Ayn Rand, Jack London, and a Fountainhead of
An Earth Manifesto publication by Dr.
Tiffany B. Twain
Two of the most fascinating novelist-philosophers of
the twentieth century were Jack London (1876 – 1916) and Ayn Rand (1905 –
1982). Both of them had dramatic
defining experiences in their early lives that powerfully influenced their
worldviews, and they both idealized masculine heroes and identified with heroic
ambition and accomplishment.
London’s character Martin in his semi-autobiographical novel Martin Eden seems almost like one of the
protagonists in an Ayn Rand novel. Jack
described his motives this way:
“He wanted to glorify the leaders of forlorn hopes, the mad lovers, the
giants that fought under stress and strain, amid terror and tragedy, making
life crackle with the strength of their endeavor.”
Both Ayn Rand and Jack London were philosophic
thinkers and passionately provocative intellectuals. Because people’s beliefs are strongly
affected by the circumstances of their early lives and upbringing and
experiences, it is understandable how these two famous writers arrived at
dramatically different political philosophies.
This contrast is fascinating, since both of them championed and highly
Jack London grew up in poverty in the Bay Area of
Northern California. He set off at an
early age to earn a living by working on sailing ships. He became intimately concerned later in his
life with the rights of working people, and he concluded that socialism was the
best political philosophy. Ayn Rand, on
the other hand, considered any form of “collectivism” to be anathema, so she
passionately opposed any kind of socialism.
Ayn (rhymes with ‘mine’) was born in Russia.
When she was 12 years old, a revolution by working people brought the
repressive era of the ruling Czars to an end.
This revolution began in early 1917 in the city of Petrograd (now known
as St. Petersburg), where she lived with her family. This violent revolution was caused by deep
frustration and anger at terrible economic and social conditions that pertained
in Russia at the time. These conditions
were made significantly worse by the country’s extraordinarily costly efforts
to fight the aggression of industrialized Germany during World War I. This revolution spread throughout Russia and
resulted, among other things, in the disbanding of the repressive czarist police
and the repeal of limitations on freedom of opinion and association and the
Later in 1917, this worker revolution was co-opted
by the communist Bolshevik Party and its leader, Vladimir Lenin. The nascent movement to establish
parliamentary democracy was thereby overthrown by this political faction
because pressing problems had not been resolved, including a severe food
crisis, economic disorganization, and the immediate aftermath of the calamitous
war. Desperately needed reforms had not been made to the economy, and entitled
classes owned most of the land.
Propaganda disseminated by the Bolshevik Party
advocated a “proletarian dictatorship”.
After Lenin instigated an armed insurrection in October 1917, a civil
war ensued and the communist movement asserted control. A treaty was signed that ended the Soviet
involvement in World War I. In this
agreement, the Soviet Union gave up the Baltic States and Finland and Poland
and Ukraine. Not long thereafter, Lenin
began a campaign to ruthlessly crush all domestic opposition.
Ayn Rand’s disgust with the sad state of affairs
in Russia was accompanied by her idealistic views of the United States as a
beacon of freedom, individualism, fair opportunities and protected rights. She took a ship to New York in 1925, and
regarded her departure as a breaking of the chains that had enslaved her in
oppressive Russia. She was ready for a
life of freedom of expression and a concerted focus on the important things in
Ayn believed strongly in “Objectivism”. This is an idea which holds that the physical
reality of the universe exists independently of our perceptions of it. She
asserted that we attain objective knowledge of reality by using our senses to
perceive it, and our logical and rational abilities to make sense of it. She felt that the proper moral purpose in the
life of any human being is to pursue one’s own happiness and rational
regarded selfishness as a great virtue. She believed dogmatically that the only social system that is consistent
with her moral conceptions would be one that fully respects individual rights,
so she asserted that laissez-faire capitalism is the best way to achieve such
In championing individualism, and in harboring her
deep antipathy toward any form of what she termed ‘collectivism’, Ayn Rand
was ideologically uncompromising. She
became disillusioned by U.S. politics in the 1930s because she regarded the New
Deal as a despicable form of socialism.
In 1964, she
wrote a book entitled The Virtue of
Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism.
The title was one of the most controversial elements of the book. She acknowledged that the term selfishness as
it is typically used does not describe a virtuous behavior, but that what she
meant by selfishness was more precisely that it is a “concern for one’s own
interests” that should be regarded as an overarching virtue. This argument was an ethical contention that
was strongly correlated with economic fundamentalist doctrines that posit an
Invisible Hand operates for the greater good of all people in laissez-faire
capitalist economic systems. This, as
history and experience reveals, turns out to be demonstrably untrue in many
Rand was an
intellectual, and her ideas are well constructed, but in her biases she
rationalized behaviors that helped enable misguided economic policies that have
had extremely damaging impacts on people and our political system and the
that equated self-concern with virtue essentially presupposed that
self-interested motives and ego drives are an expression of noble and pure
aspects of the human soul and spirit.
