Ayn Rand would have backed David Cameron's stand against the EU's "second handers" Former British Ambassador Charles Crawford applauds David Cameron's willingness to see Britain "isolated"
Written by Charles Crawford on 16 December 2011 at 8am
The two great novels of American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand (The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged) are not everyone’s cup of tea. Too “heavy”, too “long”, too “clever” – and, good grief, she extols radical individualism to the point of explicit selfishness! How can any society run like that?
Hmm. Perhaps we should question the premises of that last question. But while we are doing that, let’s enjoy one undoubtedly striking idea she gave us: The concept of the “second-hander”.
The second-hander is someone who is not a prime creator of ideas and/or driver for their implementation -- someone who is unable to create self-standing work of his or her own, and so must live off the ideas and efforts of others. As Rand’s hero Howard Roark proclaims in court when he is put on trial in The Fountainhead for blowing up the housing complex he designed:
The creator’s concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite’s concern is the conquest of men.The creator lives for his work. He needs no other men. His primary goal is within himself. The parasite lives second-hand. He needs others. Others become his prime motive.
The extreme (and rare) example of a second-hander is the beggar: the existential nothing whose fate depends wholly on others taking pity and handing over some of their own production.
Rand refined the idea to apply it more generally to modern life by creating two wide categories of second-handers: “moochers” and “looters”. Moochers try to live off others by active wheedling and sucking up. Or they proclaim some sort of entitlement to the results of others’ hard work.
Looters by contrast simply use bullying or outright force to take money from those who create wealth and proceed to redistribute it (often to themselves and their friends).
Needless to say, moochers and looters usually find it makes tactical sense to join forces to squeeze ever more juice from those people and processes whose ideas lie at the root of all wealth. Hence the modern, sprawling, collectivist state.
There is even an official mouthpiece for Second-Handers, Looters and Moochers here in the UK, namely the BBC Radio Four Today programme. Every morning, day after day, month after month, year after year, it broadcasts to the nation at its most vulnerable, people tottering round the kitchen making toast.
Its message is unambiguous: the categorical imperative that whatever that morning’s fashionable problem might be, it is the explicit responsibility of “society” in general and the state in particular to “do something” about it. Only collectivist action counts. This appalling, arguably evil message transmitted over decades has transformed the way our country runs, evidently for the worse.
Anyway, the rich insight afforded us by the Rand categories of second-handers, looters and moochers is thought-provoking in many different contexts. I was prompted to recall it by the shriek of despair across the BBC and general progressive commentariat last week after all the member states at the EU Summit except the UK opted for a new treaty intended to stabilise the Eurozone. David Cameron’s insane policies had isolated the UK!
Let’s look at that idea of “isolation”. In the sense used in this EU context, it is intended to say that regardless of the merits of our own arguments on the policies needed to prop up the Eurozone, it is ipso facto a bad thing in itself that we have not agreed with the other 26 member states. This is a startling, far-reaching, quintessentially second-hander idea.
Most countries on Earth are not in the European Union. Almost all of them take part in many legally binding international processes, using their sovereign rights as independent states and whatever negotiating guile and muscle they can muster to promote and defend their interests.
But they are wary of joining any regional or other international bodies which might start to suck away at their sovereignty. In other words, the vast majority of states are not only “isolated”. They jealously guard their isolation – and proudly call it independence.
However, it turns out that for EU member states things are different. The very act of one state in objecting to the wishes of the other 26 member states is denounced as contemptible, even when (as in our case) the UK has made a greater contribution to the cost of the very table at which it finds itself denounced than all but a handful of the countries doing the denouncing.
Unable to get their hands on even more money from us by looting (the UK has a veto this time), the EU’s second-handers resort to mooching, bribing and cajoling. Frustrated too when David Cameron finally says “No”, they emit a banshee hoot and hope to unnerve certain media and political forces in the UK, thereby undermining the elected government’s position.
So far so obvious. What is (for me) the most disturbing aspect of this brazen display of second-handedness is the fact that in railing against the Prime Minister for creating this “isolation” the collectivist BBC/LibDems/Blairistas reveal that they put no value at all on our taking our own decisions as a country. Jobs and trade are being jeopardised by Tory selfishness! QED!
Even if their predictions look credible, this argument deliberately leaps over two vital points.
First, that it might be better in other non-material ways to sacrifice some wealth for the sake of retaining freedom of action. Is it better in itself to be Canada – or Illinois? To be a rich slave - or a poor freeman? Both statuses have advantages and disadvantages. But at least let’s talk about it calmly.
And second, that if (say) we do start to lose some market share in Europe (by mechanisms which are never explained) perhaps we will work harder and compensate by building market share elsewhere. The whole situation is presented in a trite, static, zero-sum sort of way, whereas in fact all sorts of dynamic effects are at work. Some effects may be positive, some negative. What is indeed negative in the short-term may turn out to be positive down the road. And vice versa.
But if one thing is 100 percent clear, it is that the balance of advantage from this new-found “isolation” is not easily calculable – and not obviously detrimental.
In short, by standing firm at that summit, David Cameron struck an all too rare blow against second-hander (and second-rate) thinking in general.
As the Eurozone grapples despairingly with its own internal battles between Looters and Moochers, this British decision is hugely significant. And hugely beneficial.
Charles Crawford was British Ambassador in Sarajevo, Belgrade and Warsaw. He is now a private consultant and writer: www.charlescrawford.biz. He tweets @charlescrawford
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