Narcissism, Capitalism and Crime: how Libertarians create anti-social behaviour

A few years ago, this author wrote an article looking at the rise of (clinical) narcissism over the last thirty years or so, and the concurrent development in the rise of consumerist culture in the world. Last year, the author wrote a piece on how crime developed in human society over time, looking at the effect that changes in industrialisation and modern Capitalist society have had on how humans interact (and become more anti-social).

About five years ago was when the author first looked at how changes in modern society have made people more individualistic and narcissistic; linked to this is anti-social behaviour and, at the extreme end, psychopathy.
In this article, I want to try and bring some of these threads closer together.

Any criminologist knows that the majority of crime is carried out by those who are uneducated, from unstable backgrounds, and are impoverished. This is just a fact. Gang members, for example, exist as a coherent social unit as an indirect result of the lack of cohesive community and family identity. From a social point of view, "gang culture" exists due to a failure elsewhere. The recent spike in violent crime in Britain, and in London in particular, is a sign of that failure.
Socially-conservative voices will talk of the failure of the family unit in creating the moral vacuum that allows gang culture to flourish; but at the same time, these voices will talk of a collapse in "individual responsibility", while promoting a social view that emphasizes individualism. But these voices are trying to have it both ways. If the family unit is to be promoted then this is, by definition, against the individualism they also want to promote. From a social point of view, you can either be pro-family (and pro-community), or pro-individual. Logically, you can't be both - pro-social on one hand, but anti-social on the other.

This hypocrisy is typical of the right-wing since the rise of Libertarian values with Reagan in the USA and Thatcher in the UK, both ideological disciples of Ayn Rand. This ideology took control of conservative politics in the Anglo-sphere around forty years ago, and has been able to maintain the loyalty of more traditional "pro-social" conservatives due to a kind of "devil's bargain": Libertarians would make all conservatives rich, while peddling a fiction that the lower classes could also get rich quick in a deregulated market economy.
The reality of their ideology was that it massively widens inequalities (the statistics support this), creating a "dog eat dog" society which makes it more and more difficult for those on lower incomes to manage. In short, the poorest ten per cent are now poorer in real terms than they were forty years ago, while the top ten per cent are massively richer. And yet, the peddled fiction of more wealth for all is maintained because GDP has increased.

What this means for the poorest in social terms is that the community and family bonds are stretched to breaking point. The Libertarian outlook on society is one where society is atomized.
At the family "micro" level, the kind of insecurity created by a deregulated market leads to insecure working conditions. This leads to numerous side effects on the family such as deprivation, families being encouraged to drift apart through the need to look further afield for work opportunities, which thus increases family breakdown (see: adoption, and its often under-examined social impact). Other related factors are the insecurity and deprivation creating relationship and marriage break-up (with the obvious negative psychological consequences on any children), with the more general human knock-on effects of insecurity such as abuse of alcohol and drugs, psychological and physical violence in the home etc. etc. which are all heightened when all these factors are grouped together in the lowest segments of society.
At the community "macro" level, the need for workers to work further afield, and in more unstable working conditions, leads to a breakdown in community cohesion. Neighbours no longer see each other regularly; it becomes more difficult for a sense of social community to develop; small animosities develop between neighbours of different circumstances, and so on. In this environment, crime and "gang culture" become more difficult to combat, as crime becomes an expression of selfish, anti-social narcissism, and "gang culture" becomes the replacement of community and family for those anti-social misfits that have lost their connection to society. They commit crime because they no longer give a damn about anyone else, except perhaps their gang, if they are in one.
Looking through these two perspectives - micro and macro - it is easy to see how society becomes atomized, how the bonds that hold society together fall apart, and how Libertarian values engender anti-social behaviour. When the social bonds that hold people together are broken down, the result is crime.

The England riots of 2011 were an example of selfish anti-social behaviour out of control. The Conservative government's instinctive reply to blame it on them as individuals, which was as predictable as it was depressing. While there was some blame passed on to the parents of those involved (which itself was not exactly helpful), there was no serious attempt to look at the underlying causes, and to think about why England, and why not elsewhere, such as in other European countries? What marks England different from other countries of similar levels of development, for example, are the levels of much higher inequality, itself a result of the Libertarian ideology that had been at the heart of government since Thatcher.
Also in the UK, the Conservative government's policy of "austerity" is part of the wider Libertarian agenda. The soaring levels of violent crime, homelessness and mental health issues can all be pinned - either directly or indirectly - on the government's policy of "austerity", which has seen police and prisons funding slashed and local government funding (which is responsible for community and social care issues) cut drastically. When these agencies no longer have the funds available to police or care for society as they once did, the result isn't hard to predict.
The simultaneous "reforms" being carried out to welfare provision (i.e. to reduce spending) have the same effect on a "micro" and "macro" level. More families are destitute, child poverty has more than doubled thanks to "austerity", while the effects on mental health are similarly predictable. The family unit becomes more and more strained, with the effects on the wider community that have already been mentioned. Crime, again, is the predictable result, one way or the other.

Libertarian ideology is bad for society's health because it is fundamentally "anti-social" in its perspective.

"No Deal" Brexit, "emergency powers" and blaming the EU: Britain's "Reichstag Fire" moment?

With the negotiations with the EU heading in ever more certainty towards a "no deal" situation, talk is now how Britain would be governed after leaving the EU in this event. All the evidence points towards an unprecedented situation where legal barriers would automatically be raised to Britain after its government deciding to leave the single market and customs union. Britain would be an island of itself, in a very literal sense, in large part cut off from the legal connections to its neighbours.

What this would mean in practical terms has been discussed in great detail elsewhere (see eureferendum.com for example). The day-to-day running of the country's industry and services would be hugely affected, akin to a time of war. 

The fact that Theresa May assembled what has been termed a "war cabinet" tells us a lot about the mentality of those in government; to instinctively see the EU as an adversary now that we're leaving. And the government's behaviour during the negotiations has been nothing less than mendacious; from recently going back on previous commitments agreed last December (like over Northern Ireland, and now even threatening to go back on its previous commitment over the "divorce bill"), to now demanding that the EU show more "flexibility" when it has been the UK with its "red lines" that has been the one causing all the hold-ups. What should also not be forgotten is that the December agreement was put in place to avoid a collapse of talks completely at such an early stage; the EU was compromising where possible in order to prevent the potential unseating of May in London. And now, six months on, they realise that she is an untrustworthy figure, who goes back on agreements when it suits her. What does that say about Britain's status as a reliable power?

 From the start, the EU was clear and transparent about what was and wasn't possible through the negotiations and as a potential end-state between the two sides, given the legal consequences (and impossibility of the UK's "magical thinking"). By contrast, the UK government's strategy has been opaque and involved obfuscation at every turn in order to mask the chaos behind the scenes at home.

And now, the chaos of a potential "no deal" outcome is, as predicted, being blamed on the EU. In the UK, the only side that is promoting the feasibility (or even desirability) of "no deal" are the "Brextremists"; the hard-right Libertarians that make up perhaps 20% of the parliamentary Conservative Party.

It's telling that British politics is being guided by a faction of one party; a faction whose views represent not much more than perhaps 10% of the entire electorate, if that. The "Brexit Agenda" has long been a Libertarian project, dismissed for years as the wild fantasy of a bunch of cranks. The Maastricht Treaty was the moment that brought that to the surface, with then-Prime Minister John Major calling them the "bastards".

Major's view, looked at in the current situation, can only be even more true today. As their views were only ever really held by a small faction of their party, and even less well-represented in the electorate, where could their mandate come from? It was the work of UKIP, who were always a Libertarian party at heart - in spite of purposely-misleading talk otherwise - that allowed the "Brexit Agenda" real oxygen in the public sphere. A combination of the financial crisis, exploited worries of immigration, and a peculiar political situation after 2010 that made UKIP seem like an unofficial "opposition", gave that party the space to promote their agenda, with the charisma of Nigel Farage helping the project along. It was David Cameron's combination of insecurity and arrogance that was the final factor in the EU referendum taking place.

