The Obscure Economist Silicon Valley Billionaires Should Dump Ayn Rand For
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Re: The Obscure Economist Silicon Valley Billionaires Should Dump Ayn Rand For
#2The book is available here: http://www.henrygeorge.org/pcontents.htm
Previous HN Discussions: "Land-value tax: Why Henry George had a point" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10442929
How I Used Eve Online to Predict the Great Recession - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9158868
Re: The Obscure Economist Silicon Valley Billionaires Should Dump Ayn Rand For
#3on the other hand, nobody built a world-changing global repository of information based on Henry George's principles, so as much I dislike her, empirically speaking Ayn Rand has that going for her.
Re: The Obscure Economist Silicon Valley Billionaires Should Dump Ayn Rand For
#4> When you work for an hour, you increase society’s wealth (and your own) by an hour’s worth of wages.
true.
> When you save a dollar rather than spending it, you increase society’s (and your own) wealth by a dollar
um no. spending only transfers the dollars, and normally you trade the dollar for something worth more to you than the dollar & vice versa, and society's wealth increases due to trade.
Re: The Obscure Economist Silicon Valley Billionaires Should Dump Ayn Rand For
#5"Chances are that will be Ayn Rand and her extreme form of capitalism, which she called objectivism."
Rand's views on capitalism are only a small part of her philosophy and not at all the most interesting or compelling by far. By reducing objectivism to a form of capitalism, the author and most contemporary Rand proponents show they know little to nothing about objectivism and understand little to nothing of Rand's philosophy. It's sad that this aspect of her writings is so emphasized over everything else when it's the least interesting and least compelling of her writings about the human condition and the self. Most people using Rand's philosophy as a justification for their exploits of others would be considered looters by Rand, the exact opposite of what she espouses.
Re: The Obscure Economist Silicon Valley Billionaires Should Dump Ayn Rand For
#6on the other hand, nobody built a world-changing global repository of information based on Henry George's principles, so as much I dislike her, empirically speaking Ayn Rand has that going for her.
Ayn Rand's principles invented the internet? Someone should write the history of how all those government-funded research institutes weren't really involved.
Re: The Obscure Economist Silicon Valley Billionaires Should Dump Ayn Rand For
#7on the other hand, nobody built a world-changing global repository of information based on Henry George's principles, so as much I dislike her, empirically speaking Ayn Rand has that going for her.
Ayn Rand's principles invented the internet? Someone should write the history of how all those government-funded research institutes weren't really involved.
From government research to the Great Depression, the only way libertarian economics escapes unscathed is by ignorance of history.
Re: The Obscure Economist Silicon Valley Billionaires Should Dump Ayn Rand For
#8> When you work for an hour, you increase society’s wealth (and your own) by an hour’s worth of wages. true. > When you save a dollar rather than spending it, you increase society’s (and your own) wealth by a dollar um no. spending only transfers the dollars, and normally you trade the dollar for something worth more to you than the dollar & vice versa, and society's wealth increases due to trade.
Yeah, this is total bs. The economy needs the money to circulate, then everybody gets richer. Money has no value but as a share of the economies' production. When money flows, production goes up. The problem is when some people who are so rich that they can barely spend a few per cents of their income. Instead of getting spent, the money gets invested. But that's not really circulation, it's the opposite: Stuck money used to stick more money.
Edit: This is not to say that there isn't any merit in Georges' other ideas.
Re: The Obscure Economist Silicon Valley Billionaires Should Dump Ayn Rand For
#9> You’ve got to think of “land” as a metaphor for all unproductive forms of capitalism... Goldman...
Banking existed in George's day too and when he said land I think he meant land. Land issues are still relevant today - in SF/silicon valley much of the value created by the tech industry has ended up with landlords who did nothing to produce it. You could make an argument for taxing that and spending it on social stuff. Also places like Monaco and Hong Kong have been successful in having low / zero taxes on wages etc by the government keeping ownership of much of the land and getting income from that.
Re: The Obscure Economist Silicon Valley Billionaires Should Dump Ayn Rand For
#10"Chances are that will be Ayn Rand and her extreme form of capitalism, which she called objectivism." Rand's views on capitalism are only a small part of her philosophy and not at all the most interesting or compelling by far. By reducing objectivism to a form of capitalism, the author and most contemporary Rand proponents show they know little to nothing about objectivism and understand little to nothing of Rand's p…
Rand's philosophy is basically an elaborate justification for being a dick.