But this choice was only possible within the context of a philosophic and cultural revolution. Without such a change, people would have neither reason nor desire to embark on the path toward freedom. Rand saw revolution as “the climax of a long philosophical development.” Justified as a response to tyranny, “it is an act of self-defense against those who rule by force.”33 While Rand admitted the possibility that people, “in sheer anger and despair,” would resort to violence and mass civil disobedience, she did not view these political techniques as primaries.34 She argued that ultimately, it was the cultural base that provided individuals with a specific menu for social change. Within the context of a massive cultural transformation, people could choose political alternatives that were radically different and realistically attainable.
But in keeping with her theory of history, Rand believed that such a cultural revolution depended on a new intellectual movement, led necessarily by a small minority,35 a kind of intellectual vanguard. The philosophic system-builder is the source of revolution. The system-builder presents a compelling philosophic alternative and a structure of analysis that answers the human need for a comprehensive view of existence.36 Over a long period of time, the essential ideas of the philosophic system-builder are grasped and perpetuated by intellectuals who pass on the doctrine in education, art, and the communications media. As the purveyors of ideas, these human actors generate conditions favorable for personal, cultural, and structural change.
In Diagram 5, Rand is presented as a new philosophic system-builder, akin to Plato, Aristotle, and Kant. Rand believed that the Objectivist paradigm offered a radical intellectual shift away from the dominant trend of the anti-mind, anti-man, anti-life culture. Though Rand believed that Objectivism had global implications, she emphasized its applicability to the American context, which was the subject of her social critique (Peikoff 1991b, 460). She knew that American society would not adopt her program in a month, a year, or even a century (1971T). She hoped to be the fountainhead of a philosophical renaissance that would culminate in the establishment of a society based upon the principles of laissez-faire capitalism, individual rights, and nonexploitative social relations. She instructed her followers to break from the culture, the schools, and most important, the ideas that were destroying American society; they were “to be the creators of a new culture” (1961T) (Diagram 5).
In Rand’s view, an Objectivist society could emerge only after the dominant philosophic trend was fundamentally Objectivist. The political and economic institutions would reflect this cultural base. Self-directed thought and self-responsible action would be confirmed as efficacious in the dominant philosophy and psychology of the new age. In aesthetics, the dominant trend would be Romanticism, though many schools of art would continue to exist. The projected aesthetic ideals and values would be contemplated and appreciated by individuals whose sense of life matched their rational, conscious convictions.37
In an Objectivist society, the socialization process would aid, rather than hinder, the development of maturity, rationality, and self-responsibility. Parents and teachers would treat children with respect, encouraging them to think, rather than to evade. They would not deliver moral ultimatums or religious injunctions, but present the child with reasons and explanations within the context of his knowledge, for every rule (Rand [1964] 1993bT).
The development of human cognitive and evaluative capacities would turn the tide away from modern anti-conceptualism. Whereas the anti-conceptual mentality treats “the passage of time, the four seasons, the institution of marriage, the weather, the breeding of children, a flood, a fire, an earthquake, a revolution, a book [as] phenomena of the same order,” genuinely conceptual beings would distinguish between those things that were open to human choice and those that were metaphysically dictated by the nature of reality.38 People would not act on the basis of an uncritical acceptance of traditions and/or of tacit rules of behavior (48). They would understand the nature of their actions and the implications of their beliefs. They would develop a sense of identity that would be reinforced by a sense of self-efficacy and self-worth. Accepting their own uniqueness and potential, such people would have a benevolent attitude toward one another.39 Human communication, sexual relations, spiritual commitments, and material exchanges would not be marked by strategic lying and deceit, but by mutual trust and respect.
Thus, in seeking to overturn the dynamics of power, an Objectivist movement would spark a revolution on each of the three levels in which power is manifested: the personal (Level 1), the cultural (Level 2), and the structural (Level 3). Rand’s multilevel analysis of power relations (see Diagram 1 on page 278) becomes a model for Objectivist social relations.
Rand believed that only reason and freedom could defeat faith (i.e., irrationality) and force. In statism, irrational power relations are apparent on each of three levels. In the Objectivist society, rational and free social relations would be manifested across the same personal, cultural, and structural dimensions. Rand argued that an Objectivist revolutionary movement would seek first to consummate reason and freedom on the personal and cultural levels, before seeking their realization on the structural level.
On Level 1 (the personal), the practice of a rational psycho-epistemology and a rational ethical code would simultaneously confirm and perpetuate the primacy of existence and the identity of consciousness, which is, in its essence, volitional (i.e., free). People would relate not as masters and slaves, but as independent equals, trading value for value.
On Level 2 (the cultural), the forms of culture and of language would simultaneously confirm and perpetuate the objective validity and necessity of rational and free discourse.
On Level 3 (the structural), the achievement of a libertarian political and economic ideal would end the domination of statist brutality. Rand envisioned an identity between the rational and the free social order. The genuinely rational society is free. The genuinely free society is rational.