Extremist views, such as those held by the Libertarian faction guiding "no deal" Brexit, could only ever come to dominate the political sphere in unusual times. What we are seeing in Britain is, under the circumstances, little better than a quiet "coup" by a group of political extremists. Using "legitimate" means by usurping parliament and blackmailing the government, they are the ones in charge. Any voices of dissent at their actions are dismissed as against the "will of the people", as these Libertarians choose to dictate how Britain should be transformed into a Libertarian "utopia" after leaving the EU. By holding key government ministries, and holding influential positions outside government as "independent advisers", Libertarians maintain their grip on power over a paralyzed government. Thus they ensure that there is no way to reverse their agenda.

Meanwhile, they also ensure that any government attempts at negotiation with the EU are sabotaged from their own side, by submitting proposals to the EU that are bound to be rejected. This is then followed up by them blaming the EU for the lack of progress in the talks, claiming that the EU are untrustworthy, intransigent, and had an agenda designed to "punish" Britain into leaving without a deal.

"Emergency Powers"

It is at this point that we can see how any chaos in Britain after Brexit next year will be blamed on the EU. And, given a compliant (and supportive) media, many in Britain would accept it. 

Using a dark historical parallel, this could be Britain's "Reichstag Fire" moment - when a calamity instigated by one side is blamed on the other, in order to create a specific controlled narrative. While the EU would in that situation be accused of "stabbing Britain in the back" for its behaviour, those Brits still be in favour of rejoining the EU might well be branded "traitors" for siding with a foreign power. Foreigners themselves in Britain during this chaotic time might well (justifiably) fear for their safety. In the meantime, given the potential for widespread disruption to infrastructure and so on in the case of "no deal", the government might well be forced to use "emergency powers" to keep the country running, as in a time of war. Being effectively cut off from much of the rest of the world (even if for only a short while) would make this even easier to implement. Such self-imposed isolation would then allow those in power to take control of the narrative even more completely.

This is the kind of "creative destruction" that Libertarians talk about, where they hope to make a killing on the carcass of Britain's anarchic economy as vulture capitalists. In times of chaos, people look to order and authority, and are willing to suspend their usual common values like democracy and free speech. While Libertarians might look to make a mint in the meantime, deals could well be sought with more unscrupulous far-right authoritarians to create a kind of cultural "revivalism" to bring the nation together, where long-repressed ideas of power and identity are re-invented, at the expense of the "other", and at the expense of diversity.

Such talk has already been seen in Britain and America, with the rise of the unashamed bigotry of the far-right. In a "No Deal" Brexit, Britain could quickly descend; first into chaos, and afterwards, into a kind of "dark alliance" between opportunistic Libertarian vulture capitalists and the neo-Fascism of the alt-right. 

It could happen.

Are "Brexiteers" the real "enemies of the people"? Libertarians, the role of media barons and interest groups

If you feel that Britain has perceptively changed since the referendum, you might not be alone. There is plenty of evidence that the "change" is deliberate.

What does it mean to be "British"? This is one of the cultural questions that the referendum campaign inevitably raised. Also inevitably, your answer depends very much on your background and worldview.
According to research, the thing that Britons are most proud of is the NHS. What's telling about this is that, compared to other values and older institutions (e.g. the monarchy), this is a relatively recent addition to British life; even though it is clearly taken as an integral part of British life, the NHS was only created thanks to a "socialist" government after the Second World War.
What this also tells us, and what the EU referendum told us, is that there are two distinct forms of British identity: one might be called the "communitarian" world-view (i.e. seeing the world as a community), and the other the "individualistic", which sees it through the lens of individual actions and individual moral responsibility. This mirrors the "open" and "closed" views reflected in the "remain" versus "leave" camps, also referred to as the "Anywhere" versus "Somewhere" culture wars.

In understanding where people's value for the NHS comes from, it's also important to remember that "charity" was something almost unheard of until Victorian times. In fact, it was government "moral aversion" to help the starving that led to the Irish Potato Famine; the government didn't want to encourage the idea of "something for nothing", and was largely indifferent to the fate of the starving millions across the Irish Sea. This government culture of indifference to the suffering it has created (and a scepticism towards "need" in general) is one that the current Conservative government has restored in all its inhumane glory, when you look at the wider effects of austerity and the "hostile environment".
Thus, the idea of good-natured "British values" is not something that was innate, but was created over time, relatively recently. Before the Victorian sea-change in the moral attitude towards charity, those in need were left to fend for themselves in a "sink or swim" society that Ayn Rand and her Libertarian fans in the current UK government would recognise. This is, in large part, the society that still exists in the modern-day USA, in spite of their high levels of taxation (which do not pay towards people's health and well-being!). The modern idea of British values of compassion towards the worse-off and vulnerable in society is exactly that: a modern construct, largely non-existent before the 20th century, and only made large progress forward thanks to the "socialist" Attlee government after the Second World War. The Conservative Party's embrace of those same postwar values was what allowed them to return to government.

It was only the complex challenges of the 1970s that allowed the Libertarians like Margaret Thatcher a chance to get into power. This enabled them to gradually reverse many of the "socialist" strategies that had been used up till that point since the war. The author has explained elsewhere how this small group of ideological extremists were able to take control of the Conservative Party, taking it in a direction that many of the traditionalists were initially highly-uncomfortable with. In short, it was about turning Britain, step-by-step, into a small-scale clone of the USA, parked next to the European continent. 
This is where we see how Libertarians are, in many ways, trying to turn Britain into a foreign country. The progress that had been made in making Britain more egalitarian, more compassionate towards the needy and vulnerable, was quickly undone by Thatcher and her successors (even, to an extent, during the Labour years in office). While the Labour government did make some modest progress in reversing some of Thatcher's inequality, it followed other areas of her economic strategy almost without a second thought, leaving some parts of the country with chronic levels of deprivation, while London grew ever wealthier.
The financial crisis was a direct product of that short-sighted economic strategy, with a new generation of Libertarians, thirty years on from Thatcher, reaping the electoral benefits of Labour's misguided desire to ingratiate themselves with "The City". The austerity strategy was the Conservatives new method to strip back the role of government in people's lives, to a form of "small government" that even Thatcher was too wary to attempt.


Manipulating reality

Throughout this period - the thirty-year era from Thatcher's rise to power to the effects of the financial crisis - the print media played an integral role. Newspapers like the Sun, Daily Mail and Express account for the bulk of Britain's readership, and they claim to "speak for Britain". The reality is, not surprisingly, very different. There is plentiful evidence that they speak to Britain, and are able to manipulate their readers' perception of reality. This will explained about more a little later.

There was a time when the Sun was a Labour-supporting newspaper, but by the time the Libertarian Margaret Thatcher had succeeded Ted Heath as Conservative Party leader, that was no longer really true. Newspaper editors could see ways that they could get rich from a Thatcher government, and so did their best to create an impression of a country that was falling apart under Labour. At times this wasn't difficult, given the challenges that government all across the world were facing then. Her intent to radically reduce the influence of the unions was manna from heaven as far as they were concerned as, from their own point of view, it meant newspapers could then more easily lay off staff and reduce their overheads. Meanwhile, loosening other regulations meant they could more easily expand their profits and buy out smaller competitors.
When Thatcher did get into office, this also meant that inconvenient truths could be ignored. In her first few years in office, unemployment tripled to levels far higher than they had ever been under the previous Labour government. However, it was more common to see stories about crime, race riots and union unrest in the news; these stories fit into a "moral narrative" that fit the agenda. Rather than rising crime and unrest being down to social and economic factors brought on by government policy (i.e. the millions of unemployed), it was explained (and implied) that it was down to individual choices. Whereas before Thatcher crime and unrest was the result of the Labour government's weaknesses, under the the Thatcher government crime and unrest was now the result of weaknesses in society that were being manipulated by immoral individuals.

