Notes on local politics

It's been mentioned a few times that I haven't been writing a lot lately, and that's true. The main excuse is that I got real busy at Golden Technologies learning and helping grow that company. And for the record I'm having a terrific time.

A quick overview of stories I was watching this morning:

The Porter County Council has been stepping up lately to do their jobs. They are asking tough questions of elected officials and releasing funds slowly. Good job council. Last night they approved a total restructuring of the Porter County Assessor's office, eliminating 3 full time jobs, and saving the county over $100,000. Of course the lazy news people disregarded this effort and wrote instead about the fact that in the restructuring they turned down a raise for the chief deputy. My opinion was that if the office in four months cuts appeals by a third, hits the tax bill deadline, and saves the county $100,000 in payroll ... then the deputy can be given a raise to make what the other deputies are making. But I understand the politics and the fact that other elected officials were jealous of all the attention Jon Snyder is getting lately.

Still waiting on other elected officials in Porter County to cut some jobs and make government smaller. Lots of talk and hiring of consultants, but the other half of outsourcing should be downsizing staff levels.

In what can only be termed "too little too late" the City of Valparaiso is temporarily setting aside a arbitrary park impact fee, which may not even be legal per state statute on impact fees, to try and encourage more home construction. I say too little too late because all impact fees should have been eliminated four years ago when the construction industry still existed and could have used the help. Sorry, I'm a huge Valpo fan, but impact fees in general were born of greed and a desire to beat down builders during the good times. IMHO.

Times tries to prop up Portage's Olga

In what can only be explained with a loud "THEY DID WHAT?"

The Times runs a full article entitled Mayor Olga Velazquez, which extols none other than the sitting Mayor and lets her throw around some campaign rhetoric. Does this make anyone else stand up and say "huh?"

No news, no journalistic integrity, no story at all. Just straight up political advertising. Is this possibly an FEC violation, clearly everyone else running for office is having to pay for full page ads.

See the Times "Advertorial" for yourself.

Ayn Rand was half right, Barack Obama is all wrong. Free Enterprise or Bust!!!

Pay attention to the local gas prices. Have you ever seen the price of gasoline go so high?

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How about going to the grocery store. Have you ever had to pay so much money to feed your family?

These are facts, that under Barack Obama the costs of energy have shot up, that unemployment has shot up and that the costs of normal food items to feed your family have shot up as well. Do you know why?

The socialist agenda that Obama believes in has prompted him to shut down drilling for oil and natural gas, make it nearly impossible to mine coal or build an atomic energy plant because the Executive Branch has, over the years, set up all sorts of regulatory agencies that give the President far more power than the Founding Fathers ever anticipated.

We are now taking a large part of our corn production and converting corn into ethanol to add to fuel but we are seeing food prices skyrocket in part because much of our crop production is going into our gas tanks when we could be drilling for and producing the oil that converts to gasoline instead.

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I believe that Barack Obama and his administration want to impoverish the majority of the populace and create more agencies to control every part of the economy. When the average man cannot afford his home, the rich cronies of Obama can eventually buy the property on the cheap. When the average man loses his job and depends on a government check to help support his family then he fears that government spending cuts will begin with him.

We have an administration seeking to convert us into a nation of elites and serfs. We have an administration that has deliberately sought to kill off our own industry by making fuel expensive and seeking to fine or tax companies for carbon emissions. We have an administration that believes that the Soviet Union was a good idea that was not done correctly and seeks to try it again.

Ask yourself why the big Union dollars would be paid to the Indiana Democrats to pay for their walkout?   Look at Wisconsin and ask yourself, if Democrats run away to avoid voting do they really believe in the rule of law and the concept of a Republic?   Or are they in the pocket of special interests and do they have contempt for the American way?   Ask yourself why the Governor of Arizona seeks to keep the law of the land and Obama and his cronies fight against her?   Ask yourself why Obama's Attorney General is ordered not to defend the DOMA act, the law of the land, in court?   Is there any question in your mind that the administration and the Democrats in general do not care about the will of the people or the laws of the land or the opportunity presented to ordinary citizens to succeed in life?  

Of course there are some Republicans who are greedy party hacks in the pockets of special interests, but from here it appears that the entire Democratic Party is in the back pockets of a consortium of unions, socialists and rich Soros types who intend to take advantage of the miseries of the masses and the very strange bedfellows are willing to wait for the USA to fall to its knees before the fighting over the scraps begins.   How can we sit idly by while the government takes over factories and banks and shuts down the oil and coal industries to the detriment of the average citizen?   Hey, if Al Gore really believed the nonsense he preaches he would drive a Prius and live in an underground home with solar panels and windmills.   Instead he flies private jets, lives in massive compounds and drives big gas-guzzling cars.   Anthropic Global Warming is nothing but an excuse for the government to more rapidly destroy the economy so that they can take over more of the private sector in the guise of "help."   As Ronald Reagan once said, "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"

I have been a student of political science since childhood.   I was perhaps shocked into paying attention when John F. Kennedy was shot.   Between the time JFK was killed and the 1964 Presidential race had begun I had read all four major Ayn Rand novels and had come to understand the absolute horror that is collectivism.   So my best friend and I went around from door to door passing out Goldwater flyers and asking people to please not vote for LBJ.   I knew that LBJ would extend the Vietnam war and frankly, selfishly, I didn't want to be drafted into the service.   If I was going into the military I wanted it to be a choice rather than an obligation, particularly in a conflict that did not need to be.

Did you know that JFK had issued an executive order to withdraw troops and advisors from Vietnam?  He was simply implementing it quietly despite his elitist cabinet who wanted him to make Vietnam the line in the sand for Communism versus Capitalism and collectivism versus free enterprise.   But Bobby Kennedy, his right-hand man, was in favor of the move and felt that having backed down Russia over the Cuban missiles and overcome the Berlin Wall debacle it was time to consolidate strength and beat Communism on the world stage of economies and superior technology.   Oddly enough, a very different man named Reagan did succeed in overcoming collectivism by those very means.   When JFK was shot, LBJ tossed aside that executive order and began building up the war.

