8 ms·

Hubris and an unshakable belief in Ayn Rand... http://evonomics.com/the-ceo-of-sears-jon-haidt/ http://evonomics.com/the-ceo-of-sears-jon-haidt/

by olefoo 8y ago

bsenftner 8y ago
Rand's legacy fits how she died: penniless and dependent on the institutions she viewed as failures of the human spirit. What a misguided wreak. Too bad she was influential, because much of the idiots stinking up the planet are her ideological children.
- cultus 8y ago
  Objectivism really is a vacant and pretty incoherent "philosophy." It's no surprise she presented in in the form of tedious novels with wooden characters rather than engaging with actual philosphers. I think its popularity is due to the fact that it tells people what they want to hear, and they can think of themselves as John Galt-esque ubermenschen.
  - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    And enlightened. Better in thought and better in results. For those prone to pride as a motivator, it was a lovely philosophy.
  - poulsbohemian 8y ago
    > they can think of themselves as John Galt-esque ubermenschen. Of all the heroes we could encourage people to have, is John Galt really so awful? He's described as bright, hard-working, self-reliant, but also collaborative and supportive of the work of those around him. He's driven and entrepreneurial, but not anti-social. He doesn't come across as anti-government so much as desiring government that isn't kleptocratic or set on regulatory capture. So... is any of that so awful? There's a spectrum here... those who praise Rand and Objectivism might do so with a bit too much fervor. But,I'm skeptical toward those who turn up their nose with disgust.
    - mixmastamyk 8y ago
      Agreed. About five years ago I decided to investigate the subject, watched the recent movie and her interviews on the disc. Turns out her more subtle early novels weren't understood, so she increasingly wrote them bonking the reader over the head with the point, ala A.S. The reputation of simplistic paper-thin characters emerges from that. Meh. Her experience was of the communists taking and breaking everything, one should keep that in mind. She's basically warning about government overreach, something we should all be able to get behind. It's a valid argument until you take it too far and use it as an excuse, like all political arguments.
      - poulsbohemian 8y ago
        The interviews I've seen of her directly contradict some of the things I've heard her acolytes, including Leonard Peikoff, comment, especially in the area of foreign conflict. Like any complex person, some of what she said was brilliant and some of it didn't all add up. Thankfully as other complex people we can debate, engage, and take from it that which has merit.
    - dieterrams 8y ago
      The fundamental problem with Rand's ideology is her cartoonish categorization of everyone that isn't Galt-esque or an enthusiastic, hypercompetent support person as evil looters/parasites. Iirc, Galt is basically trying to collapse society for everyone but the former. When you realize that you can't just write off people because they didn't turn out to be brilliant entrepreneurs or perky worker bees, and that the workings of government and justice are more complicated than Rand would allow, Atlas Shrugged does become pretty repugnant. Granted, she was reacting to her experiences with communism, so I don't totally blame her for going all the way to the other extreme. But insofar as someone wants to invent great things and do well from them, I don't take issue with that.
      - skookumchuck 8y ago
        It's hard to get more cartoonish than Star Trek's Ferengi, a left-wing caricature of capitalists, going so far as having pointed teeth.
  - stale2002 8y ago
    Rand's works need to be read while knowing the context that it was written in. Rand grew up in Russia, and her works were a direct criticism of the failures of the Soviet Union and communism. For someone who was watching their former country being torn apart, by cartoon villians, it makes sense that she would write about the exact problems that she saw happening. IE, cartoon villians looting the country.
    - conanbatt 8y ago
      Back then people praised the soviet union, they feared their economic prowess. And while even some economists of name woudl say that communism was showing great results she claimed that it would collapse from within. That was a very public bet that she won and should get a lot of credit, to go against the world and standing by her ideas, and she was right.
- stephengillie 8y ago
  Fountainhead was about glorifying a designer, to the ignorance of all else. I found the book incoherent and boring in high school, and today I'm still unable to find utility in its themes.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    I'm not especially in the anti-Rand brigade. But the thing that especially annoyed me about The Fountainhead was that it put on a pedestal all the annoying features of egotistical architects. Guess what, it's not actually about your vision. There's a client paying the bills. Now, if you persuade a client to come along for the ride with your vision, good for you. But the idea that a building is all about the architect's vision and no other consideration is egomaniac territory.
    - stephengillie 8y ago
      Exactly - clients and customers aren't just an evil of capitalism - they're other humans who share the world with us. And they also have a vision of the world they want to live in. It's fine to go off and do our own thing. But that doesn't mean we'll have any leverage to gain the concern or help of other people. Subsequently calling them out is just rude.
- paulddraper 8y ago
  > penniless and dependent on the institutions she viewed as failures of the human spirit. Link? She died in her Manhattan apartment [1], not some government funded facility. And colleague Leonard Peikoff [2] was heir to her estate, including the copyrights and royalties on her works. [1] http://www.literarymanhattan.org/place/ayn-rands-apartment-2/ http://www.literarymanhattan.org/place/ayn-rands-apartment-2... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Peikoff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Peikoff
