Sense and Sensibility: The Capitalisms of F.A. Hayek and Ayn Rand

There is a lot of hubbub over the economy and how that's being handled by our new(ish -- it's been a year already) presidential administration. "Socialism" and "planned economy" -- even "fascism" -- have once again become Republican invective and are being slung at the various initiatives Obama and his people have been putting into effect, or with the notable example of healthcare reform, been attempting to put into effect for months and months only to be stymied by all kinds of partisan bickering, which let's be honest, you'd expect that of our government. Capitalism all the while remains The American economic model, but I'm beginning to think that's not such a bad thing.

Not to be overly cynical, but the bloated perversion of healthcare reform we appear on the cusp of getting should do well at satisfying no one as it struggles to resemble what large numbers of people had ostensibly professed desiring with Obama's significant victory in November '08. But we people did want lots of stuff, so it's hard to be sure. All I know is I'm jaded enough. Or I should say I was jaded until I read Atul Gawande's article "Testing, Testing" in the recent December 14th issue of The New Yorker. I was even jaded for the first page of Gawande's article, when he wrote things of the health care reform bill like, "Does the bill end medicine's destructive piecemeal payment system? Does it replace paying for quantity with paying for quality? Does it institute nationwide structural changes that curb costs and raise quality? It does not." DAMMIT! I bellowed within earshot of my friend's cat whose expression chided me silently. Or perhaps that isn't a true thing that happened at all.

So I read some more. "Instead, what it offers is . . . pilot programs." Huh? Well, for fear this post will become too overwrought with healthcare reform info taken almost entirely from The New Yorker, I will sum things up like this: Gawande makes a compelling argument using the historical example of agriculture at the turn of the 19th century in the U.S. for why pilot programs may be the most fruitful course in effecting real change in health care today, with an appropriate level of government intervention. Read the article yourself, and see for yourself. I highly recommend that you do.

So then what? How does all this health care shinola apply to F.A. Hayek and Ayn Rand? It's all in the approach, I think. Ayn Rand has got a lot of cultural currency right now, one of those popular zeitgeists who always pops up, apparently, in times of great economic woe, especially when there's a president of startling contrary opinion like Obama in office (though he resembles a Randian protagonist in more ways than her adoring minions would probably want to admit). Hayek, meanwhile, is the sensible alternative to Rand and the man whose real-world influence has vastly exceeded her own, Milton Friedman. Friedman, who spawned neo-liberalism and all its glorious unrestraint and wrote an introduction to Hayek's seminal "The Road to Serfdom."

Full shocking disclosure: I've always been wary of capitalism. The idea of money in exchange for services or goods rendered is something I've long seen as convincingly logical but always cold and alienating. It's hard to be friends with the people with whom you share a vested monetary interest of some sort, say insurance salesman v. those (s)he insures. Even Ray Kroc, one of the preeminent capitalists of all time and certainly the last one hundred years, acknowledged that much, when for example he refused to act as supplier to his operators, worrying for good reason it would compromise their carefully established mutualistic relationship. As he put it, "There is a basic conflict in trying to treat a man as a partner on the one hand while selling him something at a profit on the other." But that isn't because he doesn't like them, just there'd be money that needed making, and so must be. He added, "The temptation could become very strong to dilute the quality of what you are selling him in order to increase your profit." Yup, I mean I guess that mildly impugns Kroc's character, but it's probably true and basically honest.

Kroc's McDonald's model is also representative of what I think works (and absolutely representative of what I abhor) with regard to capitalism. This is a form of capitalism I'll also add has been colored by my own way of thinking. So you know, you've now been warned. What worked with respect to McDonald's is what worked in the case of agriculture and pilot programs: a system of trial and error, with a largely hands off centralized force (in the case of McDonald's it was the corporation and in agriculture the USDA) offering opinions and coordinating the collective efforts of the component parts for the betterment of the whole. As Kroc said, he couldn't do what he did while simultaneously having a monetary relationship with his operators. The same is true of healthcare: and like it or not, a hands-off governmental approach has been shown to work in the past, provided it doesn't go too far. Maybe that's too much to ask but I don't think so.

What's also worth noting is that while all of these innovations required the kind of big-picture vision of a Ray Kroc they were surprisingly egalitarian, and combined the best elements of socialism and capitalism into one. Obviously, nothing's ever going to be perfect but that's exactly how Gawande describes these types of desultory, fluid circumstances defining health care, agriculture, and -- less so today, it would seem -- even McDonald's. He wrote, "There are, in human affairs, two kinds of problems: those which are amenable to a technical solution and those which are not . . . Problems of the second kind, by contrast, are never solved, exactly; they are managed [emphasis his]."

