 Every other week at this time WKCR presents I and Rand on campus. Ms. Rand, founder of Objectivism, author of Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead, will answer questions by students of Columbia University and elsewhere about her philosophy. We're pleased once again to have Ms. Rand with us. Also our guest panelists for the evening, Arthur Gandalfi of Columbia College, Jack Unger and Howard Hood of the Columbia University School of Law. I'm your host Jack Cress. For our first question, Mr. Gandalfi. Ms. Rand, it often happens that people, when they hear the word capitalism, react in a very hostile way, but their reasons for disliking capitalism are not always the true ones, but a tone of their remarks is evident that they have a much deeper antagonism towards capitalism. Could you give your opinion about this phenomena? Yes, it is a very significant phenomenon. Whenever any issue is misrepresented for a long, long time, whenever you see people distorting facts, refusing to abide by facts, and not making any sense in their accusations, you may be sure that the reasons they state are not their true reasons and that there is something deeper behind it, which they do not care to admit. This is particularly true in the case of capitalism. Capitalism has been misrepresented practically from its inception, both by its enemies and its alleged defenders, but the amount of distortion and misrepresentation which goes on today, even though evidence to the contrary is available and is accumulating year by year is truly staggering. It is perhaps the single most misrepresented issue in cultural history. Therefore, it is important to ask ourselves what are people's real reasons, when people are blind to the truth, obviously blind, when the issue is not merely an error of knowledge, it is not a matter of ignorance, but of psychological vested interests, we have to ask what are the vested interests behind people's attitude. And in the case of capitalism, the very obvious psychological root is man's fear of independence. Fear of independence, first of all, and consequently fear of rationality and anti-rational mentality is necessary to be anti-capitalist. And on a more formal level, these psychological evils unite in support of the morality of altruism. People are led to hate capitalism to the extent to which they subscribe to the altruist morality. In many cases, they would feel dimly because they would be evading the issue and trying not to admit it. They would feel that there is a bad clash between the conventional morality which they have been taught to accept, which they're not independent nor brave enough to reject, and a clash between that and the nature of capitalism, in that sense, the nature of reality. They are caught between the fact of a false moral theory, which they're not challenged, namely altruism, and the facts of reality which demonstrate over and over again that capitalism is the best, the most practical and the most moral, in fact the only moral system in human history. People dare not face that dichotomy because capitalism is incompatible with the morality of altruism. And those who have accepted that morality have such a psychological vested interest in it that they take their inner conflict out on capitalism. They make capitalism the whipping boy of their own inner contradictions. They know, in a psychological sense, subconsciously, that they are wrong in regard to altruism, and they therefore acquire a vested interest to try to prove that capitalism is evil. If they can discredit capitalism, they can consider themselves free to pursue their own impractical, vicious morality. That is in terms of moral considerations. But deeper than that is of course the question, what attracts them to the morality of altruism? Why has morality been perpetuated for such a long time in spite of its obvious evils and blatant contradictions? And here we come to the issue I named first, that is people's fear of independence, fear of relying on their own judgment, on their own mind, and therefore feel fear of reason. It is their subconscious and sometimes conscious desire to permit a loophole to their irrationality. It is their reluctance to be at the mercy of an absolute reality. It is a desire to bypass reality in some way, to cut corners, to have an escape clause for their whims, their wishes, their fears, and the irrational element within them. What they fear when they fear capitalism is objectivity, rationality, and reality. Mr. Rand, we're discussing the anti-capitalistic mentality and we're doing that in this singular, although you've just pointed out that many of the causes are plural. Would you say that these plural causes do result in a singular anti-capitalistic mentality? Well, not a mentality in the sense of individual psychology. If you mean, are all anti-capitalists in effect psychologically alike? I would say, of course, no. As in any evil, there are as many different psychological variants as there are people, but certain basic premises they would have in common. I would say the anti-capitalist mentality is the mentality which is afraid of independence, afraid of reason, afraid of reality. But that isn't very broad fundamental terms. Within those broad abstractions, there are all kinds of variations and combination of elements which would operate in