), como cuando escribe que “si algunos hombres tienen derecho a los productos del trabajo de otros, esto significa que a estos otros se les ha privado de derechos y condenado a un trabajo esclavo”, o cuando resume la opinión de que la percepción humana no es fiable por la naturaleza limitada de nuestros órganos sensoriales como “el hombre es ciego porque tiene ojos, sordo porque tiene oídos”.

Tras la publicación de La rebelión de Atlas, Mises escribió a Rand alabando tanto su “magistral construcción de la trama” como su “convincente análisis de los males que afligen nuestra sociedad”; en otro contexto le llamó “la persona más valiente de América”. Rand a su vez promocionó con entusiasmo las obras de Mises en sus periódicos y declaró que su currículum ideal sería “Aristóteles en filosofía, von Mises en economía, Montessori en educación, Hugo en literatura”. La biógrafa de Rand, Barbara Branden señalaba que

desde finales de los cincuenta y durante más de diez años, Ayn empezó una decidida campaña para que se leyera y apreciara la obra [de Mises]: publicó críticas, le citó en artículos y en discursos públicos [y] le recomendó a admiradores de su filosofía. Algunos economistas han dicho que fue en buena parte gracias a los esfuerzos de Ayn el hecho de que la obra de von Mises empezara a llegar a su audiencia potencial. (The Passion of Ayn Rand, p. 188.).

Una breve relación intelectual con el alumno de Mises Murray Rothbard tuvo menos éxito, empezando con un aprecio mutuo, pero disolviéndose en diferencias ideológicas y personales, aunque Rand y Rothbard compartieran sin embargo el honor de ser expulsados de la derecha “respetable” por un establishment conservador de mentalidad estatista. (El próximo número de primavera de 2005 del Journal of Ayn Rand Studies está dedicado a explorar las conexiones entre Rand y la Escuela Austríaca e incluye contribuciones de una serie de austríacos contemporáneos).

Como Rand calificó a las grandes empresas de “minoría perseguida” y rechazaba el complejo militar-industrial como “un mito o algo peor”, a menudo se la considera como una ingenua apologista de la élite corporativista, pero ella también condenó el “tipo de empresario que busca ventajas especiales mediante la acción del gobierno” como “los verdaderos beneficiados de la guerra de todas las economías mixtas”, y es fácil olvidar que la mayoría de los personajes empresarios en las novelas de Rand eran villanos estatistas.

Como nos recuerda Chris Sciabarra, Rand también entendió la relación simbiótica entre el militarismo en el exterior y las políticas neo-fascistas en el interior: en una era en que muchos de sus seguidores eran entusiastas defensores de la intervención militar estadounidense en el extranjero, merece la pena recordar que la propia Rand se opuso a la intervención de Estados Unidos en la Primera Guerra Mundial, la Segunda Guerra Mundial, Corea y Vietnam.

Tal vez el aspecto más controvertido de la filosofía de Rand (su rechazo del altruismo y su adopción del egoísmo ético) sea también uno de los peor entendidos. A pesar de su a veces equívoca retórica acerca de “la virtud del egoísmo”, su egoísmo no era defender la búsqueda de los propios intereses a costa de otros, sino más bien rechazar todo el modelo conflictivo de intereses de acuerdo con el cual “la felicidad de un hombre requiere el daño de otro”, a favor de una concepción más antigua y aristotélica del interés propio como excelente funcionamiento humano.

Fue a partir de esos fundamentos aristotélicos como rechazó no sólo la subordinación de los intereses propios a los de otros (y es a esto, más que a la mera benevolencia, a lo que calificaba de “altruismo”) sino asimismo la subordinación de los intereses de otros al propio (a lo que calificaba como “egoísmo sin ego”). Para Rand, el reconocimiento aristotélico de los intereses humanos bien entendidos como racionalmente armoniosos, era la base esencial para una sociedad libre.

Las discusiones sobre Ayn rand a partir de su muerte en 1982 se han centrado habitualmente en su tono dogmático y sus excentricidades personales, rasgos a veces imitados por sus seguidores y satirizados convincentemente por Rothbard en su obra en un acto Mozart Was a Red. Pero como argumenta David Kelley en su libro The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand, la contribución intelectual de Ayn Rand, más que ninguna, puede y debe separarse de los caprichos de su personalidad.

En una era en que el libertarismo y el aristotelismo eran suficientemente denigrados como anticuados por separado, Rand tuvo la audacia de defender su fusión sistemática e identificó las raíces del liberalismo ilustrado en la recuperación tomística de Aristóteles en una época en la que esta conexión estaba mucho menos reconocida que hoy en día. (Aunque los seguidores de Rand la han proclamados a veces intempestivamente como la mayor filósofa de todos los tiempos, Rand siempre insistió firmemente en que Aristóteles fue el más grande y Santo Tomás de Aquino el segundo, a pesar de su conocido ateísmo). El que sus versiones concretas del libertarismo y aristotelismo y los términos concretos en que intentó unirlos fueran en definitiva los más defendibles filosóficamente, tal vez sea menos importante que el ejemplo que dio al intentarlo.

