Ayn Rand: a deusa do conservadorismo americano, 2

Globalist Perspective > Global PoliticsAyn Rand: The Siren of U.S. Conservatism (Part II)   By Brent Ranalli | Saturday, November 03, 2012   Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate for the U.S. presidency, may not view himself as an acolyte of Ayn Rand. But his adulation of the wealthiest Americans as job creators and his contempt for those who earn too little to pay income taxes is certainly Randian in nature. Brent Ranalli examines Rand's influence on the economic and political thinking inside today's Republican Party.

n its purest form, Ayn Rand's philosophy is startlingly radical and of dubious moral value, and in any case makes apparently impossible demands on human nature. (Part I of this article is here.) An observer of Republican politics would have to conclude that the 2012 campaign season has been the season of Ayn Rand. Yet Rand has enjoyed a wide following. Who looks up to Rand, and what have they absorbed from her writing? How is Rand's influence felt in today's political culture? Rand's first hard-core disciples, her inner circle in what was called, with irony, the "Collective," were overwhelmingly Jews of Eastern European heritage, like herself, who hailed from Canada and the United States. They were secular Jews but unassimilated — people who didn't quite "fit in" in their communities. It would appear that in Rand's circle they found a place to belong, one that affirmed their undoubtedly great intelligence and permitted them a feeling of superiority. It was by all accounts an oppressive environment, and some have compared it to a mini-Stalinist society, complete with periodic purges. Members of the Collective strove for super-human individualism on the basis of cold rationality. They managed to produce a stifling conformity (since there is only one most rational answer to any question) in matters great and small — politics, dress, musical and artistic taste. Rand's influence on the wider world of American politics was first felt in the fledgling libertarian movement. Rand herself refused any association with the libertarians, and called them plagiarists and worse. But her writings helped galvanize the movement. Over the decades, as the libertarians have grown in stature and influence within the conservative "big tent," Randian ideas have become more mainstream. Individual Rand devotees have occasionally achieved positions of power and been able to shape policy. The most prominent of these was Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. As the libertarians have grown in stature and influence within the conservative "big tent," Randian ideas have become more mainstream. Greenspan was among the few early disciples who remained on good terms with Rand to the end of her life. As many commentators have noted, Greenspan's policy career provides a cautionary tale about putting Rand's ideas into practice. Greenspan wrote articles for Rand's publications espousing an ideology of extreme deregulation, looking forward to a world in which even building codes were abolished. Such requirements simply set low expectations, he thought. "If building codes set minimum standards of construction," Greenspan wrote in an essay he contributed to Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, "a builder does not get very much competitive advantage by exceeding those standards and, accordingly, he tends to meet only the minimum." Why not take away all codes and let builders figure out for themselves how safe they need to make their buildings? When he was in a position of power inside the Beltway, Greenspan was able to conduct the experiment on a supreme scale: he presided over and lent support to a systematic dismantling of financial regulations designed to provide minimum protection to creditors. And he got his answer: when minimum standards are taken away, you get chaos, disaster. For deregulation does not mean eliminating standards, it means lowering them. When the minimum consumer protection expected of a builder or a banker is zero, he does not get very much competitive advantage by exceeding those standards. Accordingly, he tends to meet only the minimum — zero — and the consumer suffers the consequences. The conventional journalistic account of the Greenspan story ends in 2008 with his acknowledging to Congress that he recognized a "flaw" in the economic ideology that had guided him for decades. The Randian policy program of extreme deregulation was dead, it seemed — refuted by events and repudiated by its great architect. Sales of Rand's books have skyrocketed since the financial crisis. Atlas Shrugged sold more copies in 2011 than it did in 1957. But that is not how the story ends. Greenspan hasbacktracked from his statement on numerous occasions and reaffirmed his Randian convictions. And in the culture at large, proponents of extreme anti-regulatory ideology are still heard. Indeed, the Republican Party is leaning ever more heavily in the direction of Rand-influenced libertarianism. Reductions in regulation and taxation, always front and center in the Party's platform, are increasingly discussed not merely as purported means to economic prosperity but as moral imperatives. At the same time, the incoming president of the Cato Institute, the libertarians' flagship think tank, has declared an intention to adhere even more strictly to a Randian orthodoxy. Sales of Rand's books have skyrocketed since the financial crisis. According to the Ayn Rand Institute,Atlas Shrugged sold more copies in 2011 than it did when it was a best seller in 1957. While some see the economic crisis as proof of the bankruptcy of Randian policies, other see the government's struggle to response to the crisis as a replay of the slow societal meltdown depicted in Atlas Shrugged. They are convinced that we are on a path marked out prophetically by Rand. The Republicans' Randian moment An observer of Republican politics familiar with Rand's ideas would have to conclude that the 2012 campaign season has been the season of Ayn Rand. The selection of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's running mate is the most obvious signpost. For political reasons, Ryan has tried to distance himself from Rand. But his affinity is well known. He has addressed crowds at organizations dedicated to promoting Rand's thinking. In a 2005 speech at the Atlas Society, then-Congressman Ryan described the profound influence Rand has had on his thinking. He has distributed Rand's writings to his staff. It is hardly necessary that the rest of us share Rand's paranoia. No one needs to be burdened with the idea that a health care bill is the moral equivalent of a pogrom. The Randian mood of the Romney campaign, though, consists of far more than Ryan's private views. It is pervasive, in discussions of taxes and regulations as moral issues. Perhaps most glaringly, it has been visible in Romney's comments about the 47% of American who don't earn enough to pay federal income tax. Ayn Rand taught that "ideas matter." Given that we are living in a peculiarly Randian Republican moment, a good way to analyze some of the current presidential campaign propaganda is to strip it down to its Randian essentials.   