Dr. Albert Ellis' 'critique' of Capitalism, Objectism


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While searching on lulu.com (a major Print-on-Demand publisher. FWIW, the Ludwig von Mises Institute uses them) for various topics, including libertarianism, I came upon this work:

Title: Are Capitalism, Objectivism, and Libertarianism Religions? Yes!

Author: Dr. Albert Ellis.

Description: Dr. Albert Ellis thoroughly debunks Capitalism, Objectivism, and Libertarianism as espoused by Adam Smith, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Alan Greenspan and his mentor Ayn Rand. This brilliant foray into politics and psychology examines the major tenets of capitalism, objectivism and libertarianism. Dr. Albert Ellis explores these philosophies to unravel their basic premises, and show how ultimately they are not rational, but religious in nature. Dr. Ellis writes, “On the surface, Ayn Rand makes excellent points about humans and their potential for rational behavior. Unfortunately, she postulates on individual and social psychology in such an extremist, fanatical, dogmatic, high-flown moralistic and irrational manner as to destroy much of its sense and effectiveness.” Former president of the Albert Ellis Institute in New York, the author of the book, Dr. Ellis, is the founder of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), the first of the Cognitive Behavior Therapies.

This is a free download of a 248 page work. No, I haven't bothered to download it and read it.

Now, I have never heard of Dr Ellis. He is apparently a prolific author, and from what little I have read about him, is probably critical of the psychology views of Nathanial Branden (which may have been a cause for this work). But let's be honest. Capitalism is an economic system, not a religion. Libertarianism is a political philosophy, not a religion. Objectivism, while some have called it a cult, is a philosophy, not a religion. (I don't think any who have called it a cult have called it a religion). So this work sounds to me like a criticism of some of the cult-like aspects of the Objectivist movement (and prehaps Branden's ideas of psychology), which someone is trying to present as a criticism of capitalism, libertarianism and Objectivism. (which is why I'm not inclined to waste my time with it).

But I was curious if anyone else was familiar with this work or this author.

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Dr. Ellis writes, “On the surface, Ayn Rand makes excellent points about humans and their potential for rational behavior. Unfortunately, she postulates on individual and social psychology in such an extremist, fanatical, dogmatic, high-flown moralistic and irrational manner as to destroy much of its sense and effectiveness.

I would agree with this to a large extent and, interesting enough, Ellis was very much influenced by Korzybski and General Semantics.

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Ellis was a famous theorist/therapist and an early mentor of Branden's. Their theories apparently have some superficial similarity which led a lot of people to say those theories were compatible. The two held a public debate about 40 years ago with a contract specifying that either could veto publication of the transcript. Branden invoked his veto, explaining in The Objectivist that, among other objections, Ellis had been abusive to Rand, who was in the audience (this is not hard to believe in light of what you quote in your original post), and had digressed into politics instead of sticking to the subject. Branden also said that his intention to agreeing to the debate in the first place was in part to squelch the talk of compatibility.

Ellis shortly thereafter came out with a book, Is Objectivism a Religion?; this publication is probably a rehash of it, as the book (Branden opined at the time) was a rehash of the material he'd prepared for the debate. One story Branden told is that Ellis misquotes him as saying "of course I'm a solipsist," when what he'd really said was "of course I'm an absolutist." Anybody philosophically literate and minimally familiar with Objectivism would know better than to think Branden would say the first.

The present readership will know that what Rand, Smith and Greenspan respectively had to say about capitalism were very different. I don't have much confidence in somebody who claims that it's all the same line.

Edited by Reidy
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Dr. Ellis and Nathaniel Branden had a debate at the old New Yorker hotel in May of 1967. I did not attend being in Vietnam. There were about 1200 in the audience, I think, and Ellis's followers were outnumber like 6 to 1. It was quite a contretempts, especially when Ellis made a comment about Rand's unrealistic heroes. That set Rand off. The tape of the event was never released and if it still exists Nathaniel Branden probably has it. It would be a tremendous cultural artifact. Ellis was so pissed off he went home and wrote his "Is Objectivism A Religion." My copy is in storage and I haven't read it in years, but he really got going. It was not a dispassionate book.

--Brant

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I was not at the debate. From what Ellis reported Miss Rand was unhappy even before the debate started.

I had a copy of the book but don't remember too much about it.

There were some previous posts about the book on OL.

One of Dr. Ellis's students was Dr. Roger Callahan who recommend a book of Dr. Ellis. The book was Homosexuality: Its Causes and Cure. I understand this is the only book of Dr Ellis that is not for sale from his institute.

