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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat Happened When Some Libertarians Went Off to Build Ayn Rand's Vision of Paradise
http://www.alternet.org/books/what-happened-when-some-libertarians-went-build-ayn-rands-vision-paradiseThe theme of Ayn Rands Atlas Shrugged, according to Ms. Rand herself, is what happens to the world when the Prime Movers go on strike. The prime movers are corporate executives the motor of the world and Rand imagines what would happen if they all just went away. To Rand this is nothing less than a picture of the world with its motor cut off.
Ouch. Paging Dr. Freud.
In Rands novel the great, throbbing motor of the world (its made of executives, remember?) retreats to an Atlantis-like idyll known as Galts Gulch. Without their ingenuity and drive the nation descends into chaos, leading many long pages later to their triumphant return and anointment as leaders of a new libertarian order.
Which gets us to the fraud charges now swirling around a venture called Galts Gulch of Chile. Its website is currently down, but its still being promoted as a real-world retreat for the worlds movers and shakers. Yes, you read that right, the organizer chirps cheerily. Those who become one of GGCs Founders will be paid back within three years of the consummation of their Founders Club participation (please contact GGC for the fine print and T&Cs).
In what should be an unsurprising outcome, it didnt turn out very well. That news comes (via Metafilter and Gawker) from a blogger named Wendy McElroy, who writes that she bought some property in Galts Gulch with her husband and then learned that it never had legal rights to the property in the first place. A visit to Chile revealed that many of the areas local vendors had also been defrauded by the Galtians.
As Gawkers headline puts it, Ayn Rand's Capitalist Paradise Is Now a Greedy Land-Grabbing Shitstorm.
GoneOffShore
(17,339 posts)Describes liebertarians to a T.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Volaris
(10,270 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)You have to figure out the rest on your own.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]
TlalocW
(15,381 posts)They die.
TlalocW
Demeter
(85,373 posts)The only thing that modern executives have perfected is the financial swindle.
Edison and Ford were skilled inventors. Dimon and Blankfein are graduates of Fagin's School or Pick-Pocketry.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Look up the history of the American film industry. There are two reasons why it got situated in Southern California- one, lots of sunshine, and two, to be as far away as possible from Edison's cinematic goon squads, who were well known for beating the crap out of proprietors AND patrons of any non-authorized venue which was using their 'proprietary' idea, namely the motion picture.
Ford? Yeah, apart from the racism and anti-semitism, a swell cat.
caraher
(6,278 posts)They were inventors and horrible human beings. The banksters today are just horrible human beings.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)There are people inventing amazing things today, too.
It's just those amazing things being invented do NOT include credit default swaps and mortgage backed securities.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)a profound chill ran through my entire body. If that term doesn't scare the fertilizer out of any thoughtful human being there is nothing that will.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)If we design something we know is going to collapse-- and then design something else that will make us billions when it inevitably DOES?
no, seriously, what could go wrong?
Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)Ford was a real piece of shit.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)world wide wally
(21,743 posts)CaptainTruth
(6,591 posts)Turbineguy
(37,324 posts)Marxism and turned it upside down. Yes became No. The problem is that Marxism did not fail because it was a bad idea, it failed because it went against human nature. And so it is with her philosophy.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Shakespeare knew that 400 years ago.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)The Marxian prescriptions about what should replace it are just as wrong.
Democratic socialism is the only sane way. No dictatorship of the proletariat or dictatorship of the plutocracy.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)They were just living up to Ayn Rand's values.
Jerry442
(1,265 posts)tblue37
(65,341 posts)Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)'movers and shakers'. You're one of the peasants the plutocracy would be moving away to hide from. The real 'movers and shakers' don't need some scam artists to set up their gated communities. They can simply buy up however many thousands of acres they want, build whatever they want, all on their own.
joshcryer
(62,270 posts)This is some Russian-mafia-style Putin-state crap, here. Pull people in, convince them that they're on the correct side of history, manipulate them, have them side with them, and spend loads of money buying what is essentially garbage.
Libertarians never cease to amaze me.
PeaceNikki
(27,985 posts)Nay
(12,051 posts)PeaceNikki
(27,985 posts)ctsnowman
(1,903 posts)FSogol
(45,484 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)and watch porn is still the best nutshell description of Libertarians.
tanyev
(42,554 posts)The problems crop up when too many competent worker bees are out for illness/vacation/training, etc.
n2doc
(47,953 posts)John Galt shows Dagny around his incredible world of happy white people (except for Francisco D'Anconia, the copper magnate) where everybody pays for everything using special gold coins with giant dollar signs engraved on them. You want a croissant from the happy croissant seller? Give her a piece of gold. The "gold coin" economy is made possible partly by a pirate named Ragnar, who goes around raiding shipping vessels to "take back" what the government has stolen from the hard-working wealthy people.
