this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023
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There's at least a grain of truth in that book. Try starting a business or producing something.
Look at domestic attempts to mine lithium or building semiconductor plants. Try building anything here.
“When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods, but in favors; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you. . . you may know that your society is doomed.”
It seems to me this passage speaks against the bankers, intellectual property owners, monopolists, land owners and the like. All gate keepers of resources.
Perhaps Atlas is actually someone else than Rand thought.
It speaks against a system where political favour dictates your success as a producer over your ability to compete. If you feel land owners and intellectual property owners are gate keepers in a society where your can have your own ideas and buy your own property I don't know what to say.
I know.
The permits, policies, regulation and political apparatuses which Rand so despises are legal fictions which allow a small group of people control, who gets to use what resources and how.
Currencies, fractional reserve banking, patents and land ownership are similar legal fiction, which allow a small group to control who gets to use what resources and how.
If I want to sell razor blades to a Gillette razor, I will get sued for patent infringement. Is their gatekeepping somehow more morally valid than the politician's who gives a tax break to Gillette's competitor since their production line is in his city?
I was trying to humorously point out, that the quoted part of Rand's text could be read almost as a socialist opinion, where the value created arises from the worker and not the owners.
I guess the difference being the people in control of permits and policies produce nothing of value. If a capitalist fails to produce he no longer holds the property or patents. Someone else gets them to try to compete.
The reason capitalism is moral is that the people who get the scarce resources need to be effective in providing for everyone else by creating or they lose them. Under a central planning system this is not the case. Scarce resources are held by connected people .. The state bails them out if they really fuck up.
Nothing is stopping you from creating an improved Gillette razor and competing without blatenly copying their patent.. Property is expensive but available (problem created by government with interest rate manipulation and making land one of the only viable hard assets) you can hire people for your factory. They'll cost 10x what they do overseas though.. So you'd probably just go there.
Man you won't find me defending fractional reserve banking or fiat currency. Those are also things created by politicians and bankers. They're just means of stealing value. You also can't have socialism without fiat currency. The myth that you can rob the 1% to pay for the needs of everyone.. Well do the math .. Liquidate the 10 richest people and it funds the state for maybe a month or something.
Ah I didn't get the joke I guess lol. I'm not really much of a fan of socialism. If companies can't build without permits and tax breaks then you dont really have a level playing field anymore and you no longer have functional creative destruction. Old inefficient well connected incombants strangle the new razor corp in the crib and you're stuck paying 35 dollars for blades :)