  - cultus 8y ago
    >She died in her Manhattan apartment [1], not some government funded facility. I believe the parent was referring to government institutions such as social security, which Ayn Rand wound up using after being signed up by a social worker. She spoke out against such programs her whole life. However, she needed it, it was different. A common refrain with such people.
    - paulddraper 8y ago
      You insinuate contradiction where none exists. Disliking being "excessively taxed" your whole life doesn't preclude you from trying to get some of it back. In fact, I dare say you'll try even harder to get it back. Just because you didn't want to blow the budget on the Christmas party doesn't mean you can't show up.
    - skookumchuck 8y ago
      If someone opposes collective farms in the Soviet Union, must they starve in order to avoid being moral hypocrites? The thing with Social Security is we're all forced to pay into the system. It's not immoral to accept the paycheck. I'll be accepting those checks, too, despite opposing SS and consistently voting against it.
    - sbuttgereit 8y ago
      Except that you're cherry picking points out of her positions to make your point. These sorts of simple minded reductionist arguments fail to actually convey any sense of the position of those they seek to caricature. Her action was consistent with her thinking as expressed around decade before her "needing it". Her actual position, from 1966: https://campus.aynrand.org/works/1966/01/01/the-question-of-scholarships/page1 https://campus.aynrand.org/works/1966/01/01/the-question-of-...
- memberservice 8y ago
  "Rand told her husband, O’Connor, that he would have to vacate their apartment twice a week while she and Mr. Branden had their trysts." https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/nathaniel-branden-lover-and-disciple-of-novelist-ayn-rand-dies-at-84/2014/12/09/f1458d7e-7fca-11e4-81fd-8c4814dfa9d7_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b460269d074d https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/nathaniel...
conanbatt 8y ago
I would not call "setting internal structures to fight against each other" an example of free market. A company thinking thats a better strategy and failing and going bust is a great one though.
- kadendogthing 8y ago
  >an example of free market. What's the real difference?
  - conanbatt 8y ago
    For starters, it's not free if you are doing because your boss told you to do it.
    - kadendogthing 8y ago
      So by that logic, is it free if your life depends on it? I'm looking forward to the economic apologies not rooted in reason or fact.
      - conanbatt 8y ago
        Freedom from the undesired action of men. Nobody is free from nature. Everyone needs sustenance to survive.
        kadendogthing 8y ago
        >Freedom from the undesired action of men. How does a free market protect you from this?
- stephengillie 8y ago
  > "setting internal structures to fight against each other" This could be its own chapter in a book about how to cripple a thriving business. Right after the chapter on leveraged buyouts. Motorola, among others, eventually succumbed to this business-cancer.
poulsbohemian 8y ago
There are many out there who praise Ayn Rand, but I often find it illustrative to consider their actions over their words. My reading of Objectivism as described in Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead, would value the contributions of an entrepreneur building something of value to society over financial engineering that destroys value. Rand is also often carried as a banner by those with whom I'm not convinced she would agree.
- mikestew 8y ago
  As much as I might disagree with Rand, I certainly agree with your insight. The financial leeches of Lampert's ilk would most certainly be the villain in her novels ("Lampert was the kind always ready to profit from the work of others, without doing any of the work himself..."), and not the hero.
  - refurb 8y ago
    Financial leech? Are you arguing that without Lampert Sears would be a thriving business today?
    - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
      No, I don't think mikestew is arguing that. But it is also true that Lampert is trying to be a leach on what is left of Sears. (Whether or not he will succeed, the intent is there.) Also note that the difference between "leech" and "recycler of misplaced assets" is thin to non-existent.
    - toss1 8y ago
      Not OP, but yes, Sears would be a LOT better off without Lampert's engineering -- starting with his leaving a $billion in the company instead of siphoning it off to his hedge fund [1]. Lampert has done virtually everything to make the company fail, from employer actions that drove away anyone good, to screwing suppliers so that he now has no inventory, to letting the actual stores look like dingy, deserted, wastelands, so no one wants to shop there. Even in the age of Amazon, many brick&mortar stores are actually learning to thrive, including BestBuy and Walmart. Sears has a corporate history of being Amazon 100 years before Amazon -- they sold everything by its famous catalog, up to and including houses. Of course, much of that institutional memory has faded, but it still arguably could have been leveraged to help it thrive today. I have zero doubt that if it had been run recently by someone who knows and cares about great merchandising and service, it would be thriving, instead of dying by being run by a financial 'engineer' bent on using it as chop-shop fodder. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-27/lampert-s-sears-plan-would-hand-lampert-s-hedge-fund-1-billion https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-27/lampert-s...

