What it says in the title. I know it sounds like a very odd request, but there you go. Links as well as insight from Marxist Dopers (if there still are any) are welcome.
I think this is more suitable for Great Debates than General Questions.
Colibri
I can probably do this with an anarchist slant, rather than a Marxist one. I am very busy at the moment, but I can tell you right now that if you look at things like the Anarchist FAQ, you might find what you are looking for, as well as the wikipedia articles that deal with the controversies around “anarcho-capitalists” and their ilk.
Rand and Marx agree on at least one point: the only real nobility is the (productive) working man. Anyone else is a dependent.
OurLordPeace : Not quite what I was looking for, but thanks anyway. I might check it out.the_diego : But Marx at least saw unemployed workers as the “reserve army of labour” (rather than as “parasites”, like some right-wingers do) and pretty much reckoned that where there’s capitalism, thee’s going to be unemployment too.
Both saw unemployment as undesirable. One thinks employment should enforced (since indolence and non-production are intolerable.) The other feels Government intervention causes unemployment (my own theory.) And that’s where my knowledge of economics ends. Randians I talk to refuse to accept that there’s such a thing as “market failure.”
steabo
April 16, 2013, 3:10pm
7
I’m not so sure Rand would have agreed that material labor was the ‘be and end’ as Marx argued. Rand would argue that behind every work of labor, there is an idea. Example:
Laborer #1 sees a piece of wood and says, " I can whittle that into a nice comfy chair!"
Laborer #2 sees the same and thinks, “I can whittle that into a nice little pile of sawdust that I can bag and take to market!”
Whose labor has been put to more productive use?
As with most modern conservatism, Randism is merely another from of bolshevism. The rulers are materialists allied against all social classes other than their own, with fake religion and whatever ideology attains their ends.forcing
Hopefully the mass parachuting by teddy bears into that country last year **The Marxist and Bolshevik Roots of Ayn Rand’s Philosophy **
Now we begin the process of the deconstruction of Rand’s views. The role of materialism in the philosophy of Marx and Rand can be used as a good starting point. Rand advocated in her writing as a materialist, not doing any less in that regard than Marx. The latter seems, however, by several orders of magnitude a more sophisticated philosopher, as he thoroughly knew the German philosophy, with its deep interest in the complexities of the process of cognition. The main principle of the philosophy of “objectivism” Rand formulated as: “Facts are facts and are independent of human feelings, desires, hopes or fears.” Adjacent to the other premise – a principle of the “identity” – “A is A”, meaning that “the fact is a fact” (the third part of “Atlas Shrugged” is subtitles “A is A”) strikes with primitivism, as well as her critique of Kant. Only Lenin, in his book Materialism and Empirico Criticism published in 1908, had a philosophy almost exactly like Rand’s which was formulated a half-century later: “Consciousness is the mirror image of reality.” Any further than Lenin, the layman in philosophy, though educated for those times, Rand did not go.
Rand finds work, production, and creativity as the foundation of a society. This significant postulate of hers is essentially deeply Marxist. Marx wrote a few lines extolling the spirit of capitalism and entrepreneurship. Soviet creations of the 1920s-1930s such as Yakov Ilyin’s Great Assembly Line or Il’a Ehrenburg’s Second Day, where creative works are poeticized, are direct analogs of the chanting of creativity in the The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Innovators in science, industry, agriculture, and the daring directors of Soviet enterprises, are not afraid of risk – the main theme of Soviet industrial novels such as Far From Moscow by Boris Azhaev or Kruzhilikha by Vera Panova. We must also mention the book by Schumpeter, who, with the influence of Marx, sang hymns to the capitalist entrepreneurs, and was a pioneer in the development of new technology (for example, the 1942 Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy). Moreover, Schumpeter was quite popular during the time of Rand. However, we will not find a single reference to this significant singer of entrepreneurship in any of Rand’s works, although many authors point to the direct proximity of Atlas Shrugged and the works of Schumpeter.