Finally, Rand linked each of these levels with the others in an organic unity such that “intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries” (New Intellectual, 25).
Thus, self-responsible, free-thinking individuals would rise from all social groups and “initiate a process, not of chaining one another, but of trading de-control for de-control.”40 Statism, with its intrusive regulatory, warfare, and welfare machinery, would be replaced by the rule of objective law. The deregulation of economic and social life could not be accomplished overnight (Rand [1964] 1993cT). Nor could it be realized within the current constitutional context. Rand envisioned a legal system in which the government is severely limited to the protection of individual rights through the police, an all-volunteer army, and the courts. The state’s power of eminent domain and its authority to regulate interstate commerce would be eliminated. All property—the roads, the airwaves, the forests, the oceans, even outer space—would be homesteaded and privatized.41 As the state is separated from the banking industry, and as a strict gold standard is introduced, the boom-bust cycle would come to an end. Structural and economic dislocation would be a thing of the past. Peace and prosperity would ensue. The welfare bureaucracy would be dismantled gradually, and state intervention would end in religious, educational, scientific, and aesthetic affairs.
As a final reform, in the very distant future, Rand advocated the abolition of taxation. With minimal government services, payment for their provision would be voluntary. Citizens in a fully free society “would (and should) be willing to pay for such services, as they pay for insurance.” Rand suggested several possible alternatives, including a government lottery, and the payment of fees to the government as a means of enforcing contractual agreements. Such voluntary financing would be progressively “proportionate to the scale of an individual’s economic activity,” with “those on the lowest economic levels … virtually exempt.”42
GO
D-BUILDER?
In her introduction to The Romantic Manifesto, Rand wondered if she would live to see an aesthetic renaissance in her time. She added: “What I do know is this: anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today” (Romantic Manifesto, viii). Rand’s statement has significance for her philosophic project as well.
Those who fight for the future must understand and integrate its guiding precepts into their everyday lives with full knowledge of the implications of their beliefs and the consequences of their actions. Those who fight for a future society in which fully integrated people interact with one another freely, must aim for that integration in their own lives now. The leaders of the renaissance will be the New Intellectuals, people who “discard the basic premise … [of] the soul-body dichotomy.” The New Intellectual “will discard its irrational conflicts and contradictions, such as: mind versus heart, thought versus action, reality versus desire, the practical versus the moral. He will be an integrated man, that is: a thinker who is a man of action. He will know that ideas divorced from consequent action are fraudulent, and that action divorced from ideas is suicidal” (New Intellectual, 51).
The New Intellectuals conquer dualism and reunite the prodigal sons of capitalism: the intellectual and the businessman. In the realm of the intellect, they will be practical thinkers. In the material realm, they will be philosophical business leaders. Whatever their areas of specialization, New Intellectuals will be radical “in the literal and reputable sense of the word”; they will grasp the fundamental philosophic roots of the current crisis as a means to its transcendence. Rand declared: “Let those who do care about the future … realize that the new radicals are the fighters for capitalism” (51–54).43
Rand’s concept of the New Intellectual is the historical counterpart of her fictional ideal man. It must be remembered that Rand’s major literary goal was the projection of this human ideal. John Galt in Atlas Shrugged was perfection incarnate, because he was simultaneously “a philosopher and inventor … a thinker and a man of action.” Rand described him as “the perfect man, the perfectly integrated being.”44 It was toward this aesthetic end that Rand defined the social conditions within which ideal people would live and flourish. Her concept of the free society is a convergence of psychology, ethics, and politics.45 Aesthetic ideal is wedded to psychological independence, ethical egoism, and political libertarianism. Ultimately, as Alvin Toffler (in Rand 1964b) observes, Rand offered “radical proposals for changing not merely the shape of society, but the very way in which most men work, think and love” (16).
