Please say it’s true. And please say that this means high school seniors will no longer read Ayn Rand and decide that her novels are a good basis for a political philosophy. (And as long as we’re making wishes, I hope that if people do read Ayn Rand, they will at least walk away realizing that she is a legitimately terrible writer).
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Well I for one sure as hell hope so . . . but I kind of doubt it.
We should be so lucky.
But if proving that libertarianism made no sense were all that were required to kill it, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
It’s good to maintain some libertarian tendencies, especially when it provides the best approach to ending the War on Drugs (however, you’d have to re-divert the wasted money on law enforcement into health care/treatment) or entering into unnecessary (or maybe even desired) engagements abroad.
Also, not to be pedantic, but libertarianism =/= objectivism. I’m pretty sure the objectivist hardcore types considered/consider them just political poseurs who don’t match up to the rigorous philosophical lifestyle required to be a Randroid.
Agreed, Norbizness. I was actually going to put that in the post, but I hurt my hand boxing and can’t type very well, so I’m trying to keep things short. Libertarianism, like Communism, isn’t a terrible idea for a utopia, but on Earth it doesn’t work. That said, it makes sense in some instances, and there’s nothing wrong with applying libertarian principles where they actually work — like as you said, with drug enforcement.
And, while this will probably get me quoted on several right-wing blogs, it’s also good to maintain some socialist tendencies when it comes to social welfare and providing for your citizenry. But like libertarianism, it becomes problematic when you try and go whole-hog.
**Not that Communism and Socialism are interchangeable either. I sort of conflated them in the comment.
LOLbertarian!! Sorry…that one always cracks me up.
Having gone to a law school in the Second City that is fairly libertarian in its ideology with more than one champion professor of it; I would have to say the answer is definitively and sadly No.
I dunno, I think Rand is highly instructive. She is a perfect illustration of the importance of checking your assumptions.
She has a particular view the nature of humanity and the consequences of human interaction that is fundamentally at odds with reality.
Alas, its rarely taught that way.
Libertarianism is far from dead. It may suffer in popularity from the crisis, but just because massive, gaping holes are stabbed through a political theory doesn’t mean people are going to just give it up. By this same logic, neo-conservatism should be on its way out, and I doubt its going anywhere.
On the contrary, economic downturns always result in greater publicity for libertarian economic views. It’s more likely libertarianism is going to be more popular as a result.
I teach about 60-80 undergrads a year. Every year, when asked what their favorite book is, 10-15 of them name something by Ayn Rand. This far outstrips the number who list any Harry Potter book.
All basic ethics and practical political empiricism aside, the woman is a literary trainwreck. Or not even a literary trainwreck, which would at least elevate her to the interest level of a James Frey. At least if Proust was selling libertarianism, I’d understand why they were buying.
Sorry to disturb your daydream, but the number of high school and college students reading Ayn Rand continues to increase. There are now many well funded efforts to supply Atlas Shrugged to schools, and of course the ongoing scholarship essay contests are more popular than ever. Also, several private trusts are offering funding to colleges in exchange for commitments to proactively teach Atlas Shrugged. These programs don’t have to go looking; colleges are contacting them.
Two other points:
1) Most Objectivists indeed completely denounce libertarianism, as hinted above;
2) Rand’s literary style is repugnant to many postmodern intellectuals and NY Review of Books types; we understand why. Fine. Just know that Proust or any number of your darlings are just as reviled by a different set of intellectuals and millions of ordinary people who are not of your aesthetic.
John Donohue
Pasadena, CA
I liked Atlas Shrugged. I completely disagree with the philosophy behind it (although right after I had read it I didn’t disagree completely) but I thought that it was a good novel — well, the ending sucked, but whatever.
We The Living was good too — much shorter, much more succinct denouncement of communism, rather than free market erotica.
On another note, I’m reading Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine in preparation for the election (Randi Rhodes told me to — I do what she says cause I know she can beat me up, although she deplores violence and would probably chastise me for saying something like that). I can only hope that Freidmanism is dead. Although, we can expect some kind of zombie revival… just as soon as they figure out how to bring Milton back. “Tax cuuuuuuuuuts… market deregulaaaaation… no minimum waaaaaage… braaaaaains”.
