I am currently reading Ayn Rand's book, "Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal" and I have to wonder if I have ever laughed so hard and numerous while reading a book. While a person of nice intelligence, for a libertarian, she seems to show a striking disregard for history and a flair for emotional words such as slavery, as when you pay taxes. Even Lenin did not lay it on this thick. She calls herself an objectivist and that she is right when she is talking about her atheists views and that which I agree with her, objectivist is a common used phrased by many atheists and agnostics but it is a bit egosticaol, especially when she uses it in the context that to be considered an objectivist one must advocate unfettered laizze fair capitalism. As you may know objectivist means one who views facts not from their own subjective background of emotional opionion and cultural belief. Capitalism is not this, she obvirously brings to the debate much use of emotional rherotic. Her support for libertarinism as a complete ideology is obvious lacking when she criticzes Vietnam era protestors for their civil disobediance and breaking of laws. Is she not one who stated before in the book that the individual's rights shouldn't be curbed by unthinking masses. I guess not when it comes to protesting a capitalist war! She also supports use of military force or diplomatic pressure in disputes with other nations, why if she is a libertarian? She though is a wolf in a sheep's clothing, she is not this but a republican. She does not want to pay taxes for the welfare state but obviously wants the nations citizens to keep on paying taxes for her defense establishment that protects her property rights. Would these taxes be forced on citizens who don't want to pay, if not won't their be a massive shortfall. Who too will decide for the government to only fund the military and other protectors of greedy captialist, the people or those who contribue the greatest to politicans coffers? Later Rand states that the state universities should not allow competing views that run contrary to the views of most americans, at least when those views agree with hers, because they would engander her and those americans way of life. After all state universites are public financed and taxpayers views are to be held to the highest degree over the most educated except when they limit the freedom of capitalist to exploit workers. In essance the only rights that she really cares about are property rights-all other rights are trival in comparison. The whole libertarian theorty is once property rights are established freedom will follow but what importance is it when it is treated in such a second class regard. She dismisses views of liberal or mildly socialist taxpayers views agreeing with protesting students because they would of course jeopardize her property rights. Remember the founding fathers didn't include property rights in the consitution but freedom of religon, speech and association. Property rights are old English common law with no democratic backing, the country we revolted against. Rand also not only implies but states that CEO's of corporations are the intellectual and scientific capital of society, that must mean all CEO's of corporations don't have MBA's but Ph.D.'s relative to the scienfitic expertist of the corporations they hold and are actively engaged in scienfic pursuits. As I have stated elsewhere I am not against hard work and innovative ideas being rewarded. Those who bring forth ideas that revolutionize our society and enrich the lives of others should definately receive more than the man who pushes a broom as long as basic necessites are provided for all when the resources to do so are there. Scientists at Du Pont should make more money than executives but strangely they whose ideas that not only our society relies on but the whole business of that comapny are dwarfed by the salaries of executives who have no vision for anything except quick profits. These men are often no more than manipulators of economy, increasing profits through short sided mechanisms as cutting wages while ignoring that helps lead to recessions because of lack of demand if workers can't buy their own products. Indeed anybody who can add or subtract can see that short profits can be gained by cutting expenses, you don't need an MBA to figure that out, you don't even need a grade school education. Why then they should receive millions for this? What else is the body that reguateses the actions and money grubbing of CEO's, stockholders might agree with these shortsided actions if they are playing the stockmarket wonder why nobody can afford to buy a new car off their lot anymore? If the working class sees its' economic purchasing power reduced but creation of goods stays the same the only way that demand can remain stable is for the rich to buy more goods. Productivity in a strange twist of fate, which came in part of helping improving the average lot only improves a few without intervention. Indeed government is a necessary factor in ensuring that all improve with producvity and capitalism and not a few. Rand in her books states that it is not government that is to praise for the progress of the average man in the last 150 years but capitalism. She is half right, captialism has allowed the means of rapid production but government has mandated to capitalism that it cannot grossly maldistribute those goods only to the wealthy instead of those who sweat and toil for them. Without government help in the early 1800's U.S. manufacturing might still have been in its' infacy when the 20th century dawned. It was government help and protection that allowed the small American factories to compete with the English. The English too had a jump start on other nations because it protected its' factores, even making it a crime to distribute technical information on its' engines to other nations. I am not advocating that only the U.S. should keep a new technology but that without government to protect baby industries, to do innovative theoritical research that can't be pateneted and so wouldn't be profitable, that industry suffers.

