It was surprising to see Ayn Rand's name in The Charlotte Observer yesterday. The newspaper offers a tale of woe with the title "Donor gave, and UNCC winced."
John Allison, the CEO of BB&T, has directed the charitable arm of his company to give $28 million to 27 colleges to study the moral, not merely the pragmatic, foundations of capitalism. At least 17 of these gifts came with a precondition: one course must include Atlas Shrugged as required reading:
John Allison discovered Rand as a business major at UNC in the late '60s. "Atlas Shrugged" remains his favorite book.
"Most of the defenders of free markets mostly do it from an economic perspective," Allison says. "They argue that free markets produce a higher standard of living, which is certainly very good. But Rand makes a connection to human nature and why individual rights and free markets are the only system consistent with human nature."
Of that $28+ million, Allison is generously giving $1 million to the University of North Carolina for developing a speaker series on business ethics, develop a course on the fundamentals of capitalism, provide research money, and create an Ayn Rand reading room at the school. Some at UNCC are less than thrilled:
"It's going to make us look like a rinky-dink university," UNCC religious studies professor Richard Cohen said Thursday after UNCC Chancellor Phil Dubois told the faculty council about the gift. "It's like teaching the Bible as a requirement."
It gets worse:
[Richard] Cohen, the religious studies professor, responded that Rand was an ideologue, not a serious economist. "It would be exactly like having a Karl Marx room," he said.
Really? There is one key difference, Professor Cohen, that seems to have bubbled over your head. Marx's side lost the Cold War. Rand's side won. (It's tempting here to say, "Your side lost. Get over it.")
Allison's keen sense of business ethics has been on display before. After the U.S. Supreme Court in 2006 gave the green light for considering enrichment of the tax base as a basis for eminent domain in the Kelo decision, BB&T decided it would not "lend to commercial developers that plan to build condominiums, shopping malls and other private projects on land taken from private citizens by government entities using eminent domain."
3 comments:
You mean they don't already have a Karl Marx reading room? Oh, right, that's ALL their rooms!
"Really? There is one key difference, Professor Cohen, that seems to have bubbled over your head. Marx's side lost the Cold War. Rand's side won. (It's tempting here to say, "Your side lost. Get over it.")"
Yup, might makes right, of course that's right...
I was at the Belk College yesterday and was only mildy surprised to find that Ayn Rand's name had been taken off the reading room. What a shame.
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