There are at least two significant criticisms that can be made of Ayn Rand and, by extension, the political view that is today called libertarianism (in a rough sense). One criticism is that there is too strong of an assumption of individualism. This is where individualism means that everyone is entirely capable of making all their own decisions on all courses of action they may need to take. Or maybe, in a weaker sense of individualism, at least that everyone should be expected to make all such decisions and should be expected to be capable entirely. The driving idea with individualism here is that no one has any need to defer to society or to defer to others when it comes to making decisions; you and everyone else can make all choices entirely. Now this assumption is a problem because whether or not each person has this capability is a factual psychological issue, and that is something we really can't make a blanket, universal determination on. Its an issue with each person's rational capacity, extent of experience, and even self-confidence, and these and other psychological factors will tell us what reasonable expectations to have of each person's decision-making abilities. What's reasonable to expect is going to vary from person to person. So in the end this first criticism is this: Its far too strong of an assumption to have a universally high expectation of decision-making abilities.
A second criticism is that there is a denial that there are at least some people out there who freely make choices that end up being dramatically different from the choices that other free people make. And, furthermore, that these people, because they are not making decisions similar to other free people, should be derided for these choices. In other words, there is a denial that some people make choices where someone can say of them: "Surely no free person would make such a choice," yet they freely do anyway. In this denial is an attitude that there are people out there who are not really free, and have to be forced to be free, because they are making choices that are just downright bad ones, and by that is meant decisions that have a content that a free person really would not entertain. Because some people's decisions are so different, one must conclude that they must be "slave-minded" rather than "free-minded." So the second criticism is this: It has to be possible for some free people to do things widely different from what other free people do, but this doesn't seem to be allowed.
The reason why criticisms like these appear is because Rand did not take into account, or did not want to take into account, the diversity of people and what might be called the diversity of liberty.
The differences we find between people one to another are greater than the differences between people and animals. The reason why we know this is that the differences among people in terms of their worldviews, their wants, and their motivations are so great it is actually easy to find two people who are opposites in almost every way even in a small group of people when grouped randomly. When people group together based on interests we can point out many views that are similar, but when collected at random, even small groups will show a wide variation in beliefs, such a wide variation that it is very easy to find complete opposites. But between people and animals are shared so many basic drives (such as food and shelter) the differences aren't that great; when you place candy in front of both people and animals, they will all go for it.
The wide differences between people lead to differences in goals, and with a wide diversity of goals there will be a correspondingly wide diversity of life plans. Now, whether people follow their life plans is what freedom is all about. What it means to be free is the same from one person to the next: To be free is to make your own choices about the kind of life you want to have; to make and pursue your own plan of life. What is different from one person to the next is what freedom involves. The contents and the details of the plans of life of one person to the next are going to be quite different, even though each chooses their life plans, through their different goals, since goals determine plans. With different plans you get the diversity of liberty: The wide variation among people's plans of life. Clearly, there are many people acting freely and individually who will make choices about the course of their lives where those choices sure don't look free to other people, and this is explained by the diversity of liberty.
Of course it happens from time to time and person to person that there are those who do not choose freely. They are not making and pursuing their own plan of life, this being due to societal pressures, due to coercive force, due to lack of self-confidence, or for whatever other reason or factor. But the fact that people can't follow their own plan of life has no connection to that plan's details. The content of a person's plan of life just by itself is not enough to indicate that they are either free or not free, and so differences in life plans just by itself doesn't indicate anything about freedom.
(Note on the side that it is very fashionable to talk about diversity and the importance of a diverse society. But one problem with this talk is that it is usually physical or external factor diversity that people talk about, not this diversity of liberty. This latter has to do with the plans of life that people have regardless of any physical or cultural characteristics.)
So there's going to be among free people a diversity of life plans and a resultant diversity of actions carrying out those plans. However, one major problem with modern society in general is that it really isn't set up for these; not only is it not set up for them but it has a lot of internal forces that resist them.
Consider milk. On the milk container you see many messages, one of which has always been the statement that the milk has been homogenized. This means that two different things have been accomplished with the milk. The primary thing that is accomplished through homogenization is that the lumps of milk fat within the milk have been broken up and spread out. Natural milk has a tendency to separate out into cream (the high fat part) and skim milk (the watery part), but that separation can be stopped. A secondary thing that is accomplished in the homogenization process is that the differences between the cows whose milk it is have been minimized. On every farm with milk cows there are tiny differences in the milk from one cow to another, especially when the cows are of a different breed. For example, the Holsteins (that's the usual black-and-white ones) have milk that is lower in fat content than the Jerseys (that's the tan-yellowish ones usually). And there are big differences from one farm to another; two farms can have Holsteins but feed them different feed stocks and as a result have very different milk taste.
All of these differences within and between milk can be reduced through heavy mixing and stirring and forced break-down of all the variations. The dairy takes all the different milk and mixes it all together in as big of vats as they can. The milk is stirred as much as possible for uniformity and then, depending on the case, forced through filters or run through grinders. The milk fat globs are broken and spread and the different tastes are mixed out. The end result is a product with differences and variations reduced to a minimum.
Modern society is to some extent a homogenizing force. Most places you go look pretty much the same (if you ignore language) and it is fairly easy to go unnoticed if you dress and act like everyone else. When people do exhibit some strong differences from others there are always people around who will try to shake and stir them back into the standard average product. Its in the nature of a culture to do this with each individual within it, since the very definition of a culture is that it is a shared, common manner of living. The acculturation process within any society will necessarily bring people together towards a standard, average set of character and behavioral traits.
