Philosophy by Ayn Rand

Author:Ayn Rand
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.

12

Egalitarianism and Inflation

1974

The classic example of vicious irresponsibility is the story of Emperor Nero who fiddled, or sang poetry, while Rome burned. An example of similar behavior may be seen today in a less dramatic form. There is nothing imperial about the actors, they are not one single bloated monster, but a swarm of undernourished professors, there is nothing resembling poetry, even bad poetry, in the sounds they make, except for pretentiousness—but they are prancing around the fire and, while chanting that they want to help, are pouring paper refuse on the flames. They are those amorphous intellectuals who are preaching egalitarianism to a leaderless country on the brink of an unprecedented disaster.

Egalitarianism is so evil—and so silly—a doctrine that it deserves no serious study or discussion. But that doctrine has a certain diagnostic value: it is the open confession of the hidden disease that has been eating away the insides of civilization for two centuries (or longer) under many disguises and cover-ups. Like the half-witted member of a family struggling to preserve a reputable front, egalitarianism has escaped from a dark closet and is screaming to the world that the motive of its compassionate, “humanitarian,” altruistic, collectivist brothers is not the desire to help the poor, but to destroy the competent. The motive is hatred of the good for being the good—a hatred focused specifically on the fountainhead of all goods, spiritual or material: the men of ability.

The mental process underlying the egalitarians’ hope to achieve their goal consists of three steps: 1. they believe that that which they refuse to identify does not exist; 2. therefore, human ability does not exist; and 3. therefore, they are free to devise social schemes which would obliterate this nonexistent. Of special significance to the present discussion is the egalitarians’ defiance of the Law of Causality: their demand for equal results from unequal causes—or equal rewards for unequal performance.

As an example, I shall quote from a review by Bennett M. Berger, professor of sociology at the University of California, San Diego (The New York Times Book Review, January 6, 1974). The review discusses a book entitled More Equality by Herbert Gans. I have not read and do not intend to read that book: it is the reviewer’s own notions that are particularly interesting and revealing. “[Herbert Gans] makes it clear from the start,” writes Mr. Berger, “that he’s not talking about equality of opportunity, which almost nobody seems to be against anymore, but about equality of ‘results,’ what used to be called ‘equality of condition.’ . . . What he cares most about is reducing inequalities of income, wealth and political power. . . . More equality could be achieved, according to Gans, by income redistribution (mostly through a version of the Credit Income Tax) and by decentralizations of power ranging from more equality in hierarchical organizations (e.g., corporations and universities) to a kind of ‘community control’ that would provide to those minorities most victimized by inequality some insulation against being consistently outvoted by the relatively affluent majorities of the larger political constituencies.

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