Today's doltish conservatives, like Paul Ryan, worship her. But their forebears called Rand's work "preposterous"AlterNet
Conservatives Used to Mock Ayn Rand -- How Did She Become a Hero to Right-Wing Nerds Everywhere?
Michael Lind | Salon
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Conservatives Used to Mock Ayn Rand -- How Did She Become a Hero to Right-Wing Nerds Everywhere?
Conservatives Used to Mock Ayn Rand -- How Did She Become a Hero to Right-Wing Nerds Everywhere?
Michael Lind | Salon
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"Makers and takers?"
How many makers have not used the government-backed counterfeiting cartel, the banks, to TAKE purchasing power from the population?
I suspect MS Rand subscribed to the "loanable funds" theory of bank credit creation.
Who follows Rand these days? She was the head of a cult.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/1970/01/murray-n-rothbard/understanding-ayn-randianism/
F,
How IH s granting a loan 'taking purchasing power'?????
It would seem to be the exact opposite no?
Ie from 'I have no money so I have no purchasing power' to 'thanks for the loan friend, now I can make a purchase'..... Seems like the opposite to me.... Rsp
Because she was a fighter. When things are bad, people are attracted to fighters. I have always loved seeing her take down some snobbish leftist, even though her arguments were open to counters. She was also a decent debater.
Marris, but at the height of her popularity, 'things were good'....
Rsp
Franko,
If I have $20 in cash and lend it to you, I now have $20 less in purchasing power and you now have $20 more in purchasing power. Purchasing power has simply been transferred from me to you.
OTOH, with the government-backed banks, loans create deposits. New purchasing power is thus created so if you borrow $20 from a bank, the bank and you have diluted the purchasing power of my $20. Why? Because now, your $20 can bid against my $20 and I might have to pay more for something than I would have had to otherwise. So you and the bank have taken some of my purchasing power.
But what gives the bank and you the moral right to take from me? Are you the government and thus entitled to taxes from me? Or are you instead a legally sanctioned thief who is deemed so-called creditworthy of my purchasing power simply because you can probably return it to the bank plus interest?
So then how is new purchasing power to be created? Ethically, of course. Common stock as private money is one such method. Inexpensive fiat that is legal tender for government debt only is another.
F,
That's pure monetarist drivel...
You are making my point for me here, you STILL HAVE your $20, nothing has been 'taken' from you, rather, something has been given to me...
Are you jealous?
In your scenario, the price will NOT change unless govt agrees thru its fiscal agent to lend me more than your $20 to purchase the same item...
Rsp
F,
What if govt provides $20 to a Medicaid doctor for a medical procedure performed on a citizen with no healthcare insurance?
Would this 'dilute your purchasing power'?
Are you jealous that this person would receive $20 'free' medical care?
Rsp
In your scenario, the price will NOT change unless govt agrees thru its fiscal agent to lend me more than your $20 to purchase the same item... Franko
Who says it won't? But in either case, your newly created purchasing power will allow you to bid up prices.
Btw, what have you got against ethical sharing that you favor legally sanctioned stealing instead?
F. Beard is right here. I'm cool with Franko and the MMTers taking the position they're taking because it's transparent nonsense.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bob_roddis/4163003939/in/set-72157600951970959
The $20 to a Medicaid doctor is a form of taxation and is thus legitimate.
OTOH, a loan from the government-backed banks could enable a slum lord to outbid a poor person's savings for the same house.
F,
FYI you are starting to sound like a biblical version of Bob here... You may want to consider this....
Again, if the govt will not allow me to borrow more than 20 against the item I cannot 'bid it up'...
This is like where Warren says 'prices are a function of what price govt allows its banks to lend against things....' Rsp
The $20 to a Medicaid doctor is a form of taxation and is thus legitimate.
Whether a particular episode is "legitimate" or not is completely distinguishable from disputing that the phenomenon is occurring at all, or that it MUST always occur.
Again, if the govt will not allow me to borrow more than 20 against the item I cannot 'bid it up'... Franko
Of course you can! You can bid up the price I would otherwise have to pay even if you lose the auction.
No you can't legitimate bids need pre-qualification...
