From: Rand, Ayn, Philosophy: Who Needs It. Kindle Edition. There are, fundamentally, only two causes of the progress of the nineteenth century— the same two causes you will find at the root of any happy, benevolent, progressive era in human history. One cause is psychological, the other existential— or: one pertains to man’s consciousness, the other to the physical conditions of his existence. The first is reason, the second is freedom. I mean “freedom from compulson— freedom from rule by physical force.” Which means: political freedom. These two— reason and freedom— are corollaries, and their relationship is reciprocal: when men are rational, freedom wins; when men are free, reason wins. Their antagonists are: faith and force. These, also, are corollaries: every period of history dominated by mysticism, was a period of statism, of dictatorship, of tyranny. Look at the Middle Ages— and look at the political systems of today. The nineteenth century was the ultimate product and expression of the intellectual trend of the Renaissance and the Age of Reason, which means: of a predominantly Aristotelian philosophy. And, for the first time in history, it created a new economic system, the necessary corollary of political freedom, a system of free trade on a free market: capitalism. No, it was not a full, perfect, unregulated, totally laissez-faire capitalism— as it should have been. Various degrees of government interference and control still remained, even in America. But the extent to which certain countries were free was the exact extent of their economic progress. America, the freest, achieved the most. Never mind the low wages and the harsh living conditions of the early years of capitalism. Capitalism did not create poverty— it inherited it. Compared to the centuries of precapitalist starvation, the living conditions of the poor in the early years of capitalism were the first chance the poor had ever had to survive. As proof— the enormous growth of the European population during the nineteenth century, a growth of over 300 percent, as compared to the previous growth of something like 3 percent per century. Now why was this not appreciated? Why did capitalism, the truly magnificent benefactor of mankind, arouse resentment, denunciations and hatred, then and now? Why did the so-called defenders of capitalism keep apologizing for it, then and now? Because capitalism and altruism are incompatible. Make no mistake about it— and tell it to your Republican friends: capitalism and altruism cannot coexist in the same man or in the same society. Tell it to anyone who attempts to justify capitalism on the ground of the “public good” or the “general welfare” or “service to society” or the benefit it brings to the poor. All these things are true, but they are the by-products, the secondary consequences of capitalism— not its goal, purpose or moral justification. The moral justification of capitalism is man’s right to exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; it is the recognition that man— every man— is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others, not a sacrificial animal serving anyone’s need. The power of morality is the greatest of all intellectual powers— and mankind’s tragedy lies in the fact that the vicious moral code men have accepted destroys them by means of the best within them. So long as altruism was their moral ideal, men had to regard capitalism as immoral; capitalism certainly does not and cannot work on the principle of selfless service and sacrifice. This was the reason why the majority of the nineteenth-century intellectuals regarded capitalism as a vulgar, uninspiring, materialistic necessity of this earth, and continued too long for their unearthly moral ideal. From the start, while capitalism was creating the splendor of its achievements, creating it in silence, unacknowledged and undefended (morally undefended), the intellectuals were moving in greater and greater numbers towards a new dream: socialism. The socialists had a certain kind of logic on their side: if the collective sacrifice of all to all is the moral ideal, then they wanted to establish this ideal in practice, here and on this earth. The arguments that socialism would not and could not work, did not stop them: neither has altruism ever worked, but this has not caused men to stop and question it. Only reason can ask such questions— and reason, they were told on all sides, has nothing to do with morality, morality lies outside the realm of reason, no rational morality can ever be defined. The fallacies and contradictions in the economic theories of socialism were exposed and refuted time and time again, in the nineteenth century as well as today. This did not and does not stop anyone: it is not an issue of economics, but of morality. The intellectuals and the so-called idealists were determined to make socialism work. How? By that magic means of all irrationalists: somehow.
Posted on: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 01:11:25 +0000
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