Now, as I say it won't be perfect. McDonald's for example is far from perfect, in part this is due to how far they've strayed from the spirit of the original business model due to their inevitable, massive expansion. Independent franchisees, while still playing a role, are not nearly as free to be entrepreneurial as they were before the process of McDonaldization became ossified, but it's the spirit of the enterprise that counts -- even if today's McDonald's would not be recognizable to the operators who played such an important role in its genesis, and wasn't when the transformation originally began to take place.

Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism makes no room for an arbitrating entity like the government to intervene in the affairs of man. More full shocking disclosure: I profoundly dislike Objectivism. It reads to me like the hyper-masculine dreck that may prove useful in inspiring and coaching football players but question begs its way out of relevance in a real world setting, full of the shades of gray it rejects. Objectivism is presumptuous, oh yes. It presumes the irrelevance of determinism (i.e. factors such as upbringing, genes or economic conditions play no role in one's success or lack of success, with special emphasis on the latter condition). I'm fine with her rejection of all things spiritual (fate, religion), if I'm not totally in agreement with her there, either, but you don't need to read "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell to know that there is something deeply flawed in completely dismissing exterior factors as playing any role in one's chances for a "great" life, one marked by at least some significant monetary gain.

Explain to me why those (liberal, conservative, libertarian, et al) who have the means to will do everything they possibly can to send their offspring to better schools than, say, the school or schools they live nearest? And if you want to argue that it's merely harder to pull yourself out of those abject conditions, then you're already admitting that such circumstances at least play some part in one's chances, or you're racist / prejudiced and presume the true problem is something internal belonging to the broad impoverished segment of the global population. If anything the fact that certain people then do rise up out of their difficult circumstances and succeed belies Objectivism by putting at the fore the reality that there is nothing inherently lacking in these impoverished people. Plus if you admit the situation the child was put in by his or her parents is a factor, then once again you're conceding an element of determinism, i.e. pre-existing economic conditions, which might expand to a macro, sociological level of significance. Ignoring history as Objectivism presumes to is particularly irritating.

Let me make it clear that I think a healthy ego is important to the individual and his or her attaining the success he or she desires, but the unbridled ego that Objectivism in many ways presupposes and absolutely encourages is frankly horrible. Don't agree? First, imagine a conversation with an immodest professional athlete. Second, imagine everyone was like that athlete. Ok, so that's not necessarily how it would be. But seriously, it wouldn't be significantly less horrible than that. Would people at least be required to pretend like they weren't completely self-interested? ("Self-interest" is the single word Rand used to define Objectivism's ethics, so says my copy of "The Fountainhead.") I guess my biggest issue with Rand is that she proposed a capitalism of unchecked ego and excess. She proposed a capitalism that is damaging to the body politic. I'm inclined to think that others get to where they are with at least some help from their peers.

And I know I mention this book a lot, which even though I do it might be the least of the Walter Kirn I've read, but "Up in the Air" has an interesting part in which Ryan Bingham is dictating to his microrecorder a part of the preface to his allegorical-philosophical manifesto he titled "The Garage" -- yet another important component of the book that the movie abandons, but I'll say no more about that. In the preface he's dictating he says:

In 'The Garage,' I propose a bold new formula to replace lurching pursuit of profit: 'Sufficient Plenitude.' Enough really can be enough, that is. A heresy? Not to students of the human body, who know that optimum health is not achieved by ever-greater consumption and activity, but by functioning within certain dynamic parameters of diet and exercise, work and leisure. So too with the corporation, whose core objective should not be the amassing of good numbers, but the creation and management of abundance.

Never mind that this idea more or less runs contrary to the M.O. of Ryan Bingham, who is among other things dead set on achieving his goal of one million frequent flier miles. Bingham himself wonders, "Is it possible to be wiser on the page than you are in life?" So while I'm aware there might be a sarcastic and expedient quality to the above quoted elucidation, I think that it makes a sensible claim. It's a claim that runs contrary to Ayn Rand's and Milton Friedman's similar (and in Rand's case schmaltzy romantic) notion of capitalism.