This Ayn Rand comic will make you laugh so hard you fall out of your chair though. I promise. It will make your week better.
Social libertarianism I like. Economic libertarianism is terrible.
Maybe (hopefully?) they’re lying. I might say something that sounded “smart” like Rand (who I haven’t managed to ever get through) instead of Harry Potter, too. :D (But of course I would always *actually* say Terry Pratchett, so it’s kinda a moot point!)
I would enjoy reading more concerning your thoughts on Ayn Rand.
Definitely not dead. Nor should it be, imo. Nor should Communist thought. As you say here in the comments, Libertarianism, Communism, Socialism, Democracy, they all have strong points. Why we aren’t using those strong points to construct something new…I don’t know.
Oh god, Ayn Rand! I dated a guy who loved her, so I tried reading Fountainhead and it was god-awful boring. So I saw the movie a few weeks ago and the ideologies were ridiculous. I have vowed not to touch another book by her ever again.
I’ve always seen Randian objectivism as a developmental stage, usually occuring in mid-to-late adolescence. Typicaly candidate: bright girl raised with moderately liberal values. Raised to be a “people pleaser.” Spends time in high school dumbing down a bit, pretending she’s not as bright as she really is. Would love to tell more people what she really thinks of them. Secretly wonders if she isn’t somehow selected for something special. (A sort of slightly older female version of harry Potter’s scar.) Reads Atlas or Fountainhead. Is terribly stirred up by the vision of finally living for herself and not for others. Rand helps her move to next level of articulating what she wants.
If this process has not completed by age 22, though, there’s something amiss. Folks over 30 who think Rand “got it right” are rarely the sort of people one wants to spend ooodles of time with.
Ugh, my brother was sooo into Ayn Rand for a while, though I’m not sure if he still is. Probably, since he was a big Ron Paul supporter.
I loved how, in the fourth season premiere of “The Office,” they had Ryan Howard say he’s “been reading a lot of Ayn Rand” as a clue to how much of a tool he was starting to become. :)
I quit about half way through “Atlas Shrugged” when Rand was killing off trainloads of people. Though not what one would call “big L” Literature, it is great book for (as Rachel Setzer said above) “free market erotica.” Enjoyable in the way that reading the DaVinci Code out loud with voices was.
For anyone who has read “Atlas Shrugged”, I would highly recommend Matt Ruff’s “Sewer, Gas and Electric” it is a sort of comic, liberal response to Atlas Shrugged and highlights the absurdity of Objectivism. Also, Action Philosopher’s has a great little thing on her as well. I love Action Philosophers so much! They don’t have Ayn Rand up as a free preview but check out John Stewart Mill: http://www.eviltwincomics.com/ap8.php
I love feministe, but that is a shitty article that knows nothing about libertarianism or economics or the economy of the USA. Yes, the bail-out proves that libertarianism doesn’t work, because before we got into this mess, the USA was just a big old libertarian paradise, right?
Also, Libertarianism is not equal to objectivism, and acting like this actual political belief is only for 15 year olds who think they’re smart for reading Ayn Rand is basically like saying that all leftists are 15 year old who think they’re smart for having a Che Guevera shirt. Except Rand, with all her faults that would not dispute, at least never killed anyone, or to my knowledge, supported a dictator.
Leftists and such have actual beliefs, some of which I share, more of which I sympathize with the motivation behind, I wish so many of them wouldn’t bring up the same old Rand crap over and over again.
(By the way, props to the Drug War hater above!)
I think Rand was a pretty good writer in her core genre, polemic. Doesn’t mean I agree with her conclusions.
A lot of Rand’s philosophy makes sense in very specific conditions. Those conditions don’t correspond to the bulk of human existence, starting with the realities of childbirth and child-rearing.
