Interviewed by The Guardian, Bulgarian performance artist Marina Abramovic quoted Ayn Rand, saying “The question is not who is going to let me, it’s who is going to stop me.” The quote is pure sociopathy, revealing deviant selfishness and utter contempt for the common good. Increasingly the ultra-wealthy are kings. They do whatever they like because no one can stop them. If they want to give away their money, they do so, and we praise them as though they were the paragon of virtue. If they prefer to build bases on Mars, we act as though that were a laudable goal. It’s not due to lese majeste laws; no one goes to prison for criticizing billionaires. It’s that the structure of our society rewards antisocial behavior. Neoliberal capitalism extols the mythical heroism of the risk-taking entrepreneur. The neoliberal narrative empowers rugged individualists, and in this sense Ayn Rand already won. We've already got the society she evangelized, dominated by self-obsessed megalomaniacs slugging it out to win the influence wars, while the rest of us—the little people—cower in the shit, aping them. Capitalism is perfectly designed to overinflate the egos of our new monarchs. Its ultimate values—the prizes to be won—are fame and luxury. Browsing through Architectural Digest makes the goal obvious. The dream is to be famous just for being rich and be rich just for being famous. Superficiality is the order of the day. The word ‘fashion’ implies conformity to arbitrary, ever-changing norms, so last year‘s thing simply won’t do. Fashion is the epitome of capitalism, because we must keep making more and more things and throwing them away to remain fashionable. But what has real value? What has real value is truth. Truth is not fashionable. Our explanations of phenomena may change, but not because we tire of them; they change because we’re confronted by new evidence. Our accumulated wisdom is valuable because it endures and isn’t arbitrary. Like fashion, capitalism is myopically fixated on individual glory in the fickle present. Unable to visualize collective success, we stagger blindly into a future that doesn’t need us.
