Ayn Rand's world comes to reality

#1
D

droski

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#1
Funny/disturbing stuff from the WSJ opinion section.

'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years - WSJ.com

My favorite part:

For the uninitiated, the moral of the story is simply this: Politicians invariably respond to crises -- that in most cases they themselves created -- by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism.

and

Galt: "You want me to be Economic Dictator?"

Mr. Thompson: "Yes!"

"And you'll obey any order I give?"

"Implicitly!"

"Then start by abolishing all income taxes."

"Oh no!" screamed Mr. Thompson, leaping to his feet. "We couldn't do that . . . How would we pay government employees?"

"Fire your government employees."

"Oh, no!"
 
#2
#2
180 degrees from the book by Naomi Klein mentioned in another thread by RJD -- premise is the same (crises create opportunity for social change) but the direction of change is opposite. Rand claims it moves towards more government; Klein claims it moves towards more Capitalism and free markets efforts. Both suggest the moves are destructive to individuals.
 
#3
#3
You probably already know this, but the last Chairman of the Fed, Alan Greenspan, was a disciple of the philosophy Ayn Rand created, objectivism.
 
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#4
oklavol said:
You probably already know this, but the last Chairman of the Fed, Alan Greenspan, was a disciple of the philosophy Ayn Rand created, objectivism.
Click to expand...
You should do some reading on what the Rand Institute has said about Greenspan during his tenure as Chairman of the Fed...You probably already know that, though...
 
#5
#5
Rand underestimated the pressues that the producers of wealth/knowledge/creativity are put under. Not only do they have to deal with gov't efforts to take their wealth, but they also have to deal with legal assaults... e.g. lawyers.

Lawyers and lawmakers are killing the free world.
 
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therealUT said:
You should do some reading on what the Rand Institute has said about Greenspan during his tenure as Chairman of the Fed...You probably already know that, though...
Click to expand...

I'm no fan of Greenspan. He as responsible for the credit crunch as anyone.
 
#7
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Rasputin_Vol said:
Rand underestimated the pressues that the producers of wealth/knowledge/creativity are put under. Not only do they have to deal with gov't efforts to take their wealth, but they also have to deal with legal assaults... e.g. lawyers.

Lawyers and lawmakers are killing the free world.
Click to expand...

Funded by the forces Rand warns us against.

"Ayn Rand correctly foresaw the logical conclusion of all the socialistic waves since Woodrow Wilson, FDR, et al. She warned us but few were listening............"
(Comment on the WSJ article from another site.)

George Orwell succinctly explained how this process of destroying and rewriting the past is accomplished in his book, 1984:

Who controls the past... controls the future: who controls the present controls the past... All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. "Reality control" they called it; in Newspeak, 'doublethink.'

In The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress (1905), George Santayana warned that human progress depended on learning from the experiences of history and that when the past is forgotten, that forgotten past or experience is repeated, there is 'consecutiveness' and 'persistence' of memory but no adaptive learning. For true progress, there had to be 'plasticity' and 'readaption' to experience. In the chapter 'Flux and Constancy in Human Nature', Santayana stated: ''Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute... no direction is set for possible mprovement. When experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it... This is the condition of children and barbarians, in whom instinct has learned nothing from experience.'' Is it possible to truly learn from the past? Is adaptive learning from experience and history even possible at all?
 
#8
#8
Atlas Shrugged gets so much play around here that I decided to read it this past month. Very good book and it made me laugh many times when thinking about what is happening in our current times. Obama and his green jobs, my goodness this man is a fool. Might as well be coming straight from the State Science Institute.
 
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#11
#11
volinbham said:
180 degrees from the book by Naomi Klein mentioned in another thread by RJD -- premise is the same (crises create opportunity for social change) but the direction of change is opposite. Rand claims it moves towards more government; Klein claims it moves towards more Capitalism and free markets efforts. Both suggest the moves are destructive to individuals.
Click to expand...

I thought the same thing.

Milton Friedman thought the results of Klein's thesis would be good for society.

I think I have come to the conclusion that extreme's of either variety are destructive, but disasters ferment radical change, it is just a matter of who is in control as to what direction it goes in.
 
#12
#12
rjd970 said:
I thought the same thing.

Milton Friedman thought the results of Klein's thesis would be good for society.

I think I have come to the conclusion that extreme's of either variety are destructive, but disasters ferment radical change, it is just a matter of who is in control as to what direction it goes in.
Click to expand...

Do you see any planning behind the timing of the disasters?

Do you draw any parallel between the crash of '29 and FDR and the present threat of economic chaos and BHO?

Do you think BHO does?? He has said part of his "plan" will be massive public works. (not that the same kinds of programs by FDR did anything other than sink us farther into depression.)
 
#13
#13
gsvol said:
Do you see any planning behind the timing of the disasters?

Do you draw any parallel between the crash of '29 and FDR and the present threat of economic chaos and BHO?

Do you think BHO does?? He has said part of his "plan" will be massive public works. (not that the same kinds of programs by FDR did anything other than sink us farther into depression.)
Click to expand...


I don't think there is any "planning" behind when these extreme policy changing disasters that take place. That would be going too much into conspiracy theory territory.

I do think there is willfull mismanagement that allows these things to happen though. Clinton destoyed the intelligence services in the 90's, rendering much of what we could have learned about Al Queda useless. And Bush completely disregarded the little amount of intel warnings about Al Queda in the Summer of 2001. I'm not saying he knowingly did it, but he did have an excuse to carry out his Iraq agenda because of it.

Katrina is another example. New Orleans has seen a massive restructuring of the school system down there to charter and private schools. Much of the land that was destroyed is now being developed by investors at a fraction of the price it was before. And we all know how well that crisis was managed at all levels of government. Sometimes I think the people in charge just don't care and look forward to a clean slate to work from to create new policy.

Same with this recession and what Obama is planning. The recession hits, Bush pushes through a "bailout" package with little oversight, hands out the money to banks, and nobody knows exactly where it went. He is asking for the rest before he leaves office now. Then Obama is using this as an excuse to push through his massive public works programs and tax breaks for lower and middle income families.


The common element here is none of these policies could have passed on their own, some disaster is needed to be the catalyst. I don't think anything was planned, but public fear and aftershock is definitely taken advantage of.
 
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