“One who does not work, does not eat” is a pervasive idea found among the Bolsheviks and in Rand’s works. There is no doubt that this slogan was one of the most popular after the revolution in Russia, as was well known to Alice Rosenbaum. In fact, the main pathos of Rand’s major books is an echo of this slogan in the form of the uncompromising condemnation of “unearned income” and parasites of all kind. But it was the Bolsheviks who, for the first time in the history of law, had introduced the concept of “parasite” and severely persecuted those who did not get a salary. Rand definitely knew this. The Bolsheviks did not recognize the revenue from those activities that are condemned. The concept of social parasites is widely used by both Rand’s heroes and the Soviet people (incidentally, the poet Brodsky was declared a parasite). The character Rearden in Atlas sternly condemns her brother Philip for not working. Likewise, the Soviet government did not allow women to “sit at home” unless she had children under the age of three. No amount of “sacrifice” on behalf of the relatives was taken into account by the authorities.
Rand’s views were formed under the influence of Bolshevism, its ideology, and its practice. Many of Rand’s admirers are delighted with how she has consistently opposed the sympathy and assistance to people who were not contributing to the “industrial production.” The denial of compassion, as the main enemy of progress, Rand could have learned not so much from Nietzsche as from the Bolsheviks, who taught the people of Petrograd in the early 1920s many lessons of ruthlessness toward people. Bolshevik texts such as Lenin’s speeches before the publication advocates of the 1920s and 1930s were filled with hatred for the internal and external enemies, parasites evading “socially useful work.” The oath of the pioneer, which I solemnly gave at the pioneer lineup on Nov. 5, 1936, focused on the promise to be “ruthless” to the enemies of the revolution.
Not a Marxist source, but the RationalWiki page on Objectivism has some juicy criticisms. See also the TVTropes page (it goes into the philosophy in much greater depth).
Interesting juxtaposition:
The Children of Light are largely operatic caricatures. Insofar as any of them suggests anything known to the business community, they resemble the occasional curmudgeon millionaire, tales about whose outrageously crude and shrewd eccentricities sometimes provide the lighter moments in boardrooms. Otherwise, the Children of Light are geniuses. One of them is named (the only smile you see will be your own): Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian d’Antonio. This electrifying youth is the world’s biggest copper tycoon. Another, no less electrifying, is named: Ragnar Danesjold. He becomes a twentieth-century pirate. All Miss Rand’s chief heroes are also breathtakingly beautiful. So is her heroine (she is rather fetchingly vice president in charge of management of a transcontinental railroad).
So much radiant energy might seem to serve a eugenic purpose. For, in this story as in Mark Twain’s, ‘all the knights marry the princess’ — though without benefit of clergy. Yet from the impromptu and surprisingly gymnastic matings of the heroine and three of the heroes, no children — it suddenly strikes you — ever result. The possibility is never entertained. And, indeed, the strenuously sterile world of Atlas Shrugged is scarcely a place for children. You speculate that, in life, children probably irk the author and may make her uneasy. How could it be otherwise when she admiringly names a banker character (by what seems to me a humorless master-stroke): Midas Mulligan? You may fool some adults; you can’t fool little boys and girls with such stuff — not for long. They may not know just what is out of line, but they stir uneasily.
Criticism
A criticism of Ayn Rand so obvious it’s really kind of impressive that anyone follows her is based around a quote we already mentioned above:
—Atlas Shrugged
Again, Ayn Rand holds the position that it is immoral to give, or to receive aid to another of any kind. She explains this in an interview in 1959,[21] where she specifically says that man must not live for others, and that altrusim is immoral.
This can be criticized on several grounds. Firstly, this means that it is immoral to be a child, or to raise a child, since a child requires constant attention and aid from the parents. This probably explains why Rand never had children, and also means that if the human species adopted this, we would be gone after one generation. Another criticism is that we are more-or-less not evolved to think this way. Aside from her strange definition of altruism, Rand would take a low position on evolutionary ethics, which is essentially the idea that we are evolved to act in the interest of the group as much as ourselves. This is why most people, cultures, and ethical systems don’t consider self-sacrifice to be immoral, although Randian philosophy says that it is.
I’ve been following this thread for several days. Is it unreasonable to ask what motivated the question?