Last February 2, the American philosopher and writer Ayn Rand was 121 years old. In both his essays and his novels, he proposed a vision of capitalism that was not widely understood. A rig for the character’s eccentricity, most people leave the substantive message to one side and are interviewed anecdotally.
The most famous of his works is Atlas Rebellionwhich revolves around a society in which, following the example of John Galt, an engineer, inventor and philosopher, disappearing entrepreneurs, asqueados by a cowardly society sometimes under the mandate of the government and the plundering elite.
One of the most famous phrases that has sparked the whole description of merchandising in recent days is “Who is John Galt?
This question was not rhetorical or a clever slogan. En Atlas Rebellionit was an advertisement. John Galt did not represent a capricious rich man or an uncontrolled speculator until a plaintiff creator who decides to retire when society begins to recognize the moral legitimacy of his actions.
We note that it was an engineer who was able to recognize system errors even after a sudden impact. This is the true Randian message: capitalism is a moral economic system, and that is the main reason you must defend it.
Advantage is not the end goal, but a signal that someone has created value without obligating anyone.
These things are essential and are usually lost today. A defender of capitalism is not a defender of “making money by making money”. It defends a morality that affirms the freedom to demand the act of creation, to imagine something that did not exist, to take risks, and to take responsibility for the outcome. When this morality disappears, the system may still work for a while, but the feeling is missing.
John Galt’s myopia was not an escapist fantasy or an excuse for antisocial selfishness. It was a moral retreat, not an economic one.
Galt sees no other solution that escapes the simple system. Creators who followed didn’t ask for them because they wanted more money, until they refuse to follow them and support a system that treats them as perpetually suspectculpable for defects or instruments in the service of a supposedly indefinite “common good”.
The hue and cry of the creators that Rand describes is not a violent revolt or an outright boycott. It is something much quieter: a withdrawal from compromise. A spontaneous retreat, led by the example of one of the most respected.
Dejar from innovation, from risk-taking, from empowerment, from assuming responsibility that is not accompanied by moral recognition, either by the corruption of elites or the cowardice of society.
The core of Rand’s defense, and that’s the point we’re at in the XXI. century they did not understand, is that Capitalism is not only supported by incentives, or even by a specific anthropology.
It assumes a rational, responsible and creative individual. When the market is accepted, but this vision of the individual is brought home, the system is disarmed in the face of debates that parasitize from within.
Because Rand insisted so much that the green enemy of capitalism is not poverty but guilt associated with the outcome.
The moment in which the creation turns out to be a legitimate contribution and one must consider something that must not only be justified, compensated or redeemed, but punished. From now on, the creator is tolerated but not respected. And the supplier is to blame.
The question that arises in my mind is that conditions call for someone to seek refuge for John Galt in the last days.
Sometimes, now, there is no need to hide in an inaccessible valley. You could live inside the system but on its edge, walking where the outcome doesn’t require you to ask for forgiveness.
Not only because of the fiscal issue, but also because of the moral climate. And the terrible thing is that in both ways our company threw in the towel.
Nadie in Spain goes on to say that he is formally pursuing the creators of the riqueza, but what is certain is that they are subject to constant erosion.
Creation is allowed, but not fully legitimate. The result is always acceptable as long as it doesn’t leave too much of a mark, as long as it is diluted in the context of “good match” as defined by those who waste money.
Fiscal policy, regulation, and public discourse convey that equity is something you have to oversee, fix, or redistribute before you recognize its origins.. If it demands responsibility from the individual, but denies him the recognition of his authority.
However, what is most worrying is not the action of the state, but the social reaction. The creator does not inspire admiration, but receives it. A supplier who dares is not seen as someone who delivers, or even as someone who owes something.
Perfection is tolerated but inconvenient and more or less in private is used to attack. In this context, John Galt’s “escape” is very understandable.
The Ayn Rand ad continues unchanged. A society that morally delegitimizes people creates values by losing them, not through rebellion, but through agony.
Today we can wonder what we are doing with the creators of Riqueza. The answer perfectly explains why, the capitalism we enjoy is primarily a broken capitalism.
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