When I was younger, I used to believe that communism and socialism were, in general, good ideas that had simply been poorly implemented, or abused, or used as excuses for atrocities such as those in the Soviet Union. After all, who could argue with the idea of “brotherly love”? It seemed even “logical” that everything would be better if people just stopped being so “selfish”, and cooperated, everyone working for “the group”.
Many factors changed my way of thinking as I grew older, but the one thing that made me understand what communism really was - not what implementations of it were, but what it really was, and could never be anything else, despite all the seeminly good intentions - was Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”.
Especially one of my favorite sections, the one where Jeff Allen tells Dagny Taggart the sad story of the Twentieth Century Motor Company.
That story made such an impression on me that, even after I had only read the book once, I was able to tell it to people - it’s simply impossible to forget, as every part follows naturally, logically, from the one before.
So, there was a motor factory called the Twentieth Century Motor Company, which was highly successful, known as being synonymous with quality through the country. Then, the owner died, and the factory went to his three children (two men and a woman), who had big “progressive” (in that context, an euphemism for “socialist”) ideas - the main part of it being that well known communist ideal, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”
The six thousand workers approved, of course - since they were made to feel that anyone who didn’t agree with such “brotherly love” was an evil, selfish monster. And so, that ideal went into practice - everyone worked, supposedly as much as he or she was able to, but wasn’t paid according to time, or results - instead, all of the profits from sales were put together in a common “pool”, then divided according to need.
However, they immediately had a problem: what is really “need”, and what is but a desire? What defines “need”? There’s no absolute standard for it, since what to some is just a pleasure, to others may be a vital need, and vice-versa. And so, they voted. Yes, every 6 months or so, they had huge meetings where they all voted on each one’s need - and how did you convince others? By begging, by pleading, by convincing everyone that they were worse off than others, that they had more health problems, had more children to feed, that they suffered more, and therefore had a greater “need”. In a little time, six thousand workers had turned into six thousand beggars - because no one had any “right” to the result of their work, that line of thought was dead, by then.
Naturally, since work wasn’t tied to earnings any more, no one had any incentive to work harder, and production dropped sharply in the first year. In a meeting, then, they decided that it had happened because some workers weren’t giving their all, they weren’t using all of their ability, and therefore would have to work extra hours at night - without pay, of course - to improve the situation. Who? The most able, of course - and again, they voted on who those were. Obviously, since that day, everyone would hide the slightest sign of ability - indeed, they would compete as to who would appear more incompetent. Being incompetent meant being “needier”, and was rewarded; being competent was a curse, since it meant you “needed” less - and had to work harder, to support the “needy” ones.
For some reason (!), production dropped even more.
It got worse. It was decided that no one could have any kind of luxury until everyone’s basic needs were met - and any kind of entertainment, cultural activity or amusement were the first to go. Books? That was a luxury. Music? The same. What right had anyone to a book when there were people starving? And the standard of living - for everyone just kept going down. Lots of people turned to alcohol.
Anything that made people “needier”, such as becoming ill, or having a baby, was a reason for everyone to hate that person - since he or she would be, supposedly, “taking” more from the pool. People also began to spy on their neighbours, so that they could report on anyone who was faking his or her “needs”.
In four years, the company was bankrupt. What a surprise.
Related posts:
Subscribe to this blog
Aye, it’s true.
Only zealots would go that far, and the majority doesn’t qualify as such.
wow atlas shrugged, one of my favorites of all time. great to see another ayn rand fan, and now you may have motivated me to read the book again… it’s been a couple of years since i last did!
Hahaha! Wow, that’s a pretty crazy story. Why would a group formed on the basis that everyone should contribute according to their ability decide to allow people to avoid doing just that? How does that logically follow? Instead, according to Rand’s custom-designed straw man, the inferior Masses will vote to not only deprive the few superior workers of their just compensation, but become cruel task masters, forcing them to work more than anyone else. Those poor, poor superior beings! Their superhuman advantages are truly a curse!
Ayn Rand is really just used as an extended justification of why its society’s fault that someone doesn’t meet their potential. You see, unless society provides compensation to individuals in the form of money, power, hot babes or worshipful deference by the inferior population, no good thing would ever be accomplished, since there are no such things as intrinsic motivations, only extrinsic rewards. Oh yeah, and its the fault of lazy minorities that I don’t get to enjoy the tax breaks the rich get.
I also enjoy Rand’s books quite a bit, they had the same sort of influence on me, though the influence has softened a bit after being subjected to other experiences, other arguments, etc.
I sure hope this doesn’t turn into a page full of rant comments like the one above. Mike remember that Atlas Shrugged is fiction, its goal isn’t just argument or it would be found in the philosophy section of Barnes and Noble. Straw man only works for arguments. Rand has her arguments published in various other works, as well as speech transcripts, etc.