Alas for me and thousands of my fellow Americans, Lyndon Baines Johnson won the election and I would indeed get drafted several years later, as the Vietnam War was still going.   Alas for us all, the LBJ administration created a welfare state within all the major cities,  making for an entitlement mentality and penalizing women with children for being married.   The best way for a poor woman to feed her kids was to refuse to marry and have a couple of additional children so the government would send her bigger checks.   In the inner cities men learned to have hit and run relationships with women,  children learned that a home didn't require a dad, and all learned that the all cash economy funded by theft and drugs and prostitution and gambling was the way to succceed in the new ghetto.   A few young people had gifts in field like sports and entertainment and got away from that environment and a few had the innate drive to succeed that got them into college despite the obstacles and got away in that way.

Somewhere along the way, the fact that the Republicans had championed and led the fight against racism was forgotten and the very party that fought the end of Jim Crow laws and had established the new ghetto had become the party of the Afro-Americans and Hispanics.  The Democrats had somehow brilliantly fought so hard against equal rights that they fell into a pot of stupid and came out looking like the good guys?

Only free enterprise and limited government gets credit for creating this great nation.   Now government has grown to the point that it is ready to take over everything.   When you do watch "Atlas Shrugged", I hope you will consider what was truly being portrayed.   Even as Ayn Rand promoted and glorified greed, the heroes of her books were men of principle.   Rand rejected Christianity and yet what she had to say helped propel me down the road towards a belief in the greatness of America and faith as a Christian.

Was Ayn Rand Right?

Capitalism and Greed

JAF1324

Jay W. Richards

Synopsis

In response to the critics of capitalism, many conservative Christians turn to philosopher Ayn Rand for ammunition. Rand was a staunch defender of capitalism, but also an anti-Christian atheist who argued that capitalism was based on greed. Greed, for Rand, is good. But if Rand is right, then Christians can’t be capitalists, because greed is a sin. Fortunately, Rand was wrong. She missed the subtleties of capitalism. First, we should distinguish self-interest from selfishness. Adam Smith, the father of capitalism, famously wrote, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” True enough; but that alone isn’t a problem. Every time you wash your hands or look both ways before you cross the street, you’re pursuing your self-interest—but neither activity is selfish. Second, Smith never argued that the more selfish we are, the better a market works. His point, rather, is that in a free market, each of us can pursue ends within our narrow sphere of competence and concern—our “self-interest”—and yet an order will emerge that vastly exceeds anyone’s deliberations. Finally, Smith argued that capitalism channels greed, which is a good thing. The point is that even if the butcher is selfish, he can’t make you buy his meat. He has to offer you meat at a price you’ll willingly buy. So capitalism doesn’t need greed. What it does need is rule of law, freedom, and human creativity and initiative. And we can point that out without any help from Ayn Rand.

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                 If you’re over forty, you probably remember the 1987 movie Wall Street. Kirk Douglas played the key role, a ruthless corporate raider named Gordon Gekko. Gekko is famous for his defense of selfishness: “Greed…is good,” he tells a young broker. “Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all its forms…has marked the upward surge of mankind.” Gekko embodies the enduring stereotype of the greedy businessman.

                Given the coverage of the current financial crisis, it’s no surprise that Twentieth Century Fox is now producing a sequel. Many people, including many Christians, believe that the crisis is the product of greedy capitalism—pure and simple. Others, including many Christians, want to defend capitalism, but end up drawing on the work of philosopher and playwright Ayn Rand, who called greed a virtue. That puts most of us between the proverbial rock and the hard place.

                As if in response, some prominent evangelicals such as Tony Campolo, Jim Wallis, and Ron Sider have criticized capitalism as based on the “greed principle” (to quote Campolo).¹ And it’s hard to blame them, since even many fans of capitalism, such as Rand, seem to agree. And certainly for Christians, greed is not good. Greed, selfishness, or “avarice” is one of the seven deadly sins, and the Bible has nothing good to say about it. In the Gospels, when Jesus was asked to settle an inheritance dispute, He responded: “Watch Out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions” (Luke 12:15 TNIV). The Tenth Commandment says, “Do not covet,” which no doubt applies to greed as well. Jesus includes greed with murder and adultery in a long list of sins (Mark 7:21– 22). Paul tells the Ephesians that no greedy person—“that is, an idolater,” he explains—will inherit the kingdom of God (Eph. 5:5 ESV). These are just a few of the dozens of biblical passages condemning greed.

                So what do we do? Must we embrace Rand’s anti-Christian philosophy to defend capitalism? Or must we reject capitalism because it’s based on greed? I don’t think we have to do either. The truth is much more interesting, and much more encouraging.

THE BEEHIVE

                Rand wasn’t the first one to identify capitalism with greed. That honor goes to a Dutchman named Bernard Mandeville. In 1705, he wrote a poem called The Fable of the Bees. Nobody noticed it. So in 1714, he republished it with a lengthy commentary explaining that the poem was a metaphor for English society. Mandeville saw humans and bees as little more than bundles of vicious passions. The Parable reflected that belief.

                In the beehive, different bees do different tasks, but they all have the same motivation—vice. The poem describes avarice, pride, and vanity as producing great wealth for the hive. The bees, however, are discontent. They grumble at the lack of virtue around them. They gripe so incessantly that Jove eventually gives them what they ask for. Honesty and virtue now fill the hive. And everything collapses. The bees’ virtuous actions led to disaster whereas the individual acts of evil had led to social good.

                Taken literally, Mandeville’s claim is ridiculous. Good doesn’t come from evil. Virtue isn’t born from vice. Virtue doesn’t destroy society. Still, he did get one thing right: bad intentions don’t always yield bad results. Recall that the Apostle Paul once delighted that some were preaching the gospel out of envy of him. He didn’t delight in the envy, but in the preaching. So even private sinful acts may lead to a social good.

THE VIRTUE OF SELFISHNESS?

                After Mandeville came the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith, who in 1776 wrote the most famous book in the history of economics, The Wealth of Nations. Though the book is long on pages and detail, its basic purpose was simple. Smith wanted to defend what he called the natural system of liberty: rule of law, unobtrusive government, private property, specialization of labor, and free trade. To prosper, a society needed “little else,” he said, “but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice.”² But so far from flattering the business class, Smith famously said that “people of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”³ Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

                Smith never credited the happy outcomes of trade and business to the virtues of business people. “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker,” he wrote, only to be quoted by every economics textbook ever written, “that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”⁴ Nevertheless, through the invisible hand of the market, individuals will “promote an end which is no part of [their] intention.”⁵ That end often benefits society overall.

