Second, your first numbered point about “fairness” once again ignores the reality of competing interests. Our manufacturing base (when it existed) was built on a not-always-delicate dance between entrepreneur industrialists (and their management heirs, whose goal inevitably shifted from building commercial empires to maintaining them) and laborers. Do only the industrialists qualify as “producers” in Rand's world, entitled to receive (and retain) the “full value” of their efforts — or do those workers deserve to fight for, and get, THEIR full value as well? Are the workers on whose backs were built the empires of U.S. Steel, Standard Oil, the major railroads, etc., etc. somehow “less productive” than those who set those industries in motion? “Fairness” cannot be a concept applicable to economic elites alone — but that seems to be just the way Rand applies it.

As for outsourcing, I don't think the problem is “bigger than you and I can grasp,” but it is bigger than anyone will soon solve. I struggle in my efforts to avoid attributing qualities of “good” and “evil” to the players in our current economic takedown — today's corporate leaders, and the stockholders who single-mindedly push them along toward higher profits and dividends, have merely taken the next step down capitalism's logical path. They aren't breaking laws, and they aren't violating ethical standards, by moving factories overseas and exploiting third-world workers in a way they can no longer exploit workers here. (And yes, unions share some responsibility for job losses, because their early achievements in lifting workers out of oppression were followed in many cases by overreach and intransigence.) Nevertheless, the big-picture outcome has been the creation of an economy tilted way too heavily toward the management/investor class, with a giant hole developing where the working-class job base used to be.

The money at the top is accumulating at an ever-more-rapid clip (because Chinese workers can be paid for 10 cents on the dollar), while more Americans in the middle and at the bottom are seeing jobs disappear — and no corporate/entrepreneurial money being spent to replace them. In such a scenario, SOME mechanism must be found to ensure that tens of millions of Americans don't slip permanently into underemployment — and at the moment it seems clear that government must be that mechanism, both to create jobs on its own and to spur/entice/force the private sector to create other jobs. And, yeah, as far as I'm concerned the companies (and their investors) that are shifting to cheap foreign labor, if they're not going to lift a finger themselves to cushion the landing for those onetime employees whom they still expect to be their consumers, should pay higher taxes to help pay for the government's efforts at job creation.

Rand-ians and teabaggers can bitch and moan about taxes and villainize the government all they want — but there comes a time when that formerly “productive” guy who's never replaced his factory job can no longer afford to buy Chinese-made trinkets, even at Wal-Mart prices. In fact, that time may already have come. Once more, competing interests must be reconciled, because that guy needs a job a hell of a lot more than some investor needs to shield every penny of his profits from the capital-gains tax collector.

Second, your first numbered point about “fairness” once again ignores the reality of competing interests. Our manufacturing base (when it existed) was built on a not-always-delicate dance between entrepreneur industrialists (and their management heirs, whose goal inevitably shifted from building commercial empires to maintaining them) and laborers. Do only the industrialists qualify as “producers” in Rand's world, entitled to receive (and retain) the “full value” of their efforts — or do those workers deserve to fight for, and get, THEIR full value as well? Are the workers on whose backs were built the empires of U.S. Steel, Standard Oil, the major railroads, etc., etc. somehow “less productive” than those who set those industries in motion? “Fairness” cannot be a concept applicable to economic elites alone — but that seems to be just the way Rand applies it.

As for outsourcing, I don't think the problem is “bigger than you and I can grasp,” but it is bigger than anyone will soon solve. I struggle in my efforts to avoid attributing qualities of “good” and “evil” to the players in our current economic takedown — today's corporate leaders, and the stockholders who single-mindedly push them along toward higher profits and dividends, have merely taken the next step down capitalism's logical path. They aren't breaking laws, and they aren't violating ethical standards, by moving factories overseas and exploiting third-world workers in a way they can no longer exploit workers here. (And yes, unions share some responsibility for job losses, because their early achievements in lifting workers out of oppression were followed in many cases by overreach and intransigence.) Nevertheless, the big-picture outcome has been the creation of an economy tilted way too heavily toward the management/investor class, with a giant hole developing where the working-class job base used to be.

