One of my favorite sayings in the French language is “il ne marche pas.” It means, literally, “it doesn’t walk.” Colloquially, it means that something doesn’t work. If a radio isn’t working you say, “il ne marche pas” or “it doesn’t work:” it is broken.
One of the few virtues of capitalism is supposed to be its simplicity. Back in 1759—when European thinkers like Adam Smith had everything figured out—Smith’s economics work revolutionized the study of society by suggesting that free market forces could work out to everyone’s benefit.
Later, extremists like Ayn Rand and other Smith enthusiasts inadvertently pointed out the theory’s limitations when they called for an absolute devotion to free market forces. Most sane people had some reservations (that the Great Depression handily corroborated) and most sane governments eventually realized that a free market could work in their favour, but only up to a point. Lessons that folks like the Objectivists (a group dedicated to the senseless reverence of Ayn Rand) seem to have completely missed.
On December 2, the Objectivist Club at the University of Toronto plans to hold a Walk for Capitalism. Ostensibly, the purpose of the walk is to draw attention to Rand’s woefully out-of-date notions of the free market and its virtues. “The ideas of intellectual and material freedom formulated by history’s great philosophers deserve recognition. Let’s get the message out,” an advertisement in the Objectivist newpspaper heralds.
This, despite the fact that even researchers for the Canadian right-wing think-tank the Fraser Institute admit that there is very little connection between economic freedom, or the free market, and the civil liberties that we associate with liberal democracies. No one, however, has told the Objectivists, it seems.
Or maybe … maybe they are on to something. In the States, the interest rate continues to drop, suggesting that Alan Greenspan has as little faith in the free economy as your average schmoe American consumer after the attacks of September 11.
In fact, the economic tailspin is so complete that major newspapers, including the Globe and Mail here at home, are calling on concerned citizens to save themselves by opening their pocketbooks for a Christmas splurge.
All of this lends a slightly different hue to the Objectivists’ proposed walk.
Perhaps once again—albeit inadvertently—Ayn Rand and her cronies are suggesting the true path forward with all of their madness. The truth is, we need to walk for capitalism. Why? Well, because—to borrow a phrase from the French—”il ne marche pas:” it can’t walk on its own!