Hubris and an unshakable belief in Ayn Rand... http://evonomics.com/the-ceo-of-sears-jon-haidt/ http://evonomics.com/the-ceo-of-sears-jon-haidt/

by olefoo 8y ago

Hubris and an unshakable belief in Ayn Rand... http://evonomics.com/the-ceo-of-sears-jon-haidt/ http://evonomics.com/the-ceo-of-sears-jon-haidt/

bsenftner 8y ago

Rand's legacy fits how she died: penniless and dependent on the institutions she viewed as failures of the human spirit. What a misguided wreak. Too bad she was influential, because much of the idiots stinking up the planet are her ideological children.

cultus 8y ago
Objectivism really is a vacant and pretty incoherent "philosophy." It's no surprise she presented in in the form of tedious novels with wooden characters rather than engaging with actual philosphers. I think its popularity is due to the fact that it tells people what they want to hear, and they can think of themselves as John Galt-esque ubermenschen.
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  And enlightened. Better in thought and better in results. For those prone to pride as a motivator, it was a lovely philosophy.
- poulsbohemian 8y ago
  > they can think of themselves as John Galt-esque ubermenschen. Of all the heroes we could encourage people to have, is John Galt really so awful? He's described as bright, hard-working, self-reliant, but also collaborative and supportive of the work of those around him. He's driven and entrepreneurial, but not anti-social. He doesn't come across as anti-government so much as desiring government that isn't kleptocratic or set on regulatory capture. So... is any of that so awful? There's a spectrum here... those who praise Rand and Objectivism might do so with a bit too much fervor. But,I'm skeptical toward those who turn up their nose with disgust.
  - mixmastamyk 8y ago
    Agreed. About five years ago I decided to investigate the subject, watched the recent movie and her interviews on the disc. Turns out her more subtle early novels weren't understood, so she increasingly wrote them bonking the reader over the head with the point, ala A.S. The reputation of simplistic paper-thin characters emerges from that. Meh. Her experience was of the communists taking and breaking everything, one should keep that in mind. She's basically warning about government overreach, something we should all be able to get behind. It's a valid argument until you take it too far and use it as an excuse, like all political arguments.
    - poulsbohemian 8y ago
      The interviews I've seen of her directly contradict some of the things I've heard her acolytes, including Leonard Peikoff, comment, especially in the area of foreign conflict. Like any complex person, some of what she said was brilliant and some of it didn't all add up. Thankfully as other complex people we can debate, engage, and take from it that which has merit.
  - dieterrams 8y ago
    The fundamental problem with Rand's ideology is her cartoonish categorization of everyone that isn't Galt-esque or an enthusiastic, hypercompetent support person as evil looters/parasites. Iirc, Galt is basically trying to collapse society for everyone but the former. When you realize that you can't just write off people because they didn't turn out to be brilliant entrepreneurs or perky worker bees, and that the workings of government and justice are more complicated than Rand would allow, Atlas Shrugged does become pretty repugnant. Granted, she was reacting to her experiences with communism, so I don't totally blame her for going all the way to the other extreme. But insofar as someone wants to invent great things and do well from them, I don't take issue with that.
    - skookumchuck 8y ago
      It's hard to get more cartoonish than Star Trek's Ferengi, a left-wing caricature of capitalists, going so far as having pointed teeth.
- stale2002 8y ago
  Rand's works need to be read while knowing the context that it was written in. Rand grew up in Russia, and her works were a direct criticism of the failures of the Soviet Union and communism. For someone who was watching their former country being torn apart, by cartoon villians, it makes sense that she would write about the exact problems that she saw happening. IE, cartoon villians looting the country.