This common theme ties back to what was said about individualism and British values. Media barons were more equating British values with "individual responsibility" than compassion for the worse-off. This also explains how news stories can easily manipulate their readers' perceptions of reality.
If a newspaper editor decides that the paper needs a "campaign" on an issue, the newspaper then becomes disproportionately saturated with stories related to the campaign. Usually, this is over some form of "moral panic". Thus the newspaper creates an artificial environment for the reader where they think that this issue has become one of national importance, rather than (in reality) an agenda of the editor.
By the 1980s, stories in the three newspapers mentioned that related to the then EEC projected almost universal negativity towards Brussels, and this has remained unchanged ever since. Thus the reader got the consistent impression that Brussels is bad, for one reason or another. Again, this links back to the editors' Libertarian "agenda": they are against any form of regulation that impinges on their lives, and as the EU (the EEC's successor) wanted to increase regulation, they were against Brussels.
Meanwhile, the Libertarian agenda saw London (the home of Fleet Street) boom. After the financial crisis, the austerity agenda resulted in a reduction in state spending unprecedented in modern Britain. As the editors had done with the difficult early years of Thatcher, they did the same with Cameron. They instead attacked the Labour Party's record, while making stories like the 2010 student protests, the 2011 riots and the crippling social effects of government policy all a matter of the failings of individual moral responsibility. The plethora of stories about benefit "scroungers", disability fraud and so on are all supplied to provide moral ammunition for the government's austerity agenda and the destruction of Britain's social cohesion.
Thus "British values" had become further skewed towards the "individual" and away from the wider community. When it came to immigration, the agenda set by the editors was to entrench the fear that economic migrants were taking other people's jobs and destroying Britain's sense of identity, regardless of the reality. In this way, while the reader was informed that their "community" was being eradicated, they were also being instigated into animosity towards other ("foreign") parts of their community. Thus communities were being culturally divided by the anti-immigration agenda; society was becoming further and further atomized, split between socially-open and socially-closed communities.

All these themes had a part to play in the "Brexit Agenda". Like the Thatcherites in the Conservative government and the Thatcherite media barons, these are people who are Libertarians at heart. They do not really believe in community or society, but in individual actions. They do not truly believe in "charity" in the traditional sense, and are callous towards the suffering of others. As their ideal is to convert Britain into a state like Singapore, can they even truly be said to be "British", from a cultural or social point of view? Are they, in fact, the real "enemies of the people"?
Along with the special interest groups like Legatum, the IEA, and the ERG group in parliament itself, we see an agenda that has very little of "British values" in the modern understanding of the term. The agenda is about socially turning back the clock well over a hundred years, to a time when Britain had few regulations, little in the way of a safety net, and far fewer human rights. The only countries in the modern world that are comparable with this state of affairs are third world countries or corrupt dictatorships.

Brexit, Ayn Rand and democracy: is emigration the most rational solution for Remainers?

On Brexit, we're often reminded that this is the "will of the people". But we're as easily reminded that Brexit is also the "will of old people". Given that half the electorate's wishes are being actively ignored by the government, and with the support of the media are characterized as people who should "get over it", what can the "48%" do?

If their voices are being ignored by the government, one simple suggestion might be take the government's implied instruction to take advantage of Britain's unique place the world, and leave the country completely. If the government simply ignores half of the electorate, and the opinions of those under fifty, what moral authority does the government over them?


"Non-Contradiction"

Democracy has been called by Marxists as "the dictatorship of the majority". But this is a false understanding of the term, because in a properly-functioning democracy the government is meant to represent and reflect the views of all the electorate, not just its own supporters. It's only if a government only listens to its own side when it becomes a system of majoritarianism, also known as "elective dictatorship". Sadly, this is the system that is too often the reality in the adversarial parliamentary system in Westminster.
The "First Past The Post" system has tended to create a system where governing parties simply take turns doing what they want, so that at each election when there is a change in government there is a chaotic "changing of the guard" that results in successive governments forever changing how social policy and national institutions are run. This explains how, for example, education in the UK is such a structural mess. The same is true for many aspects of government institutions. In this way, short-term thinking and an instinctive desire by new governments to change things for the sake of it have caused institutional chaos, with the civil service struggling to pick up the pieces.

Brexit and Theresa May's interpretation of it as a "divine cause" has meant the same culture of majoritarianism being applied in the most dogmatic and divisive way. As her instincts are toward a more authoritarian and hierarchical style of government, it has followed that those who are against this are against the "will of the people".
In a situation where half the electorate's opinions are ignored, what happens to their "will"? Have they lost the right to have a "will"? Free speech is an integral part of a properly-functioning democracy. Some in the Brexit-supporting media and in politics seem to suggest that the free speech of half of the electorate should be muzzled or at least questioned as "unpatriotic" if half of the electorate are opposed to what the other half are doing. These Brexit zealots argue that the opposing half should simply be quiet and let the country get on with it. In this sense, they want the other half of the country to pay taxes but otherwise not exist.

This is not how democracy is meant to work. Yes, there is a democratic process where all involved respect the process and institutions of government. But respecting the process doesn't mean being quiet. I'm reminded that when Theresa May made a speech that pitched why she called for the snap election, one of the reasons was that the opposition were daring to oppose the government on Brexit; in other words, she wanted a new election because parliament was acting as a parliament instead of just a rubber stamp! It should not be forgotten that many dictatorships in the world also have parliaments and elections, and some even have a legitimate opposition; the difference between those regimes and proper democracies is that in a dictatorship free speech is curtailed by the government and media and an opposition is only allowed to exist for cosmetic purposes. Is this the kind of regime that some Brexiteers would prefer?


"Either-Or"

In the current political environment in Britain, when the government is choosing to ignore the will of the 48%, one option open to them is emigration. As often said, the British passport is (or was, until recently) perhaps the most valuable passport to have in the world. As "Remainers" are often well-traveled, educated and open-minded, why should they not take heed of Theresa May's derision of calling them "citizens of nowhere" and become citizens of the world, using their passport to make a success of their lives outside of a Britain that no longer cares for them?
With the self-destructive direction that the government seems to be taking Brexit, European migrants are already ahead of the curve on this, with new arrivals declining to a trickle, and a steady stream of those already here returning home. In this way, economic self-interest serves as the best motivation over emotional ties. Likewise, Japan's recent warning to Theresa May that Brexit could easily lead to their businesses simply pulling out completely is another reminder of the economic consequences; those that see no future will leave the country. "Remainers" might be wise to follow the same track of economic self-interest, using their skills and experience to migrate to countries where they are in more demand and will get greater respect, a better salary and better quality of life.

There is a delicious irony in this "solution". Those that voted to leave the EU tended to be either the entitled, looked-after middle classes of the shires, or the uneducated, unskilled segment of the population who only saw "abroad" as the place to get a sun tan and get drunk. Their motivations to leave the EU were emotional, not rational. As Britain's government seems to be ran by the same combination of incompetence, ignorance and entitlement, then is it not a fate that the people who voted for them deserve? The "leavers" voted for Brexit for emotional reasons, some of them so impassioned of their hatred for the EU that they would seemingly happily live in a Britain that was impoverished as long as they had their "freedom". Boris Johnson's recent speech reminded us that those that voted to leave the EU did so because many of them simply didn't understand how it worked. This is an tacit admission that Brexit is guided on the emotions of ignorance.
It is not for "Remainers" to feel any obligation to try to live and work in a country with a government that treats them with such contempt, ran by ignorant incompetents and charlatans. Any appeals by the government for "Remainers" to stay in the country to make Brexit work - when the government seems to be doing all it can to ensure it doesn't work - are nothing more than emotional blackmail; appeals to blind patriotism from a government on a self-destructive mission. If the "leavers" want to run Brexit Britain into the ground as an economic basket base, why should others who didn't choose this fate be obliged to assist them? They have their passports; why not make full use of them?


"A Is A"

One last irony to mention is how this emigration "solution" bears some parallels to the plot of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged". The "Brexit Agenda" is at its heart a libertarian project, and many of its advocates are well-versed in Rand's thinking and her literature. In "Atlas Shrugged", the country's "great and good" began disappearing from public life against the onset of an increasingly-pervasive Socialist government. After disappearing into voluntary exile, the country quickly began to fall apart as its institutions and businesses became ran by incompetents and boneheaded ideologues. The "great and the good" would only return when they could transform the country into a "libertarian utopia".
This is the delusional vision that many "Brexiteers" have, except that in our reality it is they who are the incompetent and boneheaded ideologues, and it is the "Remainers" who are being implicitly pushed into emigrant "exile".
If a significant proportion of the native population did emigrate (for the sake of argument, let's say ten per cent), this could make Brexit and its after effects economically-comparable with Russia in 1990s. The other irony is that, as all predictions are that Brexit will have significant negative effects on Britain's economy, "Remainers" are the best equipped people to "ride out the storm", especially if many of them did emigrate, at least for a while. Then, when things did eventually get better - one way or the other - they would be well-placed to return to Britain to bring their skills and experience to "make Britain great again". By that point, maybe the government would have even restored its respect for "citizens of nowhere".
And at this point, the poetic parallel with the plot of "Atlas Shrugged" would have come full circle. The "Remainers" would return to rescue Britain once the deluded, incompetent Brexiteers had finally shown their true anarchic colours for the rest of the world to see. The Britain that followed from this traumatic set of events would hopefully be one radically more progressive and innately "European", after seeing what nightmare Britain became if left to be ruled by a reactionary, parochial elite. In this way, from a "Remainer" point of view, the only positive to "Hard Brexit" might, might, be that the resulting economic meltdown would utterly discredit all the rhetoric of the Brexiteers, and Britain would embrace a strong European partnership as the only feasible option the country has for its future.
This might all be as much a pipedream as the vision that the "Brexiteers" have of Britain thriving as never before outside the EU, but for "Remainers", it's the only way to see any potential positive out of "Hard Brexit".

