The "producers" of society are not those who transfer wealth or drive billion dollar companies into the ground.

Agreed. And you said we had no common ground. I'm starting to think perhaps we agree on quite a lot of things.

CEOs and money managers can certainly be included, but are not included merely due to his or her title. They are only included if they, too, provide value to society.

Ah, I see, they "are only included"... by whom? In what list saying who's included and who isn't? Is there a government agency that regulates who gets included in this list you speak of? Or is inclusion just a matter of their own declaration of inclusion? I'm not sure who you imagine drives and organizes this list of who's included and who's not. Does it happen naturally, via the "free market"? Or do those CEOs and money managers decide to include themselves, because they can? (I think it's the latter. What do YOU think?)

Typically, they are rewarded for the value they have created.

That's a very interesting use of the word "typically". I think you meant to use the word "ideally". But I've noticed that Randites tend to imagine that "ideally" translates into "typically" because that's what "typically" transpires in Rand's storylines.

This is the central idea in AS. Certain members of society produce value and are compensated.

And since AS is a work of fiction, indeed it works that way in that world. The fact that it doesn't seem to work that way in the real world is something Randites overlook, again confusing "ideally" with "typically". Why DOESN'T that happen? Is it because evil "Marxists" and "collectivists" thwart the natural efforts of the marketplace to make this ideal a reality? Or is it because the actual natural flow of events, in the absence of appropriate societal controls, is that power will be accumulated greedily by people who believe they deserve it regardless of the actual social value they generate?

Admittedly, it is incredibly simplistic...

LOL! You, Mr. "Galt", are a true master of understatement!

but only true Marxists would desire any other ideology at their core.

Very Foxnewsian of you - make a disparaging statement without any real content or argument, implying pompously that "anyone who doesn't believe as I do is clearly wrong." What is it precisely that you are tangentially implying "true Marxists" believe? Why are those beliefs wrong? What IS your statement but another vacuous smear directed at anyone who disagrees with the holy word of Aynie? In what sense does that empty statement of yours represent OBJECTIVE reasoning and logical argument?

You've spent 20 years developing a piece of software that will revolutionize society. ... [But] IBM and Microsoft lobby the feds to outlaw or severely restrict sale of your software because they would not be able to compete and would be forced to lay off 1000s of workers.

Hmmmm... let's see... how did IBM and Microsoft get to the position they were in to do this kind of influencing and lobbying? Could it be because they were unregulated in their quest for accumulated power? Could it be that they unfairly used that accumulated power to squeeze competitors out of the marketplace, or to buy companies producing resources far better than anything they could produce via their usual tactics of stealing ideas from others solely to run them into the ground and maintain their monopoly positions?

It would seem that you, like Rand, are writing your own work of fiction, as derivative and fanciful as Rand's own work.

I simply don't understand. I simply don't understand what is wrong with being selfish.

Well, one day perhaps you will acquire social skills, desire the company of another person to share your life with, realize that the bodies surrounding you in the crowds you walk through are actually other human beings just like you... only with souls. Yes, you simply don't understand. Perhaps life experience will lead you to some degree of understanding. Perhaps not. But that has no relevance to the points you are trying to make and I have to admit befuddlement at why you interjected this clearly self-disparaging statement about yourself.

And your points about objectivism being proven wrong due to Reagan and Greenspan causing the current economic crisis is simplistic at best, flat out wrong at worst.

It is not "simplistic" (in the same sense that your explanations are admittedly simplistic) to note that Greenspan himself acknowledged that his faith in the marketplace's ability to regulate itself (a nonsense idea derived from Rand) was flawed and was at the core of his strategy in managing the country's economic affairs.

But in both of those factors is the interference of government with business.

You mean the lack thereof... right?

I also don't understand what's wrong with the current "economic crisis".

Well, when your job magically goes away, or when your loved ones suffer a similar fate (despite your being admittedly selfish hopefully you HAVE loved ones... or at the very least people who unselfishly consider YOU a loved one), perhaps you might consider that something is WRONG with an economic crisis. This is a typical example of what I've called "system-ism" versus "people-ism": declaring that the health and well-being of the system is more important than the health and well-being of people. Naturally, those who game the system and use it, selfishly, "win" when the system wins, and the "unproductive" (i.e., those outside the Objectivist's circle) deservedly (sic) suffer. So the moral is... what? Tell us.

Recessions are as much a part of life as breathing and I want no part of a system that prevents all recessions.

