Great review! As a quasi-objectivist for many years I’m reading The Fountainhead for the first time and I love it.

I think the difficulty many people have with Rand’s philosophy is that, while fundamentally true, so much of it is largely impractical; and the all or nothing approach is simply unfeasible.

The idea of rational self-interest (as opposed to rank selfishness, which much of Rand’s critics lambaste her for an improperly label) often is misunderstood and poorly maligned. We are all, each and every one of us, self-interested people. It is OUR impulses that drive us, and the basis of each of our impulses is SOME benefit to us; either explicit or implicit, conscious or unconscious–most of the time either avoiding discomfort or seeking pleasure. Base selfishness is, fundamentally, IRRATIONAL self-interest, which Rand would agree is just as damaging as the mythological idea of pure selflessness. What Rand was against was the idea of sacrificing one’s ideals and values and efforts, and how damaging to society and mankind the ideal of sacrificing (of course, the idea of sacrifice itself present a logical moebius loop that folds back in on itself, which objectivism strives to dismiss) something higher in value for the sake of something lower in value really is. It IS in a man’s rational self-interest to work with others; to spend time with others; to help them.

As an example: when someone claims they care about someone else’s feelings, it is, technically–at it’s most spartan description–a logical malapropism. Because, on a certain, primal level, you don’t really care about that person’s feelings, you care about how YOU feel ABOUT that person’s feelings. But, we are raised to have an emotional response about people’s feelings, which we mischaracterize as caring about THEIR feelings.

And therein lay the problem with Randian Objectivism, there’s no room for pragmatism or practicality. The above argument, while true, is difficult for most people to accept, will largely be rejected out of hand, and, at the end of the day, really doesn’t frickin’ matter much.

-c

You should read up on what happened in Jamestown when the colony was first founded. Initially it was setup as a commune. Everyone selflessly shared everything. What ended up happening is that nobody had the incentive to be productive and for years the majority of these people died (of 9,000 only 1,000 survived). When “selfishness” was introduced to the colony, it immediately started to thrive and we know the rest of the story from that point. It’s not that Ayn Rand is onto something new. These philosophies have been around for thousands of years and are proven to work as advertised.

Yes, you might have someone abuse their property rights and harm others, but in a truly free market, there are private contracts to protect those who are harmed, not unlike the contract I have with my homeowners association that states I must pay a hefty fee if I remove a tree from my property without their vote; yes it is my tree, but the removal of that tree harms their property value, so I am under contract to consider their interests. The same contract prevents me from painting my house bright pink, etc.

You are absolutely right when you say that we live together in a society, and there are limits to extreme individualism – we have to live together in harmony. But this is exactly the point of Rand’s work – she doesnt imagine a world where every man is an island. Her utopia is one where the forces that monitor our ‘extreme’ individualism are free market forces, profit-seeking actions and private contracts. What we live in today is quite the opposite – the market is instead monitored by government regulaton, common good property nonsense, and taxation.

Perhaps a better example would be a stream that several farmers use for fish and clean water on their farmland. If there is no public property (all farmers own sections of the stream individually), there is still the problem of the commons. Farmers earlier up the stream could overfish or pollute the stream with fertilizers to the detriment of other farmers that own different sections of the stream.

The simple fact is that we have to live together in a society, and although you can support a laissez-faire economy with justifications, there is a limit to extreme individualism.

-Scott

Excellent take on AS. I do need to point out one glaring mistake you make in your ‘tragedy of the commons’ example re: the sheep. In a true selfish society, there ARE no ‘commons’. The example you put forth can only happen when the state owns the land and the shepherds pay no rent, such as a public park. In the presence of private ownership of the land, rent would go up based on how much grass the sheep are eating, as this would harm the long-term profit of the landowner. As a result, sheep wool prices would go up and the demand for wool products on the market would fall, to be replaced by a more efficient, less expensive material. The landowner might well decide that his land is better used for other purposes, as well.

When there are no commons, there are no tragedies.

The tragedy of the commons isn’t specifically about the environment. It’s an economic game-theory analysis of when entirely self-interested competitors can ruin themselves using market forces. And it is the primary logical argument for some form of governmental intervention.

But, I firmly believe that the solution to our environmental crisis will come from new entrepreneurs not Al Gore or Joe Schmo.

-Scott

She didn’t have it edited and refused anyone the opportunity to edit it. Agreed, the book could easily have dropped 600-800 pages without losing the plot or theme.

Her characters are also too often black and white, because they are instruments for depicting her philosophy, rather than creating realistic human beings. In this way, I felt she wrote the book more like a Greek Myth or fable than a novel.

The book is definitely far from perfect, both as a piece of literature and work of philosophy. There are some interesting ideas, but I think anyone who swallows them without question is ignoring some glaring flaws.

-Scott