If my last statement is true it sounds like Dr Ellis changed his views to conform to the fashions of the day.

It is worth noting that Nathaniel Branden has changed his views on homosexuality over the years. He gave a lecture in his Objectivist Psychology on a cure of homosexuality.

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Reidy;

You have caught me editorializing on Dr Ellis's switch on the topic of homosexuality.

Dr Ellis seems to have done what the therapists themselves when they removed homosexuality form their diagnostic manual.

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Jst to throw in my 2 cents. Ellis was, arguably, the figure of psychology in the last 6000 years. I read somewhere Branden announced his talk was "devoid of intellectual content". If Ellis did not self-identify as a Libertarian or Capitalist it is understandable he would try to paint all of us in the same negative light.

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Thanks for the replies.

After reading them, I then recalled the debate between Ellis and Branden. I had skimmed over it will reading my bound copies of the Objectivist et al (which I only finally got a set of the 3 about 6-8 months ago), but had forgotten the incident.

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Before it was revived online, Is Objectivism a Religion had become quite the rare book.

Albert Ellis was a major force in the development of clinical psychology. It's too bad that he and Nathaniel Branden couldn't get along. One of the major points of contention was Ellis's rejection of global self-worth (evaluating your overall value as a human being). He not only believed that adult human beings need not have a global sense of self-worth; he preached that they should strive not to have any, on the grounds that if you "rate yourself" you might be a "hero" this week, but in a week or two you'll surely regard yourself as a "worm."

In this respect, it was Dr. Ellis, not Dr. Branden, who was out of step with most clinical psychologists.

In my opinion, about 1/4 of Dr. Ellis's book is worthwhile: the passages in which he claims that Objectivists are prone to "deify" Ayn Rand, or that there is a powerful streak of Puritanism in her writings about sex, etc.

But, as the blurb for the online version proclaims, most of the book gives us, not Ellis the psychologist, but Ellis the wannabe philosopher of science (he was a Logical Positivist) or Ellis the aspiring political economist. His purported arguments against capitalism on economic grounds are embarrassingly bad. He asserted, for instance, that the Soviet Union could easily become as prosperous as the United States. It's too bad that no one interviewed him about his book after the inhabitants of Berlin started taking pickaxes to the Wall...

Robert Campbell

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Dr. Campbell; I wanted say how good your post on Dr. Ellis was. I remember that in his book on Objectivism he made a great deal that was some device that was better than an electric dishwasher which proved that capitalism was no good.

That capitalism was such a success and Communism was a complete failure never got through to Dr. Ellis.

I wonder how often he told patients that weren't in touch with reality. I think with comments like this we know that Dr. Ellis was not in touch with reality.

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Robert,

I got the book Are Capitalism, Objectivism, and Libertarianism Religions? Yes! online a year or two ago (near when Ellis put it up) and printed it out. It is around my house somewhere. I found it extremely hard to read a second time because there are so many mischaracterizations of Objectivism in it. Way too often Ellis invented the nits he picked. (I do agree with you that the passages on Objectivists deifying Rand are extremely worthwhile.)

There is an interesting point in this book. I first read it in the late 1970's. I had been in Brazil a few years and I went back to the USA to visit my parents. While there, I went to the public library. I tried to find books by or about Objectivism and I came across this little gem. You can imagine how the title jumped out at me. I was still in my Randroid stage (coming to an end). As I read it, I had the impression that there was much more to the story than I was getting.

However I do remember thinking the story about the debate with Nathaniel really odd. This was not because of the controversy, but because of the tape. Ellis complained that he received a copy of the tape of the entire debate, but the voice of Nathaniel had been erased. Only his voice was present. The reason he said Nathaniel gave for this was that Nathaniel was giving Ellis his own property, but Nathaniel would not provide him with Nathaniel's property after the debacle. I thought this was really strange back then. I could not take the property rights argument seriously (who could?) and I took this as a quirky manner Nathaniel had of bashing him. I cannot imagine what only one side of a debate must sound like. It has to be quite weird.

I find it extremely ironic that the first person to airbrush the Brandens out of Objectivism was Nathaniel himself, apparently with Rand's blessing at the time! :)

(Of course, Nathaniel's motivation was not to rewrite history back then, but to insult Ellis or at least communicate his hostility.)

There is another interesting matter. We have a member on OL who is a follower of General Semantics. Here is a quote from the Wikipedia article Albert Ellis.

Ellis credits Alfred Korzybski[4] and his book, Science and Sanity[5], for starting him on the philosophical path for founding rational-emotive therapy.