Hogwash! Those who are intimately
familiar with the motivations and activities of successful people recognize
that success itself is a measure frequently associated with vice more than it
is with virtue, especially in the dog-eat-dog ruthlessness of unfair
competition and political and economic corruption.
John Steinbeck was so acutely aware, is often the result of behaviors that are
far from virtuous. Readers of Cannery Row
are often surprised by the poignant observations of the book’s central
character that the traits leading to success in our society are often vices
such as greed, meanness, egotism and preoccupations with self-interest, while
the traits leading to failure may be the result of virtues like kindness,
honesty, openness and generosity.
Howard Roark, Ayn Rand’s principal character in her
famous novel The Fountainhead, gave a
dramatic speech in which he stated:
“Look at history. Everything we
have, every great achievement has come from the independent work of some
independent mind. Every horror and
destruction came from attempts to force men into a herd of brainless, soulless
robots. Without personal rights, without
personal ambition, without will, hope, or dignity. It is an ancient conflict. It has another name: the individual against
the collective. Our country, the noblest
country in the history of men, was based on the principle of
individualism. The principle of man’s
As a critique of Rand’s extreme philosophies, it
is hard in all sincerity to imagine that anyone could regard capitalism, as Ayn
did, as a system that “demands and rewards the best in every man”. Today, as economic inequalities in the U.S.
grow ever more extreme, the rewards are being disproportionately concentrated
in the hands of the few.
Jack London saw things differently from Ayn Rand
because he viscerally recognized the extensive social ills associated with
industrialization, urbanization, the oppression of workers, and widespread
corruption in politics. He saw that an
idealized Brotherhood of Man did not arise “out of the decay of self-seeking
capitalism”. Appallingly, “capitalism,
rotten-ripe, sent forth that monstrous offshoot, the Oligarchy.” This rule by the Few crushed labor movements
and subjected workers to ever-more difficult circumstances and economic
insecurity in order to give more and more power and privileges to the wealthy,
who ruled with an ‘Iron Heel’. This was
far from ideal for individual freedoms or self-respect or fair-minded justice.
Ayn Rand believed that ‘collectivism’ and taxation
were forms of slavery. She saw them as
being oppressive of successful industrialists and creative non-conformists and
others that she regarded as being the most noble. Jack London was more intimately familiar with
the scandalously ruthless gambits of ‘robber barons’ during the Gilded Age, and
with their distinctly less-than-virtuous exploitation of workers and their use
of the capitalist system to make huge profits at the expense of workers and
J.P. Morgan, as an example, had gained enormous
wealth after the Panic of 1857 by investing in depreciated securities. He also indulged in profiteering during the
Civil War, as revealed in the “Hall Carbine Affair”. In this scurrilous gambit, he purchased
thousands of dangerously defective rifles and later resold them to the
government as new carbines, even though they tended to blow up in the face of
those who used them. Many such unethical
ruses by ruthless financiers and industrialists resulted in the accumulation of
great quantities of wealth, but it could hardly be said that these were noble
acts or that those who perpetrated them were particularly deserving of their
According to J.P. Morgan, riches are “the
reward of toil and virtue.” Ha! Anyone who closely studies some of the
unethical means by which J.P. Morgan gained his riches would strongly
disagree. The dastardly “Hall Carbine
Affair” was just the start of a career that involved significant breaches of
the public trust. Another exceedingly
rich man, John D. Rockefeller, supported J.P. Morgan’s contention, going so far
as to state that riches are “a gift from Heaven signifying, <This is my
beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.>”
Oh, right, right, right -- God loves rich people the most!
Eugene Debs scoffed at these
self-congratulatory perspectives. Debs,
the labor leader who ran for president five times in the early twentieth
century, once stated, “Riches are the savings of many in the hands of a
few!” This characterization sounds much
more accurate to me than the presumption that those who have most of the wealth
in the world are mainly virtuous people who God likes best!
Ayn Rand has become a hero to people who
support the Tea Party and the political right wing today, as evidenced by the
recent movie version of her 1957 novelistic ode to unfettered capitalism, Atlas Shrugged. This is ironic because most conservatives
actually loathed her during her lifetime.
For today’s conservatives to lionize Ayn Rand, they indulge in dishonest
historical revisionism. Rand was, after
all, an atheist, a feminist, an outspoken supporter of abortion rights, an
opponent of the Vietnam War, and a critic of crony capitalism. The film Atlas
Shrugged was financed by a wealthy CEO, and it was targeted to appeal to
anti-government zeal and reactionary people in the Tea Party.