Exhibit 1: Preoccupation with the notion of "socialism" The current obsession of conservative pundits in the United States with the threat of "socialism" and "communism" is, on its surface, difficult to fathom. A recent political ad by Thomas Peterffy, the billionaire founder of a stock brokerage, has brought the message to viewers in major television markets, conjuring up images of the dark days of totalitarian communism in Peterffy's native Hungary. But the Soviet empire is long gone, and international Marxism is a dead letter. U.S. socialist political parties are even more marginal than the Greens. The Democratic Party is a centrist party by international standards. Why, in the 21st century, the hysteria about socialism? The answer lies, at least in part, in Rand's ideological paranoia about Soviet communism. Rand's younger sister Nora, who grew up in Russia, when finally reunited with Rand in New York in later years could not shake the fear that Rand's chauffeur and cook were U.S. government spies. Rand too — understandably, given the trauma of her adolescent years — had similarly magnified ideas of the menace of communism. In her black-and-white way, she equated Soviet tyranny and collectivist ideology with each other and with governmental activity of every sort. She saw the threat of international communism in every shadow, and resisted it with every fiber. Mitt Romney's derision of the 47% of Americans who don't pay federal income tax could have come straight out of Atlas Shrugged. The immorality of nearly every aspect of government was a central theme of Rand's ideology. Rand's system of belief also gave us the notion that there is a perfectly transparent slippery slope from almost any sort of government coercion to Soviet-style despotism, and from almost any sort of government service to helpless dependency. Rand's paranoia was entirely understandable. It is hardly necessary that the rest of us share it. No one needs to be burdened with the idea that a health care bill is the moral equivalent of a pogrom.   Exhibit 2: Worshiping the wealthy Both left and right have been playing at class welfare this election cycle. The way the right is going about it has a peculiarly Randian imprimatur. Consider Mitt Romney's derision of the 47% of Americans who don't earn enough to pay federal income tax. (He ignored the fact this group pays other federal, state, and local taxes, many of which are regressive.) Romney accused these citizens — half of the nation — of lacking in personal responsibility, being dependent on government, and having an entitlement mentality. The speech could have come straight out of Atlas Shrugged. Romney may not be a Rand follower himself, but he has clearly absorbed the talking points, whether consciously or merely from digesting the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal. In Rand's literary imagination there were two kinds of people: the productive and the parasites. The productive, an elite minority, create and amass wealth. Meanwhile, the masses of parasites use their numbers and the power of government to extract that wealth. The less well-off are derided for their "victim mentality," while the wealthy elite are seen as the true victims. Rand lived in a simple, polarized world. She exhibited little curiosity about the lives of others, especially those she deemed "degenerate," whether individuals or groups (e.g., Native Americans, Arabs). This lack of curiosity and empathy was her own personal limitation and failing. Seizing on Ayn Rand's simple story of virtue and vice focuses energy on nonexistent threats rather than real, pressing, complex problems. That in the fantasy world of Atlas Shrugged, she should paint the masses with a broad brush as entitlement-minded and lacking in personal responsibility is an acceptable if dubious literary conceit. That a candidate for the U.S. presidency should spout these generalizations as if they applied to the real 47% in all its diversity — students and the elderly, educators and military personnel, the working poor and the middle class, lifelong Republicans and Democrats — is merely inane. As for the wealthy: In the current campaign, we see the Randian moral double standard applied on a class basis by some conservative commentators. The poor are chastised for accepting government assistance, but no stigma attaches to the wealthy who (like Romney at Bain Capital) accept government subsidies. The poor are scolded for not contributing enough in taxes, but Romney's relatively low tax rate (low by middle-class standards, because based on capital gains rather than earned income) is justified and defended.   Exhibit 3: Individualism The central positive message of Rand was individual responsibility and individual initiative. These themes are at the center of the Romney's campaign, and the guiding sentiment behind the adoption of the "We Built This" slogan. Despite the mileage Romney got out of the slogan, one of the great ironies of the campaign has been that there is really not all that much difference between his views and those originally articulated by President Obama. Romney talks about the supportive environment of family, church and community that enables the individual entrepreneur to thrive. Obama spoke of the inspiring teacher, the previous generations of entrepreneurs and workers on whose shoulders we stand. It is only through Randian glasses that Obama's views can be interpreted as "collectivist" and Romney's as radically individualist. That this debate has become a flashpoint in the campaign speaks to the pervasiveness of the Randian perspective. Capitalism, not democracy Ayn Rand is a peculiar figure in the history of American political consciousness. She stood for classic American values like hard work, individual responsibility and free enterprise. Asked what the best sort of political system was, Rand spoke unhesitatingly in favor of American capitalism, not American democracy. But as they passed through the prism of her tortured Russian mind into her romantic novels, they refracted into grotesque caricatures of themselves. Hers is a black-and-white world in which reason, wealth, virtue and free enterprise are pitted against unreason, squalor, mediocrity and collectivism, in an apocalyptic drama painted right across the body of the American public. Asked by an interviewer what she thought the best sort of political system was, Rand pronounced unhesitatingly in favor of the system in her adopted homeland — but her response was not "democracy," it was "capitalism." And she did not stop to correct herself, but elaborated on the notion of capitalism as a political system. The thought of democracy, or of a republic, did not appear to enter her mind. This episode epitomizes the depth of her naiveté about American traditions and values, of being caught up in her own system of political thought, forged by her experience under czarist autocracy and totalitarian communism. The Republican Party is facing an identity crisis. In recent decades, it has been the bastion of the Protestant white male — now, increasingly, a demographically endangered species. To survive, the party must adapt. Seizing on Ayn Rand's simple story of virtue and vice, heroes and villains, "socialism" and radical individualism, is a strategy that must seem particularly tempting. But it is both unwise and dangerous. It divides rather than unites. It focuses energy on nonexistent threats (socialism) rather than real, pressing, complex problems. It demands an adherence to a black-and-white worldview and discourages curiosity about the messiness of reality and the legitimate perspectives of other people. And it is pierced through with a dangerous and anti-democratic Nietzschean quality, a moral double-standard for the "right sort of people" — the wealthy and the self-styled virtuous, the heroes of the Randian drama in their head. Part I of this article is here.

