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Zulu and some of his fans categorize Rothbard as an Objectivist who simply refused to acknowledge this fact because of his nasty split with Rand and instead opted for the labels “Aristotelian” or “neo-Thomist”. As much as I’d like it to be true, I personally dissent from this categorization for a number of reasons. The following will include a mass of quotes from Rothbard from the 50s to the time of his death and some elaborations upon them in an attempt to illuminate the issue of where he stands with regards to Objectivist philosophy. I’m here assuming the reader is familiar with the overlaps his worldview has with Objectivism, so my task here is to explore the other side of the coin.
In a 1954 letter to Richard Cournelle, Rothbard says that one “who stumbles on Ayn finds that there are great truths that we have literally never heard in the classroom”, but “the good stuff in Ayn's system is not Ayn's original contribution at all.... There is an underlying, but . . . growing philosophic position beginning with Aristotle where it is set forth, the idea of a rational ethics based on the nature of man and found by reason, reason determining ends, etc. Aristotle and Spencer were fine on this.” Roy Childs would concur that Rothbard spoke of Rand’s philosophy as unnecessarily “reinventing the wheel”.
He goes on to claim Ayn’s philosophy was actually a “horrible perversion” of Aristotelianism “with the most unpleasant-and unlibertarian implications.” He had major issues with the fact that Rand “denies against all evidence the existence of even the most primary instincts in man.”, especially her denial "that emotions can ever be primary, which loses any independent basis for love, friendship, laughter, pleasure, etc. as values in themselves out the window.” He asks whether “love, friendship, joy, etc . . . count for anything in the Randian hierarchy of values?”
He hated Rand’s “almost fanatically Puritan view that the only development of man's powers that is worth anything is working at developing mental powers.”
Rothbard then gets to the crux of the issue: “The implications of this grow more horrifying as you think about it . . . [Rand’s system] actually denies all individuality whatsoever” He claims that if her theory about human nature is true, then “there is no basis for different interests, only for different complexities of interest. Thus, she maintains that I could be just as good in music as in economics if I applied myself, whereas I know damn well I'd be a flop.”
He claims she was ignorant of the insights of marginal utility theory “of more units becoming less values, and of each individual's balancing different ends harmoniously” which is “one of the key bases of true individualism, since each individual can learn what ends are rational, [and] choose only among these rational ends,” leaving room for individual tastes within a broader framework of rationality. “But by ignoring marginalism and denying any sort of degrees in life,” he writes, “Ayn is driven to a position that is monomaniacal in its monolithic quality.” The logical consequence of this, according to Rothbard, “is that there is no such thing as a unique individual.” Since men are only “bundles of premises”, then everyone would have the same bundle if they chose to be rational. “Therefore, according to Randianism, utopia would be a place where all men are identical, in their souls if not in their personal appearance.” Rothbard concludes with a humorous example (doubly funny because it actually happened): “The logical conclusion is, for example, that there is no reason whatever why Ayn, for example, shouldn't sleep with Nathaniel Branden" or any of her disciples with any other, "since they all have the same premises, they are all the same people, or rather inter-changeable parts of a machine.”
At the time, Rothbard agreed with George Reisman that Rand’s system is “a perfect engine of complete totalitarianism, but that Ayn herself is a libertarian out of an irrational prejudice, and that fifty years from now some smart Ran-than disciple will see the implications and convert the thing into a horrible new Statist sect,” and speculated that “life in a Randian Rationalist society would be a living hell.”
To me the most puzzling part of the letter was the following: “she herself is involved in a contradiction. On the one hand, she charges that anyone who believes in free will—which is basic to any sort of individualism—is insane, because he is postulating an uncaused element. Yet she reduced everything back to "thinking" vs. "not thinking," and it is clear that on her own grounds this decision to "think or not to think" is "free" and therefore "uncaused" and therefore, she is as insane as anyone. And if she allows this little grain of free will, why not all of it?" Rand had always been a proponent of free will and was never a determinist, her journals going back to the 30s confirm this. I suspect, however, that it is Rothbard who at the time didn’t understand her position on the matter. He assumes volition had to be “uncaused”, and since he probably heard Rand argue against the mystical “indeterminist” accounts of free will, he assumed she must have been a determinist. Most likely under Objectivist influence, Rothbard corrected this error and saw that there is no dichotomy between volition and causality, which can be seen in his “Mantle of Science”.
