From Russia with love (or not) - Ayn Rand in the USA

In year 11, I read both Atlas Shrugged & The Fountainhead, and found them full of two revolting qualities: 1] selfish individualism and 2] destructive, laissez faire capitalism. Thus I am relying on Jonathan Freedland and others for a more balanced review. 

Alissa Rosenbaum (1905-82) was born in St Pet­ersburg, the eld­est of 3 children. Alissa was enrolled in a progressive school where she ex­cel­led academic­al­ly but was soc­ial­ly isolated. After the Russian Revol­ut­ion of 1917, her fath­er’s successful pharm­acy shop was confis­cated by Commun­ists, an event she loathed. At Leningrad State Uni, she studied history and read the works of Greek philosophers, then in 1924 enrolled in the State Institute for Cinematog­raphy.

Ayn Rand in St Petersburg

The Moscow Times

A letter from Chicagoan cousins encouraged her to leave Russia, to gain expertise that she could apply in the Soviet film industry. Upon arrival in 1926, she became Ayn Rand! From Chicago Rand went to Holly­wood, where producer Cecil B De­Mille got her work in films. In 1929 she married ac­t­or Frank O’Connor. Soon hir­­ed by RKO Rad­io Pic­tures, she continued writ­ing stor­ies, plays and film scenarios, and became an American citizen (1931).

Rand’s play, Night of January 16th (1933), was a hymn to in­dividualism in a courtroom drama. In 1934 she and O’Connor moved to New York to oversee the play’s production on Broadway. That year she also wrote Ideal, about a self-centred film star on the run from the law.

Her 1st pub­lish­ed novel, We the Living (1936), was a romantic tra­g­edy in which Sov­iet totalitarianism typified the intrinsic evils of coll­ectivism, the subservience of indiv­id­ual int­erests to those of the state. Then Anthem (1938) port­rayed a future collectivist dystopia.

Rand spent 7+ years working on The Fountain­head (1943), where a hand­some architectural genius whose ind­ividualism was shown in his total commitment to his own happiness. The hero, Howard Roark, blew up a public hous­ing project he’d designed, after it was altered against his will by government bureaucrats. On trial for his crime, he deliv­ered a lengthy speech in his own defence in which he argued for indiv­id­ualism over collectivism, egoism over altruism. And the jury voted unanim­ous­ly to acquit him!! Roark was Rand’s vision of the id­eal man who embod­ied her egoist­ic moral ideals - was he in­spired by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959)?

In 1945 she began planning her next novel, Atlas Shrug­ged (1957). The book depicted a future U.S on the verge of economic collapse af­ter years of collectivist misrule, where productive ci­t­izens i.e in­dust­rialists had been exp­loit­ed to benefit an unworthy pop­ulation of incompetents. The heroic and handsome physicist-inventor, John Galt, led a band of elite creators in a strike, to force the gov­ernment to re­spect their economic free­dom. From their Col­or­ado fort, they watched as the national econ­omy and the coll­ec­tivist soc­ial system faded.

 Top The Fountainhead, first published 1943

 Bottom Atlas Shrugged, first published 1957

 

In an appendix, Rand described her systematic philos­ophy: Object­ivism i.e the concept of a man with his own happiness as his ONLY moral pur­p­­ose, with pro­ductive achievement as his noblest activity. Objectiv­ism rejected all ideas that indicated a prim­itive cult­ure i.e fat­al­ism, ignor­ance, poverty, pas­sivity and coll­ect­­ivism. In­stead Object­ivism promoted Western civ­ilisation, cap­it­­­alism and mod­ern­ity, bring­ing individualism, science, ind­us­trialisation and wealth.

The book was attacked by a wide range of critics for its immorality, but it was well re­ceived by bus­iness leaders, men impressed by its moral justif­ic­ation of capitalism.

The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged appealed widely to young people through their accessible and compreh­ensive philosophy, rejection of traditional authority and impl­ic­it invitation to the reader to join the ranks of the elite (by copying the story’s hero).

In 1950 Rand agreed to meet a young admirer, Nathan Branden; Nathan and his girlfriend became Rand’s intel­lectual follow­ers. In 1951 the couple moved to New York, married in 1953, and introduced Rand to their friends at salons at Rand’s flat. The group, the Class of ’43 or The Collective, incl­ud­­ed an economist who later headed the U.S Pres­id­ent’s Council of Economic Advisers, Alan Greenspan.

In the late 1950s, Branden established a bus­in­ess designed to teach Objectivism to Rand readers. Nathaniel Branden Instit­ute in N.Y off­ered courses in Objectivism by Branden to other Object­iv­ist centres. An educational academy perhaps, but the Institute did not permit its students to think critic­ally about Ob­jectivism; rather it guarded Object­ivist or­thodoxy against innov­ation by symp­ath­isers, espec­ially among the grow­ing U.S and British right.

Meanwhile, Rand’s fame increased with her book sales. She was invited to speak at universities and on television programmes. Growing into her role as a public intellect­ual, she published her first work of non­fiction, For the New Intel­lectual, a coll­ect­ion of philos­ophical passages from her fiction, in 1961. The Virtue of Selfish­ness (1964) and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966) were drawn from lect­ures and articles. But Rand was continually frustrated by her failure to win acceptance am­ong academic philosophers. She attributed this neg­lect to collectivist bias and incompetence, but it was prob­ably due to the fict­ional, unscholarly form in which her philosophies appeared.

In 1968 Rand ac­cused Branden of betraying Objectiv­ist prin­ciples, end­ed his part­ner­ship in The Objectiv­ist and de­manded that the Instit­ute be closed. The closing of the Institute allowed various self-described Objectivists to blossom, but Rand bel­ieved these young lib­ertarians were flirting with anarchism.

In 1974 she had surgery for lung cancer and survived, but she could no longer pursue major writing pro­jects. In 1979 she re-publish­ed Intro­duction to Objectivist Ep­ist­emology, a collect­ion of philos­oph­ical articles, and died in 1982.

Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, 1991

by philosopher Leonard Peikoff

In 1986 Barbara Branden published The Passion of Ayn Rand. Despite the resulting dam­age to her reputation, Rand retained a loyal following among con­servat­iv­es. In the 1990s-2000s her works contrib­uted to the pop­ularity of U.S libert­ar­ian­ism; she was an iconic figure in the anti-government Tea Party movement (2009). These polit­ical influences, rather than her lit­er­ature or philosophy, will live on. NB Travis Kalanick (Uber), Peter Thiel (Facebook), Steve Jobs (Apple) and Pres Donald Trump all adored her thinking!