It was into this world that Rand's first novel,
We The Living,
was born. The ideas dramatized in We the Living are often overlooked by both Rand's fans and
critics. This is partly because We the Living is overshadowed by Rand's more popular and
philosophically sophisticated novels, The Fountainhead
and Atlas Shrugged
but I believe this is also because the ideas dramatized in We the Living are no longer
controversial.
The novel is set in the early years of the Soviet Union. It tells
the story of Kira Argounova, a young engineering student who is struggling to pursue her own values
and maintain the semblance of a human life under the communist regime. Rand herself was born in
Russia, and lived through the early years of the Soviet Union. The background of the novel was based
on Rand's own experiences, and many of the characters in the novel were modeled after people she
knew (McConnell 2004). Rand believed that We the Living was important because it was "the first
story written by a Russian who knows the living conditions of the new Russia and who has actually
lived under the Soviets in the period described" (quoted in Ralston 2004, 133). At the time Rand was
writing, most people had no idea of what life was like under the Soviets. It would not be until the
collapse of the Soviet Union 55 years later that Rand's portrayal of life in the "new Russia" would be
fully vindicated.
Rand describes We the Living as a "novel about Man against
the State" (Rand [1936] 1996, xiii). It shows how individual lives are affected when "the Communist
principle that Man must exist for the sake of the State" is put into practice (Rand [1936] 1996, xv). In
his books Socialism
and Human Action,
Ludwig von Mises presents the abstract case for why economic calculation is impossible under socialism.
What Rand shows in We The Living
is what this means to actual human beings. At the beginning of the novel, Kira and her family are
traveling by train to Petrograd. The other people on the train are discussing the food crisis. They are
looking forward to Petrograd because in Petrograd there is "dried fish," and "real potatoes," and
"pancakes of coffee grounds with treacle". The only problem is that you have to "stand in line for
three hours at the co-operative" and only then "maybe you get food" (Rand [1936] 1996, 24). Towards the
end of the novel Rand describes a "little man" in line at a co-operative, who is pleased that the store
might have lard next week, because that "will be a holiday ... something to look forward to" (cf.
Garmong 2004, 72-74; Rand [1936] 1996, 424-25). If one reads von Mises' critique of socialism, one will
understand why socialism cannot work. But when one reads Rand's We the Living one is able to
enter the lives of the people living under socialism and experience their tribulations, which is a
perspective that only a novelist can provide.
To the modern reader, Rand's portrait of life in the Soviet
Union is uncontroversial. We now know that socialism does not lead to an improvement in the living
standards of everyone; we now know that even the top echelon of the Soviet hierarchy often lived in
poorer conditions than the average middle-class family in the United States. We now know that
socialism is not more productive than capitalism. We now know that socialism does not work. But
even as late as the mid-80s, only six years before the collapse of the Soviet Union, many economists
still believed that the Soviet system would overtake the United States. John Kenneth Galbraith, for
example, claimed that the "Soviet system has made great economic progress in recent years. ... One
can see it in the appearance of solid well-being of the people in the streets" (quoted in Conquest 2000,
135). At a time when most of the world seemed to endorse the great Soviet experiment, Rand provided
support for the proponents of individual freedom and laissez-faire capitalism by showing to the world
what life under the Soviets was really like.
Anthem
Rand's second novel is titled
Anthem. It was
originally published in England in 1937, a year after the publication of We the Living; it
wasn't published in the United States until 1947, because Rand was unable to find a U.S. publisher
(Bernstein 2000, 3). Anthem is set in a dystopian future. This is a world in which there is no
individual identity. Each person does the work that is assigned to him by the Council of Vocations
(Rand [1937] 1946, 22). Each person lives in a common barracks with the other members of his or her
profession; for example, there is a Home of the Street Sweepers, and a Home of the Clerks. Each man
mates with the women assigned to him by the Council of Eugenics, and children are removed from their
mothers at birth so they won't know who their parents are (Rand [1937] 1946, 41). Each person is known
only by a number that is written on an iron bracelet which all people must wear (Rand [1937] 1946, 18).