It goes without saying that these are some extremely serious and non-trivial differences and accusations against Rand’s philosophy. I trust that there’s no reason to go into detail as to why they’re utterly mistaken here. One may claim that all these complaints were made before the publication of Atlas Shrugged, and Rothbard’s glowing review of it indicates a recognition of the errors in his ways and his subsequent wholehearted adoption of Objectivism. But, as his later writings would indicate, that is a strongly mistaken assumption. (I am going to omit Rothbard’s disagreements with Rand where I believe he actually had the stronger case, such as anarchism, the death penalty, civil disobedience, secessionism, foreign policy etc. since I believe they’re perfectly compatible with Objectivism, Rand notwithstanding. It’s not a coincidence they’re all in the realm of politics.)
In the march 1970 issue, Rothbard recommended Peter Michelson’s review of The Romantic Manifesto titled “Fictive Babble”, calling it a “Slashing critique of Rand's latest book, including the point that the Rand of 1969 has begun to write like the villains of her own novels.” I haven’t been able to find a copy of the review online. I’ve only seen some select quotes from it and they were all abysmal. The quotes can be seen in this essay. Tibor Machan said the review was “nothing but verbal acrobatics; it reveals no understanding of the philosophy of art and of Ayn Rand.” and asked why Rothbard recommended it in the first place.
Consider these paragraphs from Rothbard in the july-august 1971 issue:
“For while every rationalist libertarian must hold reason higher than tradition, there is one sense in which the traditionalist conservatives have gotten hold of a very important point, and one that has been unfortunately overlooked by the rationalists. And that is wrapped up in the great truth of the division of labor: the fact that the vast majority of people have neither the ability nor the skill to carve out a rational ethic on their own. Ethics is a science, a discipline like other disciplines; and as in any other branch of knowledge it is vain folly to begin exploration of the science afresh and on one's own while disregarding all the other explorers and thinkers who have gone before, I once knew a Randian who tried to deduce astronomy a priori and out of his own head without bothering to consult any of the other literature in the field. While this was a caricature and a half-jest on his part, it exemplified all too well the rationalist - and particularly the Randian - disposition to attempt to carve out a body of thought without bothering to read one's predecessors. In the field of ethics and philosophy in general, it is simply an empirical fact that the greatest thinkers, for two thousand years, have been Christian; and to ignore these Christian philosophers and to attempt to carve out an ethical system purely on one's own is to court folly and disaster.
Apart from their respective merits, then, it is no accident that, in practical application - from sex to music - Christian ethicists should have a far more rational batting average than the Randian. After all, Randian thought has only been in existence for a decade or two, while Christianity has had two thousand years to develop. We stand on the shoulders of the thinkers of the past, even though of course we must use our reason to correct them.
But there are further, and grimmer, implications here for rationalists. For if few people have the ability or inclination to carve out an ethical system on their own, this means that they must - if their actions are to be guided by any coherent set of values - take them passively, almost on trust. But who then are the masses of men to trust for their system of values? Surely that system with the longest and most successful tradition, with the largest quota of great minds - in short, the Christian ethic, This is a bitter pill for many of us non-Christians to swallow, but I am afraid it is inescapable nevertheless.
This conclusion is reinforced when we look around at what has happened to much of today's libertarian movement. The peculiar aspects of the Randian ethic are as nothing to the bizarreries, to the outright lunacies, into which so many ex-Randians (who constitute the bulk of the libertarian movement) have sunk, in their vain attempts to carve out a system of objective ethics on their own. (The latest craze, so we have heard, is “rational bestiality.”) The Christian ethic is, in the words of the old hymn, a Rock of Ages, and it is at least incumbent upon the individual to think long and hard before he abandons that Rock lest he sink into the quagmire of the capricious and the bizarre.”
