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Subjectivism
The Immorality of Applied Objectivism
Joshua Sullivan

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Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to illustrate both the inherent problems and the consequences of the
philosophy of Objectivism when applied as a modern school of political thought. Through a brief
look at the history of Objectivism, we will track its progress from cult­like dogmatism all the
way to Wall Street. This paper also explores the negative externalities that have arisen due to the
conservative Libertarian interpretation of Objectivism, and how they pose even greater threats in
the years to come.
Keywords: ​Objectivism, Tea Party, conservative, Federal Reserve

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Subjectivism
The Immorality of Applied Objectivism
In 2009, less than a month into Barack Obama’s tenure as president, the catalyst for
America’s next major political movement occurred. Recently, the Obama administration had
announced plans to help out homeowners if their mortgage swelled to eclipse the price of their
property. This did not sit too kindly with CNBC investment analyst Rick Santelli, who ranted for
a few minutes live on­air about his opposition to “paying losers’ mortgages” and how Americans
should not have to carry the water for those who are sinking. He called for a meeting of a “Tea
Party” in Chicago to protest government intervention (Elving, 2015). To any viewer who had no
idea about the greed and immorality that caused the 2008 recession, Santelli’s words must have
been inspiring. What Santelli failed to mention is Americans already had paid for the mistakes of
a relatively small number of individuals in a huge way via taxpayer­funded bailouts of major
mortgage and Wall Street institutions. The housing and stock market failure of 2008 had
systemic causes that reach all the way back to 1987, with the appointing of Alan Greenspan to
Federal Reserve Chief. Greenspan brought with him a philosophy known as Objectivism, which
he had acquired through a close relationship with the conservative idealogue Ayn Rand. ​The
conservative ideology built around a foundation of Randian Objectivism thrives in
modern­day America, uninhibited by actual objective analyses of its tenets.​ Although
Objectivism preaches adherence to absolute truth, its followers only pay heed to truth when they
stand to gain from it. Objectivism’s call for unbridled capitalism and relentless pursuit of
self­interest has already had, and will continue to have, a devastating effect on the majority of
Americans.

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While a majority of conservatives may have never heard the term “Objectivism,” they
most certainly are being trained to subscribe to it as a motivating political and social philosophy.
The beginning of Objectivism’s intrusion into politics began in the 1950s, when future Federal
Reserve Chief Alan Greenspan began meeting with noted author Ayn Rand and several other
like­minded individuals. They called themselves the “Collective” and used these meetings as a
sort of think­tank to shape their beliefs and the tenets of Objectivism. According to Matt Taibbi
in his book ​Griftopia ​(2010), “Rand’s belief system is typically broken down into four parts:
metaphysics (objective reality), epistemology (reason), ethics (self­interest), and politics
(capitalism)” (p. 41). He explains that the flaw in Objectivists’ belief in objective reality is that it
frees them from the practice of self­examination; if they believe a certain thing to be true, then
they find no reason to listen to any naysayer who offers opposing evidence. The current
conservative movement, specifically the Tea Party, is ripe with this trend. Taibbi (2010) goes on
to explain how the latter two tenets, self­interest and pure capitalism, comprise the center of
gravity for the GOP: “Randians believe government has absolutely no role in economic affairs;
in particular, government should never use “force” except against such people as criminals and
foreign invaders. This means no taxes and no regulation” (p. 41). The hierarchy of self­interest
over the welfare of society as a whole and its engrainment into conservative ideology is further
illustrated by cognitive scientist George Lakoff (2014), who explains that there exists a “strict
father parental model” that guides conservative ideology. The model teaches that the world, and
the people in it, are dangerous and out for their own self­interest and that there will always be an
absolute right or wrong moral decision. This reinforces the Randian ideal of self­interest because
in a world where everyone else is looking out for themselves, one needs to do the same to

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survive. Lakoff then goes on to explain that the economic link between the strict father parental
model and laissez­faire capitalism is “the morality of self­interest, which is the conservative
version of Adam Smith’s view of capitalism . . . that if everyone pursues their own profit, then
the profit of all will be maximized by the invisible hand. . . Go about pursuing your own profit,
and you are helping everyone” (p. 5). The inherent hypocrisy being that the self­proclaimed
“religious right” is ignoring the “love­thy­neighbor; feed­and­clothe­the­poor” teachings of Jesus
Christ. by focusing on one’s own economic and social self­interest, much less of an emphasis is
placed on helping those who are unable to help themselves. The strict father model and
Objectivism go hand­in­hand, and their results have already proven to be detrimental to our
society.
Negative Externalities
The economic effects of Objectivism and its adherence to unbridled capitalism were felt
worldwide with the crash of 2008. While subsequent years of research have unveiled the
astoundingly selfish actions of Wall Street and companies like AIG and Goldman­Sachs that led
to this collapse, the GOP seems to not have learned its lesson. While the causes of the crash were
systemic, they all fall under the umbrella of deregulation, and the one holding the umbrella was
Alan Greenspan. Matt Taibbi (2010) gives a simplistic summary of Greenspan’s effects on the
American economy:
The financial services industry inflated one speculative bubble after another, and each
time the bubble burst, Greenspan and the Fed swept in to save the day by printing vast
sums of money and dumping it back on Wall Street, in effect encouraging people to
“drink themselves sober,” as Greenspan biographer William Fleckenstein put it. (p. 53)

