The Mike Wallace Interview with Ayn Rand

This is Mike Wallace with another television  portrait from our gallery of colorful people. Throughout the United States, small pockets of  intellectuals have become involved in a new and unusual philosophy which would seem to strike at  the very roots of our society. The fountainhead of this philosophy is a novelist, Ayn Rand, whose two  major works, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, have been bestsellers.

We’ll try to find out  more about her revolutionary creed and about Miss Rand herself in just a moment. And now to our story. Down through history, various political and philosophical movements  have sprung up, but most of them have died.

Some however, like democracy or communism, take hold  and affect the entire world. Here in the United States, perhaps the most challenging and unusual  new philosophy has been forged by a novelist, Ayn Rand. Miss Rand’s point of view is  still comparatively unknown in America, but if it ever did take hold, it would  revolutionize our lives.

And Ayn, to begin with, I wonder if I could ask you to capsulize —  I know this is difficult — can I ask you to capsulize your philosophy? What is Randism? First of all, I do not call it Randism, and I don’t like that name.

I call it Objectivism. All right. Meaning, a philosophy based on objective reality. 

Now let me explain it as briefly as I can. First, my philosophy is based on the concept that reality  exists as an objective absolute, that man’s mind, reason, is his means of perceiving it, and that  man needs a rational morality. I am primarily the creator of a new code of morality which  has so far been believed impossible, namely, a morality not based on faith — On faith — — not on faith, not arbitrary whim,  not on emotion, not on arbitrary edict, mystical or social, but on reason, a morality  which can be proved by means of logic, which can be demonstrated to be true and necessary.

All right, all right. Now may I define what my morality is? All right.

Because this is merely an introduction. My  morality is based on man’s life as the standard of value, and since man’s mind is his basic means  of survival, I hold that if man wants to live on earth, and to live as a human being, he has to  hold reason as an absolute, by which I mean, that he has to hold reason as his only guide to  action, and that he must live by the independent judgment of his own mind, that his highest moral  purpose is the achievement of his own happiness, and that he must not force other people  nor accept their right to force him — that each man must live as an end in himself and  follow his own rational self-interest. May I interrupt now?

You may. Because you bring, you put this philosophy  to work in your novel Atlas Shrugged. That’s right.

You demonstrate it in human terms in your novel Atlas Shrugged. And let  me start by quoting from a review of this novel Atlas Shrugged that appeared in Newsweek.  It said that you are out to destroy almost every edifice in the contemporary American  way of life: our Judeo-Christian religion, our modified government-regulated capitalism,  our rule by the majority will.

Other reviews have said that you scorn churches and the concept  of God. Are these accurate criticisms? Yes.

I agree with the facts but not the estimates  of these criticisms. Namely, if I am challenging the base of all these institutions, I am  challenging the moral code of altruism, the precept that man’s moral duty is to live for  others, that man must sacrifice himself to others, which is the present-day morality. What do you mean by sacrifice himself for others?

Now we’re getting to the point. One moment. Since I’m challenging the base, I necessarily would challenge the  institutions you named, which are a result of that morality.

Now what is self-sacrifice? Yes, what is self-sacrifice? You say that you do not like the altruism by which we live.

You like  a certain kind of Ayn Rand-ist selfishness. Well, to say that I don’t “like” is  too weak a word. I consider it evil, and self-sacrifice is the precept that man  needs to serve others in order to justify his existence, that his moral duty is to serve others. 

That is what most people believe today. Well yes, we are taught to feel concern for our  fellow man, to feel responsible for his welfare, to feel that we are, as religious  people might put it, children under God, and responsible one for the other. Now why do you  rebel?

What’s wrong with this philosophy? But that is what in fact makes man a sacrificial  animal. That man must work for others, concern himself with others, or be responsible  for them.

That is the role of a sacrificial object. I say that man is entitled to his  own happiness, and that he must achieve it himself. But that he cannot demand that others  give up their lives to make him happy.

Ayn Rand — And nor should he wish to sacrifice himself for the happiness of others.  I hold that man should have self-esteem. And cannot man have self-esteem if he loves  his fellow man?

What’s wrong with loving your fellow man? Christ, every important moral  leader in man’s history, has taught us that we should love one another. Why then is  this kind of love in your mind immoral?

It is immoral if it is a love placed  above oneself. It is more than immoral, it’s impossible. Because when you are asked  to love everybody indiscriminately — that is, to love people without any standard, to love  them regardless of whether they have any value or virtue, you are asked to love nobody.

