April 26, 2010
My personal theory is that anyone who has ever read Atlas Shrugged feels a burning need to get revenge on the society that allowed it to be published but thats just me. Matt Taibbi has a more nuanced view:
When the globe was engulfed in the flood of defaults and derivative losses that emerged from the collapse of the US housing bubble two years ago, few understood that the crash had its roots in the lunatic greed-centred objectivist religion, fostered in the '50s and '60s by ponderous emigre novelist Ayn Rand.Maybe we can burn her in effigy.
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This was based almost entirely on the Randian belief system, under which the leaders of Goldman Sachs appear not as the cheap swindlers they look like to me, but idealised heroes, the saviours of society.In the Randian ethos, called objectivism, the only real morality is self-interest, and society is divided into groups who are efficiently self-interested (the rich) and the ''parasites'' who wish to take their earnings through taxes. Rand believed government had virtually no natural role in society. She conceded police were necessary, but refused to accept any need for economic regulation.
I admit that I am not a Rand fan but that is because I find her entire philosophy amoral and at the same time hopelessly utopian. It's not because the idea of efficient self-interest, which is central to almost every economic school, except Marxism, is wrong.
There is a chance that some additional regulation may have avoided the worst of the abuses associated with the CDOs, but that isn't a given. If the banks were truly engaged in fraud and not just being criminally stupid they would have found another way to proceed.
Posted by: chad98036 at
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>I admit that I am not a Rand fan but that is because I find her entire philosophy amoral and at the same time hopelessly utopian.
why?
if self-interest is wrong, then that means Man is born beholden to other men. Why would that be preferable?
Posted by: Jones at April 26, 2010 08:43 PM (KOkrW)
Atlas is a lot more complicated than her personal statements. Fact is, Atlas was a quite terribly written book, with a brilliant outline. I don't know how many times I wanted to skip paragraphs when I read it last year (I swear I have read it before, but it's one of those books that so much is known about in quotes that you can convince yourself that you read it, without having read it, and then realizing how incomplete your memory is years later)
Anyways.But I fought my way through the patronizing prose in the NUMEROUS longwinded monologues (kinda like how I write) about how great her philosophy is.
And anyone who actually read the book, instead of reviews, or a "great big book of quotes." about Atlas Shrugged, couldn't POSSIBLY! Compare Midas Mulligan (the only banker described, other than the government) as ANYTHING like Goldman Sacks.
But who cares? Matt Taibbi dropped acid, and dressed up in an ape costume while traveling with one of the cadidates in 2004 or some crap.
Yeah, I get it dude, you wanna be Hunter S. Thompson, so does every other self righteous prick I know.
Posted by: Douglas at April 26, 2010 08:54 PM (uU+Ss)
Wanted to set the guy on fire.
Posted by: Douglas at April 26, 2010 09:00 PM (uU+Ss)
It creates onerous duties on entrepeneurs, allowing established companies to use the tax code and the BS accounting crap that GM and GE used this year to offset having to pay their "fair share."
Not to mention that thing a week or so ago, pointed out in the Dodd bill that would punish angel investment, which means that you need a day one proffit as a startup to collect enough investment capital to be able to be a startup. unless. . . .
Well, Maybe you can just sell your product to someone else, who is politically connected, and already filthy rich. Don't worry little worker, It's all legal, and we can do this much better than you.
Posted by: Douglas at April 26, 2010 09:25 PM (uU+Ss)
i think at the heart of Atlas is rand's idea of property = freedom. Your life is your property: your mind, your work, your effort, and the rewards it brings are your property, and no man and no government has an inherent right to them.
If you think about it, objectivism is downright Darwinian.
Posted by: Jones at April 26, 2010 09:33 PM (KOkrW)
But the company wasn't about the importance of the contract, or the importance of production to take advantage of what he left them.
Galts Great creation would have belonged to someone else, even though it was a creation of his mind his effort and even though it didn't exist at the time of his contract, it belonged to the holder of that contract, even the retarded kids who destroyed the company.
The importance of the contract is another aspect of Atlas that is ignored.
Posted by: Douglas at April 26, 2010 09:48 PM (uU+Ss)
Posted by: Douglas at April 26, 2010 09:49 PM (uU+Ss)
"I admit that I am not a Rand fan but that is because I find her entire philosophy amoral and at the same time hopelessly utopian."
Bold Bold Bold.
the botnet will ruminate before agreeing completely. Right now, however, the botnet agrees. Whiskey will do that.
Can we have a happy medium where the looters don't take every god-damned thing the botnet works for? Ever wonder what is your take-home pay? Awesome if your take home pay makes it past the tavvie. To take home
Go Pack Go.
