That's a great little article. In contrast, the reply to that article reflects what is today the dominant (and ruling) philosophy - Big "Clever" Government In Loco Parentis. Too many - on both sides of what used to be a better defined political divide - embrace this:
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Con: Greed and Rand Aren’t the Answers
by Christina Patterson
You’d think it was a joke, when the global economy was collapsing because of greed, that anyone might turn seriously to the purple prose of crypto-fascist Ayn Rand and think it was the answer to anything. How could her so-called philosophy of “rational self-interest”—in other words, a crude kind of dog-eat-dog laissez-faire capitalism—seem like the route out of this obstacle-strewn labyrinth into which we’re all now locked?
But human beings are simple creatures. Hit us and we’ll run screaming to our mummies and daddies, or the mummies and daddies we’d like to have, who will kiss our bruises and give us sweeties and tell us that we need never, ever give any of our sweeties away.
I guess a rise in “rational self-interest” at least sounds rational. Which is more than can be said for the decision to parcel up pockets of air or sunbeams or “securitized bundles” of toxic debt—or whatever else the little testosterone-fuelled idiots dreamed up after one too many mochaccinos—that got us in this mess that turned the world mad.
We don’t know what will get us out of it. We do know it’s going to have to be on an eye-popping, wallet-pinching, tax-increasing global scale. That’s where greed got us. Greed is not going to get us out of it. Nor is solipsism. Nor is Ayn Rand. Repeat after me: Unfettered, unregulated, personal-bonus-seeking capitalism is the problem, not the answer.
It’s time, boys and girls, to grow up. Just thank your lucky stars that the new guy in the White House has a big brain and a cool head. And he writes a hell of a lot better than Ayn Rand.
businessweek.com |