The word "I" has disappeared from the human language; an individual refers to himself only as "we"
(Bernstein 2000, 7 & 19). In the Home of the Students, the children are required to recite the
following prayer before they go to bed: "We are nothing. Mankind is all. By the grace of our brothers
we are allowed our lives. We exist through, by and for our brothers who are the State. Amen" (Rand
[1937] 1946, 21).
Anthem shares many similarities with two other dystopian
novels published around the same time – Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, which was first published in an
English edition thirteen years before Anthem, and George Orwell’s
1984, which was
published eleven years after Anthem (Zamyatin [1924] 1993, xi & xvii). All three novels dramatize the
horrors of collectivism. But Anthem is unique in a couple of important respects. Stylistically,
Anthem is unique in that it is the only novel in which the word "I" has disappeared from the
human language. In Zamyatin's We, as in Rand's Anthem, people are only known as
numbers. But in Zamyatin's We people still maintain an individual identity, people can still
conceive of themselves as individuals. In Rand's Anthem, people do not even possess the concepts
necessary to conceive of themselves as individuals.
Philosophically, the most important difference between these
novels is Rand's depiction of a collectivist dystopia as a technologically backward society. Both
Zamyatin's We and Orwell's 1984 present their collectivist dystopias as technologically advanced
societies. There is no individual thought permitted in their worlds, but technology still manages to
flourish nonetheless. Rand believed this view to be mistaken. She believed that if individual thought
is not permitted then the products of individual thought, such as technology, had to disappear. Thus in
Rand's Anthem, society has retrogressed to a pre-technological age. For example, at the age of forty
people are sent to the Home of the Useless, where the Old Ones live. If by some miracle a person
lives to the age forty-five they are known as the Ancient Ones (Rand [1937] 1946, 28). This is
because the medical technology and improved living conditions that have increased the average
lifespan to 80 years or more no longer exists, and so the average lifespan has reverted to what it was
before the Industrial Revolution (Bernstein 2000, 21).
Like We The Living,
the philosophy dramatized in Anthem
often gets overlooked. But at the time Rand was writing the suggestion that a collectivist society is
incompatible with technological advancement was a radical proposition. What Rand understood was
that thought could only be carried out by an individual, in the same way that breathing and digestion
can only be carried out by an individual (Rand [1943] 1994, 665). So just as if you were to ban
individual digestion people would starve, so if you were to ban individual thought people would cease
to think.
The Fountainhead
Rand's third novel is titled The Fountainhead.
While We the Living and Anthem had sold well in Europe, it was not until the publication of The Fountainhead that
Rand found her audience in the United States. Unlike Rand's earlier novels, The Fountainhead is not
primarily concerned with politics, but with ethics. The theme of The Fountainhead is individualism
versus collectivism, not in politics, but in each person's soul. What Rand wanted to dramatize in The
Fountainhead is that true individualism consists in acting on one’s own independent judgment, and
pursuing one’s own values. The independent person does not purchase a new car, for instance,
because this will impress his friends or neighbors, but because he judges this car to be of value. This
is as opposed to the type of person who thinks what others think, and pursues those objects that will
give him or her esteem in the eyes of others. Rand referred to this type of person as a "second-
hander," because he or she is intellectually dependent on others.
The principles of independence and dependence are
dramatized in The Fountainhead in the form of Howard Roark and Peter Keating. Roark is a self-
made man. He worked his way through high school and three years of college, as a common laborer
(Rand [1943] 1994, 17). He was expelled from architectural school because he refused to conform his
designs to the styles of the past (Rand [1943] 1994, 14-16). He went to work for an architect who, by
the standards of society, was a complete failure, but who, by his own standards, was a master
architect (Rand [1943] 1994, 34-41). He refused to join the Architects Guild of America (Rand [1943]
1994, 121). But most importantly, he refused to compromise his architectural standards, even when
he desperately needed the work (Rand [1943] 1994, 184-87). Roark was above all else what Rand
called a "self-sufficient ego," but which may be more appropriately called a self-sufficient mind
(Rand [1943] 1994, 594). He was someone who looked at the word through his own eyes, and
literally had no concept of how to substitute the judgment and values of others for his own.