                If you don’t read Smith carefully, you might think that he’s making the same argument as Mandeville: individual greed is good for society. That’s a misreading of Smith, which was made wildly popular by Ayn Rand.

THEN COMES RAND

                Perhaps more than anyone else, Ayn Rand not only identified capitalism with greed, but defended it in those terms. She even wrote a book called The Virtue of Selfishness.⁶ For Rand, greed was the basis for a free economy. Capitalism and greed go together like fat cats and big cigars. To prevent readers from thinking she was using hyperbole, Rand went out of her way to espouse atheism and stridently denounce Christian altruism as antithetical to capitalism: “Capitalism and altruism are incompatible,” she said, “they are philosophical opposites; they cannot co-exist in the same man or in the same society.”⁷ In fact, she had a hard time distinguishing Christian altruism from socialism.

                Rand was born in Russia in 1905 as Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum, and immigrated to the United States in 1925, just as communism was securing its stranglehold on the Soviet Union. Her hatred of the collectivism she saw in her youth was etched into her worldview, her writings, even her strange personality. After coming to the U.S., she worked as a script writer in various Hollywood studios. The release of her novel The Fountainhead in 1943 made her famous. Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957, made her a sensation.

                In her novels, she developed characters that expressed her philosophy “of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.”⁸ Her books read more like tracts for her philosophy of “objectivism” than ordinary novels. As Daniel Flynn puts it, “The themes of Rand’s four novels—We the Living, Anthem, The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged—are identical. As far as the philosophy of her novels goes, to read one is to read them all.”⁹

                But for millions of readers, her books still inspire. I discovered Rand during my senior year in college. Her books were like a blow to the chest. She mercilessly skewered every leftist cliché that I had taken for granted. I found her bracing prose and iconic heroes attractive and repellant at the same time. For a few months, she seized me. I frittered away a week of my senior year reading Atlas Shrugged rather than studying for a German final.

                The book tells about an elite group of creative entrepreneurs and inventors, “individuals of the mind,” who go on strike against a state that implements the communist principle “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” For Rand, these entrepreneurial heroes, like Atlas in Greek mythology, hold up the world. By pursuing their long-term self-interest, they create value for everyone. So when they shrug—that is, strike—society begins to decay.

                The hero of Atlas Shrugged, John Galt, founds a secret community off the collectivist grid, called Galt’s Gulch. Here in this New Jerusalem, individuality and self-interest are prized above all else. One long chapter of the book, “This is John Galt Speaking,” is nothing but a speech by Galt. It’s the perfect distillation of Rand’s philosophy.

                Despite Rand’s official praise of selfishness, however, John Galt doesn’t look anything like Ebenezer Scrooge or that fat, cigar-smoking, tuxedo-clad guy in Monopoly. On the contrary, Galt is a pioneer, a brave creator of wealth who pursues his vision despite powerful obstacles, including a malevolent state bent on destroying him. In fact, although Rand despised Christian self-sacrifice, Galt is suspiciously Christ-like. He preaches a message of salvation, founds a community, challenges the status quo and official powers-that-be, who hunt him down, torture him, but ultimately fail to conquer him.

                To be sure, there are dissonant notes. His symbol is not a cross, but the dollar sign. The book ends with Galt and his lover tracing the sign of the dollar across a dry valley. But insofar as Galt’s character works, it’s because he contradicts the miserly stereotype that Rand’s philosophy leads the reader to expect. In fact, not one of Rand’s best fictional characters fits her philosophy very well.

                Rand convinced me that collectivism was a false moral pretense. She also taught me the importance of entrepreneurs in creating wealth. Rand knew, better than some economists, that you can’t have capitalism without capitalists. Rand continues to be popular with some conservatives, including some Christians. Based on my brief description of her work, that might seem unlikely. But the lack of robust moral defenses of capitalism has left a void. And for many, Rand has filled it.

                That’s a problem, of course, since her philosophy as a whole is clearly incompatible with the Christian worldview. Fortunately, we don’t need Rand’s philosophy to defend capitalism. Capitalism and Rand’s defense of it are two different things. This is clear once you realize that Rand bought into a myth more common among critics of capitalism, that the essence of capitalism is greed.

SELFISHNESS AND SELF-INTEREST

                Some thirty million books by Rand have been sold, and more than five-hundred thousand copies of her books are still sold every year. In a poll conducted by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club in the 1990s, Atlas Shrugged came in second behind the Bible as the most influential book. Although her work is best known in the U.S., it’s read around the world.

                Perhaps it’s not surprising that many conservatives, including many Christians, embrace her: they think they have nowhere else to go. Who but Rand made industrialists the heroes of novels? Whatever the reasons for her popularity, however, she completely missed the subtleties of capitalism. Her hatred of Marxism and collectivism led her to defend a caricature of capitalism more grotesque than anything Marx imagined.

                Her praise of “greed” is the reduction to the absurd of a bad interpretation of Adam Smith’s concept of self-interest. Smith, a moral philosopher, didn’t goad butchers, brewers, and bakers to be more selfish.¹⁰ He believed that normal adults aren’t self-absorbed monads but have a natural sympathy for their fellow human beings. His point about self-interest is that, in a rightly ordered market economy, you’re usually better off appealing to someone’s self-love than to their kindness. The butcher is more likely to give you meat if it’s a win-win trade, for example, than if you’re reduced to begging. Smith isn’t suggesting that butchers should never help beggars.¹¹

                Smith was a realist. He wasn’t naïve about the motives of merchants and everyone else. In fact, like most academics, he harbored snobbish prejudices against business. He knew the difference, however, between self-interest and mere selfishness.¹² Smith believed humans are a mixed breed. We are pulled to and fro by our whims and passions, but we’re not a slave to them, since our passions can be checked by the “impartial spectator” of reason. We are capable of vices such as greed and virtues such as sympathy.

                Unlike Mandeville, moreover, Smith didn’t view all our passions as vicious. We may be passionately committed to a just cause, for instance. At the same time, he saw greed as a vice. So while he agreed with Mandeville that private vices could lead to public goods, he was an ardent critic of the Dutchman. “There is,” he said, “another system which seems to take away altogether the distinction between vice and virtue, and of which the tendency is, upon that account, wholly pernicious: I mean the system of Dr. Mandeville.”¹³ You’d never catch Smith endorsing Ayn Rand.

