Dangerous philosophy
A popular pastime in some Orthodox Jewish circles is to trash much of the secular world's philosophies. For some of these philosophies there is indeed quite a large amount of justification for some of that trashing. And this week marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of one of the basic texts of one such philosophy that is completely antithetical to Torah: Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, which puts forth much of her philosophy of "Objectivism":
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/15/business/15atlas.html
It is difficult to overstate the influence that Ayn Rand (born a Jew) has had. It is used as justification for all kinds of selfish activity that the Torah would criticize. Money quote from the Times: "There is no conflict between private ambition and public benefit."
Chas v'shalom! The whole point of Torah is that we can not do just whatever we please!!! And that is not true just for social relationships or eating, but also for possessions. While there is clearly a limited right to private property under Torah and Rabbinic law, there are restrictions. For example, you can not permanently sell land in Eretz Yisrael. (Did HaShem know that there is no economic value to a free market for something that is in fixed supply, something that economists didn't discover until the 19th century?) While the Torah clearly expects us to run businesses, and property and business halachah takes up a quarter of the Shulchan Aruch, Halachah also grants the rabbinate to restrict business activity in some circumstances. Farmers have the most restrictions -- and the most mitzvot -- as the Torah limits when they can plant and harvest, what crops can be planted together, and imposes mandatory taxation.
One of Ayn Rand's long time disciples was Alan Greenspan. Fortunately, Dr. Greenspan did not follow Ms. Rand's hedonistic policies during his long successful tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. And judging from this speech, which I was fortunate to hear in person during my 20th college reunion, he is now basically a Classical Free Enterprise Liberal rather than an Objectivist Libertatian:
http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/1999/06.17/greenspan.html
That Ayn Rand might not be the best mentor can be seen from this anecdote in the Times article:
In our midrash, our aggadah, our more recent works that describe the actions of the sages of our time, we learn of their good midot -- and of their tshuvah after the times when they err. We should attempt to emulate Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, or the Chofetz Chaim, or Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, just to name three outstanding models for human behavior, and not Ms Rand.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/15/business/15atlas.html
It is difficult to overstate the influence that Ayn Rand (born a Jew) has had. It is used as justification for all kinds of selfish activity that the Torah would criticize. Money quote from the Times: "There is no conflict between private ambition and public benefit."
Chas v'shalom! The whole point of Torah is that we can not do just whatever we please!!! And that is not true just for social relationships or eating, but also for possessions. While there is clearly a limited right to private property under Torah and Rabbinic law, there are restrictions. For example, you can not permanently sell land in Eretz Yisrael. (Did HaShem know that there is no economic value to a free market for something that is in fixed supply, something that economists didn't discover until the 19th century?) While the Torah clearly expects us to run businesses, and property and business halachah takes up a quarter of the Shulchan Aruch, Halachah also grants the rabbinate to restrict business activity in some circumstances. Farmers have the most restrictions -- and the most mitzvot -- as the Torah limits when they can plant and harvest, what crops can be planted together, and imposes mandatory taxation.
One of Ayn Rand's long time disciples was Alan Greenspan. Fortunately, Dr. Greenspan did not follow Ms. Rand's hedonistic policies during his long successful tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. And judging from this speech, which I was fortunate to hear in person during my 20th college reunion, he is now basically a Classical Free Enterprise Liberal rather than an Objectivist Libertatian:
http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/1999/06.17/greenspan.html
That Ayn Rand might not be the best mentor can be seen from this anecdote in the Times article:
'Rand had a reputation for living for her own interest. She is said to have seduced her most serious reader, Nathaniel Branden, when he was 24 or 25 and she was at least 50. Each was married to someone else. In fact, Mr. Britting confirmed, they called their spouses to a meeting at which the pair announced their intention to make the mentor-protégé relationship a sexual one.
“She wasn’t a nice person, ” said Darla Moore, vice president of the private investment firm Rainwater Inc. “But what a gift she’s given us.”'
Some gift! Put yourself before others even if it hurts them. NOT!!! It is no accident that yeshivot would traditionally begin talmud study with the second chapter of Bava Metzia, the laws of returning a lost object. It reminds us that not everything is ours, that we can't just take things because we want them, that ultimately everything really belongs to HaShem -- and that life is NOT about pursuing material or sensual pleasure.In our midrash, our aggadah, our more recent works that describe the actions of the sages of our time, we learn of their good midot -- and of their tshuvah after the times when they err. We should attempt to emulate Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, or the Chofetz Chaim, or Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, just to name three outstanding models for human behavior, and not Ms Rand.
posted by Charlie Hall at 9:31 AM
11 Comments:
It's interesting, Alan Greenspan considers himself a big fan of Rand, who was one of his professors at University. See his 'The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World'
Did HaShem know that there is no economic value to a free market for something that is in fixed supply, something that economists didn't discover until the 19th century?
