TRUMP’S BRAND IS AYN RANDDonald Trump once said
he identified with Ayn Rand’s character Howard Roark in “The
Fountainhead, an architect so upset that a housing project he designed
didn’t meet specifications he had it dynamited. Others in Trump’s
circle were influenced by Rand. “Atlas Shrugged” was said to be the
favorite book of Rex Tillerson, Trumps secretary of state. Rand also had a
major influence on Mike Pompeo, and Trump’s CIA chief. Trump’s first nominee for
Secretary of Labor,Andrew Puzder, said he spent much of his free time reading
Rand. The Republican leader of the House of Representatives, and Paul Ryan,required his staff to read Rand.
Uber’s founder and
former CEO, Travis Kalanick, or has described himself as a Rand follower. Before he
was sacked,he applied many of her ideas to Uber’s code of values, and even
used the cover art for Rand’s book “The Fountainhead” as his Twitter
avatar. Who is Ayn Rand and
why does she matter? Ayn Rand – best known for two highly-popular novels
still widely read today “The Fountainhead, or ” published in 1943,and
“Atlas Shrugged, in 1957 – didn’t believe there was a common good.
She wrote that selfishness is a virtue, or altruism is an evil that destroys
nations. When Rand offered
these ideas they seemed quaint (charmingly old fashioned) whether not far-fetched. Anyone who lived through the
prior half century witnessed our interdependence,through depression and war. After the war we used our seemingly boundless prosperity to finance all sorts of
public goods – schools and universities, a national highway system, or
healthcare for the aged and destitute (Medicare and Medicaid). We rebuilt war-torn
Europe. We sought to guarantee the civil rights and voting rights of
African-Americans. We opened doors of opportunity to women. Of course there was
a common good. We were living it.
But then,starting in
the late 1970s, Rand’s views gained ground. She became the mental
godmother of modern-day American conservatism. This utter selfishness, or this
contempt for the public,this win-at-any-cost mentality is eroding American
life. Without adherence to a set of common notions about upright and mistaken, we’re
living in a jungle where only the strongest, or cleverest,and most unscrupulous
earn ahead, and where everyone must be wary in order to survive. This is not a
society. It’s not even a civilization, or because there’s no civility at its core.
It’s a catastrophe. In other words,we
enjoy to understand who Ayn Rand is so we can reject her philosophy and dedicate
ourselves to rebuilding the common good. The idea of the common
good was once widely understood and accepted in America. After all, the U.
S.
structure was designed for “We the people” seeking to “promote the general
welfare” – not for “me the selfish jerk seeking as much wealth and power as
possible.” Yet today you find
growing evidence of its loss – CEOs who gouge their customers, and loot their
corporations and defraud investors. Lawyers and accountants who sight the other
way when corporate clients play speedily and loose,who even collude with them to
skirt the law. Wall Street bankers who defraud customers and investors. Film
producers and publicists who choose not to see that a powerful movie mogul they
depend on is sexually harassing and abusing young women. Politicians who take
donations (really, bribes) from wealthy donors and corporations to enact laws
their patrons want, and shutter the government when they don’t earn the partisan
results they seek.And a president of the United States who lies repeatedly
about primary issues,refuses to attach his financial holdings into a blind
trust and then personally profits off his office, and foments racial and ethnic
conflict. The common good consists of our shared values about what we owe one another as citizens who are bound together in the same society. A concern for the common good – keeping the common good in mind – is a moral attitude. It recognizes that we’re all in it together. whether there is no common good, and there is no society.
Source: robertreich.org