Well, I'm sure while you still have a job and while your home is still intact, you will continue to say that. Perhaps that will change when your conditions change. Perhaps not. But given what you've said so far I feel pretty certainly you will selfishly find things wrong with the current economic situation.

If those banks failed, it would be a long, long time (70 years as history tells us) before banks got that stupid again.

And gee, what led to and allowed them to "get that stupid"? Reaganomic deregulation? Arrogant overconfidence in their MotU powers? A lack of proper control over their risk as it applied to the system as a whole and not just their localized sphere of influence?

Objectively, you go back to the root cause to find out why something happened. Ironically, "Objectivists" don't do that.

And finally, you and I are so fundamentally wired differently that it is simply incredible to read your thoughts.

I get that all the time. But you say that like it's a bad thing. There is room for all kinds of diversity, including diversity of opinion, isn't there? Nah, we probably have very similar wiring. You just don't see the point of taking into account that your situation did not arise in a vacuum, fully formed out of sea foam into self-made John Galt manhood, that your current conditions are the result of those around you who UNSELFISHLY enabled you to get where you are today. Maybe someday you will. More likely not. The cushion surrounding you that enables you to cling to your opinions and voice them with Glennbeckian indignancy despite their emptiness will doubtless continue to insulate you from many realities for some time to come. Good luck with that. It won't last forever, your insulation will eventually crumble and you will be forced to deal with a real world that isn't an imaginary envisioning of the idealized world in an Ayn Rand novel. I guarantee you that much.

In conclusion, you would appear to be guilty of the very same binary thinking that plagues Rand's work. Rand grew up in evil collectivist Russia, and escaped to America where she asserted that ANY notion of contributing to a common good in society is evil, and rationalized how her own selfishness (often evincing itself in her personal life) was noble and good. And like-minded binary thinking people agree. No surprise. She appeals to the whiny complainers who think their obvious "brilliance" is being overlooked while other lesser undeserving people succeed (very "Wile E. Coyote, suuupergeeenius!"), and blame this on an imaginary dichotomy between the productive people (a group that naturally includes them) and the unproductive people (the "others", of course). Dividing people into such groupings is a fool's errand, as Douglas Adams noted in the example I cited in the original post. But that doesn't stop these people.

Typically, they are rewarded for the value they have created. Colbert has made a lot of money for the entertainment product he has produced. The local chef who has created a get meal receives customers who pay for that meal. You, perhaps, have even received payment for the software you have developed.

This is the central idea in AS. Certain members of society produce value and are compensated. Admittedly, it is incredibly simplistic into which the complexities of our society must be taken into account, but only true Marxists would desire any other ideology at their core.

Consider yourself as a analogy for Reardon. You've spent 20 years developing a piece of software that will revolutionize society. During those 20 years, you've spent countless muti-day marathons at your keyboard and ruin numerous relationships. Finally, you have it perfected.

But due to the current economic crisis, several things occur. IBM and Microsoft lobby the feds to outlaw or severely restrict sale of your software because they would not be able to compete and would be forced to lay off 1000s of workers. When you still manage to sell copies and after further lobbying, Obama decides that your program is so important to the future of this country, the feds appropriate it and distribute it freely to all of society.

Regarding the rest of your post...

I simply don't understand. I simply don't understand what is wrong with being selfish.

And your points about objectivism being proven wrong due to Reagan and Greenspan causing the current economic crisis is simplistic at best, flat out wrong at worst. In addition to Greenspan keeping the fed rate too low for too long, there were plenty of liberals demanding the easing of credit standards. But in both of those factors is the interference of government with business.

I also don't understand what's wrong with the current "economic crisis". Recessions are as much a part of life as breathing and I want no part of a system that prevents all recessions. Every one of those banks should have been allowed to fail. By propping those banks up, the government has implicitly stated that "if you're big enough to cause systemic risk, then take all the risks you want 'cause we've got your back." If those banks failed, it would be a long, long time (70 years as history tells us) before banks got that stupid again.

And finally, you and I are so fundamentally wired differently that it is simply incredible to read your thoughts.

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Objectivist_C

Yes, AS was a moral fable about "productive and responsible people", but the story line erroneously conflates the very two groups you mention as if they were one. It would be either naive or disingenuous to claim that the "moral" of the book was merely a social one, which is what you seem to be implying. And the point is that this "moral" is speciously founded on that erroneous conflation, applying the adjectives "productive and responsible" onto a class of people who are generally unworthy of those labels.