Matt: thanks for the “defense”, but I encourage comments, even when they disagree with me - as long as they’re not rude or insulting.
Mike: “Why would a group formed on the basis that everyone should contribute according to their ability decide to allow people to avoid doing just that?” As you mentioned later, they don’t allow it - the ones they deem “more able” have to work extra hours to compensate for the factory’s overall drop in production.
The rest of your comment is a bit unrelated to this discussion - it’s about Rand’s philosophy as a whole, and I think you misunderstand some parts. Maybe I’ll write something more about them, or at least my understanding of them.
But about this particular example: even yesterday, a couple of hours after I wrote this, I talked with my brother about it. And I told him that I wanted to believe that this was an exaggerated example, created for a fiction book. That, if it was a real life example, after a year or so in which everything got worse and worse, people would realize it, and put a stop to it.
To me, the following seems obvious: “if, until now, the more we did X, the worse things got, then maybe we should stop doing X, or even do the opposite of X”.
But then I remembered that there are, or were, real life examples. The Soviet Union, for instance - collectivism made things worse and worse, and yet they persisted. One would believe that, even after all those initial “good intentions”, if after 2, or 5, or 10 years the quality of life kept decreasing, maybe they would realize that it simply wasn’t working, and put a stop to it. But no.
People aren’t logical - and when they’re told that, by disagreeing with the group, they’re filthy, selfish monsters, most of them will simply follow the herd, even if, in private, they’d disagree with it.
That form of collectivism kind of has the appearance of a social welfare democracy as well as communism. So what is evil is not democracy or communism, but collectivism?
Collectivism, in this context, means a system (be it social, economic, political, or simply a belief system) in which the individual is next to worthless, and the group (the company, the state, the country, the race, etc.) is everything. Sacrifice (either for the group, or for something even less definable, such as “the fellow man”) is often emphasized.
Therefore, communism and socialism are collectivist, and so are fascism and nazism. Most churches also tend to be collectivist. Any kind of welfare certainly is.
Democracy by itself isn’t collectivist, but isn’t necessarily opposed to it either. It depends on the people.
And, yes, I believe collectivism is evil - it’s a doctrine of sacrifice which crushes the individual’s dreams and aspirations for some undefined “greater good”.
Mike remember that Atlas Shrugged is fiction…
If that were the case, you would be telling everyone that they shouldn’t draw philosophical conclusions from a work of fiction, which is what this blog post did. As far as I can see, when someone disagrees with Rand, you take the easy way out by saying “Oh, its just fiction, don’t take it so seriously.” Yet when someone is convinced by Rand’s fictional “non-arguments”, you are silent on this point, and only ask that we wait for “other arguments.” So which is it?
I wanted to believe that this was an exaggerated example, created for a fiction book. That, if it was a real life example, after a year or so in which everything got worse and worse, people would realize it, and put a stop to it.
It may not be an exaggerated example. Its certainly plausible, but it doesn’t show that collectivism as a philosophy is flawed. Pretending for a moment that this is a real-life scenario, this examples shows that the logistical problems are difficult or impossible to overcome. For example, how do you differentiate between desires and needs? That’s a valid problem, but that doesn’t show that collectivism is inherently inferior to any other system. Likewise, the workers failed to make sure that each worker worked according to his abilities as the formula demanded, which is a problem of implementation, not a problem with the idea.
In fact, empirical research has shown that collectivist groups have difficulty maintaining cohesion once they exceed a population of 200. That number is significant because it represents the average number of faces a person can remember. Once you go above 200 people, you start having people who don’t know each other, anonymity, which creates problems. The norms of the society are enforced largely if you do something wrong, everyone instantly knows about it. The society depends upon intimate contact and kinship bonds, which is something that doesn’t exist in modern life, but as nice as that all sounds, the downside is that it creates tribal warfare, which is not nice at all. Everyone outside the tribe is a potential enemy, but other than that, its a workable system, just not workable now.
Collectivism, in this context, means a system (be it social, economic, political, or simply a belief system) in which the individual is next to worthless, and the group (the company, the state, the country, the race, etc.) is everything.
But the whole world is built upon collectivist principles. Electrons make up atoms, atoms make up molecules, molecules make up cells, cells make up organisms, organisms make up social groups. Every level is a collectivist system that denies to some degree the individual rights of its component parts, making it “worthless”. Human babies’ senses arrive pre-tuned to the pitch of human voices and to human faces, and stay with their parents for far longer than other animals, so it would appear that we arrive on this earth ready to be integrated into the collectivist system. If you want to make the argument “Collectivism bad, indivdualism good!” as Ayn Rand does, I’m afraid you have to ignore quite a lot of facts about the world. You can, of course, make various arguments about how collectivist we should or should not be, but that relies on affirming the basic principle that the collective has basic rights just as the individual does, and that society progresses by creating collective agreements on individual rights. Objectivism is incoherent when it insists that only individual rights exist, and not recognizing this is detrimental to the “greater good”, which Objectivism believes doesn’t actually exist. Rand forcefully argues that society suffers when we acknowledge that society can suffer.
