Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for
the good of its victims may be the most
oppressive.

Yesterday, I finished Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, a book which seems to be enjoying a fashionable resurgence.

Atlas Shrugged is, from the jacket:

The astounding story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world — and did. … It is a mystery story, not about the murder of a man’s body, but about the murder — and rebirth — of man’s spirit.

The novel articulates Ayn Rand’s philosophy, Objectivism: objective reality, reason, self-interest and capitalism. The book and the philosophy are not without controversy. Superficially, it is a source of society’s atomisation, but consider for example, this from the Ayn Rand Lexicon:

When one speaks of man’s right to exist for his own sake, for his own rational self-interest, most people assume automatically that this means his right to sacrifice others. Such an assumption is a confession of their own belief that to injure, enslave, rob or murder others is in man’s self-interest—which he must selflessly renounce. The idea that man’s self-interest can be served only by a non-sacrificial relationship with others has never occurred to those humanitarian apostles of unselfishness, who proclaim their desire to achieve the brotherhood of men. And it will not occur to them, or to anyone, so long as the concept “rational” is omitted from the context of “values,” “desires,” “self-interest” and ethics.

As an articulation of what goes wrong when government and other coercive institutions intervene in the economy and in society, it is a masterpiece. As an articulation of the timeless morals which have sustained human society, it leaves something to be desired: magnanimity. Ironically, Aristotle, who made magnanimity “the crowning virtue”, was the only philosopher to whom Rand would acknowledge a philosophical debt: it appears she missed that in his writing.

However, if one considers the book and the philosophy as a resentful rejection of the “progressive” philosophy which destroys lives — socialism — it makes sense. Consider this from John Galt’s speech:

Yes, this is an age of moral crisis. Yes, you are bearing punishment for your evil. But it is not man who is now on trial and it is not human nature that will take the blame. It is your moral code that’s through, this time. Your moral code has reached its climax, the blind alley at the end of its course. And if you wish to go on living, what you now need is not to return to morality — you who have never known any — but to discover it.

We cannot go on resenting private profit as we cannot go on fearing to live. Social progress will come when people have more to do with one another and governments less; the necessary system of independence, interdependence and mutual cooperation is the free market.

In exploring Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, I found this:

When one speaks of man’s right to exist for his own sake, for his own rational self-interest, most people assume automatically that this means his right to sacrifice others. Such an assumption is a confession of their own belief that to injure, enslave, rob or murder others is in man’s self-interest—which he must selflessly renounce. The idea that man’s self-interest can be served only by a non-sacrificial relationship with others has never occurred to those humanitarian apostles of unselfishness, who proclaim their desire to achieve the brotherhood of men. And it will not occur to them, or to anyone, so long as the concept “rational” is omitted from the context of “values,” “desires,” “self-interest” and ethics.

via Self-Interest — Ayn Rand Lexicon. Perhaps this might be restated as: a thinking individual’s interests are best served by positive, mutual cooperation with others.

“The ECB is doing whatever it takes to unclog the interbank market,” said Gilles Moec, from Bank of America, who described the move as “spectacular” volte-face and a belated recognition that the credit crisis is deadly serious.

The monetary blitz was welcomed in Brussels, where EU leaders were meeting yet again, just days after agreeing to the most comprehensive bank bail-out in history. “We are not at the end of the crisis, we are still living in dangerous times,” said Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg premier and Eurogroup chair.

He issued a stark reminder that life is going be very different for the banking elite as governments move to restore the lost discipline of the Bretton Woods financial order and attempt to “civilise” capitalism, the code word for clamping down on the City – dubbed “the Casino” in Europe.

“Let everyone remember after this crisis, who solved it. Politicians did, not bankers,” he said. Mr Juncker added that this episode would have a profound effect on the euro debate in Britain.

“The British prime minister had to beg to be let into the room. I’m sure that when the storm is over, the British will think about whether they shouldn’t become an equal in all decision-making bodies.”

When firms become too large to fail and must be bailed out by forcing debt onto taxpayers, you know something is wrong: capitalism is too civilised already. Once the immediate crisis is over, good reforms would restore sound money and provide regulations which ensure the effectiveness of the market. We need more competition, not more central control.

There are two clear sides to this debate. The centre left think all would be well if only we thought everything through and enforced a thick blanket of rules, preferably on a few large but easily-controlled corporations. The centre right know that experience delivers the greatest wisdom: they know that free competition among many companies, in a market regulated for responsibility, delivers far greater progress than any system designed by the human mind.

There must be regulation; there must be responsibility. One person must be prevented from coercing another and the rules must ensure commitment to mutually beneficial contracts entered into voluntarily. Failed corporations must be allowed to fail, or we will be forced to prop up ever more failures as our economies grind to a halt.

To choose to live in the cathedral or the bazaar? One of these organising principles leads to progress through freedom, the other absolute control and stasis.

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