Since his op-ed in the WSJ on health care (thanks Rug!) I've been reading up on John Mackey. (This guy ROCKS! He is really the Ayn Rand Hero of today.) For the first time, I'm starting to see why more people don't believe in freedom or the type of freedom advocated by libertarians. In this transcript of a speech he gave in 2004, he identifies why the Freedom Movement is struggling. In hindsight, I really should have realized this on my own.
Here are a couple of excerpts from the article that got me thinking:
"Let's start with the critique. How many of you have read Ayn Rand? How many of you have been influenced by her? "Atlas Shrugged" remains one of the five greatest novels I have ever read. Who can ever forget characters like Dagny Taggart, Hank Rearden, Francisco d'Anconia, from "Atlas Shrugged," as well as Howard Roark in "The Fountainhead"? These characters all demonstrated tremendous passions and drive, backed by high self-esteem. Each one inspired this young entrepreneur. I wanted to be just like those heroic characters in "Atlas Shrugged."
However, despite her literary greatness and many positive contributions to the freedom movement, I believe that Rand has also harmed the movement. How? She was overly provocative. The "virtue of selfishness" is an oxymoron. Selfishness is not a virtue. Now, I understand all the arguments — I've read all the books. I know that self-interest channeled to the social good, as expressed through Adam Smith's "invisible hand," is the single most brilliant insight about social organization ever made in history. That being said, selfishness (as opposed to self-interest) is still not a virtue. It is something to be discouraged, and not something to be supported."
"When I was a naive (some people in the audience by this time probably think I'm still naive) and idealistic young man, I migrated to the Left for my value system. Why did I do that? Because the Left provided an idealistic vision of the way the world could be. However, the reality of the Left's vision proved to be terribly flawed. Its socialist economic system not only didn't work very well, but in its communist manifestation it justified monstrous governments directly responsible for the murders of over 100 million people in the 20th century. Despite the horrible track record of leftist ideology, millions of young Americans continue to migrate to an intellectually bankrupt Left because the Left still seems to be idealistic, and idealism is magnetic to the young. Idealism will always be magnetic to the intelligent and sensitive young people of the world.
How sad that the freedom movement often refuses to be idealistic. We usually don't even attempt to compete. We simply forfeit the field to the Left because we pride ourselves on our "realism" and "tough-mindedness." We talk about freedom and prosperity — and that is about it. We have no real theory of either the good life or the good society except the fundamental belief that if people have sufficient personal and economic liberties (as in Friedrich Hayek's spontaneous order) we will create a prosperous society.
Freedom and prosperity are important goals, but they must be only the beginning goals for us. If we are to win the allegiance of the young people of America then we must dare to be more idealistic. We must create a vision of the good life and the good society that is irresistible to the young."
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Bravo to John Mackey! Two comments:
ReplyDelete1. Ayn Rand was intentionally provocative - and it was a great strategy. I doubt her book would have been 'the second most influential book of the 20th century' had she been socially polite (ironically, the first is the Bible). People would have ignored "the virtue of self interest" for the most part- it is predictable. She draws your interest with a title like this and lets you come to conclusion that selfishness is (in her heroic portrayal of man) self interest,at least what she means by it.
2. On one hand, I feel that the very concept of a "Freedom" is very much Idealistic. It implies free men, free thinkers, free markets - sounds like heaven. On the other hand, John's absolutely right. It takes most people years of reading on Liberty, and considerable research on Economics (Capitalism vs. socialism) to arrive at such a conclusion. Its very hard to even get there, because that's the unpopular view and one has to overcome various social taboos to be comfortable making such statements in public. "Making money" is still considered ugly and "helping others" is the nobler path.
So this is what we need to work on. How can we portray liberty idealistically? No, we can't just cry "freedom, personal responsibility, and economic freedom". Even people who believe in the intrinsic goodness of these words, will not have faith in the practical execution of it. They worry about the widows, the children and others- who can't take care of themselves. And its a good concern. One we can't ignore or sacrifice for the sake of our values, not if we want see them happen. Notice that the Left's emphasis is on the supposed end result and the people's contribution - "you are helping people to live better lives". Its not on the underlying philosophy "we take your money and give it to who we see fit". Ours on the other hand is on the fundamentals "you are free to do what you want". So lets change the approach, back it up by research and present it in the same format: action and this-time-real results.
I thought there were socialist systems in Europe that seem to be regarded well - or at least not the catastrophes that Mackey says they are.
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