The main reason conservatives have embraced
Ayn Rand in recent years is because of her idea that all taxation should be
voluntary. Conservatives also love her
philosophical opposition to the regulation of industry, and to government
financing for roads or other infrastructure, and to all forms of welfare,
unemployment insurance, assistance for poor people, and social safety net
Unsurprisingly, The Wisconsin Republican
Representative Paul Ryan, a lead architect of the Republican Party’s budget
plans in recent years, is a devotee to Ayn Rand’s fiscal ideas and her anarchic
capitalistic philosophies. Ryan’s plans
comport closely with Rand’s worldviews.
They would cut spending for Medicare, Medicaid and a whole host of
housing, food and educational support programs.
They would leave the middle class and the poor and the most vulnerable
Americans with far less security. In
addition, about half of the savings that would be achieved by these radical
plans would be given to the wealthiest people in the form of even lower tax
Make no mistake about it, however, our national
politics has been a kind of perverted one-party system in many ways. Big Money has pervasive influence in our
politics and national decision-making, so as a result, in really big issues, it
does not much matter which party is in power.
Big Money has the most deciding influence in all matters related to
banking regulation and the social safety net and environmental protections and
tax policies. This is why our top
national priorities have been primarily beneficial to multi-millionaires and
billionaires, especially since 1981.
A radical contrast has materialized today, however,
between Republicans and Democrats with regard to the future of our nation. Republicans are pandering to the super-rich
so blatantly that they propose to slash taxes on rich people even further,
despite the fact that tax rates on rich people have been reduced repeatedly in
the past few decades until they are now nearly the lowest in more than 80
years. To couple this overarching
strategy of pandering to the wealthy with deep cuts in the social safety net
and public education and social programs that help protect people and the
environment may be shrewd, but it is wrong-headed and astonishingly risky. It is outrageous to see Republicans champion
such narrowly focused and unfair ideas.
Barack Obama, on the other hand, has made some
efforts to reform our tax system to reduce the huge tax breaks for rich
people. He has proposed wiser
investments and public policies that are fairer and more progressive for the
vast majority of Americans.
Students, young people, racial minorities, women and
the most vulnerable Americans are being abandoned by Republicans, who are
undermining public education and national infrastructure and the social safety
net in order to advance their narrow agenda.
This GOP strategy is another form of power abuse by the rich. It should stoke a revolutionary zeal in
Americans to oppose such initiatives.
The Occupy Wall Street movement in the U.S.
and abroad tapped into a growing sense of frustration and anger, and it
cultivated the hope that the 99% of people can use the power of their numbers
to prevent the richest 1% from gaining ever-lower tax rates and ever-more
influence than everyone else.
Until recently, the most vociferous element on the
American political scene was the Tea Party, which has ironically been duped
into supporting policies contrary to their own best economic interests. The propaganda of billionaires like the Koch
brothers is partially to blame for this misguided error of perception and energy.
The Tea Party is considered a populist grassroots
movement, but deeper inspection reveals it to be driven by “astroturfing”, a
form of deceptive political advocacy and propaganda that disguises the efforts
of rich people in orchestrating support for their own self interest at the
expense of those they fool into supporting them. A poll shows that 40% of Tea Party supporters
are 55 or older, 79% are white, 61% are male, and 44% identify themselves as
born-again Christians. Such a demographic can hardly be regarded
as ideal in formulating policies for the greater good of our country, or of the
Jack London was a passionate advocate of
collective bargaining rights and other rights for workers, and of power for
those oppressed in class struggles.
There are many problems in today’s twenty-first century societies, and
it would be most sensible for us to champion fairer and more open-minded ideas
to cope with them most effectively.
Better education is called for in our schools and
legislative bodies. American citizens
should be given a better grasp of truths and realities, instead of repeated
doses of extreme ideologies and propaganda.
Jeffrey Sachs noted that better education in science and statistics is
needed, declaring in Common Wealth:
Economics for a Crowded Planet “The subject is basic and universal. It transcends our many differences in
religion and political ideology.”
When we understand more clearly, we will be able to
find more common ground to create a more providentially positive world.
Ayn Rand would have ridiculed the old
philosophical question, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to
hear it, does it make any noise?” A
falling tree naturally propagates sound waves, and if a human being were nearby
to hear it, that person would surely confirm that the falling of the tree made
noise. Without any person or animal
there to perceive the sound and subjectively identify it as noise, it would not
alter the fact that sound waves had been propagated. This conundrum presents a kind of false
dichotomy, for sound is neither exclusively a characteristic of the sound
having been propagated nor of the mind of an independent percipient being that
hears the sound.