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Ayn Rand: a deusa do conservadorismo americano, 1

Primeiro de dois artigos:

Globalist Perspective > Global LeadersAyn Rand: The Siren of U.S. Conservatism (Part I)   By Brent Ranalli The Globalist,  Friday, November 02, 2012   Not long ago, the most important figure to U.S. conservates was Ronald Reagan. Now, almost two-and-a-half decades after the Reagan presidency, American conservatives — including Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan — look beyond Reagan to the even more stringent form of conservatism of novelist Ayn Rand. Brent Ranalli examines Rand's legacy.

ovelist and philosopher Ayn Rand has been dead for 30 years, but her ideas live on. By some counts, Rand's novels are among the most popular and influential of all 20th-century literature. Rand's promise is that people who follow her worldview are bound by no rule other than self-interest and rationality — however those terms are understood. Rand's philosophy, and bastardizations of it, have quietly but profoundly shaped the landscape of U.S. conservativism. Mitt Romney's running mate in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, Paul Ryan, is on record as admiring Rand's thought. Thus, this is a very fitting time to examine what Rand actually taught, what the merits and flaws are in Rand's views, and what effect those teachings have had — and continue to have — on culture, politics, and policy in the United States. Rand was born Alisa Rosenbaum in czarist Russia to a relatively well-off Jewish family that endured deprivations and hardships during World War I and the communist power grab. An unusually intelligent, self-confident and ambitious individual, she managed to extricate herself from her surroundings and come to America to pursue her dream of becoming a writer. She worked for a time in Hollywood, then produced a series of best-selling novels. Her later years were spent codifying a system of philosophy ("objectivism") based on the ideas in her novels. She enjoyed a combination of celebrity (especially at the center of a cadre of devoted disciples, which somewhat insulated her from the larger culture) and notoriety. The essence of Rand's teaching is that altruism is bad and selfishness is a virtue. She thinks that people would be better off if they liberated themselves from social demands to put others ahead of themselves. Furthermore, people should root out any internal inhibitions arising from their own socially trained superego. If they managed to do all that, the way would be paved for a libertarian utopia, such as the one Rand introduces toward the end of her novelAtlas Shrugged. These teachings represent a mixture of valuable insight, some elementary misunderstandings — and a considerable amount of naiveté. Rand's naiveté was the naiveté of a utopian, and it curiously mirrored that of the communists she loathed. Rand's valuable insight is a psychological one. She delves into the inhibitions — a sense of helplessness or unworthiness — that prevent many people from fulfilling their potential. She taught that each individual is responsible for his or her own life regardless of the demands of society. A great many of her readers responded, and continue to respond, to this message in her novels. As her voluminous fan letters attest, Rand has inspired readers to take control of their lives and take responsibility for their own happiness. Rand exemplifies and preaches ambition — dreaming big and taking risks, striving for something extraordinary. She has inspired readers to cast off their inhibitions and dream big as well. Generations of high-tech entrepreneurs, for example, have venerated Rand and conceived their own life projects in Randian terms. For these individuals, Rand unlocked the path to ambition and (sometimes) success. Rand's elementary misunderstandings involve the notion of altruism. Rand was fine with doing nice things for others when it gives us pleasure. What she objects to — the way she uses the term — is altruism understood as social responsibility or obligation. However, there is nothing about ambition and success and taking responsibility for one's own life and happiness — Rand's positive message — that precludes altruism or a sense of social responsibility. Consider social entrepreneurs, the super-altruistic visionaries who create and build organizations to help the poor, and preserve the environment for future generations, and work for peace and justice. These individuals too can be seen as Randian heroes. The founders of the public-spirited enterprises Wikipedia and Craigslist explicitly cite Rand as an influence. The roots of Rand's peculiar views about altruism appear to lie in her early years. Among the very few anecdotes we have from Rand's childhood are tales of her mother perpetrating small cruelties in the name of altruism. Rand thinks people would be better off if they liberated themselves from social demands to put others ahead