any given individual. So you may ascribe certain generalized principles to a type of mentality which would be opposed to capitalism. And these principles would operate in various degrees in every man who opposes capitalism. But it is not to say that everyone who opposes it is alike in all psychological essentials. Mr. Hood. Ms. Rand, would you elaborate the relationship between subjectivism, the view that reality is not perceived by consciousness but is created by consciousness, and the idea of statism, which seems to be in large degree, based on the idea that if the government sets about to do something that it can automatically achieve its ends irrespective of the facts of reality. You have really named the essence of the question here. Those who want to escape from reason and reality can do so only by means of hoping that their hopes, wishes, or fears can somehow triumph over reality, that one does not have to be bound by facts, that one's wishes can somehow succeed regardless of whether they correspond to the facts of reality or contradict them. In such a case, the only excuse, not moral excuse, but psychological semblance of an excuse for such people is the fact that most of their desires and their irrationality takes place in the social context and that if they wish something which is contrary to the facts, society, meaning other people, will somehow provide it. If they act irrationally, other people will save them from the consequences of their irrationality. If they demand the irrational or the unearned, other people will provide it. As Mr. Brandon said once, anyone who introduces us somehow into his idea of the means of achieving his ends always means somebody. And this is the clue to the status psychology. They hope that by enslaving the producers of the goods in life, the economic producers, by creating an omnipotent state which will rule everybody's life, they, the irrationalists, will somehow ride on the shoulders of the rational members of society, the productive members, those able to deal with the facts of reality properly. Not only in the issue of producing material goods, material wealth, but in all issues. If these providers are enslaved by the state, then their energy and their productiveness will permit the irrationalist to gain the unearned. The unearned in matter, in the form of unearned wealth and the unearned in spirit, in the form of unearned honors or government positions. The sole means to achieve the unearned, not to achieve it, because one can't, but to attempt to achieve it is by means of physical force, which is why the enemies of capitalism are status. There is no alternative to a free society except the establishment of a totalitarian state, which is the rule of men by force. When force is the standard of social relationships, then the irrational men may hope that somehow by force, his masters will provide him with what he wants, will take care of him. He is willing to give total obedience to the state in exchange for the state saving him from the problem which he dreads most. That is the problem of facing life on his own, the problem of taking the responsibility for his own life, his own actions and his own judgment. That is what he dreads and his soul records, since there is in fact no escape from reality, is to hide behind those men whom he observes around him, who are able to deal with reality, who are not afraid to think, who act on their judgment and produce all values that men have ever achieved intellectually or materially. It is these men that the irrationalist wants to enslave and force somehow to provide for him. This theme, of course, is clearly illustrated in Atlas Shogged. Mr. Unger. Ms. Rand, in light of what you just said, I wonder whether you'd comment on the following thesis in that it's not intellectual cowardice or default that causes most people to reject capitalism, but it's rather a matter of social status. That is that the overwhelming majority of people, the same people whom, by the way, in a majoritarian that is or a democracy system, control the political power, since most people then are employees. That is, workers, to use that phrase in quotes, versus the owners of the system, that they would have a natural antipathy. That is, they have no stake, so they would think, in the difference between their status in a free enterprise system versus a status system that they would still be on the employees end of the social class structure, and therefore any control that they would want to impose upon those owners, their employers, would be negligible. Now that is a very fallacious argument on several counts. To begin with, there is no such thing as an employee mentality, or rather it exists, but more among non-employees than among employees. A man is not conditioned by his economic status. His ideas are not determined by it. Truths are more employees than employers, but it does not mean that they are all psychologically condemned and have resigned themselves to the status of an employee. In a free society, and this has been well illustrated in the freer period of American life, there is no class of employees. The employees of today are the employers of tomorrow. The self-made man, which is a typical American phenomenon, that is a phenomenon of a free society, is a man who rises from bottom, from the status of employee, to