Ayn Rand's Influence in Latin America, Part II

(3) The Novels in Argentina
The latest uncensored version of The Fountainhead in Spanish arrived to the bookstores of Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2004. The previous edition of the book was published in Franco’s Spain and was subject to censorship and political machinations, with parts of the book missing. The latest version out of Buenos Aires is a first-class translation. Except for minor structural changes of sentences and the inevitable problems inherent in different languages with certain words, the translation is true to its mark and very much the child of Ayn Rand’s vision of life.

I compared parts of the Spanish translation with the English edition, and consequently, I could find no distortions of meaning, no flights of fancy on the part of the translators, or for that matter any perversion of the spirit of book. For those familiar with language translations, this is a monumental achievement. In my experience, more often than not, distortions of meaning in regard to translations are frequent. This can be ascertained by watching a movie in English and following the Spanish subtitles. Very often, the Spanish version is very different from what is being said or implied in English. More than anything, a good translator has to have knowledge of the spirit and context of the situation and be able to convey that message to the reader in his native language. In my opinion, in the Spanish version of The Fountainhead, this arduous task was achieved with excellent results.

This Spanish edition is in hardback and as of 2005 sells for 87 pesos or $27.00 in dollars. The medium salary in Buenos Aires is from 200 to 500 dollars a month so one can judge the value of the book. As of late 2005, paperback versions of the two novels are available from the publisher for about ten dollars. A hardback copy of The Virtue of Selfishness is also available.

Atlas Shrugged is usually displayed in stores next to its intellectual brother, The Fountainhead. The version in hardback, runs to 1045 pages. Like its American brother, the cover has an illustrated Atlas buckling under the weight of the world. In comparing the two books, Atlas Shrugged, the first book published in Spanish of Ayn Rand in Argentina, has outsold The Fountainhead. In 2004, Atlas Shrugged was on the best-seller lists in Argentina and in Mexico City. The Fountainhead so far has not reached that status. It will be interesting to follow its future in Latin America as to how its history plays out.

I think a great part of the success of Atlas Shrugged in Argentina is due to the similarities of the book to the economic disasters that have taken place in the country since the early thirties. To know the history of Argentina is know the outline of Atlas Shrugged—bank failures, strikes, nationalizations of property, price and wage controls, runaway inflation—and more than anything, a venomous spirit toward economic incentive, opportunity and upward mobility of the individual.

By providing answers to these disasters, Atlas Shrugged provides the vision and perspective to the decay of a nation that was once at the top of the economic scale and is now descending into the darkness of the Third World. Its publication in Buenos Aires coincided with the real-world example of a once-prosperous society crumbling from philosophical and political disaster. While the financial collapse described in Atlas Shrugged is fiction to most people in the United States, in Argentina it is very much a reality, a modern society recovering from the brink of financial collapse, its political system ringed in theft and corruption, its politicians short-sighted and demagogic, avoiding the correct medicine at all costs. Alternating between Marxist economic theories and variants of National Socialism, the country is a textbook example of how to destroy wealth and impoverish an intelligent and hardworking population. This background, I venture to say, is one of the reasons for the immense popularity of Atlas Shrugged in Argentina: a fictional description of Argentine reality with a philosophical answer to the disasters, that until the introduction of Ayn Rand in the culture, have gone without explanation.

Along with this, the people of Buenos Aires are well acquainted with strikes. They occur all the time and from every sector. Organized gangs, supported by the government, block streets and highways and commit acts of violence with impunity. Similar to New York City of the sixties and seventies, when strikes and work stoppages were an every day occurrence, Buenos Aires is a mixture of a world-class civilized society, and a city at the edge of chaos and anarchy.

This is a quote from an Argentinian liberal about the penchant for strikes in the country, and the only strike that has never occurred in Argentina.

“At a time that Argentina finds itself caught between strikes, forced work stoppages, and an escalation of violence without precedence, Atlas Shrugged tells the story of the only strike that never has taken place in Argentina: the strike of those of the mind. The book is about the explicit decision of those persons who produce the wealth--so that later others can claim the right to disperse of it by force--to stop being sacrificial lambs....It would be difficult to find a moment or a place more favorable for this book, than the Argentina of the twenty-first century. The book constitutes an alternative explanation to what one usually hears as the reason for the destruction of the country."

