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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index
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To: Asymmetric who wrote (159965)10/25/2008 1:01:28 PM
From: neolibRead Replies (2) of 306849
 
Unfortunately, what Ayn Rand seemed totally clueless about is that plenty of private citizens running businesses are wholesale engaged in this:

when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by
work

She was hung up on governments and force because she came out of a communist state. This seems to have blinded her to a few simple facts: 1) people willingly do all sorts of naughty things, and 2) force or lack of force has zero to do with the utility of a given transaction. You might well be forced to do a transaction you would rather not do (because of course, you don't think the utility of the transaction is net worth it), but that utility is independent of motivation.

So fundamentally, there is not much difference if somebody robs you at gunpoint, or swindles you in a business deal, OTHER than your mental outlook during the process. You still got screwed in both deals.
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