an owner of his own business or to a big tycoon, as they call him. All the big figures of the American industry were such men, self-made men, who either rose from the bottom through the ranks of employees or inheriting some small business, created from it a much larger enterprise through their own ability. Therefore, the fact that a man is an employee does not necessarily paralyze him. The issue there is psychological. Does he intend to remain merely an employee or does he want to rise? And the important thing here is that nature forbids men to stagnate, which is one of the reasons why status economies always fail and create nothing but disaster, collapse, and general poverty. There is no level of ability, no matter how modest, on which a man may properly stagnate, that is, may stagnate with impunity. Nature demands of men a constant movement forward, a constant improvement in his knowledge and in his method of functioning and working, a constant progress. Progress is in the nature of life as such and of human life in particular. Therefore, a man who wants to stagnate on any given level is acting immorally and irrationally. He is acting contrary to the facts of his own nature. And a man who decides that he is an employee and will remain so is already psychologically unhealthy. He is already on the wrong premise. And it is true that there are such men, great number, but you must remember that they are, to some extent, created by the system under which they live. And this is through particularly of men of average ability. In a pre-society, which is geared to the requirements of man's nature properly, which leaves men free to function to the full extent of their ability and to achieve the rewards which they are able to earn, every man would have to be in a constant position of progress and motion. If he cannot become an entrepreneur on his own, he was not expected to remain an unskilled laborer all his life either. He will have to improve, improve his skill and knowledge and rise to the extent that his ability permits. Therefore, the same principle of constant progress, the anti-stagnation principle would operate for all levels of economic success or ability in a free society. It does make a difference to an employee whether he is free to move to work harder, work better and therefore get appropriate rewards, or he is tied to a group in a kind of status society and is held down to the level of that group. If he is born a certain type of worker, he remains that type of worker as they did in the Middle Ages. There is no such thing as a class mentality. But when men live in a mixed economy, as they do today, the incentives for them to rise are getting less and less and the difficulties, the obstacles more and more so that if you take them in that period of flux, you might find that the great many men today would feel what's the difference whether the state or a boss employs me. I have no chance anyway. But that type of psychology is the product of a mixed economy, meaning a society on its way down towards a dictatorship. This is not the normal psychology of the majority of men. The majority of men, not being initiators or originators intellectually, react according to the society in which they live. If they have a chance to function at their best, they will. If not, they give up. But the fold there is in the system, not in human nature. Mr. Gandalfi. Mr. Ransons, in 1958, there were 40,000 millionaires in this country. In 1965, there are close to 100,000 millionaires. This has all happened despite a very heavy tax structure. Since the number of people who have become owners of their own business has increased so markedly, how is it that we still maintain in the popular press, and in most works, the idea that avenues open to people today no longer exist, that the idea that the time of the self-made man or the man who could rise by his own abilities is limited and has passed. This type of argument is very dangerous. Statistics never prove anything until and unless you define just exactly what you mean by a given set of statistics under what circumstance and what context was taken. For instance, the number of millionaires obviously wouldn't mean anything since to become a millionaire 20 years ago or 50 years ago took much more than it does today. Today we observe popular expressions and go into billion dollars, not million dollars, so the million dollar baby today would be kind of cheap. One would have to say you look like a billion dollars and if you notice that type of inflation is already taking place in popular expression. A million made today does not mean as much, does not require as much effort as it did years ago because the money is cheaper, will buy less, but that is not the point. The real point is this, that so long as there is an element, an element of freedom, man will rise and will succeed, but the real issue is to observe what amount of effort is required of men in proportion to what type or degree of achievement and it is unmistakably true that it is much harder today to achieve anything by individual effort as than it was, let us say, the turn of the century. A man who was then using his intelligence and ability might become a multimillionaire, let us say, today will be fortunate if he gets to open his own small business. It is true that it is much harder