Sellers have to pre-qualify...
You can't just walk into a car dealership and say 'I'll take it!'... They have whole Finance Depts for this purpose... Same with home sales...
Rsp
I think the only time when your scenario might even be an issue Beard is if the good being bid upon is truly scarce. If there is plenty of capacity to produce that good why would the seller want to sell one to you for 30$ and none to Matt when they could sell 2 or 20$, one to each. The fact of the mater is though that very little of what we buy is via the "bidding" process.
As to how Rand became a right wing hero...... I think its because the conservative position the last few decades has lost the moral high ground. A body of thought based on creating a smaller in group that demonizes everyone else and relies on blowhards like Limbaugh and Hannity to be the "oral" leaders is obviously devoid of decency (and morality=decency to most folks). So they have had to take the stand that Amoral Objectivism is the only true moral position. They have turned what used to be discussions of decency into "lets not be judgemental". Being judgemental is a worse crime than being indecent because indecent is in the eyes of the beholder only.
Thats my $.02 worth.
If there is plenty of capacity to produce that good why would the seller want to sell one to you for 30$ and none to Matt when they could sell 2 or 20$, one to each. Greg
Good point, except one should also consider the factories that produce the goods. Why should so-called creditworthy businessmen be allowed to legally steal some of the purchasing power of the community and yet not justly share the profits derived therefrom?
The conservatives of my youth (Burnham, Buckley, Chambers, Kirk, Kendall, et al) were in no way comparable to Hannity and Limbaugh or most of the contemporary right wing establishment today. The former, while I did not agree with them on many issues, were at least very thoughtful, well informed and civil. Generally, most modern day libertarians despise them. Not sure about libertarians from their time.
As a young man, I learned a great deal about the left watching Firing Line, and eventually moved further to the left myself, in part because of the interplay I witnessed there. I also learned (imperfectly I might add) to respect and encourage honest debate between ideological opponents. Modern day conservatism, on the other hand, is a joke.
F,
The S&P 500 firms make about $1T equivalent annual...
The S&P 500 firms pay out 50% of after tax earnings as dividends, 35% into cap ex, and 15% they 'save' as retained earnings....
The 'moneylenders' account for 10% of these earnings...
(Rough numbers)
Why is it such 'a sin' for these 'bad moneylenders' to keep on average $15B annual in a $15T economy?
You are grieving over pennies...
Rsp
Mal,
Both Limbaugh and Hannity are under educated IMO....
RSP,
...I was also greatly influenced by the close friendship of Buckley and John Kenneth Galbraith. It helped me realize that ideological opponents can still fraternize with each other in a meaningful way, and that moment to moment life transcends these differences with most decent people.
Mal,
Its like they are the new Confederates or something... Non-compromising...
They rarely if ever talk about Lincoln, Eisenhower, Nixon, yet they are allegedly big GOP proponents...
To me they are heavy over-the-top libertarians... Rsp
The S&P 500 firms pay out 50% of after tax earnings as dividends, ... Matt Franko
Dividends are actually stupid since the point of a common stock company is to CONSOLIDATE capital for economies of scale, not DISSIPATE it.
And if you had read the OLD Testament, you'd know that while profits are GOOD, profit taking (at least from one's fellow countrymen) is wicked. So interest and dividends are typically wicked.
But common stock as private money requires neither usury nor dividends nor government privileges. Nor is the boom-bust cycle built-in as it is with credit since common stock is spent, not lent, into existence.
Now some, perhaps yourself, are afraid to share. But that's no excuse for government enabled theft.
Also, banks are not the only thieves in the government-backed credit creation process. The so-called creditworthy are too, especially business borrowers. So your $15 billion figure, even if accurate, does not tell the whole story.
"Why should so-called creditworthy businessmen be allowed to legally steal some of the purchasing power of the community and yet not justly share the profits derived therefrom?"
I completely sympathize with your disgust at the way our private money system treats the average citizen, ultimately to its own demise (you impoverish your customers they cant buy as much) which should be obvious. However I dont think counterfeiting is an effective way of framing this nor is stealing. Roddis' "funny money" comes to mind when I hear this, and I think it displays out of paradigm thinking in a floating exchange rate fiat system. There is nothing less valid about the dollar bill in your pocket vs the dollar balance in my account when I get a loan.
