Regardless of the purpose for which one intends to use it, wealth must first be produced. As far as economics is concerned, there is no difference between the motives of Colbert and of President Johnson. Both wanted to achieve national prosperity. Whether the wealth extorted by taxation is drained for the unearned benefit of Louis XIV or for the unearned benefit of the “underprivileged” makes no difference to the economic productivity of a nation. Whether one is chained for a “noble” purpose or an ignoble one, for the
1 New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1962.
benefit of the poor or the rich, for the sake of somebody’s “need” or somebody’s “greed”—when one is chained, one cannot produce.
There is no difference in the ultimate fate of all chained economies, regardless of any alleged justifications for the chains.
Consider some of these justifications:
The creation of “consumer demand”? It would be interesting to compute how many housewives with relief checks would equal the “consumer demands” provided by Madame de Maintenon and her numerous colleagues.
A “fair” distribution of wealth? The privileged favorites of Louis XIV did not enjoy so unfair an advantage over other people as do our “aristocrats of pull,” the actual and potential variants of Billie Sol Estes or Bobby Baker.
The requirements of the “national interest”? If there is such a thing as a “national interest,” achieved by sacrificing the rights and the interests of individuals, then Louis XIV acquitted himself superlatively. The greater part of his extravagance was not “selfish”: he did build France up into a major international power—and wrecked her economy. (Which means: he achieved “prestige” among other totalitarian rulers—at the price of the welfare, the future, and the lives of his own subjects.)
The furtherance of our “cultural” or “spiritual” progress? It is doubtful that a government-subsidized theater project will ever produce an array of genius comparable to that supported by the court of Louis XIV in his role of “patron of the arts” (Corneille, Racine, Moliere, etc.). But no one will ever compute the still-born genius of those who perish under systems of thaf kind, unwilling to learn the art of bootlicking required by any political patron of the arts. (Read Cyrano de Bergerac.)
The fact is that motives do not alter facts. The paramount requirement of a nation’s productivity and prosperity is freedom; men cannot—and, morally, will not—produce under compulsion and controls.
There is nothing new or mysterious about today’s economic problems. Like Colbert, President Johnson is appealing to various economic groups, seeking advice on what he can do for them. And if he does not wish to go down in history with a record similar to Colbert’s, he would do well to heed the voice of a modern Legendre, if such exists, who could give him the same immortal advice in a single word: “Decontrol!”
CURRENT STATE
14. THE ANATOMY OF COMPROMISE
BY AYN RAND
A major symptom of a man’s—or a culture’s—intellectual and moral disintegration is the shrinking of vision and goals to the concrete-bound range of the immediate moment. This means: the progressive disappearance of abstractions from a man’s mental processes or from a society’s concerns. The manifestation of a disintegrating consciousness is the inability to think and act in terms of principles.
A principle is “a fundamental, primary, or general truth, on which other truths depend.” Thus a principle is an abstraction which subsumes a great number of concretes. It is only by means of principles that one can set one’s long-range goals and evaluate the concrete alternatives of any given moment. It is only principles that enable a man to plan his future and to achieve it.
The present state of our culture may be gauged by the extent to which principles have vanished from public discussion, reducing our cultural atmosphere to the sordid, petty senselessness of a bickering family that haggles over trivial concretes, while betraying all its major values, selling out its future for some spurious advantage of the moment.
To make it more grotesque, that haggling is accompanied by an aura of hysterical self-righteousness, in the form of belligerent assertions that one must compromise with anybody on anything (except on the tenet that one must compromise) and by panicky appeals to “practicality.”
But there is nothing as impractical as a so-called “practical” man. His view of practicality can best be illustrated as follows: if you want to drive from New York to Los Angeles, it is “impractical” and “idealistic” to consult a map and to select the best way to get there; you will get there much
The Objectivist Newsletter, January 1964.
144
faster if you just start out driving at random, turning (or cutting) any corner, taking any road in any direction, following nothing but the mood and the weather of the moment
The fact is, of course, that by this method you will never get there at all. But while most people do recognize this fact in regard to the course of a journey, they are not so perceptive in regard to the course of their life and of their country.
There is only one science that could produce blindness on so large a scale, the science whose job it was to provide men with sight: philosophy. Since modern philosophy, in essence, is a concerted attack against the conceptual level of man’s consciousness—a sustained attempt to invalidate reason, abstractions, generalizations, and any integration of knowledge—men have been emerging from universities, for many decades past, with the helplessness of epistemological savages, with no inkling of the nature, function, or practical application of principles. These men have been groping blindly for some direction through the bewildering mass of (to them) incomprehensible concretes in the daily life of a complex industrial civilization—groping, struggling, failing, giving up, and perishing, unable to know in what manner they had acted as their own destroyers.
It is, therefore, important—for those who do not care to continue that suicidal process—to consider a few rules about the working of principles in practice and about the relationship of principles to goals.
The three rules listed below are by no means exhaustive; they are merely the first leads to the understanding of a vast subject.
1. In any conflict between two men (or two groups)
who hold the same basic principles, it is the more
consistent one who wins.
2. In any collaboration between two men (or two
groups) who hold different basic principles, it is the
more evil or irrational one who wins.
3. When opposite basic principles are clearly and
openly defined, it works to the advantage of the ration
al side; when they are not clearly defined, but are
hidden or evaded, it works to the advantage of the
irrational side.
1. When two men (or groups) hold the same basic principles, yet oppose each other on a given issue, it means that at least one of them is inconsistent. Since basic principles determine the ultimate goal of any long-range process of action,
the person who holds a clearer, more consistent view of the end to be achieved, will be more consistently right in his choice of means; and the contradictions of his opponent will work to his advantage, psychologically and existentially.
Psychologically, the inconsistent person will endorse and propagate the same ideas as his adversary, but in a weaker, diluted form—and thus will sanction, assist, and hasten his adversary’s victory, creating in the minds of their disputed following the impression of his adversary’s greater honesty and courage, while discrediting himself by an aura of evasion and cowardice.
Existentially, every step or measure taken to achieve their common goal will necessitate further and more crucial steps or measures in the same direction (unless the goal is rejected and the basic principles reversed)—thus strengthening the leadership of the consistent person and reducing the inconsistent one to impotence.
The conflict will follow that course regardless of whether the basic principles shared by the two adversaries are right or wrong, true or false, rational or irrational.
For instance, consider the conflict between the Republicans and the Democrats (and, within each party, the same conflict between the “conservatives” and the “liberals”). Since both parties hold altruism as their basic moral principle, both advocate a welfare state or mixed economy as their ultimate goal. Every government control imposed on the economy (regardless in whose favor) necessitates the imposition of further controls, to alleviate—momentarily—the disasters caused by the first control. Since the Democrats are more consistently committed to the growth of government power, the Republicans are reduced to helpless “me-too’ing,” to inept plagiarism of any program initiated by the Democrats, and to the disgraceful confession implied in their claim that they seek to achieve “the same ends” as the Democrats, but by different means.
It is precisely those ends (altruism-collectivism-statism) that ought to be rejected. But if neither party chooses to do it, the logic of the events created by their common basic principles wttl keep dragging them both further and further to the left. If and when the “conservatives” are kicked out of the game altogether, the same conflict will continue between the “liberals” and the avowed socialists; when the socialists win, the conflict will continue between the socialists and the communists; when the communists win, the ultimate goal of altruism will be achieved: universal immolation.