for men to rise today because their eyes must be measured not merely in terms of financial income, but in terms of the nature of the achievement, the nature of the independence and of the advantages that a man accomplishes, granting a certain ability and effort. Now the issue of the age of individual achievement being passed, if I understand your argument correctly, you are citing this statistic to indicate that the age of achievement is not passed, but it isn't by means of statistics that you can demonstrate it because it is true that it is harder today, but what you have to analyze is why is it harder and the difficulty does not lie in the technological development or in the spread of the complexity of scientific discovery. The difficulty lies in the growth of controls. It is hard today for an individual achievement, not because science or the development of industry makes it harder, but big government that is the growth of the powers of government, the growth of controls that makes an individual achievement today almost impossible or harder than it had been in a three-year or semi-free period of American history. The idea that science is a threat to individualism and economics has to be reputed on its own terms and it is a blatant contradiction observed in in what way. If a primitive non-industrial economy could not be run successfully by government controls and freedom was required to create an industry in the first place, to create the industrial revolution, by what reasoning would one say that a developed industry, a highly complex technological industry, must be run by slave labor. That slave labor is impractical in a pre-industrial economy, but becomes practical in a complex scientific technological economy and of course the best practical illustration of that is the failure, the abysmal failure I underscore of a country like Soviet Russia and of every type of dictatorship when they take over an industrial or semi-industrial society. After 50 years, which is half a century, Russia is still unable to feed her population. Compare that to the progress made in the same 50 years in America and in other semi-free economies. Compare the difference in the development of East Germany and West Germany since World War II and it's there that you have the evidence and the proof and the argument for the superiority of a pre-economy which is required by an industrial age more so than at any other time. Mr. Gandalfi. I wanted to illustrate by the those statistics was that many people today oppose capitalism not because of its material deficiencies but because they wanted somehow justify their own failure to live up to their own to achieve their own values and they believe that it is impossible for man to succeed today than an excuse for their own failure. Oh I see. Well this is true but what is more true is that they are afraid of the independence and the freedom that capitalism requires. What I mentioned in my opening remarks, people who do not want the responsibility of functioning independently blame capitalism and say that capitalism makes it impossible or capitalism is gone. The development of science requires that we go now to statism and therefore capitalism is obsolete. What they are really rationalizing is their own fear of independence so that is what is involved in arguments of this type. Mr. Hood. Mr. Rand we hear a shocking amount of talk these days about a guaranteed income so-called conservative economist has advocated this position a group of businessmen have advocated it and it seems to be coming from a group originating from a group called the Committee on the Triple Revolution and they claim that because of automation and computers the necessity for work and for capitalism which is a work-oriented society is becoming a thing of the past. What is the true root of these proposals? The true root of these proposals is plain vicious inexcusable ignorance. Either ignorance and or fraud and there is nothing more to be said about it because the idea that work will become unnecessary is only proof of the total ignorance of what constitutes a complex industrial economy. The idea that machines will run themselves proves that whoever has made such claims has never looked at the industry and has never done a day's work. Obviously the higher the industrial development the more complex the machine the more is required of the workers. The accusation that automation threatens incomes or will throw people out of work was made at every turning point in the history of the industrial revolution. I will just remind you of the workers who were smashing England's textile factories when they were first introduced and what has history proved that the introduction of new technology creates wider opportunities for jobs and requires a larger workforce. There will never be a time when machines will do the work of men. Those who claim it merely confess their own psychology. It may be true that machines could replace them but no one will ever invent a vicious machine of that kind. Thank you very much Ms. Rand. I'm afraid that it's all the time that we have for this evening's discussion. I'd like to thank our panelists for this evening, Arthur Gandalfi of Columbia College, Jack Unger and Howard Hood of the Columbia University School of Law. This is your host Jack Kress speaking. Good evening.