In the case of Argentina, strikes and violent street demonstrations have been a political instrument since the governments of the thirties. The political and economic disasters of Atlas Shrugged are a recurring nightmare that keeps repeating itself without explanation since the days of Peron. A bold and controversial man perhaps from a similar mold as De Gaulle, Perón’s ghost still overshadows Argentine politics. When he was alive, he dominated the government during the forties and early fifties with a strong, charismatic personality, dominant and powerful unions, pleas to sacrifice for Argentina, bold and imaginative symbolism, both anti-capitalist and anti-communist rhetoric, and total control of the economy—a nationalistic style government that sought Argentine economic domination of the marketplace and little foreign competition.

Peron’s legend is distorted in the United States by allegations of fascism and collusion with the Nazis. In contrast to this, he was much more a Latin American caudillo with great charm and charisma, who had a social-justice agenda and a desire for a strong Argentina. He was well-read and educated—a cultured man—who in developing his philosophy of Peronism, borrowed and quoted from the prominent names in philosophical history.

Using the unions as his power base, he sought a "third way" for Argentina, an independent course between capitalism and communism, classical liberalism and totalitarianism. He sought to “Argentinize” the economy, which was basically another word for economic nationalism. Although not totally antagonistic to business, he created an Argentine form of National Socialism with his government controlling most aspects of economic activity—and although allowing an opposition—occasionally imposing a heavy hand in regards to the media and the press. This heavy control of economic activity by the government has followed through to the present day and was witnessed during the collapse of the economy and the economic crisis of 2001.

Once one of the leading economic powers in the world, Argentinians, suddenly, saw themselves drifting into the status of another third-world disaster. They witnessed first hand their bank assets being frozen and their life savings destroyed. The government defaulted on its payments to the IMF, and politicians started to blame foreign banks for their own mistakes. Within weeks, five presidents arrived and exited, and the country saw itself held hostage by unemployed strikers who committed acts of violence with impunity. The new president invited Fidel Castro to his inauguration and refuses to recognize any of his actions as a violation of the right to one’s life. Thus, in a country where many still see Che Guevara and Juan Perón as heroes, the message of Ayn Rand has arrived and captured the vision of those of independent mind and thought, caught in a nightmare world of collectivist propaganda and real-world violence.

In contrast to Atlas Shrugged, with its graphic descriptions of economic decay and the collapse of civilization, The Fountainhead is a much different story to many Latin Americans unfamiliar with the United States. The book offers a very different portrait, and perhaps a strange one to foreign eyes. The story of a man rising up out of humble beginnings—the Horatio Alger legend of going from rags-to-riches by means of one’s talent and ability—is a common story in the United States, but rare in Argentina and other parts of Latin America.

Individualism, while many times not intellectual or not articulated, was an integral part of the history of the United States, ingrained into the culture and taken for granted by the population. The American cowboy culture and the history of the Old West are glaring examples of the “rugged individual” living his own life and doing it his way. Americans of my generation were reared on the individualism of John Wayne, a man with a mind of his own and a vision of how he wanted to live his life. This tradition carried on into the seventies and could be seen in a movie such as Junior Bonner starring Steve McQueen where such rugged individuals as Ida Lupino, Joe Don Baker and Robert Preston, follow their individual vision and their “lone wolf” ethic in the land of “a man has to do what he has to do.” Even the whisky-induced, defiant quasi-individualism of Johnny Paychek, and his “Take This Job and Shove it,” is a markedly American phenomenon alien to most of the other cultures on the planet.

Too many in Latin America, individualism is very much a “gringo” phenomenon to be admired from afar. While Argentina was very much an immigrant nation and filled with tough and hardy gauchos, the philosophical climate of the country was the authoritarian culture of Europe, and the belief in authority over individual autonomy. In this respect and in regard to The Fountainhead, the individualism of Howard Roark would be a very foreign concept, on the one hand inviting and attractive, on the other hand, frightening and alien to what people know and see.