One wonders if this isn't precisely the kind of thinking that is going on in the mind of Jeremy Corbyn; keeping his powder dry, biding his time and waiting for the Tories to destroy themselves (but also, alas, half of the country with it). In the minds of some Momentum activists, it's easy to imagine them waiting for the rapture of "JC" to follow from the "end of days" rule of the "satanic" Brexiteers. "St Jeremy" Corbyn's strategy - a monastic Brexit vow of silence - is certainly morally questionable, as is his presumed strategy of biding his time. But, given the grim political situation which provides a lack of other real options, what else is there?

Ayn Rand versus Julius Evola: The troubling overlap of Libertarians and Fascism

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post talking about the influence of Julius Evola on Fascist thought, and his influence on contemporary culture, especially in the lens of the political situation in the UK and the USA.
Sometimes politics brings together strange bedfellows, which is usually due to an unusual or turbulent set of circumstances. In the 20th century, for example, the unlikely (and short-lived) alliance of the Bolsheviks and the Liberals brought down the Tsar's regime in Russia in early 1917, with the Bolsheviks as the ultimate victors through their own "revolution" (more like a coup) in October the same year. By 1932, Germany was in the middle of a political upheaval that saw the Communists and the Nazis in a kind of joint campaign of chaos and terror against the political mainstream in the middle of an economic meltdown, which saw the Nazis as the victors.
The "postwar consensus" that was established following the turbulence of the Second World War lasted for around thirty years, until a combination of economic factors like "stagflation" brought an opportunity for right-wing economic extremists to take control of the situation.


"Strange bedfellows": Libertarians and Conservatives?

The "economic extremists" were Libertarians, whose ideas of a shrunk-back state and a "pure" form of Capitalism with unfettered market forces had been widely espoused by their icon, Ayn Rand.
In Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, these ideas were being promoted in the UK and USA respectively by two enthusiastic leaders, with the aim of first winning over their own (Conservative and Republican) parties, and then the country.
The ideas of the Libertarians were not popular initially within their own party, as some of their philosophical ideas seemed directly counter to those of traditional conservatives. Firstly, the "postwar consensus" was still considered an established fact not to be challenged, both with the Heath government in the UK and the contemporary Nixon administration in Washington. It was only the discrediting of both these administrations under different circumstances that gave "outsiders" like Thatcher and Reagan a chance of a hearing. By the mid-70s, Thatcher was leader of her party and Reagan was the "poster boy" of the conservative right. Both would soon be leaders of their country, and "de facto" leaders of the Libertarian movement.
Libertarian thought, as espoused by Ayn Rand, is fundamentally against traditional conservative tenets that emphasize the importance of faith, family and country. Rand's sense of Libertarianism is atheistic, materialistic, and individualistic: it sees the world through the eyes of the free-spirited entrepreneur, detached from the fuzzy, old-fashioned values of orthodoxy. Traditional Conservatism is about community, culture and social hierarchy; ideas that would be anathema to an ideological Libertarian. So how did these two sides reach an understanding?
Apart from the changing dynamics of the economy being on the side of the Libertarian narrative, as mentioned above, the "strange bedfellows" of the Libertarian and the Conservative found out that they did have a few things in common, and enough for an understanding of a common goal.

At its core, one of the central tenets of Libertarian thought is that while the state should do as little as possible, it must provide law and order and security. What this means in practice is that it is the defender of property rights, free choice and the rights of people to earn their own money. In other words, the state is in reality the instrument of the wealthy, as the defender of the rights of the status quo. By definition, it will do nothing to change circumstances to benefit those who are doing badly under the current system, as this would, in its eyes, undermine the impartiality of the legal system.
While Libertarian thought is ideologically meritocratic, in practice their absolute adherence to respecting the rights of the status quo mean that they are really defenders of the social hierarchy; the same social hierarchy supported by traditional conservatism. In theory, traditional conservatism is about creating a culture that unfairly protects its interests through a patriarchal system, while Libertarianism is about getting rid of such artificial constructs that prevent a level playing field. In practice, their absolute adherence to the respect of property rights and free choice means that even under any meaningful changes to the system (say, for instance, the abolition of beneficial subsidies), those at the top of the hierarchy would be guaranteed an in-built advantage.

One example would suffice. The existence of private schools gives an in-built advantage to the richest in society to get the highest quality education for their children. While I'm not here to argue exactly one way or the other (although the author has made his view clear before), it's clear that this could never be called a "level playing field" in children's education. On this subject, Ayn Rand was always consistent in being in favour of the right to private schooling as being a) a matter of parental choice, and b) that private education is no guarantee of a child's intelligence or success, so is therefore "fair".
It is easy to point out that while this may be, technically, true, in practice having a private education gives even the most dim-witted child an in-built advantage over any more intelligent, but impoverished, peer. In short, being born into a wealthy family is like playing a computer game called life in the "easy" setting.

As Libertarians are the strongest advocates of not wanting to tell people how to live their lives or what people should do with their money, this allows traditional conservatives a lot of slack, at least on the second point (if not the first).
Social policy is one area of contention between Libertarians and traditionalists (as any momentary look at how David Cameron's ideas on social policy compare to Theresa May's will tell you). But this is a minor issue when looking at the overlap that they share on their mutual economic interests: they both want to get rich and stay rich. And Libertarians showed the traditionally Conservative establishment how it could get even richer.


A marriage of convenience

For the last thirty-five years, Libertarian ideology on both sides of the pond has created a boon for the richest in society, while on the other hand (especially since the financial crisis) created a period of unprecedented uncertainty and hardship for those at the wrong end. The marriage of interests between (Libertarian-supporting) big business and the (traditionally conservative) establishment was thus based on a trade-off: the Libertarian right made the establishment even richer and more empowered, while the establishment turned a blind eye to liberalizing some areas of social and economic policy.
Issues like gay marriage and the relaxing of drug laws caused traditionalists to make a fuss, but these are cosmetic changes that simply reflect social reality. Meanwhile, the state's real changes to society - such as how the establishment now has unparalleled access to an individual's privacy -go unchecked. This may be another part of "marriage of convenience". Traditionalists turn a blind eye to social policy, but gain powers over other issues like state surveillance; Libertarians gain on social policy, but "lose" on issues like state surveillance. Then again, both traditionalists and Libertarians can also see the longer-term benefit to both these policies to their shared agenda: relaxing social policy feeds the illusion that government has become more "liberal", which masks the fact that it has become much more intrusive in other ways. Meanwhile, the gap between the richest and the poorest grows to their mutual advantage.

In this sense, "Conservatism" has always been a tent of varying interests and (sometimes conflicting) ideas. The Libertarians of today share more in common ideologically with the Whigs of yesteryear in the UK and the USA. The politics of Donald Trump and Steve Bannon seem unlikely bedfellows to people like the TEA Party and Evangelical Christians, but their differences seem to have been (temporarily) overcome in the pursuit of power and mutual self-interest. Across in the UK, the same is true with the most zealous supporters of "Hard Brexit": many of them are ardent Libertarians, while others follow an agenda that seems to pursue an nostalgic form of neo-colonialism and nativism. Like the conflict between Bolsheviks and Liberals in 1917 Russia, or the Nazis and the Communists in 1932 Germany, they all see opportunities in the chaos.

