For conservatives, the causal connection between virtue and success is not merely ideological, it is also deeply personal. It forms the basis of their admiration of themselves. If you ask a rich person whether he ascribes his success to good fortune or his own merit, the answer will probably tell you whether that person inhabits the economic left or the economic right. Rand held up her own meteoric rise from penniless immigrant to wealthy author as a case study of the individualist ethos. “No one helped me,” she wrote, “nor did I think at any time that it was anyone’s duty to help me.”
For conservatives, the causal connection between virtue and success is not merely ideological, it is also deeply personal. It forms the basis of their admiration of themselves. If you ask a rich person whether he ascribes his success to good fortune or his own merit, the answer will probably tell you whether that person inhabits the economic left or the economic right. Rand held up her own meteoric rise from penniless immigrant to wealthy author as a case study of the individualist ethos. “No one helped me,” she wrote, “nor did I think at any time that it was anyone’s duty to help me.”
Wealthcare, The New Republic
Interesting article in which TNR discusses the “mythology of heroic capitalist individualism.”
November 5th, 2009 - 11:31 pm
Everyone intelligent (non-egocentric) wealthy person I know says the exact same thing.
“It was pure luck, 100%.”
I can name at least 10 multi-millionairs who have said that to me.
November 6th, 2009 - 2:31 pm
“A market economy creates some lopsided payoffs to participants. The right endowment of vocal chords, anatomical structure, physical strength, or mental powers can produce enormous piles of claim checks (stocks, bonds, and other forms of capital) on future national output. Proper selection of ancestors similarly can result in lifetime supplies of such tickets upon birth. If zero real investment returns diverted a bit greater portion of the national output from such stockholders to equally worthy and hardworking citizens lacking jackpot-producing talents, it would seem unlikely to pose such an insult to an equitable world as to risk Divine Intervention.”
“The way I see it is that my money represents an enormous number of claim checks on society. It’s like I have these little pieces of paper that I can turn into consumption. If I wanted to, I could hire 10,000 people to do nothing but paint my picture every day for the rest of my life. And the GDP would go up. But the utility of the product would be zilch, and I would be keeping those 10,000 people from doing AIDS research, or teaching, or nursing. I don’t do that though. I don’t use very many of those claim checks. There’s nothing material I want very much. And I’m going to give virtually all of those claim checks to charity when my wife and I die. ”
“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
Warren Buffett, richest man in the world
November 6th, 2009 - 5:50 pm
When the Pilgrims brought Christianity to North America, they emphasized the importance of legitimate individual self-interests. Individual freedom brought us the free market, and that brought us prosperity, far in excess of any other place on earth. Today, Obama tells us the interests of community are more important than are the interests of individuals, and a majority of Americans voted for him. He has put American government in opposition to individual freedom, the free market and, consequently our prosperity. He is sinking America’s identity into the rest of the world where 80% of the people are struggling just to survive day to day. The rest of the world objects to America having only 5% of the world’s people, yet using 25% of the world’s wealth. They, and Obama, believe America is unfair and he is busy apologizing for us. This is described in THE CHANGING FACE OF DEMOCRATS on Amazon and http://www.claysamerica.com.
November 7th, 2009 - 5:57 am
I’m really surprised you posted this article because it really does take the piss out of Rand but it was a very interesting read. Very spot on about a lot of things. Even the comments by a particular “Iamambigous” were well thought out. This article pretty much summed up why I was never a big fan of hers.
November 9th, 2009 - 1:13 am
xrew:
I think a more sensible and productive view would be to acknowledge the hard work and the luck. To say that one’s success is “100%” anything is just being facetious, no?
Clay:
Interesting site and books, thanks for commenting!
corbenfrost:
It does indeed, and I don’t really agree with much of the article but it did make me think and I was interested enough to read the whole thing. I like to see an article that argues against Rand while still affording her philosophy the respect of a rational argument; this is surprisingly rare.
November 9th, 2009 - 3:25 pm
Clay,
Even the Heritage Foundation acknowledges that the pilgrims’ first economic manifestation in the Pilgrim colony was communistic. Practically, that didn’t seem to work out for them as well as communal economic relationships seemed to have worked for their contemporaries among the indigenous. However, those founding pilgrim forefathers apparently had no trouble reconciling communistic economics with their religious position of individual interpretation of scripture. Considering the small population, the large amount of disease, I’d be unwilling to assign fault on either economic system for the small size of the colony up until 1630. Such a small, marginal experiment doesn’t say a whole lot definitively–particularly in comparison to the contemporary indigenous economies which… the story goes, saved the Pilgrims with Thanksgiving.
The “Obama is a socialist” meme is trite. Five time Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon was more of a socialist than Obama.