I’m not a fan of Ayn Rand. Her rejection of altruism, collectivism, and statism in favour of a kind of virtuous selfishness was bleak, while her justification of colonial genocide by labelling colonised peoples as “savages” was contemptible. But the last month has seen various stories relating to Rand bubble up: Sajid Javid, a card-carrying fanboy, returned to the Tory front bench as the UK’s new Health Secretary and made Rand-flavoured comments about people choosing to “cower” from Covid-19. Plus, a laughable 2017 article entitled “3 Reasons Millennials Should Ditch Karl Marx for Ayn Rand” resurfaced on Twitter a few weeks back.
Given that Rand seems unavoidable at the moment, I figure now is as good a time as any to unpack the state of contemporary Objectivism. It’s easiest to split this into three chunks: a breakdown of Rand’s philosophy, the state of its 21st century following, and an exploration of what the pursuit of Objectivist thought would mean for the future. Rand’s novels are the best place to start since they distill a lot of her thought into easily digestible hero narratives. Her present-day relevance (or lack thereof) is best covered by looking at what her followers are doing to propagate Objectivist thought. When it comes to the future, we’ll look at whether the logic of Objectivism is compatible with the global challenges the world faces and I’ll touch on a few alternatives.
Ayn Rand’s Sexy Producers
I first heard about Ayn Rand through Bioshock. In 2007 Irrational Games took players to Rapture, a 1950s art deco city hidden at the bottom of the Atlantic. From the moment I entered a mysterious lighthouse and was faced by a glaring bronze of the Rapture’s founder, Andrew Ryan, with the words “No Gods or Kings. Only Man.” emblazoned below it I was intrigued. This world, and this character, were based on Rand and her Objectivist philosophy — as you enter Rapture, Ryan asks “is man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?” and his answer is a resounding, selfish yes.
To cut a very long story short, the people of Rapture were the brightest and the best and as such sought a haven from societal restrictions, be they moral, academic, or financial. They found this in Ryan’s Rapture. Things turned sour, there was a civil war, and everyone became mutated lunatics addicted to a substance called ADAM. It makes great fodder for a video game and rightly raises the question of whether a group of entirely self-serving individuals could effectively co-exist and build a better world. In the case of Rapture, and I would suggest the modern world, the answer is no.
In Rand’s two most celebrated works, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, the answer to this same question is yes. The former novel sees a sexy redheaded architectural genius struggle against a flawed society that values homogenising artistic and personal compromise above all else. The latter sees various sexy “producers” who are leaders in their respective industries struggle against *wait for it* a flawed collectivist society married to a worldview based on the idea that incompetence is to be rewarded. The twist in Atlas Shrugged is that all the sexy producers get fed up and swan off to start their own settlement in a valley hidden somewhere in the Rockies. Rather than this sanctuary descending into civil war and rampant drug use, as it does in Bioshock, the characters all fall in love with one another, despite being essentially the same person.
Both books establish stark dichotomies between the attractive, intelligent individuals who live by Rand’s ideals and the indecisive collectivists who inexplicably hate them. It’s unabashed hero worship — a Zack Schneider wet dream — and many people who persevere in reading these novels inevitably find themselves identifying with the sexy producers; the alternative is just too repulsive. The collectivist systems portrayed are sinister coagulations of human behaviour, with “looters” seeking to exploit “prime movers” at every opportunity. Atlas Shrugged’s antagonists especially act as a philosophical straw man, both pitifully useless and inexplicably evil in their intent (I kid you not, they build a death ray for no adequately explained reason). The “good of others” that these villains serve is depicted as an illogical basis for decision making that should never take precedence over your own reason. Here Rand is at her most huge-C Conservative — a country’s economy thrives when the sexy producers can work in their own self-interest without regulatory or democratic restrictions. The suffering of others is not their, or the state’s, concern.
