QUORA: ‘What do libertarians think of the "You didn't build that" argument?’

 QUORA: ‘What do libertarians think of the "You didn't build that" argument?’

I posted this answer:

First, let me say that I speak not as a “libertarian”, whatever that means, but as an independent, thinking individual.

The basic argument reads something like this: You inherit the achievements of others that came before you, therefore anything you build owes to those prior achievements, not your own efforts. 

But this is self-evidently false. True, prior achievements are your starting point. But what you make of those is key. I am a plumber. The knowledge I acquired in trade school, and the teachers who shared that knowledge, all came before me. The tools of the plumbing trade were invented and produced before me. The plumbing materials such as the pipe, fittings, and fixtures I install all came before me. Does this mean my entire 46-year career amounted to nothing? Does this mean that every dollar I earned; every dollar I saved; the life I built for myself and my family; all of that is effectively a handout?

Hardly. Millions inherited the same starting point. It was I who made the effort to absorb and learn that trade knowledge. It was I who responsibly set my alarm every morning so I could get to my job on time. It was I who initiated the effort to put those tools to use rearranging and assembling the pipe, fittings, and fixtures in such a way as to result in functionally useful bathrooms and the like. It’s true I inherited and took advantage of certain “gifts” from those who preceded me. But that’s not what I was paid for. I was paid for what I built from them. Without my personal self-motivated, self-directed effort, the knowledge, the teacher skills, the tools, the materials would all remain unuseful industrial raw materials. 

The same goes at all levels of achievement. Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffet built huge businesses and fortunes. Could they have done that 300 years ago? Of course not. But at the time they were born, so were millions upon millions of others, each inheriting the same starting point and accumulated advantages. But those millions didn't build what Bezos and Buffet built. Ask yourself why? The answer is obvious.

The "You didn't build that" argument is utterly false—and unjust. True, our industrial civilization was not built by any one person. But neither is it some mystical tribal product. It is the sum of the individual efforts of productive individuals. The productive contribution varies greatly among individuals. But to the extent any individual contributed his productive efforts, and improved on that massive inheritance in support and furtherance of his own life, he most certainly did build that. If "You didn't build that"—if I didn’t build that—then neither did any of those who built the inheritance before me “build that” since they too inherited the achievements of those who came before them. Progress is hierarchical. It is a constant process of building upon what was built before.  

But according to “You didn’t build that,” we’re left with the absurd notion that man rose from the cave to this wonderful advanced industrial civilization without anyone building anything! How absurd. Yes, productive individuals, on whatever level of ability, personal circumstances, and effort, did build that to the extent of their contribution to the productive process. And to anyone who has ever done an honest day’s work—Yes, you did build that, for the same reasons I explained above. Don’t let anyone take that pride away from you. 

We modern humans are the most privileged humans who have ever lived. We inherit the gifts of industrial civilization. We have a starting point in life that primitive hunter-gatherers could not imagine. But we are paid not for that inheritance, but for what we make of it. We take that gift and build from there. What we build from this amazingly advanced starting point--we, each as unique autonomous individuals--that’s what we build. Yes, your unique personal contribution, You Did Build That.

When you think about it, it is self-evident: You Did Build That. So why, then, would anyone claim you didn’t? Why would anyone want to degrade your achievement? Ignorance, maybe, for some. But the originators of that false concept have a motive; a sinister motive—hatred of achievement, and the related motive to strip achievers of the recognition and pride they deserve.

Related Reading: 

From ‘You Didn’t Build That’ to ‘The Nation's Wealth’

Ayn Rand Anticipated Obama's "You Didn't Build That" Outrage

Obama’s Way vs. The American Way —My essay for The Objective Standard

How You Build That

This Labor Day, Celebrate Intellectual Labor

 The United States Department of Labor, speaking on The History of Labor Day, had this to say on its website:

Some records show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting a day to honor those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.”