F.A. Hayek, to return to the other individual for whom this post is written, is from my perspective also imperfect as concerns his economic theory (which is absolutely not the same as his being flatly wrong, I freely acknowledge I may well be wrong and need to amend my opinion in the future. I'm less certain Ayn Rand will one day produce in me this possible reevaluating effect, however). But Hayek was right about socialism, to the extent that certain untempered derivations (the Communist bloc nations, China, North Korea) became the same ossified, oppressive regimes which they vehemently opposed in the more forthrightly iniquitous fascist governments against whom the world went to war in the 1930s-40s. This is especially true where economic matters are concerned. The level of government control involved and necessary in planning the economy, as Soviet Russia and China did, necessarily precluded the freedom and free will of their peoples. On that Hayek and I are in full agreement. Of course there are social aspects that distinguish fascism from socialism more obviously, but in terms of economics the two forms of government are markedly the same. Hayek also saw the utility in involving a limited form of government into the affairs of the marketplace, which again I see as sensible and right. Here is how Hayek puts it in "The Road to Serfdom":

In all these instances there is a divergence between the items which enter into private calculation and those which affect social welfare; and, whenever this divergence becomes important, some method other than competition may have to be found to supply the services in question. Thus neither the provision of signposts on the roads nor, in most circumstances, that of the roads themselves can be paid for by every individual user. Nor can certain harmful effects of deforestation, of some methods of farming, or of the smoke and noise of factories be confined to the owner of the property in question or to those who are willing to submit to the damage for an agreed compensation. In such instances we must find some substitute for the regulation by the price mechanism (44).

My hope is that one day instead of the aggressive, unchecked mentality of ceaseless consumption that has colored our nation's (and similarly influenced other nations, such as the now, more or less, free market China) spending habits for so long we will see how by coordinating our efforts to some meliorative level of economic prosperity we will be far better off than at present. That relies on certain naively idealistic hopes for our current character, I admit, so I'll settle for a return to what is sensible, to making a better effort to base things around what seems to work best for all parties concerned and not what's simply best for you to get yours.

All right, that's all I've got for now, but I imagine this won't be the last time I refer to either Rand or Hayek. In fact, barring world-ending calamity, I guarantee it.

Paul Auster vs. The New Yorker

The New Yorker's book critic James Wood puts forth many opinions of Paul Auster's latest novel "Invisible" and of Auster's work just generally in the magazine's recent November 30, 2009 issue. Most of his opinions are (spoiler alert) something less than what you'd consider high praise. But that's ok. I tend with varying levels of success to adhere to the Kurt Vonnegut school regarding literary criticism -- which is, at least in accordance with his following aphorism: "I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on a full suit of armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or a banana split."

Wood isn't entirely guilty of the same vitriol Vonnegut describes and disliked so. Still, he definitely takes Auster to task. And from what I've gleaned after a brief scan of the glowing Internet-scape, a lot of people have found merit in Wood's arguments. I suppose I'm one of them, although I do remain an unapologetic Auster fan. But concerning what I see as accurate in Wood's criticism of Auster is for example his initial parody and subsequent adumbration of uniquely Austerian tropes and plot devices. He also reasonably argues against Auster's prose, which especially in the examples he cites does appear simpler, Raymond Carver-esque in its austere and realist bend, and more un-ironically cliche-addled than his postmodern colleagues -- Wood says, "Auster, despite all the games, is the least ironic of contemporary writers."

However, while I think Wood does -- all told -- avoid the pitfalls of rage and loathing in his criticism of Auster, he does at times come off like an excoriator, as if his dislike of Auster's writing style, which he sees as littered with "boilerplate" and "cinemaspeak," is tantamount to it being irredeemable and deserving of the headmaster's paddle. For instance when Wood writes categorically that while ". . . there are things to admire in Auster's fiction, prose is never one of them." Wood backs this up with reasonable evidence, but one can't (or at least I can't) really shake the feeling that somewhere in all of it there is an ax being sharpened against the grindstone. Then there are what I would deem occasional potshots Wood sneaks in, for instance comparing Auster's prose to Carver's but adding, "although Carver would have written more interesting prose" or in saying that "[Auster] is only ever unwittingly funny." Speaking of the latter Wood quote, I have to admit Auster is not an author I've read for his humor, and while I don't want to touch on Wood's stating Auster is only ever unwittingly funny, I do appreciate Wood's implied concern that an author worth his or her salt should in some way be able to express a joke, inject humor where appropriate and do so cannily. Wood uses the "hilarious" novel (one I haven't read but now intend to) "The Third Policeman" by Flann O'Brien as Auster's use of "Hollywood plots" -- and a particular plot point he cites belonging to Auster's character Quinn in "The New York Trilogy's" "City of Glass" -- done both humorously and effectively.