A very graphic illustration of this comes from a article about Ayn Rand and The Fountainhead from a major Argentine newspaper, in which the author described Howard Roark as a "self-made man." Although the article was written in Spanish, "self-made man" was written out in English and placed in italics, which made me suspect that the concept of “self-made man” was alien to the Argentine culture as to much of Latin America, with the possible exception of Mexico where the success of so many Mexicans in United States has oriented people to the concept.

When I inquired around in Argentina about the concept my suspicion proved correct. There is no concept of “self-made man” to match, what in America, is a cultural phenomenon and an everyday occurrence—an inherent part of American culture and history that is taken for granted by most of its inhabitants. Thus, at this stage in its history, individualism to Latin Americans is still a Yankee cultural occurrence to be admired and dreamed about but not yet a reality.

The United States has the Horacio Alger legend, and millions of men and women from humble beginnings rising to positions of importance by ability and talent. Argentina has Juan and Evita Perón, Oscar Bonavena, the boxer, and more recently the great soccer star, Diego Maradona, who wears a tattooed image of Che Guevara on his right bicep and boasts of his great friendship with Fidel Castro.

In Argentina, the concept of the self-made man of independent mind, talent and ability who shapes his world by creation is, at times, as unreachable as the shores of Miami. Thus, with the new copy of The Fountainhead, this alien concept is making its way into the culture. I would venture to say that the radical independence of Roark is a concept that will make a lot of people very curious and uncomfortable at the same time. With this in mind, it is interesting to note that the movie version of The Fountainhead sometimes is billed in Latin America as Uno Contra Todo, or One Against Everybody. From the title one can see that the theme of individualism of the book—so emphasized and valued by Ayn Rand—was altered to give an appearance of a battle of one man against dark, opposing forces. Hence, the theme of the book, individualism, remained the unmentioned missing link to be secretly conceptualized but never mentioned.

In Latin America, the individual pursuit of autonomous values is often pursued as a necessary evil, something that takes place all the time but yet is of questionable moral stature. Like sex in the days of J. Edgar Hoover and Bishop Sheen, it takes place all the time but is never discussed in public. In contrast to the United States, where the opportunity to rise above one’s station is ever-present, in Latin America there is great opposition and hostility to change and innovation. While in America the ambitious are lauded and encouraged, in Latin America they are often met like invading foreigners trying to usurp the land and rights of the powerful and the mighty.

Hence, the history of Howard Roark in Latin America will be another milestone for the writings of Ayn Rand—a vision that perhaps she never foresaw. Perhaps, in Latin America Howard Roark will serve as the renaissance for the latent power and energy of a people who have been restrained for generations by government policies of failure and disaster, all hidden under the mantle of alleviating poverty and providing social justice. While the story of The Fountainhead in the United States is now part of history—its rejection by the elites, its acceptance by the independent individual and its rapid rise to popularity in the culture—in Latin America this scenario will play out once again dictated by the power and strength of Ayn Rand’s legend.

(4) Ayn Rand in Uruguay
A short boat ride from downtown Buenos Aires, across the Rio de Plata, one arrives in Montevideo, Uruguay, a European-type welfare state with a newly elected president from the Socialist Party. The new president is the first official socialist to hold power and consequently arrives to office with almost everything, from mail services, to casinos, to gas stations, already socialized and in the hands of the State. In contrast to Buenos Aires and its bustling energy and sense of life, Montevideo is distinguished by its almost mind-numbing tranquility and the tendency of people to walk around drinking out of canisters, a herb-saturated substance called mate.

Half in the past and partially in the future, one can find modern first-world structures in Montevideo mixed in with third-world passivity and decay. Modern high-rise buildings, casinos and malls share life with drab and dirty government buildings, horse-drawn carts marching down main streets and street kids without family or roof, begging to survive.

Ayn Rand’s novels have also arrived to this highly socialized part of the world.

At the large, fashionable Punta Carretas Mall, a stone-made fortress that was once a prison, one finds all the modern conveniences of the modern world, plus facsimiles of American glamour and elegance. A sleek and fashionable clothes store for women is full of Cosmopolitan Magazine-type girls giggling with bad-girl glee. Right next door is a Beverly Hills-type hair salon, and across from that a store offers custom-made men’s suits.

