As our free market comes under deadly assault by the Socialists and the Trotskyists in the White House, we must rally around the principles of innovation, competition, and excellence that made our country great -- back when it was a free-market laboratory and not the USSR paradise it's turning into because of the Leninists known as "The Government."
If we don't stand our ground, circle our wagons, and march in a parade, everything that we and Ayn Rand have slaved for will be lost.
So I'm proposing we hold a big fashion show and give all the money to the free market. Who's with me?
I'm going to design a fall line whose amazing dresses and jackets will celebrate Ayn Rand's legacy as well as our continuing "guerilla war" against those who would chop off the legs of the free market and serve them to poor people as "Special Leg-Burgers."
The textures, colors, and clean lines of my fashion collection will suggest the power, elegance, and intellectual texture of the innovation that can only flourish when government gets out of the way and allows schemers, dreamers, and meme-ers to do what they do best. And just wait until you see the socks I'm designing!
Does anyone have Kenneth Cole on speed-dial? If you do, please press your phone button and call him and say, "We need some hot slogans and mottos for our Ayn Rand Fashion Fundraiser."
Does anyone wait tables at Le Bernaddian (sp)? (That fish restaurant that was on Top Chef last week.) If so, please tell your boss that we need to reserve the restaurant for our after-party dinner with exclusive flavors inspired by Alan Greenspan's breath.
More details soon ...
(If you didn't know I'm a free-market fundamentalist and budding fashion designer, I'm sorry.)
I am not necessarily disagreeing with you only making the point that any system (poli-soci-econ systems) of government devised by mankind is susceptible to corruption, perversions and evolution. In that regard, none of these systems are that much different including especially capitalism. Capitalism is NOT the deserving god that many American people worship religiously. If we step back and get a perspective and realize this, then perhaps we could given the leadership and people's support, form a more perfect union of social, economic and political policies that are just, fair and difficult to pervert. That day of reckoning must come some day soon if we are to survive as a free and democratic nation. Traveling ahead on te same road will lead to self destruction.
who was a libertarian and disciple of Ayn Rand. I read a number of her books, including "Atlas
Shrugged", and being of sound mind, quickly came to the conclusion that Rand was an idiot.
Needless to say, my attractive young lady didn't approve of my conclusion, and we parted ways.
Show me a meritocracy, and I'll show you a society that Ayn Rand has never even dreamed about. Come on. The lady was a self-important snob, and that's all there is to say about it.
There are differences in what people can achieve. But why would you build a religion out of rubbing it in their faces if their talents are indeed less than average?
This is just nonsense. Most people who have less than average talents know full well that this is so and are perfectly willing to get on with a decent job that never gets them to the top, exactly as you describe.
The only way to create some nonsense out of this is if you add pretense.
Actually, it hurts to even think about this. Because it is just so plain obvious that there are many different ways in which people can be excellent, and to make them feel small because they don't excel in some particular thing is simply snobbery. Tell me: what's the gain? what does anybody gain from curtailing people? I don't get it.
Of course, sometimes people need to be fired. But that's not a religious act.
Here's my two cents: Ayn Rand lived her first 20-something years in the Soviet Union, and as you can imagine: it sucked. She came to America, met with some success writing, fell in with the glamourous Hollywood crowd, and decided that since she did so well, Capitalism must be a Meritocracy. She's a starry-eyed idealist, head-over-heals in love with Meritocracy, but living under the misguided notion that Capitalism is meritocratic. In her novels, "all" you have to do to get rich is invent a mind-bogglingly wonderful product which everybody needs, and which is universally loved for its exceptional value and utility. Do that, and your competition will melt away, you'll make boatloads of money, most importantly you'll be able to tell anybody who doesn't see things your way to go pound salt. Rand's Utopian industrialists make no bones about the fact that they're just in it for the money...but who WOULDN'T sleep well if they got rich making a wonderful, useful product sold in a fair market? Sadly, Capitalism and Meritocracy are divergent far too often to ignore.
To be sure: the flaw is not in the notion of free markets. The flaw is in the notion that it is unnecessary to curb the (self-)corrupting effects of power abuse, of the temptation of creating false impressions, and of shifting blame on those who cannot speak up against it.
A meritocracy - if there is one - is a society which is fully aware of these dangers and counteracts them. This is not automatic. And to foster the creed that it is automatic is to invite disaster.
The best thing one can hope for Ayn Rand is that she hoped for the best and simply didn't understand these complications. I doubt it. But I certainly don't care.
That's why they're very particular who's allowed in Galt's Gulch.
I'm not saying I agree with her 100% (e.g. she indicated no grasp of population growth or environmental impact), but the "free market" types should re-consider the name-dropping.
Then, I reached adulthood.
Welcome to the valley the real Ayn Rand characters!
So the wealthiest do not have enough money? For that is where it would mostly continue to go.
Thanks but no thanks.