Feb 25 Tea Party Needs New Morality, Claims Objectivist

MINNEAPOLIS, MN – The Tea Party must embrace egoism and reject the “false morality” of Judeo-Christian altruism if it hopes to effectively advocate for a capitalistic society, says a leading advocate of objectivist philosophy. Craig Biddle, editor of The Objective Standard and author of “Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It,” spoke Tuesday at an event hosted by the University of Minnesota’s Ayn Rand Study Group. His presentation was entitled “Capitalism: The Only Moral Social System,” and covered the fundamentals of objectivist philosophy applied to politics.

During a question and answer session, Biddle was asked about the Tea Party movement and how it might effectively advocate for capitalism. The answer delved into territory Biddle described as controversial. Biddle stated the Tea Party movement had reignited interest in Rand, citing increased sales of her book Atlas Shrugged. Biddle claimed the novel is commonly misread. “It is not fundamentally a political novel,” he told those assembled. “It is fundamentally a philosophical novel challenging Judeo-Christian ethics by advocating a morality of selfishness, and showing that morality [to be] what freedom depends on.”

Biddle opined the Tea Party should think beyond politics. “[The debate] is about ethics,” he said. “More fundamentally, it’s about epistemology and metaphysics.” The core issue is egoism versus altruism, or selfishness versus sacrifice, according to Biddle. If it is true that sacrifice is morally good, Biddle argued, you cannot defend capitalism, because capitalism enables selfishness. People who want to advocate capitalism have to “muster the courage to challenge the status quo morality.”

A summary of Biddle’s presentation: Capitalism is widely regarded as the most practical social system. Empirical evidence supports the premise that freer societies are also wealthier, and therefore better able to service their needs. Objectivist philosophy argues capitalism is also the only moral social system, because it is the only system which recognizes and protects the requirements for human life. In short, those requirements are rational thought and productivity; one must secure food and shelter to continue living, which is obtained through productive action guided by rational thought. The only thing which can prevent one from acting on their rational thought to fulfill a self-serving interest is force. Every alternative to capitalism relies upon force to prevent selfish action and compel sacrifice on behalf of the group. Sacrifice is the exchange of something of greater value for something of lesser value, a suicidal practice on a long enough timeline. This is why capitalism is both demonstrably more practical than any other system, and the only moral system.

Based on the above argument, Biddle claimed there is no reason to support the premise one should act altruistically. The difficultly in arguing for egoism, Biddle says, is that altruism is taught by religion, specifically from the bible. Tea Partiers need to “challenge what their mommy and the preacher told them” about morality, Biddle said. The stakes he presented were nothing less than existential. “Do we want to live and achieve happiness? Or do we want to suffer and die?”

“Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh, and Thomas Sowell, and Walter Williams, and Jeff Jacoby, and all the people on the right who claim that they want capitalism and claim that they want freedom [are still] going to church on the weekends,” Biddle concluded. “You can’t win by ignoring [this issue]. You’re either going to challenge the false morality that’s caused this problem, and advocate the true morality that can solve this problem, or you’re going to go the wrong direction.”

Contributed to the New Patriot Journal, and cross-posted at Fightin Words, where comments are welcome.