While having very separate visions of their own, Fascists and Libertarians are extremists that thrive on seeing opportunism in social collapse. As said earlier, Libertarianism only found a receptive audience in the mainstream right in the 1970s due to specific economic factors; prior to then, it was the obsession of fringe movements and think tanks. And now, in the economic malaise that has struck segments of society since the financial crisis, we have seen Brexit in the UK and Donald Trump in the USA marrying elements of both Libertarian and Fascist thought into an idiosyncratic melange.
Like with traditional conservatism and Libertarianism, the natural links between the latter and Fascism seem tenuous. More seems to contradict them that unite them. But the same could have been said of traditional conservatives in the 1920s in Italy, and those in the 1930s in Germany: they both united behind Fascists due to their mutual self-interest.
Looking at the Fascist thinking of Julius Evola in particular (especially as he has allegedly been a subject of fascination to Steve Bannon), in spite of their many differences, there are still a number shared aspects of thought between the Libertarianism of Ayn Rand and the Fascism of Julius Evola. These include:

• A hierarchical, Social Darwinian, view of society. Julius Evola's Fascism was one that human society progressed through the strong over the weak, where the poor were seen as the lowest "caste" of society. In this light, democracy was the immoral antithesis to this "natural" order of things, as it gave power to the weak (i.e. the uneducated masses) over the strong (the educated elite). Libertarians are likewise "social Darwinists" at heart, and oppose altruism and government involvement in society; they believe that humans can only progress through self-advancement, and that the poor are therefore to blame for their own circumstances. Rand seemed to have a similarly skeptical - even hostile - view of modern "social democracies", seeing them as being a vehicle of altruistic indulgence, and thus against the rights of the individual and morality of society as a whole. While Rand was a critic of dictatorship as a rule, it is also implied in Libertarian thought that if government exists only to defend the property rights of the rich against the poor, it is also in favour of the elite against the masses. Thus, by definition, Rand was an elitist like Evola, albeit in a different manner. The manner of the method they were advocating may have been different, but the result is essentially the same.
• Ardent anti-Communism. Although Rand was an atheist and an arch Capitalist, and Evola was a neo-pagan and against "materialistic" ideologies like Capitalism and Communism, they both saw Communism as the worst threat to society. Would Rand ever have worked with a Fascist to destroy Communism? Probably not directly, but many of her later acolytes certainly did, especially in places like South and Central America (e.g. Pinochet in Chile, the Contras in Nicaragua). The Cold War saw Libertarians and repressive "neo-Fascist" dictatorships work together to prevent what they saw as "Communism", regardless of what that meant for ethics or the rule of law. And these days, this fear of "Communism" has evolved to an unspoken understanding that seems to operate between these two groups in their battle against "Socialism" in all its forms, regardless of how moderate, from the welfare state to equal rights. In the modern USA, many Republicans acquiesce to the unstable behaviour of Donald Trump out of fear of losing control of Capitol Hill, while in Britain, moderate Conservatives are silenced by extreme Brexiteers, out of fear of the "Socialist" agenda of Jeremy Corbyn.
•  Use of violence and oppression to achieve their aims. While Rand saw war as against humanity's self-interest, and Evola was a strong advocate of violence as a means to an end (as well as a natural result of Social Darwinism), both ideologies would be unattainable without violence and oppression being some part of the equation. Both these extreme ideologies can only be achieved in times of social and economic upheaval. Whereas Fascism sees violence as a necessary means to achieve its objective, and Libertarians do not, a Libertarian society (like a Communist society) would only be possible after the previous social structure collapsed, or became discredited. Like with the advocates of "Hard Brexit" in the UK, by implication their objective could only be reached after the previous order had disintegrated completely. Thus, for a Libertarian to achieve his goal, he must be indifferent to the necessary social disorder and chaos as a "means to an end", which puts him in the same moral plane as a Fascist. It is only a question of the means of the chaos. Lastly, a Libertarian's love of "freedom" only extends as far as his ideology is unchallenged; when challenged, a Libertarian will abuse their position of power like any tyrant, twisting the law and corruptly using the state apparatus to achieve their goal, while dishonestly claiming that their opponents threaten "stability" in the same manner.

Put in this light, Libertarians and Fascists could be argued to operate in much the same moral plane, as well as much the same ideological universe; the only difference is how they seek to get there.

Conservative ideology and Libertarian philosophy: how indifference kills society

As the well-known phrase goes, evil occurs when good men do nothing.

Put another way, we could also say that bad things happen when the government stops caring.


Reward the rich

The Conservative Party in the UK and the Republican Party in the USA effectively act as legitimised lobbying groups for the richest in society. In the USA, lobbying by corporate interests is in any case perfectly legal, and practises that in many other democratic countries would considered "bribery" are in Washington simply part of the way doing things. In other words, in the USA, and to a lesser extent in the UK, the legislature is designed to be an instrument of most powerful, best-financed, interests.
The USA and the UK have their own idiosyncrasies in how the both "reward the rich". The revelations of the Paradise Papers and the Panama Papers demonstrated how the UK's turn-a-blind-eye attitude to its various tax haven dependent territories means that it is acting as one of the world's largest facilitators of global tax avoidance. These systems are in place because they benefit the rich, who also fund the Conservative Party, and also are represented by MPs in parliament who would themselves use them. The tax system in the UK is one of the most complex and opaque in the world, and through its tax havens being legally "semi-detached" from the UK, it allows those with the means to hide their wealth as well as profit from it.
The fact that London is seen as the primary destination for oligarchs and Arab shiekhs to convert their money into capital assets (i.e. laundering their money into property) is another indication of how the rest of the world perceives the UK as a "rich person's playground". While the perception at home is fed that the UK is the mother of all democracies, the seedy reality is that the UK trades in on its reputation for integrity in order to draw foreign capital, without caring too much where it comes from. This explains why one of Britain's few remaining stable industries is arms manufacturing, and why the government is keen to remain friendly with both Saudi Arabia and Qatar, regardless of the hostility between them.
The USA has its own methods of "rewarding the rich". Apart from its own tax system that, like the UK's, is skewed is their favour, the rich in the USA do not have to worry about funding a large welfare state, unlike in the UK. And the USA has a much more visible and muscular lobbying system than in the UK to further the rich elite's interests. So while the UK still has something of a semblance of a "welfare state" (for the time being), it has other ways of making life easy for the rich, through its toleration of tax avoidance and other methods of "locking out" those lower down in the social hierarchy (see below).


Punish the poor

It has been well documented that the UK (like the USA) has some of the lowest levels of social mobility in the developed world. As mentioned above, the political system is designed to entrench the power of the richer segment of society, because it is they who are chiefly responsible for funding it. But when I say "funding" the system, I'm not talking about taxation; as already said, the tax system is that complex that there are many ways around it. I'm talking about political funding. The problem for everyone else who doesn't have that kind of influence is how to survive when your running full pelt just to prevent yourself falling further behind.
Because the system is designed by those without any experience of poverty (or even just average earnings), they make decisions based on their own prejudices. If I'm rich, it's because I'm intelligent and hard-working, they think to themselves. Therefore, those lower down in society must be there because they're feckless and stupid. This explains why many politicians seem so out of touch with everyday reality: it's because they are out of touch with reality! They simply have no understanding of what circumstances and situations occur when you're at the lowest rungs of society. They have no idea of the stress and psychological toll basic poverty has on people and families, and the many side effects and consequences that occur from that: from alcoholism, drug addiction, physical and sexual abuse, and so on. And that doesn't even cover more "mundane" issues like having trouble paying bills, or skipping meals to pay bills. The end result of all this for many is homelessness, as we can see on our streets.
These things happen in many cases because the people involved are unable to mentally cope with the stresses of living on the poverty line. This is where petty crime comes in, and the UK government's policy to reduce funding for state services for such essentials as policing and prisons means that crime is left to fester like a cancer on society, spreading bit by bit into different aspects of society: increasing numbers violent assaults through drinking, or drug addiction to give just two examples. There are many others I could give. And then there is the effect of reduced funding to UK prisons, where reduced numbers of prison officers is now causing an unprecedented rise in drug use, suicide and violent assault in prisons themselves. This is all the result of a decision by government to choose not to care. 
This is all without mentioning the "reforms" that the UK government has been making to welfare, in order to encourage more people into work (this is at a time when the UK already has what most experts would classify as close to "full employment"). These "reforms", on top of the ever-increasing trend of insecure employment, and things like the necessity for food banks, add up to a social model that seems designed to punish the poorest in society for their own misfortune.


