Thanks to the Tea Party loonies and a lot of gullible sheep out there, Ayn Rand has really come back into vogue in the last few years. Her book, The Fountainhead, was made into a movie starring Gary Cooper back in 1949 but her other opus, Atlas Shrugged, has long been considered too long and complicated to make into a movie.
Until now that is. The long awaited project is being released in two parts with part one scheduled to open in theaters April 15.
For those unfamiliar with Rand's writings, I highly encourage you to check them out at least to know what informs the beliefs of the far right fringe out there. The writing is bloated, the characters are black and white, two dimensional tools which the author uses to prove her mythology.
In short, the world of Ayn Rand is one in which there are "prime movers", those who make humanity move forward, and their antagonists who are people shot through with schadenfreude; what would be called in contemporary culture "player haters".
Atlas Shrugged is a thousand plus page work laying out Rand's world view and the philosophy of objectivism. Basically the belief that complete and utterly unfettered free market capitalism is the highest moral good there can be and those who question the belief are something akin to the Lucifer of the Bible.
There's a story in there somewhere between long-winded monologues which serve to prove Rand's point but you can easily skip past huge chunks of reading without missing a beat. Ayn Rand had no ability to self-edit in other words. She felt as if every word and every concept in her books had to be flogged to death and this makes for a very taxing reading experience.
My personal hero, Upton Sinclair, wrote in a similar style with very 2D characters. The good guy vs. the bad. But he did it in 500 pages or less typically and was much more prolific.
At any rate, Rand's style of writing basically works like this: in the land of Lala, people hated the capitalists, the capitalists went on strike, the world fell apart, they came back and saved it. So, you see, capitalism is the only viable system out there.
So, I could write a book and say in the land of Lala, the socialists took power from the capitalists and the world was saved. See? Socialism works! I just proved it.
It really is that cut and dried in Rand's works. There is little or no actual proof offered in anything. She just makes a case that completely unregulated capitalism is the only viable way to Utopia.
Of course we have seen historically what happens when business is not regulated or is under-regulated. Rand's prime movers don't care about humanity. That's not the point. They just go about the business of making things and making money and everybody else benefits from their drive and zeal. It's the ultimate trickle down theory.
It's a shame that reality has to pop in to cloud the image. Those of us who aren't stupid know that deregulation or lack of regulation is what has led to things like slavery, forced child labor, sweat shops, weapons dealers, blood diamonds, workplace deaths, etc.
In capitalism the cream doesn't always come to the top. Frequently you get scenarios like a good product like the Flip camera coming out. A company like Cisco buys that company for $500 million and two years later kills it. Or somebody like Facebook buys out an awesome company like drop.io and shelves it so nobody can use it anymore.
Yes, capitalism can be a force for innovation but it can also be a humbling destructive force with a massive dark side.
And let's not forget that such innovations as space flight, the Internet, hell, just about anything dealing with technology, has come out of government funded initiatives. The Soviet Union, not the capitalist one, put the first satellite into orbit with technology developed by Nazi Germany.
Atomic energy was created by the U.S. government due to its desire to kill a bunch of Japanese civilians. Most of the quantum leaps society has made in past centuries have been the result of government sponsored projects by kings, emperors, presidents, tyrants, etc.
None of this is admitted in Rand's books. Government is the enemy of innovation at every turn. It's a tool used by the haters to hold back those who could truly help us out.
In other words, it's just utter nonsense. There is nothing about Rand's ideas that has been borne out in reality. But, it gives the far right something to blame for the failures they experience. When Regan's trickle down, deregulation, supply side projects produced higher unemployment and massive deficits it was because there was still too much regulation.
All you have to do is read a little history, the real stuff, not the Glenn Beck stuff, study the early 1900s and see what happens when the gloves are off for big business. You get something that looks a lot like a fiefdom from the middle ages. You get the environment Upton Sinclair addressed in his book The Jungle.
Unfortunately, the followers of the Rand cult will only be appeased when we've gone back to that environment so that they can actually see how much it doesn't work. They're typically not likely to believe history since it's all been written by the liberal media elite.
I just want to ask people out there to think while you're reading. When you just take something at face value and eliminate context, you're just making yourself into a victim. Don't be sheep. Do some research for Christ's sake!
Also, today, Obama finally brought eliminating Bush era tax cuts to an end for the wealthiest Americans and closing some tax loopholes American businesses currently enjoy to the table. You know, like GE who paid NO TAXES last year.
The Tea Party jackasses are quick to remind you that the super rich and corporations pay something like 70% of American taxes. Just to be clear, this is a lie. Not true. They're using the math of x + y = z which tells you that based on a person making a million dollars and being taxed at 25% they pay $250,000 in taxes. Of course, that's not taking anything else into account. Not mentioning tax shelters, write-offs, etc. They're not talking about what is actually paid in taxes. They're only talking about what would be paid if there was no such thing as unscrupulous accountants and a rigged tax system.
The middle class and the poor in America shoulder the tax burden. If you believe otherwise, bah bah to you. You're a sheep. Don't be a sucker.
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