I submit that these paragraphs, by themselves, would exclude their proponent from being properly labeled an Objectivist. The idea that the Christians are “in practice” more ethically rational on average than Objectivists because the ethical system they adhere to is older is ridiculous. Contrary to traditionalists, age is not a proper measure of the validity of a system of ethics. Saying that it “stood the test of time” only goes to show that men have not yet abandoned it, which could very well be because of their irrationality and not the validity of the system. It’s ironic to say that the best philosophers in the last 2000 years have all been Christian, since the quality of their philosophy was higher the more they contradicted their basic Christian devotion to faith, supernaturalism, mysticism, altruism, asceticism, and humility. The fact that most men are second handers only makes the widespread societal adoption of a rational ethic more urgent and important, instead of advising them to just keep on going with the prevailing view because it’s old.
Rothbard was very unhappy with Rand’s distaste for religion in general. He repeatedly criticized her for “hating religion much more than she hates the state.”, claimed that her interpretation of Christianity is actually a gnostic heresy, and blamed her influence on increasing libertarian disconnect with the broader American culture. In contrast, his views on Christianity seemed to be very warm, as illustrated by this passage from his 1991 letter to Justin Raimondo:
“I am convinced that it is no accident that freedom, limited government, natural rights, and the market economy only really developed in Western civilization. I am convinced that the reason is the attitude developed by the Christian Church in general, and the Catholic Church in particular. In contrast to Greek thought, where the city-state was the locus of virtue and action, Christianity, with its unique focus on the individual as created in the image of God and in the central mystery of the Incarnation—God created His Son as a fully human person—means that each individual and his salvation is of central divine concern. The Church was not tied to any one king or state and therefore served as a vital check upon state power. The concept of tyrannicide and of the right of revolution was developed by Catholic scholastics. Locke (and his followers in the American Revolution) was a Protestant scholastic, developing and sharpening Catholic scholastic doctrine. Thus, even though I am not a believer, I hail Christianity, and especially Catholicism, as the underpinning of liberty. (And also of art, music, and architecture, but that’s another topic.)”
Another quote from the Rothbard-Rockwell Report is telling: “At the risk of alienating my atheist libertarian friends, I think it increasingly clear that conservatives are right: that some religion is going to be dominant in every society. And that if Christianity for example, is scorned and tossed out, some horrendous form of religion is going to take its place: whether it be Communism, New Age occultism, feminism, or Left-Puritanism. There is no getting around this basic truth of human nature.”
So, either Christianity or “some horrendous form of religion”. This makes the false dichotomies identified by Objectivism seem innocent by comparison.
Rothbard made a slight jab at The Ominous Parallels in the February 1983 issue, writing: “Ideas have consequences in history, although they scarcely work in the direct Randian "From Kant-to-Hitler" manner.”
In a letter to John Hospers, Rand writes: “If one were to say that Marx is the direct consequence of Plato, that would be an oversimplification; but to say that Marx, Hegel, Kant and others belong to the philosophical camp whose earliest and most famous exponent was Plato, is an abstract summation in a context that deals only with the fundamentals they all have in common.“
We now come to the famous “Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult” Since I obviously wasn’t present in the Randian movement during the 60s, I cannot know for sure what really happened during this time. All I can do is an analysis utilizing all the info available to me.
Rothbard writes: “Since every cult is grounded on a faith in the infallibility of the guru, it becomes necessary to keep its disciples in ignorance of contradictory infidel writings which may wean cult members away from the fold. The Catholic Church maintained an Index of Prohibited Books; more sweeping was the ancient Muslim cry: “Burn all books, for all truth is in the Koran!” But cults, which attempt to mold every member into a rigidly integrated world view, must go further. Just as Communists are often instructed not to read anti-Communist literature, the Rand cult went further to disseminate what was virtually an Index of Permitted Books. Since most neophyte Randians were both young and relatively ignorant, a careful channeling of their reading insured that they would remain ignorant of non- or anti-Randian ideas or arguments permanently (except as they were taken up briefly, brusquely, and in a highly distorted and hectoring fashion in Randian publications). The philosophical rationale for keeping Rand cultists in blissful ignorance was the Randian theory of “not giving your sanction to the Enemy.” Reading the Enemy (which, with a few carefully selected exceptions, meant all non- or anti-Randians) meant “giving him your moral sanction,” which was strictly forbidden as irrational. In a few selected cases, limited exceptions were made for leading cult members who could prove that they had to read certain Enemy works in order to refute them.”
