Atlas Shrugged, bad book, bad theory

Struggling to keep one.

We have a free market system, in that the rich can buy any change in the market that they really want, and still make it look "regulated". There is no reason that removing the toothless regulations would ACTUALLY decrease the wealth disparity.

Again, I'm all for personal success. But there is a point where it's NOT personal success, they are standing on the shoulders of others (which is fine, and how society works) and do not simply "deserve" to have more than they could ever use, because it's "fair". They can write their employment contracts, and forbes can write his magazine for wealth junkies (and mostly, wannabe wealth junkies.... it's remarkable, he has a business selling words about how rich he is to people who are not rich, but wish they where, and hope to somehow absorb it by reading magazines with full page ads for private jet aircraft. Because that magazine does not break even by selling to the top 500), so that it sounds "fair" that they have that money, after all they worked for it, they took risks.... right? Well sure they did, and so does everybody else, but they didn't take millions of dollars worth of risk, or do millions of dollars of actual "work" (with their brains, or otherwise) is their whole lives. And still, I'm not saying to take their millions, or their businesses, or anything else. I'm saying that if they are to be rich in a developed country, they are going to need to keep the country maintained. They are not "makers" simply because they weaseled a fistful of cash, and if they have more, they are responsible for more.

A tax on a middle class person is literally felt, and must be worked into the budget. A tax on the people we're talking about is not. This is ass-backwards.

 

I've never read Atlas Shrugged, but I have perused some of Rand's statements about different things. Her ideas about economic policy, mysticism, and art seem horribly short-sighted and ill-informed; but her ideas about the importance of preserving the civil liberties of the individual seem spot-on. She came from Soviet Russia, and understood what result the subversion of individual civil liberties would have.

However, I don't think socialism or capitalism or communism, individualism or collectivism are answers to our economic woes. No matter what system we put in place, human greed will exploit it, and therefore, it all becomes capitalism, only begging the question: Who is capitalizing?

Not regulating big business (early to mid twentieth century) only ensured that it went to whatever lengths possible to maintain its monopolies once gained, and choked out competition by creating a supply and demand market based on unreplenishable resources it was swift to horde.

Attempting to level the playing field with entitlements has only ensured that people are more likely to wait for handouts on the bench at the expense of those willing to participate in the game, and created a lazy culture.

These two short-sighted economic/social policies in succession are what has led to America's current dilapidated state. What the solution is, I know not.

The erosion of civil liberties seems to be a result of this. Now it starts to become a cause of its perpetuation. Conspicuous.

 

Have you ever heard of Paul Ryan?

Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner echoes this core philosophy of producers and moochers saying:

"Let me just say this. I think this is the moment, and this is the opportunity for America to get its fiscal house in order. I believe raising taxes on the very people that we expect to reinvest in our economy and to hire people is the wrong idea. For those people to give that money to the government…means it won't get reinvested in our economy at a time when we're trying to create jobs."

Source: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/54843.html#ixzz1MFla2TaJ

 

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