Part 41 (1/2)

. [”What Is Capitalism?” CUI, 18.]

A social system is a code of laws which men observe in order to live together. Such a code must have a basic principle, a starting point, or it cannot be devised. The starting point is the question: Is the power of society limited or unlimited?

Individualism answers: The power of society is limited by the inalienable, individual rights of man. Society may make only such laws as do not violate these rights.

Collectivism answers: The power of society is unlimited. Society may make any laws it wishes, and force them upon anyone in any manner it wishes.

[”Textbook of Americanism,” pamphlet, 3.]

See also CAPITALISM; COLLECTIVISM; GOVERNMENT; IDEOLOGY; INDIVIDUALISM; MORALITY; POLITICS; SOCIETY.

Social Theory of Ethics. The social theory of ethics subst.i.tutes ”society” for G.o.d-and although it claims that its chief concern is life on earth, it is not the life of man, not the life of an individual, but the life of a disembodied ent.i.ty, the collective, which, in relation to every individual, consists of everybody except himself. As far as the individual is concerned, his ethical duty is to be the selfless, voiceless, rightless slave of any need, claim or demand a.s.serted by others. The motto ”dog eat dog”-which is not applicable to capitalism nor to dogs-is applicable to the social theory of ethics. The existential monuments to this theory are n.a.z.i Germany and Soviet Russia.

[”The Objectivist Ethics,” VOS, 33; pb 34.]

The avowed mystics held the arbitrary, unaccountable ”will of G.o.d” as the standard of the good and as the validation of their ethics. The neomystics replaced it with ”the good of society,” thus collapsing into the circularity of a definition such as ”the standard of the good is that which is good for society.” This meant, in logic-and, today, in worldwide practice-that ”society” stands above any principles of ethics, since it is the source, standard and criterion of ethics, since ”the good” is whatever it wills, whatever it happens to a.s.sert as its own welfare and pleasure. This meant that ”society” may do anything it pleases, since ”the good” is whatever it chooses to do because it chooses to do it. And-since there is no such ent.i.ty as ”society,” since society is only a number of individual men-this meant that some men (the majority or any gang that claims to be its spokesman) are ethically ent.i.tled to pursue any whims (or any atrocities) they desire to pursue, while other men are ethically obliged to spend their lives in the service of that gang's desires.

[Ibid., 3; pb 14.]

See also G.o.d; GOOD, the; INDIVIDUALISM; INTRINSIC THEORY of VALUES: MORALITY; MYSTICAL ETHICS; OBJECTIVE THEORY of VALUES; SOCIETY; STANDARD of VALUE; STATISM; VALUES.

Socialism. Socialism is the doctrine that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that his life and his work do not belong to him, but belong to society, that the only justification of his existence is his service to society, and that society may dispose of him in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own tribal, collective good.

[”For the New Intellectual,” FNI, 48; pb 43.]

The essential characteristic of socialism is the denial of individual property rights; under socialism, the right to property (which is the right of use and disposal) is vested in ”society as a whole,” i.e., in the collective, with production and distribution controlled by the state, i.e., by the government.

Socialism may be established by force, as in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics-or by vote, as in n.a.z.i (National Socialist) Germany. The degree of socialization may be total, as in Russia-or partial, as in England. Theoretically, the differences are superficial; practically, they are only a matter of time. The basic principle, in all cases, is the same.

The alleged goals of socialism were: the abolition of poverty, the achievement of general prosperity, progress, peace and human brotherhood. The results have been a terrifying failure-terrifying, that is, if one's motive is men's welfare.

Instead of prosperity, socialism has brought economic paralysis and/ or collapse to every country that tried it. The degree of socialization has been the degree of disaster. The consequences have varied accordingly.

[”The Monument Builders,” VOS, 112; pb 86.]

There is no difference between the principles, policies and practical results of socialism-and those of any historical or prehistorical tyranny. Socialism is merely democratic absolute monarchy-that is, a system of absolutism without a fixed head, open to seizure of power by all comers, by any ruthless climber, opportunist, adventurer, demagogue or thug.

When you consider socialism, do not fool yourself about its nature. Remember that there is no such dichotomy as ”human rights” versus ”property rights.” No human rights can exist without property rights. Since material goods are produced by the mind and effort of individual men, and are needed to sustain their lives, if the producer does not own the result of his effort, he does not own his life. To deny property rights means to turn men into property owned by the state. Whoever claims the ”right” to ”redistribute” the wealth produced by others is claiming the ”right” to treat human beings as chattel.

[Ibid.. 120;pb91.]

When one observes the nightmare of the desperate efforts made by hundreds of thousands of people struggling to escape from the socialized countries of Europe, to escape over barbed-wire fences, under machine-gun fire-one can no longer believe that socialism, in any of its forms, is motivated by benevolence and by the desire to achieve men's welfare.

No man of authentic benevolence could evade or ignore so great a horror on so vast a scale.

Socialism is not a movement of the people. It is a movement of the intellectuals, originated, led and controlled by the intellectuals, carried by them out of their stuffy ivory towers into those b.l.o.o.d.y fields of practice where they unite with their allies and executors: the thugs.

[Ihid.. 115; pb 87.]

