Ayn Rand’s greatest accomplishment was creating a bridge between the businessman and the intellectual. She influenced many intellectual types, who would normally be against capitalism, to value business. She also influenced many business types, who would normally be against intellectuals, to take interest in philosophy.
I come from a Communist country, but I have respect for business. My two major influences for that are University of Virginia’s economic department and Ayn Rand. I have known many good people who were businessmen. They demanded a lot of their workers; but they also demanded a lot of themselves. I did not find them to be either greedy or oppressive. And any number of them were Democrats or even Greens.
The biggest problem with pure capitalism is that it turns into a struggle for survival. That is a brutal way to live. The people I’ve known who were a part of this became mean, and they were always freaking out. This was the case with even the best people. People’s beliefs shape their actions even more reliably than their innate character. So a good person who has bad beliefs will be doing bad things, even if her nature is good.
I want to see the best of all worlds. People in 21st century should not have to be spending their lives struggling to survive. At the same time, opportunity is a great thing, and I want people who want opportunity to be able to have it. I want people to have security that comes with socialism and opportunity that comes with capitalism. Then we get the benefits of both – in the first case security, in the second case opportunity – without their flaws – in the first case lack of opportunity, in the second case degradation of life into a brutal, stressful, oppressive struggle for survival. I want to see a positive synthesis between the two sides, making the best of both while correcting each other’s potentials for wrong.
I have been called an imperialist pig and I have been called a Commie. I have had both capitalist and Communist influences, and I’ve put a lot of effort into analyzing both. I propose, once again, a positive synthesis. Have the best of both capitalism and socialism. Let people have both security and opportunity. Free people from the survival constraint so that they can contribute to the world what they have to contribute, while demanding that they do in fact contribute instead of, say, becoming criminals or drug addicts.
One criticism of Australia’s policy of giving houses to drug addicts is that this way they have no reason to improve their lifestyle. I propose dealing with this situation by having them do one or another kind of work. If they can’t find jobs in the private sector, either hire them on to do government jobs or have them do volunteering. That way they aren’t being parasites and are contributing to the country.
In my case, I’ve been on both the winning and the losing sides of capitalism. I know how good things can be when it works; I also know how bad they can be when there are problems. I am willing to work, but I am not willing to live by the code of survival and competition. Instead I seek to innovate. What I’ve done is work on projects that nobody else is working on, and the results have been great. My translations of Russian poetry are being read all over the world and used in books and dissertations. I have my name on a patent. These are a much greater contribution than I would have made if I had stayed in the computer industry. There are any number of people who can program computers; there are not many people who can do what I do.
Instead of competing, innovate. Contribute what you have to contribute. And that way be good both for other people and for yourself.