of themselves. For example, Mrs. Rosenbaum once made her children pack up half their toys for "storage" and then secretly gave them away, explaining later to her outraged daughter that she had too many toys and it was only right that poorer children should enjoy some of them. Later, when Rand was coming of age, she was exposed to the barefaced propaganda of a communist regime that perpetrated crimes on a much larger scale, also in the name of altruism. Is it possible that Rand was never able to clearly distinguish real altruism or social responsibility from a cruel facsimile? She certainly had a tin ear for normal social reciprocity. She entirely neglected and ignored the relatives in Chicago who helped her get on her feet when she came to the United States after she had eaten their food and accepted their money. Over the years, she managed to alienate almost every friend she made. It is also worth noting that Rand never had children, rarely discussed her own childhood, and inhabited a social world and a literary universe almost entirely devoid of children. Parenthood is perhaps the purest expression of altruism — undertaking the awesome responsibility for the life and well-being of another person. Imagining parenthood in Randian terms — taking care of a child one brought into the world only because, or if, or when it gives one pleasure to do so — makes a mockery of human relations. It also gives the lie to this central pillar of Rand's philosophy. She preferred to avoid the subject of the parent-child bond, and may have had only a superficial grasp of it. Rand's naiveté was the naiveté of a utopian, and it curiously mirrored that of the communists she loathed. The communists dreamed of a day when everyone would take care of everyone else (from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs), and the state would then wither away. Rand, for her part, imagined that the pursuit of unadulterated self-interest would create a harmonious society with little need of government. There is nothing about ambition and success that precludes altruism or a sense of social responsibility. What makes Rand's utopia a place where little or no government is required, of course, is not the fact that individuals are self-interested, but that they are virtuous. She evidently believed that the two qualities go hand in hand. But do they? If the first self-proclaimed Randian hero, Rand herself, is the test case, the prognosis is not very good. She preached rationality, but had the most violent temper and excommunicated disciples on a whim or a suspicion. She preached honest dealing, but neglected to pay back a loan from her Chicago relatives and, at times, neglected her rent and utilities payments. She preached complete truthfulness, but she also kept secrets from and lied to her disciples — about her personal history, her marital infidelities, and more. Then again, Rand had a distinctly Nietzschean slant on morality. She was influenced by Nietzsche's notion of the "superman" — the idea that great men and women don't need to follow the same rules as everyone else, or that men and women become great precisely by liberating themselves from the shackles of conventional morality. In her novels, she allowed her heroes all kinds of indulgences — including, in The Fountainhead, raping the heroine. Rand may have imagined that in getting the permission of her own husband and her lover's wife, she had been as truthful as a great person such as herself needed to be about marital infidelity, and the great unwashed masses — including most of her coterie — did not deserve the truth. Some of her disciples took her cue and established a pattern of behaving in notoriously arrogant and undisciplined ways. To this day, she continues to entice readers with the promise of elite status, of having been liberated from the ensnarement of the normal social conventions of a corrupt, "altruistic" society. Her promise is that people who follow her worldview are bound by no rule other than self-interest and rationality — however those terms are understood. As an adolescent, Rant was exposed to the propaganda of a communist regime that perpetrated crimes in the name of altruism. But self-interest and rationality can be interpreted in the most expedient ways to justify the most abominable acts. Rand's real-life Nietzschean hero, after all, was a bona fide sociopath. After a string of armed robberies, William Hickman kidnapped, killed and dismembered a 12-year-old girl. In her notes on his trial in 1928, Rand romanticized him as a strong, courageous individual who cared nothing about what judge or jury or the public thought of him, who sought to "trample society under his feet." The crime was incidental in Rand's mind, and the victim didn't merit a thought. Nor did Hickman's plea of insanity. Her notes on Hickman the courageous antisocial hero formed the basis for characters like Howard Rourke and John Galt in her novels. Part II of this article is here.

