Ragged Dick mythology.... The beginnings of the Libertarian mindset?

Horatio Alger's Ragged Dick went from selling apples on the street to becomming a captain of industry in the popular culture ot the early 20th Century pulp literature in America.

Any comments as to its real effects on culture today?

The Libertarian is just somebody who never matured emotionally past age two. Everything centers around you; all serve you.

Libertarians aren't entirely selfish, in that they want the same for all Americans. They just don't want to be MADE to care about others if they don't choose to. Under their rule, people who do care about others would still care. The government just wouldn't be the one taking their money. That said, I believe that, in such a system, classism would flourish, making things worse than the last four years.

They really should go live on an island somewhere. I'm not sure why they want to trash America and bring it back to the 1700s.

Libertarians I know talk the Horatio Alger talk, but they don't walk the walk. I think many of them sit in corporate offices dreaming about starting a business, and they spout boot-strap rugged individualist rhetoric, but often don't actually have the courage or imagination to go out on their own, and are ill-equipped to succeed when they do. Many libertarians like self-reliance and independence in theory, but they are Ragged Dick only in their own minds.

The real effect of this on the culture is that it reinforces selfishness and denies inter-dependence. This has a corrosive effect on community IMHO, since people take the perks of independence onto themselves as an excuse to be self-centered, but aren't willing to pay the price for that independence.

This disconnection between freedom and responsibility is rampant among young Republicans and Libertarians. Examples - taking credit for your degree when it was your parents who put you through school; vociferously supporting the war without ever considering enlisting yourself; expecting services from government, but being reluctant to pay taxes; putting on a big fancy expensive wedding, with everything - including the diamond! - going on your dad's credit card. And then turning around and saying that the poor have only themselves to blame for their troubles.

Not sure if this is where you were going with your example, but those are a few observations.

To me, since my brother claims to be a libertarian. Since, of course, it's a pipe dream, he votes republican.

It's hard to argue against those who'd say Gov should play no part, no obvious role. Americans value gumption, dignity, honor. If you're in favor of free markets (figure I'm trying to argue from the standpoint of Lou Dobbs), you have to favor free will, and the desire that drives it.

Ideally? Sounds great, until you realize that those in power won't let that system live on its own. The very power that one person gains through success fucks the whole system, as they use it to help their friends or associates. It's fundamentally against human nature not to try to parlay an advantage to those for whom you care.

I figure, though, that the Libertarians just manage to get people to sign up by promising to legalize dope :)

in the media. There is the "luck" factor which is disdained, and the ludicrous belief that hard work and perseverance can conquer anything.

Shit happens, and as a society, we are bound to help our fellow travelers along the way. It seems as if the Repugs and Libertarians are basically trying to espouse that helping the down and out is un-American?

Well said and welcome to DU!

A fictitious example that turned into an urban legend, the Ragged Dick mythos has infected so many with the idea that the only reason all are not super wealthy barons of whatever is because they have not worked hard enough. If the premis were tru, the vast majority of America would be a nation of Bill Gates and Donald Trumps.

(and this is exactly where I was headed with the topic)

... and exactly the way I feel.

Libertarians want an easy simple overarching policy to apply to everything. With communists, it was "the state can control the economy". With libertarians it is "the state must not influence the economy".


Both ideas are rigid abdications of the valid role of government. With Libertarians, it's like saying "the government cannot do a perfect job, so it should do nothing" where the communists say "the private sector cannot do a perfect job, so the government must do it all".

Both ideologies are simplistic to say the least, and neither would result in a functional society for any period of time. I really hope the Libs get to try it out somewhere so they can see the same abject failure of their ideas that the communists already have.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

Thanks for the welcome, newyawker99!

:toast:

That says volumes, eh? (Actually, he was in debt, I believe...)

The carrot is the myth of the system, and that's why people will let the rich do as they please.

So did Poe....

BUT! That really lends credence to my feelings about Alger.

Thanks for sharing that.

People only become Libertarians when they decide "hmm, okay, I've made a lot of money, it's time to change the rules so I don't have to share it with anyone or pay for any government services."