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By lowering interest rates, Greenspan would take advantage of the poor by using their money to
flood Wall Street in a green tide, rewarding the irresponsible speculators for their failures. This
became known as privatizing winnings and publicizing losses. The burden of bailing out these
high­finance gamblers came to rest on the citizens. The right­wing media took advantage of the
fact that the average citizen had no idea about the mezzanine and equity­level mortgages being
compounded into AAA collateralized debt obligations , which were often invested in by using
collateral from security lendees for a high­risk profit (Taibbi, 2007 p. 85­94, 102­105), or the
massive credit default swaps issued by AIG with virtually no money to back them up (Taibbi,
2007 p. 97­100), so the conservative media (Fox News, WSJ op­eds, etc) spun a narrative of
irresponsible homeowners being the cause of the crash. This false narrative justified the
taxpayer­funded bailout of these “too big to fail” criminals in the minds of many Americans and
made a case against helping out the homeowners who were taken advantage of. This type of
bottom­up wealth redistribution is characteristic of the big­money funders of the Tea Party and
other conservative groups; they preach vehemently against using taxpayer’s money to help the
poor, yet they devour giant sums in the form of government subsidies. Vermont Senator Bernie
Sanders (2014) details that, “General Electric, for example, posted U.S. profits of almost $34
billion from 2008 to 2013, but the Internal Revenue Service ended up sending them checks
totaling $2.9 billion” which makes for an effective tax rate of ­9%. Yet the GOP still runs on a
platform of lower taxation for the upper class.
In 2012, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s tax plan called for more of
these cuts. He was heralded as a savvy businessman who would restore our nation’s economy.
However, researchers Brown, Gale, and Looney at the Brookings Institute (2012) reviewed

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Romney’s tax plan and estimated that the proposed tax cuts would cost $150 billion in just 2015,
and that over a ten­year period would ultimately swell the debt to an alarming 86% of the GDP.
Upper­class tax cuts are proposed in the name of supply­side or “trickle­down” economics, the
theory being that once corporations are freed up from taxation, they will use the money to create
more jobs and more economic prosperity all around. Now, if Objectivists were truly concerned
with knowing the objective truth, they would look at the increasing wealth gap and the erosion of
the middle class and see that trickle­down economics has not been proven to work. Since Ronald
Reagan first popularized the idea, the rich have gotten richer and the poor poorer. Research by
Fuentes­Nieva and Galasso (2014) at Oxfam has found that the world’s 85 richest people now
own at least as much wealth as the entire bottom 50% of the world’s population. If trickle­down
economics worked, the average American would be feeling its effects. But with 1­in­3 American
children living in poverty, one of the highest childhood poverty rates out of any industrialized
country (Ingraham, 2014), America’s economic gains seem to only benefit the top 1%.
On top of the economic consequences, the denial of climate science that is spread through
the conservative think­tanks and media outlets will have damning implications on the world.
Although a resounding 97% of climate scientists agree that anthropological climate change is
real and actions need to be taken (“Global climate change: consensus,” 2010), the conservative
party refuses to believe it for the most part. This refusal to examine what one holds to be true is
once again directly tied to Objectivism. This is how climate change denier Jim Inhofe holds a
seat as the head of the Senate Environmental and Public Works committee, despite his absolute
ignorance of prevalent scientific data. The conservative media’s main outlet, Fox News is
infamous for ignoring science and bringing in shills for oil companies who decry climate science

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as a “liberal hoax”, despite the fact that we continue to have consecutive years of
record­breaking temperatures (Romm, 2015). The ignorance of climate change will prove to
have devastating consequences that will far outweigh and outlast any economic effects of
Objectivism.
Conclusion
Although there are many responsible, caring, and intellectual conservatives in America,
the ones who seem to hold an alliance to Objectivism are not among them. Through continuous
distortion or ignorance of facts, the super­rich who fund the conservative movement are creating
a more dire future for Americans, and the world in general. After the 2008 crash the Dodd­Frank
reform was passed. It was not as sweeping as some would had liked, but it at least made an
attempt to curb the harmful practices of Wall Street. However, in 2014, a Citigroup­written
provision in the Congressional budget allowed for investors to once again gamble on risky
derivatives with FDIC­backed money (Protess, 2014). This once again sets up American
taxpayers to pay for the losses of Wall Street. If looking objectively at where that had gotten us
before, there can be no rationale for taking the lock off of Pandora’s Box once again. The rise of
Objectivism has brought with it the downfall of truth and rationality in politics, instead it has
been replaced by greed, denial, and xenophobia. This country was built by free­thinkers who
knew how to compromise, valued truth above rhetoric, and held progressive ideas for an ideal
society. The dangerous and self­serving philosophy of Objectivism would have had no place
among the Founding Fathers and it poses a threat to the integrity of America.

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References
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