Who among us has in their lives NOT had to deal with the "unproductive and irresponsible"? - Family members who won't deal of their own problems and force you to take care of things for them with a total lack of appreciation on their part, friends who consistently get themselves into trouble owing to their irresponsibility leaving it to you to rescue them, colleagues who don't do their fair share and burden you with the bulk of the workload. But Randists take this experience and extrapolate that the entire human race is justifiably divided into the "productive and responsible" (a group that just happens to include them) and everyone else, and building from that a eugenic rationalization for greed and selfishness. They pretend that the human experience can be distilled into a division between them, the supposedly productive and responsible, and the rest of the world. This is not reasoning worthy of a label etymologically derived from the word "objective". This is just crybaby whining about how they are underappreciated and underrewarded relative to everyone else.

Getting down to specifics, I'm curious as to precisely what you mean when you talk about people "just like" Colbert and a "nasty but not altogether unfair portrayal" of such people in Atlas Shrugged. This sounds like a snide ad hominem innuendo made in a deliberately unclear way. What portrayal are you referring to? Which characteristic are you maligning? And you speak of "destroying America" in an equally unclear manner. What exactly is destroying America? Again, obviously what brought America to the state we are in now IS the actions of people who believed Atlas Shrugged WAS a textbook for how economies and societies ought to be structured. We can thus, objectively, say that the presumptions upon which their socioeconomic principles rest are flawed. I would thus conclude that an effort to continue employing such principles is the force that would be considered to be destroying America. (What is it that keeps some people from admitting that? A total obstinacy about admitting they're wrong and accepting the very notion of change?)

Atlas Shrugged does not have "parallels" to real world happenings, if anything it has what would best be called "perpendiculars" that butt head on INTO the wall of reality, hard. The only thing "ominous" here is the rabid dogmatism of those whose pathological dogma failed us all in its real world application, as they insist that we all cling to that dogma as fiercely as they do--lest we be accused of "destroying America".

Rand's most glaring flaw was her stilted binary thinking: either society works to help its members (bad) or it lets its self-proclaimed geniuses have their way and do what they want no matter what the consequences (er... good?). No surprise that those who find her philosophy reasonable share that trait. If you're trying to say that Atlas Shrugged is simply about some sort of conflict between "productive and responsible people" and their supposedly unproductive and irresponsible counterparts, this is simply not borne out by the storyline, and it is certainly not the opinion of most of the book's fans. The point, if any, of Atlas Shrugged is to draw a rationalized social demarcation between the so-called "productive and responsible" and everyone else, dividing worthy from unworthy, using this as a justification for pretending that their lives are not enmeshed in and dependent on society as a whole. This is a "point" founded in loaded biased irrationality.

J. K. Galbraith noted that "the modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." Randists seem to think they have found it but, objectively speaking, they have not. Not by a long shot.

Of course Colbert realizes that there is a rather nasty, but not altogether unfair, portrayal of people just like him in the book, and he wouldn't want anybody reading that and associating it with the benevolent and progressive ways of destroying America now in vogue.
Of course Atlas is a piece of fiction, some people are bound to misinterpret it, some find it inspirational with ominous parallels to real world happenings, some find it badly written and one-dimensional.
I have yet to meet any conservative or libertarian who saw this piece of fiction as "their Bible", and I hope I never will.

The Last Person On Earth To Turn To Now Is Ayn Rand

Understand what "Going Galt" really is: the people with power, accumulated through inheritance, deception, collusion, or coercion, who have control in one form or another of the "means of production", tell the rest of the world that they will only resume their work -- which provides goods for people, employs people, etc. -- if they get their way, if the world agrees to follow their stilted self-centered view of how society and its underlying economy should work.

This is nothing but economic blackmail. Contrary to the notion that Going Galt is some noble proud effort by the true elite to show society how it ought to work -- it is a telling example of the stupid, selfish, whiny, crybaby behavior of these unworthies, these people who bitch about government "entitlements" given to people (like health care, police protection, education, etc.) when they themselves feel entitled to get their childish whiny way.

The reason they hate unions is because unions form a wedge that the people who do the actual work for these lazy slobs use against their employers' unabrogated power.

The reason they whine about the terrible "trial lawyers" who sue corporations when their actions cause others harm is because they don't believe they SHOULD be held accountable for such things.

The reason they hate government oversight is because such oversight, if applied robustly, would put constraints on the kinds of deceitful things they do to make a profit.

