The fantasists are back. If you can create so much value by yourself why even remain in society and crib for decades on end. Go create the value and enjoy it. Show us. No one will come to your wonderland to steal the fruits of your genius.<p>If this anti-human ideology actually worked, these self appointed geniuses would have long left society and created value all by themselves, but currently its as petty as putting up a stall in a club and refusing to pay the fees.<p>It takes a huge amount of time, generational effort and resources to build a functioning civilized society in which everyone is vested and thus peaceful. Nothing is free, and it appears its the 'makers' who want to be the takers while feigning a childish self serving ignorance of how civilization works.<p>Even animal species that are social look out for one another in order to survive and thrive, human social instincts are far more sophisticated. To deny it altogether and seek to reduce human relations to economic interactions is to regress to barbarism.
Jesus. Hasn't the Randian philosophy been deconstructed enough?<p>No income tax for someone that earns $1m+, but taxes on those who earn less? In what entirely silver-spoon-born-and-bred entitled mind does this possibly make sense?<p>Taxes create the infrastructure that makes society possible and the bigger the business / industry, the more it requires basic infrastructure in order to grow or maintain itself.<p>What more do people earning $1m+ want? Can they not sustain themselves and their families on $1m per year? Do they want to create enough value that their children no longer need to work? If so, then what of their value of hard work? What about the natural instinct of bequeathing their role as "boss" to one of their children? That doesn't feel earnt to me?<p>What of the large financial institutions role in money laundering and sub-prime mortgage disasters and where that has left the 99%?<p>Look at some of the findings of the banking royal commission in Australia to see the kinds of things large financial institutions do as run-of-the-mill if they're not regulated. These institutions are run by people earning significant coin and take advantage of those who are already struggling financially - the very reason they seek advice / help on financial matters.<p>I'm making assumptions above and targeting financial institutions above others, but the article name-dropped Goldman Sachs, and the golden parachutes and massive salaries that the kinds of people he's talking about already get make it sound as if he's complaining about how the silver spoon tastes.<p>The author of the article is a member of the Ayn Rand Institute. Which likely means he was converted as a teenager and hasn't been able to question these beliefs as that gets more difficult and depressing as one ages.<p>Also:
Harry Binswanger was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia. He is an heir to the Binswanger Glass Company, founded in 1872 by Samuel Binswanger<p>In that context, this article sounds like "waaaaah, I'm hard-done-by, taxes are holding me back, government help me - by intervening as a government that doesn't believe in intervening"
I applaud this evidently self-made man. I only wish I could tell him that there is a place in the world where his exceptionalism can soar and he can live his laissez-faire dream:<p>Somalia.<p>Let’s help this man emigrate.
I'd be interested to read his opinions on top managers getting huge leaves after bringing companies belly up, or those who happily decimate their workforce without thinking of the consequences. In the old times one could claim a piece of land then cultivate it, mine it or use it as he/she wanted; surely not easy at all, but bureaucracy was next to not existent. Today one needs to own a land, then get permits, etc. My point is that we shifted towards a society where you have to own something even to start. People losing their job today cannot count on the same opportunities jobless people had centuries ago, so they have to work for someone; if they lose their job they're essentially dead.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed some of Atlas Shrugged.<p>>It's not the Henry Fords and Steve Jobs who exploit people.
Problem is not all of the 1% is Steve Jobs, Henry Ford or Warren Buffett. It also includes, for example, royal families whose contribution is not intellectual.<p>>When you work in a modern factory, you are paid, not only for your labor, but for all the productive genius which has made that factory possible:<p>And something which Ms. Rand forgot to include in her statement, which is the desire of customers to buy the product the factory produces.<p>>In proportion to the mental energy he spent, the man who creates a new invention receives but a small percentage of his value in terms of material payment, no matter what fortune he makes, no matter what millions he earns.<p>Paying someone less than the value they provide is what makes capitalism work. Not even CEOs or founders are exempt from this law, though I'm sure more than one skates awfully close.<p>>Instead, we live in a culture where Goldman Sachs is smeared as "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity."<p>Not sure how deep GS was involved but here goes - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis_of_2007%E2%80%932008" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis_of_2007%E2%80...</a><p>>There is indeed a vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity: the Internal Revenue Service. And, at a deeper level, it is the monstrous perversion of justice that makes the IRS possible: an envy-ridden moral code that damns success, profit, and earning money in voluntary exchange.<p>Plus the need to finance the bodyguards for the New World Order (aka The War Machine.)
Let's dispell another popular myth: Demand and Supply isn't nessecarily an indicator of value. It only follows value, if the power balance is close to equilibrium. Otherwise, Power picks and shapes the demand it wants. How much value has been lost to superior marketing?
The vast majority of people who have opinions on Ayn Rand or her philosophy of Objectivism haven't read a word of what she wrote and are repeating what they heard or have read it and failed to comprehend her ideas. Whether such failure is due to ability or dishonesty doesn't really matter.<p>Note the ad hom comments in this thread dismissing the content of this article because Binswanger inherited his money. Nobody has "deconstructed" Rand's ideas because they are true and because modern intellectuals are unable to rebut her arguments they are reduced to smears and gross misrepresentations of an important intellectual achievement.<p>My advice; read Rand's work firsthand and judge her ideas for yourself.
The people of North Korea are encouraged to be grateful to their dear leader. He is a man of many superior talents talents clearly - it’s in a North Korean newspaper and many posters too - and is responsible for improving the life of his citizens who have not created anything of value like Steve jobs or Henry Ford.<p>Of course western civilisation is not a dictatorship. For example we would never tolerate a leaders son or wife taking control of a countries executive powers.
Most of the 1% is built on my penny is shinier than yours but I'll go ahead let you have it for 2 of your ugly pennies. Not sure I'd call that a win-win.
Same old story. People rail against taxes, but want the things taxes pay for.<p>I'm sure you could find someone making the same rant 150 years ago.
Solyndra was not some one off government boondoggle. It was the recipient of government loan guarantees from the Department of Energy intended to inject investment into the monopoly run, risk averse energy sector. The same program financed and incubated fracking.<p>Despite this comment, I’m not sure if this is satire or not.
I've always enjoyed reading Objectivist writing. There's something gleefully iconoclastic about it that I appreciate.<p>I would find it much more appealing if I didn't find the ideas so repulsive.