Posted by: the botnet at April 26, 2010 09:59 PM (3/GnL)
>The importance of the contract is another aspect of Atlas that is ignored.
true- Rand believed it was a man's freedom to freely and fairly trade goods and services- that is, to enter contracts with other men- and not be pressed into them or forced to participate by other men or by governments
Posted by: Jones at April 26, 2010 10:07 PM (KOkrW)
All the while overlooking the SERVICE being provided in Atlas by Ragnar Dannyscort, (however you spell his scandy name) in waging a military battle against the looters, and sharing his procedes with those who had been looted.
This was "altruistic" in the wrongheaded interpretation of "Altruism" that lefties try to lay on Ayn, when in fact, Ragnar was being payed through satisfying his rage, and by completing the victims of the looters (dagny, francisco, rearden, midas blah blah blah) contract as originaly intended.
There was little in the risks that Ragnar was doing for himself, other than impoverishing the looters, and repaying the looted.
Isn't that what Military Service in it's highest form IS?! Returning freedom to those from who it was taken?
But It's the Left who hate rand (and I hate the person, but she is brilliantly nuanced in Atlas, though EXHAUSTIVELY LONG WINDED!) who oversimplify the images that are created in Atlas.
Posted by: Douglas at April 26, 2010 10:20 PM (uU+Ss)
Posted by: Jones at April 26, 2010 10:27 PM (KOkrW)
Posted by: CapitalistMD at April 26, 2010 10:31 PM (6TNpB)
The Constitution wasn't created in a vaccuum. Everything described in the Constitution, other than the bill of rights had already been addressed in brittish common law, so they didn't have to write a new code of law, which made it much easier to establish the nation.
I might be oversimplifying, but overall that is correct.
Posted by: Douglas at April 26, 2010 10:41 PM (uU+Ss)
It isn't a prophetic document, but rather it is a checklist that eventually leads to an all encompassing violation of freedom.
Posted by: Douglas at April 26, 2010 10:43 PM (uU+Ss)
Posted by: Douglas at April 26, 2010 10:45 PM (uU+Ss)
Good luck getting motorcycle diaries though.
Posted by: Douglas at April 26, 2010 10:53 PM (uU+Ss)
Locke DID acknowlege the surrender of anarchic individualism, but that is a descrption of how to band individuals together into a group who refuse to lose the basic freedoms.
Rand is working in an existing set if rules (she started writing in '49 and finished in '57(that's why only 2 references to television, I think)) and describing the logical outcome.
I think her PERSONAL philosophy is grotesque, but what is depicted in Atlas is brilliantly described.
As for Locke, puting lock in the same PAGE as ayn is the same thing that libs do chad. They aren't even close to being in the same class.
Second Treatise on Government is one of the few books I have read. Thought for a second, then re-read, and then read again, and always returned to (before I packed it up and forgot where the hell I have it stored) again. Same with Aurelius.
Locke depicted the GOAL! Ayn is depecting A Situation.
Posted by: Douglas at April 26, 2010 11:23 PM (uU+Ss)
Insty is more nuanced, and conflicted. Insty is a purpose. Insty isn't a philosopher. He's a Lawyer.
Posted by: Douglas at April 26, 2010 11:25 PM (uU+Ss)
I think Rand knew that, that's why everyone who wasn't midas disapproved of ragnars methods, and knew that If someone goes "Oh Crap ragnar I need you to do this." Ragnar would, because it was necessary, like destroying the copper shipment that was on it's way to rearden.
Posted by: Douglas at April 26, 2010 11:27 PM (uU+Ss)
I mispelled because I like dolphins.
Posted by: Douglas at April 26, 2010 11:28 PM (uU+Ss)
"Beggars in Spain." I think it's available online.
FANTASTIC! Short story.
Rand is a cold hearted bitch, cuz I hate her (as a person) too, but in Nancy Kess, tells basically the same story, but with a lot more empathy than rand could ever muster on her wedding day, in "Beggars in Spain."
Posted by: Douglas at April 26, 2010 11:31 PM (uU+Ss)
Posted by: Douglas at April 26, 2010 11:33 PM (uU+Ss)
a math teacher who couldn't finish "meditations." and I lost her copy she lent me while I was on a plane.
Pizzes me off my library doesn't have it in stock.
The MOST QUOTED SINGLE PUBLICATION! IN HISTORY! and they don't have it?
ARGH!!!
I'm out. Need to nap. Nice yapping chad.
Posted by: Douglas at April 27, 2010 01:04 AM (uU+Ss)
Posted by: Misyon5ice at January 03, 2011 04:05 PM (UHkQR)
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