                For Smith, pursuing your self-interest was not in itself immoral. Every second of the day, you act in your own interest. Every time you take a breath, wash your hands, eat your fiber, take your vitamins, look both ways before crossing the street, take a shower, pay your bills, go to the doctor, read a book, and pray for God’s forgiveness, you’re pursuing your self-interest. That’s not just okay. In most cases, you ought to do these things.

                In fact, proper self-interest is the basis for the “Golden Rule,” which Jesus called the second greatest commandment, after the command to love God: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 7:12 NIV). I’m supposed to use my rightful concern for myself as a guide in how I treat others. This makes sense, since I know best what I need. “Every man is, no doubt, by nature,” Smith said, “first and principally recommended to his own care; and as he is fitter to take care of himself than of any other person, it is fit and right that it should be so.”¹⁴

                Self-interest isn’t just looking out for number one at everyone else’s expense. Since we’re social beings, our self-interest includes our friends, families, communities, coworkers, coreligionists, and others.¹⁵ When I pay my bills, I’m not just pursuing my narrow interest, but the interests of my family, my bank, my community, and whomever I’m paying. I chose my church and my neighborhood and my car not just for myself, but for my children. (Mostly for them, in fact. If I were childless, do you think I’d drive a grey Honda Accord?)

                Most of your choices involve the interests of others, too. Self-interest has to do with those things we know, value, and have some control over. I’m most responsible for what I do. Smith’s point was not that the more selfish we are, the better a market works. His point, rather, is that in a free market, each of us can pursue ends within our narrow sphere of competence and concern—our “self-interest”—and yet an order will emerge that vastly exceeds anyone’s deliberations.¹⁶ The same would be true, even if we did everything with godly rather than mixed motives. The central point is not our greed, but the limits to our knowledge. The market is a higher-level order that exceeds the knowledge of any and all of us.

FALLING INTO CAPITALISM  

                 So, contrary to Rand, capitalism doesn’t need greed. At the same time, it can channel greed, which is all to the good. We should want a social order that channels proper self-interest as well as selfishness into socially desirable outcomes. Any system that requires everyone always to act selflessly is doomed to failure because it’s utopian. That’s the problem with socialism: it doesn’t fit the human condition. It alienates people from their rightful self-interest and channels selfishness into socially destructive behavior such as stealing, hoarding, and getting the government to steal for you.

                 In contrast, capitalism is fit for real, fallen, limited human beings. “In spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity,” Adam Smith wrote, business people “are led by an invisible hand…and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society.”¹⁷ Notice he says “in spite of.” His point isn’t that the butcher should be selfish, or even that his selfishness is particularly helpful. His point is rather that even if the butcher is selfish, even if the butcher would love nothing more than to sell you a spoiled chunk of grisly beef in exchange for your worldly goods and leave you homeless, the butcher can’t make you buy his meat in a free economy. He has to offer you meat you’ll freely buy. The cruel, greedy butcher, in other words, has to look for ways to set up win-win scenarios. Even to satisfy his greed, he has to meet your desires. The market makes this happen. That’s making the best of a bad situation, and of a bad butcher.

DOES CAPITALISM MAKE PEOPLE GREEDY?

                Even if capitalism doesn’t need greed, doesn’t it feed greed? Many religious scholars don’t even distinguish capitalism and greed.¹⁸ Capitalism is just greed elevated to economics, or so they think. And if you happen to catch Donald Trump on The Apprentice, you might suspect they’re on to something.

                To be sure, Rand and other champions of capitalism appeal to greed, even glory in it. There’s no evidence, however, that citizens of capitalist countries in general, or Americans in particular, are more greedy than average. In fact, the evidence suggests just the opposite.¹⁹

                Of course Americans should be more generous, more loving, more thankful, more thoughtful, and less sinful. If you look, you can find greed all across the fruited plains and in every human heart. That’s because we’re fallen human beings, not because we’re Americans or capitalists. Every culture and walk of life has heaping helpings of greedy people. There are greedy doctors, greedy social workers, greedy teachers, politicians, park rangers, and youth pastors. That’s why greed can explain why capitalism works no better than it can explain the universal thirst for, say, well-synchronized traffic lights: greed is universal. Capitalism is not.

THE GIFT GIVERS

                Think of a stereotypical miser like Ebenezer Scrooge (as opposed to the ordinary greedy person). Misers hoard their wealth. They hole up in their bedrooms, counting their gold bullion and hiding it in their mattresses. “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal,” Jesus commanded His disciples, “but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven….For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Jesus is talking about the person who hoards, who trusts his possessions rather than God. “You cannot  serve both God and money” (Matt. 6:19–21, 24 NIV). The Apostle Paul said that greed is idolatry (Eph. 5:5). If religion involves our “ultimate concern,” as Paul Tillich said, then the miser is an idolater. He worships his money. That’s because you can only have one ultimate concern.

                Many of the biblical warnings seem to apply to misers, but how many misers have you met? Do you know anyone who keeps a bag of money in his mattress, where he can count it? Probably not. We see misers on TV, read about them in children’s books and in Dickens. In capitalist societies, however, misers are in very short supply. That’s because capitalism discourages miserliness, and encourages its near-opposite: enterprise.

                “The grasping or hoarding rich man is the antithesis of capitalism, not its epitome,” writes George Gilder, “more a feudal figure than a bourgeois one.”²⁰ The miser prefers the certainty and security of his booty. Entrepreneurs, in contrast, assume risk. They cast their bread on the waters of uncertainty, hoping that the bread will return with fish. They delay whatever gratification their wealth might provide now for the hope of future gain. The miser treats his bullion as an end in itself. The entrepreneur, whatever his motives—including the desire for more money—uses money as a tool. The carpenter uses hammer and saw; the doctor, scalpel and stethoscope; the entrepreneur, cash and credit. 