Really? There is no doubt about what is meant here. McGuire was referring to people who “work with their hands”. Is that what built America? Physical labor has existed since time immemorial. What changed in the last two hundred + years that suddenly endowed the American worker with the means to produce “all the grandeur we behold” out of raw, “rude” nature? (Note the word “all”).

The American worker has, indeed, contributed significantly to the American Economic juggernaut. But, it was not because of his labor, as such. It was because of his intellectual mastery of the theoretical and material tools of production provided to him that vastly increased the value of his labor.

Physical labor, as such, has very little value. Slaves can perform it. So can mules pulling hand plows.

Consider my trade, plumbing. If my job is fundamentally physical labor, then any able-bodied person off of the street can wander onto any construction job site and robotically perform the task of installing plumbing systems. He can simply be told: “Run this pipe from here to there”, and it will get done. He has the same muscles and bones, nerves and guts that I have, after all.

That, of course, could never be the case. Performing my task (or any construction trade) requires reliance on previously acquired theoretical knowledge, on-the-job apprenticeship training, the mastery of the tools, materials, and procedures of the trade, and years of learning experience. This is to say nothing of the continuing education that new materials and technologies require of me.

My job is knowledge-based. All modern jobs are, to varying extent. How did that knowledge become imbued in my brain? - by my choice to expend the intellectual effort to acquire it. Even the muscular physical motions my job requires had to be learned by a conscious mental effort that led to the appropriate neurological connections.

Do you still think mere labor built this country?

The idea that a laborer “works with his hands” is only superficially true. What directs the motions of his hands? It is his focussed, reasoning mind – if he is a motivated worker who strives to be the best that he can be at his chosen occupation. If not, then that worker is a mere drone.

And that gets directly to the point. The celebration of “labor” as a holiday implies that mindless worker. Labor Day ignores the intellectual root of modern, productive labor. It ignores the intellectual labor of the inventor and entrepreneur that created the worker’s job to begin with, and the intellectual labor that the competent worker must expend to learn to perform his job.

Human knowledge is fleeting, but for the grace of those who came before us and chose to acquire it and pass it on. Knowledge can not be passed on from person to person or generation to generation innately. No one is born with previously discovered knowledge, but rather with a mind that is tabula rasa – a blank slate. To celebrate “all the grandeur we behold”, it is to the discoverer and the acquirers of knowledge that we must pay initial gratitude to. The worker, by learning the skills he needs to perform his job, plays his role in keeping that knowledge train going.

This does not, however, mean that labor is inconsequential. Theoretical knowledge in and of itself has little value, unless and until it is placed into the service of man’s living requirements. The process of turning knowledge into the material values humans need to live and to flourish is dependent upon the contributions of many economic players. The value of each player’s contribution to this productive process varies and is dependent upon many factors. But all through that process – from the discoverer of new knowledge to the final material product put together by the worker – the value added represents, at root, the application of the mind.

“[W]hen you live in a rational society, where men are free to trade, you receive an incalculable bonus: the material value of your work is determined not only by your effort, but by the effort of the best productive minds who exist in the world around you.

“When you work in a modern factory, you are paid, not only for your labor, but for all the productive genius which has made that factory possible: for the work of the industrialist who built it, for the work of the investor who saved the money to risk on the untried and the new, for the work of the engineer who designed the machines of which you are pushing the levers, for the work of the inventor who created the product which you spend your time on making, for the work of the scientist who discovered the laws that went into the making of that product, for the work of the philosopher who taught men how to think…” (Page 1064)

Labor Day, according to the DOL, was created in 1882. That was the heyday of Karl Marx’s rise to prominence among the American intellectual elite. Marx was the theoretician of “Dialectical Materialism”, the idea that man’s consciousness – his spirit, his intellect, ability, and logic – plays at best a minimal role in the production process. Human beings, according to Marx, are conditioned by the physical world around them, including the means of production like tools and factories, which just happened into existence. Our modern, complex, and advanced industrial society is the product of mindless, conditioned muscular movements, according to Marx (and others). It is owing to the Marxist theory of the mind – i.e., spiritual values - as of little consequence that gave rise to the myth that labor and those that perform it are the primary engines of economic progress.