John Galt's community is full of technological miracles, all of which are the work of a single inventor. There's a magical holographic forcefield that hides his "gulch" from outsiders (which took out Dagny's plane engine when she got too close). Galt has invented an engine that takes energy from the atmosphere and turns it into electricity, with zero cost it could power the entire West Coast of the U.S., but Galt is keeping it for himself because he hates government regulation. A neuroscientist who came to live with Galt has invented a super-futuristic medical tricorder which can scan Dagny's entire body for injuries in a second he could invent this miracle device (smaller than an iPad) overnight because he had "no red tape" to deal with. (In addition to being a neuroscientist, he's apparently also an electronics genius and programmer, who has the means to manufacture tiny components by himself.)
In this world, all inventions are the work of a single inventor, and as soon as you take the government out of the individual's way, you can instantly have a Star Trek future.
I guess they forgot that part of the book.....
Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)And all common sense.
Every king, emperor, dictator, captain of industry, inventor, genius this world ever produced, all have or will die one day.
And yet...the world just keeps on turning.
"The graveyards of the world are full of indispensable men."
Jerry442
(1,265 posts)Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)world wide wally
(21,743 posts)because they were pissed about the taxes they had to pay on the million.
Just ONE
phantom power
(25,966 posts)Yeah, me neither.
ladyVet
(1,587 posts)There was one job where the company was giving a range on the proposed pay raise (annual cost of living). I sat and figured out that anything towards the higher end was going to put me in a higher bracket, and thus end up giving me less money.
I mentioned this to several people, whose response was "But, we'll have more money in our check." Um. Nope. Higher tax bracket means more money coming out of the check, thus not good. Well, we'll get a bigger refund. Maybe, maybe not. Who knows what the tax forms will look like. I'd rather have my money in my pocket every week, rather than wait for a big tax windfall.
In the end, we got a raise towards the lower end, I made more money every two weeks, and was a very happy person. Who had to listen to people moaning because they "got cheated" out of more money.
Le sigh.
rickford66
(5,523 posts)You'd still have to get more money.
phantom power
(25,966 posts)That's how the book ends.
Tansy_Gold
(17,858 posts)To have a good look at the destruction they've wrought.
That's how the book ends, because Rand didn't have any clue how her handful of people were going to rebuild anything.
She never wrote a sequel; all she cared about was the destruction, not the rebuilding.
SoapBox
(18,791 posts)Where the crazy man leads his little group to Eden...and everything is toxic.
Ratty
(2,100 posts)They rely on the social structures of other nations to survive. Their goods come to them via public roads and railroads. The food and drugs they buy are safe thanks to the USDA and FDA or other government equivalents. Their employees are likely educated in public schools and universities. They fly to and from their paradise safely thanks to the FAA. The internet they rely on daily was created by DARPA, the web at CERN. In so many ways they benefit from the services other people pay taxes for.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)And who is the person standing?
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Low resolution photograph of Harvey Hancock standing and speaking to a group of Bohemian Club members at the Owl's Nest camp of the Bohemian Grove over breakfast on July 23, 1967. In attendance: Preston Hotchkis, California Governor Ronald W. Reagan, Former US Vice President Richard M. Nixon, Glenn Seaborg, Jack Sparks, (unidentified individual), (unidentified individual), and Edwin Pauley. Photo courtesy of Edward W. Carter.
Source
http://imglib.lbl.gov/ImgLib/COLLECTIONS/BERKELEY-LAB/SEABORG-ARCHIVE/index/96B05411.html Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories Image Library -- Collection Collection BERKELEY-LAB/SEABORG-ARCHIVE. "Breakfast at Owls Nest Camp, Bohemian Grove, July 23, 1967"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Harvey_Hancock_at_Bohemian_Grove_1967.jpeg
An amazing photograph.
Initech
(100,070 posts)The bar was closed for pesticide treatment, thanks to lack of government regulations. The end.
TrollBuster9090
(5,954 posts)because they don't know how to do anything PRACTICAL.
In his old TV show 'The Awful Truth' he had a segment where he stood on a street corner and asked regular people questions about how to fix or operate trivial things. For example, one of the questions was "What do you do when the toilet won't flush?" He then stood outside a top investment bank and asked wealthy people the same questions.
In response to the question "what do you do when the toilet won't flush?" regular people always answered "jiggle the handle." The wealthy inevitably answered "I don't know...call the plumber."
rickford66
(5,523 posts)He asked the head of IBM to format a floppy disc. I don't remember if he did. He also asked the head of FORD to change his oil and they guy took him home and showed Moore how he always changed his own oil. There are some exceptions to every rule.
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)Not so much for the Randians who decided to buy and move and give it a try.
treestar
(82,383 posts)and a good analysis of Ayn Rand.
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)and psychological failure was in her a prior assumption that greedy, narcissistic sociopaths are indispensable people when actually they are evolutionary dead ends, have finally become a threat to the survival of the species and must be neutralized if the rest of us are to survive.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,361 posts)Thanks for the thread, xchrom.
DirkGently
(12,151 posts)Imagine that.