Libertarians would have you believe that we should eliminate public services that are free to the public, and let public services like for-profit libraries come into being. Forget the fact that a lot of people in the booming B* economy can't even afford basic telephone service much less "luxuries" like a for-profit library. What would happen to the poor in a world where the Libertarian Party has closed down all the libraries (i.e., the creation of an illiterate, ignorant underclass) does not seem to matter to the Libertarians.

the specific stories have little effect, but the motif fuels most of the propaganda used by capitalists to perpetuate their thievery

It is true that Dick goes from pauper to prince, but one very subtle thing happens that would have made even contemporary readers of the book, doubt the sincerity of the 'liberal' gameplan to success.

Dick become's a captain of industry, but the last chapter makes it very clear that when Dick becomes a 'respectable' man of means, hard work and ideas, he also becomes eligible to marry the 'rich man's' daughter.

Was Ragged Dick really about success through enterprise and hard work or was the message nuisanced...artistocracy is really the only safe route to wealth.

Very good point, but the latter is ignored in very much the same way as other 19th C. stories that show that all that glitters is not gold.

That revelation in the book is like a punchline really...

After all, the book was written in the 'gilded age' (neo-darwinism) and the 'market' Alger was targeting was the same people who read penny books, gossip sheets, etc on the comings and goings of wealthy families like the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Cabots, etc.

If anything, the book is less about 'liberatarianism', but more about Victorian respectability and how it was far more important to keep your fingernails clean (the 'city beautiful' movement, urban hyigene drives, etc) in order to be successful.

If anything, I figure Alger's books, which became very popular, were precussor's to the 'self-help' movement in that became even more popular in the early part of the 20th century.

(hmm..sometimes that 'college' stuff comes in handy, huh?) ;-)

...this seems to be held by folks of most political stripes, except out-and-out marxists or socialists.

And its not really such a far fetched thing. There have been a number of real-life examples where people via luck and drive and intelligence rise from humble or average backounds into high places or wealth. Bill Clinton, Jack Welch and Robert McNamara are three examples.

And plenty of not-so-famous people better themselves via education, etc, moving up from the ranks of the poor to middle class, and from middle class to upper middle class, etc...maybe not to the very heights of wealth and power, but there was alot of social and economic mobilty in our society.

Libertarianism is a whole nother thing, I think.

There is sort of a concept that econmic and social processes should work themselves out without government interfence.

And there is this rigid "Constitutionalism" that says we should go back to the original intent of the Constitution and that the Federal Government does too much or is too interfering. This is where libertarianism runs into the pardox that democracy and republican government (w. a small R) , as it has worked its way through history, has lead to less "freedom" as they define it.

The libertarians ideal of absolute "freedom" is incompatible with democracy, and would require repression and a severe limiting of democracy and representation.

I never vote other than Democratic (except in city/county elections where I sometimes vote Green). But I feel betrayed by our party playing into the "law 'n order" constituency and supporting the War on Drugs, sentencing "enhancements", the kingpin statute, et cetera. We've handed too much power to our (95% Republican) police, and we will someday pay for it--not just the wrongly accused who have been "disappeared" into "the system" in the last 20-30 years, but all of us. It's sheer cowardice, both political and physical, that makes us put up with this. People should take more responsibility for their own safety.

That being said, I don't feel at all aggrieved about taxes, business regulations, et cetera. I also think social services should be done less paternalistically, more as an entitlement, which makes me more "liberal" than most democrats. The only taxes I resent are those that go to war, law enforcement and in particular,"officer safety". I almost voted for a libertarian Republican once who was actually talking about changing the drug policy--I even hated his dem opponent, but at the last minute I couldn't stick my pin through the paper next to the word "Republican".

Ayn Rand is usually the point of entry into libertarianism. An impressionable teen will read "Atlas Shrugged" or "The Fountainhead" and think they have stumbled on something big, and next thing you know they are posting "capitalist manifestos" to the Internet. The philosophy makes them feel they are being rebels against society, while in fact the philosophy is really quite conservative.

It would be interesting to try and track down where Ayn Rand got her ideas from. I read a book once, "The Ayn Rand Cult" that traced Randism to a mish mash of sources, mostly writers from the 1920s and from the robber baron era of the late 1800s who upheld the captains of industry as the sources of all innovation and progress while they made their millions, and attacked government programs, progressivism, populism, labor unions, courts, etc. I don't remember Horatio Alger being mentioned specifically, but it wouldn't surprise me.