Posted on 03/06/2007 2:42:33 PM PST by RWR8189
When Ayn Rand finished writing "Atlas Shrugged" 50 years ago this month, she set off an intellectual shock wave that is still felt today. It's credited for helping to halt the communist tide and ushering in the currents of capitalism. Many readers say it transformed their lives. A 1991 poll rated it the second-most influential book (after the Bible) for Americans.
At one level, "Atlas Shrugged" is a steamy soap opera fused into a page- turning political thriller. At nearly 1,200 pages, it has to be. But the epic account of capitalist heroes versus collectivist villains is merely the vehicle for Ms. Rand's philosophical ideal: "man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."
In addition to founding her own philosophical system, objectivism, Rand is honored as the modern fountainhead of laissez-faire capitalism, and as an impassioned, uncompromising, and unapologetic proponent of reason, liberty, individualism, and rational self-interest.
There is much to commend, and much to condemn, in "Atlas Shrugged." Its object – to restore man to his rightful place in a free society – is wholesome. But its ethical basis – an inversion of the Christian values that predicate authentic capitalism – poisons its teachings.
Mixed lessons from Rand's heroes
Rand articulates like no other writer the evils of totalitarianism, interventionism, corporate welfarism, and the socialist mindset. "Atlas Shrugged" describes in wretched detail how collective "we" thinking and middle-of-the-road interventionism leads a nation down a road to serfdom. No one has written more persuasively about property rights, honest money (a gold-backed dollar), and the right of an individual to safeguard his wealth and property from the agents of coercion ("taxation is theft"). And long before Gordon Gekko, icon
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
How much does one need or deserve? Would you put a man in prison for having to much or just take it from him like Hillary? You sound like a Socialist to be posting that on a Conservative news forum.
The argument can be made that the CEO with a guaranteed golden parachute, no matter how badly he screws up, is less motivated than the bureaucrat who faces job loss without benefits.
The CEO with a guaranteed golden parachute had to have an exemplary track record to attain the position. The Corporate Boards and Shareholders bet that a person with a track record will continue the success they have shown all their lives. The Brenie Ebbers and Scott Sullivans or Ken Lays and Jeff Skillings are anomalies brought about by excessive government meddling.
You appear to advocate more government meddling to punish those evil Robber Barons that have kept us all employed for so long feeding their hateful greed.
Hmmm, I worked for a global corporation that was run into the ground by the CEO who was also chairman of the board. I assure you, the government didn't have a darn thing to do with it.
You appear to advocate more government meddling to punish those evil Robber Barons that have kept us all employed for so long feeding their hateful greed.
Really? How do you get from a discussion of the meaning of the word "greed" to the above?
I believe the name "Robber Baron" was given to those who engaged in unethical business tactics rather than wealth, in general.
Same result, different context. In "your town" market forces determine that only one gas station; in "my town" a monopoly determines there is one gas station. "Your town" has no monopoly in the classic sense, although it has one provider of a single good (gas), because a competitor can come into the market and provide choice. Just because one or the other of the two stations won't last doesn't make it a monopoly.
I don't just have "big city" thinking (I don't live in a big city), I just have a clearer understanding of market economics and regulation of business. I don't disfavor all monopoly, nor do I disfavor it due to class envy. I disfavor monopoly where it disrupts choice and artificially increases the costs of entry into the market by new business.
A good example is the unholy alliance between big tobacco and government. Big tobacco "offended" by lying to the public about the risks of tobacco (only an idiot would have believed them; doctors knew in 1890 that cigarettes were bad for you, made you sick, took your "wind" and would ultimately kill you). Big government sued and settled. Part of the settlement was money and the government passed laws that made sure that new companies coming into the cigarette market were to be taxed to compensate for the extra money that big tobacco passed on to their customers due to the settlement. A government enforced monopolistic burden on new market competitors.
It is exactly a monopoly in the classic sense. Monopoly means a market in which there are many buyers but only one seller: the description of the gas station in my own is, exactly, a monopoly.
A government enforced monopolistic burden on new market competitors.
