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WHO IS JOHN GALT? 1957–1968
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Rand understood his action differently because she shared his individualistic
perspective on rights and his belief that private property was
sacrosanct. Unlike Goldwater, Rand was unimpressed with the doctrine
of state’s rights, which “pertains to the division of power between
local and national authorities. . . . It does not grant to state governments
an unlimited, arbitrary power over its citizens.” But she was equally
appalled by the act’s clauses II and VII, which forbade discrimination
in public accommodations and employment. If the act passed it would
be the “worst breach of property rights in the sorry record of American
history,” she wrote. Early civil rights activists who struggled against government-enforced
segregation drew Rand’s approval. Now she criticized
“Negro leaders” for forfeiting their moral case against discrimination by
“demanding special race privileges.” Rand considered race a collectivist
fi ction, a peripheral category to be subsumed into her larger philosophy.
Her rendering of American history did not ignore race, but neatly
slotted it into her larger vision of capitalism. Slavery simply proved her
point about the country’s “mixed economy,” and the Civil War demonstrated
the superiority of the capitalistic North against “the agrarianfeudal
South.” 42
In the pages of The Objectivist Newsletter Rand vigorously defended
Goldwater against the widespread perception that he represented “the
Radical Right,” a dangerous fringe element said to be imperiling American
democracy. The charges stemmed from Goldwater’s popularity among
members of the John Birch Society (JBS), a secretive anti-Communist
group. Members and the group’s founder, the candy manufacturer
Robert Welch, tended to anti-Semitism and bizarre conspiracy theories.
In a much ballyhooed comment Welch once told supporters he believed
Dwight Eisenhower to be a Communist agent. Members of the society,
which kept its roster confi dential, were found in every segment of the
political right. But its oddities, once uncovered by the mass media, were
fast making the JBS a political hot potato. Richard Nixon denounced
the group in 1962 while running for governor of California. It was a
move intended to advance his appeal among moderates, but instead it
cost Nixon a sizable chunk of his base and he lost the election. Goldwater
was unwilling to take such a step, for he understood how vital the JBS
was to his campaign. Society members were as common among adult
volunteers as Objectivists were among his campus following. Goldwater
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