A lesson on today from Atlas Shrugged

[ccbatson]

I have noticed a lot of confusion on the part of liberals on DYes regarding what a true capitalist is as opposed to a corporate socialist or second hander.

A great fictional illustration can be found in Ayn Rand's book "Atlas Shrugged". Throughout the book there are the examples of objectivists like Dagny Taggert, Hank Reardon, and John Galt. In each instance there are 2 villain entities. In all cases the primary evil is the collectivist state, however, the secondary villains and vehicles for the evil being done are the second handers like Dagny's brother posing as a capitalist but in cahoots with the State unwittingly bringing about the destruction of the fruits of the labor of the original capitalists after they have been ousted or left.

Check it out, then use that realization to examine what we have going on now...The GM of old, versus the new Government Motors [[and who is the CEO of this new entity?). CitiBank, GE, Goldman Sachs, and on, and on.

BTW, these second handers are the first to be thrown under the bus by the State, aren't they?

[Lorax]

Great fictional reading, emphasis on the fiction part.

You mention GM- problem is, the government is getting out of running it as fast as they can, as soon as it's able to sink or swim on it's own. Obama even stated as much.

Saving jobs is the criteria here, not anarchy in the streets, which is what the Rethuglicans desire.

[ccbatson]

Not holding your breath on that swimming part I hope...especially when Obama locked in noncompetitive costs via cronies in the unions.

[Lorax]

Personally, if GM survives at all it will be a miracle, given the problems are not GM's, only incidentally are they GM's.

Banks aren't loaning money, this is why cars aren't selling, anywhere.

Nationalize the banks and force lending, and cars will start selling again, as will houses, etc.

[ccbatson]

Ford has a chance so long as they don't sell out and become second handers.

[Lorax]

Time to rename Rand's book "Atlas Mugged"

[ccbatson]

Maybe, in a few years [[OK, 10), your skills will be up to the challenge of reading and comprehending it [[advanced high school level required)

[Lorax]

Here we go with the ad nominem attacks against me, yet again.

Don't even go there with me, o batty one.

I would venture to say my education/comprehension level far out performs yours.

You can't even get the meaning of "fascism" down, why should I worry?!!

[East Detroit]

Rand's words are twisted by the greedy to support their claims that hoarding is okay.

[elganned]

I would disagree. I believe Rand's words are taken as they were intended.
Her theories are, however, naive and simplistic.

[East Detroit]

"A nation’s productive—and moral, and intellectual—top is the middle class. It is a broad reservoir of energy, it is a country’s motor and lifeblood, which feeds the rest. The common denominator of its members, on their various levels of ability, is: independence. The upper classes are merely a nation’s past; the middle class is its future."

“The Dead End,” The Ayn Rand Letter, I, 20, 3

"The middle class is the heart, the lifeblood, the energy source of a free, industrial economy, i.e., of capitalism; it did not and cannot exist under any other system; it is the product of upward mobility, incompatible with frozen social castes. Do not ask, therefore, for whom the bell of inflation is tolling; it tolls for you. It is not at the destruction of a handful of the rich that inflation is aimed [[the rich are mostly in the vanguard of the destroyers), but at the middle class."

“The Inverted Moral Priorities,” The Ayn Rand Letter, III, 21, 2

She points out that capitalism is not for the benefit of the hoarding rich, but rather a purposeful system to drive the existence of the middle class.

[MCP-001]

"Hoarding"?

Is that the defense for claiming something that doesn't belong to you?

Regarding fixing the car companies [[something that Pres. B.O. is totally incapable of doing BTW), if he can mandate that people purchase health insurance; why can't he mandate that people buy cars?

[Gistok]

I don't understand your comment about new GM Chairman Ed Whitacre? He used to be the Chairman of Southwestern Bell Corp. [[SBC).... then started to empire build and bought up Ameritech, Pacific Bell and BellSouth... and more recently AT&T and thus keeping the AT&T name.

So his new AT&T has 4 of the 7 baby Bells and the parent company as well. Then Ed Whitacre was forced to retire from his newly re-built telecommunications giant at age 65 and was tapped as the new Chairman of GM.

What is your point about him?

[rb336]

anyone get the sense that Bats just got the New Ayn Rand Lexicon?

"second handers" -- totally meaningless, BS phrase

[East Detroit]

"Hoarding"?

Is that the defense for claiming something that doesn't belong to you?

No, it's a term that describes a person more interested in collecting the most material goods than in relating to others. I suppose the adjectives or lack thereof on the grave marker will describe the results.

[ccbatson]

Rand dismisses the importance of a class system because it is irrelevant if the individual and their rights to their own thoughts and productivity is the central theme.

[ccbatson]

Back on the main subject...who are the real world second handers today, how are they being portrayed and by whom. I propose that second handers are being presented by their liberal collaborators as the skapegoat capitalists who ruined the system and need to be punished [[along with real capitalists). It is a shell game as these characters are the enemy of the individual and capitalist. Of course they have caused harm, harm from collectivist and statist philosophies.

[East Detroit]

"The upper classes are merely a nation’s past; the middle class is its future."

Doesn't look like dismissal of a class system.

Does look like dismissal of the upper class, however.

So, everyone becomes the middle class.... and the hoarders are relegated to history.

[ccbatson]

Sigh...class has no boundary, therefore is has no meaning in the sense that you misunderstand it. Arbitrarily today' upper maybe tomorrow's middle etc. The key point being that the individual must have full freedom in a free enterprise capitalist economy in order for the individual to prosper and that individual prosperity becomes prosperity overall.

[Lorax]

No, actually it becomes another excuse to accumulate wealth for one's own selfish, avaricious reasons. You consistently contradict your own mantra.

Personal wealth accumulation is what so-called free market capitalist objectivists hold near and dear. Trickle down theories don't work, and are proven so.

[East Detroit]

Sigh...class has no boundary, therefore is has no meaning in the sense that you misunderstand it. Arbitrarily today' upper maybe tomorrow's middle etc. The key point being that the individual must have full freedom in a free enterprise capitalist economy in order for the individual to prosper and that individual prosperity becomes prosperity overall.

Incorrect.

[barnesfoto]

A more realistic work would be any of the "Hardy Boys" series by Franklin W. Dixon. "The House on the Cliff" was written at about the same time, and is recommended for those who enjoy the same simplistic "good and evil" type of pulp fiction.

[ccbatson]

Read it again [[or for the first time) Barnes, I think you will reverse your position after doing so.

[MikeM]

Big Sister Is Watching You
By Whittaker Chambers

The news about this book seems to me to be that any ordinarily sensible head could not possibly take it seriously, and that, apparently, a good many do. Somebody has called it: "Excruciatingly awful." I find it a remarkably silly book. It is certainly a bumptious one. Its story is preposterous. It reports the final stages of a final conflict [[locale: chiefly the United States, some indefinite years hence) between the harried ranks of free enterprise and the "looters." These are proponents of proscriptive taxes, government ownership, labor, etc., etc. The mischief here is that the author, dodging into fiction, nevertheless counts on your reading it as political reality. This," she is saying in effect, "is how things really are. These are the real issues, the real sides. Only your blindness keeps you from seeing it, which, happily, I have come to rescue you from."

The rest here:
http://www.nationalreview.com/script...0501050715.asp

[rb336]

Bats will shriek about NR losing its way in 5,4,3,2...