The obvious problem with social/cultural homogenization is that people are vastly more complex than milk and won't stay uniform forever no matter what force is used to disperse their differences. The disparate elements won't get along on everything forever and will try to separate out from each other. Fundamentally, social homogenization can't work if for no other reason than the fact that, in groups of people both large and small, there will be found plans of life that are contraries; plans of life that are inconsistent with each other, that cannot fit together with each other at the same time, and cannot be satisfied together under one set of circumstances.
Consider this example: There are times (and you've probably heard this happen) when people discuss life in Cuba, and some mention all of the things that the people of Cuba suffer: The people are forced to do this, and do that, and live this way and behave that way. So the people of Cuba are not allowed to make their own everyday life decisions. But almost invariably in this discussion, someone will pipe up and say, "Oh, but they've got great health care." People who say things like this are examples of people with distinct views on what kind of life they would choose: They value some material good over the ability to make everyday life decisions. So they would be willing to turn over their everyday life decisions to others in order to secure something they hold to be supremely valuable, whether health care or some other good.
There are three significant consequences that can be drawn from this example illustration:
(1) There is a big difference between choosing and following a plan of life, which is basic freedom, and making everyday life choices, such as what to eat, where to live, what career to pursue, and where to travel. It is entirely possible to be able to make everyday life choices and still not be free; you can have the ability to decide where to live, for example, and yet have no control over your overall life plan. The decisions involved in these two (plan of life vs. everyday choices) are entirely different categories of decisions.
(2) But then it is also possible to be free and not make everyday life decisions. The choice of a plan of life does not determine the everyday choices made. But it also does not determine who will make all of those decisions; especially that those decisions will be made by oneself. It is an entirely legitimate plan of life for someone to choose to give over their everyday choices to others. As in the case of the Cuba discussion above, there are those who would make the plan of life decision to hand over to society their everyday choices, and they would do this in exchange for some material conditions. There certainly are some plans of life that are not legitimate, in the sense that they are immoral, for example, plans of life that involve the destruction of others. But to make the considered decision to exchange some everyday options for some goods is an entirely legitimate plan of life.
(3) This example person in the Cuba discussion has a plan of life that cannot be made to work alongside the plans of life of others. The person is willing to exchange everyday choices for some good, has a plan of life that would include this, but they are at the same time members of a society which includes others who would not do any such thing. Other people in that society will be found whose plans of life include the determination to make all everyday choices on their own and will not trade that decision category for anything. This is where we get contrary plans of life, where the plans of some require something that cannot be made to work with the plans of others.
The result of contrary plans of life is necessarily a constant push-and-pull conflict between them, those with plans of life that require some background condition being opposed by those whose plans of life require that there be no such condition. This is a big problem because this conflict is going on within a society, a social group that has some one set of defined cooperative conditions. Since no one set of conditions of living will fit with all the diverse plans of life that are present, the only solution is to have "sub-societies" within a general society, sub-societies that will have their own set of conditions of living. And this is what communes are, self-defined sub-societies. In the end, communes are necessary in order for people to find expressions for their freedom, their own self-determined plans of life.
Now of course the existence of idiosyncratic sub-societies within a general society is a disruption of a culture as a shared manner of living. So the normal response that a general society makes to this fact of the necessity of communes is to interpret it as an eternal and fundamental threat. But if the goal is to protect and preserve a culture, its a far worse danger to have a state of perpetual conflict over background conditions of living than it is to have some small sub-societies here and there providing some alternatives in these conditions, even if it looks like those sub-societies are bucking the trends of the general society around them. This is because sub-societies provide a controlled outlet for the conflicts created by diverse plans of life.
So the best response by a general society to the necessity of communes is to do what it can to facilitate them. There are at least two things that can be done for such facilitation.
(1) There will be cases where people's desired background conditions involve physical sharing with others, such as the classic case of a farm commune with people sharing work and the food they grow. Rather than discourage this, a society has to encourage it. For example: Helping people buy land to establish a commune by making special financing options. Or, for example: Open some public lands for lease to groups for communes; by leasing the land the general society can have specific controls on how the land is used.
(2) A second type of case would be where people's desired background conditions involve the exchange of control of some activity for some desired good, and/or cases where people have a desire to share with others and yet they are unable to make any physical or location changes with their lives. The idea here is that people would form something like a mutual insurance company but with a twist: In order to participate in a grouping that provides some good or service, they agree to abide by some set of well-defined rules or behavioral conditions. There is already a precedent for this in terms of legal organization rules that many States have used for small businesses. Small businesses have always had a choice between being a sole proprietor or a standard corporation, but these options have not fitted everyone. So many States have come up with the limited liability company (LLC) to make small business organization simpler. The same could be done by making some legal organizational form to make much simpler resource and effort and behavior sharing, which is essentially what a commune does.
So the idea is to have a group with rules or conditions people have to follow that would replace the patterns of life they would have to follow on some physical commune site, but that would have the same effect. At the same time, this grouping they are contracting to be a part of acts as a corporation with a lot of buying power for getting some good or service. An example of this would be: There are many people who strongly believe that there should be a lot of electricity generation through wind and solar sources. And so they have pushed for heavy legal requirements for this goal, which causes conflict with people who don't agree with the goal. Instead they should do this: Form a group to buy such electricity and agree as a condition to be a member of such a group to follow a long list of behavioral rules. These rules might include: Do not have more than one television per household (as they use lots of power), do not use more than some minimal amount of power after dark (that's when solar sources shut down), and so on. The result of this grouping of people is a commune that just happens to be spread out in many places, but which has the same effect: Putting people together who want to share background living conditions.
(published 8/2/19)
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