Rand implied that producivity and capitalism go hand in hand. That though is not always the case. One does not need to create anything of any worth to anybody whatsoever to create great wealth in this day and age. Indeed at no other time in our civilization wealth is created not from economic expansion or creation of a tanible good or service but through manipulation. Playing the currencies markets in Malayasia by creating panic in its' currencies so that it would drastically decline so by strenghting the dollar with decreasing U.S. exports and jobs is often the nature of today's capitalism. Capitalism in the 18th century although usually uncaring was though about expanding the national pool of wealth. This is not only apathy for others but total disregard for the foundation that allows wealth to be created. Rand though says apathy is ok because empathy is evil, that empahy inherently leads to the rich being taken down to the level of the poor, that is the true goal of social reformers. If so then how come that those social reformers who argued about the poor's plight in the 1800's have helped create a system that workers are grossly better off than then they were in the 1800's while the rich are even more rich? For all the talk about supply side economics what is ignored is the even more important demand side economics. If demand is low than industries don't create even if supply of investment capital is high, if demand is high though than investment capital usually little suffers because there is a continous flow of money going back to industries. Progressive reforms hence led to a middle class that could consume quanites of products to fuel industries whose products are intended for those same workers, such as automobiles, household appliances and other forms of technology. Who had helped support these reforms, government that's who. Another rebute of the laizze fair notion of economics being best for a society. Empathy does not pull us all down but up and is not a hatred of life or mind or whatever amateur physological musings Rand might have.

I doubt if there is a being in American history lasting of more than a few years where wages have outpaced producivity in the nation as a whole. Sure there might be a few short instances but through the last 200 years if one measures wages vs producivity one would find that inflation has outpaced producivity gains by a great deal. Indeed from the mid 1970's to the mid 1990's producivity by the nation as a whole was close to 25% increase while median wages actually fell by about 7%! Although this has is not usually the norm it highlighes the fact that wages will never keep pace with inflation in a capitalistic society where a few can manipulate the laws of supply and demand through various means, increasing the labor pool with cheap foreign or illegal workers, mergers etc no matter what Rand thinks about those laws being unmanipulable as some kind of religous icon. With wages not keeping paced with inflation how can it be that inflation comes from workers salaries? Where is the inflation coming from? Not all the profits of the wealthy go back to investment, after all if the middle class and poor have less buying power then somebody needs to exist who can still buy goods, and who else but the wealthy who much more than the working class fuel inflation. Greenspan and other conseratives worry only of the inflation created by workers in their increased purchising power while ignoring the inflation of the rich and that increased wages and demand is usually a sypmoth of greater increased in producvity because of course capitalists are greatly hestiant of of meeting worker needs and demands unless they are making huge amounts of profit at the same time and even then if workers have the tools to demand fair wage increases. This concern for inflation by Greenspan and others not only demonstrates their total apathy for the working class but also highlights their lack of faith in their near religon of capitalism. Greenspan comdemns Keynesian control of the economy by the government or a sanctioned insitution, such as the Federal Reserve Board. He though on the other hand manipulates the economy and the laws of supply and demand, the workers ability to argue for wage increases, through his position. Is this not a violation of laizze fair economics? I guess that is only when you are using government intervention to help the workers. I include Greenspan because he has two articles in Rand's book and although these were written before he had become at least the second most powerful person in America, unelected I might add by the people, I doubt that he had condemed the fed as a tool for controlling workers. Greenspan and I would take it Rand though she never spefically mentions it have concerns about capitalism ability to function at an ever increasing rate because it might overheat into bad loans, something that happened during the stock market crash of 1929. If capitalism is imperfect and government should not interfere with it does that leave it alone to capitalists to regualate the economy? He states gold but hasn't gold in the past year seen a 25% decline in value. Is this something we want our economy to be tied to, when other parts of our economy are going well and there are little bad loans and new businesses are efficent this should be stopped because the value of gold has declined? A run on the deposits of gold where it is withdrawn by holders would create the banks forcing new investors to pay back loans just as they are starting up. This alone does not address the issue if that all money was backed by gold that the gold found in this world could not help match the increased industrial capaticty of late 20th century economic expansion. Speculation for gold as the only real tool for expansion, other than the wise realizaiton of today which recognizes that society can guarantee currency because it can produce the goods and services which can be bought with them, would cause fiscal time and energy wasted on nonproducive gold speculation instead of creation of industrial expansion.