There’s nothing stopping individuals from simply walking away from society, and living as a pure individual, which is what happened in Anthem. There’s nothing stopping Howard Roark from walking away from society and creating architectural masterpiece on his own, but somehow this is not satisfying. Since we are truly social creatures, living a solitary existence is practically a death sentence. If no-one is there to appreciate our accomplishments, they seem to have less meaning. What we really want is for society to let us be individuals, but also give us the love and recognition that we desperately crave. We want to be recognized in front of the tribe as being great individuals who provide something essential to the greater good, as do Rand’s supposedly individualistic heroes.
As far as I can see, when someone disagrees with Rand, you take the easy way out by saying “Oh, its just fiction, don’t take it so seriously.”
Being fiction means it’s exaggerated, to prove a point - it’s “black and white”. Note that there are no “grey” characters in Rand’s books, usually.
If someone says that Rand’s books don’t have anything to do with real life, because people aren’t all divided between individualist geniuses and weak-minded collectivists, I’ll agree that the world isn’t like that, and the books exaggerate the difference. But we can still learn from exaggerated examples.
But the whole world is built upon collectivist principles. Electrons make up atoms, atoms make up molecules, molecules make up cells, cells make up organisms, organisms make up social groups. Every level is a collectivist system that denies to some degree the individual rights of its component parts, making it “worthless”. Human babies’ senses arrive pre-tuned to the pitch of human voices and to human faces, and stay with their parents for far longer than other animals, so it would appear that we arrive on this earth ready to be integrated into the collectivist system. If you want to make the argument “Collectivism bad, indivdualism good!” as Ayn Rand does, I’m afraid you have to ignore quite a lot of facts about the world.
Maybe we have different definitions here. Individualism doesn’t mean “living alone” or “rejecting society”. In fact, Rand advocates several times the advantages of a society (such as Galt’s Gulch, which is, again, an exaggerated example) where people live together, benefit from each other, but absolutely respect each other’s individual rights.
Collectivism, to me, isn’t simply living in a society, or working together, or helping others when you want to. It’s being forced - be it by force, by peer pressure, or by guilt - to sacrifice your desires, dreams and needs for “the greater good”.
Theoretically, people in a collectivist society could live better than in an individualistic one - but, in reality, it only works with ants, not people. And it’s not because we’re “selfish bastards”, but because we’re individuals - even though a lot of people wish they weren’t… or that others weren’t.
Maybe we have different definitions here. Individualism doesn’t mean “living alone” or “rejecting society”.
This is sort of my point. Its easy to come up with a narrow definition of collectivism that only includes its negative effects and then come out strongly against it. But what we are actually talking about it in the most general terms is the relationship between individual parts that make up a greater whole, which is basic systems theory. If we look at the actual facts about this relationship, rather than reading fiction, its clear that a system does what it can to maintain equilibrium and preserve itself against being destroyed, but also to be able to adapt to change. This means controlling the individual parts so that they do not throw the equilibrium out of balance, and in society, this is done through shame, guilt, threat of violence, etc., and this naturally involves restricting the rights of individuals for the greater good. But there are also very significant benefits that come from this, for example, property rights. Under a 100% individualistic society, individual rights would consist of what you individually can grab for yourself, typically by using violence. Under most forms of collectivism, society protects your rights with things like laws, courts, the police.
Why do they do this? For the greater good, which specifically means the health of interdependent relationships between people which provide general benefits such as protection and care for individuals, and also psychological benefits such as inclusion and unity with the group. If course, it is possible to crush individual rights and make demands on them that are illegitimate, for the system to become pathological, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that individuals rights should always triumph.
Even though its true to say that we are all individuals, its pure fantasy to say that we are only individuals and don’t belong to a society, unless you literally don’t belong to a society and live as a hermit. It is abundantly clear that we exist in an interdependent system made up of other people, and we benefit tremendously from it. A true individualist would insist that democracy itself is an evil collectivist plot, since it is necessary to submit to the will of the people, the greater good, even when you disagree. Objectivism tries to define collectivism to mean only those aspects of collectivism that it defines as bad, and preserves the benefits of collectivism by calling them by a different name and pretending they are really individualistic. But if we truly understand the social organism and how it operates, its clear that there is a balance between individual rights and individual duties to society. It only remains to determine what that balance should be.
Pedro: good blog/website here — it’s extremely refreshing to see somebody who likes Ayn Rand, who is not a complete nutbag.)
The basic problem, as I see it, is that there is a very basic — and fundamental — difference between “collectivism”, and what most people usually think of as “collective” activity — namely, the issue of coercion.