But in a sense, in your book you talk about love as if it were a business deal of  some kind. Isn’t the essence of love, that it is above self-interest? Well, let me make it concrete for you.

What would it mean to have a love above  self-interest? It would mean, for instance, that a husband would tell his wife, if he were  moral according to the conventional morality, that I am marrying you just for your own  sake. I have no personal interest in it, but I’m so unselfish, that I am marrying  you only for your own good.

Well, should husbands and  wives tally up . . .

Would any woman like that? Should husbands and wives, Ayn, tally up at the end of the day and say, “Well  now wait a minute, I love her if she’s done enough for me today, or she loves me if I  have properly performed my functions? ” Oh, no, you misunderstood me.

That is not how  love should be treated. I agree with you that it should be treated like a business deal,  but every business has to have its own terms and its own kind of currency. And in love the  currency is virtue.

You love people not for what you do for them, or what they do for you.  You love them for their values, their virtues, which they have achieved in their own  character. You don’t love causelessly.

You don’t love everybody indiscriminately.  You love only those who deserve it. And then if a man is weak, or a woman is weak,  then she is beyond, he is beyond love?

He certainly does not deserve it, he certainly  is beyond. He can always correct it. Man has free will.

If a man wants love he should  correct his weaknesses, or his flaws, and he may deserve it. But he cannot  expect the unearned, neither in love, nor in money; neither in matter, nor spirit. You have lived in our world, and you realize, recognize the fallibility of human beings. 

There are very few of us, then, in this world, by your standards, who are worthy of love. Unfortunately, yes, very few. But it is open to everybody, to make themselves worthy of  it, and that is all that my morality offers them.

A way to make themselves worthy of love,  although that’s not the primary motive. Let’s move ahead. How does your philosophy  translate itself into the world of politics?

Now one of the principal achievements of this  country in the past 20 years, particularly — I think most people agree — is the gradual growth  of social, protective legislation based on the principle that we are our brother’s keepers.  How do you feel about the political trends of the United States, the Western world? The way everybody feels, except more consciously.

I feel that it is terrible, that you see  destruction all around you, and that you are moving toward disaster until, and unless, all  those welfare-state conceptions have been reversed and rejected. It is precisely these trends which  are bringing the world to disaster, because we are now moving towards complete collectivism,  or socialism, a system under which everybody is enslaved to everybody, and we are moving that  way only because of our altruist morality. Ah, yes, but you say everybody is enslaved to  everybody, yet this came about democratically, Ayn.

A free people in a free country  voted for this kind of government, wanted this kind of legislation. Do you  object to the democratic process? I object to the idea that the people have the  right to vote on everything.

The traditional American system was a system based on the  idea that majority will prevailed only in public or political affairs. And that  it was limited by inalienable individual rights. Therefore I do not believe that a  majority can vote a man’s life, or property, or freedom away from him.

Therefore, I do not  believe that if a majority votes on any issue, that this makes the issue right; it doesn’t. All right, then how do we arrive at action? How should we arrive at action?

By voluntary consent, voluntary cooperation of free men, unforced. And how do our leaders — how do we arrive at our leadership? Who elects, who appoints?

The whole people elects. There is nothing wrong with the democratic process in politics.  We arrive at it the way we arrived by the American Constitution as it used to be.

By  the constitutional process, as we had it, people elect officials, but the powers of  those officials, the powers of government are strictly limited. They will have no right to  initiate force or compulsion against any citizen, except a criminal. Those who have initiated force  will be punished by force, and that is the only proper function of government.

What we would  not permit is the government to initiate force against people who have hurt no one, who have not  forced anyone. We would not give the government, or the majority, or any minority, the right  to take the life or the property of others. That was the original American system.

When you said, “take the property of others,” I imagine that you are talking now about taxes. Yes I am. And you believe there should be no right  by the government to tax.

You believe that there should be no such thing as welfare  legislation, unemployment compensation, regulation during times of stress, certain kinds  of rent controls, and things like that. That’s right. I’m opposed to all forms of  control.

I am for an absolute laissez-faire, free, unregulated economy. Let me put it briefly. I’m  for the separation of state and economics.

Just as we had separation of state and church, which led  to peaceful coexistence among different religions, after a period of religious wars, so the  same applies to economics. If you separate the government from economics, if you  do not regulate production and trade, you will have peaceful cooperation, and  harmony, and justice among men. You are certainly enough of a political  scientist to know that certain movements spring up in reaction to other movements. 

