Objectivism : If there is a glass of 150 ml , and there is 100 ml water in that, people may say its not full-we need to fill it. Some might say its enough full and we should cherish this much. Well..well! What you interpret is not worth anything, the truth remains eternal and unchanged from the individual perspectives that there is 100 ml water in a 150 ml glass.The awareness of this eternal truth which can be tested and proof read on every reason and every experiment, is Objectivism.
Reading Ayn Rand is so much revolutionary that sometimes it takes the entire perception into her dimensions. She advocated objectivism and iterate need to purify thoughts not on subject grounds but objective view of the world. Only through Objectivism, one could achieve real happiness and real purpose for life. If he lives in delusions, he will never find the real happiness. Also what is advocated is that the individuals can only achieve their 100% if they completely follow the call of their true nature.And who knows true nature of someone?..Well no one else than that someone. So, if you want to achieve that 100% out of your nature to have the happiness you are meant for, you must follow the path directed by your own soul and not listen to anyone else in this world. Don’t follow someone else’s footprint just because he made it big, but follow the path what you conscience think is good for you. Then and only then you can achieve true success and 100% satisfaction.This is termed as individualism. Remember the character Howard Roark and think of his attributes. That is individualism. No matter what the world says, you will do what your heart says, you will do what you are made for. That us individualism. So far so good.
But then there is a very disturbing fact about man- man is a social animal. What we do is affected by and affects the world around us, and hence we are responsible for the actions we do and their impact on society.Hence there is a social ethics and value code system, which tells an individual to perform his work for the welfare of society and mankind, and to restore balance around his world. This is collectivism. I do things, I take care of the society , my family, my friends and my country.And if necessary, I will do things I was asked to do for the welfare of society.That is collectivism.
But here comes the area of dispute. An individualism follower, say I, goes to a town where there is a social code to follow collectivism.People in the town are poor and there are not enough resources to feed everyone. The land nearby is not so fertile. The town people have agreed upon to do agriculture to produce maximum and to feed their families in town. So when I arrives, they ask him to do agriculture, as they all agreed upon. They must be thinking-“Ah! two more hands, we might cultivate the unused 2 acre of land now, and eat a little more before we sleep “. But I likes to paint. He doesn’t know how to cultivate and even working in a field may result in hard hands which may spoil his painting skills. Also I is an individualist, so no matter what others would say, he will not grow wheat in a field but rather paint the field on a canvas. So here is the dispute. I is not doing something which will make the lives of people in the city easy and hence just painting his canvas, which is of no use to people there. So no one is purchasing his paintings, he is running out of money, to earn he must cultivate now. Otherwise he will die out of empty stomach. But if he does agriculture, he is going to be sad and cursed for not achieving 100%. So, for now collectivism wins.
Now lets suppose I also started working on fields. He does 14 hours of field work daily and after a decade he forgets to paint, and even if he wants, he can’t paint with his muscular hands.The picture of town after a decade is same as it was before. People get up early, go to fields, work 14 hours, come back have tea with family in the evening, eat a light meal in the night and sleep. There is no shopping mall, just food markets. There are no T.V, computer, cars, jets, jeans, designer trousers, remarkable monuments, electric heater and everything else which is not related to fields. So town is almost dead in growth of civilization, they are what they were 100 years back and what they are going to be 100 years later. Only if they allowed someone like I to pursue his will and nature, they would have got something more fruitful for growth of civilization. Individualism wins now!
This very difference in philosophical views give rise different political ideologies. No brownie points to guess that individualism is the mother of capitalism and collectivism is father of socialism. And the fight of capitalism and socialism is very much real, as we can sight the example of The Cold War.
Capitalism calls for individual benefits and economic welfare through Laissez faire , means do not disturb. It calls for no government interference in human development and his economic actions.It assumes that human develop their 100% potential (individualism) only through a free environment and no outside interference(true by any sense) .On the other hand Socialism calls for a greater social responsibility, and to put society first (anti individualism a.k.a collectivism).It calls for greater equality in distribution of resources to mankind and hence to bring every human being to same level of living (very good intentions indeed). The fight between socialism and capitalism has been very fruitful as it produced may great thinkers like ,Marx,Hitler (..thinker?),Che Guevara,Mao from socialism camp and Truman,Ayn Rand, Kennedy, Churchill from capitalist camp.But the true winner out of this is the philosophy of not taking either of these so seriously and implement attributes of both- The Mixed Economies.
So some smarties who chose not to take part in Cold War (like India..hehe) solved the puzzle of individualism (Capitalism) versus collectivism (Socialism) by some simple arithmetic. What they did is that they put the model of socialism to sectors which were subjected to great harassment during colonial rule, where people were exploited heavily and which would directly influence people in the society for their basic needs but were in bad shape. Example- Agriculture, Defense, Steel, Infrastructure,banking etc. And they adopted the model of capitalism to sectors which they thought were in good shape and could sustain with capitalistic flavors without affecting public in general.Examples- The small textile industries, education centers etc. They reviewed their stance after a certain time to check the health of each sector. And when they found that the shape of previously weak sectors was fine after a few decades and there was certain amount of money available to people to show equality better than before, they adopted capitalistic model for those sectors too (1991 reforms,India). However they did not let go major influencing sectors like defense, rail,etc as they thought that these things with individualistic approach have the capability to affect masses gravely. But except of a few, they opened up almost all of the manufacturing sectors for capitalistic aspirations. For sectors like Pharmacy, alcohols etc, people would still need a license(socialistic model as these directly influence people) .
To put in simple, the mixed economists went to the collectivism town and told them to continue yielding grain (and increase production somehow) for another few years till they are made self sufficient and once they become self sufficient and had plenty to eat before sleep, smarties asked a few of them like I to do what their mind tells. So after the town had enough to eat, I started painting and G (he used to work earlier in fields) started to make computers. Slowly and steadily, the town got food, TV, paintings, computers….and they lived happy ever after.
The proof of success of mixed economy model is that today there is hardly any purely socialistic or capitalistic country left. We have socialist China pursuing government controlled capitalistic model and capitalistic US president talking about taxing largely earning folks more so that government can help out people in their health insurances and education etc.
Flames Of Thoughts 