The difference between the two is in the emphasis, and PURPOSE for the “collective” actions. Collectivism is predicated on the idea that collective associations are “ends in themselves”, to which individuals are, and “rightfully” SHOULD BE subject. This is exactly why such notions as the “common good” are so innately dangerous, because it neccesitates increasing levels of coercion against nonconformists — those who, for whatever reason, dissent from what the “community” (actually the community’s LEADERS) want them to do.
Individualists, such as Rand, on the other hand, see all forms of ‘association’ as mere TOOLS — with the utilitarian goal of serving and benefitting the INDIVIDUALS involved. Rand’s whole ethical system, after all, is based on NON-SACRIFICIAL interaction, where ALL PARTIES BENEFIT, and all such interactions are CONSENSUAL in nature.
Additionally, the probem with any ‘need’-based system is that there is absolutely NO incentive to make the situation better. For example (sad to say) organizations based on “fighting poverty” very often end up degrading those they supposedly “serve” into a perpetual under-class, because it creates more “need” — and more justification for their “help”.
Same thing with government in general: all coercive structures need a “justification” for their existence. The U.S. (for example) has bought-into things like the “patriot act” and continuous, inconclusive war, because we’re “protecting ourselves.” Somebody once observed that if there were no such things as Jews, Hitler would have had to invent them. That makes sense — because all coercive organizations need something which serves to “legitimize” their coercion. Hitler had “defending the Aryan race’, the Communists had ’serving the worker’s needs’, and on and on. It’s NOT that collectivists REALLY want to “solve” the problem they ostensibly exist to solve, it’s more like the crisis or problem or whatever serves as a respectable cover-story to allow them to kick down doors and turn other people into slaves.
(Good example of this — the ‘war on drugs’. Because some ‘good-natured’ people don’t want other people to use ‘drugs’, they’ve allowed government to expand in ways that are FUNDAMENTALLY opposed to what they’d otherwise tolerate. Tyranny is ALWAYS fronted by ‘good ideas.’
Individualists, however, see different — any organization which you HAVE to join at gunpoint is, quite simply, NOT in your best interests to join.
Sorry for the rambling.
Mike:
You are a dishonest person. Instead of bothering to understand the “definition” of a term, you come in the typical, haisplitting idiocy and off-topic mindgames that allow rampant tyranny to continue unchecked.
Your whole tirade revolves around the (false) notion that ’socialization’ is an “end in itself” — that humans are somehow “hardwired” to run in packs, and thus, those who DON’T mindlessly run with a pack are aberrant, and deserving of whatever the “majority” want to do to them.
I could suggest a few books for you to read that might clarify your thinking, except that you’d probably come back with an idiotic retort quibbling about how it’s “easy to come up with other definitions” for every term in the book.
You and the Clintons and Linguistic analysis — pathetic.
Mike:
There is NO “greater” good. Numerical superiority does NOT magically grant any ‘group’ the right to coerce, bludgeon, or massacre others.
The “greater good” is a pernicious idea specifically for the reason that it INEVITABLY REQUIRES the forcible suppression of dissent.
If we have a “community” of 200 people, and ten of them, for whatever reason, dissent from the other 190, YOUR viewpoint (actually that of every would-be tyrant in human history) is that whatever happens to the dissenting ten is PEACHY, provided that the “greater” good of the 190 is served, right?
Nor can any “balance” be struck here. If twenty-five people want to censor me, and I want to speak, there is NOTHING in their favor except their “greater” numbers (which are not any sort of reasonable standard.)
But hey, let’s assume for the sake of argument that you’re right — the “greater good’ of the Chinese population is to be served by rolling tanks over recalcitrant dissidents. Okay. The “greater good” of “The ChurcH” was served by the torture and killing of “heretics”. Suuuuure. Of course we must strike a “balance”.
Brilliant. It’s seemingly-reasonable apologists for the basic ideas of tyranny that allow tyrants to go unopposed. (Let’s just hope someday that the “greater good” someday requires a “balance” between your interests, and a numerically-superior mob. That’ll be funny as hell.
that story just comes to show how blind people are and that not everybody was cut out for the business world. they should have been able to turn the business around when they realised that their plan wasn’t working didn’t their father have a diary or a journal where they colud get ideas better yet didn’t the father have advisers who could help those poor children…
I stumbled across this post while looking for the page number for this story. Imagine my surprise to see and OBAMA endorsement on the same page. Honestly, you’ve made me severely depressed just now. If an Ayn Rand fan is supporting Barack Obama, then what hope do we have?!?
I encourage you to read this post again and then consider Obama’s stated goal to “spread the wealth around.” It should be immediately and intuitively obvious to the most casual observer that Barack is in the same mindset as the owners of the Twentieth Century Motor Company. Have you lost your mind since 2005 when you wrote this??
I hope you didn’t vote early…