Opinion Archive

What to Make of Mexico and Ayn Rand

January 7, 2009

One of the first sub-plots in Ayn Rand's magnum opus, "Atlas Shrugged" occurs in the fictitious "People's State of Mexico". Nationalizations there are harbingers of collectivization schemes that begin happening in Rand's dystopian USA. In the novel, this tendency to reward prebendalism (a type of crony-based corruption), while punishing creativity, eventually leads to the self-imposed exile of the captains of industry who make things happen. These people represent the proverbial Atlas who carries the world on his shoulders. When Atlas "shrugs", the Earth collapses. "Atlas Shrugged" is an intelligent and entertaining, if simplistic, chronicle of what happens when the "doers" don't.

This column is not an Objectivist (Rand's philosophy) manifesto, nor is the author an Ayn Rand apologist. If nothing else, the current economic downturn has put paid to the idea of "enlightened self-interest" requiring no fetters. For many during the go-go years of the beginning of the century, laissez-faire was a fancy French word for wealth-destroying greed. But, beyond the fact that "Atlas Shrugged" is an elegantly-written novel, Ms. Rand had an insight, or two, to share with her fellow humans. This insight does not make her "evil", as leftist Noam Chomsky branded her. Nor is it intellectually "stillborn", as Conservative William F. Buckley said in the obituary he wrote about her. It is profoundly simple: in all of human labor, people can either create, or destroy. What side are you on?

As we begin this new year, chastened by the financial destruction wrought by charlatans on Wall Street, Mexicans should spare a moment to think of those who destroy our well-being right here. There are the violent criminals, of course, but there are also many more who, just like in "Atlas Shrugged", wrap themselves in the discourse of "social justice" to make demands that are anything but "just".

Crucially, there is a fundamental difference between helping someone in need and allowing Mafia-style interest groups to get privileges that go against meritocracy. Most public-sector unions fit this bill. Knowing that they strike fear in politicians' hearts, they blackmail the government into giving bosses unsupervised public financing and allowing them to treat jobs in education and PEMEX (among others) as their private fiefdoms. Political parties, with their opacity and anti-democratic self-government, are probably starting to cross the line into anti-social territory, as well.

Everywhere you see people defending privileges that punish productivity and fight competition, be wary. There are many victims in this society, but very few of them are marching down Reforma (victims of crime excepted). Even when we help the disadvantaged, Mexicans have the nasty habit of perpetuating a debilitating sense of victimhood. This is a byproduct of centuries of overt paternalism on behalf of political strongmen and it is perhaps the biggest danger to the proper functioning of the country's democracy. Mexico needs to transit from this type of clientelism to a system based on empowering the individual to fend for him/herself after they have been helped. Nowhere does this change need to take place more quickly than in our indigenous communities, where fear, ignorance, and misguided "white man's burden" do-goodism have squashed opportunities for generations. Lifestyles based on ancestral cultures need to be chosen freely and intelligently; they should not be imposed by manipulative "chiefs" and romantic patronizing whites with utopian ideals of the "noble savage". Something to think about when you ponder the 70s retro "Zapatista" rebellion of 15 years ago.

Ayn Rand's principle mistake was, perhaps, a product of having watched the Bolsheviks in her native Russia destroy her family when she was 12. When you read one of the heroes in "Atlas Shrugged" proudly declare that "he would never live his life for the sake of another man", you know she's gone too far. In fact, some of the best and most productive people in the world live their lives solely for the sake of others. Further, her tendency to depict bureaucrats as caricatures of social parasites is also misguided: a good public servant can easily be the equal of a good captain of industry. The question is whether someone works to help empower others for the benefit of society, or whether their "help" is really a tool to build their own fame, fortune and power. Mexico's insidious ignorance means that too few people know how to tell the difference.

So, pick up "Atlas Shrugged" ("La rebelión de Atlas", in Spanish), read it, and give copies to your closest "radical chic" friends (those who are toasting the anniversary of the Cuban Revolution with champagne). Then ask yourself, are you Atlas, carrying the world on your hard-working shoulders? Or are you James Taggart, seeking to live off the work and ideas of others?

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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