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Randyians are correct on this. Government interference is preventing me from getting my mail order dynamite business going. Damn you big government!
2 big ass stories in a row, wow!
Atlas holds the heavens not Earth.
Stossel was better on ABC. Don’t like the new format at all. I could care less what the clueless studio audience thinks.
I like Atlas Shrugged. It can change your way of thinking. Rand did make a case for how evil Statism is. I keep Atlas Shrugged and the Bible together on my coffee table as a reminder.
Wait a minute… John Stossel is doing Donahue on Fox Business about Ayn Rand.
BTW, Benjamin… Ayn Rand was no fan of Christianity. She was a devout atheist, and while admire Jesus’s for his teaching, couldn’t abide with all that charitable giving crap.
“I keep Atlas Shrugged and the Bible together on my coffee table as a reminder”
I assume the Bible is to remind you of the dangers of theocracy
I did as Adam instructed: I bought Atlas Shrugged and read it.
Ayn Rand was not predicting the future. She was commenting on current events (in the 50s). During the 50s there was government idiocy, as well as the threat of world-wide communism.
And while I’ll go along with some aspects of her “Objectivism” philosophy – but in some instances, she was just a nut-case. She favored “unrestricted capitalism”. Well, “unrestricted” means you can do whatever you want. So that means murder-for-hire, slavery, etc – all perfectly acceptable, as long as you charge for it. In Ayn Rand’s world, doing anything for “free” would be a crime.
Ayn Rand also needed an editor. There’s a long chapter near the end called “This is John Galt speaking” – where the character does a radio broadcast of the entire philosophy. It took me 3 weeks to read it. I think it would have taken 3-4 hours to read-aloud for broadcasting.
No one listens to a 3-4 hour radio broadcast. I think people would get tired of free pr0n after less than 2 hours.
One good point in Atlas Shrugged: in it, the government official who passes all the ridiculous laws admits that they don’t expect people to be able to obey the laws. The laws are controls – when they catch somebody breaking a law, they can use that against a person to make them do what they want.
The TSA rules are the same: they know that making you stick liquids in clear plastic bags is a stupid rule. But if you break it, they can use that against you – and search all your belongings without requiring your permission.
The police use the same approach: break a minor traffic law (that you didn’t even know existed), and that gives them the right to pull you over. If you act grumpy about it, they can arrest you and search your car.
So the banker complained about government interference; but neglected to mention that there was no government interference to stop banks and brokerage houses from doing sub-prime loans which got us into this mess.
Nice….
#5 Unfortunately, Rand believes the idea of God is the result of human reason becoming dis-functional. You can’t have both ways (I am assuming correctly or incorrectly that you are). You either believe in God or Ayn Rand’s philosophy.
#9 – actually there was government interference which forced banks to make sub-prime loans. Laws were passed which allowed special-interest minority groups to sue (or threaten to sue) banks which did not provide mortgages to minorities in the proportion that the special-interest-group demanded.
So banks had to make the loans. To cover themselves, banks sold off the mortgages to Fannie-Mae. The worst, sub-prime mortgages, were re-packaged by the brokers and sold to insurance companies and pension funds. And, like most ponzi schemes, it all fell apart.
The correct response, by government, to a ponzi scheme is to arrest the perpetrators, and tell the investors (suckers) that they’re screwed. Instead the banks got bailed out, the CEOs got bonuses, and the taxpayers got screwed.
#11 – comment like this demonstrate that a person can make up whatever they want and believe in it…
Hyph3n, it is true that Ayn Rand was not a fan of Christianity, but her views are in line with many of its principles. She explains capitalism from the morals grounds of not stealing or coveting what belongs to others (via taxation and wealth distribution). In “Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal,” she continually speaks of the poor and disabled relying on charity and how capitalism benefits them better than communism. In truth, it is reasonably well accepted that you would rather be poor in America than in Cuba or China or the former Soviet Union.
In other areas, Rand is completely contrary to the Bible. The definition of love in “Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal” as seeing value in something is, I believe, misguided. The writer says that a Christian cannot love everyone and every culture because there is not intrinsic value in every person and every culture. However, Biblical love is seeking what is best for others. I do not have to approve of your culture or lifestyle to want what is best for you.
Unrestricted capitalism does not work and never has.
In every situation where a free market was allowed and government stood by laissez-faire, the business owners complained and used coercion on government officials to protect them from each other and foreign business.
Why?
