Monday, March 16, 2009
Ayn Rand has a point.
I've only read "The Fountainhead" by author Ayn Rand. I started reading "Atlas Shrugged" and am still working on it. To this day, "The Fountainhead" is my favorite book and it has reaffirmed a lot of my political influences after I read it. This article by the The Wall Street Journal explains the philosophy and its relevance to the current crisis very well in a nutshell. Anybody that reads this blog should read some Ayn Rand. Nonetheless, here is the link to the article.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123698976776126461.html?mod=rss_Today%27s_Most_Popular
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123698976776126461.html?mod=rss_Today%27s_Most_Popular
# posted by deltachichavez @ 7:52 PM 
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But it's not an article- it's an opinion piece by the president of the Ayn Rand Institute, so it can't really be taken without some serious grains of salt.
I haven't read this book, maybe I should, but based on the glowing comments in the opinion piece, I think my opinion would be tainted going into it. I think that I would clash with it philosophically. Greed and selfishness, especially in the context of capitalism, is in no way, and never could be a virtue. A corporation's needs simply cannot trump the needs of the people, because the businessmen would not act responsibly. It's something you see time and time again.
For instance, if you have a business that relies on having plentiful, cheap labor, how could they be trusted to treat that labor responsibly? The interest of the businessman is to maximize the profit, which means paying the lowest wages you can find labor to work for. Rarely, and certainly not today, will you find a situation where jobs are so plentiful that businesses have to offer high wages and pristine working conditions (note that I am not talking about upper-level management type jobs here). Today, they line up a hundred deep for one job in the current climate.
It also means minimizing costs, so materials will be the cheapest available. Environmental protections will be non-existent. Water tables will be contaminated. People far downriver from where the factories dump their waste products will suffer. The businessman doesn't care as his salary is hundreds of times larger than his workers, and he can live far away from the effects of his decisions.
If Rand's argument is that there must be no government regulation of business, then I'd say she came along a hundred years or so too late.
I haven't read this book, maybe I should, but based on the glowing comments in the opinion piece, I think my opinion would be tainted going into it. I think that I would clash with it philosophically. Greed and selfishness, especially in the context of capitalism, is in no way, and never could be a virtue. A corporation's needs simply cannot trump the needs of the people, because the businessmen would not act responsibly. It's something you see time and time again.
For instance, if you have a business that relies on having plentiful, cheap labor, how could they be trusted to treat that labor responsibly? The interest of the businessman is to maximize the profit, which means paying the lowest wages you can find labor to work for. Rarely, and certainly not today, will you find a situation where jobs are so plentiful that businesses have to offer high wages and pristine working conditions (note that I am not talking about upper-level management type jobs here). Today, they line up a hundred deep for one job in the current climate.
It also means minimizing costs, so materials will be the cheapest available. Environmental protections will be non-existent. Water tables will be contaminated. People far downriver from where the factories dump their waste products will suffer. The businessman doesn't care as his salary is hundreds of times larger than his workers, and he can live far away from the effects of his decisions.
If Rand's argument is that there must be no government regulation of business, then I'd say she came along a hundred years or so too late.
There are plenty of private watchdogs that keep people and businesses in check. Since the internet began, more and more watchdogs have sprouted up and will provide more oversight than any government agency. The government is very incompetent, at least in my opinion, when it comes to regulations. Just look at the epic failure of the SEC, especially with Maddoff. People shouldn't put so much faith in the government.
Private watchdogs might expose problems, but they otherwise have no teeth to hold anyone accountable. Only government can do that. Corporations would just otherwise hire a PR firm to smooth over their image as best they can.
That's when the people should hold the government accountable for not punishing what the people would consider an injustice. If you see somebody break into your neighbors house, are you going to blame the government for not preventing or are you going to immediately call the police? Even though the government would like to be everywhere at once, they can't.
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