Labor Day, whether one knows or wants to admit it or not, is an outgrowth of Marxism and the “labor theory of economic value” that so enamored late 19th century American intellectuals.

The DOL concludes its Labor Day salute as follows:

"It is appropriate … that the nation pay tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation's strength, freedom, and leadership — the American worker."

Not quite. Instead, we should pay tribute to the creator of the American worker.

This Labor Day, we should celebrate not workers, but those who made our jobs and prosperity possible. This country was not built by physical labor. It was built by intellectual labor applied to physical labor under a system of individual rights that allowed everyone the freedom to think and, above all, to act on his thinking. Instead of patting ourselves on the back for our labor, we “workers” should reflect on the mental efforts that we had to expend in order to acquire the previously discovered knowledge that makes it possible to perform our jobs. We should stop selling ourselves short. Labor Day is an insult to the American Worker.

More importantly, we should give silent thanks to all of those intellectual “laborers” who came before us – the discoverers, the inventors, the investors, the businessmen - who made our well-paying jobs possible.

Instead of Labor Day, we should celebrate Intellectual Labor Day.

Or, better yet, we should celebrate political and economic freedom—i.e., Capitalism – the social system of the United States of America. Capitalism unleashed the individual human mind. It is Capitalism that liberated the inventor, entrepreneur, businessman, and industrialist, who in turn made it possible for the American worker to have acquired the means to rise to middle class status and prosper. The labor movement fought for better working condiditions, shorter work weeks, and the like. But those victories couldn't have been possible without the tools of increased worker productivity and consumer products created by the inventor/entrepreneur/businessman/industrialist, who wouldn't have been possible without capitalism. The labor movement could not have been possible in any other era in human history. Capitalism made the labor movement possible.

It is Capitalism’s liberated human mind that from rude nature has delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.

Capitalism is what I will be quietly rejoicing as I enjoy my long weekend.

Happy Labor Day!!

Related Reading:

Atlas Shrugged—Ayn Rand

To Whom Does the American Worker Owe His Prowess?

Did Unions Create the Middle Class?

QUORA: 'How is becoming a billionaire even possible, chronologically?'

Another View:

Don’t Forget to Celebrate Capital on Labor Day, Too from FEE

"Labor is ennobling because it’s an important source of such values as self-esteem, personal fulfillment, responsibility, accomplishment, and voluntary cooperation. It’s both a vehicle and an outlet for our talents and ambitions. Good parents instinctively teach their children that work is a virtue and a benefit, while idleness and laziness are to be avoided.

"But all of that could also be said of another vital ingredient in our standard of living—capital. Most of us would starve without it. Creating it and then deploying it to increase material wealth is ennobling just as much as labor is, and for the same reasons. The creator and user of capital is furthering his talents and ambitions in the process. And every parent who tells his child to mow the lawn hopes he’ll do it with a piece of capital equipment like a lawn mower instead of his teeth."

[True. But never reverse cause and effect. Without labor -- especially the labor of the mind -- capital is useless. In fact, it doesn't exist.]

Did Ayn Rand Call for a Deliberate ‘Destruction of Society’ in Atlas Shrugged?

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS PLOT SPOILERS. ANYONE WHO HAS NOT READ ATLAS SHRUGGED BUT THINKS THEY MAY SOME DAY SHOULD TAKE NOTE.

This post deals with a question that I think is somewhat controversial. A while back I came across this hit piece against Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged on Facebook, since deleted:

Only the philosophers whose entire learning comes from books can be naive and arrogant enough to believe that all the political and cultural institutions have to be destroyed before a better society can be built. But once the institutions are destroyed  there will be chaos and massive violence. I admire Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged but I am against John Galt’s idea of “stopping the motor of the world”, because I know that once the motor is stopped millions of lives will be lost and the rebuilding of society will take several generations.

