Ayn Rand would have backed David Cameron's stand against the EU's "second handers"
Former British Ambassador Charles Crawford applauds David Cameron's willingness to see Britain "isolated"
The two great novels of American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand (The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged) are not everyone’s cup of tea. Too “heavy”, too “long”, too “clever” – and, good grief, she extols radical individualism to the point of explicit selfishness! How can any society run like that?
Hmm. Perhaps we should question the premises of that last question. But while we are doing that, let’s enjoy one undoubtedly striking idea she gave us: The concept of the “second-hander”.
The second-hander is someone who is not a prime creator of ideas and/or driver for their implementation -- someone who is unable to create self-standing work of his or her own, and so must live off the ideas and efforts of others. As Rand’s hero Howard Roark proclaims in court when he is put on trial in The Fountainhead for blowing up the housing complex he designed:
The creator’s concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite’s concern is the conquest of men.The creator lives for his work. He needs no other men. His primary goal is within himself. The parasite lives second-hand. He needs others. Others become his prime motive.
The extreme (and rare) example of a second-hander is the beggar: the existential nothing whose fate depends wholly on others taking pity and handing over some of their own production.
Rand refined the idea to apply it more generally to modern life by creating two wide categories of second-handers: “moochers” and “looters”. Moochers try to live off others by active wheedling and sucking up. Or they proclaim some sort of entitlement to the results of others’ hard work.
Looters by contrast simply use bullying or outright force to take money from those who create wealth and proceed to redistribute it (often to themselves and their friends).
Needless to say, moochers and looters usually find it makes tactical sense to join forces to squeeze ever more juice from those people and processes whose ideas lie at the root of all wealth. Hence the modern, sprawling, collectivist state.
There is even an official mouthpiece for Second-Handers, Looters and Moochers here in the UK, namely the BBC Radio Four Today programme. Every morning, day after day, month after month, year after year, it broadcasts to the nation at its most vulnerable, people tottering round the kitchen making toast.
Its message is unambiguous: the categorical imperative that whatever that morning’s fashionable problem might be, it is the explicit responsibility of “society” in general and the state in particular to “do something” about it. Only collectivist action counts. This appalling, arguably evil message transmitted over decades has transformed the way our country runs, evidently for the worse.
Anyway, the rich insight afforded us by the Rand categories of second-handers, looters and moochers is thought-provoking in many different contexts. I was prompted to recall it by the shriek of despair across the BBC and general progressive commentariat last week after all the member states at the EU Summit except the UK opted for a new treaty intended to stabilise the Eurozone. David Cameron’s insane policies had isolated the UK!
Let’s look at that idea of “isolation”. In the sense used in this EU context, it is intended to say that regardless of the merits of our own arguments on the policies needed to prop up the Eurozone, it is ipso facto a bad thing in itself that we have not agreed with the other 26 member states. This is a startling, far-reaching, quintessentially second-hander idea.
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An Ayn Rand endorsement is not a recommendation to most people, and for good reason. Her vision is of a miserable Nietzschean world where all that matters is strength. Not only do I not want to live in that world, I know it wouldn't work.
The central fact of our globalised world is our interdependence and interconnectedness. Modern capitalism does not thrive on heroic individuals, but on networks of organisations and leaders. We increasingly recognise that the successful capitalist is able to do what he does because he is supported by state and societal institutions (if you don't believe me, try building a house in sub-saharan africa).
The most successful modern capitalist nation - the USA - recognises this. It is a federation, a fact that has underpinned strong and stable governance for 200 years. Interdependence has made them great.
Like it or not, our future is bound up with that of Europe. It's our key trading partner and the only global power bloc we can credibly belong to. So the question is, do we want a say in its future or not?
Sorry Charles, I agree with the sentiment and your optimism, but I think it is preposterous to mention David Cameron and Ayn Rand in the same sentence.
Rand would have him cast as a James Taggart figure - born into money, sense of self-grandeur and entitlement and getting to the top because of who he knows. Much like all politicians.
Cameron's government are still carrying on courting the vested interests - Rand's moochers and looters. Barely a shred of large industry in this country operates in the Taggart Transcontinental or Rearden Steel manner. Most corporations spend a hundred times as much on lawyers and lobbyists than on innovation.
I do agree that the BBC have a lot to answer for. Though it's not surprising. They are the moochers and looters too.
Excellent piece. But then I'm a great fan of Charles' blogs in the DT. The Rand/Cameron analogy works very well - in this isolated context. But Trem is most likely right that set in a wider context, Rand would not have much time for the likes of Cameron.
I like the characterisation of "looters" and "moochers". many (?most) MPS seem to fit in both categories...
Great article but I need to comment on Sparky's lack of knowledge about Rand's philosophy.
She reject Nietzschean philosophy. She did not long for a world where only the strong survive. She valued the individual using what knowledge they had to act in their own self interest whilst respecting the rights of others. She REJECTED the dog eat dog way of thinking.