The money at the top is accumulating at an ever-more-rapid clip (because Chinese workers can be paid for 10 cents on the dollar), while more Americans in the middle and at the bottom are seeing jobs disappear — and no corporate/entrepreneurial money being spent to replace them. In such a scenario, SOME mechanism must be found to ensure that tens of millions of Americans don't slip permanently into underemployment — and at the moment it seems clear that government must be that mechanism, both to create jobs on its own and to spur/entice/force the private sector to create other jobs. And, yeah, as far as I'm concerned the companies (and their investors) that are shifting to cheap foreign labor, if they're not going to lift a finger themselves to cushion the landing for those onetime employees whom they still expect to be their consumers, should pay higher taxes to help pay for the government's efforts at job creation.

Rand-ians and teabaggers can bitch and moan about taxes and villainize the government all they want — but there comes a time when that formerly “productive” guy who's never replaced his factory job can no longer afford to buy Chinese-made trinkets, even at Wal-Mart prices. In fact, that time may already have come. Once more, competing interests must be reconciled, because that guy needs a job a hell of a lot more than some investor needs to shield every penny of his profits from the capital-gains tax collector.

http://i.imgur.com/XmNt6.jpg

First, Rynd is not trying to create a fictional world. She is attempting to hold a mirror up to our own. Her world is supposed to be ours.

Second, I can list about 100 authors off the top of my head who have created entire worlds that mirror and comment on our own in less than 1,000 pages. Anything by Orwell does a better job creating a world out of Rand's anti-welfare state themes. Gabriel Garcia Marquez's “100 Years of Solitude” does it in less than half that. Saramago's “Blindness.” Roberto Bolano's “Nazi Literature in the Americas” creates an entire and frighteningly believable imaginary literary movement in Fascist South America. So yeah, it can be done, and much much better than she does.

I'm not here to discount her theories (well, at least not now). I'm here to out here as simply a lousy, lousy writer.

As I understand the definition of collectivist, Christian communities are not collectivist. There was perhaps one collectivist community in Jerusalem at one time, described in the book of Acts. I'm not aware of any others. And this was voluntarily entered into by all.

But you are saying Jesus did exactly what he said He did not come to do: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” (Matthew 5) Jesus kept the law. Is heaven and earth still in existence? I guess we should follow Jesus. What He opposed was a wrong interpretation of the law. He did not oppose or overturn the law. The apostle Paul concurs: “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.” (Romans 3) If this pertains to “every mouth” and “all the world” then it appears that we are all under the law.

This is too deep, I am afraid, to discuss here. Mine is not a mainstream view, but I hope you will consider that perhaps the mainstream has not answered a lot of questions that scripture raises.

Government is a problem when it treats businesses so unfairly — according to their political pull. This is a major theme of AS. Look at how bailout moneys were apportioned to the banks with the best political connections. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/22/study-…

Ayn Rand saw this 50 years ago. I just went through the section where Reardon has his last meeting with gov't mewlings in New York. Who was going to get subsidized? Who was going to get screwed?

Government is not a solution when the rules it sets up are not enforced or selectively enforced according to political favoritism. And we've seen this played out in the most appalling way in the development of financial crisis.

Either way, government is largely to blame. It's the problem, not the solution.

You've brought global wage arbitrage into the picture. And that's a difficult issue, to be sure. Do you think that some sort of protectionism is really the answer? Having some populist leanings, I sometimes feel as you do, that it is “unfair” for businesses to outsource their labor. This is still going on en masse. Just feel the hopey changey-ness. How's that workin' out for people, huh? I'm sorry, but government cannot create good jobs by edict. It can pay government workers a salary, no matter what their actual value is. It could, I suppose, decree that workers be paid $n per hour, which it actually does in the guise of the minimum wage. I don't really have an answer for this. I think this problem is bigger than both of us can grasp. In theory we could wall off the country, and produce/consume everything internally. I kind of doubt it would work in practice.

You are wrong to identify today's corporate looters with the heroes of Ayn Rand's books. Here is the vital difference. Today's looters want money for nothing. They want to be rewarded for failure. They want government to disadvantage their competition. Ayn Rand's heroes would find it repugnant to receive recompense when they have not created or delivered something of value equal to the price the buyer is paying. (Maybe Lord Blankfein at Goldman Sachs really believes he is performing a service. There should be a mental institution with an empty bed with his name on it.)

Note how Dagny at first refused the gold held in her name in Galt's Gulch. And she insisted upon doing menial labor as recompense for her room and board during her first stay there. Insisted!

The government wanted Reardon to sell metal at a loss, and his loss will be distributed to another, less efficient steelmaker who is politically connected. This is a kind of punitive taxation, directed at punishing success and advantaging failure. This is repugnant to Reardon, and should be repugnant to any moral sense of fairness. It would have been repugnant to Reardon to be on the receiving end of that unfair subsidy as well! That's the difference between a Randian hero and Tim Geithner or Robert Rubin.