One of the most annoying things about Rand was her counter-feminist attitude. For example, she was willing to believe that a woman could do anything except be President of the United States, because the obvious commanding and hierarchical contours of that job offended her essentialist concept of womanhood as inferior in sexual surrender to a man. This is a point in her writings that a lot of her critics don’t know about. I don’t have the quote at hand now….
There’s a pretty good response to Weisberg’s piece on the Cato Institute’s site. Here’s a key quote:
.
Regarding the Rand hate — I’m not a fan of Rand either, for the same reasons I hate, for example, The West Wing. It’s an exercise in saying “Here’s what would happen if all the political philosophies I believe in were applied and worked really, really well. Look how cool it would be!” Very tiresome.
::arches brow::
I hate ayn rand for the record, but at least with libertarians, you’d get decent sex education in schools.
If being proven through conflict with objective reality to be a morally and pragmatically bankrupt political philosophy was gonna kill libertarianism, it would have been long dead. The thing about wackaloon right-wing asshole greedfuck libertarians is that logical consistency and empirical legitimation mean absolfuckinglutely *nothing* to them.
Actually, while most people seem to equate libertarianism with some kind of modified Republicanism, that’s not necessarily the case. Check out the wiki section on libertarian democrats, of whom there are many. In relevant part:
“Libertarian Democrats support the civil libertarian aspect of freedom as well as supporting the kind of economic freedom that emphasizes removing corporate subsidies and other favoritism to special interests, and applying a responsible transition toward freedom – for example, some support a transition approach that includes certain trade restrictions on imports from countries that have very little freedom, so that more free trade with those countries would be phased in as they move toward more freedom. They are more likely than most Democrats to support the separation of marriage and state, tax cuts, the decriminalization of drugs (particularly marijuana), and the defense of gun rights. …They are typically pro-choice but may be for or against the death penalty. They tend to favor limited government involvement in most areas of life.”
Rand, in fact, frequently claimed she wasn’t in fact libertarian, but was instead an objectivist, as pointed out by commenters above.
Somehow my earlier comment vanished, but generally, libertarianism is not necessarily a right wing variation, and can be quite consistent with basically Democratic and feminist views.
From the wiki section on libertarian democrats:
“Libertarian Democrats support the civil libertarian aspect of freedom as well as supporting the kind of economic freedom that emphasizes removing corporate subsidies and other favoritism to special interests, and applying a responsible transition toward freedom – for example, some support a transition approach that includes certain trade restrictions on imports from countries that have very little freedom, so that more free trade with those countries would be phased in as they move toward more freedom. They are more likely than most Democrats to support the separation of marriage and state, tax cuts, the decriminalization of drugs (particularly marijuana), and the defense of gun rights. …They are typically pro-choice but may be for or against the death penalty. They tend to favor limited government involvement in most areas of life.”
I heard Thom Hartmann interview Bob Barr today, and Barr was advocating for more regulation.
LOL.
Hartmann totally called him out on it. Awesome.
First, I will never, ever, ever forgive Ayn Rand for the “rape is a precursor/sign of true love” in The Fountainhead. Stupid, stupid, STUPID, and not even vaguely psychologically realistic.
Second, Libertarianism will exist as long as science fiction fans read Robert A. Heinlein, enjoy his books, and believe that he was a great political philosopher. He wasn’t (I found his politicals excruciatingly naive and one-sided, and increasingly shrill as he got older), but there are a distressing number of computer/techie/fannish types who can and do regurgitate the worst parts of Starship Troopers, Time Enough for Love, and The Notebooks of Lazarus Long if given half a chance.
Don’t believe me? Attend an SF convention and start talking politics….
I’ve always seen Randian objectivism as a developmental stage, usually occuring in mid-to-late adolescence. Typicaly candidate: bright girl raised with moderately liberal values. Raised to be a “people pleaser.” Spends time in high school dumbing down a bit, pretending she’s not as bright as she really is. Would love to tell more people what she really thinks of them. Secretly wonders if she isn’t somehow selected for something special. (A sort of slightly older female version of harry Potter’s scar.) Reads Atlas or Fountainhead. Is terribly stirred up by the vision of finally living for herself and not for others. Rand helps her move to next level of articulating what she wants.