The socialists had a certain kind of logic on their side: if the collective sacrifice of all to all is the moral ideal, then they wanted to establish this ideal in practice, here and on this earth. The arguments that socialism would not and could not work, did not stop them: neither has altruism ever worked, but this has not caused men to stop and question it. Only reason can ask such questions-and reason, they were told on all sides, has nothing to do with morality, morality lies outside the realm of reason, no rational morality can ever be defined.

The fallacies and contradictions in the economic theories of socialism were exposed and refuted time and time again, in the Nineteenth Century as well as today. This did not and does not stop anyone: it is not an issue of economics, but of morality. The intellectuals and the so-called idealists were determined to make socialism work. How? By that magic means of all irrationalists: somehow.

[”Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World,” PWNI, 82: pb 68.]

There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism-by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.

[”Foreign Policy Drains U.S. of Main Weapon,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 9. 1962 G2.]

Both ”socialism” and ”fascism” involve the issue of property rights. The right to property is the right of use and disposal. Observe the difference in those two theories: socialism negates private property rights altogether, and advocates ”the vesting of owners.h.i.+P and control” in the community as a whole, i.e., in the state; fascism leaves owners.h.i.+p in the hands of private individuals, but transfers control of the property to the government.

Owners.h.i.+p without control is a contradiction in terms: it means ”property,” without the right to use it or to dispose of it. It means that the citizens retain the responsibility of holding property, without any of its advantages, while the government acquires all the advantages without any of the responsibility.

In this respect, socialism is the more honest of the two theories. I sav ”more honest,” not ”better”-because, in practice, there is no difference between them: both come from the same collectivist-statist principle, both negate individual rights and subordinate the individual to the collective, both deliver the livelihood and the lives of the citizens into the power of an omnipotent government-and the differences between them are only a matter of time, degree, and superficial detail, such as the choice of slogans by which the rulers delude their enslaved subjects.

[”The New Fascism: Rule by Consensus,” CUI, 202.]

The n.a.z.is defended their policies, and the country did not rebel; it accepted the n.a.z.i argument. Selfish individuals may be unhappy, the n.a.z.is said, but what we have established in Germany is the ideal system, socialism. In its n.a.z.i usage this term is not restricted to a theory of economics; it is to be understood in a fundamental sense. ”Socialism” for the n.a.z.is denotes the principle of collectivism as such and its corollary, statism-in every field of human action, including but not limited to economics.

”To be a socialist,” says Goebbels, ”is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the whole.”

By this definition, the n.a.z.is practiced what they preached. They practiced it at home and then abroad. No one can claim that they did not sacrifice enough individuals.

[Leonard Peikoff, OP, 10; pb 19.]

See also ALTRUISM; CAPITALISM; COLLECTIVISM; DICTATORs.h.i.+P; ECONOMIC POWER vs. POLITICAL POWER; EGALITARIANISM; FASCISM and COMMUNISM/SOCIALISM; GUILD SOCIALISM; HUMAN RIGHTS and PROPERTY RIGHTS; INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS; ”LIBERALS”; NEW LEFT; POVERTY; PROPERTY RIGHTS; ”PUBLIC PROPERTY”; ”REDISTRIBUTION” of WEALTH; SOCIETY; SOVIET RUSSIA; STATISM; TRIBALISM; TYRANNY.

Society. Society is a large number of men who live together in the same country, and who deal with one another.

[”Textbook of Americanism,” pamphlet, 9.]

Modern collectivists ... see society as a super-organism, as some supernatural ent.i.ty apart from and superior to the sum of its individual members.

[”Collectivized 'Rights,' ” VOS, 138; pb 103.]

A great deal may be learned about society by studying man; but this process cannot be reversed: nothing can be learned about man by studying society-by studying the inter-relations.h.i.+ps of ent.i.ties one has never identified or defined.

[”What Is Capitalism?” CUI, 15.]

See also COLLECTIVISM; INDIVIDUALISM.

Soul-Body Dichotomy. They have cut man in two, setting one half against the other. They have taught him that his body and his consciousness are two enemies engaged in deadly conflict, two antagonists of opposite natures, contradictory claims, incompatible needs, that to benefit one is to injure the other, that his soul belongs to a supernatural realm, but his body is an evil prison holding it in bondage to this earth-and that the good is to defeat his body, to undermine it by years of patient struggle, digging his way to that glorious jail-break which leads into the freedom of the grave.

They have taught man that he is a hopeless misfit made of two elements, both symbols of death. A body without a soul is a corpse, a soul without a body is a ghost-yet such is their image of man's nature: the battleground of a struggle between a corpse and a ghost, a corpse endowed with some evil volition of its own and a ghost endowed with the knowledge that everything known to man is non-existent, that only the unknowable exists.

Do you observe what human faculty that doctrine was designed to ignore? It was man's mind that had to be negated in order to make him fall apart. Once he surrendered reason, he was left at the mercy of two monsters whom he could not fathom or control: of a body moved by unaccountable instincts and of a soul moved by mystic revelations-he was left as the pa.s.sively ravaged victim of a battle between a robot and a dictaphone.

[GS, FNI, 170; pb 138.]

You are an indivisible ent.i.ty of matter and consciousness. Renounce your consciousness and you become a brute. Renounce your body and you become a fake. Renounce the material world and you surrender it to evil.