Philosophy is vitally important when it addresses
crucially important ideas. Questions of
the nature of whether or not falling trees make noises, or of abstruse
epistemological and logical questions, are diversions from the importance of
striving to comprehend vitally important matters using honest and fair-minded
analysis, philosophical introspection, intuitive understandings, noble vision
and big picture ideas. I heartily
recommend that readers peruse other Earth Manifesto publications!
Dr. Tiffany B.
Postscript --- An Appendix to Tall Tales:
Appendix - An Excerpt From John
Steinbeck's Log from the Sea Of Cortez
(There were 6 people aboard the Western Flyer, a
75-foot-long purse seiner, during the expedition made by John Steinbeck and Doc
Ricketts to the Sea of Cortez in 1940.
They also had a skiff with an outboard motor on it, which is the subject
of this excerpt from Steinbeck’s Log from
the Sea of Cortez.)
We come now to a piece of equipment which still brings
anger to our hearts, and we hope, some venom to our pen. Perhaps in self-defense against suit, we
should say, "The outboard motor mentioned in this book is purely
fictitious and any resemblance to outboard motors living or dead is
coincidental." We shall call this
contraption, of the sake of secrecy, a Hansen Sea-Cow -- a dazzling little
piece of machinery, all aluminum paint and touched here and there with spots of
red. The Sea-Cow was built to sell, to
dazzle the eyes, to splutter its way into the unwary heart. We took it along for the skiff. It was intended that it should push us ashore
and back, should drive our boat into estuaries and along the borders of little
coves. But we had not reckoned with one
thing. Recently, industrial civilization
has reached its peak of reality and has lunged forward into something that
approaches mysticism. In the Sea-Cow
factory where steel fingers tighten screws, bend and mold, measure and divide,
some curious mathematick has occurred.
And that secret so long sought has accidentally been found. Life has been created. The machine is at last stirred. A soul and a malignant mind have been born. Our Hansen Sea-Cow was not only a living
thing but a mean, irritable, contemptible, vengeful, mischievous, hateful living
thing. In the six weeks of our
association we observed it, at first mechanically and then, as its living
reactions became more and more apparent, psychologically. And we determined one thing to our
satisfaction. When and if these ghoulish
little motors learn to reproduce themselves the human species is doomed. For their hatred of us is so great that they
will wait and plan and organize and one night, in a roar of little exhausts,
they will wipe us out. We do not think
that Mr. Hansen, the inventor of the Sea-Cow, father of the outboard motor,
knew what he was doing. We think the
monster he created was as accidental and arbitrary as the beginning of any
other life. Only one thing
differentiates the Sea-Cow from the life that we know. Whereas the forms that are familiar to us are
the results of billions of years of mutation and complication, life and
intelligence emerged simultaneously in the Sea-Cow. It is more than a species. It is a whole new redefinition of life. We observed the following traits in it and we
were able to check them again and again:
1. Incredibly lazy, the Sea-Cow loved to ride on the
back of a boat, trailing its propeller daintily in the water while we rowed.
2. It required the same amount of gasoline whether it
ran or not, apparently being able to absorb this fluid through its body walls
without recourse to explosion. It had
always to be filled at the beginning of every trip.
3. It had apparently some clairvoyant powers, and was
able to read our minds, particularly when they were inflamed with emotion. Thus, on every occasion when we were driven
to the point of destroying it, it started and ran with a great noise and
excitement. This served the double
purpose of saving its life and of resurrecting in our minds a false confidence
4. It had many cleavage points, and when attacked with a
screwdriver, fell apart in simulated death, a trait it had in common with
opossums, armadillos, and several members of the sloth family, which also fall
apart in simulated death when attacked with a screwdriver.
5. It hated Tex, sensing perhaps that his knowledge of
mechanics was capable of diagnosing its shortcomings.
6. It completely refused to run: (a) when the waves were high, (b) when the wind blew, (c) at night, early morning, and
evening, (d) in rain, dew, or fog (e) when the distance to be covered was more
than two hundred yards. But on warm,
sunny days when the weather was calm and the white beach close by -- in a word,
on days when it would have been a pleasure to row -- the Sea-Cow started at a
touch and would not stop.
7. It loved no one, trusted no one. It had no friends.
the end, our observations were a little warped by emotion. Time and again as it
sat on the stern with its pretty little propeller trailing idly in the water,
it was very close to death. And in the end, even we were infected with its
malignancy and its dishonesty. We should have destroyed it, but we did not.
Arriving home, we gave it a new coat of aluminum paint, spotted it at points
with new red enamel, and sold it. And we might have rid the world of this