Capitalism Has No Soul

Paul B Farrell questions mix of Christian morality with economics

Writing on Marketwatch.com, Paul B Farrell takes a comparative look at the beliefs of Ayn Rand and increasingly-influential Republican Senator Rand Paul.

Drawing heavily from the works of Rand herself, Farrell draws a stark conclusion: that Christian morality and Rand-ian self-interest are incompatible with one another.

But Farrell overlooks an important question: that of whether or not Rand's take on capitalism is morally or ethically permissable to someone who holds conservative beliefs, even if they favour individualism and self-reliance.

“When I say ‘capitalism,’ I mean a pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism, with a separation of economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as a separation of state and church,” Rand once remarked. “Capitalism is the only system that can make freedom, individuality and the pursuit of values possible in practice because capitalism demands the best of every man, his rationality, and rewards him accordingly. It leaves every man free to choose the work he likes, to specialize in it, to trade his product for the products of others, and to go as far on the road of achievement as his ability and ambition will carry him.”

In other words, capitalism is the only economic system that can be truly democratic. It allows -- nyet, demands -- individual choice and individual responsibility.

That isn't to say that capitalism is inherently democratic. Democracy is more about individual choice, voting and majority rule. Democracy demands the existence of a system of rules, within which negotiated agreements can be reached. Democracy requires laws and institutions in order to function. In other words, democracy requires some sense of regulation.

The perils of allowing capitalism to roam without some sense of regulation has been well-established. As Farrell notes, this can be seen in The Fountainhead in which a frustrated real estate magnate destroys property being constructed by a competitor who profits by undercutting quality to the degree of sacrificing safety. (Right now, this breed of capitalism runs rampant in China.)

At the other extreme, portrayed in Atlas Shrugged, is that of over-production; one wherein ideolically-vain leftists seek to derail the wealth-producing classes by relentlessly imposing production quotas on virtually everything. When frustrated capitalists decide to stop producing, society incurs massive social losses (the term used in economics when government policy supplants market forces and increases the opportunity cost of producing or consuming particular products, leading to lags in the use of productive resources).

Farrell also invokes the comments of Boston University religion professor Stephen Prothero, who in USA Today declared that Rand -- although tremendously influential with the modern crop of GOPers -- is increasingly at odds with some of the moral concerns of conservatism.

"I am somewhat surprised at how few GOP thinkers seem to see how hostile her philosophy is to conservatism itself," Prothero wrote. "Real conservatism is first and foremost about conserving a society's traditions, including its religious and political traditions. But Rand's Objectivism rejects in the name of reason appeals to either revelation or tradition. The individual is her hero, and God and the dead be damned."

“Idolatry of the conservative icon should lead to some soul-searching within the GOP," he continued. "After all, Christian morality has no place in an ‘Atlas Shrugged’ world.”

Arguably, Farrell and Prothero miss one extremely salient detail: respect for the ideas of Rand doesn't necessitate exclusion of all others, including or excluding religion.

It's entirely possible to separate Rand's belief in self-reliance from Christian concerns of morality; this is particularly the case when moral issues, such as abortion, have little bearing on matters of economics. (Stephen Levitt and Stephen Dubner disagree on this matter, but set that aside momentarily.)

It's a very simple idea: capitalism doesn't have a soul. Humans do.

Ayn Rand may have underestimated the importance of this detail, but there's no reason for the Rand Pauls or Paul Ryans of today to do the same thing.

That they don't even grant the conflict between Rand's ideology and Christianity is a clear indication that they won't take Stephen Prothero's bait. The important question they must answer is where the free market ends and an appropriate level of democratic regulation begins.

Where does capitalism end and democracy begin? That must be a defining characteristic of the economic debate moving forward. Paul Farrell would be wiser to advance this debate, rather than deny it.

Mr AUTO, (Don't) Tear Down This WALL

It was once said that the greatest flaw of conservatism is that it doesn't present any view, whatsoever, of utopia.

Certainly, some intellectuals within conservative folds have often tried their hand at utopian imagineering. Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged -- wherein the enterprising classes abandon their counterparts, reduced in Rand's mind to collectivist-minded chattle -- is a good example of this.

If WALL-E represnts any particular view of a utopian society, it's Atlas Shrugged turned on its head.

WALL-E presents utopia as any true conservative invariably recognizes it -- as a dystopia. Set nearly 1000 years in the future, the Earth of WALL-E is one abandoned by humanity. The wasteful excesses of consumerism have left the Earth covered in garbage and rendered toxic to life.

Instead, humankind now dwells on massive spaceliners, commissioned by the very mass-consumption-based companies that helped create the mess on planet Earth.

WALL-E (voiced, as it were, by Ben Burtt) is the last of thousands of robots left behind on Earth to clean up the mess. He spends his days compacting refuse into cubes, and building massive piles out of them.

EVE (voiced by Elissa Knight) was sent back to Earth to determine if it's safe to inhabit.

There's only one problem. The Axiom's co-pilot, AUTO (voiced synthetically with computer software), is under orders never to allow the ship to return to Earth and re-colonize, no matter the efforts of the ship's Captain (Jeff Garlin).

And the humans on board the Axiom desperately need to return to Earth. Presumably among the wealthiest and most prominant humans of their time -- after all, travelling into space for an indefinite period is an awfully expensive proposition -- the inhabitants of the Axiom represent not the self-sufficient and enterprising superman Rand imagines, but rather the aimless and sluggish masses they abandon.

Carried about on hover beds, the utopia created for these most wealthy and prominent of humanity has instead enslaved them, and transformed them into something unrecognizable even by the standard of today's epidemic obesity.

WALL-E and Eve ultimately become supporting players in the struggle between the Captain and AUTO. Eve was designed to ensure that evidence of Earth's inhabitability leads to a return to re-colonize Earth.

AUTO, acting in the role of the inflexible bureaucrat -- the foot soldier of progressive visions of utopia -- is determined to prevent her from accomplishing this mission. Orders, after all, are orders, and AUTO is under orders that are more than 700 years old.

In the end, WALL-E presents the Captain -- and the humanity he represents -- with a choice. On one hand they can reclaim their lost humanity, and forsake what seems to be guaranteed survival for the opportunity to, on the other hand, truly live with no such guarantees.

The notion of guaranteed survival in a world rendered perfect -- or at least as close to perfect as its creator can imagine -- is central to utopia.

Conservatives, on the other hand, must understand that reality is never guaranteed. Nor is the answer to simply abandon a world plagued by troubles in favour of building anew.

In the end, WALL-E -- a tool designed in a failed effort to clean up that mess -- becomes instrumental in helping reintroduce humankind to its humanity, even though he often seems as if he's simply being drug along for the ride.

Conservatism is just fine without a vision of utopia. IN fact, political ideologies that rely on utopian thought for their survival are all the poorer for it.