A frase do mes - Ayn Rand

Copiado do excelente blog do meu amigo Kleber Pires, Libertatum

Ayn Rand - Uma frase útil aos brasileiros
Posted: 18 Aug 2011 04:47 AM PDT

Frase da filósofa russo-americana Ayn Rand (judia, fugitiva da revolução russa, que chegou aos Estados Unidos na metade da década de 1920), mostrando uma visão com conhecimento de causa:

“Quando você perceber que, para produzir, precisa obter a autorização de quem não produz nada; quando comprovar que o dinheiro flui para quem negocia não com bens, mas com favores; quando perceber que muitos ficam ricos pelo suborno e por influência, mais que pelo trabalho, e que as leis não nos protegem deles, mas, pelo contrário, são eles que estão protegidos de você; quando perceber que a corrupção é recompensada, e a honestidade se converte em auto-sacrifício; então poderá afirmar, sem temor de errar, que sua sociedade está condenada”.

Pausa para o cinema, e um livro importante: Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged

Existe o livro, aliás uma novela famosa entre os iniciados de Ayn Rand. Agora surge o filme, baseado numa primeira parte da história (que tem mais de 700 páginas).
Recomendo ambos. Estou esperando o filme, em todo caso...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Atlas Shrugged. And So Did I.
P.J. O’Rourke
The Wall Street Journal, April 6, 2011

Actress Taylor Schilling as Dagny Taggart, in “Atlas Shrugged.”

The movie version of Ayn Rand’s novel treats its source material with such formal, reverent ceremoniousness that the uninitiated will feel they’ve wandered without a guide into the midst of the elaborate and interminable rituals of some obscure exotic tribe.

Meanwhile, members of that tribe of “Atlas Shrugged” fans will be wondering why director Paul Johansson doesn’t knock it off with the incantations, sacraments and recitations of liturgy and cut to the human sacrifice.

Upright railroad-heiress heroine Dagny Taggart and upright steel-magnate hero Hank Rearden are played with a great deal of uprightness (and one brief interlude of horizontality) by Taylor Schilling and Grant Bowler. They indicate that everything they say is important by not using contractions. John Galt, the shadowy genius who’s convincing the people who carry the world on their shoulders to go out on strike, is played, as far as I can tell, by a raincoat.

The rest of the movie’s acting is borrowed from “Dallas,” although the absence of Larry Hagman’s skill at subtly underplaying villainous roles is to be regretted. Staging and action owe a debt to “Dynasty”—except, on “Dynasty,” there usually was action.

In “Atlas Shrugged–Part I” a drink is tossed, strong words are bandied, legal papers are served, more strong words are further bandied and, finally, near the end, an oil field is set on fire, although we don’t get to see this up close. There are many beautiful panoramas of the Rocky Mountains for no particular reason. And the movie’s title carries the explicit threat of a sequel.

But I will not pan “Atlas Shrugged.” I don’t have the guts. If you associate with Randians—and I do—saying anything critical about Ayn Rand is almost as scary as saying anything critical to Ayn Rand. What’s more, given how protective Randians are of Rand, I’m not sure she’s dead.

The woman is a force. But, let us not forget, she’s a force for good. Millions of people have read “Atlas Shrugged” and been brought around to common sense, never mind that the author and her characters don’t exhibit much of it. Ayn Rand, perhaps better than anyone in the 20th century, understood that the individual self-seeking we call an evil actually stands in noble contrast to the real evil of self-seeking collectives. (A rather Randian sentence.) It’s easy to make fun of Rand for being a simplistic philosopher, bombastic writer and—I’m just saying—crazy old bat. But the 20th century was no joke. A hundred years, from Bolsheviks to Al Qaeda, were spent proving Ayn Rand right.

Then there is the audacity of bringing “Atlas Shrugged” to the screen at all. Rand devotees, starting with Rand herself, have been attempting it for 40 years. The result may be as puzzling as a nude sit-in anti-Gadhafi protest in Tripoli’s Green Square, but you have to give the participants credit for showing up.

