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Capitalism and Ayn Rand vs Jesus and The Welfare State

(June 30, 2011 ) News

Writes resident philosopher at the Ayn Rand Institute, Onkar Ghate, in “Does America Need Ayn Rand or Jesus?” over at Fox News:

What worries advocates of the welfare state is that they have never before faced any moral opposition. [...] But now its advocates sense that this is no longer true, that some Americans are beginning to question the moral legitimacy of the welfare state. To strangle this questioning in the crib, supporters of government controls are trying to persuade their opponents to abandon Rand.

The current tactic is to tell Tea Partiers and “conservatives” that if you take religion seriously, you can’t be a fan of the atheist Ayn Rand. The American Values Network (AVN) has produced a short video containing snippets of Rand’s rejection of religion, which they hope to e-mail to more than a million people in Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin, asking citizens how they can support both Jesus and Rand. Leaving aside AVN’s distressing attempt to blur the separation of church and state by basing politics on faith, this much is true. Rand’s moral teachings are fundamentally different from Jesus’ teachings.

[...]

Given her positive teachings, Rand must reject what is usually taken to be the core of Jesus’ moral teachings, the Sermon on the Mount. But before you dismiss this as unthinkable, ask yourself the following question. Did Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers not reject the Sermon’s advice in creating America?

As I’ve written before: “When the British struck America’s right cheek, did Jefferson in the Declaration tell America to turn to offer them the left? Did Jefferson love his enemy—or did he go to war with him? Did Jefferson, who had a gallery of worthies in his home, portraits of men like Isaac Newton and John Locke, think that the blessed are the poor in spirit—or that the only people worthy of admiration are those who choose to make something of their spirit? Did Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers think that the meek shall inherit the earth—or that, in Locke’s words, the rational and the industrious shall? Did Jefferson give up riches—or did he seek them?”

 

  • Anonymous

    The problem with Ayn Rand is that she was Ayn Rand.  She was WAY smarter than most of the people in the world.  This meant that she was isolated and had no community.  As a result she never really learned the value of community.  It’s sort of a “Drama of the Gifted Child” thing. 

    The problem with this website (and your movement) is that you think that YOU are John Gualt.  I don’t think that Ayn Rand was talking about conservative Christians when she wrote what she wrote.  It’s only your hubris that makes you think that the owner of a contracting business is the same thing as an architect. I understand that you need to feel special, but being able to run a business hardly make you an exceptional person.  Believing that you were chosen by God is not a substitute for insight.  Faith is not a substitute for reason. 

    If you would learn to question your assumptions, you wouldn’t even be writing this article.

  • Mainstream Academic Research

    You are correct that Ayn Rand did indeed reject Christianity and its tenets. Various aspects of the “Sermon on the Mount” were despised by her. She considered Christians as those afflicted by [quote] “a psychological disease”, and faith in the redemptive work of Christ as a “sign of weakness.” This is pretty clear. At the save time the AVN “informational” video is a ludicrous stretch. One need not “make a choice” between Randism and Christianity just because one may support lower taxation or desire a rollback of state power.

    However there are 3 faulty assumptions in your article:

    1) The core of Jesus’ message is not the Sermon on the Mount. The sermon concerned conduct in a hostile world and moral conduct of believers as living, and suffering for the faith. But this is simply ONE aspect of the overall message. The central focus is the redemptive work of Christ, who as God in human condition, takes on the burden of sin for men, and thus reconciles them to God. This is Christianity 101. The bottom line is that upon death, the soul must face God, and give an account of his or her works. Thousands of those who have undergone Near-Death experiences, across cultures, all speak of standing before some sort of a Supreme Being, and undergoing a searching, but extremely just and fair life review, where the standard of measurement is set forth by the Supreme Being, and where ALL data, from thoughts to actions, to intents are put openly on the table. Only a Supreme Being could have the power to do something like this.. The number of the near-death experiencers was not yet up – their time had not yet come, so naturally they returned to their current lives and the final results of the review were not executed. But Christ warned that the condition after death is a perilous one. Unless the soul has an advocate, a Saviour, a Mediator, it will not fare well. Of course this cannot be actually proven until after death. Faith in the work of Christ is what accepts this teaching, and warning now. But men have plenty of testimony that there is a bottom line to come, a day of reckoning. Every human group speaks of a time of accountability to come after death in its legends and religions. The scenarios are different, with different names, but the bottom line is accountability to someone or something higher, whether it be a Supreme Being, multiple gods, departed ancestors, or whatever is in between, and whether one be a member of the tribal religions, or the bastions of organized religion- Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, etc etc. The bottom line is some sort of accountability to come after death. The notion of a coming accountability after death has been held and beleived in by some of the toughest hombres on earth. It is not something held by “the weak.”

    2) The Sermon speaks of meek inheriting the earth, but this will not be under currently earthly regime as Christianity makes clear. It will take another ruler of earth to bring that state to pass. That ruler, according to Christian doctrine will be Christ in a day to come. Furthermore the notion of “the meek” is yet another example of picking up ONE peice of the overall message and claiming that it represents the whole. Along with “the meek”, hte book of Proverbs clearly advocates self-help, hard work, thrift and prudence. In the gospels Jesus gives a clear example of an employer having the right and prerogative to set wages and terms. Those who donlt like such wages or terms need not show up. Matthew 20:1–16 is a blunt statement of this principle. In his epistles, the Apostle Paul bluntly condemns those who do not work to support their families. The notion that Christianity somehow endorses some sort of welfare state is a stereotyped crock of liberal rubbish, but equally problematic are those Randians who support the liberal claim, in order to build a bogus strawman to “rebut.” While the Sermon on the Mount speaks of turning the other cheek and so
    on, it clearly says that this is FOR THE SAKE OF THE FAITH. It does not
    mean that if for example the government is gouging you, or a vendor is
    ripping you off, that you should not seek legal means to stop such
    offenses. The Sermon does not suspend simple common sense, nor the
    rights of persons under the legal systems they live under. Suffering
    brought about by say a Roman governor because of the faith is to be
    borne patiently for the sake of the faith. But if said governor is
    collecting more than his legal share of allowable taxes, or is seizing
    property contrary to the law, then it is perfectly right to seek legal
    redress from the next highest level, or via peaceful petition. Contrary
    to the claims of some, the Sermon on the Mount does not banish common
    sense.

    3) Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers did not “reject the Sermon’s advice in creating America.” Again, you have a completely wrong conception of what the Sermon on the Mount is. It is not a political platform, or a political program. It concerns the PERSONAL moral conduct of believers and their sufferings for the sake of their faith. It has nothing to do with politics. Claims that it does are typical “presentism” – reading the political obsessions of the present inappropriately into an altogether different issue that occurred in the past.

    There is much to commend certain Randian teachings (such as the value of self-help) just as there is much to condemn in certain aspects of Randian teachings, as you no doubt have debated with others over the years. But the key point is to take up the Sermon on the Mount as what it is in itself, and not attribute any present day political debates or programs to what is clearly a MORAL and SPIRITUAL matter.