This is as opposed to Peter Keating. Keating didn't want to
become an architect. He wanted to become an artist, but he became an architect instead because his
mother thought architecture was a more "respectable profession" (Rand [1943] 1994, 23). He rises
through the ranks of the architectural profession, not through talent, but through schmoozing and
scheming (Den Uyl 1999, 52). He has promised to marry Catherine Halsey, whom he loves, but he
marries Dominique Francon instead, even though he does not love her, because this will help advance
his career (Den Uyl 1999, 51). By conventional standards Keating is an egoist. But Rand argues that
Keating is not a genuine egoist, because all of his values are derived from other people. He is a
"second-hander." He does not want to be great, but to be thought great by others.
The Fountainhead is a significant contribution to libertarian
thought because it dramatizes the importance of the creators and producers to human progress.
Towards the end of the novel Roark is put on trial for blowing up a housing project for the poor.
Roark had been "working on the problem of low-rent housing for years," not because he was
concerned about the "poor people in the slums," but because he wanted to exploit the "potentialities
of our modern world" (Rand [1943] 1994, 564). It was Roark who made it possible to provide low-
rent housing for the poor. Roark forgoes his fee for the work, and only asks in return that the project
"will be built exactly as [he] design[ed] it" (Rand [1943] 1994, 566). But changes are made to
Roark's design. The people making these changes do not care about the costs because this is a
government project, so the money is not coming out of their own pockets (Rand [1943] 1994, 596).
Roark has no legal recourse, since there is little point in suing the government (Rand [1943] 1994,
597). So he blows up the housing project. I won't tell you the outcome of the trial. You will have to
read the novel. But the project is rebuilt by Roark. So the poor still get their low-rent housing. Only
now Roark receives the payment he asked for; that the project be built according to his design (Rand
[1943] 1994, 672).
The point Rand is dramatizing here is that the benefits that
the creators and producers provide to other people come about strictly as a secondary consequence,
not as their primary motive or goal (Berliner 1995, 259). If Roark had been the type of person to
make other people his primary motive or goal then he would not have been the type of person capable
of creating low-rent housing for the poor. Roark is only able to provide this benefit to the poor
because his first and primary concern is not with the poor, but with the work he loves. The political
implication is that while it is true that the poor are better off because of people such as Roark, this
benefit cannot be used as a justification for depriving the creators and producers of their
independence, because then you choke the very power you are attempting to harness.
Atlas Shrugged
Rand's final novel is Atlas Shrugged.
Like Anthem, Atlas Shrugged is set in a future collectivist dystopia. Most of the countries of the world are now people’s
republics. The United States of America is the last remaining semi-free country, but is moving
quickly towards greater government intervention, as the country stumbles from crisis to crisis. The
story centers around Dagny Taggart, the Operating Vice-President of Taggart Transcontinental. She is
struggling to maintain her company's operations in the face of increasing government regulation. At
the same time, the heads of industry and individuals in the creative professions are disappearing
without a trace. Dagny believes that there is a "destroyer" at work, depriving the world of the people
upon which the economy depends. With the disappearance of each individual, Dagny has to carry an
ever greater weight on her shoulders, as she struggles to keep her business going. At the same time,
she is searching for the creator of a new motor that was abandoned in a factory. She believes that this
motor could revolutionize the world, and possibly save the economy. It is in her search for the
"destroyer" and for the creator of the motor that Dagny discovers the nature of the ideas that are
destroying the world, and what is needed to save them.
Atlas Shrugged presents an integrated, some might even say
"organic," case for individual freedom and laissez-faire capitalism. Chris Matthew Sciabarra argues
that Rand analyses social phenomenon at three, interrelated levels – the personal level, the cultural
level, and the structural level (Sciabarra 1995, 298-300; Sciabarra 2000, 379-83). Sciabarra argues
that we can see this tri-level analysis in Rand's work as early as her notes for We the Living
(Sciabarra 2000, 379 n. 31). While it is true that we can see elements of this approach in Rand's
earlier work, I believe that Rand's development of the tri-level analysis reaches its height in Atlas
Shrugged. What Rand dramatizes in Atlas Shrugged is that we cannot look at politics and economics
as isolated phenomenon. It is not enough to change the political and economic system. We also need
to change the culture of society, and the beliefs of individuals. Even if we could, by some miracle,
establish a libertarian political system tomorrow, this political system would suffer from all sorts of
distortions caused by the personal beliefs of individuals and the ideas implicit in our culture. As
witness the problems with establishing capitalism in the former communist countries. What Rand is
suggesting here is that it is not sufficient to a have a political revolution, there also needs to be what
Lindsay Perigo calls "a revolution ... inside people’s heads" (Perigo 2000, 7). We need to advocate
for change not only at the structural level, but also at the personal and cultural levels.
