The Fundamental Flaw in Ayn Rand’s Philosophy

The Philosophy

Atlas Shrugged is perhaps one of the most compelling books I have ever read.  I read it, just on a whim, when I was in high school, and since then it has stuck with me almost more than any other book.  The power of it lies in the characters, the world, the writing itself, and above all in Rand’s radical theory that being selfish is the only way to be moral.  She believed that, ultimately, doing what’s best for yourself is the best thing you can do, both for yourself and everyone around you.  She was the ultimate rationalist and the ultimate  meritocrat.  She envisioned a society in which the most productive and the most talented always end up on top, simply because they produce what is most useful to society.  Altruism is unnecessary because if people know that they will only receive good things by being a good, productive member of society, then they will shape up and begin making themselves useful to other people—because it is in their own self-interest.  If, on the other hand, they can expect welfare, charity, or any other hand-outs that they did not earn, she believed that society would disintegrate into one where the many take advantage of these hand-outs, while the few noble people continue to work hard because their inner moral strength allows them no other option.  This is the dystopic world that she presents in Atlas Shrugged.   

The Novel

Atlas Shrugged is a beast of a novel—over 1,000 pages long—and it is relentless in its lionizing of the enterprising individual, its paeans to rationalism, and its message that money is the only fair arbiter of the world, and that any government attempt to redistribute money in the name of making things more “fair” is doomed to failure.  As insane as it sounds when I describe it like that, this book completely captivated me from beginning to end.  For well over the first half I was truly fascinated by her ideas, her story, her dystopic world.  It was only as I got towards the end, that a creeping discomfort with her philosophy grew larger and larger in my mind.  By the time I turned the last page, I had figured out why.  

The only reason her philosophy works perfectly in her books is because her protagonists are all super-human.  Now, this is not clear at the beginning of the book.  Atlas Shrugged is a very singular story in that, contrary to most books, the characters start out gray and become progressively more black and white as the story unfolds.  For the first 9/10ths of the book, her main protagonists are super-human in a way that’s actually rather hard to spot: namely, they are perfectly rational and perfectly moral, nearly all the time.  The word “nearly” is important here.  Because Ayn Rand does make her characters seem very real at the beginning—all of them, the good and bad.  Even the protagonists have certain irrationalities or certain weaknesses that take hold of them.  For example: Hank Reardon, the enterprising owner of a steel manufacturing company, has a wife who does not appreciate him or the amazing work he does.  It’s clear that his decision to marry her had been a mistake.  In fact, the first time you meet Hank Reardon in the story, he is walking home from work with a bracelet that he made for his wife out of a revolutionary new steel that he had just invented.  As he walks home, “he realize[s] suddenly that he had [made it for] an abstraction called "his wife"—not [for] the woman to whom he was married.”  He realizes that she will not appreciate his gift, and indeed, he turns out to be exactly right.  She mocks the ugly, cumbersome bracelet when he offers it to her.  

So even Rand’s protagonists do have their irrational moments, where emotions and unrealistic desires overwhelm their reason—or least, they do at the beginning.  But as the book progresses, the main characters develop a clearer and clearer picture of the rotting world around them, and a deeper understanding of their own convictions.  As they grow stronger and more self-aware, they become well nigh infallible.  

This brings me to another very important point.  In spite of Ayn Rand’s assertion that pure selfishness is the only morality, her protagonists do follow a certain moral code.  They never cheat, they never lie, they never steal, and they never kill.  Sad to say, people in real life just aren’t like that, and that certainly includes businessmen.  Rand’s vision of a world where the talented and hard-working are totally unfettered by government regulation, and where they are free to earn as much money as they “deserve,” rests upon the assumption that all business-people will earn their money in ways that are totally moral and legitimate.  I think the recent economic crash provides enough evidence that this could not be less true.  

The art of sincere deception

It’s almost insidious, the way that her protagonists start out as very real people, and then become oh, so gradually more and more perfect and incorruptible as the story progresses. Contrast that with the antagonists of the book, who also start out normal and then devolve into pathetic rat-people by the end, and you have a very powerful story that pulls you in, convinces you more and more of the theory behind it, and then confirms it by allowing the noble capitalists to shine forth in all their glory on their Olympian mountain top (literally), while abandoning those disgusting, incompetent socialists to their own self-destruction.  

It’s almost insidious—except I feel certain that Ayn Rand truly believed what she was writing.  She had no malicious intent; she did not consider herself to be misrepresenting anything—but therein also lies the persuasiveness of her writing.  

What does this have to do with the real world?

Atlas Shrugged is the book that former vice presidential candidate, Paul Ryan, holds as his political Bible.  He requires all of his congressional staff to read it.  In general, Ayn Rand has experienced a great resurgence in popularity in America since the arrival of the Tea Party.  Her economic philosophy is what a significant minority of Americans believe in.  I can understand why they do.  She is a very compelling writer, her landmark novel is a very powerful piece of work, and her lines of logic are very effective—but buried at the root of this magnificent philosophical tree is the uncompromising fact that human nature itself undermines her whole system.  

In truth, I think she is a brilliant woman who made many excellent points, especially about the virtues of rationalism and meritocracy, and even made many astute observations about human nature.  Her ideas are well worth studying; but, like her life-long nemesis, Communism,* her economic system is great in theory, but totally unpracticable in reality. 

*Ayn Rand was born in Russia in 1905 and witnessed the Communist Revolution there in 1917.  She and her family suffered many hardships under the new Communist government, which created the hatred of Communism that she carried with her for her entire life.  Atlas Shrugged, indeed her entire philosophy, can be seen as her Anti-Communist Manifesto.  

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Sources of inspiration for this post:

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand’s Interview with Tom Snyder (1979)

“What Paul Ryan Learned From Ayn Rand,” by Anne C. Heller, published in Newsweek (Aug. 16, 2012)

The current political situation in America.  

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(Also, just because I find it interesting, here's an excerpt from Atlas Shrugged.  It’s Ayn Rand’s take on sex and desire.)