                Only by the constant din of stereotype could we come to mistake the entrepreneur for the miser. In his modern classic, Wealth and Poverty, George Gilder explores a surprising feature of enterprise: supply precedes demand. After all, before you can exchange, you must first have something to exchange. I must have a good or service, a coconut or a potholder or an iPod that someone wants in order for trade to ever get started. Right off the bat, if I’m an entrepreneur, I have to think about the wants and needs of others. In a free economy, great entrepreneurs, including greedy ones, succeed by anticipating and meeting the desires of others. In that sense, Gilder argues, they are altruistic—alter in Latin means “other.” Entrepreneurial investments, he argues, are like gifts, since they are made without a predetermined return.21 Competition between entrepreneurs in a free economy thus becomes an altruistic competition, not because the entrepreneurs have warm fuzzies in their hearts, or are unconcerned with personal wealth, but because they seek to meet the desires of others better than their competitors do.²²

                Not for nothing did Ayn Rand dedicate her final lecture to a tirade against Gilder. But her view of the capitalist, in the end, was skewed by the Marxist stereotype she had officially rejected. Gilder’s view captures much better the nature and subtlety of entrepreneurial capitalism.

                Far from requiring vice, entrepreneurial capitalism requires a whole host of virtues. Before entrepreneurs can invest capital, for instance, they must first accumulate it. So unlike gluttons and hedonists, entrepreneurs set aside rather than consume much of their wealth. Unlike misers and cowards, they risk rather than hoard what they have saved, providing stability for those employed by their endeavors. Unlike skeptics, they have faith in their neighbors, their partners, their society, their employees, “in the compensatory logic of the cosmos.”²³ Unlike the self-absorbed, they anticipate the needs of others, even needs that no one else may have imagined. Unlike the impetuous, they make disciplined choices. Unlike the automaton, they freely discover new ways of creating and combining resources to meet the needs of others. This cluster of virtues, not the vice of greed, is the essence of what Rev. Robert Sirico calls the “entrepreneurial vocation.”²⁴

                I’m convinced that Ayn Rand continues to be popular, in part, because she dared to make entrepreneurs the heroes of her novels. Whatever her other failings, this was a keen insight. Without entrepreneurs, very little of what we take for granted in our economy and our everyday lives would exist. Here in my office, the concrete forms of entrepreneurial imagination are everywhere: paper, scissors, pens, highlighters, ink, CDs, an empty Tupperware container that held the pork loin I ate for lunch, a flat-screen monitor, fonts, lamps, light bulbs, Post-it notes, windows, sheet rock, speakers, a laptop computer, and an optical mouse. Behind all these visible objects lay real but less visible innovations in finance, manufacturing, and transport that I scarcely comprehend. All of these things are gifts of entrepreneurs. Only the most miserly moralizer could look at this mysterious efflorescence of cooperation, competition, and creativity—of entrepreneurial capitalism—and see only the dead hand of greed.

                Does this mean that if you’re a Christian, you must embrace capitalism? No. But it does mean that Christians don’t need to adopt Ayn Rand’s anti-Christian philosophy to defend the morality of capitalism. Once we comprehend the nature of entrepreneurial capitalism, we see that it has fit within the Christian worldview all along.

Jay W. Richards is the author of Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem (HarperOne, 2009). He has held leadership positions at Discovery Institute and the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion & Liberty, and is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute.

notes

1              Tony Campolo, Letters to a Young Evangelical (New York: Basic Books, 2006), 142.

2              Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed. Edwin Cannan (New York: Modern Library, 1994), xliii.

3              Ibid., 148.

4              Ibid., 15.

5              Ibid., 485.

6              With Nathaniel Branden (New York: Signet, 1964).

7              Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (New York: Signet, 1967), 195.

8              Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (New York: Random House, 1957), appendix.

9              Daniel J. Flynn, Intellectual Morons: How Ideology Makes Smart People Fall for Stupid Ideas (New York: Crown Forum, 2004), 200–201.

10            See the excellent article on this point by Robert A. Black, “What Did Adam Smith Say about Self-Love?” Journal of Markets and Morality 9, 1 (Spring 2006): 7–34.

11            The “butcher, brewer, baker” quote is notoriously misinterpreted when pulled out of context. For context, see Wealth of Nations, 15.

12            So Smith, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, says: “It is the great fallacy of Dr. Mandeville’s book to represent every passion as wholly vicious which is so in any degree and in any direction.” Quoted in F. B. Kaye’s commentary to Bernard Mandeville, Fable of the Bees, vol. 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1924; repr. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1988), 414.

13            Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976; reprint Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1981). Quoted in P. J. O’Rourke, On the Wealth of Nations (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2007), 157.

14            Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments.

15             Smith understood this, but he is often misinterpreted by later economists working in a more thoroughgoing utilitarian and individualistic mindset. As James Halterman puts it, “Clearly Smith’s notion of self-interest is not expressed as the isolated preference of an independent economic agent, but, rather, as the conditioned response of an interdependent participant in a social process.” In “Is Adam Smith’s Moral Philosophy an Adequate Foundation for the Market Economy?” Journal of Markets and Morality 6, 2 (Fall 2003): 459.

16            Robin Klay and John Lunn develop this idea in their excellent article, “The Relationship of God’s Providence to Market Economies and Economic Theory,” Journal of Markets and Morality 6, 2 (Fall 2003): 547–59.

17            Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part Four, chap. 1.

18            See, for instance, the edited collection by Paul Knitter and Chandra Musaffar, Subverting Greed: Religious Perspectives on the Global Economy (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002).

19            For statistical evidence, see International Comparisons of Charitable Giving (Kent, UK: Charities Aid Foundation, November, 2006), www.cafonline.org/research. See also Arthur C. Brookes, Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservatism (New York: Basic Books, 2006).

20            George Gilder, Wealth and Poverty (San Francisco: ICS Press, 1993), 30.

21            Ibid., 27.

22            Ibid., 20–24.

23            Ibid., 37.

24            Robert A. Sirico, The Entrepreneurial Vocation (Grand Rapids: Acton Institute, 2001).

Portage Police endorse Snyder not Olga

Press Release from Jim Snyder campaign, announcing that the Police in Portage have endorsed him against the sitting Democrat mayor. From my personal perspective, she's in trouble.


Jim Snyder for Portage Mayor
Contact Information 219-331-1448

For Immediate Release to the Press: 04/21/2012

We are grateful and humbled by this endorsement. It is my belief that the men and women in blue here in Portage are the backbone of our city. It should be clear to the people of Portage that these officers believe that we have presented a strategy to better help our law enforcement “protect and serve Portage.” Some might say that for this organization to support a challenger for Mayor is taking a risk. But these fine men and women take great risks everyday in making our city a safe and wonderful place to live. They are used to taking risks. We are indebted to their bravery and commitment each day.

