Ricardo PintoAyn Rand held that capitalism’s greatest tragedy was that its supposed defenders never justified it on the basis of the morality of self-interest. Whether through religion or utilitarian slogans like “the greatest happiness of the greatest number,” the conventional altruistic defense of capitalism tolerates capitalists’ self-interest only if it serves the “common good.”
Rand’s point was not that altruism offered a weak defense of capitalism. She thought that altruism was actively hostile to capitalism and individual freedom, because altruism was motivated by hatred for the free mind and human achievement. Her essay “Requiem for Man” provides the evidence. There she pointed to overt expressions of these motives in Pope Paul VI’s 1967 encyclical Populorum Progressio. Now available online, the essay remains one of her most penetrating critiques of the culture’s worship of sacrifice.
The encyclical, presented as a plea for justice in a changing world, is laced with appeals to “humanism,” “dignity,” and “rights.” Rand cuts through this rhetoric with her characteristic clarity. For example, when the Pope calls on governments to set economic goals that subordinate individual rights to the needs of the poor, Rand exposes the result for what it is: totalitarianism. And when he calls on people to shun greed, Rand exposes it for a denunciation of ambitious work.
As Rand explains, the encyclical’s prescriptions would plunge all nations into subhuman conditions. What then is its goal? She argues that its aim is not to alleviate poverty but to instill moral guilt. By holding up impossible standards of sacrifice, Populorum Progressio ensures that men never develop self-esteem, as every attempt to live for themselves becomes a source of shame. In this way, the encyclical embodies the psychological culmination of unadulterated altruism: a profound fear of the human mind and the desire to see it subdued.
“Requiem for Man” is a masterful analysis of the philosophical and psychological roots behind one the dominant morality of our age. Read it here, or find it in her book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.
Find a passage from the beginning of the article below.
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In advocating capitalism, I have said and stressed for years that capitalism is incompatible with altruism and mysticism-Those who chose to doubt that the issue is “either-or,” have now heard it from the highest authority of the opposite side: Pope Paul VI.
The encyclical “Populorum Progressio” (“On the Development of Peoples”) is an unusual document: it reads as if a long-repressed emotion broke out into the open, past the barrier of carefully measured, cautiously calculated sentences, with the hissing pressure of centuries of silence. The sentences are full of contradictions; the emotion is consistent.
The encyclical is the manifesto of an impassioned hatred for capitalism; but its evil is much more profound and its target is more than mere politics. It is written in terms of a mystic-altruist “sense of life.” A sense of life is the subconscious equivalent of metaphysics: a pre-conceptual, emotionally integrated appraisal of man’s nature and of his relationship to existence. To a mystic-altruist sense of life, words are mere approximations; hence the encyclical’s tone of evasion. But what is eloquently revealing is the nature of that which is being evaded.
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You can read her full essay here, or in her book, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.
Tara Smith