We need to attack the economic models that allow people to think they are borrowing someone elses savings when they take a loan. They aren't !! What they are borrowing is THEIR OWN future earning power. They are being asked to guesstimate how much they are going to make over the next 10-20 years and determine if that is enough to satisfy their obligation AND have some present period consumption. All loan payments (for the average citizen) are paying back past consumption but they
require a reduction of present consumption. When they take too much away from our present consumption we have a slump. We have been taken over by fealty to monetary policy which simply allows banks to indebt us further and make it "look" to us like we are getting richer. Monetary policy doesnt add to our incomes it simply allows our incomes to go further by changing payback schedules which ultimately cost us more.
We will soon be using 100 year mortgages regularly I predict ....which may have lower monthly payments but result in longer term enslavement and much greater over all wealth sucked from the borrower. And this is the modern conservatives wet dream, people voluntarily selling themselves into 100 year contracts which end up making them poorer........
voluntary enslavement!!
What they are borrowing is THEIR OWN future earning power. greg
Actually not, since borrowing real goods and services from the future is impossible since they don't exist yet. What the banks actually do is charge consumers interest for the dubious honor of stealing from each other.
Business borrowers are a different story since they are co-partners in crime with the banks.
Quite a system we have where one can only be a thief and/or a victim of thieves, almost without exception.
F,
I just want to get paid.....
Give me a heads up when you get to the part where we should start to advocate about stoning sodomites...
I wont be in for that either btw...
F,
What if your common stock was in a buggy whip manufacturer?
Would not that have been a 'bust'?
Rsp
What if your common stock was in a buggy whip manufacturer? Franko
From the Old Testament:
Divide your portion to seven, or even to eight, for you do not know what misfortune may occur on the earth. Ecclesiastes 11:2
As for sodomites, the Bible has very little to say about them but very much about oppression of the poor and injustice.
“I hate, I reject your festivals,
Nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies.
“Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
And I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings.
“Take away from Me the noise of your songs;
I will not even listen to the sound of your harps.
“But let justice roll down like waters
And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." Amos 5:21-24
But no one borrows real goods and services, they borrow money, which has a very tenuous and difficult to quantify relationship with real goods and services.
I use this logic to determine what you are borrowing;
When I borrow a twenty dollar bill that you've saved its clear Im borrowing your savings. I cant borrow 40 if you only have 20 even if you wanted to lend it to me cuz you think Im likely to repay with interest. So you arent looking at what I will eventually be able to repay but what you actually have to determine the loan.
Not so with banks. They look only at what I can repay. They assess MY future earning power to come up with the repayment.
I used to make fun of my mom cuz she always paid cash for her cars. She said she didnt want a car payment and I told her that putting 250 aside each month for 6 years and buying an 18000 dollar car is a car payment, all you avoid is interest. Not that interest isnt a good thing to avoid. She reduced her present consumption by 250 to have a car in future I got a car and reduced my consumption by 250 for a few more months than she did. The banks credit to me was generated by my ability to actually make that money not by what they held in their vaults.
To the very limited extent that any "conservatives" currently cite Rand it is because of:
a) the basic theme of "Atlas Shrugged" which was that the creators and producers of our marvelous modern wealth were and are being set upon by "progressive" looters and
b) her support of Austrian economics.
Very few sign on to the rest of the Rand cult of personality.
The reason warmonger "conservatives" like William F. Buckley hated Rand was because she saw foreign aid and adventurism as a silly and unnecessary self-sacrifice and she was an atheist.
But hardly anyone buys into the "deep" Randian worldview expressed as such:
That means that when Francisco, or Dagny, or Hank Rearden makes some bold proclamation, we can be certain that Ayn Rand is speaking through them.
And we can use that, in turn, to glean something truly horrifying about how Rand sees the world. Witness these lines from today’s scene, wherein Dagny is still recalling her college days with Francisco:
It was days later, when they were alone, walking through the woods on the shore of the river, that she asked:
“Francisco, what’s the most depraved type of human being?”