An "anti-social" ideology

What guides the thinking of the rich elite in the USA and the UK is the Libertarian belief that government, almost by definition, is a bad thing. Of course, to the rich, government is a "bad thing" because it gets in the way of making money, and often tries to take it away from them. This is why it is necessary for them to get as much influence over government as possible, so that it works in their interest, and not against them.
In the modern era, to publicly espouse such views would be considered amoral (because they are!), so these views must instead be expressed in a way that is meant for the benefit of society as a whole. This is why "trickle-down theory" is so useful for their agenda, and why Ayn Rand was a god-send for their cause. Because Rand gave a moral argument in favour of being selfish, by saying that self-reliance was the highest virtue, it sprouted a renaissance in the form of the "greed is good" mantra. Conversely, helping others (altruism) was seen as the worst evil, as it encouraged people to rely on others. The same view was held by many in the 19th century, when "charity" was then seen as a dangerous idea that would encourage fecklessness and irresponsibility. In the form of the "Tea Party", now transformed into Donald Trump's own brand of populism, we have the same ideology today in the USA, while in the UK, it sits as unofficial government policy, also known as "The Brexit Agenda".

This ideology, now shared implicitly on both sides of the pond, is anti-social in nature, as it is against the interests of society as a whole. While the rich do what they can to avoid paying tax (and thus avoid contributing to social programs), they also do what they can to make poorer people's lives more difficult (for instance, by reducing employee rights and social benefits).
It is therefore the indifference of the richest in society to the lives of the poorest that can sometimes  be literally deadly.

Brexit: the result of accumulated incompetence? Parallels with "Atlas Shrugged"

Following the government's strategy and "progress" with the Brexit negotiations, I was reminded of  the plot to Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" (the author wrote a series of articles on this novel's symbolism).

Ayn Rand's original working title to this mammoth novel was "The Strike". The premise behind the story being: what would happen if all the smartest people refused to work? So the story follows as, one by one, various stalwarts of industry and other brains of American society begin to disappear, as the government of the day slowly takes greater and greater control of the economy. The process becomes self-reinforcing as the government takes up more of the slack left behind as more and more of the "best and brightest" disappear from public life. In the end, left with an over-bearing government led by a mass of collective incompetence, accidents become commonplace as the country literally begins to fall apart. The "best and brightest" finally reappear to save the nation from itself when the government loses control of the situation completely. The reader is left with the implication that these "best and brightest" will then restore the country under a new system where the government is entirely absent from any role in the economy and the public sphere.

The story reads as an indictment on "government" as a whole, as an autocratic system which feeds incompetence and inefficiency; the opposite to how the private sector is meant to be ran. While I'm no fan of Ayn Rand, following the government's handling of Brexit, it's hard not to draw (ironic) parallels with their rank incompetence and descent into chaos, and that of the government portrayed in "Atlas Shrugged". In the same way as the "best and brightest" fled from their posts in light of the fictitious government's actions, the same seems to be true of various parts of industry in the UK during the Brexit process.
Most of industry warned during the referendum campaign that to leave the EU would be bad for the British economy; now that the government seems to be lurching towards leaving the EU with no deal at all, some giants of the economy are reminding the government in stark terms of their own economic interests. If the government pursues this course to leave with no deal in March 2019, they will be forced to make their own "contingency plans": put simply, they will up sticks and leave the sinking ship as quickly as possible. While the UK will leave the EU in March 2019, big business - and the financial sector in particular -  need clarity far sooner: no later than the end of this year, to give them time to make adequate preparations. Similarly, Britain's airline industry needs to know what the "deal" will be no later than March 2018, to make suitable preparations. The government's incompetence and incoherence has been given very short shrift, and will result in real consequences much more quickly than they think. The initial effects of Brexit on the economy may be only a few months away; a harbinger of what is to come.

Since the referendum, it also feels as though all those who supported "Remain" (i.e. much of the intelligentsia) have been quelled into silence by the febrile and menacing feel in the public sphere; like how many "captains of industry" are making contingency plans to flee with their assets, large parts of the intelligentsia have seem to have gone AWOL. It's no coincidence that some of those have also applied for (Irish) EU passports, perhaps to better enable their own flight after Brexit. While the intelligentsia have absented themselves from the discourse (perhaps seeing how impossible it is to reason with incompetents), the country descends into madness. It seems as though industry and the intelligentsia are getting their excuses in early, as if to say "we warned you; you didn't listen. It's not our fault".
The irony here is how the government's agenda is being guided by those who are huge supporters of Ayn Rand's ideology; it is almost as if they want the government to be led by incompetents (as in the plot of  "Atlas Shrugged") - to bring about the economy's collapse, and allow them to take over.


A failure of government

The EU can see how badly the country is being ran, and its strategy now with Theresa May seems almost one of pity. Unfortunately this seems as doomed to fail as any other strategy, for as much as May and her government completely misunderstand how the EU works, the EU seems to equally misunderstand how the Conservative Party works. The EU tries to "make nice" with May over the possibility of a deal (by - wrongly - thinking that this positive mood music will encourage May into making the necessary concessions); meanwhile, May is encouraged to see any sign of "flexibility" on the EU's part as a sign that they are willing to make concessions, so sees no need to give ground. So both sides seem to be feeding each other with false hopes of a deal, to encourage the other to make the kind of concessions which may well be politically impossible. Both sides are in a bind - a kind of "Gordian Knot" of epic proportions.
May may well go down as one of the worst Prime Ministers the country has ever known, certainly in modern times. Her personal characteristics seem to work against the process gaining any momentum at home. To begin with, she has autocratic tendencies, to the extent that any serious debate over the issues is knocked down. This has led to the extraordinary situation where there has been - now sixteen months on from the referendum, and nearly seven months on from invoking article 50 - still no proper debate in government about what its actual Brexit aims are. All that has been said so far is woolly rhetoric to paper over the vast differences in government. The EU doesn't know what the UK government wants because the UK government itself doesn't know what it wants. It is truly astonishing that May could trigger article 50 for the start of negotiations without her government having a clue what its final position was.
This is partly due to the weakness of May's position as well; even when her government had a majority, she was loathe to start a proper debate on Brexit that would lead to open differences in government. The result is that the open differences have surfaced anyway, because she has done nothing to diminish them. Now her government doesn't even have a majority, this has made those differences even more apparent, with the loudest voices from the "Hard Brexiteers" carrying the most sway. In the same way that the intelligentsia have largely gone AWOL in the country at large, in the Conservative Party, the most rational voices have been silenced by the headbangers. And while this goes on, Theresa May sits in Downing Street and does nothing, as she is too weak to act: a hostage to fortune.
It is May's position as a mere "caretaker" presiding over this chaos that fatally diminishes the prestige of the role of Prime Minister of the UK.

This all feels like the inevitable result of the gradual degradation of the quality of political discourse in Britain.
There was a time when politics was inhabited by people of intellect, with ideas and (some) moral standing. John Major may not have been an intellectual giant, but he at least seemed to possess an aura of integrity. Tony Blair may have had an ambiguous moral compass (e.g. Iraq), but at least he was smart, and improved the state of the nation overall. (Doctor) Gordon Brown may have had his flaws, but when the financial crisis happened, he did the right thing at the right time, by saving the economy from imminent implosion.
David Cameron was a sign of the things to come. He treated politics as a game, even to the point of playing with his country's own future. He thought he was smart, but he was merely "lucky"; until his luck ran out. He filled his cabinet with similar chancers like George Osborne, and the rest with people whose loyalty or affiliations were more important than their rank incompetence. Theresa May was so long-standing in her position as Home Secretary for the same reason.
It is this gradual but self-evident decline in the quality of Britain's politics that led to Brexit in the first place: it's what happens when the establishment is left to rule though passive compliance. UKIP's incoherent ideology was allowed to take over the political discourse; the result now is that the government has copied its core agenda almost in its entirety and it's treating our democratic institutions as a complete joke. The government now thinks that democracy is a system where you can ignore the opinions of the people you don't agree with; they think the judgments of experts can be ignored if they disagree with their own prejudices.

If you're not worried, you're not paying attention.

Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" and John Galt: the allegory of The Fall Of Man

I wrote last month about Ayn Rand's magnum opus, "Atlas Shrugged" and the role of its enigmatic hero, John Galt. As said before, the thread of biblical symbolism runs deep in the story, which is made explicit in Chapter Seven of Book Three, when John Galt makes his "address to the world": an extraordinary monologue consisting of many thousands of words.