Since Rand used the novel form as a vehicle for the presentation of her ideal, many critics have assumed that Objectivist society would require everyone to attain the heights of a John Galt or a Howard Roark. Barry (1986) asserts that Rand’s
Aristotelian version of liberalism depends almost entirely on a level of human excellence that it may well be impossible for men as we know them to achieve.… There is no reason why capitalistic institutions—private property, money, and the market—may not themselves be regarded as permanent threats to the full flowering of the human personality, just as Rand regards socialist ones to be. (15–16)
Indeed, the Russian Marxists saw communism, not capitalism, as providing the necessary social context for the full actualization of the human potential. Trotsky ([1924] 1960) maintained that under communism, human beings would transcend all forms of dualism. They would be fully efficacious, self-worthy, self-respecting, autonomous, and cultured:
Man at last will begin to harmonize himself in earnest.… He will try to master first the semi-conscious and then the subconscious processes in his own organism.… Man will make it his purpose to master his own feelings, to raise his instincts to the heights of consciousness, to make them transparent, to extend the wires of his will into hidden recesses, and thereby to raise himself to a new plane, to create a higher social biologic type, or, if you please, a superman.… Man will become immeasurably stronger, wiser, and subtler; his body will become more harmonized, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more musical. The forms of life will become especially dynamic. The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above this ridge, new peaks will rise. (254–56)
In this passage, Trotsky, the supreme Russian Marxist, internalizes Nietzschean imagery in his characterization of the new communist “superman.” But the similarity to the Randian project is startling. The new communist man, like the New Intellectual, triumphs over dualism. Thus for Trotsky, “man” will “master … the semi-conscious and then the subconscious processes in his own organism.” He will “master his own feelings.” For Rand, this mastery entails the rational articulation of the cognitive roots of emotion and the tacit dimensions of the subconscious mind, including “sense of life” and “psycho-epistemology.” Also, for Trotsky, “man” will “raise his instincts to the heights of consciousness.” From her earliest philosophical reflections, Rand too, refused to accept the view that human “instincts”—and she uses this word—are beyond rational control.46 Ultimately, she saw emotions, feelings, and “instincts” as components of the conceptual faculty. Like Trotsky, Rand projected the extension of reason into the “hidden recesses” of the mind as a means toward a fully integrated consciousness. And while Rand abandoned the Nietzschean notion of the “superman,” her own concept of the ideal man poses as an equivalent Objectivist formulation. Also, for Trotsky, “man will become more harmonized, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more musical.” Can there be any doubt that Rand’s ideal man possesses such harmony and grace? In her descriptions of Howard Roark and John Galt, Rand projected an image that combines consummate will with physical strength, passionate sensuality with the ease of movement.47
The major difference between Rand’s and Trotsky’s vision is that she does not assume that all people “will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx.” Rand respected the creators as unique and uncommon. She emphatically denied the “Marxist” and “utopian” proposition that everyone in the ideal society would have to be supremely rational and moral. The formation of rational character is not guaranteed by an Objectivist social order (Rand [1964] 1993bT). Rand respected the infinite variety of humanity, and expected fully that her society would benefit the average and the superior, the ordinary and the extraordinary. Yet this qualification does not in any way, shape, or form pertain to the fictional utopia of Galt’s Gulch, where the rule of mediocrity is transcended, and each individual is of great talent and excellence.
None of these parallels is meant to imply that Rand simply transferred Nietzschean, Marxian, or Trotskyian concepts to her own philosophic context. But it must be remembered that Trotsky himself was influenced by the Nietzschean themes of the Silver Age. The Nietzschean Marxists, the so-called God-builders, deified human strength and potentialities. They argued that under socialism, each individual would be the master of his or her destiny. Rand was exposed to these very themes from a fairly young age. Her literary and philosophic representations of the ideal man—or the New Intellectual—were comparable in tone. Such an integrated conception of human being was central to the Randian project because it signified the triumph over dualism. The “God-builders” sought a similar dialectical unity, even if they embraced a political ideal that ultimately undermined their goals.
THE COMMUNITARIAN IMPULSE
In Rand’s view, however, the political ideal of the Russian synthesis was to be rejected in both its mystic and statist incarnations. The Nietzschean Symbolists and the Idealists of the Russian religious renaissance sought to bridge the gap between the real and the ideal through a conflict-free mystical union. Rand’s teacher, Lossky, summarized the essence of this mystical conception in the Russian concept of sobornost’. It is worthwhile to look at this ideal once again:
The world of harmony is a perfect creation of God.… Plurality in this Kingdom is conditioned only by the ideal distinctions between its members, i.e. by individualizing oppo
sition without any conflicting opposition and consequently without hostility of one being to another. There is no selfish isolation there, no mutual exclusion. Each part of this Kingdom exists for the whole, and the whole exists for each part. Moreover, owing to a complete interpenetration of all by all, the distinction between part and whole disappears: every part is a whole. The principles of organic structure are realized in the completest way possible. It is a wholly perfect organism. (Lossky [1917] 1928, 81)
Russian religious thinkers of that time viewed this organic whole as One with the mystic body of Christ, a freedom-in-unity and a unity-in-freedom. The Russian Marxists rejected this mysticism and secularized the concept of sobornost’. In the words of Bogdanov, the individual “man was organically fused with the whole, with the group or commune, as cells are fused together in living tissue.” In such a social order, the state would wither away and “coerceive norms which regulate the conflict of those ends will become superfluous” (Kline 1969, 179).
In essence, Rand rejected such sobornost’ as a vestige of mystical, organic collectivism and statism. But several critics have charged that Rand’s wish to remake the social totality amounted to another form of totalitarianism. Kingsley Widmer (1981) sees Randian individualism as “patently narrow in its puritanical and rationalistic constructivism” (13), while Norman Barry believes that Rand’s emphasis on objective morality is a pretext for the authoritarian inculcation of virtue. On this basis, Barry fears that Rand’s social philosophy will gradually disintegrate “into a certain kind of statism.”48 And though Milton Friedman credits Rand for developing a popular libertarian following, he too believes that Rand’s “utopian” moral streak is “productive of intolerance.”49
Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical Page 49