This is an extremely serious accusation against the Objectivist movement which I have no way of verifying or falsifying. All I can say is that it goes against what I’d expect from Rand and the top Randians. In her 1974 speech to the graduating class of the United States Military Academy at West Point, “Philosophy: Who Needs It”, Rand states the following: “Now you may ask: If philosophy can be that evil, why should one study it? Particularly, why should one study the philosophical theories which are blatantly false, make no sense, and bear no relation to real life? My answer is: In self-protection—and in defense of truth, justice, freedom, and any value you ever held or may ever hold. . .If you feel nothing but boredom when reading the virtually unintelligible theories of some philosophers, you have my deepest sympathy. But if you brush them aside, saying: “Why should I study that stuff when I know it’s nonsense?”—you are mistaken. It is nonsense, but you dont know it—not so long as you go on accepting all their conclusions, all the vicious catch phrases generated by those philosophers. And not so long as you are unable to refute them.” This doesn’t sound like someone who doesn’t want you to read philosophers she deems evil. Leonard Peikoff also continuously urges his listeners to read Kant or secondary sources on his philosophy, to “know your enemy” as they say. Maybe this came after the 60s and represented a shift in policy? Who knows.
Rothbard writes: “Another method was to keep the members, as far as possible, in a state of fevered emotion through continual re-readings of Atlas. Shortly after Atlas was published, one high-ranking cult leader chided me for only having read Atlas once. “It’s about time for you to start reading it again,” he admonished. “I have already read Atlas thirty-five times.”
I STRONGLY doubt that ANYONE could have read Atlas THIRTY FIVE times during the time Rothbard was in the Randian movement. Unless he did nothing but read Atlas over and over again, the math doesn’t add up.
Rothbard writes: “The rereading of Atlas was also important to the cult because the wooden, posturing, and one dimensional heroes and heroines were explicitly supposed to serve as role models for every Randian. Just as every Christian is supposed to aim at the imitation of Christ in his own daily life, so every Randian was supposed to aim at the imitation of John Galt (Rand’s hero of heroes in Atlas.) He was always supposed to ask himself in every situation “What would John Galt have done?” When we remind ourselves that Jesus, after all, was an actual historical figure whereas Galt was not, the bizarrerie of this injunction can be readily grasped. (Although from the awed way Randians spoke of John Galt, one often got the impression that, for them, the line between fiction and reality was very thin indeed.)”
Does Galt being a fictional character somehow prevent him from rationally being a source of moral guidance?
Rothbard writes: “Wit and humor, as might be gathered from this incident, were verboten in the Randian movement. The philosophical rationale was that humor demonstrates that one “is not serious about one’s values.” The actual reason, of course, is that no cult can withstand the piercing and sobering effect, the sane perspective, provided by humor. One was permitted to sneer at one’s enemies, but that was the only humor allowed, if humor that be.”
Objectivism holds that humor is a value, but not an unlimited value. The moral character of humor depends on its object. To laugh at the contemptible is a virtue, to laugh at the good is a hideous vice. To say that laughing at the good has a “piercing, sobering effect” and provides a “sane perspective” is just bizarre. What are you “piercing” through, what are you “sobering up” to and what “sane perspective” is gained by mocking the good? I hate to say it, but these implications that holding your values as sacred is a sign of a stuck up self-important bore who needs to be “brought back to reality” with mocking humor sounds a tad nihilistic. When Jerry Tucille wrote It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand, a distorted account of the history of the libertarian movement which makes the heroes of the movement look like jackasses, Rothbard praised the book and claimed those who didn’t like it simply don’t have a sense of humor. Roy Childs gave a decent review. Interestingly, when Rothbard wrote the satirical play Mozart Was a Red, he mocked what he thought were the bad and irrational characteristics of the Randian movement, not the good and rational ones. Seems like he properly understood the nature of humor in that case.