Around the corner from the clothes store, passing along a corridor of the best in capitalist luxury items, I saw The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged displayed in the bestseller section of a small place called DBD Book Store. Much like a theatrical staging for a play about good versus evil, The Fountainhead was surrounded by enemy forces and had only Atlas Shrugged as an ally. Ayn Rand’s novel about individualism sat on top of a book called, One Year With Schopenhauer. Adjacent to it were two books by Susan Sontag and one by John Kenneth Galbraith. To the rear of them was a book by Gore Vidal. A few spaces away from Atlas Shrugged was a book called, Is Capitalism Moral? by a French author. Sitting at the forefront of the whole heap, and illustrating the deep disparity in intellectual talent and ability of our modern world, were the Spanish translations of the books of smiling Michael Moore.

In seeing books by Sontag, Gore Vidal and John Kenneth Galbraith, I am reminded of the intellectual atmosphere of my youth during the sixties, when the aforementioned dominated the New York intellectual world. At that time, being very much a babe-in-the-intellectual woods, I fell victim to the power of the media, and the gigantic hoax perpetrated by the intellectual establishment. After all, who was I to doubt the intellectual wisdom of the New York intellectual establishment if they hailed Sontag, Vidal and Galbraith as the apex of intellectual wisdom and thought? To doubt the wisdom of these thinkers for a young and inexperienced "nothing" was arrogant heresy, and of course, not a wise course if one aspired to play in the New York arena. Fortunately, Ayn Rand’s writings came to the rescue and saved me from falling deeper and deeper into this loaded dice game of intellectual self-annihilation.

No doubt the sight of these books gave hint to a slight time warp between American and Uruguayan culture. The fact that Ayn Rand is just entering their lives gives hint to the dimension of difference.

Not surprisingly in a country with a top-heavy government structure controlling every aspect of the economy and very high tariffs, The Fountainhead sold for $60 in Montevideo, $30 more than in Buenos Aires. Atlas Shrugged sold for $50. When I inquired about the two books, one of the employees told me Atlas Shrugged was popular, and given the price had sold very well.

Uruguay is probably the flag-ship, welfare state in Latin America populated by families of Spanish and Italian immigrants. At one time, one of the most prosperous countries of Latin America, it has been sliding into collapse for many years. It stands to point out that the physical and economic collapse are based on philosophical corruptions. Montevideo is a hotbed of Marxist economic theories and the home of Eduardo Galeano who wrote the best-selling book, Open Veins of Latin America. The thesis of this book is that United States through imperialistic capitalism robs and pillages Latin America. Or, "They are rich because we are poor." Galeano was a big supporter of Castro’s Cuban experiment in Marxism. His book is a standard text in many of Latin America’s universities and is noticeable in prominent sections of big-city bookstores.

The new socialist president was elected with the promise to rectify the physical and economic collapse. Ironically, with his arrival, there is almost nothing left to socialize. From casinos to health care, almost everything is either owned or partnered by the government. Investment is weak, construction stagnated, and I am told the young people, between 22 and 35, leave for greener pastures as does almost everyone with a skill or a profession. For example, the professional schools in Uruguay are without cost to the student. If admitted, one can go to medical, engineering, or architectural school while living at home, get one's degree and then flee to Chile, U.S., or Spain to live one's life.

Into this twisted mélange, Ayn Rand’s novels have arrived as lonely warriors in another intellectual battle. In a world where the standard of knowledge is often the wisdom of the "people" and where reality is seen as a social construct determined by a judicious use of language, the books will be much-needed additions to the intellectual battle.

Like Argentina, Atlas Shrugged in Uruguay, with its portrayal of the descent of a civilization into moral and financial collapse, strikes an immediate chord with educated people and they have no trouble identifying with the examples from their personal lives. The fact that Ayn Rand is providing answers to disasters previously labeled as unanswerable makes Atlas Shrugged a very attractive book at any price. Like with all the other countries in Latin America, the publication of these novels in Spanish have finally thrown down the gauntlet—the lines are now drawn and a true alternative to Marxism has finally appeared on the horizon.