Because if the government protects them and gives them welfare, they thrive and make a greater profit. The business people know full well that if they have a market where ANY Tom, Dick or Harry can set up a hot dog stand, soon there will not be enough buyers of all those hot dogs. So they ask for assistance, taxes to be levied, special permits to be acquired and then dispensation from all of that because they put money into the pocket of a politician to become a special interest.
They make associations, business focused fraternal groups and members only clubs. To pool a small group of wealthy into a powerful force in a community, county and state. Shoving the new guy out unless he starts a group or prostrates before the powerful old boys.
Face it. It is NOT in the human mind to try and go it alone face to face, hand to hand, foot to foot. That is why we have civilisation, why we have armies, why we have communities and countries. To band together to increase our chances of survival. So it is not in human nature to think every man for himself in business, best man wins.
Capitalism works best when regulated by evenhanded, forthright law. We presently do not have that in the US, but we could. It does mean a return to frugality and ethics in the business and in the individual.
I don’t see any of that happening anytime soon.
Cursor_
#6, #7, and #10: I can still agree with a lot of Rand has to say and still be a Christian. I don’t dismiss everything. Where they contradict, I follow the Bible.
Besides, the greed in the Bible is self-destructive greed that harms people. The greed in Atlas Shrugs is gives people jobs.
Under Rand if the owner of the property next to (and upwind from) Stossel turn it into a pig farm, Stossel should be happy the Rand system works.
He sure as pig s%&# better not complain to the government.
@Benjamin
You do know that greed is one of the seven deadly sins, right? Greed, of an kind, is not good. It clouds your judgment. It is a sort of cognitive bias.
#14 So what you are saying is that business operating in a completely free market lobby for government intervention to get one up on the competition.
“It does mean a return to frugality and ethics in the business and in the individual.”
Sounds like it means a return to ethics in Washington. When government intervenes to favor one business it causes problems. Seems like your too many hotdog stands problem would solve itself. If enough profit couldn’t be made from selling the hotdogs the firms would either become more efficient or go out of business. Efficiency does not mean that bigger hotdog vendors get to lobby for a business license that is just 5% of their profits, but could be 35% of the profits of their smaller competitors.
#16, uh, no, that isn’t how it works. What you are talking about are externalities, and they are often protected specifically by government. Case in point was the USA’s first railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio, which built tracks next to farmland. The smoke, cinders and noise from the trains reduced the farm’s productivity and the owner of the farm sued. The courts, instead of enforcing property rights, ruled that although the pollution did indeed cause harm to the farmer, the railroad was such a great thing to have that the farmer was just going to have to be outta luck. And the president stuck.
People add all kinds of weird things from what actual capitalism is, and then dismiss capitalism based on their own modifications. The most basic concept of capitalism is that of property rights. Once you allow property rights to be abridged without compensation (e. i. the pig farm or railroad stinking things up)you aren’t taking about capitalism as Rand, Friedman, Von Mises, Hayek or the “Austrian” school define it. Many people make the mistake of equating capitalism with anarchy. While they do share some aspects, it is just about as insulting as calling a Canadian an “American”. :).
Conservatives often sight Rand as being real pro-hands off business, and use her to support allowing corporations to do whatever they want. However, she also believed faceless corps run by vacuous CEOs that get paid to do nothing is wrong.
Look at her lead in the Fountainhead. That was a rebuke to this type of corporate environment. She placed the success of an economy as being driven by those who do. I think she would have rejected trickle-down economics as the failure it has proven to be.
(There are some CEOs who are worth it, like Steve Jobs, but not many. Most think of themselves less as a top level manager, and more as an entitled lord).
And Cursor is right, an unregulated economy is a disaster. With all the deregulation we are treated to constant manic-depressive economic cycles from the abuse of the economy.
To me, all playing fields needs rules, like football. All the teams needs to know the rules, and the rules need to ensure fair competition for all. Its like we didn’t learn this in the past, such as the days of Standard Oil, the Crash of 1929 (which Glenn Beck thinks happened in 1948??? WTF???), and the ravages of trickling down on the middle class and poor.
A solid economy is built on the backs of the people who produce, not the parasites who live off them. A prime example is the media’s reliance on the stock market as an indicator of a strong economy. Often, stocks can be on a bull run while job rates fall, middle class contracts, GDP contracts, the trade balance gets worse, etc. etc. In those cases the news is triumphing the stocks but only a small minority profit from the stock market.
Well said benjamin.
Corruption and crime are endemic in any political and economic system. Why would Rand’s capitalist utopia be any different?