Galt's monologue is his "manifesto". In earlier threads on this topic, the author compared the role of Galt to that of Satan/ Lucifer in biblical symbolism - Galt and his followers as "fallen angels" who have rebelled against the rule of God/"government" and been forced to flee, so that they can live according to their free-will. In the same way that Satan would rather be "a lord in hell that a slave in heaven", Galt and his followers would rather be free and in "exile" than be a slave to government.

Galt's monologue explains that he equates God and faith with slavery and irrationality. As Lucifer from the Old Testament was the angel that challenged God's unquestioned power, Galt is the doing the same here. As Lucifer is the "agent of free-will" and the seeker of knowledge, Galt is the same here. John Galt sees the morality of God and the "social" morality of government as the essence of the same "evil": the idea that people should submit their will to another and should live for the sake of another. To Galt, this is anathema, and is innately against the interests of man, ultimately bringing about the death of humanity.

"Original Sin" and The Tree Of Knowledge

Galt talks in some detail about the concept of "Original Sin", and how this permeates the morality of "government" as much as that of God. As God labels man as innately irrational and evil, so, by implication, does government: that men are irrational, evil beings that can only be controlled by government. But as Galt says:
"A sin without volition is a slap at morality and an insolent contradiction in terms: that which is outside the possibility of choice and outside the province of morality. If man is evil by birth, he has no will, no power to change it; if he has no will, he can neither be good nor evil; a robot is amoral. To hold, as man's sin, a fact not open to his choice is a mockery of morality. To hold man's nature as his sin is a mockery of nature. To punish him for a crime he committed before he was born is a mockery of justice. To hold him guilty in a matter where no innocence exists is a mockery of reason. To destroy morality, nature, justice and reason by means of a single concept is a feat of evil hardly to be matched"
So creating the idea of "Original Sin" is an act that Galt/ Satan opposes for its immorality; it demonstrates the innate evil of God and "government".

Galt continues, by explicitly talking about the Tree Of Knowledge:
"What is the nature of the guilt that your teachers call Original Sin? What are the evils man acquired when he fell from a state they consider perfection? Their myth declared that he ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge - he acquired a mind and became a rational being. It was the knowledge of good and evil - he became a moral being. He was sentenced to earn his bread by his labor - he became a productive being. He was sentenced to experience desire - he acquired the capacity for sexual enjoyment. The evils for which they damn him are reason, morality, creativeness, joy - all the cardinal values of his existence. It is not his vices that their myth of man's fall is designed to explain and condemn, it is not his errors that they hold as his guilt, but the essence of his nature as man. Whatever he was - that robot in the Garden Of Eden, who existed without mind, without values, without labor, without love - he was not man. Man's fall...was that he gained the virtues required to live. These virtues, by their standard, are his Sin. His guilt, they charge, is that he lives"

Galt, then, is "the serpent", who wishes for Adam and Eve to become "like God", a rational being. God's "evil" is that he punished Adam and Eve for becoming free-thinking, "moral" beings. God wanted them to remain in the Garden Of Eden as his unthinking, helpless slaves: God would look after them, giving them all they needed, provided they did not question his authority. Galt sees "government" in the same light: an entity that exists to prevent man from bettering himself, an entity that preaches - in Galt''s words - a "Morality Of Death".

"The Morality Of Death"

This "Morality Of Death", according to Galt, has two types of teacher:
"The mystics of spirit and the mystics of muscle, whom you call the spiritualists and the materialists; those who believe in consciousness without existence and those who believe in existence without consciousness. Both demand the surrender of your mind; one to their revelations, the other to their reflexes. Their moral codes are alike, and so are their aims: in matter - the enslavement of man's body, in spirit -  the destruction of his mind.
"The good, say the mystics of the spirit, is God, a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive - a definition that invalidates man's consciousness and nullifies his concepts of existence. The good, say the mystics of muscle, is Society - a thing which they define as an organism that possesses no physical form, a super-being embodied in no-one in particular and everyone in general except yourself. Man's mind, say the mystics of the spirit, should be subordinated to the will of God. Man's mind, say the mystics of muscle, must be subordinated to the will of Society. The purpose of man's life, say both, is to become an abject zombie, who serves a purpose he does not know, for reasons he is not to question. His reward, say the mystics of the spirit, will be given to him beyond the grave. His reward, say the mystics of muscle, will be given....to his great-grandchildren"

Man's life is therefore sacrificial, either to God or society. This is what Galt finds "evil": man is not destined to live, but to die; not to think, but to serve. As the old adage goes, the only two certainties in life are death and taxes. Galt finds these values as the opposite to man's nature; by following these values, man's only outcome will be his own death.

Man can therefore only prosper without God and government: this is the conclusion to be reached. Man can only be moral without these two entities clouding his values, forcing him to work against his own self-interest.
According to Galt, "Selfishness" is not the "evil" that brings down man to his basest vices, but conversely, the thing which helps him see what is clearly rational for his own benefit. Galt sees the idea of "sacrifice" having been subverted by the "Morality of Death". Sacrifice  - as Galts defines it, "the surrender of a value" - has become the justification for creating a more "moral" society, where people work for each other. But as Galt sees it, sacrifice is "a morality for the immoral", telling people to renounce the material world and to divorce your values from matter. This is ultimately contradictory and hypocritical, according to Galt.

Galt's morality is for selfishness and independence, loving only those things worthy of respect. In the Garden Of Eden, Lucifer, as the serpent, was showing Adam and Eve the way to become "like God". In "Atlas Shrugged", John Galt is showing the way to become "a man", instead of a slave.
Galt subverts the common telling of The Fall Of Man, into the opposite, man's evolution to a rational being, which God then "punishes".

It is telling that "God-fearing" people always fear the future and long for the simple certainties of the past: a time before modern technology and industrialisation, the "Satanic mills" and "dog-eat-dog capitalism". "God-fearing" people see modern life as immoral and unforgiving, whereas people like John Galt see modern developments as a sign of man's progress. Ayn Rand saw Capitalism as the only "moral" system of development. The "Satanic mills" and the metal foundries of the industrialised world look a great deal like the biblical descriptions of Hell; fitting then that someone like John Galt would belong there.

Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" and John Galt: a modern-day Lucifer, or Satan in disguise?

In "Atlas Shrugged", the character John Galt dominates the third part of the story (Book Three). It is Galt who has been responsible for persuading the "best and brightest" to join him in his "New Atlantis", in a remote valley, where these people can live their lives according to their own efforts, without involvement of government.

As said in my earliest articles on this subject, biblical symbolism runs a deep vein through the novel: in its scope and ambition, "Atlas Shrugged" could well be called the most influential piece of fiction of the 20th century. This is the "Fall From Heaven" of the beginning of the Old Testament, but seen from the perspective of Satan/ Lucifer.

Furthermore, in the same way that Satan and his allies are banished to live their own form of existence in Hell, Rand has Galt and his followers living their "pure" form of life from complete scratch, with nothing from their successful and rich lifestyle of the outside world. In the remote valley these "exiles" live in, all their efforts are made by their own hand alone. They build their own houses themselves; they live simply (at least, appear to). From a psychological point of view, they have sacrificed their materialistic ego (i.e. their riches in the outside world) for the sake of a moral ego (i.e. the pride they have in doing things by their own efforts and in their own way). In "Atlas Shrugged", these "best and brightest" have made the ultimate material sacrifice in order to live true to their ideas; it could be argued that Satan and his followers were made to make the pay the same price by God when they were banished from Heaven.

John Galt is the mouthpiece of Rand's philosophy, spelled out in various ways in the novel. Galt explains Rand's own thinking on morality and the nature of government: Galt has stopped "the motor of the world" by taking away the "best and brightest" in society. In other words, Galt simply equates wealth with talent and effort; you cannot have the former without the latter. This is the basic premise of the novel, stripped of its baubles and fancy rhetoric. All those in his "New Atlantis" are rich because they are clever and/or hardworking. People are poor, therefore, because they are stupid and/ or lazy. It is as simple as that.
His moral objection to life in the outside world, where government controls much of day-to-day life, is that he refuses to live in a society where he sees the clever having to work for the sake of the stupid, and the hardworking for the sake of the lazy.

Galt's own vow is that he swears to "never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine". In Galt's eyes, this is the only moral way for a man to live: by his efforts alone.

Light-bringer or destroyer?