The labor movement for instance, certain social welfare legislation. This did not spring  full-blown from somebody’s head. I mean, out of a vacuum.

This was a reaction to certain abuses  that were going on, isn’t that true, Ayn? Not always. It actually sprang up from the  same source as the abuses.

If by abuses you mean the legislation which, originally,  had been established to help industrialists, which was already a breach of complete  free enterprise. If then, in reaction, labor leaders get together to initiate legislation  to help labor, that is only acting on the same principle. Namely, all parties agreeing that it  is proper for the state to legislate in favor of one economic group or another.

What I’m  saying is that nobody should have the right, neither employers nor employees, to use state  compulsion and force for their own interests. When you advocate completely unregulated  economic life in which every man works for his own profit, you are asking in a sense for  a devil-take-the-hindmost, dog-eat-dog society, and one of the main reasons for the growth of  government controls was to fight the robber barons, to fight laissez-faire, in which the  very people whom you admire the most, Ayn, the hard-headed industrialists,  the successful men, perverted the use of their power. Is that not true?

No, it isn’t. This country was made not by robber barons, but by independent men, by industrialists,  who succeeded on sheer ability. By ability, I mean without political force, help, or compulsion.

But  at the same time there were men, industrialists, who did use government power as a club to  help them against competitors. They were the original collectivists. Today, the liberals  believe that the same compulsion should be used against the industrialists for the sake of  workers, but the basic principle there is, “Should there be any compulsion?

” And the  regulations are creating robber barons, they are creating capitalists with government help, which  is the worst of all economic phenomenon. Ayn, I think that you will agree with me  when I say that you do not have a good deal of respect for the society in which you and  I currently live. You think that we’re going downhill fairly fast.

Now I would like you to  think about this question, and you’ll have a minute intermission to ponder it and then come  back and answer it. Do you predict dictatorship and economic disaster for the United States if  we continue on our present course? Do you?

And we’ll get Ayn Rand’s answer in just a moment. And now back to our story. All right, Ayn Rand, what I’d like to know is this, since you describe  it as happening in your novel Atlas Shrugged, do you actually predict dictatorship and  economic disaster for the United States?

If the present collectivist trend continues, if  the present anti-reason philosophy continues, yes, that is the way the country is going. But,  I do not believe in historical determinism, and I do not believe that people have to go  that way. Men have the free will to choose and to think.

If they change their thinking,  we do not have to go into dictatorship. Yes, but how can you expect to reverse  this trend, when, as we’ve said, the country is run by majority rule, through  ballot, and that majority seems to prefer to vote for this modified welfare state? Oh, I don’t believe that.

You know as well as I do that the majority today has no choice. What do you mean? The majority has never been offered a  choice between controls and freedom.

How do you account for the fact that an  almost overwhelming majority of the people, who are regarded as our leading intellectuals,  and our leading industrialists, the men whom you seem to admire the most, the men  with the muscle and the money, favor the modified capitalism that we have today? Because it is an intellectual issue. Since they all believe in collectivism, they do favor  it, but the majority of the people has never been given a choice.

You know that both parties  today are for socialism, in effect, for controls, and there is no party, there are no voices to  offer an actual, pro-capitalist, laissez-faire, economic freedom, and individualism. That  is what this country needs today. Isn’t it possible that they all — we all — believe  in it because we are all basically lonely people, and we all understand that we are  basically our brother’s keepers?

You couldn’t say that you really understand  it, because there is no way in which you could justify it. Nobody has ever given a reason  why men should be their brother’s keepers, and you’ve had every example, and you see the  examples around you, of men perishing by the attempt to be their brother’s keepers. You have no faith in anything.

Faith, no. Only in your mind. That is not faith.

That is  a conviction. Yes, I have no faith at all. I only hold convictions.

Who are you, Ayn Rand? When I say that, I would like to know just a little bit of your vital  statistics. You have an accent, which is?

Russian. Russian. You were born in Russia?

Yes. Came here? Oh, about 30 years ago.

And whence did this philosophy of yours come? Out of my own mind, with the sole  acknowledgement of a debt to Aristotle, who is the only philosopher that ever influenced me.  I devised the rest of my philosophy myself.