This is exactly what I, and other posters, have been saying: monopolies that are oppressive--as opposed from those that are neither good nor bad (like my gas station example, for instance)--cannot exist without interference in the market by the government, which is also inherently anticapitalist. The monopoly is not the evil: the evil is the government regulation of the marketplace.
For a living, I'm an antitrust defense lawyer. I defend mostly big companies accused of violating antitrust laws. One of the reasons I chose this particular path is that I firmly believe, with every fiber of my body, that antitrust laws are some of the most oppressive, destructive, and anticapitalist laws that have ever been passed in this country. I cannot tell you how pleased I would be if Congress tomorrow repealed the antitrust laws, putting me out of a job. It would be a banner day for America.
I don't agree that this is the "classic monopoly" that anti-trust law was intended to prevent. Moreover, you latest post ignores the real effect that monopolies have on market economics.
Surprisingly, I agree with your distaste for current anti-trust law. I view it not simply as regulation of predator tactics by monopolies or near monopolies - rather it is regulation for political control and advantage sake. Appropriate regulation would include clear cut definitions of prohibited practices and damn little else.
As I have pointed out, the problem with the concentration of political power is well known to most- one should not "pooh-pooh" the equally obvious problems with the concentration of economic power. The fact that it is not "governmental" does not mean it can not be as oppressive or tyrannical. Nor do I agree that one requires governmental action to accomplish an oppressive monopoly. It certainly helps near monopolies cement their positions of monopolistic power, but a large enough market actor can exercise sufficient economic power to effect market oppression. How?
You town has a store. Its owned by XYZ Distribution Co.. XYZ owns the truck line, regional gas distribution and has a relationship with the local truckers union. You decide you want to open a store. XZY doesn't want to have that happen. It colludes with the local truckers union to prevent shipments of goods to your store, prevents the sale of gasoline to your store and your trucks and organizes a strike on you business. It tells everyone that you deal with that if they do business with you, they won't do business with them. Boom. No government interference or regulation but monopoly oppression puts you out of business.
While this store (and story) is fictional, it could be Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart certainly has the economic power to, in certain places, conduct themselves in this manner (should they ever allow a positive relationship with a union). Without some regulation to prevent agreements between sections of a market to act in concert to burden market competition we would be at the mercy of large market players.
I freely admit that I am not an economist, nor am I an anti-trust lawyer (I am a lawyer, however - criminal trial attorney). I don't like our anti-trust laws; they need a real pruning. Too often they are used for political advantage or class-warfare grandstanding. Regardless, I have no greater trust for your employers - American Business - because they have proved themselves more than capable of using whatever tool is available to them to engage in market oppression (including violence, bribery and graft). What we need is a clear cut set of "rules of the game" whose purpose is to prevent the oppressive use of monopolistic economic power by the least restrictive means possible coupled with an impartial referee who is not biased by being a covert player, an ally of a player or opposed to the game generally. I also freely acknowledge that such a goal is easier said than done. Such is the same for all the rules of the social compact we live under and we don't use that as an excuse not to make the attempt.
I agree that it's not the monopoly that the antitrust laws were intended to prevent, but it is, indeed, a monopoly and Section 2 of the Sherman Act clearly forbids any monopolization or any attempt to monopolize. The fact that the antitrust laws are woefully drafted is yet another reason for their repeal.
Addressing your concerns about your fictional Wal-Mart. Let's assume that Wal-Mart was, in fact, engaging in monopolistic tactics. Let's further assume that Wal-Mart is attempting to monopolize in more than just one location, because it's pretty silly to expend the kind of effort you're talking about for just one store out of thousands. So let's assume that it's a national effort to monopolize the retail sector.
Leaving aside for the moment that Wal-Mart, as large as it is, is still dwarfed in size by the combination of other retailers such as Sears, K-Mart, Kohls, Target, etc. (making this a fairly unfeasible proposition--after all, what union will want to face the wrath of the rest of the retail sector to appease one client, even a huge one?)