I think one of the most important contributions of Atlas
Shrugged to libertarian thought is that it portrays businessmen and industrialists as heroes. In
the first chapter of Atlas Shrugged, Eddie Willers tells Dagny Taggart that she "ought to do something great,"
not "just business and earning a living," but "winning battles, or saving people out of fires, or
climbing mountains" (Rand [1957] 1992, 6). By the final chapter of the novel, Eddie Willers
understands that "business and earning a living and that in man which makes it possible" is "the best
within us" (Rand [1957] 1992, 1166). What Rand does is portray businessmen and industrialists in a
manner that is usually reserved for moral heroes. She shows that there is moral honor in engaging in
business and in earning a living. She shows that the qualities required to be a good businessman or a
good industrialist are qualities to be admired and to aspire to. This provides a moral perspective on
work and production under capitalism that was previously lacking. There was the Protestant work
ethic, but this saw work as a duty to be borne, not a value to be embraced; it saw work as like a hair-
shirt that we must endure instead of a heroic undertaking to be strived for.
Reason
Let us turn to the content of Rand's political philosophy. If
there is one theme that runs throughout Rand's philosophy it is the importance of reason. The
possession of reason is essential to Rand's understanding of what it means to be a human being and to
her concept of the moral life. Reason is the primary value and rationality is the primary virtue in
Rand's ethics. Rand's ultimate justification for individual rights is that we need rights to provide what
Robert Nozick called a "moral space," which, in the context of Rand's politics, means a space in
which people have the freedom to exercise their rationality (Nozick 1974, 57). So let us begin by
considering what Rand means by reason. Rand defines "reason" as the "faculty that identifies and
integrates the material provided by the senses" (Rand [9 February 1961] 1964, 22). We use our senses
to perceive reality and then we use our reason to conceptualize our observations. Rand has a very
expansive concept of reason (Sciabarra 1995, 166). Reason, for her, is not simply the ability to
identify the means to ends. Nor is reason simply the ability to engage in logical reasoning. Reason is
all of these things and more. Reason is a practical faculty. We use reason to derive abstract theories
from experience, and we use reason to apply our abstract theories to experience.
Free Will
Rand locates free will in the rational faculty. For Rand, free
will is the ability to direct our thinking. At this moment, you have the ability to decide how much
effort you make to understand what I am saying. A few of you will be intellectually "switched off."
My words will simply float past you, here one moment and forgotten the next. Others will be making
a little bit of effort to understand what I am saying. You are intellectually "switched on," but your
intellectual light is turned down. Most of you, however, will be making the effort to consider the
points I am making. You may be considering possible objections. You may be considering how these
points apply to your own life. You are not just intellectually "switched on." You have your
intellectual light turned to its highest level. According to Rand, free will consists in this choice to
"switch on" your mind and to then direct your thinking.
The Metaphysically Given
This is Rand's deepest justification for individualism. It is
because reason is a faculty that is possessed only by individuals, and because reason is a process that
only the individual thinker can "switch on" and direct, that if rationality is a virtue that we want to
preserve when individuals enter into society, then we need to provide individuals with freedom. It is
because you and you alone are in control of your mind, that you need the "intellectual space" to think
for yourself.
For Rand, none of this implies subjectivism – that reason is a
faculty of the individual is a fact; that the individual thinker needs to direct his or her own thinking is
a fact. If we want to create a political system then we must conform to these facts. To attempt to
create a political system in defiance of these facts, for Rand, would be like trying to create a building
in defiance of the laws of gravity. For Rand, it is collectivism, not individualism, that implies
subjectivism, because it is the collectivist who designs a political system and then expects human
nature to mould itself, like play dough, to his or her design. What Rand stresses is that reality,
including the facts of human nature, cannot be molded. We must discover the facts of human nature
and conform our theories to these facts, not the other way around.