“The man without a purpose.” [p.98]
Really? Because I’d have said the most depraved type of human being is the one who deliberately inflicts harm on the innocent: the murderer, the rapist, the war criminal. Compared to those monsters, I’d gladly choose someone who has no purpose, who aimlessly drifts through life without any real long-term goal other than getting by. But Rand seems to be saying that this type of person is morally worse than one who actively makes it his purpose to cause havoc and destruction, and who pursues that goal with vigor and dedication.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/2013/08/atlas-shrugged-the-code-of-competence/
All this talk of Rand is just a way to defame libertarian and Austrian analysis by suggesting they are co-extensive with Rand's mostly bizarre views on most everything.
"if you had read the OLD Testament, you'd know that while profits are GOOD, profit taking (at least from one's fellow countrymen) is wicked".
Like it says that slavery is not acceptable UNLESS the slaves are from another country?
The banks credit to me was generated by my ability to actually make that money not by what they held in their vaults. greg
Not really, it's government privilege that allows banks to extend much credit.
But why aren't the auto makers very broadly owned in the first place? The capital investment required is huge! So why shouldn't you have quite a few shares of auto stock (or other stock to trade for them) plus maybe some fiat so you can hop down to a dealer and exchange them for a new car? The reason is that the banks have been able to bypass the need to share or pay honest interest rates for savings in fiat by the existence of the government-backed banking cartel.
Like it says that slavery is not acceptable UNLESS the slaves are from another country? y
Being a slave to a Hebrew was not so bad since Hebrews themselves had been slaves to the Egyptians. Moreover, there were laws related to their proper treatment.
God had to start somewhere with the salvation of the world and Abraham was a friend of His though the Hebrews are descended from Jacob, his grandson.
Anyway, it was Christians who abolished slavery so what's your beef?
And btw, it's principles in the Bible, especially the Old Testament, that will allow debt slavery to be abolished. Such things as restitution for theft, for example...
"'Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves.
You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property.
You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life".
Leviticus 25:44 - 46
Yea, well now we've got debt slavery to abolish. Are you going to quibble if I use both the Old and New Testaments to thump the slavers and their ideological supporters? Seeing as how most bankers are either Jewish or Christians or claim to be?
@ Bob Roddis
The fact remains that conservatives not only cite Rand but hold her up as a model, e.g., Paul Ryan. There is a strong movement sponsored by wealthy individuals to get Rand's novels into education. She is a conservative icon although not a Libertarian one, as you point out.
Here is an interesting post at Atlas Society, "Libertarianism And Objectivism: Compatible?" by William R Thomas. Rand accused "Anarchism," in this case anarcho-capitalism, being a political theory that lacked philosophical foundations, which essentially meant for her that it did not have metaphysical assumptions. It is precisely Rand's metaphysical assumptions, that she (falsely) attributes to Aristotle, that professional philosophers reject as naive and simplistic, as well as the basis for circular reasoning, that is, assuming the conclusion.
My opinion as a philosopher is that Ayn Rand and the Objectivists or MIses,Hayek, Rothbard and most of the Libertarians were up the task of entering the philosophical debate about these issues that has been ongoing for millennia. But that is another story. See Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Libertarianism," for a summary of the positions.
Basically, the issue is ontological, and depends on one's theory of personhood. This is one of the knottiest issues in philosophy and social science. Almost all philosophical approaches fail because they assume a theory of the person and then attempt to prove it by argument. But there is no place for Atlas to stand, so the arguments end up asserting self-evidence, in circular reasoning or an infinite regress.
These positons are points of view based on a logical framework that this constructed, which why there are many possible frameworks that can be constructed as ways of seeing the same data as information. How one looks, that is, the lens through which one sees, determines what one sees. "Facts" are theory-laden.
There is no way of seeing that has been set forth compellingly that comprehensive, representational, internally consistent, and economical (doesn't introduce extraneous concepts) and pragmatic. If there were, there would be no argument.
The argument is over either which way of seeing is correct or which is best among many. Bot are impossible to establish compellingly for lack of universally agreed upon criteria.