Conservatives are understandably impressed and beguiled by Rand’s revolutionary philosophical axioms, such as A = A.
When she came up with that, it was such a blow to those pansy French philosophers who were saying A = N. They were left speechless.
Cool, they are making my movie, but you will all have to wait another year.
#25 – I think they’re hoping for a government subsidy to make the movie.
http://highwitnessnews.blogspot.com/2010/01/gitmo-turns-into-lemonade.html
GitmoBay is being used in medical relief efforts for Americans in Haiti.
Real News?
#19 Access to the courts is not always a remedy. Steal property from a poor man and he’s going to hire a lawyer and sue? I say call a cop.
#11 I think Congress critters are exempt from being arrested no matter how much harm they do.
#14 Of course people try to rewrite the laws to take advantage of others. This is why in the end democracies and Republics always end in some form of dictatorship in which a handful of government higher ups live well and everybody else is bleeped.
If you guys actually want to study an Atlas Shrugged situation look at China. It was the high tech leader and most powerful nation on earth bar none at one time.
What stopped China from taking over the world? Government bureaucrats regulating everything to death. They froze the society in place and stopped change.
One of the more grimly funny stories out of that time frame occurred when China nationalized the making of the metal parts of farm tools to ensure that the peasants would have access to good tools at reasonable prices even though no problem existed and privatized it after famines occurred due to a lack of good farm tools at reasonable prices.
The rest of the world moved on while China was locked in stasis by government decree and the Chinese got humiliated by barbarian scum. This is still acid on the Chinese ego.
The EU is going down this road and so is North America. Much of the world is locked in dictatorships that limit opportunities for economic and scientific advancement and won’t amount to much. The hope is India, Brazil, and China and I have major reservations about them.
I can see the advance of civilization coming to a screeching halt and stagnating. If you check stagnating cultures are actually the norm just as it is the norm for such cultures to be taken over by more technologically progressives societies.
#7, while admire Jesus’s for his teaching, couldn’t abide with all that charitable giving crap.
Incorrect.
She believed charity to be a personal decision and encouraged it as a way to help others from a moral standpoint. In her book, “The Virtue of Selfishness,” she describes charity as a moral imperative.
What she didn’t abide by was believing in a spiritual being you pray to for help.
#8, So that means murder-for-hire, slavery, etc – all perfectly acceptable, as long as you charge for it. In Ayn Rand’s world, doing anything for “free” would be a crime.
Incorrect.
That is a false assumption by those who think “unrestricted” means “immoral.”
#9, Note that this banker is moral. He refused to indulge in this greed-orgy. He was against the bailouts to help those who did. I think he was correct in his assessment.
#11, Correct.
#14, I agree with most of your post. However — “So it is not in human nature to think every man for himself in business, best man wins.“
I have to disagree with that. Why do you think these humans try to get government to coerce others? Because that is how they fight the “every man for himself” battle. It is immoral, but that is how they do it.
#16, Under Rand if the owner of the property next to (and upwind from) Stossel turn it into a pig farm, Stossel should be happy the Rand system works.
If he does feel that way, then he is wrong. This would be a violation of property rights and subject to penalties under the law as such.
#19, The courts, instead of enforcing property rights, ruled that although the pollution did indeed cause harm to the farmer, the railroad was such a great thing to have that the farmer was just going to have to be outta luck. And the president stuck.
And that is a travesty.
#25, THAT’S JUST WRONG!!!! 🙂
#30, Loser,
#9, Note that this banker is moral. He refused to indulge in this greed-orgy. He was against the bailouts to help those who did. I think he was correct in his assessment.
The banker lied. The crash depleted ALL major banks and most smaller banks. TARP was to put money back into the financial sector so banks would continue to make loans. If the banks had of used that money to boost the economy instead of covering their bad loans, this recession would not be nearly so bad.
All modern economies depend upon the flow of credit in order to function. The crash stopped the flow of credit and the economy is suffering for that.
The capitalization requirement was only made to those banks regulated under the Federal Reserve. BTW, the FED is majority owned by those same banks.
What the banker failed to point out is what regulations in the financial industry are solely useless and serve only to hinder. It is so much easier to just rant about all those “taxes” and “regulations” without specifying which.
It reminds me of a local tradesman who complained of how stupid it was to get permits for renovations. He ran for Mayor and that was his platform. Until a house he did burned because he didn’t follow code with the electric or materials. Oh ya, he didn’t have insurance or a permit either. I know, you think that is a good thing.