I wish to take issue with Rand that force is only the tool of Government, not of the corporation. Primitive leaders utilized early nationlism and religon on a smaller scale to rally members of their groups to help do their bidding. The first governments were not created by democratic loving enlightned men by those who wanted to use a region's people for their own gains. If the members lot had to be improved for this to happen, so be it but that was secondary to their own economic gain. The Pharoh's used this with the pyramids, the feudal kings with the serfs, the Southern slaveholders, the early industrial worker with the their workers. This though often is not necessary now, Phil Knight does not have to preach patrionism or religon to gain the use Vietnamese workers at slave wages, if they don't work they simply might starve. It is an improvement over their lot but that slight imporvement pales in the riches that Knight and others bestown on themselves while dooming third world children workers to an uneducated and unimpowered existance. Religon and nationilism though were keys in Imperalistic wars over colonies during WWI, although England was a democracy and Germany a mild dictatorship ignores the fact that that war wasn't fought over human rights or democracy as evidenced by the deviding up of land at the end of it. Rand condemns WWI as an example of statist or government control which led to fascism in Germany and Italy and Russia and for the most part I agree with her. She though agains underplays the role that greed played in those wars which is the foundation that capitalism rests upon, for better or worse. Greed of the Czars and their loyal capitalists, of the allies over the defeated carcuas of Germany. Religon on the otherhand is still used to advance laizze fair capitalism, especially since multi-national corporations show no loyalty to any nation in this age so can hardly use the patrionism or nationlism angle no matter how hard they try, Rand to her credit does not state that the bible advocates capitalism as it clearly does not as Jesus and the needle and camel analogy showed. She condems religon's role in capitalist affairs but ignores the support that it gives capitalism, the dirty triangle of kings (government), priests, and capitalists. What do all three have in common through human history though no matter their differences other than a motive to increase their power. The answer is power, the power to manipulate the economy and also to use force. As I said government was orginally a creation of greed, the enlightment though of the middle ages, democracy and the reforms of the early 20th century did away with the power of capitalists being able to manipulate government as their own tool unhindred. Now that government often sides with the plight of the workers this fact is ignored. If government was totally abolished, something would still be needed to take its' place. Police protection, the military would have to be created by private industries and anybody who would want to use them might have to pay exorbitant fees for the usuage of these necessites. Indeed this military paid for by only a few would totally ignore the private property concerns of others if their masters so wish it. This is not idle speculation, this is true today. The Mayan Indians have seen their land taken away from them. Although Guatemala might offically recognize everybody as equal it like all nations that has capitalism listens more to the wealthy. Without government or legimated force as Rand says their would be illegimate force where greed knows no bond, the majority of capitalists who are mostly ethical could very well be pushed out.

Rand as do many conseratives has a limited view of the bill of rights and the historical, symbolic and earth shattering view that it represented. The consitution is not a stale document but one that guarantees essential rights but also the spirit of those rights. As I have once said the reason the bill of rights was created was because some wouldn't guarantee or recognize them without it to affirm them. Rights to freedom of clean air, fair wages are just an extension of rights to the masses so that they have a right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" over the whims and greed of the elitsts. Then it was the English Crown and its' aroticasy, today it is the big capitalists. Are prisoners who manufacure goods for private prisons realizing the Rand ideal of not being forced to do something if they commit a crime that only harms themselve such as drug abuse. Would Rand and other libertarians care more about the prisoner or the profit margins that can be made? Aren't rights that protect our bodies from environmental health hazards and unsafe work conditions more important than private property that is land. Aren't our bodies or of our children our own individual private property that deserves protection from criminal activity? Or are we just secondary to property that is an artifical extension of a capitalist that he did not create?

Rand states that we need a military defense in case of agression, which I agree with her but I wonder, would she force pacists, quakers or the Amish to pay military expentirues if they do not care? If the problem is a free rider, that they are receiving a service but aren't providing for it, isn't that still a use of force though by the government? Conseratives after all ignore the free rider problem, the services they receive when it suits them. Indeed if there wasn't government to obligate everybody to pay for a service than it is likely that few would invest in technology, such as a small businessman putting up streetlamps around a business district to deter crime, if it would benefit his competiors. They as Rand said should not be forced to help their competiors. Natinonal defense is important against agression but what if that country was becoming somewhat socialist and the agressor is capitalistic with capitalistic intentions, such as the case with Iran in the 1950's having the Shah repalced by in part the CIA of the U.S. Rand views government in a framework that predates the Greek experiment with democracy, although she is a pretty strong supporter of the Bill of Rights she though does not favor the idea of democratic rule or government in anything but mechanisms of force, such as the military, courts or the criminal justice system, force though by the government is something she condemns throughtout the book! Empathy, concern for human rights is not a big priority of hers unless the right directly translates into property rights. Although she implies that property rights are a foundation for other liberties, she ignores that only in an Utopian world does this usually happen.

Property rights are often granted or recognized by the government to the most powerful such as Guatemala unless there is a democratic movement in that country to guarantee those rights. Even then such as in the U.S. big capitalists can overtly influence our government through such things as buying politicans.

Our government is arbitary because there is no real public interest but a collection of competing interests is another contention of Rand but she ignores the fact that not all legislation hurts at least a few. Although white racists in the South during the Civil Rights movement strongly opposed reform, does that really hurt white south today. I am not talking about affirmative action but such basic reform as blacks being able to sit in front of a bus, drink at any water cooler etc.. Did that hurt white self-esteen in the long run, aren't whites in the South today more tolerant and less filled with hatred and negative unhealthy emotions. Who exactly can you say has been by these reforms after 30 years who has an objective mindset. Rand preaches about an objective outlook but advocates that personal self interest or subjectivism should come of it. Arbitary decisions in regards to the public interest of America by politicans are condemned, but what of an arbitary and apathetic, immoral system of ideology such as libertarianism? Isn't our criminal justice system today often arbitary when it comes to imprisonment, blacks receive the death penalty more per same number of murders and other factors, is that too not arbitary? It seems to be another of a long line of contradictions in her book.


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