En las décadas posteriores a que Rand empezara a construir su sistema filosófico disidente, la ortodoxia filosófica se ha movido en la dirección de Rand. Es mucho más probable hoy que en la década de 1960 que los filósofos profesionales estén de acuerdo con Rand acerca de la franqueza de la precepción sensorial, la relación entre significado y referencia, la incompatibilidad del utilitarismo con los derechos individuales o las perspectivas éticas neo-aristotélicas (o incluso en general una aproximación filosófica neo-aristotélica), y muchas de las dicotomías que ella rechazó (entre empirismo y racionalismo, afirmaciones analíticas y sintéticas, dualismo y materialismo, nominalismo y realismo conceptual, hecho y valor, liberalismo y ética de la virtud) han caído cada vez en un mayor descrédito.

Esta evolución es en buena medida independiente de la propia influencia de Rand (y paradójicamente, deriva en parte del reciente resurgimiento del némesis filosófico de Rand, Immanuel Kant, quien a pesar de las apasionadas denuncias de Rand, es realmente su aliado en la mayor parte de estos temas), pero no del todo, ya que puedo atestiguar, por dos décadas de experiencia en la profesión, que la cantidad de filosóficos académicos que admiten en privado haberse visto influidos decisivamente por Rand es mucho mayor del que pueden encontrarse citándola en sus escritos.

Sin embargo, es un error pensar que la validación del legado de Rand dependa de la aprobación académica. El progreso humano a menudo lo dirige gente fuera o en los márgenes del establishment académico, como por ejemplo los philosophes del siglo XVIII o el renacimiento austríaco del XX. Independientemente de si la academia reconoce o entiende sus logros, la inspiradora visión de la grandeza de la razón y la libertad humanas de Rand ha dejado su huella en el pensamiento moderno.

Aún así, si a alguien le interesa, el reconocimiento investigador de la obra de Rand está actualmente en su momento histórico más alto. Los días en que prácticamente toda discusión sobre Rand era o bien servilmente aduladora o despectivamente de rechazo parecen haber pasado, y el nuevo siglo probablemente asista a una evaluación justa del lugar de Rand en la historia de la filosofía y la causa de la libertad.

Artículo original publicado por Roderick T. Long en el Instituto Ludwig von Mises el 2 de febrero de 2005.

Traducido del inglés por Mariano Bas Uribe, ligeramente editado por Alan Furth.

Recently, I touched base with Gary Chartier (C4SS Advisory Panel member and Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Law and Business Ethics, School of Business, La Sierra University) on how the Introduction to Anarchism class is going, curious about student participation, the text being used and coursework. Since contributors to C4SS help to fund the course of study for which Intro to Anarchism is the budding branch, I wondered also about the significance of the course itself, since nothing of the kind is being offered in the greater academic universe.

Gary Chartier

Admittedly, I’m more ignorant of the text, The Market for Liberty by Morris and Linda Tannehill, than I would prefer, having read only excerpts of it, but had noticed interesting objections arising from its use in the class in various blog and forum comments. What was the bugaboo about the Tannehills’ book?

“The Tannehills were Objectivists. I’m not one, and neither are many of our students, and this means we’ve found a lot to argue with at some points. [The Tannehills] tend to treat ethics as a matter of rational self-interest, and, indeed, to criticize as immoral anyone who isn’t willing to use force to defend herself. Also, the Tannehills tend often to view market society as coextensive with commercial society, whereas I think many of us prefer to think of “the market” as a label for the sphere of peaceful cooperation, voluntary interaction, whether or not related to the cash nexus.”

“My vision of anarchy is a vision of peace, of non-aggression, and I think people can interact peacefully in all sorts of non-commercial ways. For instance, while the Tannehills tend to think of security services as provided by for-profit companies, I like to point out that we’re likely instead, in a stateless society, to see such services as provided by a combination of for-profit companies, not-for-profit companies, cooperatives, volunteers, and self-help.”

“…I think the Tannehills’ vision is unduly limited. The book has some advantages: first, it’s got a long history in the freedom movement; second, it’s pretty accessibly written; third, when we used it, we understood that it was available on-line for free. I’d also point out that the Tannehills can be humane and decent in very welcome ways. They often exude a hippie sensibility that I quite like, and that certainly isn’t Randroid; and their comments on criminal justice are often very good–the explicitly reject retribution as irrational and argue instead for restitution. So I think their work is a mixed bag.”

“We’re still working on what’s next. The certificate, [as currently imagined] is to feature [at least] four classes.”  One possible list, offered by Brad Spangler, is as follows:

ATP 101

ATP 102

ATP 110

ATP 111

Market Anarchist Praxis II  (practicum: a mentored self-planned activist project, “start something”)

ATP 115

Survey of Anarchist Thought (a guided tour of the Anarchist FAQ — because advocates of Market Anarchism ought to be able to intelligently discuss anarchism generally)

[1 elective]

ATP 200

Gary says that he’ll be working on lining up instructors for the other courses. Also, possibly in addition to the course on Agorism, Kevin Carson will likely be teaching something related to the left-libertarian tradition. Lastly, Gary confirmed my suspicion: these offerings are both rare and groundbreaking:

“C4SS’s “Stateless U” project offers an outstanding opportunity for people to complete college level coursework at an extremely affordable price. The Center’s courses in anarchist studies offer opportunities to study anarchist theory and practice unavailable anywhere else.”

As Stateless U evolves, perhaps it will stimulate a more global revival of anarchist study; with the excellence of the personnel involved, one does wonder how other schools, both virtual and “actual” will evolve to compete for the attention of the burgeoning ranks of students pursuing studies in human freedom. It can only be positive.

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