While my administration will always be looking for ways to consolidate and conserve your tax dollars, never will it be done in a hurried or rushed way that will jeopardize the safety, protection, and financial security of this city. Before this administration signed on the dotted line, moving the Portage 911 dispatch to the county, they should have done their homework and ensured that the public safety and the safety of these officers would never be jeopardized.

The legislation passed, regarding the need to consolidate, gave us another 3 years before it needed to happen. There was no need to rush this move.

Recently, a study showed that when the Portage 911 dispatch center was moved to Valparaiso, it put each resident, business, police officer, and firefighter in the city in harm’s way. That same study also implies that what we were told was savings will end up costing us through another tax or taxes.

This is a quote from the analysis: “Most dispatchers interviewed indicated that they have been instructed that they must follow the questions of Pro Q and A exactly, or they will receive a bad EMD evaluation. This makes some dispatchers ask all questions first, prior to sending the call to be dispatched. This can result in a serious time delay when the call is high priority (such as someone is not breathing).”
Portage had a dispatcher with over 25 years experience who could have noticed this issue had she been sent to the county operation to observe for one hour.

Another concern in the report was the "time taken to dispatch calls." Another quote was, "....the delays seem to stem from the current process of one person taking the call, and it being sent to another person for actually dispatching the call." "This is also a safety concern in that oftentimes, the sooner an officer gets to a call often results in the officer being better prepared to respond to whatever dangers they may face."

Let me read you another. "While the calls for service went up exponentially with the addition of Valparaiso and Portage, the two largest municipalities in Porter County, the number of personnel to handle these calls for service not only did not keep up pace, it decreased."

There is a strong disconnect between what we are reading in the report commissioned by the county and what our city leadership is telling its residents.

One of our captains delivered over 16 complaints to the county dispatch center a few months after the move took place. Recently, our officers were dispatched to the wrong Walgreens for a possible child abduction. Less than a month ago, they were dispatched to a shooting in progress at a toll road rest area and were not told which side of the toll road to go, as that is vital information. These are instances where we are grateful no one was hurt. It is clear that we should have studied this matter more carefully before we moved the 911 dispatchers.

During the course of the general election, we will have no problem not only demonstrating how bad the decision was, but also how detrimental it has been to the safety of the residents of Portage. Never has the public been notified that for the first time in 46 years, our police department closes like a bank or the BMV. The Portage police department is closed during peak crime times and most of the weekend - that is not public service! Concerned leadership would have made this clear so a distressed resident would not have rushed to a closed police station when in trouble.

On March 30, 2009, the mayor expressed 4 issues she was concerned about in an editorial to the Times.
1. Ensuring an adequate back-up service is provided. The report gave us a “High Liability - High Frequency” rating which in plainer terms is an “F.” The current Porter county 911 director had budgeted almost 1 million dollars to allow Portage to house the county backup instead of La Porte being our second PCAP.
2. That personnel are available at the station during off-hours for emergency-related visits from the public. The police station is closed completely during off-hours.
3. Consideration is considered to job retention for existing dispatchers. The fine Portage dispatchers lost their seniority and pay.
4. Protocols match with existing levels that Portage provides. The report gives us an “F.”
(Please note in the paragraph above bold represents Mayor Velazquez quotes)

Maybe this is why Mark Vittetoe stated on behalf of the firefighters union, "If we sacrifice service and public safety, we are not going to stand behind it. We can’t support any loss of service or public safety.”

Assistant Chief Calhoun resigned, saying, "A lot of it comes down to communication and the lack of communication. I feel I am a professional and I had a lot to offer. But my voice wasn’t heard and often I was left with the aftermath of dealing with a wrong decision; I needed to get out to maintain my sanity and my integrity.”

The police and fire departments openly and aggressively asked that the process be slowed down, many to the demise of demotions and resignation. The council was never given a voice in this matter.
My administration and those you elect to help me lead will listen to those who spend each day keeping your and my children safe.

We have heard over and over that these are tough times and that there have been tough decisions that have had to be made. We are aware times are tough, but tough times are not the time to make poor decisions.

This report recommends hiring 12 new dispatchers. Portage must insure an adequate number of these dispatchers are familiar with Portage terrain. Another recommendation was a single standard used for all of the dispatchers. Portage must make sure that the standard meets the level of performance Portage had when it maintained its own dispatch.

In the end, this decision to outsource the 911 Dispatch out of Portage will cost each of us more than if we had analyzed and listened to these fine public servants. As we have analyzed the budgets of this city, there are many areas we can conserve and save the taxpayer’s money. Never will it be done at the risk of your health, safety, or protection.

The city of Portage has the opportunity to listen to these fine public servants this election. They have spoken, and they have spoken with one voice. No number of ride-a-longs or meetings will allow me to understand or appreciate what they do for us on a daily basis. That is why it is imperative that we as citizens and I as a candidate for mayor, listen and respect their understanding of the greatest challenge Portage faces each day - SAFETY. My team and I will work hard to spread their message of a need for new leadership in the mayor's office. As a resident and businessman in Portage, I am indebted to these fine officers. Today, my debt grew deeper, and I accept your endorsement and pledge not to let you down. Thank You.

Relativism In Ideological and Practical Applications

There are a lot of things going on in the political stratosphere lately, but every now again it's fun to tackle an ideological point of view and lay out the pros and cons. Sure, I could write about redistricting here in Indiana, or the Libyan battles, or any number of topics (including my own campaign for Hebron Town Council, sorry for the drop) but these ideological pieces are important to throw in every now and again because, while there is often less of a consensus among people on these sorts of things, they are equally important when talking about politics.

When dealing with the issue of relativism, both on a philosophical level and a “real time” level, so to speak, relativism is…well…relative. Goodman certainly makes a case in “Some Moral Minima” that relativism’s role in society is a limited doctrine and that there are universally agreed criteria that have trumped this thought process through the ages (i.e. woman’s rights, slavery, etc.). However, the practical applications for many other social issues through the political spectrum are still being “vetted”, in a sense, by the general public. I happen to agree, on a grander scale, with Goodman; not everything is relative. But I also agree that, on a less grand scale, people are not altruistic in nature. We are selfish, stubborn beings, who usually require some kind of push in order to do what is right, and this push usually comes in the form of the classic “invisible hand” (meaning we are doing what is right because it is mutually beneficial) or some kind of heavenly doctrine (like the Bible teaching that something is wrong and so, to save our souls, we don’t do that thing).