  - conanbatt 8y ago
    Back then people praised the soviet union, they feared their economic prowess. And while even some economists of name woudl say that communism was showing great results she claimed that it would collapse from within. That was a very public bet that she won and should get a lot of credit, to go against the world and standing by her ideas, and she was right.
stephengillie 8y ago
Fountainhead was about glorifying a designer, to the ignorance of all else. I found the book incoherent and boring in high school, and today I'm still unable to find utility in its themes.
- ghaff 8y ago
  I'm not especially in the anti-Rand brigade. But the thing that especially annoyed me about The Fountainhead was that it put on a pedestal all the annoying features of egotistical architects. Guess what, it's not actually about your vision. There's a client paying the bills. Now, if you persuade a client to come along for the ride with your vision, good for you. But the idea that a building is all about the architect's vision and no other consideration is egomaniac territory.
  - stephengillie 8y ago
    Exactly - clients and customers aren't just an evil of capitalism - they're other humans who share the world with us. And they also have a vision of the world they want to live in. It's fine to go off and do our own thing. But that doesn't mean we'll have any leverage to gain the concern or help of other people. Subsequently calling them out is just rude.
paulddraper 8y ago
> penniless and dependent on the institutions she viewed as failures of the human spirit. Link? She died in her Manhattan apartment [1], not some government funded facility. And colleague Leonard Peikoff [2] was heir to her estate, including the copyrights and royalties on her works. [1] http://www.literarymanhattan.org/place/ayn-rands-apartment-2/ http://www.literarymanhattan.org/place/ayn-rands-apartment-2... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Peikoff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Peikoff
- cultus 8y ago
  >She died in her Manhattan apartment [1], not some government funded facility. I believe the parent was referring to government institutions such as social security, which Ayn Rand wound up using after being signed up by a social worker. She spoke out against such programs her whole life. However, she needed it, it was different. A common refrain with such people.
  - paulddraper 8y ago
    You insinuate contradiction where none exists. Disliking being "excessively taxed" your whole life doesn't preclude you from trying to get some of it back. In fact, I dare say you'll try even harder to get it back. Just because you didn't want to blow the budget on the Christmas party doesn't mean you can't show up.
  - skookumchuck 8y ago
    If someone opposes collective farms in the Soviet Union, must they starve in order to avoid being moral hypocrites? The thing with Social Security is we're all forced to pay into the system. It's not immoral to accept the paycheck. I'll be accepting those checks, too, despite opposing SS and consistently voting against it.
  - sbuttgereit 8y ago
    Except that you're cherry picking points out of her positions to make your point. These sorts of simple minded reductionist arguments fail to actually convey any sense of the position of those they seek to caricature. Her action was consistent with her thinking as expressed around decade before her "needing it". Her actual position, from 1966: https://campus.aynrand.org/works/1966/01/01/the-question-of-scholarships/page1 https://campus.aynrand.org/works/1966/01/01/the-question-of-...
memberservice 8y ago
"Rand told her husband, O’Connor, that he would have to vacate their apartment twice a week while she and Mr. Branden had their trysts." https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/nathaniel-branden-lover-and-disciple-of-novelist-ayn-rand-dies-at-84/2014/12/09/f1458d7e-7fca-11e4-81fd-8c4814dfa9d7_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b460269d074d https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/nathaniel...