(Footnotes:)

[4] http://time-binding.org/misc/akml/akmls/58-ellis.pdf

[5] Alfred Korzybski "Science and Sanity An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics", Preface by Robert P. Pula, Institute of General Semantics, 1994, hardcover, 5th edition, ISBN 0-937298-01-8

This is the second Korzybski influence I have found recently (the other was Tony Buzan and Mind Mapping).

Michael

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Ellis credits Alfred Korzybski[4] and his book, Science and Sanity[5], for starting him on the philosophical path for founding rational-emotive therapy.

(Footnotes:)

[4] http://time-binding.org/misc/akml/akmls/58-ellis.pdf

[5] Alfred Korzybski "Science and Sanity An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics", Preface by Robert P. Pula, Institute of General Semantics, 1994, hardcover, 5th edition, ISBN 0-937298-01-8

This is the second Korzybski influence I have found recently (the other was Tony Buzan and Mind Mapping).

Michael

Yes there have been several "offshoots" of General Semantics through the years, some pretty pathetic. The original Dianetics began when A.E. Van Vogt wrote The World of Null-A and got involved with L Ron Hubbard promoting it. Then there was the Scientology offshoot from Dianetics. Of course there is REBT with Ellis and NLP and apparently Buzan and mind mapping although I am completely ignorant of all of these. GS is not technically difficult but it involves looking at things differently, and structurally different terms, like the denial of the 'is of identity', for example. GS is in fact a theory of sanity and so anyone who is interested in psychology, psychotherapy, mental hygiene, etc. would obviously benefit from having it at their disposal. Most psychotherapy is designed to address problems but does not give one preventative means to keep them from occurring. GS can be used as both, therapeutic and preventative, but I fear most of these "offshoots" are gimicks with private terminology and not for scientific use. Korzybski believed, as I do, that social science, like psychology (which he would change to psycho-logics), lags far behind physical science and his was an attempt to begin this "catch-up", but there are many hurdles to overcome. I think the reason social science lags so far behind is that we are not as effective observing ourselves as we are at observing phenomena "outside our skin", probably because there are strong emotional factors that influence our observations when the subject is us.

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Yes there have been several "offshoots" of General Semantics through the years, some pretty pathetic. The original Dianetics began when A.E. Van Vogt wrote The World of Null-A and got involved with L Ron Hubbard promoting it. Then there was the Scientology offshoot from Dianetics. Of course there is REBT with Ellis and NLP and apparently Buzan and mind mapping although I am completely ignorant of all of these. GS is not technically difficult but it involves looking at things differently, and structurally different terms, like the denial of the 'is of identity', for example. GS is in fact a theory of sanity and so anyone who is interested in psychology, psychotherapy, mental hygiene, etc. would obviously benefit from having it at their disposal. Most psychotherapy is designed to address problems but does not give one preventative means to keep them from occurring. GS can be used as both, therapeutic and preventative, but I fear most of these "offshoots" are gimicks with private terminology and not for scientific use. Korzybski believed, as I do, that social science, like psychology (which he would change to psycho-logics), lags far behind physical science and his was an attempt to begin this "catch-up", but there are many hurdles to overcome. I think the reason social science lags so far behind is that we are not as effective observing ourselves as we are at observing phenomena "outside our skin", probably because there are strong emotional factors that influence our observations when the subject is us.

The great scientific advances were made by folks who use the word "is" (in its various tenses and modes).

There is is as in is-a. A is a B

There is is as in is-like. My love is a red, red rose. Or; taxation is theft.

There is is as in exists. Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

There is is as in identical. As in 1 + 1 is 2

There is is as in identification: What is this? Every little kid learning a language picks up the phrase - What's that?

There is is as in subjunctiive or counterfactual definite. As in -- If I were you etc etc.

No harm comes if one does not reify the verb.

Challenge: eliminate "is" from your vocabulary in all its tenses and modes. See how far you get in expressing yourself.

Ba'al

Edited by BaalChatzaf
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No harm comes if one does not reify the verb.

Challenge: eliminate "is" from your vocabulary in all its tenses and modes. See how far you get in expressing yourself.

Ba'al

Yes, this is the challenge, to use the verb without reification and this is precisely what Korzybski calls 'consciousness of abstracting'. BTW, there is also a school of GS that does restrict the use of the verb "to be", it is called E-Prime or E'. I have always thought of it as an interesting experiment but I fear it does not really address the problem.

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Dr. Campbell; I wanted say how good your post on Dr. Ellis was. I remember that in his book on Objectivism he made a great deal that was some device that was better than an electric dishwasher which proved that capitalism was no good.

That capitalism was such a success and Communism was a complete failure never got through to Dr. Ellis.