Rothbard writes: “Personal enjoyment, indeed, was also frowned upon in the movement and denounced as hedonistic “whim-worship.” In particular, nothing could be enjoyed for its own sake – every activity had to serve some indirect, “rational” function. Thus, food was not to be savored, but only eaten joylessly as a necessary means of one’s survival; sex was not to be enjoyed for its own sake, but only to be engaged in grimly as a reflection and reaffirmation of one’s “highest values”; painting or movies only to be enjoyed if one could find “rational values” in doing so. All of these values were not simply to be discovered quietly by each person – the heresy of “subjectivism” – but had to be proven to the rest of the cult.”
This strikes one as by far the most bizarre accusation so far. Anyone even REMOTELY tuned it to the Objectivist literature would know what utter bullshit this is. Pleasure as a crucial need is constantly stressed in Rand’s and Branden’s writing. The idea that Objectivism holds that it is irrational to savor the taste of FOOD is beyond ridiculous. The part of sex might be the most unacceptable considering Rothbard wrote that the Christian ethic has a better view of it than the Objectivist one. Read Rand’s “Of Living Death” to see how ridiculous it is to paint the Objectivist view of sex as monstrously ascetic and hold up the Christian view as superior. The reality is the exact opposite.
Accusations of being “excommunicated” for smoking or for “preferring Bach to Rachmaninoff” also strike me as dubious. Plenty of the members of Rand’s inner circle didn’t smoke or quit smoking before she did. Leonard Peikoff loved Beethoven, whom Rand hated. Nobody was thrown out of the movement because of this.
Rothbard writes: “One suspects that the actual reason, as in so many other parts of Randian theory, from Rachmaninoff to Victor Hugo to tap dancing, was that Rand simply liked smoking and had the need to cast about for a philosophical system that would make her personal whims not only moral but also a moral obligation incumbent upon everyone who desires to be rational.”
Maybe I’m being too harsh, but this sorta smells like aesthetic subjectivism. Given that Rand claimed that objective rules for evaluating music taste have not been formulated yet and thus they have to be treated as subjective for the time being, it’s not even an accurate assessment.
Rothbard writes: “For many ex-cultists remain imbued with the Randian belief that every individual is armed with the means of spinning out all truths a priori from his own head – hence there is felt to be no need to learn the concrete facts about the real world, either about contemporary history or the laws of the social sciences. Armed with axiomatic first principles, many ex-Randians see no need of learning very much else. Furthermore, lingering Randian hubris imbues many ex-members with the idea that each one is able and qualified to spin out an entire philosophy of life and of the world a priori. Such aberrations as the “Students of Objectivism for Rational Bestiality” are not far from the bizarreries of many neo-Randian philosophies, preaching to a handful of zealous partisans.”
This is part-mistake part-projection on Rothbard’s part. He mistakenly believes that Objectivism is a sort of hyper-rationalistic philosophy where you can get to know a priori axioms (through what means? innate ideas? Kantian mental categories? by what method does Rothbard think Objectivism says we get a priori knowledge from???) and deduce every fact about the universe from them. This 1) isn’t even close to the proper Objectivist epistemology and 2) is much more closer to Rothbard’s method than Rand’s. After all, it was Rothbard who said that “all reasoning is deductive, and this process is particularly vital for arriving at truth” and that he finds “theology fascinating because it’s sort of a deductive system, something like praxeology, except of course the axioms are different. But once you have the axioms, you can spin almost the whole thing out…”
There are many other fragments sprinkled throughout Rothbard’s writings that at least suggest a non-Objectivist leaning, but I think a sufficient case has been made.
--- Kameralized 19/02/2025
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