If this process has not completed by age 22, though, there’s something amiss. Folks over 30 who think Rand “got it right” are rarely the sort of people one wants to spend ooodles of time with.
Hugo, you just psychically recounted my last two years of high school! I read The Fountainhead my junior year and loved it. Then I went to college and became a hardcore “bleeding-heart liberal.” And started living for myself and not for others. So, in that sense, I’m glad. It helped.
I don’t agree with libertarianism, but Rand’s not quite the same thing, mostly because libertarian theory actually makes some rational and applicable sense.
That said, at the risk of calling fire down on my own head, I find American libertarianism to be about as equally starry-eyed as, say, American socialism, which is to say that any large scale success in practical application depends on people in the world being better than they actually are.
I hate Ayn Rand for her breathtaking misogyny. There’s a line in Atlas Shrugged which is (approximately): She had the ultimate look of femininity; that of being chained. (Which is used to describe the *heroine*.)
Her political philosophy does nothing for me, and her writing does even less.
Speaking as a converted voice, I have to admit that around ages 19-20 I was exposed to Ayn Rand and thought she was the best thing since sliced bread. However, I made a very good friend who relentlessly argued every point with me.
This topic just made me think of that and how glad I was to have him there, because repudiating that philosophy was so difficult for me that I don’t believe it was something I would’ve done on my own.
I wish I could be one of you all who saw her books for what they were at first glance, but I just hadn’t been exposed to the right counter arguments, and I was too privileged and isolated to know better.
I sure hope not. It would be a terrible loss for our ever-narrowing field of political discourse.
I hate ayn rand for the record, but at least with libertarians, you’d get decent sex education in schools.
How do you figure? I’m not even sure you’d have public schools with libertarians in charge.
I hate to say it, Ren, but with libertarians you wouldn’t get schools at all. See New Orleans for an example.
I hope libertarianism is dead.
While I love “lolbertarian”. I also love quoting an author (whose name I’ve forgotten) who called libertarianism, “a venal American petit-bourgois dissidence.”
And, for the record, I don’t hate libertarians or libertarian ideas (although I do hate Ayn Rand). As I said in an earlier comment, I think that libertarian ideas as applied in certain instances make sense. I don’t think it makes sense for the government to be launching a war on drugs or sex or “vice” or whatever else. But I don’t think that pure libertarianism when applied to the markets or to social welfare makes sense either. I do think that the government has a role in providing for its citizens, and meeting all of our needs requires that we all pitch in, even involuntarily through taxation. I also think that it’s good for some industries to have a nationalized component to go along with the private sector (for example, health care and schooling); and I think it’s good for some industries to be purely nationalized (like safety and prisons — we’ve seen the huge problems that have come from privatizing parts of what is now fairly called the prison industry).
So to be clear, I don’t hope that libertarian ideas are dead; I do hope that the goal of a purely libertarian economic structure is dead.
Probably not, so it’d just be a matter of finding a private school that offers a sex education course that you’re comfortable with.
…which would mean that a lot of kids in more conservative or rural areas would get really crappy sex ed, or none at all. And likely crappy science and literature classes, too. Which is why I think libertarian principles applied to education are problematic. I don’t think that the quality of one’s education should depend on where they live or what they can afford or how involved their parents are (and although admittedly that’s the situation we’re in now anyway, libertarianism would make it worse).
Probably not, so it’d just be a matter of finding a private school that offers a sex education course that you’re comfortable with.
And yet again comes the admission that if Libertarians were in charge, it would all come down to privilege and the ability to access all of these wonderful private things that would be great for those middle-class white Americans who can get them.
As Jill said — all libertarian ideas are not bad. The purist libertarian philosophy that results in the likes of Ron Paul (who opposes abortion rights so isn’t a real libertarian anyway but whatever) and so on definitely is. The libertarian philosophy that says “bootstraps, bootstraps, bootstraps, and no public schools!” is just stupid at best and utterly cruel and evil at worst.
There, I said it.