Rand has a transactional view of human existence. For example, you don’t love someone unconditionally, but for their merits and the value that they add to your life. When this comes from a position of artistic empowerment, as it does in The Fountainhead, it might seem palatable. But if you consider how it relates to those who don’t offer you any tangible benefit it quickly turns sour. One of John Galt’s protracted monologues in Atlas Shrugged likens life to pushing a stone up a hill; he argues that if someone is struggling with their stone that’s not your concern and shouldn’t impact the way you conduct your own task. However, not everyone can be a muscle-bound producer capable of sustaining Sisyphean labour; this poses serious moral questions when you consider people who struggle with debilitating health conditions and/or mental illness, or migrants forced to flee their homes due to persecution or ecological catastrophe. Once you drill into Objectivist thought, Andrew Ryan from Bioshock’s “No Gods or Kings. Only Man.” slogan could just as easily have been “Every Man For Himself”.
21st Century Fandom and “Free Objectivist Books”
So what is Objectivism’s relevance today? Many would argue that it simply isn’t relevant (see John Oliver’s “How Is This Still A Thing?” segment on the subject). Others would suggest that it means a great deal: Eva Mendes has publicly said that any potential partner “has to be an Ayn Rand fan”, Angelina Jolie and ex-husband Brad Pitt both describe how The Fountainhead helped them focus on their main goals in life. Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban and Health Secretary Sajid Javid share this obsession with the novel. It’s easy to see why some people, be they actors, entrepreneurs, or politicians, gravitate towards this work — the story of Howard Roark reaching his full potential as an architect is a compelling one if you’re a narcissist, free marketeer, or just value your work above all else.
Beyond celebrity fandom, there is also a hard core of zealous supporters sinking their resources into Objectivist projects and institutions. By Rand’s own doctrine, selfishness is a virtue, so any project undertaken by an Objectivist should in theory have “selfish” motivations. That’s why the website of a nonprofit organisation called Free Objectivist Books is caught my eye. There’s something amusingly contradictory about the idea of Objectivists giving people gifts with no apparent selfish benefit, like someone attending a solipsism conference despite being unwilling to recognise the consciousness of their fellow attendees with any certainty.
If there’s no such thing as a free lunch, there certainly shouldn’t be such a thing as a free Objectivist book, right? Wrong: there is such a thing as a free Objectivist book. You just have to do some mental gymnastics to make sense of it. Although Ayn Rand’s books are offered for free via the site, the relationship between recipient and donor set out by Free Objectivist books is still transactional. People donate one or more books at a cost of around $10 a pop on the basis that recipients pledge to read the book. One of the testimonials on the website sets out how this dynamic intersects with Objectivist thought explicitly:
“I don’t think I can thank you enough in an email but, I believe, you have your selfish benefit from this giveaway, too. So Thank You!”
Free Objectivist Books
In Objectivist terms, you can’t simply give something for the sake of a stranger’s benefit or welfare — that would be altruism, which is *evil*. There’s got to be something in it for the donor, and indeed for the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI), which also provides bulk donations to subsidise donations. Presumably, there’s a perceived benefit in opening a new generation’s eyes to the wonders of Objectivism, maintaining its relevance in the 21st century. It is likely this same goal that motivated someone to write “3 Reasons Millennials Should Ditch Karl Marx for Ayn Rand”, which comes across as a desperate attempt to make Rand hip and cool. It even starts with the words “Dear avocado-toast-eating brethren”.
We can assume that the goal of those donating Rand’s books to strangers and writing underwhelming op eds is to create new followers of Objectivism by appealing to individuals’ reason, creating a selfish world that aligns more closely with their own interests. The interests of ARI donors include boosting support for deregulation and lowering taxes and state aid: notable supporters include oil tycoon Bud Bringham, who also helped fund an atrocious film trilogy based on Atlas Shrugged, and Charles Koch, Chairman and CEO of Koch Industries, which is one of the largest oil and gas contributors to US electoral campaigns since 2006. The ecocidal propensities of these donors raises the question: are the priorities of Objectivists really compatible with the challenges we face today?