This philosophy as hardly anything new, as George Monbiot explains. The question is: whose philosophy is it? Blaming poverty on the poor has a long history, most recently expounded by George Osborne with his "strivers versus skivers" rhetoric. It goes down well because, like all successful ideas, it is easy to explain - regardless of the reality.

According to Christian belief  "the meek shall inherit the earth". According to Galt, it is the strong who shall inherit the earth. If Galt and his followers represent the "best and brightest", then "government" must seemingly represent the opposite - the worst and the weakest. What Galt finds offensive (i.e. immoral) is the strong being obliged to support the weak. Underpinning the tenets of Rand's philosophy - Objectivism - is the idea of social Darwinism. Society can only progress if its weakest elements are allowed to die. Accordingly, in a society where everyone is responsible for his own efforts, it is natural that the weakest specimens of society will not succeed. When neo-liberals and Conservatives talk about how "inequality is good", this is what they mean; they see it as being "natural".

So who is John Galt then, really? What does he represent?
My previous article on this subject mentioned "Luciferianism", and the role that some see Lucifer (Satan's name before The Fall) having in promoting the pursuit of objective knowledge. Lucifer is the "light-giver", whose gift is to free man from the shackles of God's narrow doctrine. Seen in this way, Lucifer's role is to test and push mankind on to better things; a kind of "disciplinarian teacher" for humanity. This seems to be the role that Galt is playing in "Atlas Shrugged", punishing society - robbing it for its "best and brightest" -  for the sake of itself. This theme, and further biblical references, are continued in the second article about the role of John Galt here.

Perception is one thing; the reality is another. Rand may seem inequality as "just", but that does not make the world "just". Those nations with the highest levels of inequality are not the most successful ones in the world; on the contrary, all the evidence suggests that nations with low levels of inequality (e.g. in Scandinavia) are those with the highest levels of development.
John Galt may be an idol for the neo-liberal scene, and people like the "TEA Party", but Galt represents a philosophy that ridicules the concept of empathy. And we all know what a society without empathy can be capable of.

On the one hand, Galt seemingly symbolises the "best" in humanity - its pursuit of knowledge and excellence, and its individualist spirit. But on the other, Galt symbolizes the very destruction of the concept of "humanity" - by destroying the very concept of human empathy, teaching it as something immoral and obscene.

In this way, "John Galt" may well be termed as a new, modern form of the Trickster: the "serpent" that encouraged Adam and Eve to eat the Forbidden Fruit, and then suffered God's wrath.

It is in Galt's "manifesto", discussing in detail the symbolism of the Fall Of Man, that reaches the crux of Ayn Rand's philosophy, and the real meaning of her work.

Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged": morality, Christianity and Lucifer

In a recent article the author went into some detail about the biblical symbolism evident in the story of "Atlas Shrugged". It is ironic that Ayn Rand's seminal masterpiece - given that she was a profound atheist -  is so full of Christian imagery. But her work on this great novel displays the contempt she had for the "conventional morality" of the day, when "Atlas Shrugged" was published in the 1950s, with the novel acting as a philosophical marker for a different form of morality, which she called Objectivism.

As argued in my previous article on this subject, Rand's morality tale bears some strong similarities to a retelling of the story of Satan's fall from heaven in the Old Testament - but crucially, with the moral perspective reversed. As Atlas Shrugged is about industrial "heroes" fleeing the constraints of government,  a "revision" of the Fall From Heaven sees Satan and his followers lose their battle with God, and decide to flee to exist independently from God's power.

I said (in jest) that Rand could be said to be a kind of "Satanist"; but more accurately, she could be called a "Luciferian". Her philosophy of extolling independence, self-love, the pursuit of knowledge and rationalism comes very close to the ideas also shared by Luciferianism. Lucifer himself represents the symbolic "Fallen Angel".
Lucifer (Satan) is seen as the symbol of the pursuit of ultimate knowledge and personal growth. More exactly, this is the name given to Satan before "The Fall". Seemingly inspired by the pursuit of knowledge and self-advancement, he grows frustrated with God's arbitrary use of power, seeks more independence, and refuses to bow down to man, God's creation. And yet, after The Fall, in the guise of The Serpent, his temptation of Eve may better be seen as a method of trying to lift the veil from the first humans' eyes about God's intentions and deception (by eating from from the Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good and Evil the humans will be "like God"). What are Satan's motives here? By labeling Satan's motives as purely evil, this is something that Christian theology struggles to convincingly answer.

Rand's use of biblical symbolism in the novel is self-evident in some of phrasing she chooses: using words such as "hymns" to describe the ideas expressed by the heroic characters in Atlas Shrugged; the industrialists talking of themselves as "sacrificial victims"; and the pirate Ragnar Danneskjold describing himself as an "avenging angel". This is the morality of Christianity turned on its head.

The Anti-Pope

In the modern day, the current Pope, Francis, has been seen as a paragon of Christian virtue: going back to the "old values" of a "poor" church that focuses as much on social welfare as spiritual purity. Rand's philosophy stands for the exact opposite to this idea of altruism and self-sacrifice. Her morality is one based on people's value being based purely on the talents, not their "need". In her eyes, people are rich due to their own talents and efforts; likewise, people are poor for their lack of the same properties. This is not something for "society" or government to be concerned about; it is a matter of individual responsibility. In other words, "inequality" is the state of nature. Modern-day Conservatives talk of the same thing.

Pope Francis talks about ideas such as love for our fellow man; in "Atlas Shrugged", the government of the day uses the same language, while Rand twists this thinking into meaning the exact opposite: turning the rich into the victims, and the poor into looters. In Part Two, Chapter Seven of the novel, the pirate character, Ragnar Danneskjold, talks about how he is effectively a "Robin Hood" for the rich: taking back the money "stolen" from the rich by the government (on behalf of the poor) and returning it back to them. Rand also (through the character of Danneskjold) gives an astonishing attack on the "morality" of the legendary Robin Hood, damning his methods as the epitome of evil. As the pirate says:
"He is a man who became the symbol of the idea that need, not achievement, is the source of rights; that we don't have to produce, only to want, that the earned does not belong to us, but the unearned does. He became a justification for every mediocrity who, unable to make his own living, had demanded the power to dispose of the property of his betters, by proclaiming his willingness to devote his life to his inferiors at the price of robbing his superiors"

This gives a small example of the morality behind Rand, and her ability to make the counter-intuitive appear logical. To her mind, because Pope Francis wishes to "help the poor", he represents evil in human form.

Where does this leave ideas such as "love" or empathy? As said earlier, people like Pope Francis extol the idea of self-sacrifice and love for our fellow man. In Rand's morality, these ideas are anathema: "love" can only be earned. "Empathy" appears entirely absent from Rand's value system.

A "psychopathic" morality?

"Empathy" is generally understood to be the ability to recognise how someone else feels emotionally, and being able to respond to this appropriately. In the field of psychology, psychopaths (who represent around 1% of the overall population) are distinguishable for their absence of human empathy. Because of their lack of empathy, they cannot understand or react to, for example, human suffering. This results in their being capable of extremely callous and cold-hearted behaviour.

Going back to the example of Satan, it could be argued that descriptions of his actions in Christian literature mark him as being one of the prime examples of a psychopathic character in scripture. What many consider "evil" could likewise be called "psychopathic". While the terms can never be exactly interchangeable, it is true that psychopathy is responsible for a great deal of crime and social ills.

With this in mind, Ayn Rand's philosophy has been held to blame for the neo-liberal economic model that has ruled much of the world for the past thirty years. It is this system that has resulted in a widening gap between rich and poor, the re-shaping of the global economy, as well as being responsible for the conditions that caused the financial crisis of 2008, which many people even now are still feeling the after-effects of, seven years later.

The moral system that underpins the economic system of today's world was written by Ayn Rand. For this reason, it could well be said that "Atlas Shrugged" was the most influential - and dangerous - novel of the 20th century. It takes a special kind of genius to take an idea that almost everyone considers to be immoral, and transform it into the appearance of the highest virtue.
In many ways, "Atlas Shrugged" is a kind of Bible of our time. It certainly reads like one, and may well also have been responsible for causing human suffering in the same way as the Word Of God, thanks to the "Pied Piper"-like quality of the words contained in its many pages.

In "Atlas Shrugged", the "Pied Piper" role is played by the character John Galt, whose role is explored in more detail in the following article.