Ayn Rand and the Smoking Ban

I have never read Atlas Shrugged but am familiar with Ayn Rand's philosophy and the philosophy of the Austrian school  economists who preceded her.  I have owned 'Atlas Shrugged' for a number of years, but have never read it as I am always put off by its following as a political text.  Rand's followers seem to miss the point that her philosophy is only illustrated through a work of fiction.

A central tenet of the Austrian schoolers is to protect their theory by fiercely claiming that the theory can not be tested because introducing a test into the system, changes the result thus making economic study using real-world data impossible.  By adopting this position on studies, Austrian schoolers have made it impossible to disprove their theories.  In the same way, Rand has constructed her own world to postulate her theory, and her theory works perfectly in it.  Any attempt to recreate this world would surely fail, but should be tried anyway.

Austrian school theories are akin to economic creationism as Objectivism (Rand's theory) is sociological creationism.  Creationism eschews the scientific method for a world that requires no proof or even a logical thought progression.  This gets to the heart of the matter, the system can not be tested, can not be relied upon and can not be expected to perform in practice as it is described only in a work of fiction.

So what does all this have to do with the smoking ban?

Smoking bans have been going into effect around the world for a decade or so.  At first, opposition was fierce -- businesses would lose money, tax dollars would go to surrounding towns with more lenient policies, etc.  The first bans were full of loopholes and gradually they were tightened.  Over time, the bans met less and less opposition.  When the City of Lawrence, KS put their ban in, it was debated for years and barely passed.  A year after the ban, I read a report of a study that found that bars in Lawrence had lost the equivalent business of three KU home basketball games.  The article also noted that KU had played three fewer home games that year.

A few years later, the State of Kansas passed a statewide ban on indoor smoking with less opposition than the Lawrence ban received.  I took this as a sign of the times -- fading opposition, a realization that people did not stop eating out or going to bars because they could no longer smoke.  They still did these things, only in a slightly more healthy environment (the alcohol and excessively fattening food are probably as bad for you as the secondhand smoke).  Overall, the experience of going out to a bar or restaurant was improved by State intervention.

When the 2010 elections ended, Republicans held both houses of the Kansas legislature and every statewide office (note: Kansas is typically perceived as a very red state but for 28 of the last 44 years the Governor has been a Democrat).  In the days after the election, newly-elected Republicans began talking about repealing the statewide ban that was just passed in the last legislative session.  Many of these newly-elected officials are more conservative than their predecessors and were backed by and/or members of a tea party group.  (Although the Tea Party is loosely-organized and can not be categorized as having only one ideology, it is generally libertarian in nature.  Rand is a major ideological influence for many of their leaders.)

Additionally, as the tea party has gained strength in many parts of the country, I have heard politicians and thinkers from other areas express a desire to repeal the smoking ban.  There opposition to a smoking ban is clearly ideological and has nothing to do with public sentiment on the issue nor was it an issue that  was very often brought up during the campaign.  The individuals in favor of repealing the ban have typically framed their arguments in terms of civil liberties and property rights.  The argument follows the trajectory of people have the right to do what they want in a public space and that business owners have the right to allow or disallow an activity.  Without getting into various arguments of the slipperiness of the slope, these arguments typically do not regard public health, the pursuit of happiness of nonsmokers or the pursuit of happiness of smokers who wish to eat in a smoke free environment.

Why are the rights of smokers given supremacy of the rights of others?  This is an example of Objectivism run amok, the out and out application of an ideology without regard to it effect.  In a world where the process matters and the results are ignored (the opposite of the scientific world) bizarre outcomes become more normal.  When reality is based on a fiction, the results can be disastrous.  Although I favor a smoking ban, its impact on public health is fairly small -- it just makes for a more pleasant environment.  I suspect that many places of business would not allow smoking now, if given the option because public opinion has dramatically changed.  And I suspect that some Randite libertarians will claim this as a victory of the free market (wrongly so).

So why are the rights of smokers so important?  The same reason the rights of gun owners are given supremacy over the rights of innocent bystanders to not be caught in a crossfire.  It's all process.  It's all fiction.  Ayn Rand was never interested in reality and neither are her followers.