A philosophy for destroying earth
Although the ARI insists that Objectivism is a “philosophy for living on earth”, it’s more likely to be a philosophy for destroying it. This is for two reasons:
- The unrestricted pursuit of selfish ends is contributing to climate breakdown
- Objectivism opposes altruism, by which the victims of crises would be supported unconditionally
To consider the outcomes of selfishness — concern about your own interests above everything else — we have to address the elephant in the room. Anthropogenic climate change caused by mass consumption and the burning of fossil fuels has devastating implications for our planet and those that live on it; it’s estimated that global warming will cause one premature death for every 1,000 tonnes of carbon burned. Although many organisations claim to be working to limit the rise in earth’s temperature to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, the truth is that the current trajectory of our hydrocarbon consumption will see our emissions increase, rather than shrink. We’re set to hit that 1.5°C increase by 2034, which makes a 2.5°C temperature rise, or higher, by the end of the century more realistic. With rising temperatures we will see proliferating natural disasters, severe heat events, desertification, and wide range of other negative externalities.
Our current course indicates that individuals pursuing their own interests aren’t going to prevent climate change — quite the opposite in the case of the oil and gas tycoons who fund ARI. A recent McKinsey report suggested that we’ll see just a 10% reduction in liquid fuel demand by 2050, despite that being the year when its use would need to be eradicated to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. One of the reasons cited for this limited reduction is slowing car park growth, alongside the electrification of vehicles; if we’re relying on car park capacity to prevent climate breakdown, there’s something terribly wrong. Unfortunately, human self-interest is not self-regulating since people are expected to continue living high carbon lifestyles for decades to come despite mounting evidence of the damage it will cause.
If wanton extraction and consumption of hydrocarbons are the problem, part of the solution is global cooperation and altruism, however difficult that is in practice. Rand’s suggestion that altruism should never be put above self-interest is incompatible with a climate crisis that sees those living in the most precarious conditions suffer at the hands of corporations that continue to extract fossil fuels, pollute rivers and oceans, and cut down vast swathes of forest to make room for livestock. By 2050, think tank IEP estimates that 1.2 billion people could be displaced by climate-related events — leaving them to fend for themselves could lead to an unprecedented loss of human life.
The spiralling crises of recent years have shown that Objectivist principles simply don’t work in the way that Rand and her followers suggest. It was impossible for the UK’s Conservative government to deny the burning need for workers to receive financial support from the state during the early waves of the Covid-19 pandemic. Over in the US, even Mark Cuban voiced reservations about the extremes of Objectivist dogma because it precludes the basic measures like a federal jobs programme or minimum wage that are required to support Americans in a post-pandemic world. As humanity accelerates towards a future of escalating environmental breakdown and an associated rise in the prevalence of infectious diseases, the idea that people should focus only on their self-interest will be increasingly difficult to justify.
We’re in this together
In Atlas Shrugged, it is revealed that sexy producer John Galt has miraculously invented an engine that’s capable of producing infinite clean energy by drawing static electricity from the atmosphere. If the device were to be shared with the world it would prevent the need for any hydrocarbons to be burned as fuel. This kind of techno-solutionist fix is unlikely to save the planet from climate change, and banking on one would only legitimise inaction.
But if it were to be invented, such a technological innovation is far more likely to be created with the support of state funding, rather than the incredible feat of a single individual operating within a private company. People may dwell on Steve Job’s role as a technological pioneer, but every function of the iPhone, from its touchscreen to GPS and voice recognition, was developed by state-funded research and collaboration. Likewise, companies like Tesla are the beneficiaries of considerable state subsidies — flashy innovation in the private sector is invariably built on public funding and breakthroughs.
It is Rand’s villainous collectivists, not John Galt, who will be the source of solutions because people achieve more when they work together. This demands mass mobilisation to find new ways to pool resources and expertise, support those impacted by climate change, and to regulate and tax polluters. This means letting Rand’s Atlantean philosophy sink below the waves where it belongs. There might be driftwood worth clinging onto — rationality, integrity, and taking pride in your work are all good values to live by — but in the 21st century Objectivism isn’t fit for purpose.
gabriel burrow 