I am unsure of what you are saying. Are you saying that Objectivists who choose business need more study of philosophy than Objectivists who choose other fields?
Or are you saying that the Objectivist business people you have met have not studied philosophy as much as you think they should?
No, it is just that in my experience in college there were no business majors other than myself in the UH Students of Objectivism. It’s ironic that the people that people who are defending business (ostensibly and on a simplistic level) seem to have the least interest in defining a philosophy . We both know that Objectivism is more than defending business. It’s a comprehensive philosophy but of all things and people that should be attracted to it you’d think business people would.
As Peikoff pointed out in Why Businessmen Need Philosophy, business people tend to be pragmatists which is inherently counterproductive and indeed self destructive. I’ve had more success discussing concepts with people that are outside of the business field. People in business tend to be overly focused on numbers and ignore the inherent moral questions in what we do and why we do it. Even Marx said that he was sure that when he hung the last businessman, he’d be happy having made one last sale.
It’s this reason I’ve gone out of my way to give gifts of Atlas Shrugged, Capitalism:The Unknown Ideal, and the Virtue of Selfishness out to co-workers and my staff as gifts.
I would say all individuals need philosophy. How much depth of study each person needs depends more on his goals (and problems with his current, actual philosophy), doesn’t it?
I absolutely agree. Some people are content going through life with little if any philosophy much less having a central purpose in life. They are happy to “make their quarterlies” and be done with it. I would venture to guess that if you grabbed say a writer versus a stockbroker, the writer would be more, and I really hate using this term but I cant think of a better one right now, “actualized”. Which is ironic because being a successful stockbroker takes an amazing talent for not only numbers but for understanding people and what motivates them. My point is many business people will spend umpteen dollars learning the latest sales technique but won’t spend a dime of their time to understand the basic ideas of metaphysics or epistemology.
Even within a field, one individual might choose much deeper study of philosophy than another individual purely because of personal goals. An example is a businessman who sets as part of his central purpose in life becoming a well-informed, philosophically trained advocate for capitalism. Other individuals in business might prefer to devote full time to their businesses – and donate a big part of their profits to The Ayn Rand Institute, for example, in effect hiring them to be intellectual activists for him.
For another example, perhaps you could (1) state your central purpose in life, and (2) explain how much philosophical knowledge you are seeking.
ARI put out the so called “Business Survival Kits” with Atlas Shrugged, Why Businessmen Need Philosophy, etc. a few years ago and I thought they were great. I really like the current management training systems that Hutchinson Technology is offering. It is unlike any other that I have ever seen. Instead of teaching managers how to do things like reflective listening, they start with lectures on why A is A, why existence exists, and goes on to explain to show to technology and now other industry managers why if they don’t grasp that reality is real then everything else they believe has no foundation. Actually, Yaron Brook is one of the instructors. It’s an intense program from what I understand since they actually take people from business and start from A is A and work from there.
My specific request was if there were any specific groups of people in business that are also Objectivists. There is a certain stereotype, which is actually generally quite the opposite, that most people in the financial markets especially but business in general are not capitalists. My intent was to find a more suitable forum for discussing things like the day to day things that retail managers do to motivate their staffs etc..
I remember someone discussing the AOB actually discussed things such as directly applying Objectivist principles to management like Edwin Locke’s Rational Principals of Management.