That said, at the risk of calling fire down on my own head, I find American libertarianism to be about as equally starry-eyed as, say, American socialism, which is to say that any large scale success in practical application depends on people in the world being better than they actually are.
No fire from me. I think that’s exactly right.
i’m not an objectivist by any means, but i enjoyed the fountainhead a lot. yeah, her writing style can be laughable at times, but there’s something very compelling about a man who wants to succeed on his own merits and through his own willpower. it’s essentially nietzsche’s uberman made into a fictional story.
i think like all things, there’s good and bad with her. she’s an idealist who takes herself and her theories too seriously, she’s wrong about the economy, about america’s political structure, about war, and she was wrong to put in that absurd rape scene in the fountainhead, but i agree with her when she says things like: To say “I love you” one must first be able to say the “I.” or that the worst crime a person can commit in life is to not reach one’s potential.
i think probably the biggest problem is that people read her when they’re too young. i always tried to avoid her, but i needed a big thick book to read on the plan ride to europe and really it doesnt get much bigger than a rand book.
this lady was not happy with me reading it on the plane though. haha.
I’m going to assume that you mean that there should be some sort of minimum education standard that shouldn’t depend on where you live or what you can afford or how involved your parents are, right? Because if you mean that the quality of your education shouldn’t depend at all on those things, I’m not sure how you could accomplish that, aside from separating kids from their parents at the start of the education process, and sending everybody to state-run boarding schools.
Anyway, I don’t presume to speak for all libertarians, especially since I don’t identify myself as one, but the choice isn’t between a government-run school system and bootstraps, bootstraps, bootstraps. It’s perfectly reasonable to have a privately-run school system, with every student having their tuition all or in part paid for by the state. On average, we spend over $10k per student (or at least, we did in 2004-2005, according to the National Center for Education Statistics), which is significantly more than the average tuition cost of private school.
This is my major problem with progressive social policies in general — There’s always a leap of logic made between the government paying for things, and the government running things. Surely you all realize that if you set up an efficient state-run school system, it will inevitably be controlled, at least temporarily, by Republicans, who can use it to teach all manner of ridiculous and abhorrent things?
So you read “Anthem”, too? I was 16 when I read it. It’s the only Rand book which I thought made sense. Atlas Shrugged made my head hurt, and The Fountainhead was filled with stupid people (almost as bad as The Thornbirds).
Best of all, “Anthem” is SHORT!! :)
i actually didn’t like anthem. lol!
a few things stuck out, but i couldn’t even finish it.
with the exception, one presumes, that American libertarianism actually exists. whereas socialism in the USA is rather more of a mythical beast, i’ve found.
There is a very interesting segment in “Justice, Gender and the Family” by Susan Moller Okin in which she proves that, by the basic underpinnings of libertarian philosophy, mothers should own children outright as property. Children are something manufactured by the physical labor of a mother, using material she either already has or material that is freely given to her by men (material they are often eager to give her) which is itself otherwise thrown away (in other words, it is material manufactured by men which is of no inherent value to men, and cannot be used for anything *except* being given to a woman for her to make use of it, and men do so freely and with no desire for recompense except the pleasure they get from the act that delivers the material). According to libertarian philosophy, the thing that you make with your own labor out of raw materials that you either paid for or were freely given is *yours*, and no government may dictate what you do with it. It is a gigantic hole in the philosophy, which demonstrates how the “labor” of women in creating human beings has always been invisible (even to women themselves, such as Ayn Rand; one wonders, if she’d had a kid, how it might have changed her philosophy), that *all human beings* can be defined as property of their mothers by the logic of libertarian basic principles.