In “Atlas Shrugged” Rand set out to prove that self-interest is vital to mankind. This, of course, is the whole point of free-market classical liberalism and has been since Adam Smith invented free-market classical liberalism by proving the same point. Therefore trying to make a movie of “Atlas Shrugged” is like trying to make a movie of “The Wealth of Nations.” But Adam Smith had the good sense to leave us with no plot, characters or melodramatic clashes of will so that we wouldn’t be tempted to try.

“Atlas Shrugged” presents other problems for a moviemaker. The book was published in 1957 and set in an America of the future. But time seems to have taken a U-turn, so that we’re back in a worse Great Depression with a more megalomaniacal business competition-loathing FDR-type administration. All sorts of things have been uninvented, such as oil pipelines so that oil has to be shipped by rail, railroads being the dominant form of transportation. Airplanes exist, but knowing where to fly them apparently doesn’t, because a secret hidden unknown valley in the Rocky Mountains figures in the plot, which also hinges on a substance that’s lighter and stronger than steel. This turns out to be a revolutionary new steel alloy! Because Rand forgot about plastics.

The “Atlas Shrugged” movie simply accepts these unimaginative imaginings. No attempt is made to create a “future of the past” atmosphere as in the movies about Batman (a very unRandian figure, trapped in his altruism costume drama). Nor is any attempt made to update Rand’s tale of Titans of Industry versus Gargantuas of government.

An update is needed, and not just because train buffs, New Deal economics and the miracle of the Bessemer converter are inexplicable to people under 50, not to mention boring. The anti-individualist enemies that Ayn Rand battled are still the enemy, but they’ve shifted their line of attack. Political collectivists are no longer much interested in taking things away from the wealthy and creative. Even the most left-wing politicians worship wealth creation—as the political-action-committee collection plate is passed. Partners at Goldman Sachs go forth with their billions. Steve Jobs walks on water. Jay-Z and Beyoncé are rich enough to buy God. Progressive Robin Hoods have turned their attention to robbing ordinary individuals. It’s the plain folks, not a Taggart/Rearden elite, whose prospects and opportunities are stolen by corrupt school systems, health-care rationing, public employee union extortions, carbon-emissions payola and deficit-debt burden graft. Today’s collectivists are going after malefactors of moderate means.

Hence the Tea Party, and Ayn Rand is invited. Not for nothing is Kentucky Senator Paul named Rand. The premise of “Atlas Shrugged” applies to every maker in a world of takers. What if, pace Adam Smith, the takers do indeed expect their dinner “from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker”? And what if the Safeway meat-cutter, the beer-truck driver, and the guy who owns the Dunkin’ Donuts franchise say to hell with “their regard to their own interest”? What if they go off with John Galt to a secret hidden unknown valley in the Rocky Mountains? A lot of people will be chewing air and drinking puddle water.

“Atlas Shrugged–Part I” has to be praised just for existing, for keeping the premise available. Perhaps Hollywood progressives— inveterate takers—will take it. Many another movie could be made about a labor action by those who perform life’s actual labors. Maybe it’s a slacker comedy where Zach Galifianakis shaves, loses weight and refuses to speak in non sequiturs. Maybe it’s a sci-fi thriller where the Internet has gone on strike and mankind must face a post-apocalyptic world without Twitter. Or maybe it’s a horror film set at my house, “Wife on Strike!”

Mr. O’Rourke’s many books include “Don’t Vote—It Just Encourages the Bastards.”

Watch the trailer for “Atlas Shrugged”: http://blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market/2011/04/06/atlas-shrugged-and-so-did-i/

1445) A CPI que nao vai dar em nada, nadica de nada: MST...

Não estou apostando, estou afirmando, e posso pagar (digamos dois livros) se der em alguma coisa concreta.
Alguém quer apostar comigo? Vou ganhar...
Por isso mesmo discordo da última frase deste articulista, que também condena o MST como um partideco neobolchevique que se enganou de século: deveria estar no século 18, ou talvez até antes...

Excesso ou regra?
Denis Lerrer Rosenfield
O Estado de S. Paulo, 26.10.2009

É de estarrecer a reação de nossas autoridades diante da destruição operada pelo MST quando da invasão do laranjal da Cutrale. Aparentemente, as nossas autoridades condenaram o ocorrido, utilizando expressões do seguinte tipo: não vou admitir vandalismos, excessos são condenados, a lei deve ser respeitada. Alguns defensores mais afoitos chegaram a dizer que o MST jamais utiliza violência em suas ações. É como se tudo estivesse normal, tratando-se de um acidente de percurso. É como se o rio tivesse saído momentaneamente de seu curso, tendo depois voltado ao normal. Na verdade, vivenciamos um inacreditável surto de hipocrisia.