I think the writer—who will go unnamed—is completely misreading the meaning of Atlas Shrugged. As Ayn Rand explicitly explained, the theme of Atlas Shrugged is “the role of the mind in human existence.” She considered the human mind and those who use it to address the challenges of human existence to be “the motor of the world.”  She referred to the thinkers as “the men of the mind.” And the leading, most talented, most motivated, most productive  men of the mind she called the “prime movers.” It is the prime movers, the pinnacle of all who think and thus the most highly productive, who mostly go on strike, initially. The strike eventually spreads, with workers leaving their jobs in droves even though they have not officially joined Galt’s strikers.

The strike is not intended to be taken as a literal call for “a strike of the men of the mind.” In fact, of Atlas Shrugged, she wrote in her journals, “I start with the fantastic premise of the prime movers going on strike.” The italics are hers. Rand herself described Galt’s strike as “a fantastic premise.” Mirriam -Webster defines fantastic as “based on fantasy” and “so extreme as to challenge belief.” Rand goes on:

This is the actual heart and center of the novel. A distinction carefully to be observed here: I do not set out to glorify the prime mover (that was The Fountainhead). I set out to show how desperately the world needs prime movers, and how viciously it treats them. And I show it on a hypothetical case—what happens to the world without them. [again, italics are hers.]

The strike is “a hypothetical case.” She herself did not call for any kind of organized strike, or even believe it possible. (She did, however, call on America’s businessmen to fight back, first and foremost by not sanctioning their exploiters and destroyers.) The strike is intended to dramatize, in fiction form, what happens when the human mind is not free to function. It may be “naive and arrogant” to think such a literal organized strike is realistic or desirable. But I don’t see anything “naive and arrogant” about the message. I take Atlas Shrugged to be a warning, not in any way a cruel call to destroy society in order to rebuild it. In Atlas Shrugged, society is already on its way to destruction. “John Galt’s idea of ‘stopping the motor of the world’” is misleading, I think. The motor of the world is already grinding to a halt. Galt’s mission is to rescue as many victims of the altruist/collectivist assault as he can.

This is important. The strike is a work of fiction. It could never happen in real life, in that way. In real life, an increasingly dictatorial government makes it progressively harder for people to act on their own judgment. At some point, the government’s controls reach a tipping point and the economy and society collapse into poverty, brutality, and tyranny, as every fully socialist country has demonstrated. In Atlas Shrugged, the U.S. is deteriorating toward the inevitable “tipping point.” Galt’s strike accelerates the deterioration, but does not change the inevitable collapse. 

But again, this is a work of fiction intended to dramatize the results of what happens when the motor of the world, the human mind, can no longer freely function. 

Yes, in Atlas Shrugged, the collapse is being given a deliberate push. But that is the mystery part of the story. The fact that “chaos and massive violence” will ensue and “millions of lives will be lost and the rebuilding of society will take several generations” is not the fault of the strikers or of John Galt and his allies. In the novel, it is already happening all over the world and America is next if the villains aren’t driven from power. Galt’s strikers are victims too, destined for destruction, except that they learn that it is not good to sanction their own destroyers--what Ayn Rand called “the sanction of the victims”--and thus meekly accept inevitable destruction. The strikers are heroes fighting evil by not sanctioning and thus helping evil to triumph. They are not villains who want to destroy society. They are heroes who want to save it. In reality, Ayn Rand spent more than two decades after Atlas Shrugged on non-fiction writing and lecturing on how people, especially businessmen, can fight back rather than quit.

Of course, if any particular prime mover -- a businessman, investor, inventor, entrepreneur, scientist chooses to stop working and retire, or simply leave that society rather than deal with draconian taxes and regulation, it is her moral right. There is a limit to how much a productive individual will tolerate exploitation. 

