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Can a [[Lacanian ]] learn something from Ayn Rand?

Rand, who wrote the two absolute best-sellers of our century, The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957), was (deservedly) ignored and ridiculed as a [[philosopher]]: her [[fascination ]] with [[male ]] [[figures ]] displaying absolute, unswayable determination of their Will, seems to offer the best imaginable confirmation of [[Sylvia ]] Plath's famous line, "…every [[woman ]] adores a Fascist." However, although it is easy to dismiss the very mention of Rand in a "serious" [[theoretical ]] article as an [[obscene ]] extravaganza — artistically, she is of course, worthless — the properly subversive [[dimension ]] of her [[ideological ]] procedure is not to be underestimated: Rand fits into the line of over-conformist authors who undermine the ruling ideological edifice by their very excessive [[identification ]] with it.

Her over-orthodoxy was directed at [[capitalism ]] itself, as the title of one of her books Capitalism, the Unknown [[Ideal ]] tells us; according to her, the truly heretic [[thing ]] today is to embrace the basic premise of capitalism without its communitarian, collectivist, [[welfare]], etc., sugarcoating. So what [[Pascal ]] and Racine were to Jansenism, what Kleist was to [[German ]] nationalist militarism, what [[Brecht ]] was to [[Communism]], Rand is to American capitalism. It was perhaps her Russian origins and upbringing which enabled her to formulate directly the [[fantasmatic ]] kernel of American [[capitalist ]] [[ideology]].

The elementary ideological axis of her [[work ]] consists in the opposition between the prime movers, "men of [[mind]]," and second handers, "mass men." The Kantian opposition between [[ethical ]] [[autonomy ]] and heteronomy is here brought to extreme: the "mass man" is searching for [[recognition ]] [[outside ]] himself, his [[self]]-confidence and assurance depend on how he is perceived by [[others]], while the prime mover is fully reconciled with himself, relying on his [[creativity]], selfish in the [[sense ]] that his [[satisfaction ]] does not depend on getting recognition from others or on sacrificing himself, his innermost [[drives]], for the benefit of others.

The prime mover is innocent, delivered from the [[fear ]] of others, and for that [[reason ]] without [[hatred ]] even for his worst enemies (Roark, the "prime mover" in The Fountainhead, doesn't actively [[hate ]] Toohey, his great opponent, he simply doesn't care [[about ]] him.) Here is the famous dialogue between the two:

— Mr. Roark, we're alone here. Why don't you tell me what you [[think ]] of me? In any [[words ]] you [[wish]]. No one will hear us.

On the basis of this opposition, Rand elaborates her radically [[atheist]], [[life]]-assertive, "selfish" [[ethics]]: the "prime mover" is capable of the [[love ]] for others, this love is even crucial for him since it does not express his contempt for himself, his self-[[denial]], but on the contrary, the highest self-assertion-love for others is the highest [[form ]] of the properly [[understood ]] "selfishness," i.e. of my capacity to realize through my [[relationship ]] with others my own innermost drives. On the basis of this opposition, Atlas Shrugged constructs a purely fantasmatic scenario: John Galt, the novel's mysterious hero, assembles all prime movers and organizes their strike — they withdraw from the collectivist oppression of the bureaucratized [[public ]] life. As a result of their [[withdrawal]], what [[social ]] life loses is impetus, social services; from stores to railroads, no longer function, [[global ]] disintegration sets in, and the desperate [[society ]] calls the prime movers back — they accept it, but under their own terms…

What we have here is the [[fantasy ]] of a man finding the answer to the eternal question "What moves the [[world]]?" — the prime movers — and then [[being ]] able to "stop the motor of the world" by organizing the prime movers' retreat. John Galt succeeds in suspending the very circuit of the [[universe]], the "run of things," causing its [[symbolic ]] [[death ]] and the subsequent rebirth of the New World.

The ideological gain of this operation resides in the [[reversal ]] of roles with [[regard ]] to our everyday [[experience ]] of strike: it is not [[workers ]] but the capitalists who go on strike, thus proving that they are the truly productive members of society who do not [[need ]] others to survive.<ref>Rand's ideological limitation is here clearly perceptible: in spite of the new impetus that the [[myth ]] of the "prime movers" got from the digital industry (Steve Jobs, Bill Gates), [[individual ]] capitalists are today, in our era of multinationals, definitely not its "prime movers." In [[other ]] words, what Rand "represses" is the fact that the rule of the crowd is the inherent outcome of the [[dynamic ]] of capitalism itself.</ref> The hideout to which the prime movers retreat, a [[secret ]] [[place ]] in the midst of the Colorado mountains accessible only via a dangerous narrow passage, is a kind of [[negative ]] version of Shangri-la, a "utopia of greed": a small town in which unbridled [[market ]] relations reign, in which the very [[word ]] "[[help]]" is prohibited, in which every service has to be reimbursed by [[true ]] (gold-covered) [[money]], in which there is no need for pity and self-sacrifice for others.