(5) Bestseller History
In the short time they have been available, the history in regard to Ayn Rand’s novels in Latin America is very impressive. Then, too, the release of The Virtue of Selfishness in Spanish translation and the influence this book will have on Latin American thinking will be an exciting development. Previously, one saw the morality of self-sacrifice from Catholicism and Marxism, and a steady progression of collectivist regimes offering closed societies as an answer to life. Now, for the first time with the publication of this translation, there will be a rational alternative to the morality of self-sacrifice and service to others.

In Argentina, the rise to the top of Atlas Shrugged was a cultural phenomenon. In reading La Nacion one of the main daily newspapers out of Buenos Aires, one can witness the introduction of the book into the culture. Here one can see a former president falling in love with the book as well as professionals and other independent people singing its praises. During the fall and winter of 2004 and into 2005, it was on the best-seller lists of many bookstores and until this date can still be seen in most of the stores and even on display in some of the store windows. (March 2006).

In Mexico, a similar story was taking place. According to the Mexican newspaper, El Universal, Atlas Shrugged was the number one bestseller in the country during the last week of March, 2004 replacing The Code of DaVinci for the top spot, and by the middle of May of the same year was sitting in ninth position. (1)

From Venezuela, we learn that in the beginning of September of 2005, The Fountainhead was the number one best seller in that country and by the end of the month was sitting in the fifth position on the list. (2)

In addition to the best-seller status of her novels, one finds that many of the bookstore chains in Argentina and the Spanish-speaking world have written excellent reviews of Ayn Rand’s novels. Unlike many of the reviews in the English-speaking world that have sought to evade the issues of individualism and collectivism, most all of the reviews in Spanish state the issues very clearly. For example, the review of The Fountainhead that appears on Amazon.com states that the book is about Howard Roark and his "struggles in the face of his successful rival, Peter Keating, and the newspaper columnist, Ellsworth Toohey." It goes on to say, "The book addresses a number of universal themes: the strength of the individual, the tug between good and evil, the threat of fascism."

Notice that this review fails to mention individualism or what type of struggle Roark endures, or for that matter what type of strength he has as an individual. The all-encompassing word fascism is used to sketch in dark forces, but anyone familiar with the book knows that Ayn Rand was referring to all collectivist societies in describing Roark’s fight against public opinion, and the attempt to sacrifice individual ability to democratic equality.

Compare this Amazon review with one that appears on the website of Mauro Books, a book chain that operates out of Buenos Aires. "Ayn Rand is a phenomenon without precedent in modern literature. Like her heroes, she alone faced the collectivist doctrines and became the most outstanding defender of liberty and individualism."

The review goes on to add that: "The Fountainhead since its appearance, has become a world-wide best seller. The ideas and proposals of the author have changed the lives of millions of readers."

The review ends with a quote from the writer Alvaro Vargas Llosa, a quote that appears on the jacket of the Spanish-language translation of the book. Vargas Llosa states that Rand "revolutionized the idea that Americans had of themselves. She, as an immigrant, reminded Americans that the country was founded on the basis of individualism and she moved them to return to these roots under penalty of losing themselves through self-sacrifice."(3)

Another excellent review about Atlas Shrugged comes from Cuspide Libros, a large bookstore chain also operating out of Buenos Aires. The review states that with Atlas Shrugged, "Ayn Rand found the perfect artistic form to express her conception of existence. The book made her, not only one of the most well-known novelists, but one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century. In effect, the philosophy of Objectivism which she created and which appears in other books and essays, has won over readers in all parts of the world." (4)

A Spanish-language bookstore in Weston, Florida called, Board's Libros, has a photo of The Fountainhead on its opening page on the internet, accompanied by an excellent short review of Ayn Rand's life. Starting with Ayn Rand’s quote about each man being an end in himself, the review contains a short biography of The Fountainhead’s history and a summary of Ayn Rand’s non-fiction work. "In these (her non-fiction books), as in her works of fiction, she was defining her philosophy called Objectivism, based on the affirmation of reason as the fundamental of knowledge." It goes on to state that her philosophy is called Objectivism and is based on the affirmation that reason is the fundamental core of knowledge and that she offered a radical defense of rational egoism, opposed to any type of altruism. (5)