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Way back in 1957, the National Review took on Ayn Rand's book. The main gist of their overall critical review (https://www.nationalreview.com/2005/01/big-sister

Way back in 1957, the National Review took on Ayn Rand's book. The main gist of their overall critical review (https://www.nationalreview.com/2005/01/big-sister-watching-you-whittaker-chambers/ https://www.nationalreview.com/2005/01/big-sister-watching-y...) is that a "dictatorship of the technocrats" that they saw the book advocating in the end probably does not look that much different than a dictatorship from the left side of the political spectrum or other similar ilk. From my viewpoint, in the end, some Large Figure ends up ruling, power corrupts, and the result is largely the same -- if any philosophy is so absolutist that disagreement is more than just disagreement, it is a Sin, this tends to be the net result. There are positive points to be taken from many political philosophies (including libertarians and communists alike), my personal outlook is to never attach too dogmatically to one side though. :) Capitalism and basic freedoms are indeed separate entities, but I do think it remains an open question whether China can become a knowledge / innovation powerhouse, while at the same time heading backwards on basic freedoms as they seem to be now. This is more the key that I see has been historically linked together. Controlled societies may be just fine for the nuts and bolts portion of capitalism, but one can point to countless examples in history where suppressed / tightly controlled knowledge ended up holding societies back, severely suppressing innovation.

api 9y ago
I never read Rand as advocating a dictatorship of anyone. Of course you could argue that this is naive and that power vacuums invite someone to seize power. I sometimes compare Rand to Marx. Both were very astute critics -- Marx of capitalism and Rand of socialism/communism. Unfortunately neither had practical ideas of what to do about it. Both advocated some version of "put certain ideas into practice and then (magic happens here) and then the evil state withers away." The magic is what doesn't happen. We're now able to see that the real world endpoint of communism is mafia rule and that the real world endpoint of capitalism is techno-feudalism.
- soundwave106 9y ago
  Yeah, to clarify, the review is more implying naivety than straightforward advocacy. As in, the review believes Rand is "calling for an aristocracy of talents". But in the real modern world, this is a naive viewpoint, and "the impulse toward aristocracy always emerges now in the form of dictatorship."
  - api 9y ago
    The naivete ultimately comes from the failure to define "talent." The talent that yields advancement (in nearly any large scale society, not just capitalism) is often deception and primate dominance gestures. An aristocracy of talents becomes an aristocracy of narcissists and sociopaths. Rand's heroes all look like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. People like that are notable because they are rare. Most of the ultra-wealthy more closely resemble Rand's villains. Real creators are too busy creating to play the kind of dominance games that most often lead to political and business success. You can succeed by creating, but doing so is many orders of magnitude harder than succeeding through manipulation and so you get a smaller pool of people who can pull it off.

api 9y ago

I never read Rand as advocating a dictatorship of anyone. Of course you could argue that this is naive and that power vacuums invite someone to seize power. I sometimes compare Rand to Marx. Both were very astute critics -- Marx of capitalism and Rand of socialism/communism. Unfortunately neither had practical ideas of what to do about it. Both advocated some version of "put certain ideas into practice and then (magic happens here) and then the evil state withers away." The magic is what doesn't happen. We're now able to see that the real world endpoint of communism is mafia rule and that the real world endpoint of capitalism is techno-feudalism.

soundwave106 9y ago
Yeah, to clarify, the review is more implying naivety than straightforward advocacy. As in, the review believes Rand is "calling for an aristocracy of talents". But in the real modern world, this is a naive viewpoint, and "the impulse toward aristocracy always emerges now in the form of dictatorship."
- api 9y ago
  The naivete ultimately comes from the failure to define "talent." The talent that yields advancement (in nearly any large scale society, not just capitalism) is often deception and primate dominance gestures. An aristocracy of talents becomes an aristocracy of narcissists and sociopaths. Rand's heroes all look like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. People like that are notable because they are rare. Most of the ultra-wealthy more closely resemble Rand's villains. Real creators are too busy creating to play the kind of dominance games that most often lead to political and business success. You can succeed by creating, but doing so is many orders of magnitude harder than succeeding through manipulation and so you get a smaller pool of people who can pull it off.