Each issue in particular, for me at least, has its own argument where relativity comes into play. One good example would be the classic argument against capitalism, whether that argument is being made by those of a socialist orientation, a Marxist one, etc., the argument against is pretty much the same; capitalism isn’t fair and, therefore, not relative, because there are those that have a lot of goods and monies and those that have no goods and monies. These statements are true; through capitalism there are those that amass large sums of wealth that could never be spent in one lifetime and those that make almost nothing and live out of their vehicles. However, this is one case that I defer to relativism, because while capitalism is not perfect on a societal scale, it is perfect on an individual one. Each person is given the responsibility of their own wealth and fortune, and the loss of that wealth and fortune is typically that individuals own fault. That person either mismanaged his finances, or didn’t plan well, or was foolish with his spending. Certainly there is a case to be made that there are those that lose their wealth and it is not their own fault, whether it be through medical accidents, bank failures, etc., and definitely this is an area that I think most people are fine, as a practical real time application, with looking past that individualism to play a greater role as a society by using tax monies to help remedy the situation, for a time at least.

However, a look through another filter, that of the anti-altruistic, shows that this in itself doesn’t prove that people would prefer something other than capitalism, but rather that people accept some forms of relativism, because there are some things that are just right; like helping those in need. This point can be argued, of course, by the altruistic that this proves that people are at heart good, unselfish people, however since charity is taught in almost all religious scripture, the counter argument that people do these things to save their souls more than anything comes into play. Additionally, nobody wants to be labeled a “Scrooge”, and nobody wants to have their neighbor’s home become foreclosed because it would then lower everybody’s property value on that street; all points that make a case for people being inherently selfish by nature.

One more example of the “great debate” between relativism supporters and the opposition, when looking at real time scenarios, is the argument over abortion. Is this a matter of a woman’s reproductive rights? Or is it a matter of the rights of an unborn child to life? When polled, people are pretty well split down the middle; most people want abortion to stay legal, but want restrictions on abortion, particularly in the later stages of pregnancy. These polls suggest that the general public does not know the answer of whether abortion is, as a whole, wrong, or don’t want to think about the issue in depth, and therefore the thoughts of the public body as a whole cannot be used as any sort of societal “right vs. wrong” scale in this instance.

Those that look to abortion as an issue of reproductive rights use relativism to justify their thoughts. Granted, an unborn child is being killed, they argue, at least when talking about the later stage abortions, but the rights of the woman trump those of the child. The woman is already a member of society, and whether one thinks abortion is morally right or wrong that woman is the person who will ultimately have to stand before her god and answer for what she has done. So in this case, though it may be wrong or unjust, it is all relative to that individual’s point of view. This, as noted, does not include early stage abortion arguments, which are centered on the thought that it is not a child, but rather a “fetus” that is being aborted; again, it is relative, because it depends on how one looks at the early stages of the pregnancy.

Those that don’t believe that the abortion issue is one of relativity, but rather that there is a moral element to the issue, with that element being that abortion is the murder of an unborn child: period. The early stage of pregnancy does not demote the status of the child to “fetus” simply because it is still forming its organs and growing. Whether or not a person will have to stand before their god is not relative; in the late stages of pregnancy a child can, with medical support, survive outside of the womb, and so there is no real reason for late term abortions. Abortion cannot be explained away, cannot be reasoned into submission, abortion is murder, willful murder, or an individual who cannot speak for him or herself.

The philosophical debate over abortion may never end; both sides of the issue are very ardent in their views and ideology, with little room for middle ground, even if the general population takes a middle ground stance on the issue. My own personal thoughts on this issue, in particular? I fall on the pro-life side, though I would like to see the middle ground worked towards because it is at least better than two hard lined positions with nothing really getting done on the issue. On the issue of economic differences, I find myself very much pro-capitalism. Certainly a person could read through my thoughts and claim me to be a hypocrite. How can a person think one issue is relative, and another not? Doesn’t that put me in two ideologically different camps on two separate issues?

Yes and no. Relativism certainly has its place when one is looking at issues on all levels; ideological, philosophical, and practical. Relativism should not be a blanket that envelopes every issue, just like ideological and philosophical thoughts on matters shouldn’t. Rather, it should be a tool to help one figure out not only one’s personal thoughts on varying issues, but solutions to those issues and ways to better keep individual liberty while simultaneously promoting the well being of society as a whole. There are plenty of other arguments out there both for and against different issues, including the two talked about above, and there are infinite different combination's of different individuals who embrace one idea and reject another for different reasons. However, to use relativism as anything else other than another tool to learn about the world around you is foolish thinking that allows one to be led by the nose by one singular idea.

Atlas Shrugs. Obama flaps in the wind. Detroit and Gary fall apart.

Did you hear that Detroit, Michigan and Gary, Indiana were named among the MOST LIBERAL cities in the USA?   You are aware that both of them are falling apart?   Just checking...a note from The Foundry

Morning Bell: Detroit’s Liberal Nightmare

                Author: Mike Brownfield

Posted March 24th, 2011 at 9:26am in Ongoing Priorities 

What happens when a city buys the liberal dream hook, line and sinker? Just take a look at the City of Detroit. The once-great city lost 237,493 residents over the last decade according to the 2010 Census, bringing it to 713,777 – a population plunge of 25%. That’s its lowest population since 1910, and it marks the city’s fall from a 1950s peak of two million, over 60%. And that’s just the people who can afford to leave.

Detroit, once known as “the great arsenal of democracy,” has made headlines of late for its notorious fall from grace. The “Big Three” automakers are no longer the biggest, falling behind their overseas rivals, and the Michigan economy lost 450,000 manufacturing jobs over the past 10 years all while Detroit lost population. And while the Motor City suffers unemployment from a decimated automotive industry, it suffers crime, high taxes, poor city services, plummeting home values, and a public education system in shambles with a $327 million budget deficit and a 19 percent dropout rate. Is it any wonder people are leaving in droves?

