I certainly see parts of Atlas Shrugged becoming reality in the current financial crisis. If failing businesses continue to be propped up on a large scale it won't be too many years before the US economy grinds to a halt. If the productive are constantly taxed to help the unproductive the incentive to create wealth will disappear.
'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years
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Re: 'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years
#22Wow, this article has some very tenuous links between Atlas Shrugged and real life. I'm going to just pick on one:
The appropriation of Rearden metal by the government in Atlas Shrugged was compared to Hank Paulson's insistence that the banks (which the government would bail out) had to hand over a percentage of their future profits back to the government. Apparently, these situations are eerily similar because in both cases the government did it for the "public interest".
Notwithstanding the fact that in Atlas Shrugged, Rearden actually invented something of value (which the govt appropriated), whereas in real life, the bankers fucked up their own balance sheets and were coming to the government cap in hand for help. As far as I'm aware, one is theft, the other is repaying a favour.
The only thing eerily similar about these two situations is that they both have a guy named Hank involved.
Re: 'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years
#23http://www.angryflower.com/atlass.gif
I'm more on the less-government side but that comic always bothered me. There are many instances in Ayn Rands writing where she praised the laborers for their hard work. My impression was that she didn't believe that only a few "men of the mind" should be at the top and everyone else does the hard work for them. It was more about valuing the laborer who works harder then everyone else instead of the one who believes…
Agree that she respected manual labor: after all, the heroic Howard Roark character worked in a granite quarry for a time in "The Fountainhead".
Re: 'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm more on the less-government side but that comic always bothered me. There are many instances in Ayn Rands writing where she praised the laborers for their hard work. My impression was that she didn't believe that only a few "men of the mind" should be at the top and everyone else does the hard work for them. It was more about valuing the laborer who works harder then everyone else instead of the one who believes…
Agree that she respected manual labor: after all, the heroic Howard Roark character worked in a granite quarry for a time in "The Fountainhead".
Don't forget the philosopher who made burgers.
Re: 'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm more on the less-government side but that comic always bothered me. There are many instances in Ayn Rands writing where she praised the laborers for their hard work. My impression was that she didn't believe that only a few "men of the mind" should be at the top and everyone else does the hard work for them. It was more about valuing the laborer who works harder then everyone else instead of the one who believes…
Agree that she respected manual labor: after all, the heroic Howard Roark character worked in a granite quarry for a time in "The Fountainhead".
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Re: 'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm more on the less-government side but that comic always bothered me. There are many instances in Ayn Rands writing where she praised the laborers for their hard work. My impression was that she didn't believe that only a few "men of the mind" should be at the top and everyone else does the hard work for them. It was more about valuing the laborer who works harder then everyone else instead of the one who believes…
Agree that she respected manual labor: after all, the heroic Howard Roark character worked in a granite quarry for a time in "The Fountainhead".
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Re: 'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years
#27Ah, yes.... The collectivists controlled the Presidency, the Senate, and the House of Representatives and used their power to regulate the credit derivatives market out of existence. How much better things would have been if the Chairman of the Federal Reserve had heard of Objectivism! Even the off-hand pop culture references are crapulous: "A Confederacy of Dunces" surely counts as a "classic novel of recent decades…
"Chairman of the Federal Reserve had heard of Objectivism!"
FYI Greenspan was a friend of Ayn Rand and was part of her inner circles.
Re: 'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years
#28Ah, yes.... The collectivists controlled the Presidency, the Senate, and the House of Representatives and used their power to regulate the credit derivatives market out of existence. How much better things would have been if the Chairman of the Federal Reserve had heard of Objectivism! Even the off-hand pop culture references are crapulous: "A Confederacy of Dunces" surely counts as a "classic novel of recent decades…
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Re: 'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years
#29Wow, this article has some very tenuous links between Atlas Shrugged and real life. I'm going to just pick on one: The appropriation of Rearden metal by the government in Atlas Shrugged was compared to Hank Paulson's insistence that the banks (which the government would bail out) had to hand over a percentage of their future profits back to the government. Apparently, these situations are eerily similar because in bo…
Some banks didn't want to take the government's money but were basically forced to.
Re: 'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years
#30Ah, yes.... The collectivists controlled the Presidency, the Senate, and the House of Representatives and used their power to regulate the credit derivatives market out of existence. How much better things would have been if the Chairman of the Federal Reserve had heard of Objectivism! Even the off-hand pop culture references are crapulous: "A Confederacy of Dunces" surely counts as a "classic novel of recent decades…
Don't understand your first sentence totally. You do admit that collectivists have controlled the Presidency and House and Senate for the last 8 years, yes? Bush, in particular, is no anti-collectivist. Some people get confused by labels, e.g., Republican, so I just want to make sure.
Asset bubbles always happen. They probably always will happen. Now that the bubble is bursting, the collectivist mismanagement over the last several years is making us extra vulnerable. Even more horribly, the current and coming response is dooming the recovery to a much longer period than if the economy were allowed to reach equilibrium on its own.