Now as to America - America has not prospered on the back of government agencies and "common good" thinking. Entrepreneurial individuals struck out and made bold decisions and prospered - many failed, but many succeeded.
Ultimately the thinking that we need organisations and leaders is tantamount to admitting a fear of taking responsibility for ones actions and a desire for safety, rather than freedom.
As such your statement that we are "tied" to Europe is nonsense. Complete balderdash. Europe as a political thing is just a bunch of bureaucrats and second-handers who themselves are afraid of freedom. Afraid of what people will do, afraid of what they'll have to do to survive. It's sick.
Freedom would lead to a peaceful society. A prosperous society. A society where people like you would have a voice, to say what you want, to argue what you want, but you wouldn't have the power to tell me how to live my life, or force me to give up huge sums of money, freedom and autonomy in order to satisfy your neurotic need to control others for whatever reason.
Great novels by Rand? Have you tried actually reading any of that tedious, turgid, badly written monomania?
Sparky regurgitates that decades old smear that Ayn Rand's philosophy is "Nietzschean" as if by repeating this laughable misrepresentation, he will somehow make it true. Any honest reader of Ayn Rand's works will know that Ayn Rand upheld a "benevolent universe premise" based on "rational self-interest", trading values for mutual benefit, where no one has the right to initiate force against anyone else. What she opposed was a sacrificial moral code that turns men into either profiteers of sacrifice or victims.
Excellent piece - especially in respect of the malign influence of the "Toady" program endlessly bleeting for more government initiatives and more power for the looters and moochers that have comprehensively trashed our scientific, engineering and manufacturing culture.
How interesting that hte only Prime Minister with a science degree rejected "society" in favour of indidual responsibility and action.
Perhaps it was her experience in dealing with the facts of nature rather than the spin of journalism or legal hystrionics?
Yes, Rand's concept of "Second-hander" applies. Also, she would call "Isolationism" an "anti-concept." One should see her definition of an "anti-concept" and read her article "the anti-conceptual mentality." The latter explains the mental processes of those who traffic in "anti-concepts." Fascinating.
what nonsense, your ideological spew could not begin to compare with the impartiality of the BBC's Today programme, which you obviously so despise.
jmm beat me to the punch; exactly right on.
I think that Ayn Rand would look at the world situation - collapsing welfare planet - and say: stop enabling it. I'm happy about Cameron's move, but it's going to take a lot more than that, and it really needs to start at the cultural level before political tweaks make any detectable improvements.
I'm enjoying the handful of shrill lefties like Sparky and PMK who are denouncing your analysis.
Sparky is a prime example of the leftist: "We can't live without the EU! We're too small and weak" school of thinking.
Sadly, I suspect, they are reflecting themselves rather than this nation. It is they that are small and weak - this nation is certainly not. As will become clear in due course.
"Like it or not, our future is bound up with that of Europe." Like it or not? That's no argument. Like it or not, you are speaking nonsense. There: one bare assertion against another!
Lots of deliberate misrepresentation of my argument going on here. I didn't say we were tied to Europe, I said our future was bound up with Europe's. That's true. If the the euro collapses, our economy will suffer greatly. Whether we are part of the eu institutions or not, we cannot escape that fact that their destiny and ours have always been linked. It's that point about interdependence.
I also didn't suggest that America has prospered because of common good thinking. I suggested that it is in small part the result of a group of states recognising their economic interdependence and coming together in a single nation with one currency.
Philip - I love your definition of a free society. "People like me" could say whatever we like provided we go along with your vision of libertarianism? Oh gee thanks. That isn't freedom for me, it's victory for you. And that's my problem with you and Rand. You want freedom for the strong and the weak are all moochers. We tried that in the 19th century and the result was poverty for the many and immense wealth for the few.
“If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose, because it contains all the others, the fact that they were the people who created the phrase "to make money".No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity, to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words "to make money" hold the essence of human morality.” ~Ayn Rand 'Atlas Shrugged'
""People like me" could say whatever we like provided we go along with your vision of libertarianism? Oh gee thanks. That isn't freedom for me, it's victory for you." So you're upset that you wouldn't be "free" to rob us? And stop trying to cry that your comment was misrepresented: it WAS, in itself, a misrepresentation, as has been explained.
@SParky - I think the fundamental point to grasp is that within a society run on libertarian principles, you and your socialist mates are quite entitled to live amongst yourselves, in a structure which we could call a commune for example, according to socialist and collectivist principles. What you wouldn't be allowed to do do would be to extort money or goods from non-volunteers outwith your commune.
In your socialist paradise, the libertarian has no option but to be robbed and restricted by any insane law or tax that you and your friends dream up, and which are often aimed specifically to hurt the most productive members of society.
That is why growth in the west has stalled. It's not rocket science.
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Sorry Charles, I agree with the sentiment and your optimism, but I think it is preposterous to mention David Cameron and Ayn Rand in the same sentence.
Rand would have him cast as a James Taggart figure - born into money, sense..
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Excellent piece. And interesting that the so called "consensus" against Britain is rapidly falling apart anyway..