Esse movimento dito social, na verdade uma organização política de corte leninista, teve de recuar, dada a repercussão midiática de seus atos, transmitidos pelo Jornal Nacional da Rede Globo. Ficou imobilizado pela condenação recebida. Procurou, então, responsabilizar a direita, o governo estadual (leia-se Serra), os meios de comunicação, os ruralistas, os policiais e assim por diante - chegou a falar de indivíduos infiltrados... Só faltou inventar uma invasão de marcianos com o objetivo de criminalizar os movimentos sociais.

A questão central reside em que se trata do modo de atuação normal do MST. Ele não cometeu nenhum excesso, fez meramente aquilo que sempre faz. Essa é a regra mesma de sua atuação. A única diferença consiste na filmagem, no eco imediato e numa opinião pública que não mais pactua com invasões. As invasões estão mostrando a sua verdadeira cara, que é não pacífica. Refresquemos a nossa memória ou tomemos conhecimento de alguns fatos, embora tardiamente. O importante, em todo caso, é que comecemos a ver o que se escancara diante de nossos olhos.

A Fazenda Coqueiros, no Rio Grande do Sul, altamente produtiva, tendo sido esse fato reconhecido pelo próprio Incra e pela Ouvidoria Agrária Nacional, de 2004 a 2008 foi objeto de ataques sistemáticos. Para se ter uma ideia do que lá aconteceu, apresento uma lista dos danos causados: 2 caminhões incendiados, 200 bovinos abatidos a tiros, 100 desaparecidos, uma serraria totalmente queimada e destruída, 1 usina hidrelétrica no valor de R$ 1 milhão completamente depredada, 11 casas incendiadas, 150 hectares de soja e 50 hectares de milho queimados, plantadoras depredadas, 2 tratores danificados com dinamite, máquinas colheitadeiras sabotadas com espigões de ferro, mais de 200 quilômetros de cercas depredadas, funcionários ameaçados, pontilhões queimados. Não há uma semelhança com a Cutrale? Trata-se, certamente, de uma amostra das invasões pacíficas do MST! Dá vontade de rir, não fosse trágico.

Segundo documento do Ministério Público do Rio Grande do Sul, em abril de 2008 a Fazenda Southall, em São Gabriel, foi invadida por 850 integrantes do MST. Eis o resultado de mais uma ação pacífica dessa organização política em nome da reforma agrária: cercas arrancadas, corte de mata nativa, a área invadida foi cercada com lanças infectadas de fezes humanas (uso, portanto, de uma tática de guerrilha), trincheiras, destruição da sede. Continuo: os bretes da propriedade foram inutilizados, impedindo o banho e a vacinação dos animais, morte de 46 bovinos de aprimoramento genético, crueldade com animais, privando-os de alimentos e água. Foram apreendidos os seguintes objetos: 9 coquetéis Molotov, 81 foices, 16 facões, 32 facas, 20 estilingues, 4 machados, 70 bastões de madeira, 28 taquaras do tipo lanças e 15 foguetes. Claro que se trata, segundo o MST, de instrumentos de trabalho! A pergunta é: de qual tipo de trabalho? O das invasões?

O horto da Aracruz, em Barra do Ribeiro (RS), foi invadido em 2006, tendo obtido ampla repercussão - e condenação - nacional. As invasoras foram 2 mil mulheres - encapuzadas como bandidos que agem fora da lei -, apresentando-se como militantes da Via Campesina, braço internacional do MST. Também se falava de vandalismo, embora, como sempre, o MST tenha justificado sua ação em supostos termos ambientais e sociais. Relembremos a regra das invasões: 1 milhão de mudas prontas para o plantio de eucaliptos destruídas, 20 anos de pesquisas prejudicados, um laboratório depredado, empregados ameaçados, instalações destruídas, material genético perdido. Isso é chamado, na língua emessetista, de ocupação pacífica... E há quem acredite!

Agora mesmo, mulheres do MST e da Via Campesina, dos dias 18 a 25 de outubro, estiveram reunidas em Buenos Aires, no Congresso Mundial de Florestas, tendo como objetivo a repulsa à expansão de projetos de monoculturas de árvores, celulose e papel. É novamente esse setor que se torna alvo dessas organizações políticas, procurando fazer passar a mensagem do politicamente correto com o intuito de estabelecer seus propósitos socialistas, de solidariedade humana, esse novo nome que serve como máscara de seus verdadeiros fins. O capitalismo é o alvo: Em nome do lucro, esse tipo de desenvolvimento mantido pelo sistema capitalista patriarcal destrói a vida de homens e mulheres, assim como a vida dos demais seres. Novas invasões já estão sendo, portanto, anunciadas. Não deu certo midiaticamente com a Cutrale? Tentemos novamente com o setor de florestas plantadas, papel e celulose!

Parece que não aprendem. Ou melhor, não querem aprender, pois o seu objetivo consiste em inviabilizar o agronegócio e, de modo mais abrangente, o Estado de Direito.