And, in fact, producers have been silently “going on strike” against altruistic/collectivistic societies throughout history. The Dark ages was a massive “strike” of intelligence. In Britain’s flirtation with full-blown socialism in the 1960s, this phenomenon of talented people giving up and/or leaving came to be called a “brain drain”. The same goes for any productive individual on any level of ability. A prime contemporary example -- no pun intended -- is Venezuela, which began descending into hell when Hugo Chavez and his socialist thugs were voted into office about a quarter century ago. As AP reports:

It’s a frequent scene across the U.S.-Mexico border at a time of swelling migration. But these aren’t farmers and low-wage workers from Mexico or Central America, who make up the bulk of those crossing. They’re bankers, doctors and engineers from Venezuela, and they’re arriving in record numbers as they flee turmoil in the country with the world’s largest oil reserves and pandemic-induced pain across South America. 

Hunger, poverty, and unnecessary deaths have spread across Venezuela. Are these bankers, doctors, and engineers the villains -- the cause of Venezuelans’ misery? Or is it the socialist regime and the majority that voted them into power?  

AP goes on to say “The surprise increase has drawn comparisons to the midcentury influx of Cubans fleeing Fidel Castro’s communist rule.” These are examples of Atlas Shrugging in real life.

I think the writer is all wet. Rand never advocated nor desired the destruction of society. Her whole life in America was a crusade to save it. She did not believe that “all the political and cultural institutions have to be destroyed before a better society can be built.” She advocated standing and fighting. “So long as there isn’t censorship,” Rand said in answer to a question, “one doesn’t have to leave society the way the characters did in Atlas Shrugged.” The quote at the start of this post is a classic example of blaming the victims, not the villains.

Related reading:

Ayn Rand: Tea Party Voice of the Founding Fathers

Golden Anniversary of an Inspiration

Why is a "Liberal" Promoting Atlas Shrugged?

Is Atlas Shrugging?

Atlas Shrugged; Heros or Villains?

Paul Hsieh's Tribute to Steve Jobs

Atlas Shrugged; Heros or Villains?

WARNING: ATLAS SHRUGGED  PLOT SPOILER. 

Back in 2018, Anoop Verma posted an excerpt from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged in which the strikers are discussing the withdrawal of their services and talents from a society they concluded was ruled by a looting government motivated by a corrupt moral code. Here is the excerpt:

Midas Mulligan: “The time is approaching when all of us will have to be called to live here—because the world is falling apart so fast that it will soon be starving. But we will be able to support ourselves in this valley [Galt’s Gulch].”

"The world is crashing faster than we expected," said Hugh Akston. "Men are stopping and giving up. Your frozen trains, the gangs of raiders, the deserters, they're men who've never heard of us, and they're not part of our strike, they are acting on their own—it's the natural response of whatever rationality is still left in them—it's the same kind of protest as ours."

"We started with no time limit in view," said Galt. "We did not know whether we'd live to see the liberation of the world or whether we'd have to leave our battle and our secret to the next generations. We knew only that this was the only way we cared to live. But now we think that we will see, and soon, the day of our victory and of our return."

"When?" she whispered.

"When the code of the looters has collapsed."

He saw her looking at him, her glance half-question, half-hope, and he added, "When the creed of self-immolation has run, for once, its undisguised course—when men find no victims ready to obstruct the path of justice and to deflect the fall of retribution on themselves—when the preachers of self-sacrifice discover that those who are willing to practice it, have nothing to sacrifice, and those who have, are not willing any longer—when men see that neither their hearts nor their muscles can save them, but the mind they damned is not there to answer then: screams for help [SIC]—when they collapse as they must, as men without mind—when they have no pretense of authority left, no remnant of law, no trace of morality, no hope, no food and no way to obtain it—when they collapse and the road is clear—then we'll come back to rebuild the world." [SIC]

Verma then posed a moral question, in the form of an observation: “[They] are discussing with satisfaction the collapse of the collectivist system. They do not seem to care about the tens of thousands of innocent (but intellectually and morally incompetent) people who are perishing in the lawlessness and chaos that has now engulfed the world.”