Was He unaware of the negative consequences of an unadjusted shemitas kesafim? Or of gittin forced on unwilling wives?
This is a bizarre, or at least inconsistent, way to look at the world.
Ayn Rand was a menuveles, to be sure. However, she had some useful insights into the likely consequences of certain economic policies. Unless you're prepared to subject all of your favorite politicians to the same moral test, perhaps we'd be best off avoiding the pretense that people who agree with certain elements of Ms. Rabinowitz's philosophy necessarily admire her character in toto.
Just a thought.
- Moishe Potemkin
I"m not sure that Ms. Rand had any insights that classical economists had not already forseen.
I"m not sure that Ms. Rand had any insights that classical economists had not already forseen.
Perhaps not, but she did help communicate them to some people that might have otherwise bought into populist nonsense. (Of course, that task is hardly complete, but credit should still be given where it's due.)
- Moishe Potemkin
How would you contrast Ayn Rand with Milton Friedman and his views set forth in his TV series and book "Free To Choose"?
http://miltonfriedman.blogspot.com/
How would you contrast Ayn Rand with Milton Friedman and his views set forth in his TV series and book "Free To Choose"?
I would say that one must stretch his or her credibility much farther to malign Milton Friedman than Ayn Rand. There are those happy to do so, alas, but they do not do so honestly. (Sometimes this dishonesty is intentional, sometimes people are so blinded by partisan fervor that they simply cannot think clearly.)
Milton Friedman was a brilliant economist. Not perfect - such is the nature of economics - but absolutely worthy of respect in his personal and professional lives.
Ayn Rand was a fair writer with a solid intuitive understanding of the ramifications of certain economic policies. She did good work in terms of popularizing this understanding, but her personal morality was deplorable.
- Moishe Potemkin
Ayn Rand was a good example of what Richard Hofstadter famously described as "the paranoid style in American politics." While academia and the mainstream media take comfort in assuming that this style is pathognomonic of the right, Hofstadter himself wrote I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wing.
And as we see from the news, the paranoid style--again quoting Hofstadter, [t]he paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms — he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization... he does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish -- is a commonplace on the Left, including the Daily Kos and the left wing of the Democratic party. It is also a staple of Islamofascism. In both spheres we see classic antisemitism, and other conspiracy theories abound.
In the conservative movement, on the other hand, the paranoid style is, for now at least, pretty much marginalized.
How this came to be is a fascinating story which can be fairly painlessly learned in William F. Buckley Jr's historical novel, Getting It Right. In the form of a romance between a Mormon John Bircher and a (Jewish) follower of Ayn Rand, this book depicts how both the John Birch Society and Ayn Rand's cult were purged from the conservative movement. (It's been a while since I read it, but IIRC, the novel ends with the Jewish character leaving Objectivism for Christianity. {Sigh.})
Buckley was of course a major player in this bloodless purge. One other related story (not told in the book, but part of the Buckley archives at the Hillsdale College website) is the parting of ways between Buckley, then at the helm of National Review, and Joseph Sobran, a conservative Catholic and long-time contributer to NR.
Sobran, whatever he once was is now unequivocally an antisemite (he has appeared at a Holocaust "revisionist" conference.) I think he always was one; his presence at NR led me to stop reading it in the 1970s. As a result, I missed the famous 1986 issue well described by Jason Maoz of the Jewish Press: (http://www.lukeford.net/profiles/profiles/joseph_sobran.htm)
Sobran’s relentlessly negative focus on Jews and Israel led former National Review editor William F. Buckley, in the magazine’s July 4, 1986 issue, to publish an editorial distancing himself from his employee and acknowledging that "any person" who’d read a recent series of Sobran’s newspaper columns "might reasonably conclude that those columns were written by a writer inclined to anti-Semitism." (Sobran inexplicably managed to retain his title of senior editor at the magazine until 1990 when Buckley finally asked him to step down.)
Sorry, that's a bad link to the Sobran profile
http://www.lukeford.net/profiles/profiles/joseph_sobran.htm
OK, if you want to go there, add "n.htm" at the end of the link.
Hi sorry to pester - I either missed your answer or you didn't answer as to my questionhow would you relate to this? (maybe even from a slightly scientific POV)?
THX,
J.I.
Just letting you know I put up a short post and link to the story out of Utah with a hat tip your way. Thanks.
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