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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (96168)	11/1/2012 1:01:28 PM
From: dan6	6 Recommendations Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 218782

To be upfront, I find Rand tedious (as I do most philosophers straight up). (And lest you think I one one of the "closed-minded", I am probably as well-read as anyone on this thread, at least as broadly-read.) I think self-interest (as an economic interest) is important... for a small segment of society. The plutocrats, the entrepreneurs... God love 'em, We need them.... In small numbers. We also need lots of people to work in factories and fields. It is probably better for everyone if these people do not have too much (economic) self-interest as they tend to get uppity and become aware of the economic injustice they work under. Does this motivate them to "do better?" For some it does. But the entrepreneurial life is not for everyone. While it is exciting and fulfilling for some, it is not within the interests or abilities of others. Why should everyone have to spend their lives trying to make more and more money? I think it can be argued that environmentally, it is better for the planet to have less entrepreneurs, less consumers, less hoarders... The problem with self-interest is it so easily overlaps with selfishness. Often it accepts and rationalizes collateral damage as unavoidable, incidental to the cause... I see the role of government (and people like Obama)as to look out for the less-self-interested from the collateral damage caused by the self-interested. My point: You need both self-interested people and (let's call them) self-less people to make the world spin...