A lei, para esse tipo de organização política, nada vale, sendo apenas um instrumento descartável. A democracia apenas lhe convém, porque lhe permite um amplo leque de ações. Conta com a leniência das autoridades e com a impunidade para continuar o seu caminho de abolição de uma sociedade baseada nas liberdades e na igualdade de oportunidades.

Em boa hora foi aprovada, pelo Congresso, a CPI do MST.

Denis Lerrer Rosenfield é professor de Filosofia na UFRGS. E-mail: denisrosenfield@terra.com.br

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Addendum em 28.10.2009:
CUIDADO COM O “BEM COMUM”. ELE COSTUMA ESCONDER OS PIORES CRIMES
Reinaldo Azevedo | VEJA.com 10/28/09 7:29 AM

A CPI do MST começa a funcionar em breve. O governo, o PT e as esquerdas de modo geral tudo farão para impedir qualquer forma de investigação. Mais do que isso: está em curso uma campanha de desmoralização das razões que motivaram a comissão. Tenta-se, a todo custo, descaracterizar os atos criminosos enquanto tais, de modo que o repasse de dinheiro público e os recursos oriundos de entidades estrangeiras que os financiam nada mais seriam do que um suporte a atividades que buscam o “bem comum”.

Os sem-terra vendem a si mesmos, e também é esta a leitura de seus defensores, como promotores deste famoso “bem comum”, expressão que, historicamente, costuma esconder os piores crimes. O Brasil é um país onde o liberalismo tem raízes superficiais, quase sempre fincadas em solo arenoso. Mesmo os partidos e agremiações que se colocam mais à direita no espectro político têm grandes dificuldades de imaginarem a si e a seus propósitos sem o concurso da máquina estatal.

Os tempos são um tanto rombudos para tocar em palavras como “liberalismo” porque as esquerdas logo sacam da cintura aquele prefixo, o “neo”, usado como uma pistola, para assaltar a razão e a verdade, coisa em que são especialistas. E dizem: “Mãos ao alto, liberal! Nós estamos com tudo. Nós, os estatistas, contornamos a crise”. É mesmo? Conversa! E o fizeram com os recursos gerados pelo Estado ou pelo mercado? É preciso dizer aos vigaristas que o capitalismo salvou o capitalismo, como sempre aconteceu. Mas, durante algum tempo, será preciso atravessar o deserto. E vamos atravessar. É do jogo.

A disputa de fundo da CPI é aquela existente entre os chamados “direitos coletivos” — ou o tal “bem comum” — e os “direitos individuais” ou “direitos dos indivíduos”. Traduzo um parágrafo do ensaio What Is Capitalism, da brilhante Ayn Rand, uma liberal convicta, radical, de raízes solidamente fincadas em solo fértil, que está no livro Capitalism - The Unknown Ideal.

Quando, numa sociedade, o “bem comum” é considerado algo à parte e acima do bem individual, de cada um de seus membros, isso significa que o bem de alguns homens tem precedência sobre o bem de outros, que são relegados, então, à condição de animais prontos para o sacrifício. Presume-se, nesse caso, implicitamente, que o “bem comum” significa o “bem da maioria” tomado como algo contrário à minoria ou ao indivíduo. Observe-se ser esta uma suposição implícita, já que até mesmo as mentalidades mais coletivistas parecem perceber a impossibilidade de justificá-la moralmente. Mas o “bem da maioria” é nada mais do que uma farsa e uma fraude: porque, de fato, a violação dos direitos de um indivíduo significa a abolição de todos os direitos. Isso submete a maioria desamparada ao poder de qualquer gangue que se autoproclame a “voz da sociedade”, que passa a subjugá-la por meio da força física, até ser deposta por outra gangue que empregue os mesmos métodos.

É isso aí. Reitere-se: trata-se do “bem da maioria” que só se define como algo “contrário à minoria ou ao indivíduo”. Sempre que esta contradição estiver estabelecida — ou, mais do que uma contradição, sempre que o “bem comum” for visto como algo que casse os direitos individuais ou que sacrifique o indivíduo em nome do coletivo —, estamos, certamente, diante de uma fraude, de uma mistificação e da justificação do crime. E a sociedade termina, então, refém das tais gangues, que tomam para si o papel de justiceiras sociais. Se o fazem num estado democrático e de direito, só podem fazê-lo ao arrepio da lei; se o fazem numa sociedade mobilizada por demagogos comuno-fascistas, tornam-se braços do mandatário, suas milícias ou falanges.

Voltaremos muitas vezes a este tema. Mas o debate real, de fundo, é este que sintetizo aqui. A nossa tarefa é justamente denunciar e desmoralizar as gangues que falam em nome deste “bem comum” que se oporia aos direitos individuais — entre eles, é evidente, o direito à propriedade. Supor que este debate já está superado corresponde a subordinar-se à pregação das gangues.