Your parents; did they die in Russia, or did  they come here to the United States? No, I came here alone, and I don’t know, I have no  way of finding out, whether they died or not. You are married?

Yes. Your husband, is he an industrialist? No.

He’s an artist. His name is Frank O’Connor. Not the writer?

He paints. No, not the writer. He paints.

Does he live from his painting? He’s just beginning to study painting. I see.

He was a designer before. Is he supported in his efforts by the state? Most certainly not.

He’s supported by you for the time being? No, by his own work, actually, in the past. By me  if necessary, but that isn’t quite necessary.

And there is no contradiction  here, in that you help him? No, because you see I am in love with  him selfishly. It is to my own interest to help him if he ever needed it. 

I would not call that a sacrifice, because I take selfish pleasure in it. Let me put one specific case to you. Suppose under your system of self-sufficiency, one single  corporation were to get a stranglehold on a vital product, or a raw material, uranium for instance,  which might be vital to the national defense, and then would refuse to sell it  to the government.

Then what? Under a free system, no one could acquire a  monopoly on anything. If you look at economics, and economic history, you will discover that all  monopolies have been established with government help, with the help of franchises,  subsidies, or any kind of government privileges.

In free competition, no one could  corner the market on a needed product. Ayn, let’s say there’s a deposit — History will support me. — there is a deposit of uranium in Nevada, it’s  the only one in the United States, and it’s our only access to that, and for self-defense we need  this.

Whereas, let’s say in the Soviet Union, the state is able to command that. And if  kind of a strange man, of strange beliefs, got a hold of this uranium, and said, “I will not  sell this uranium to my government. ” He should not be able to be forced by the government, according  to your philosophy, to sell that uranium?

But you realize that you are setting up an  impossible fantasy. That is, if you are talking of any natural resource, that is vitally needed,  it could not become vitally needed if it were that scarce. Not scarce to the point where one  man could control all of it.

So long as. . .

I’m using your example. Yeah. If a natural resource exists in  more than one place in the world, no one man is going to control it.

All right, let’s take another. How do we build roads, sanitation facilities, hospitals, schools?  If the government is not permitted to force, if you will, by vote, taxation, I’ll use your word,  we have to depend upon the trickle-down theory, upon the noblesse oblige, the largesse.

I will answer you by asking you a question. Who pays for all those things? We all of us pay for these things.

When you admit that you want to take money, by  force, from someone and ask me how are we going to build hospitals, or roads, you admit that  someone is producing the money, the wealth, that will make those roads possible. Now, you have  no right to tell the man who produced the wealth, in what way you want him to spend it.  If you need his money, you can obtain it only by his voluntary consent.

And you believe in the eventual goodwill of all human beings, or at least  that top echelon of human beings, whom you believe will give willingly. No goodwill is necessary, only self-interest. Only self-interest.

I believe in private roads, private post offices, private schools. When industry breaks down momentarily, and there is unemployment, mass unemployment,  we should not be permitted to get unemployment insurance. Social security we do not need.

We’ll  depend upon the self-interest of these enlightened industrialists whom you so admire, to take care of  things when the economy needs a little lubrication and there are millions of people out of work. Study economics. A free economy will not break down.

All depressions are caused by government  interference, and the cure is always offered, so far, to take more of the poison that  caused the disaster. Depressions are not a result of a free economy. Ayn, one last question, we only have about a half a minute.

How many Randists. . .

You  don’t like the word, I beg your pardon. Objectivists. How many Objectivsts would you say they are in the United States?

It’s hard to estimate, but I can tell you some figures. My best intellectual heir,  Nathaniel Branden, a young psychologist, is giving a series of lectures on my philosophy  in New York. He has received 600 letters of inquiry within the month of January.

He  is giving these lectures and attendance is growing in geometrical proportion. Ayn, I’m sure that you have stimulated a good many people, more people than already have, to read  your book Atlas Shrugged, and The Fountainhead, and I’m equally sure they will be stimulated for  the reading, indeed, if they do not agree. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I’ll be back in a moment with my personal  footnote to the story of Ayn Rand. As we said at the outset, “If Ayn  Rand’s ideas were ever to take hold, they would revolutionize the world.

” And to those  who would reject her philosophy, Miss Rand hurls this challenge. She has said, “For the past two  thousand years the world has been dominated by other philosophies. Look around you, consider  the results.

” We thank Ayn Rand for adding her portrait to our gallery. One of the people other  people are interested in. Mike Wallace, goodbye.