conanbatt 8y ago

I would not call "setting internal structures to fight against each other" an example of free market. A company thinking thats a better strategy and failing and going bust is a great one though.

kadendogthing 8y ago
>an example of free market. What's the real difference?
- conanbatt 8y ago
  For starters, it's not free if you are doing because your boss told you to do it.
  - kadendogthing 8y ago
    So by that logic, is it free if your life depends on it? I'm looking forward to the economic apologies not rooted in reason or fact.
    - conanbatt 8y ago
      Freedom from the undesired action of men. Nobody is free from nature. Everyone needs sustenance to survive.
      - kadendogthing 8y ago
        >Freedom from the undesired action of men. How does a free market protect you from this?
stephengillie 8y ago
> "setting internal structures to fight against each other" This could be its own chapter in a book about how to cripple a thriving business. Right after the chapter on leveraged buyouts. Motorola, among others, eventually succumbed to this business-cancer.

poulsbohemian 8y ago

There are many out there who praise Ayn Rand, but I often find it illustrative to consider their actions over their words. My reading of Objectivism as described in Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead, would value the contributions of an entrepreneur building something of value to society over financial engineering that destroys value. Rand is also often carried as a banner by those with whom I'm not convinced she would agree.

mikestew 8y ago
As much as I might disagree with Rand, I certainly agree with your insight. The financial leeches of Lampert's ilk would most certainly be the villain in her novels ("Lampert was the kind always ready to profit from the work of others, without doing any of the work himself..."), and not the hero.
- refurb 8y ago
  Financial leech? Are you arguing that without Lampert Sears would be a thriving business today?
  - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    No, I don't think mikestew is arguing that. But it is also true that Lampert is trying to be a leach on what is left of Sears. (Whether or not he will succeed, the intent is there.) Also note that the difference between "leech" and "recycler of misplaced assets" is thin to non-existent.
  - toss1 8y ago
    Not OP, but yes, Sears would be a LOT better off without Lampert's engineering -- starting with his leaving a $billion in the company instead of siphoning it off to his hedge fund [1]. Lampert has done virtually everything to make the company fail, from employer actions that drove away anyone good, to screwing suppliers so that he now has no inventory, to letting the actual stores look like dingy, deserted, wastelands, so no one wants to shop there. Even in the age of Amazon, many brick&mortar stores are actually learning to thrive, including BestBuy and Walmart. Sears has a corporate history of being Amazon 100 years before Amazon -- they sold everything by its famous catalog, up to and including houses. Of course, much of that institutional memory has faded, but it still arguably could have been leveraged to help it thrive today. I have zero doubt that if it had been run recently by someone who knows and cares about great merchandising and service, it would be thriving, instead of dying by being run by a financial 'engineer' bent on using it as chop-shop fodder. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-27/lampert-s-sears-plan-would-hand-lampert-s-hedge-fund-1-billion https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-27/lampert-s...