I took this statement to be a condemnation of the strikers when I posted this comment:

So, [the collapse of the collectivist system and the resulting humanitarian crisis] is all the fault of the victims for daring to withdraw their services—and thus support, at great personal cost and risk—a rebellion against a social system that they morally opposed? 

I see the spirit of the Founding Fathers, who pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to the cause of a free and just society.

But Verma gave my comment a thumbs up. So I guess he was merely challenging his readers to see where they stand. For more on my equation of Galt’s strikers with the Founding Fathers, see my post Ayn Rand: Tea Party Voice of the Founding Fathers.

Related Reading:

Ayn Rand: Tea Party Voice of the Founding Fathers

Golden Anniversary of an Inspiration

Why is a "Liberal" Promoting Atlas Shrugged?

QUORA: What did you learn from Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged"?

QUORA: What did you learn from Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged"?

I left this answer:

Leading off the list of things I learned is the spiritual origins of wealth creation. (By “spiritual” I don’t mean supernatural or divine “inspiration”. I mean humanist values like individual thinking; ideas; and selfish virtues like self-motivation, honesty, self-discipline, perseverance, intellectual independence, and integrity.)

A Response to Denise Cummins from a Old Objectivist Who Takes Ayn Rand Seriously—2

This is a continuation of my appraisal of Denise Cummings’s PBS article This is what happens when you take Ayn Rand seriously.

Cummins cites examples of the bad things that could happen when you adhere to Ayn Rand’s philosophy.

Under "An example from industry," Cummins writes, "In 2008, Sears CEO Eddie Lampert decided to restructure the company according to Rand’s principles." Things didn't go very well for Sears. But how is that a failure attributable to Rand's philosophy? Because Lampert claims to have operated "according to Rand’s principles?" This is nothing more than the fallacy of guilt by association. And it’s not even close to accurate. Rand believed that all individuals, businessmen included, should be free to act on their rational judgement. She never claimed that people automatically do. Rand never claimed that man was infallible. People making bad judgments doesn’t invalidate reason, freedom, capitalism, or Objectivist principles. And rather than cherry-pick only an example of allegedly bad Objectivism in business, why not also give an example of a CEO who successfully applied Objectivism to his business, such as John A. Allison, who guided bank giant BB&T through the financial crisis? (See "Objectivism Teaches Honesty in Business")

What happened with Sears is what happens when people make bad judgments. Rand didn’t argue that acting on one’s judgment automatically leads to good outcomes. She just said people should be free to do so.

Cummins also wrongly equates Objectivism to libertarianism, which she apparently equates to anarchy (no law, no police protection, etc.), citing (if you can believe it) "An example from Honduras" after a coup d’état, in which the new rulers “made the Constitution into a tool for them to get rich.” That's barely worth commenting on, except to observe that Cummins apparently believes that transportation infrastructure wouldn’t get built unless government builds it. Cummins ignores the fact that only a government that has private earnings to tax and private enterprise to hire—a private sector with some significant degree of health—could build anything. She apparently also commits the fallacy of equating an isolated government “privatization” policy—the Honduran government’s turning responsibility for road maintenance over to regulated private companies—with free market capitalism, and with equating capitalism to no police force.

What is worth commenting on in regard to Honduras is this from Cummins:

Yet devotees of Ayn Rand still argue that unregulated self-interest is the American way, that government interference stifles individualism and free trade. One wonders whether these same people would champion the idea of removing all umpires and referees from sporting events. What would mixed martial arts or football or rugby be like, one wonders, without those pesky referees constantly getting in the way of competition and self-interest?

This explains her Honduran example. Cummins can't distinguish between the rule of objective law and regulated markets. The rule of law—that is to say, objective law grounded in individual rights—is an integral part of Objectivist political theory, and of free market capitalism. But rules—referees—are different from regulations that impose controls. In my TOS article "Where Does Valid Law End and Regulation Begin?," I explained "Government regulation is illegitimate because it entails the legal imposition or prohibition of courses of private action in which no actual (or intended) rights-violations are evident."