Ok, so given these assumptions, what is the harm to consumers? After all, as I (and others) have talked about above, even if Wal-Mart is a defacto monopoly (one seller, many buyers), consumers aren't harmed if Wal-Mart continues to sell products at competitive prices.
If this is the case, it doesn't matter to me (or any other consumer) whether Wal-Mart is a monopoly because I get goods at the same price I would get them even if there were competitors. No harm, no foul. Remember, the purpose of the antitrust laws are to protect COMPETITION, not competitors. The fact that I'm harmed in my inability to open a store is of no difference to the antitrust laws. Competition ITSELF must be harmed, so absent supracompetitive prices, no luck.
So you have to further assume that Wal-Mart is using these exclusionary tactics to charge supracompetitive prices. But Wal-Mart, of course, does not exist in a vacuum. One of the primary tenants of a free-market economy is free movement of capital. If Wal-Mart begins to charge supracompetitive prices, it will soon realize higher profits and higher returns on investments. As this happens, capital will seek the higher rates of return and as more capital seeks higher returns, additional competitors will enter the industry, competing with Wal-Mart and eventually lowering prices to a competitive level. As large as Wal-Mart is, even if it seeks to control things like truckers and fuel, a company seeking entry could well run its own trucking line (as does Wal-Mart), avoiding any run-ins with union workers and could seek fuel contracts from any of the dozens of fuel companies in this nation not owned by the fictional Wal-Mart. Moreover, if profits are such that Wal-Mart is able to charge supracompetitive prices, what is to stop a competitor from vertically integrating itself, so as to ensure a steady supply of fuel?
I think that we have a wonderful "rules of the game" in the sense that we realize the rules are determined by the marketplace. I further think that the more the government interferes in the marketplace, the more that consumers are harmed. I place my ultimate faith in the marketplace and in capitalism--and I have much greater faith in the free market economy than I do in some congressman in Washington who thinks he needs to write a law to change the way business is done in this country.
We known that is just BS and for the same reason that a monopolistic Wal-Mart being a good thing is BS - because men abuse power. Our government has an interlocking system of checks and balances in an imperfect attempt to solve the age old problem of providing sufficient power to government so that it can effectively govern while at the same time diffusing power so one man, or one group of men, have less of a chance to act abusively with that power.
Economic power is no different and your reliance on the benevolent monopoly smacks of a foolishness that I doubt you would accept in a system of government. I.E. You would not wait for abuse to happen but would structure the political system to retard and prevent abuse from arising. I veiw economic power on the same level as I view political power; as I also view economic rights at the same level as those of political rights. Neither is to be abused by government, but neither can be allowed unrestricted license within a viable social structure for that social structure to survive. Both require a carefully crafted dynamic tension between restriction by governmental power and the private excercise of political and economic liberties by individuals.
But we agree on one thing completely - the Sherman Anti-trust act needs a short, fast trip to the shredder. I am up for a new version of the act to reflect more appropriately the needs of a capitalistic economy and the prevention of market abuses through anti-competitive tactics.
Carolyn
Yep. And I contend that the free market acts as that check. So long as Wal-Mart sells at competitive prices, everything is peachy. If Wal-Mart acts to sell at supracompetitive prices, it will attract capital and competition, and the market acts as a check.
What was the price of kerosene in 1860? What was the price when Standard Oil was broken up?
I contend that free market forces are not capable of acting as that check. We have reached a impasse in discourse where further exposition might devolve to "no it won't," "yes it will," ad nauseum until either we drop from exhaustion or send our seconds to arrange terms. I propose we call a truce on this issue, resolve that the Federal government can't find is collective a$$ with both hands and a map and turn our minds to our respective law practices.
Hmmm, I worked for a global corporation that was run into the ground by the CEO who was also chairman of the board. I assure you, the government didn't have a darn thing to do with it.
Firstly, the BT purchase of MCI was thwarted by governmental action. "The Telecommunications Act of 1996" brought about excessively high access charges at the time purportedly to subsidize "Universal Service" by the operating companies. Those excessively high charges forced MCI to reevaluate the cost of breaking into the local market and in turn forced BT to demand renegotiation of the proposed merger allowing Worldcom to move in with the hostile takeover bid.