When we hear these people bemoan the terrible awful government regulations impeding them from "doing what they want", know what it is that they want - to act with impunity, to absolve themselves of responsibility to those who employ, to those they sell their products to, and to society at large.

They want to Go Galt? I say hell, they should go for it. I'm all for starting a movement encouraging those B-Ark charlatans (to use Adams' metaphor) to run off to an island and form their own society -- is there a word for a "society" comprised solely of the anti-social? -- which would disintegrate under its own weight in microseconds. The reality of Atlas Shrugged is that its pompous cardboard anti-social characters are the antithesis of anything resembling a hero, that despite Rand's fantasies about how the world really works, the world they would produce if left to their own devices -- and thank goodness we don't! -- would be a hell on earth. Rational selfishness is, as we've seen from the actual behavior of these rationally selfish fools, as oxymoronic as military intelligence -- or that other forcibly conflated term, "compassionate conservatism."

I agree with Rich. You've got it all backwards. Of course running a company into the ground can be in the CEO's self interest. The issue with the subprimes in particular made it so, many times over. Before everyone realized they were toxic waste to be avoided at all cost, what people saw in them was a way to buy the subprime known shitty mortgages, "insure" them with credit default swaps (which were unregulated, of course) and then account for them as if they were insured by a real insurance company. This allowed them to take 10 years of profit in a single year and to award themselves (and the traders that work for them) 10 years of bonuses in a single year.

So, yes, it is absolutely in the self-interest of the CEO and the traders to buy crappy mortgages and reap very short term benefits and then suffer the awful fate of being paid many millions of dollars to go away. That is what acting based on self-interest leads to.

I have had some bizarre conversations with self-proclaimed Objectivists. Imagine someone who actually has a dog and thinks that animals are all stimulus/response in a B. F. Skinner way. If you believe that, why have a dog? If you believe that, I wouldn't want to be your dog. I can't even really imagine someone who has a cat feeling that way. Though, many who do not have cats seem to think they're not social creatures. They're wrong, of course. But, I can understand the misunderstanding. Cats are social in ways that many people have trouble recognizing. But, at least one of these cultists actually had a dog. How much more obviously can anyone show their emotions and thoughts than a dog does? Everything is so out in the open with dogs. And yet, these people have come to believe that non-human animals have no feelings. I couldn't believe that a conversation with these guys about morality could actually have a whole pile of these morans asserting very strongly that we have no moral obligation to animals.

It seems to me that the whole Objectivist thing really gives people strange ideas, as strange as those of fundamentalists from any of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic sects and stranger than most run-of-the-mill, non-foaming-at-the-mouth, members of religions. I know that Objectivists tend to espouse atheism (as I do) but Rand's tenets embody all the very worst aspects of religion in general. I recall that I once referred to her as "L. Rayn Hubbrand." It seemed very appropriate at the time ... and still does.

The "Type-A" label was not my invention, that was from Colbert's lucid description. As a part-time type-A myself, I can't really see why that label is something you see as an issue.

"Is running a company into the ground in ones self interest if you are the CEO?" Sure, absolutely, if you get a golden parachute in the hundreds of millions when the company goes down and no accountability for your actions as you move on to the next company you run into the ground without any consequence to your own career.

Again, it was not "government regulations that made all of this possible," it was the notion that the regulations we DID have in place were irrelevant and ought to be ignored or even dismantled, one of the prime legacies of Reaganomics. Why do you people think blaming everything bad on the government and absolving corporate criminals of responsibility is a reasonable argument? Distrusting the government but trusting corporations is like distrusting institutionalized medicine but trusting drug dealers.

I do not "forget" at all that in Atlas Shrugged "the politicians were the plague"--I simply note that Atlas Shrugged is a work of fiction that is not reflective of reality, and that statements about who Rand considered to be the plague are irrelevant gibberish. She was the author of a fictional book with cardboard characters that did not represent the real world. That you think it WAS representative of the real world is the source of the problem here.

Finally, logic begins with fundamental statements of fact that are the foundation for a process reaching a valid conclusion. Your statements here begin and end with the assumption that Rand's ideas represent a valid image of the world and how it works. The results of conservative politicians over the course of 30 years employing her ideas to the detriment of us all proves that this is not the case. Therefore your argument is not founded on logic. Saying that it is doesn't make it so. Saying "read the book" only serves to support your contention if you assume a priori that the book is true. Kind of like what some people do with the Bible, y'know? (Not surprising, given the way Objectivism is no different than any other religion.)

Ecology of Finance