Who was Ayn Rand?
By Lowell Grant?letters to the editor
Recently we were asked who a fictional character was from a book that has had a dramatic effect on all of our lives, although you may not yet realize this. The non-existent John Galt was the hero of “Atlas Shrugged” which was written by Ayn Rand and became a widely read and influential manifesto for a society that enshrines Darwinian “survival of the fittest” thinking. I read this book and Ayn Rand”s earlier book, “The Fountainhead,” as well as many other economic books from different viewpoints. Where I went to school students were exposed to the full range of economic philosophy, not just one side or the other.
The theme we are constantly bombarded with these days is that the “eastern elite schools” only teach communism, yet Ayn Rand lectured at Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Johns Hopkins and MIT. I guess if a university teaches anything other than extremist right wing philosophy they must be evil by that faulty logic!
I have had several of my conservative friends send me e-mails during my past year with the exact same “Who was John Galt” heading, all calling him the hero and wailing that all who would stand in his way of unfettered freedom to realize his goals without any government interference or regulation are depicted as evil. At one point in the book Galt”s character (it”s important to remember he is not, nor ever was a real person) stabbed to death a bureaucrat who had the audacity to stand in his way, declaring “after that no one else stood in my way!” How inspirational!
To understand who Galt”s character was, we need to know who Ayn Rand was. Her real name was Alice Rosenbaum, born and educated in Russia. Her father, Fronz Rosenbaum was a chemist who lost everything to the brutal Communist revolution led by Lennin. Knowing that she was traumatized by witnessing her parents having everything they had worked for being confiscated by an extremist dictatorship, it”s easy to understand why she saw the world in simplistic black and white without any middle ground.
One of her most ardent admirers was Alan Greenspan, who presided over our economy during the recent orgy of unregulated excess that has dumped us at depression”s doorstep. In recent testimony before Congress he testified that “I was shocked, SHOCKED, that the bankers could not be trusted to self regulate!” No kidding, he actually said those words. I didn”t know whether to feel sorry or angry at his naivete.
As James Madison said, “If all men were angels we would have no need of laws, much less of government.” Well, here in the real world, all men are not angels. If anyone would like to see a current working example of a country where there is no government interference with entrepreneurs realizing their dreams, no taxation and no gun control, look no farther than to see what life is like in Somalia. It”s obvious to me that we must have a government to ensure fairness and to protect those who can”t protect themselves from greed and avarice.
The flip-side of this lawlessness is Communism, which destroys all hope of genius reaching its potential and smothers any spark of excellence. Everything is owned and operated by the government and the citizen is reduced to nothing more than a tooth on a gear going around in circles. One day, or one year, is just like another.
As is true in most things, the correct place to be is somewhere in the middle. In our society we have come to understand that some things are too big or too vital to be left to private entrepreneurs without oversight, but that the individual must at the same time be allowed to realize their dreams. We enjoy social programs that build highways, bridges, educate all children equally, help care for the elderly, etc. While we have many social programs, we also have created more millionaires and now billionaires than any other country hi the world. Many studies have proven that the happiest people on earth live in countries that call themselves “socialist” which is only confused with “communist” by the ignorant. Socialism is not a dirty word even though it is used as a smear by those who don”t know better.
Lowell Grant is a local real estate broker.