Secondly the Purchase of Sprint by MCIWorldcom was thwarted by Regulatory intervention.
Had either of these mergers not been meddled with by government we would not have see Bernie Ebbers self-destruct in such a grand way. I will have to work until I'm eighty but I'm pleased with how Verizon is running things right now.
Enron was allowed to happen by energy deregulation that was actually just a shell game. New shadow Service provider companies were created to broker energy but the pipes and cables that transport energy didn't change at all. Deregulation of function only, caused competing companies to be created that sold the same finite amount of energy. This simply allowed false transactions by Enron as a giant grand brokerage house dealing in shadow deals and phantom trades among its own ghost entities for the purpose of inflating its worth in the market.
The lesson we learned is that government can't deregulate a resource that has a fixed infrastructure. You can and should deregulate alternate competing resources such as solar or wind energy when it does not traverse the traditional delivery plant.
Thirdly, although I'm no accountant, I have learned through all of the sordid events that the 1990's saw generally accepted accounting principles bent beyond the spirit of the profession and the proliferation of EBITDA and other adjusted earnings on statements with the blessing of, or at worst sidelong glances of, the SEC and other governmental regulatory agencies.
I feel that if these governmental watchdog entities didn't exist we would be better off. They just generate a false sense of security until the next fraud is perpetrated.
http://www.mises.org/
Someday I intend to read "Human Action"
http://www.mises.org/humanaction.asp
In fact, no children appear in Rand’s magnum opus.
Yes there were, Dagny, Francisco, Eddie Willers and Jim Taggert’s childhood is described in the book.
So if you spent 20 years inventing a product, you would give me the rights to manufacture a similar product, using your ideas, so that there would be no monopoly?
A life changing book one of the best I ever read.
I fear it will not be read by the present generation.
Rand never suggested that other people didn’t exist, but she was an elitist and only had admiration and empathy for people she admired. Likewise her heros enjoyed the company of other heros.
Libertarianism is not a rationalization of evil, it is AFAIK an understanding that people are free to make their own decisions, good or bad, as long as they do not directly infringe on the rights of others.
In other words: we are both free to mind our own business.
rand’s book
“the new left”
is
still
relevant.
“Suggesting that it is impossible to have an ethical existence without a belief in God is ridiculous.”
Have any societies been able to conceive of an absolute morality without the belief in a higher power? Without a higher power Men behave as gods without consequence.
Have any societies been able to conceive of an absolute morality without the belief in a higher power? Without a higher power Men behave as gods without consequence.
Do you jest?
Have you ever heard of Greek Philosophy?
The Greeks were polytheistic.
The word ethics is from Greek.
Online Etymology Dictionary
ethics
1602, "the science of morals," pl. of M.E. ethik "study of morals" (1387), from O.Fr. ethique, from
L.L. ethica, from Gk. ethike philosophia "moral philosophy," fem. of ethikos "ethical," from ethos
"moral character," related to ethos "custom" (see ethos). The word also traces to Ta Ethika, title
of Aristotle's work. Ethic "a person's moral principles," attested from 1651.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
The word moral is Roman as translated by Cicero from Greek.
Online Etymology Dictionary
moral (adj.)
c.1340, "of or pertaining to character or temperament" (good or bad), from O.Fr. moral, from L.
moralis "proper behavior of a person in society," lit. "pertaining to manners," coined by Cicero
("De Fato," II.i) to translate Gk. ethikos (see ethics) from L. mos (gen. moris) "one's disposition," in
pl., "mores, customs, manners, morals," of uncertain origin. Meaning "morally good,
conforming to moral rules," is first recorded c.1386 of stories, 1638 of persons. Original
value-neutral sense preserved in moral support, moral victory, with sense of "pertaining to
character as opposed to physical action." The noun meaning "moral exposition of a story" is
attested from c.1500. Moralistic formed 1865.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
Was Zeus, or Cronos, or Hera, the higher power you referred to or was I just reading to much into your post?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.