Ayn Rand made the same mistake that Karl Marx did; she assumed things about humanity that simply aren't true. Objectivism is a wonderful idea. It celebrates the power of the individual, of a person's ability to succeed on the basis of one's own abilities. It says that we humans have the power to know truth, that we can discover whatever we want to. But the idea that society works better unregulated is a wonderful sounding farce. Boundaries and limits are necessary because they protect. A government does not just protect people from threats from outside but from inside as well. Is she really that proud of Andrew Carnegie. The man had his workers beaten when they decided to strike because he was paying them unlivable wages and getting rich off their sweat in the process. Is that a man succeeding on sheer ability or on violence, coercion and deception? I agree that people need to serve themselves to a certain degree. But not all happiness, success and wealth is generated internally. People help one another because it makes them feel good. Altruism does not exist as presently defined. But when people help one another they feel good about it. It's a fact. And it's not because they are under some social misapprehension that they need to help people. No one, no matter how talented can succeed on their own. Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, while amazingly gifted athletes, both had great role models who helped guide them to success. People want to give back what has been given to them. They want to work together with other people to make society work better. Why did Carnegie give so much of his money away towards the end of his life? Rockefeller, Nobel and Mellon too? It wasn't out of greed, that's for sure. You can argue that it was a status symbol, a way of leaving a legacy. But why is charity a good legacy? Why do we have these social expectations of the rich and the powerful, which says that those with great wealth have great responsibility to the rest of society? It greed is good, why does is seem so bad? It's hard to answer but it seems that people know that you can't succeed on your own, that we all need help, that we all deserve a chance to succeed and live in this life.
A certain amount of freedom is necessary for business and people to succeed and make money. But total laissez-faireism is as terrible idea as communism. The American economy in the 1920s was wonderfully unregulated. What did that bring us? The GREAT DEPRESSION!!! Furthermore 50% of Americans lived in poverty during the 1920s. That number is 12% today. I call that an improvement. And it isn't as if all the regulatory policies imposed during that time by big evil government have been confiscatory either. How many billionaires do we have in this country today? Forbes says at least 400. At the beginning of the last century we had 1. This begs the question: what's wrong with regulation? It's lead to more Americans enjoying in this country's vast wealth, and it still allows the talented and bold to amass great fortunes. Deregulation, on the other hand, leads to blackouts in California. Adam Smith was right to a point. But if one takes his ideas beyond that point, you run into problems. People will try to screw each other, and that is a fact. Government imposes regulations not because it wants to, but because inevitably it knows that people will screw each other. Enron is the perfect example of why you need regulation. Out of sheer greed, that company perpetrated a fraud on its investors, and a lot of those people lost a lot of money. Is that good for business? No! Is that why we have the SEC and the Justice Dept? Of course. People do not play by the rules because there is a lot of money to be make in breaking the rules. To assume that the "invisible hand" of the market will some how sort all of this out is a fallacy. There is no invisible hand. There is only people, rational people trying to make an assessment about worth and value. Well guess what, people get deceived and make the wrong choice. It happens all the time. It happened in 1914, in 1929, in 1933, in 1964 and on and on. Individuals make mistakes. It helps if they can be protected from doing so. People don't save enough money for retirement so we need social security. Theoretically, everyone could rationally choose to save that money themselves, but we all know that that will not happen. People are weak and stupid and frail and horrible and hideous and guess what, none of them can survive on their own. Is it any wonder that all of the countries that rank ahead of the U.S. in terms of overall health, life expectancy and infant mortality (did you know that Sweden's infant mortality rate is 1 in 30,000!!!!! in the U.S. it's 1 in 5000 that's 6 times lower! 6!) has socialized medicine? It turns out that if you want to live a long life it's better to live in a country that looks after its fellow man/woman for no other reason than that they are a person. Health is one of those things that one can't control through one's own intellect or ability. We are not all so special that we can conquer every challenge on our own. Sometimes we need help.
Terrorism and repression won at Tiananmen Square some 18 years ago. The protests died under the hardliners' heavy hands, guns and men. But this unknown gentleman stopped a tank with his force of will, and thus showed the world that there is something inside that had not died in the horror of it all. He showed that freedom is a primal thing, a hunger, and all consuming desire. He had seen, or at least knew what the government had done to its people, massacring thousands of innocents in the streets, and he was angry. The gesture was simple, he wasn't going to let these tanks pass, not living anyway. He wanted the repression to stop, and it didn't matter that he was alone. What lived inside him, a primal desire to see repression end and freedom begin, touched the world. It was reported that protesters throughout the Soviet Bloc drew great inspiration from his gesture, feeling that if he could face down 4 tanks, why couldn't they face down 1. His act of courage did not ignite a similar revolution in China, but what it showed is that the hardliners will never win because they can't kill the desire for freedom that exists deep inside us all.