While the long speeches and scoldings in AS preach about self-interest, if you look at how Rand's characters actually apply this philosophy of individual sovereignty, it isn't really about money per se. Reardon signs away rights to his metal, as I recall, to protect the reputation of Dagny Taggart. So money is not always his highest value. Whatever their relationship meant, it meant more to him than money to protect the other person, in the face of blackmail. He paid the ransom. I did not review that part of the audio book. Did I get that straight?

This is off the top of my head, and probably is not as organized or as clear as I'd like. But, to sum up, my disagreements are along these lines:

1. What Rand is really preaching is a simple concept of fairness. I have a talent, a good, service to offer. Of what value is that to you? Why should I be forced to provide that talent/good/service for any less than its value, or to have its value diminished by excessive taxation? Or to have my ability to conduct my business hampered by rules which favor the less productive? It is fairness, plain and simple. Yes, it is self-interest, but it is first and foremost a concept of fairness.

2. How do Rand's heroes apply her principle of self-interest? It isn't all about money. Or power. John Galt is certainly not doing all that he has done in AS for money alone. I wouldn't say that they are paragons of Christian virtue. But on the other hand, pure self-interest in one context mean that any person with the motivation would seek world domination — in other words, a Hitler or a Napoleon. But this would be against Rand's principle of a person's reward being proportional to the fair value of his contribution. I can't see that any of Rand's heroes desire that. They just want to be unshackled, not to do evil, but to produce things that people want and need, and not to have their labor stolen from them. Whether you can produce a little or a lot, that seems fundamentally moral to me.

In today's world, are top CEO's providing hundreds of millions of dollars of VALUE? Well, I think self-evidently they are not. There are a lot of scams going on in this world. It is a bit much to ask for one female novelist to provide the solution to them all. Progressives have one answer. Today's so-called conservatives have other answers. I'm not sure I agree with either of them. I do know that as government has gotten bigger, distortions in the market — in the real Main Street economy — have also increased, and I think this is very dangerous, no matter which party is in charge.

Here in the real world, it's Midas Mulligan who's gotten his ass saved by government/taxpayer largesse … and who has now resumed reaping large profits via the same types of shoddy financial practices, so far with no advance in government regulation.

Actually, I'll grant you one thing: Here in the real world, the Hank Reardens and other manufacturing magnates have done the next best thing to the “strike” Rand lays out in AS's final chapters — they've chosen en masse to grab increased profits by moving their factories out of the U.S. and exploiting overseas labor, and have left the American workforce in the lurch. And even among those who haven't outsourced, many who cut full-time jobs during Bush's two recessions have refused to restore them, instead using contractors or part-timers so that they don't have to offer benefits.

Unfortunately, those left behind in these scenarios aren't “looters” or “moochers,” except to the point that they demanded (and got, for as long as the jobs stayed here) something approaching the actual value of their labor (in American, as opposed to third-world, terms). It goes back to what I was saying about “competing interests” — businesses wanted to maximize their profits, while labor wanted the fair share of those profits that they felt was their right. Unfortunately, instead of accepting a reasonable resolution of those competing interests, far too many manufacturers have taken their ball and gone home … or, more specifically, to China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, etc., etc. where they can maximize profits for their shareholders while millions of hard-working Americans are left without jobs.

But in the wake of all this corporate “looting” of the economy, heaven forbid Midas Mulligan get re-regulated to stop him from bilking us again, or that Hank Rearden get his taxes raised so that government can create (or help businesses create) new jobs to replace some of the ones Hank shipped overseas–or at least extend unemployment benefits to provide a pittance to those who can't find new jobs. That's socialism! That's what you called “shifting of resources to those who didn't earn them and do not deserve them.” Tell you what — take a road trip from Iowa to Detroit, and tell some folks whose GM or Chrysler jobs went away that they are “looters.” (You probably don't even have to go that far–there are probably plenty of former manufacturing workers in Des Moines.)

Christian communities are collectivist organizations, and members are expected to support charity. This sort of “abandon hope if you cannot keep as much money as you want; giving is bad” isn't exactly part of the Hebrew or the Christian testaments. Rand's views of the world are screwy and a bit hateful, I think; as I've said before, I'm suspicious of people who love Rand because I distrust both their morals and their experience with literature.