I had always thought that in a libertarian society, if the labor of mothers is *not* compensated by making children property, then the society falls apart and dies out in a generation or two, or it enslaves mothers, which is a violation of its principles. It is too difficult for women to raise children on their own, with no aid from any other human; the physical cost of childbearing would hold women back if they received no support from anyone at all. This would mean that in order to receive support during their bearing and rearing of children, women would have to contract with someone to support them in exchange for the product… which actually sounds like patriarchy, where women essentially give over their reproductive rights to men in exchange for men financially supporting them and their children, and the men end up owning both the women and the children. Also, any man who does this — contracts with a woman to raise children — ends up with a financial burden that other men don’t have. To compensate for the financial burden, he needs someone to do his housekeeping work — feed him, clean his clothes, leave him free to do nothing but work — so women who want kids must essentially accept being enslaved to men. In a libertarian society, where freedom is emphasized and everyone is taught they can pick their own path and the greatest achievement is to be answereable to no one, women’s desire for children would be suppressed by the cultural messages telling them that to be a person, they must be free — women succumb to patriarchy because the cultural messages tell them that’s where they belong, but libertarianism doesn’t *inherently* come packaged with sexism. Patriarchy evolves from human biology within libertarianism, but it’s a bug, not a feature. So women, in general, would not reproduce, and the society dies out within two generations.
Of course the other alternative, making children slaves of their mothers, is just as bad. I’m working on a short story about a libertarian colony world where they went in that direction, and even they had to pull back from the full “children are slaves” position because it resulted in too many old women being murdered by their kids; now children must work to earn their freedom from their mothers, which makes the society matriarchal, literally (women with no children have no more power than men do, but women with children have a profit center). It’s one of those satirical sf dystopias, where I am trying to explore the fundamental conflict between the means of human reproduction and child-rearing, and libertarian ideals.
“It’s perfectly reasonable to have a privately-run school system, with every student having their tuition all or in part paid for by the state.”
It may be, but I do not find it desirable. Some investor is going to want to profit off this school they invested in. They look for ways to drive down costs. The biggest expense is salaries, so teacher’s would be paid even less, leading to even less qualified and motivated people to do it. It also might mean even less investment in quality teaching materials. I’m perfectly OK with some things being somewhat shielded from market forces when that serves the common good. Education and health care are two of these things.
You are naive if you believe that people aren’t profiting from the public education system as it stands right now. Like I said above, we spend $10k/student on average. Does anyone believe we’re getting $10k worth of education out of that money? Those wasted dollars end up in somebody’s pocket eventually.
I didn’t say no one was profiting. Please check your assumptions next time. I said I didn’t want the profits to go to an investor. I’d rather that the staff receive a decent wage and quality educational materials purchased.
I work for a private company and we have plenty of incompetence and inefficiency. I do not agree that private enterprise is always more efficient. I’d like to see some evidence to back up this common assumption.
[...] Weisberg surveys our financial collapse and declares libertarianism dead. (Hat tip.) Alas, I wish I could feel as secure as he does on this front, but I’m afraid I don’t, [...]
Jesus Christ, Hugo (#19) — get outta my head!
You just described me at 17-19. Perfectly. Down to a “t.” Ugh, it’s creepy.
Yes, I was a Randroid for less than two years. Yes, I argued relentlessly with people once I “found” Rand. Yes, it gave me the ability to speak up for myself in ways that I had never thought possible — argumentatively, aggressively, passionately, and without doubts. Yes, it provided me with a self-esteem I had never previously felt.
And I majored in philosophy in college.
And yes, I “converted” — grew out of it, I mean — in less than a year of philosophy courses. The weakness of the philosophy became so ridiculously apparent to me that I went searching for exposes of Rand’s life and works in my college library. I found a book that tore her to shreds. Mercilessly. Accused her of never having even read Marx, or Kant, or Aristotle — of having Leonard Peikoff read them for her and give her notes (he actually got a philosophy degree, she didn’t — it makes sense). There were notes in the margins of her copies of philosophy texts reading, “Ask Leonard,” for Chrissake! That did it for me. Also, the Nathaniel Branden angle just blew my mind. And the fact that, despite her rabidly anti-drug stance, she was a Benzedrine addict for most of her adult life. It explains why her writing style was so terrible, I guess.
Plus, I discovered feminism (yay!). That was the final nail in the coffin. I just couldn’t continue to read about feminist thought and simultaneously support a woman who condoned violent, forceful rape and who was quoted as saying, “I am a male chauvinist.”