Life as the Standard of Value
The fact that reason is a faculty possessed and directed by
individuals is not sufficient to establish individual freedom. All this establishes is that individuals
need an "intellectual space" in which to think. It does not establish that individuals should have this
"intellectual space." Why is thinking so important? Why does the use of our reason have a status that,
say, twiddling our thumbs does not? Rand's answer to this question can be found in her ethics. Rand
argues that reason and thinking are important to human beings because this is the means by which we
achieve our own survival and flourishing.
Rand argues that it is the fact that life is a conditional form
of existence that gives rise to the existence of values. If I were to smash a vase it would cease to be a
vase, but the material elements that constituted the vase would still exist; it is only the form of the
material elements that would change. But if I were to kill a person he or she would cease to exist. It is
not that life changes form in the same way as the material elements of a vase change form. It is that
life goes out of existence. Rand argues that this is true for all living beings, including plants and
animals. But she argues that only human beings need ethics because as rational beings we need to
discover the course of action that promotes our survival, and we need to voluntary choose to pursue
this course of action.
Survival and Flourishing
I mentioned that Rand believes that reason is important
because this is the means by which we achieve our survival and flourishing. For Rand, the importance
of reason is ultimately grounded in the requirements of human survival. But Rand argues that the goal
of ethics is not mere physical survival, but flourishing as a human being. This has led some
commentators, including those friendly towards Rand, to suggest that Rand equivocates between
survival and flourishing. It is true that Rand's statements on this issue are ambiguous, but recently
Tara Smith has argued that the distinction between survival and flourishing is not as clear as we might
think (Smith 2000, 130-45). According to Smith, it is the requirements of our survival that determines
what we need to flourish. Flourishing is that state in which we are surviving well.
Egoism
It is in this context that Rand's notorious defense of
"egoism" and "selfishness" arises. It is important to understand that Rand is not using these terms as
they are ordinarily understood. In her book On Virtue Ethics, Rosalind Hursthouse has a chapter titled
“The Virtues Benefit their Possessor” (Hursthouse 1999, 163). While Hursthouse was not discussing
Rand, if we add the imperative "should" to this phrase then it nonetheless perfectly captures the
essence of Randian egoism. The virtues should benefit their possessor. If the purpose of ethics is to
achieve our own survival and flourishing then we must benefit from our own virtuous actions.
Observe that Rand stresses that a person should benefit only from his or her virtuous actions. This is a
point that is often missed. We have no moral right to benefit from our vicious actions, such as theft or
fraud. The "egoistic" aspect of Rand's ethics does not prescribe what actions a person should take.
All it says is that whatever one's virtuous actions consist in one should benefit from them. It is the
value aspect of Rand's ethics, not the beneficiary aspect, that establishes the standard of right and
wrong.
Politics
Rand did not make a clear distinction between ethics and
politics. For Rand, the justification for a political system is that it enables individuals to be virtuous
when we live with other people in society. Rand argues that politics would be premature if we lived
alone on a desert island. For Rand, the issue of politics arises only once we choose to form a society.
The reason for this is that alone on a desert island there is no possibility of other people interfering
with our virtuous actions. But once we enter into a society with other people the possibility arises that
these people will undermine the efficacy of our virtues. For example, when a highwayman steals my
money, he is, to this extent, undermining the ability of my productive efforts to support my own
survival and flourishing (cf. Smith 1995, 145-46). I am still a virtuous person. The highwayman is not
stopping me from being virtuous. But he is stopping me from using my virtues in the service of my
own life. He is to the extent that he steals from me severing the connection between my virtues and
the end or goal they are aimed at. So if we want people to be able to achieve their own survival and
flourishing when they live in society then we need to ban those practices that interfere with the
efficaciousness of an individual's virtuous actions. We need to provide an individual with a "moral
space."