But to understand why folks are really leaving Detroit, it’s worth looking where they’re headed. As Detroit suffered a population loss, its neighboring suburban counties with lower crime, better schools and an improving economic outlook saw their population increase. One former Detroiter told The Detroit News, “Detroit just got too messy for me … I was not getting the benefits of those tax dollars. The city services are poor and I could not use the school system. And you look at the cost of living and the corruption, we had to leave.” In other words, bad government drove her out, and she’s seeking greener pastures elsewhere.

For the record, Detroit has been under liberal leadership for decades. And the city’s big problem today is that its road forward is blocked by the very same political machine that helped deliver it to its state of ruin. Case in point: the state’s powerful teachers unions. In 2003, a philanthropist pledged $200 million for the creation of 15 charter schools in the city. Despite the city’s tragic public school system, the plan failed and the offer was withdrawn following protests by the Detroit Federation of Teachers. Little has changed, eight years later. A state-appointed emergency financial manager has proposed sweeping changes to the city’s public school system, including a plan to convert 41 of the city’s schools to charter schools. Guess who’s opposed to the reforms? That very same union.

The newly elected governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder (R), is finding opposition to his efforts at reform, as well. Following eight years of Democrat Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s rule, Gov. Snyder has embarked on efforts to change the way the state does business, including tax reform, spending cuts and empowering emergency financial managers to tackle problems in cities and schools. Who’s opposed to his reforms? Unions, once again, in Wisconsin-style protests. William McGurn of The Wall Street Journal writes:

Michigan today is not a struggling state like California or New Jersey or even Wisconsin. It is a basket case, with worse to come if things do not change quickly—especially in the relation of the public to the private sector.

“Many of the protesters seem to think the war is between rich and poor,” says Michael LaFaive, director of the Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative at the Michigan-based Mackinac Center. “But the real class war today is between government and the people who pay for it. And the government’s been winning.”

And the problems that plague Michigan and Detroit are the problems with liberal policies. The promise doesn’t live up to the results. The Washington Examiner’s Michael Barone writes: “When people ask me why I moved from being a liberal to being a conservative, my single-word answer is Detroit. The liberal policies which I hoped would make Detroit something like heaven have made it instead something more like hell.”

And now, after living in that liberal nightmare, Detroiters have voted with their feet in record number.
Quick Hits:

• Deep divisions among President Obama’s Libya coalition worsened today as the German military announced it is pulling forces out of NATO over continued disagreement on who will lead the campaign.
• Adm. Gary Roughead, the Chief of Naval Operations, admitted yesterday that he has received no guidance on the path ahead for command and control of the Libya no-fly zone, no-drive zone, no-sail zone, arms embargo enforcement, and any other missions currently being managed by the United States.
• U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Wednesday there was no “timeline” for when UN-backed military operations in Libya would end, and that the outcome of the conflict remained unclear.
• On the first anniversary of Obamacare, Crossroads GPS filed a lawsuit seeking transparency on the Obamacare waiver process.
• Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) predicted yesterday that the Supreme Court will find Obamacare unconstitutional, allowing him to push for single-payer health care.

~~~~~~~
It is the small, medium and large businessmen and innovators and job producers who make this country great and the economy go by providing JOBS and GOODS and SERVICES.  Barack Obama cannot understand this.   He thinks we should all be peons serving the elitists who, after all, know better than we do.    So he produces three times as much debt as George Bush ever did, presides over more military deaths in Afghanistan in two years than Bush saw in eight and see unemployment climb to ten per cent while gas/fuel prices double, so of course the cost of everything goes up!  Does he know what he is doing?   If not, he is the empty suit being manipulated by the George Soros brigade we feared he would be.   But if he does?   That might even be WORSE?

I hope you go see this movie.   I will!

Common Cents posted this article below. .

Atlas Shrugged - The Movie Trailer:

Who is John Galt?  Finallly it's here - the The 1957 tome which champions Objectivism--Rand's controversial philosophy--has managed to find its way to the big-screen despite numerous challenges along the way. But at last, thanks to John Aglialoro, who bought the rights to the book in 1992 and has been trying to get it on-screen ever since, Atlas Shrugged: Part 1 is here.  The official homepage to Atlas Shrugged.

PJTV interviews people walking out of the theater after seeing Atlas Shrugged.

"I've been waiting for this movie to come out for decades"

"It was worth the 50 year wait"

 IBD's editorial on Atlas Shrugged is superlative!

Individualists and money grubbers of the world, unite; you have nothing to lose but your servility and confiscatory tax rates.

After all these increasingly collectivized decades, "Atlas Shrugged, Part I" the movie, is finally coming to town. It opens nationwide, appropriately, this Friday — Tax Day. Check your local listings for the time and place.

"Atlas Shrugged," Ayn Rand's legendary novel, was published in 1957. Instead of focusing on the old tale of victimized workers and greedy owners, the story turns the tables and shows what happens to the world when the innovators and producers go on strike, when the capitalists and owners turn out the lights and disappear.

The question has been asked on billboards, T-shirts and bumper stickers for half a century: "Who is John Galt?" In "Atlas Shrugged," he's the man who initiates and leads the strike of the producers.

"There is only one kind of men who have never been on strike in human history," states Galt in the novel. "Every other kind and class have stopped, when they so wished, and have presented demands to the world, claiming to be indispensable — except the men who have carried the world on their shoulders, have kept it alive, have endured torture as sole payment, but have never walked out on the human race. "Well, their turn has come. Let the world discover who they are, what they do and what happens when they refuse to function. This is the strike of the men of the mind."

The shrugging comes when men of achievement refuse to accept their unearned guilt, refuse to have their strengths and accomplishments turned into weaknesses and sins.

"All your life, you have heard yourself denounced, not for your faults, but for your greatest virtues," Francisco d'Anconia says to successful industrialist Hank Rearden in the novel. "You have been hated, not for your mistakes, but for your achievements.

"You, who've expended an inconceivable flow of energy, have been called a parasite. You, who've created abundance where there had been nothing but wastelands and helpless, starving men before you, have been called a robber. You, who've kept them all alive, have been called an exploiter. You, the purest and most moral man among them, have been sneered at as a 'vulgar materialist.'

"Have you stopped to ask them: by what right? — by what code? — by what standard? No, you have borne it all and kept silent."

Posted by commoncents at 4:15 PM 0 comments