I’m so embarrassed to have gotten so deeply enmeshed in that stuff, but it definitely precipitated my philosophical awakening. And it made me extremely sensitive to weaknesses in argumentative style, which has served me in countless ways in the years since I “woke up.” I’m now a raging liberal, and for damn good reason.
And I will never be taken in by such a shyster again. So there’s that. :)
Those of you who are pointing our that libertarianism is an ideology need to be more vocal when you encounter others espousing this nonsense. In the libertarian ideology facts and analysis don’t matter. Bank failures, trade imbalance, high unemployment – the actual economic issue is irrelevant and the solution is always the same – less government regulation and lower taxes. Libertarianisn is anti-intellectual. There isn’t a reason to analyze anything and it makes a mockery of Economics as a field of study. Why study, evaluate, or analyze anything when you already know the answer? Simply put, Libertarianism is the Economics what Creationism is to modern Evolutionary Biology.
#53, Literary Critic, just some observations from working closely with a lot of college students for a long, long time.
Maybe I need to write an article about “the Rand phase”. I know where to look for interview subjects!
Nomen @ 47: I’m from Milwaukee. We’ve had three socialist mayors in the past hundred years. Admittedly, currently American socialism doesn’t really exist as a political force, but it has in the past.
Smarty-pants, there are plenty of valid critiques of both Marxism and socialism and in defense of the free market. It is intellectually dishonest to pretend that it is simply a matter of ideology. I suggest Mises’ work on Socialism and The Theory of Money and Credit. As to Marxism, you might take a look at Blaug’s Economic Theory in Retrospect. Just a couple of places to start.
If you have solved the problem regarding socialism’s distortion of prices, and the information communicated under price theory, I’m all ears, but I’ve never seen a solution to this issue yet. In addition, if you can demonstrate that a posteriori regulation can be efficient and successful, please feel free to demonstrate such a theory of regulation.
Blaming libertarianism for the present crisis is disingenuous. Free markets did not create tax incentives to reward home ownership at the expense of renters. Free markets didn’t keep interest rates artificially low for years contributing to the bubble. Free markets did not artificially create public chartered companies to create the illusion that mass securitization could eliminate the risk factors for lending to unqualified individuals. Last I checked, those were all actions by the government of the last 2 administrations.
I apologize, I meant “a priori” regulation in my prior post. In essence, regulation in anticipation of future action by actors in a regulated market.
As I stated, Libertarianism is to Economics what Creationism is to modern Evolutionary Biology. But instead of “God did it!” libertarians simply blurt-out their utopianist philosophy. It is a blatantly anti-intellectual and sophomoric ideology that claims to know the answer before the question is asked. It makes a mockery of Economics as a field of study. Libertarian utopianism is most properly relegated to the pages of Science Fiction novels where men are real men, women are real women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri are REAL small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri … and the citizens of the moon station Delta Prime live in perfect harmony under the gentle meanderings of a truly free-market utopia.
I got caught up in libertarian ideology for awhile after suffering through _The Fountainhead_. Hated the book, loved the philosophy. This lasted until I started interning in Washington.
I agree with the poster who said that Rand was at her best writing polemics.
When I read Atlas Shrugged in high school, I found it to be almost anti-corporate, in the sense that it celebrates hard-working people from less-than-affluent backgrounds who rose to the top through their competence, whereas the fat-cat CEO (Dagny’s brother, was it?) at the top who kept being given breaks was the real idiot. I also think her core philosophy of living for oneself has some merit, especially as applied to personal relationships where people are more or less on equal footing. Of course, discrimination, favoritism, classism, and unforseen circumstances simply don’t exist in Ayn Rand’s world. And don’t get me started on the rape scene in the Fountainhead – that was sick.
My view on libertarianism in general is that it’s an understandable philosophy but that the people who espouse it don’t really understand the way the world works.
Jill:
Well, then. Thank goodness government schooling has done such a great job making sure that kids in more conservative areas don’t end up with really crappy sex ed, or none at all.
Oh, wait.