Regulation should not be confused with rational non-rights violating rules that facilitate orderly interaction, such as traffic laws. Nor should regulation be confused with laws protecting the sanctity of contract, or that outlaw fraud, extortion, and the like, or that provide a court structure for resolving disputes or providing an objective forum for prosecutions. Regulation shouldn’t be confused with police, which steps in when someone assaults you but otherwise leaves you free to think and live. A capitalist society is not a society without umpires and referees. A capitalist government is one that protects rights and maintains order. It is a society with a government that protects its citizens from aggressive force, but does not itself wage aggression. Capitalism is not about who controls, the people or the rich, but of a government that protects equally all individuals’ right to control their own lives. Cummins's either-or choice of government control or no law masquerading as freedom is a false alternative.

She goes on:

Perhaps another way to look at this is to ask why our species of hominid is the only one still in existence on the planet, despite there having been many other hominid species during the course of our own evolution. One explanation is that we were cleverer, more ruthless and more competitive than those who went extinct. But anthropological archaeology tells a different story. Our very survival as a species depended on cooperation, and humans excel at cooperative effort. Rather than keeping knowledge, skills and goods ourselves, early humans exchanged them freely across cultural groups.

Another paragraph; another straw man. Where in the world does Rand's Objectivist ethics of rational self-interest forbid cooperation or promote ruthlessness? This smear is particularly egregious, given that Rand went to extensive and laborious effort to promote the trader principle, the ultimate in mutually self-interested human cooperation. Once again, Cummins presents a false choice; submission of all to government control or the life of a loner "keeping knowledge, skills and goods ourselves."

Within the context of property rights, the exchange of knowledge and skills through trade in goods is the economic essence of capitalism. Business, which Rand exalted, is one of the highest forms of human cooperation. So, I don't have a clue to what the hell Cummins is talking about. One thing I'm sure of: cooperation through government compulsion is not cooperation, but a chain gang. Cooperation through self-sacrifice is not cooperation, but exploitation—a master-slave relationship. Real cooperation is based on voluntary association built on self-interested individual choices. There is no room for Rand's concept of benevolent coexistence based on rational self-interest in Cummins's altruistic, statist world.

Even in describing the characters of Atlas Shrugged and their actions, Cummins isn't even in the ballpark:

The hero of her most popular novel, “Atlas Shrugged,” personifies this “highest of animals”: John Galt is a ruthless captain of industry who struggles against stifling government regulations that stand in the way of commerce and profit. In a revolt, he and other captains of industry each close down production of their factories, bringing the world economy to its knees. “You need us more than we need you” is their message.

Did she even read the novel? In the novel, the world is being brought to its knees by the regulatory welfare state gone wild, not Galt's "captains of industry," whom he seeks to rescue before they can be destroyed. Cummins fails to mention that many corrupt captains of industry are villains in the novel, conspiring with government officials to gain favors at the expense of honorable producers. Galt is not even close to being a "captain of industry." He is an inventor of a revolutionary new product, but forgoes the fame and fortune that his invention could bring him—not to mention the chance to build a giant company—to lead a rebellion of honest producers against the advancing dictatorship. In the spirit of the America's Founding Fathers, Galt gives it all up, pledging his life, fortune, and sacred honor to the cause of liberty and justice he selfishly cherished more than anything.

Cummins also cites Rand's Journals:

The fly in the ointment of Rand’s philosophical “objectivism” is the plain fact that humans have a tendency to cooperate and to look out for each other, as noted by many anthropologists who study hunter-gatherers. These “prosocial tendencies” were problematic for Rand, because such behavior obviously mitigates against “natural” self-interest and therefore should not exist. She resolved this contradiction by claiming that humans are born as tabula rasa, a blank slate, (as many of her time believed) and prosocial tendencies, particularly altruism, are “diseases” imposed on us by society, insidious lies that cause us to betray biological reality. For example, in her journal entry dated May 9, 1934, Rand mused:

For instance, when discussing the social instinct — does it matter whether it had existed in the early savages? Supposing men were born social (and even that is a question) — does it mean that they have to remain so? If man started as a social animal — isn’t all progress and civilization directed toward making him an individual? Isn’t that the only possible progress? If men are the highest of animals, isn’t man the next step?

