Revisting Rand

David Merkel has a thought provoking post that blows up Ayn Rand. David derides all facets of "selfishness" that seemed to be a foundation of her ideas. He goes on to discuss the extent to which going in the other direction, as he sees it, has worked better for him professionally.

There are two aspects on what to do with this. One is what is it that can be gleaned, if anything, from an overall flawed philosophy and the other is a bigger picture point about the utility of a thought process you may not agree with.

On the first point, what can we learn from the notion of "selfishness?" From the stand point of taking little bits of process from other people ( a reader at David's blog made the same point) I take the idea of prioritizing self sufficiency. I have relatives (a couple of mine and a couple in my wife's family) who by their actions place zero priority on financial self sufficiency. Not surprisingly there is more stress over all sorts of financial issues including no savings or over indebtedness.

Obviously David is not saying don't save money and don't be responsible with debt but I do think personal success in these matters does take a certain amount of discipline that could be construed as a form of selfishness. I've noted before that my parents made some poor financial decisions along the way that made things very difficult for them and I'm acutely motivated to avoid the same which is a form of selfishness. I think this is more than a reasonable argument for some selfishness but that can obviously co-exist with contributing to the societal good. Obviously I'm a big believer in a life of service and volunteerism and hopefully you have something you donate your time to.

Slightly bigger picture you are either 100% on board with Rand, diametrically opposed or more likely somewhere in between. If you are on board then her writings validate your thought process and so the utility is obvious. If diametrically opposed you are learning about a belief system alien to yours which should strengthen your convictions about what you do believe in.

I've made this point before usually in the context of reading content from both perma bears and perma bulls. It is difficult to impossible for me to take Larry Kudlow seriously as an economist for missing two different economic meltdowns but one thing is certain, whatever the bull case today is, Kudlow can articulate it. This does not mean that the bull case trumps the bear case but at any moment in time no matter how bad things are there are positives and conversely during the good times there are risk factors.

A good economist should be able to objectively weigh the good and the bad of the moment and render an opinion about whether current conditions favor risk or reward. Given the number of Wesburys and Roubinis out there maybe there are no good economists but assuming that at a given moment you draw a conclusion about near term prospects for the market and the economy then reading people with the same opinion validates your thesis but just as important reading people on the other side of your argument should (repeated for emphasis) strengthen your conviction or perhaps let you see the error of your way.

After all if you have an opinion about something then something lead you to that opinion and at some point something will lead to change your opinion in the future. Taking in varying points of view should strengthen this process for you.