Now obviously if you asked me to prove Wood is libelously false in any / all of his preceding assertions I would say that I can't do that, Dave. As already said he makes strong claims and provides useful, if possibly mischaracterized, evidence -- but he does so within the framework of a subjective set of criteria. I realize I'm moving into hazardous territory in stating that Wood's criticism is subjective and therefore implying its validity is suspect. But that's not really what I'm saying. And although I believe Wood is more excoriating than necessary, I won't fault him for his opinion of Auster's work. What I am saying is that to Wood, Auster is a peddler of banalities and sophistries; overall his work does not amount to much when stacked against the literary achievements of his contemporaries. Point taken and fair enough.

All I can offer as counterpoint, then, is a subjective defense of what I like about Auster, which -- to paraphrase -- Wood at least acknowledges there are things in Auster's work that are worthy of admiration. I recently finished reading Auster's "Man in the Dark" and really enjoyed "The New York Trilogy," the former a good example of Auster's more recent work and the latter is probably his most well-known book, which comprises his three earliest stories. One of the standard Austerian themes that "The New York Trilogy" features in parts is the disassociation and dissolution of male friendships. Of course all relationships in Auster's work are subject to just the same sort of dissolution, but none with the fury or the punctuation that seems to mark the severing of male friendships.

Ironically, these friendship breakups are usually for reasons that have little to do with an actual falling out. Instead, they are better characterized for the distance that already exists, how they've lost touch as part of a greater narrative already taking form. And often as one man disappears the other as if his doppelganger will step into his life and take his place, either literally with the unnamed friend and narrator who supplants Fanshawe as husband and father in "The Locked Room" or more figuratively with Peter Aaron as Benjamin Sachs in "Leviathan" -- after Sachs abandons everything in his life following a terrible, literal fall and his figurative reawakening in the wake of a violent encounter in the woods, or perhaps most nebulous of all is the end of Nashe and Jack Pozzi's friendship in "The Music of Chance," wherein Pozzi with Nashe's assistance escapes the pair's forced imprisonment at the home of two eccentric millionaires, the consequence of losing at a high stakes game of poker. Pozzi leaves but Nashe finds him badly beaten the next morning. Pozzi is rushed to the hospital by the overseers who are charged with ensuring Nashe and Pozzi don't escape, a complicated situation in its own right, and then Nashe is told with out any verifiable proof that Pozzi is well attended to and will survive. The tension that builds because of the dissolution of these relationships reaches a pronounced pitch, leading the narrator in "The Locked Room" on a frenzied search for Fanshawe, which at one point leads him to verbally assault a man in a bar with accusations that he is the lost Fanshawe. Benjamin Sachs is blown to bits by his own bomb, and Peter Aaron is left to answer for him to the police. Pozzi is never heard from again and Nashe, after finally being granted his freedom, drives off into the headlights of an oncoming vehicle with his overseers in the passenger seats, left to suffer whatever fate (or chance) has in store.

As for "Man in the Dark" by itself, I'll concede it impressed me less than all the other novels I list in the last paragraph. But despite its shortcomings, I still found it enjoyable and relevant. It read like a collage of the Bush administration's tenure, a sort of retrospective noting in spartan detail various causes and effects. August Brill, the narrator and for all intents and purposes the story's main character, can't sleep; he has about him the harried quality of a guilty conscience. He invents stories that play out in his head, specifically an alternate universe in which the United States is in a new civil war. He imagines a character who exists between both our universe and the alternate, and is assigned the task of murdering Brill in our world so the war will end, irrespective of the possible consequence that existence might end right along with him. Brill, however, holds all the cards as inventor of the story, and kills the man off before he can cause him any harm. He disinterestedly suggests it's the only way the story could end, but one wonders if the truth was instead that story was becoming all too real for Brill, a man it's suggested by those conspiring to kill him seems to want to die. But at the heart of "Man in the Dark" is family, and once again the dissolution of relationships (familial or other) for all the great litany of reasons: death, divorce, self-loathing, emotional vacancy, etc. I think this leads to some of the most powerful statements, which might be put better with lurid literary flourishes but in Auster's softly stated prose convey something equally powerful, as with how Brill discribes his sister's death, or perhaps more fittingly, demise:

Either her body had given out on her or she had taken pills, and I didn't want to know the answer, for neither one of them would have told the real story. Betty died of a broken heart. Some people laugh when they hear that phrase, but that's because they don't know anything about the world. People die of broken hearts. It happens every day, and it will go on happening to the end of time.

Maybe I'm biased, necessary subjectivity regarding interpretation of art would suggest this is so, but I like what Paul Auster says and thinks in his writings. Maybe he is guilty of all that Wood puts forth, maybe less so than Wood can admit. I don't know. All I know is at least Paul Auster isn't Chuck Palahniuk because that guy sucks.