I wonder how often he told patients that weren't in touch with reality. I think with comments like this we know that Dr. Ellis was not in touch with reality.

I think there are a great number of people not in touch with reality when it comes to the capitalism vs socialism argument. This is a misrepresented debate right from the start. The debate should be about individual capitalism vs social capitalism for we require capitalism of some sort unless we want to return to the barter system. So we need to decide what, if any, segments of our economy should be publicly owned and operated and vice versa. In the former USSR they emphasized social capitalism while the US has historically stressed individual capitalism but in reality you cannot have a pure system either way.

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GS,

Social sciences and psychology "lag" (in your term) behind the physical sciences because they are very young disciplines in mankind's history, not because of language.

Michael

Psychology goes back as far as Aristotle. Read -De Anima- (On the Soul). The Greek word for Soul is psuche or psyche, hence the name of the discipline. The problem is that psychology is about what is In Here rather than what is Out There. Intersubjective verification and validation is not possible with current technology. There is just introspection which cannot be reliably distinguished from self-delusion. Until we have a spiffy keen what of decoding the electrical and chemical activity of the brain, this is the way it will remain.

Sociology and economics are dealt with by Aristotle in -Politics-. Aristotle's analysis of the city-state (polis) is as acute as any modern work of the same sort.

The short version: psychology and sociology are not young disciplines at all. They go back more than 2000 years

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited by BaalChatzaf
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GS,

Social sciences and psychology "lag" (in your term) behind the physical sciences because they are very young disciplines in mankind's history, not because of language.

Michael

The modern science of physics (more properly kinematic and dynamic mechanics) goes back 400 years (to Galileo). This is a much shorter time time than for psychology (the philosophy of the soul) and sociology (politics and economics) which are at least 2300 years old.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Bob,

I can use the same quality of argument about physics. People noticed stars as far back as recorded history, therefore cosmology is an ancient science. And so on.

The concept of individual rights (in practice) is only a few centuries old and the concept of a subconscious is even younger. You peg physics to Galileo because of "kinematic and dynamic mechanics," but do not use the same standard for social sciences and psychology.

What a strange desire to be contentious for the sake of arguing, and solely for that.

Michael

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Dr. Campbell; I wanted say how good your post on Dr. Ellis was. I remember that in his book on Objectivism he made a great deal that was some device that was better than an electric dishwasher which proved that capitalism was no good.

That capitalism was such a success and Communism was a complete failure never got through to Dr. Ellis.

I wonder how often he told patients that weren't in touch with reality. I think with comments like this we know that Dr. Ellis was not in touch with reality.

I think there are a great number of people not in touch with reality when it comes to the capitalism vs socialism argument. This is a misrepresented debate right from the start. The debate should be about individual capitalism vs social capitalism for we require capitalism of some sort unless we want to return to the barter system. So we need to decide what, if any, segments of our economy should be publicly owned and operated and vice versa. In the former USSR they emphasized social capitalism while the US has historically stressed individual capitalism but in reality you cannot have a pure system either way.

You are trying to call fasicsm/socialism capitalism. Also, "we" decide today and de-decide tomorrow while you imply some sort of achievable stasis. The principal is more freedom. Moving to more and more freedom chewing each bite before "we" swallow. Never mind a pure system, for the purity is in our heads, like the achievement of absolute zero temperature.

--Brant

edit: Apropos absolute zero: you also can't achieve a perfect vacuum; there has to be something in there for nothing doesn't exist. The void doesn't exist. Space doesn't exist; it's only defined by what isn't there but there is something else there even if you and I or a black hole aren't. Space is actually a thin, generalized density, thin relative to say the earth or the sun. Existence has always existed. Existence is the indestructible albeit constantly morphing entity.

Edited by Brant Gaede
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Social sciences and psychology "lag" (in your term) behind the physical sciences because they are very young disciplines in mankind's history, not because of language.

From Hayek's The Sensory Order:

8.66 ... There are several fields in which practical difficulties prevent us from elaborating known explanations of the principle to the point where they would enable us to predict particular events. This is often the case when the phenomena are very complex, as in meteorology or biology; in these instances, the number of variables which would have to be taken into account is greater than that which can be attained by the human mind. ...

8.72 The degree of complexity of the objects of classification may then be measured by the number of different classes under which it is subsumed, or the number of different 'heads' under which it is classified. ...

Social sciences and psychology involve a far greater number of variables than does the laws of motion.

Hayek does not say so in the book, but I think it should be added the extent to which the phenomena can be quantified (and how, e.g. subjective rankings versus physical measurements) also contributes to mankind's level of understanding.

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