Rand's journals, of course, are not a part of her final philosophy, just part of the progression of Rand's thought. Note that Rand wrote those words in 1934, long before her mature philosophy was presented in Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957. That aside, isn't this the essence of Cummins's critique; a collectivist opposed to individualism? Rand ultimately rejected the notion of a "social instinct," or any instinct (which she defines as an automatic form of knowledge). But she most emphatically did not reject cooperation or social harmony or a societal existence. Though not a "tendency," but a choice, cooperation is inherent in how Rand saw man—not as a social animal in the collectivist sense (the subordination of the individual to the group), but as a contractual animal, which implies socially cooperative individualism.

Contractual relationships, meant more broadly than strictly economic terms, does not imply any anti-social premise. Rather, it’s Rand’s way of identifying the proper form of social organization, one based on rational selfishness—trade, voluntary consent, mutual benefit, the absence of physical force, liberty, individualism, political freedom—as opposed to altruism—exploitation, sacrifice and profiteers on sacrifice, coercion, collectivism, political tyranny.

In conclusion, Cummins seems to pull it all together:

When people behave in ways that violate the axioms of rational choice, they are not behaving foolishly. They are giving researchers a glimpse of the prosocial tendencies that made it possible for our species to survive and thrive… then and today.

Keep in mind the state of most of that survival, when men allegedly violated “the axioms of rational choice.” If man really had a biologically programmed altruistic instinct, it didn’t work—not if human progress and well-being is your standard of value. That Cummins seems to value primitive “altruistic” tribalism over modern selfish capitalism is quite interesting. Draw your own conclusions from that.

In the end, overcoming that alleged “instinct”—and what Rand termed “the tribal premise”—in favor of individualism paved the way for progress. After thousands of years of stagnation,  man began his progress toward civilized, progressive society—casting off tribalism and moving toward individualism—culminating in the explosion of progress and individual freedom born of the Enlightenment discovery of individual rights of the past 250 years. Is this progress the target of Cummins's article—and her unjust attack on Ayn Rand? Your guess is as good as mine. But remember that progress is dependent on reason. To the extent man abandons reason, progress reverses. So when Cummins asserts that to “violate the axioms of rational choice” s not “foolish,” what is she saying? That acting on moral “instinct” ot “tendencies”—i.e., whim—is acceptable? How does one decide when to act on whim and when to choose rationally? On still more whim? Is Cummins attacking reason? That would go a long way to explaining the virulence of her uniformed attack on one of history's great champions of reason.

One thing is for sure: The remnants of and/or reemergence of the tribal premise and its altruistic foundation threatens the human progress resulting from the Enlightenment values of reason, individualism, and rights-protecting government. What must be understood is that Rand did not cobble together her ethics regardless of the facts of reality. She identified the rational egoist ethics that underpinned man’s progress since the Enlightenment by observing it in action, logically validating it by reference to the facts of man’s nature. If man is to continue to survive in a civilized way, it will be in no small part thanks to Rand’s ethical contributions.

At the beginning of her article, Cummins wonders “why Rand’s popularity among the young continues to grow.” Perhaps if Cummins actually studied Objectivism and honestly and objectively (no pun intended) absorbed it, she wouldn’t have to ask that question. But that’s what happens when you don’t take Ayn Rand seriously. Or perhaps do, and fear she’s right.

Related Reading:

Books- Understanding Rational Selfishness

The Free Market Doesn’t ‘Do’: It Liberates You to Do

A Free Market is the Only ‘Natural Order of Things’

PBS Columnist vs. Ayn Rand: Is Altruism Biological?—Michael Hurd

Response to Cummins on Rand at PBS—Ben Bayer @ The Ayn Rand Society