Ayn Rand's Master Conspiracy

Ayn Rand seems somewhat quaint in this post-industrial world of cloud distribution, singularity and quantum computing. Rand polemicized the individual and her/his power but her vision was flawed (like Marx's). Both totally misunderstood human nature and how human's compete for and maintain positions of power. Michel Foucault was the man on the money. His explorations of how power is used in medicine is a great example of how power manifests. But transglobal capitalism (as espoused by the neo-liberals in the Chicago School of Economics) is simply not sustainable. There IS NO "trickle down" effect when 80 percent of the wealth a country produces goes into the hands of a few. There is simply MORE, MORE, MORE. The American middle class has been stretched to its absolute limits, raped of it's wealth and been left to fend for itself (in true neo-liberal style). However the social conditions now are rapidly replicating those in the late 1920s as over 40 million North Americans are now living below the poverty line. This is not sustainable folks. Time for either REVOLUTION or a WORLD WAR. I think the latter will be easy for the global elites as they stand to profit most from a war (like they did the last two world wars). After all, they certainly don't want revolution.. look what happened in Tsarist Russia...

reply to post by aaronez


IN Tsarist Russia, "the 99%" were duped into believing a fairy tale. They enthusiastically jumped aboard a cattle car with chains and ended up with 5 year plans and eventually Stalin.

reply to post by aaronez


Actually I think his pendulum and her expression completely support each others, in a totally manipulated universe where the psychopaths/sociopaths are justifying their response to what they have created in order to provide the problems and then created solutions....

reply to post by objectivist


Though I can't seem to put it in the same words as you do so well doing, I'm in agreement. Makes you kind of wonder where all this cropped up? People make comparison to Rand's philosophy to animals, but when you look around, what is so great about everything you see? What's so great about having all the junk you have in your house. My aim is applying objectivism to our daily lives. But it requires people to think about things. Animals don't worry about things they can't change, if they want a piece of land, they will have to fight for it. If they lose, they will go to another area and if they die, then that's how it is supposed to happen. We're not promised tomorrow so don't make someone else's life miserable because you think you know better!!! (anyone)

Originally posted by Mcupobob


Do you understand the free market at all? In a true free market to big to fail wouldn't exist and the banks that have been running and ruining this nation would have collapsed.

Sure, in a laissez-faire system, too big to fail certainly would exist because bank managements would all merge themselves into one giant money squid.

I'm an Adam Smith capitalist and most certainly not an Ayn Rand style anything.

reply to post by jlv70


You missed her whole point on Hickman. From your own link:

Rand also wrote, "The first thing that impresses me about the case is the ferocious rage of a whole society against one man. No matter what the man did, there is always something loathsome in the 'virtuous' indignation and mass-hatred of the 'majority.'... It is repulsive to see all these beings with worse sins and crimes in their own lives, virtuously condemning a criminal..."

He would be more of an anti-hero of the novel, but the true tragedy of the story wouldn't be the murder, but a mass condemnation, a hateful lynch mob. She would have probably been better to use a case like Casey Anthony of course she didn't live to see it. Where you have the lynch mob and nation wide condemnation without proof of a crime (or at least murder).

reply to post by mbkennel


Nope sorry wouldn't happen, in a free market there would be no safety net for banks. If their caught during unfair practices a bank run would come through putting them out of business, instead of you know a bank run happing and the government keeps them afloat and allows them to continue business as usually at the cost of the tax payer.

Though its funny how you bring up though. Because the more we have strayed from free market principles the more the banks have been morphing into a giant squid money pile.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I actually just finished reading Atlas Shrugged and was one of the most fantastic fictional books I've ever read. I found that the most simplified version of the point of the book was that you deserve the rewards for your own hard work, and you don't deserve anything if you haven't earned it. Simple and I don't see how you could disagree with it.
I as well enjoyed how she did not lump people into percentages like we do so carelessly. The corrupt elite are just as bad as the lazy poor living off of welfare. Expecting so much yet putting in so little.

Well, who is John Galt?

reply to post by mbkennel


Wow. Adam Smith must've never taught you about laissez-faire.

Ayn Rand was an amazing forward looking person. Nearly a time traveler. She has predicted our future with amazing accuracy. What a mind. We need to pay attention to her. She is ahead of our times.

Originally posted by aaronez
Ayn Rand seems somewhat quaint in this post-industrial world of cloud distribution, singularity and quantum computing. Rand polemicized the individual and her/his power but her vision was flawed (like Marx's). Both totally misunderstood human nature and how human's compete for and maintain positions of power.

Your confusion begins when you somehow magically put Ayn Rand in the same boat with Carl Marx. Please don't repeat this mistake.

She did think that just by expressing your self-interest, your power would increase. And it does. But what it looks like these days is anticlimactic. If you only worry about yourself and do your own thing, your stature would grow, but not many would notice as views are getting more and more corrupt by the system. They are all looking in the wrong direction. Just watching the show as it unfolds. Powerless because they have no integrity and worrying about other's actions instead of their own.

And don't get overwhelmed by technology. Human nature is still going to be human nature for a hundred thousand more years if we make it that far.

reply to post by crontab


I think you took too much from that book OP...great imagination though!

reply to post by Mcupobob


I am familiar with Free Market theory, as well as a much broader spectrum of economic and political theories ranging from classical to contemporary; all proposed to be utopian in their purity, all failing due to dogmatism.

If you think that the economy and society of the Gilded Age or the Roaring 20s is he ultimate manifestation of freedom, great. A lot of us, that you would incorrectly imply are "Communists", don't agree. A lot of us see that the pursuit of the Free Market inherently leads to Corporatism and neo-Feudalism.

Originally posted by madhatr137
reply to post by Mcupobob

 

I am familiar with Free Market theory, as well as a much broader spectrum of economic and political theories ranging from classical to contemporary; all proposed to be utopian in their purity, all failing due to dogmatism.

If you think that the economy and society of the Gilded Age or the Roaring 20s is he ultimate manifestation of freedom, great. A lot of us, that you would incorrectly imply are "Communists", don't agree. A lot of us see that the pursuit of the Free Market inherently leads to Corporatism and neo-Feudalism.

We effectively ended free markets in 1913 with the creation of the Fed. Central banking is necessary for the massive deficit spending required by social programs and militarism (which go hand in hand). Fed manipulation helped create the Roaring Twenties/Great Depression. The Gilded age was made possible by the great power given to the federal government after the Civil War. It gave the big money capitalists an in to create monopolies without fear of competition. So long as they could manipulate politics. As long as large, centralized governments exist, big money and banks will control, or at least heavily influence, said government regardless of legislation, protests, riots, or anything else.

"The people" is a straw man. A good way for elites to maintain power, or for a new class of elites to move the old elites out. Either way, "the people" is merely a means to an end. As long as they look to big government for help, the people will remain on the bottom of the pyramid.

Large government is the greatest ally of corporatists and neo-feudalists. Without it, their world would not be possible.