Capitalism
Rand's defense of laissez-faire capitalism is an application of
her defense of individual freedom. If you have a political system that protects those rights that are
necessary to provide a "moral space" for individuals to exercise their reason, then the economic
system that will arise will be laissez-faire capitalism. Rand's defense of laissez-faire capitalism is not
an addition to her defense of individual freedom. The defense of one is merely a different perspective
on the defense of the other. Just as individual freedom implies the right to engage in what Robert
Nozick called "capitalist acts between consenting adults," so laissez-faire capitalism presupposes the
right to live one's own life in accordance with one's own judgment (Nozick 1974, 163). I must stress
that Rand had a very expansive concept of laissez-faire capitalism. For Rand, laissez-faire capitalism
does not include only the act of engaging in business. It subsumes all actions in which there is a
voluntary exchange of values, from which both parties expect to derive a mutual benefit.
Rand's Contribution as a Novelist
I wish to say a few words about Rand's contribution to
libertarianism as a novelist and then I will have a few concluding remarks to make about her
contribution as a philosopher. This distinction is not often made. But I think it is important to make
this distinction because Rand's contribution as one is not necessarily dependent on her contribution as
the other.
Let us begin by considering Rand's contribution as a
novelist. I believe that the greatest contribution that Rand's novels have made is to present some
highly abstract arguments for libertarianism in a form that ordinary people can grasp. It is difficult for
most people to grasp how the abstract argument connects to reality. Such people can read the abstract
case for individual freedom and laissez-faire capitalism, but because the arguments remain
disembodied abstractions to them, they find the arguments unconvincing, and perhaps just as
importantly, uninspiring. Rand's novels complement the abstract arguments by showing what they
mean in reality. This does not mean that a novel is a substitute for the abstract arguments. The
importance of a novel is that it communicates the significance of the abstract arguments by building a
model of what the ideas would look like if put into practice (Torres and Kamhi 2000, 30-31).
The opponents of individual freedom and laissez-faire
capitalism have long possessed a body of literature that served this purpose. Consider the novel
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, as one example. An abstract argument on the alleged plight of the
poor under laissez-faire capitalism is not going to have the same impact on readers as the story of
Oliver Twist, the orphan who the parish authorities decided should be sent to a workhouse for the
"crime" of being poor. The image of little Oliver Twist walking up to the master of the workhouse
and asking for more food represents, for many people, the horror of the Industrial Revolution.
Or consider A Christmas Carol, also by Charles Dickens.
There is a scene in A Christmas Carol in which two gentlemen ask Ebenezer Scrooge to donate some
money to a fund to buy the poor some meat and drink for Christmas, and to provide them with some
warmth. Scrooge replies by saying that he prefers to help support the prisons and the workhouses,
which is where he believes the poor should go. What Dickens has done is embodied the alleged flaws
of the Industrial Revolution in the form of Oliver Twist and Ebenezer Scrooge.
What Charles Dickens does for the opponents of the
Industrial Revolution, Ayn Rand does for the proponents of capitalism. Through such characters as
Dagny Taggart, Rand has provided us with a physical embodiment of everything that is good about
capitalism. Dagny Taggart stands as a cultural symbol of the best of what capitalism can offer. I
believe that if Rand has achieved nothing else, then this alone represents a significant contribution to
libertarian thought. But I don't believe that this is all Rand has achieved. Let us turn now to the
contribution Rand has made as a philosopher.
Rand's Contribution as a Philosopher
I have already indicated what I regard as some of the
important ideas in Rand’s work. I don't want to reiterate these points. Instead I want to focus not on
the particular ideas that Rand promoted, but on Rand's status as a philosopher. It is sometimes
suggested that Rand would not have been anywhere near as influential if it were not for her novels.
The implication being that Rand’s philosophical work does not stand on its own merits. After all, just
because Rand is a good novelist does not necessarily make her a good philosopher. What one needs to
understand is that no philosopher is going to be as influential as a novelist. A novel is accessible to a
broad range of people in a way that a philosophical treatise is not. The philosopher C.S. Lewis, for
instance, would probably have never had a movie made about him if it were not for The Chronicles of
Narnia. Nor would a movie have been made about Iris Murdoch if she were not a novelist as well as a
philosopher. So it is probably true that Rand's philosophy would not have been as influential if it
were not for her novels. But this does not mean that the philosophy lacks merit. It simply means that
Rand scholars must be careful to evaluate the philosophy on its own merits, and not be influenced by
the emotional appeal of the novels.
