And the secret is: Ayn Rand has destroyed Capital. Atlas Shrugged is her fictional novel and non-fictional treatise, text, whatever, on Capital.
Capital stripped bare by Speculation itself, like the bride by her bachelors. What becomes of Capital once the veil of Profit is lifted? What becomes of Labour once the veil of Capital is lifted? (Baudrillard - Cool Memories II 38)Contrary to the historical slogan which says that the 'emancipation of the workers will be achieved by the workers themselves', we have to accept that Capital will be put to death by Capital itself or (not at all). (CM II 38)
Baudrillard in Forget Foucault asserts that Foucault did not heed Nietzsche by going to the end. He asks himself the question why Foucault stopped at the edge. And both Rand and Foucault ignored Nietzsche's warning: Beware of disciples.
Rand was more capitalist than any capitalist. She was excessively so. Nietzsche recommends the "being worse than worse". Rand was worse. She took every conceptual and formulated ideal she had and pushed it to the edge and then beyond until it fell over into the abyss. Sex (Nathaniel Brandon), business empire (NBI and The Objectivist Newsletter), the virtue of selfishness, free and unregulated capitalism as the economic system of choice for free individuals. Her novel Atlas Shrugged is more novel than a novel. She pushed it to the extreme of what a novel was, and it was more so. Her characters are pushed to the edge, each one "worse than worse" in their attributes. Time has caught up with it. It no longer seems prophetic.
And my god, this is pure Nietzsche. Even the great and intellectually powerful Foucault said towards the end of his life, that he had not acknowledged Nietzsche early enough for his great debt to him. But it will be Baudrillard who will go all the way with Nietzsche. Baudrillard will tell us how to end the evil of anything. Push it to the limit and beyond, worse than worse, and then it will suicide. This is what DeLillo has Eric Packer do by imploding the speculative currency market. Eric Packer wants all the yen there is.
But by god Rand did it. Fictionally, and with her life as she lived it. And through Greenspan, her acolyte, she has destroyed Capital. Deregulate Capital and Global Speculative Capital appears on the scene. Marx never foresaw this. It is excessive Capital. More Capital than Capital. Worse.
It is not possible to continue to see Capital as anything other than what it has become in the last decade. We are now seeing it all the way to its Death.
I cannot believe she pulled it off.
But like Nietzsche's God, its ghost will be around for quite some time.
5 comments:
Nice blog! I'll be posting shortly.
— nerrad
Shortly? It's been 2 years now nerrad.
You may enjoy Gabriele D'Annunzio, the Vatican put all his work on the list of bad books you should not have in 1897. He is not widely read outside of Europe. He knew how to have a good time. Rand is not a bad novelist. Certainly worth reading but kind of simplistic. I read all of Nietzche as a freshman that I could get my hands on. Liked him, in many ways changed me forever. I kind of liked how Doestoyevski covered Nietzhche's superman in Crime and Punishment.
Rand is important for the fact of her immense influence and because of Greenspan and his deregulation of speculation. I find it is far easier to put ideas such as the two of us have, by reading them through a popular media author, movie, etc. Rand is a Nietzschean, unadmitted and scrubbed out of her Journal, but a Nietzschean she remains.
Rand can still be found everywhere. Fewer people have really read Nietzche. The deregualtion of speculation has hit us hard, commodities bid up to unrealistic levels that can do alot of damage. Such as what is the real worth of oil is, and so many others. We get to have Julius Evola's, Life Among the Ruins. Few people can cannot the dots between Nietzche and Rand, even though it is hidden in plain sight. Imagine Neocons adimitting they like what Nietzche wrote, but it is OK for them to like Rand. Reading Nietzche will change anyone as much as the Birds in Jerzey Kosinki's "The Painted Bird." Nietzche truely opens minds to many things. I wonder what Rand would be saying today?
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