Either one view is correct but cannot be definitively established on absolute criteria, which is epistemic relativism, or none are true, which is epistemic nihilism.
F,
You kind of glossed over the 'buggy whip' thing IMO....
What happens if you are minding your own business 'saving in eight parts for a rainy day' or whatever the Ecclesiastes excerpt means in the common stock of a firm that is then made worthless by technical advancement?
Then the 'rainy day' comes and your savings are worthless.... What is the option? Sell yourself into slavery?
Count me out.... Rsp
"a) the basic theme of "Atlas Shrugged" which was that the creators and producers of our marvelous modern wealth were and are being set upon by "progressive" looters"
Right...... as if these creators producers did all of this by them selves.
F,
What would give the common stock value if the firms could not make a profit?
Rsp
Franko,
That passage means to DIVERSIFY among 7 or 8 investments.
What would give the common stock value if the firms could not make a profit? Franko
The stock would be exchangeable for the goods and services the company produces.
And the firm COULD make a profit. The profit would show up as an increase in the fiat price of the stock.
But again, what if the firm's entire business model is overcome by technology? Diversify into 8 sectors? So at most you could only lose 1/8th? Then if those shares get wiped out try to work to build it back up in another sector....
IMO its good to diversify so I would agree with that part....
Still seems monetarist at core and misses the view of authority we can grant to our govt institutions...
Seems like you are trying to 'work around authority' to me.... Game the system so that we would still need no view of authority... "We have no authority over the banks so instead of re-seizing authority, we will just eliminate them and use common stock" or something like that... Its WEAK...
Rsp
Franko,
A monetary sovereign has absolutely no need for banks. None at all. Caesar's money will always have value so long he has the authority and power to collect taxes in it.
As for the private sector, it can certainly come up with ethical forms of private money. Common stock is one such form. So the private sector has no need for government-backed banks either.
So NO ONE needs government-backed banks. Yet we have them despite the recurrent damage and unjust wealth distribution they cause.
So how about we put our heads together and discover how best we can euthanize the banks? Before they kill us as they killed 50-65 million in WWII alone?
The bloody, bloody bankers
that most respected lot.
How many millions have they starved;
how many have they shot?
The bloody, bloody bankers
since 1694,
booms, busts, Depressions
and never ending war.
F,
Are you asserting that the role of 'fiscal agent' (which is the term used in the FRA BTW iE THE Law),is not necessary?
That quote I'm sure is from the gold/metallic standard era... ie the era when we subjected ourselves to metals from column 11 of the periodic table, which are the only metals that have fully populated d-band electrons btw.... which are arrangements presently gone from the scene....
Can you 'see' the importance of an ability for human recognition and manifestation of just and righteous authority?
Can you 'see' what I am talking about here?
In my view you are attempting to circumvent this... Mainly the 'manifestation' part...
Rsp
Greg @2:31 pm. -- Your mother was a smart woman. Instead of paying interest, she earned interest, so got paid for deferring her present consumption. You paid interest for the privilege of decreasing future consumption. It's a choice that comes with a price (the interest).
The article mentioned the rejection of the John Birch Society (JBS) by the mainstream Republican Party of the time. One of the founders of the JBS was Fred Koch, father of the infamous Koch brothers of today. He began a focused campaign to gain control of the GOP. It looks like they succeeded, at least temporarily.
One of their tactics has been to provide free copies of Atlas Shrugged to schools and colleges for distribution and teaching. They have also bought control of academic departments at some universities by making large contributions in exchange for the power to appoint a professor or two.
Thanks John I'll tell my mom you think she is smart!
I think she is too but I was only referring to the idea that her way was not really saving a car payment. It does save interest but whether you end up better off can be tricky
Say youve saved 30,000$ DO you pay cash for a car and have 10,000 left over or do you invest the 30,000 into a stock and just pay for your car as you go out of income? What you earn on the investment may outweigh what you save in interest (depending on the rate of course)If I can get a good interest rate, say below 3% I will usually put 25% down and finance the rest, but I like to keep cash available to do other things besides buy cars. Cars are just transportation to me.
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