Douglas Den Uyl observes that "[Rand's] emphasis was
always on her art, and she spent the bulk of her efforts on producing and perfecting it" (Den Uyl
1999, 35). One consequence of this is that Rand wrote very little non-fiction work, and most of this
consists of collections of short essays, aimed mainly at people already sympathetic to her philosophy.
Most of the scholarly work on Rand's philosophy has been done not by Rand, but by those who came
after her. I am thinking here of people such as Nathaniel Branden, Leonard Peikoff, David Kelley,
and Chris Matthew Sciabarra. In fact much of Rand's philosophy only appears in the work of these
scholars, and does not appear in Rand's published work at all. Rand's concept of "perceptual form,"
for instance, first appeared in print in David Kelley's The Evidence of the Senses. This is not the same
type of problem as exists between Socrates and Plato, in which there is a great deal of speculation
over what the historic Socrates really believed. We know that these ideas came from Rand. The
problem is that often we can learn more about Rand's philosophy by studying the works of Kelley or
Sciabarra, than we can by studying Rand's non-fiction work. This means that Rand's contribution to
philosophy is more likely to be through these secondary sources, instead of from her own writings.
While this problem raises important issues for Rand scholarship, I don't think it undermines Rand's
contribution to libertarian thought. It does not make sense to dismiss Rand's ideas because one
discovered them through Kelley or Sciabarra, instead of from reading Rand.
Conclusion
Whatever issues Rand scholars still need to deal with, the
fact remains that there are many ideas within Rand's work that are of value to libertarians – there is
Rand's dramatization of the failure of socialism, there is Rand's belief that technological
advancement is incompatible with collectivism, there is Rand's emphasis on the needs of the creators
and producers, there is Rand's heroic view of business and earning a living, and there is Rand's
grounding of individual freedom and laissez-faire capitalism in the need for human beings to survive
and flourish by thinking for themselves. If it still usually begins with Ayn Rand, as Tuccille claims,
then I think the libertarian movement is better for it.
Robert White is currently lecturing at the University of Auckland, New Zealand and finishing
a doctoral thesis on Ayn Rand's political views.
Bibliography
-Berliner, M. S., Ed. (1995). Letters of Ayn Rand. New York, Dutton.
-Bernstein, A. (2000). Rand's Anthem. California, IDG Books Worldwide.
-Conquest, R. (2000). Reflections on a Ravaged Century. New York, W. W. Norton & Company.
-Den Uyl, D. J. (1999). The Fountainhead: An American Novel. New York, Twayne Publishers.
-Garmong, D. S. (2004). We the Living and the Rosenbaum Family Letters. Essays on Ayn Rand's We
the Living. R. Mayhew. Maryland, Lexington Books: 67-86.
-Hursthouse, R. (1999). On Virtue Ethics. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
-Mayhew, R., Ed. (2004). Essays on Ayn Rand's We the Living. Maryland, Lexington Books.
-McConnell, S. (2004). Parallel Lives: Models and Inspirations for Characters in We the Living.
-Essays on Ayn Rand's We the Living. R. Mayhew. Maryland, Lexington Books: 47-65.
-Nozick, R. (1974). Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York, Basic Books.
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"Reforms"." Political Notes(167).
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-Ralston, R. E. (2004). Publishing We the Living. Essays on Ayn Rand’s We the Living. R. Mayhew.
Lanham, Lexington Books: 133-54.
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Concept of Egoism. A. Rand. New York, Signet: 13-39.
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University Press.
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Pennsylvania State University Press.
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Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
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Court.
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This gap has only recently been filled with the publication of a collection of essays analyzing We the Living both as a
novel and as a work of philosophy Mayhew, R., Ed. (2004). Essays on Ayn Rand’s We the Living. Maryland, Lexington
Books.
International Society for Individual Liberty
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Ayn Rand's Contribution To Liberal Thought
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