Modes 5 minutes in Open...

I bet the mods seriously wish that I would just for the love of all that's holy put my Archer avatar back on!

Warm, you are wrong about everything:D

I don't see how I am. I live in the great Western capitalist experiment itself, the United States, and we have in our history tried to practice the kind capitalism Ayn Rand advocated for. It failed.

In the late 19th Century capitalists were doing everything, it really was a great time of economic growth and flowering of infrastructure. We had already built the transcontinental railroad and extended telegraph service from coast to coast. Edison was laying the groundwork for the electrical grid in New York City. I can only assume it must've seemed like something new was being invented every day. So, how could this have possibly failed?

It was James Pierpont Morgan who killed it. See, prior to J.P. Morgan's need to ameliorate the failure of Thomas Edison's DC electricity, he convinced all the captains of industry who had heretofore been be competing viciously with each other that competition was bad for business. Thing is, Morgan was right. Competition is terrible for business. It was called Morganization, and it amounted to all the great industries creating binding legal instruments among themselves promising not to intrude on eachother's business interests. It worked. They stopped competing. They nestled themselves happily into their respective economic spheres of influence and everything was fantastic for them. They're called Trusts, and it was those Trusts that necessitated the creation of antitrust law here in the US.

So, capitalism--Ayn Randian objectivist wholesale capitalism minus all government interference--stopped playing by its own rules. They stopped competing, and they would have never competed again if it weren't for our government intervening to enforce the rules of capitalism. That was how it failed. When the government is required to enforce the rules of capitalism upon capitalism, capitalism ceases to be self-regulating. It becomes a hybrid economy, and objectivism dies.

It died before Ayn Rand was even born.
 
I don't see how I am. I live in the great Western capitalist experiment itself, the United States, and we have in our history tried to practice the kind capitalism Ayn Rand advocated for. It failed.

In the late 19th Century capitalists were doing everything, it really was a great time of economic growth and flowering of infrastructure. We had already built the transcontinental railroad and extended telegraph service from coast to coast. Edison was laying the groundwork for the electrical grid in New York City. I can only assume it must've seemed like something new was being invented every day. So, how could this have possibly failed?

It was James Pierpont Morgan who killed it. See, prior to J.P. Morgan's need to ameliorate the failure of Thomas Edison's DC electricity, he convinced all the captains of industry who had heretofore been be competing viciously with each other that competition was bad for business. Thing is, Morgan was right. Competition is terrible for business. It was called Morganization, and it amounted to all the great industries creating binding legal instruments among themselves promising not to intrude on eachother's business interests. It worked. They stopped competing. They nestled themselves happily into their respective economic spheres of influence and everything was fantastic for them. They're called Trusts, and it was those Trusts that necessitated the creation of antitrust law here in the US.

So, capitalism--Ayn Randian objectivist wholesale capitalism minus all government interference--stopped playing by its own rules. They stopped competing, and they would have never competed again if it weren't for our government intervening to enforce the rules of capitalism. That was how it failed. When the government is required to enforce the rules of capitalism upon capitalism, capitalism ceases to be self-regulating. It becomes a hybrid economy, and objectivism dies.

It died before Ayn Rand was even born.

Yep, part of the great American experiment here, too, business owner and entrepreneur who puts Randian principles to use on a daily basis. I was doing this decades before I even really discovered who she was. And I'm here to tell you that our government is probably the greatest impediment to business expansion there is, and that anyone who thinks "competition is bad for business" simply does not know the first thing about the subject. Competition drives innovation and stimulates competitive pricing, and gives consumers choices.

Which is not to say Ayn's novels were meant to be taken as economic blueprints, they were just novels after all, but rather that her core principles were sound, her philosophy on the nature of evil was remarkably accurate, and her view on the relationship between brains and brawn was almost deadly in it's accuracy. Anybody can read her works and come away with a firm understanding of the parasitical relationship between the makers and those who simply consume at the expense of those who produce, regardless of how unlikely the fictional premise was to her distopian future magnum opus.
 
giphy.gif


How the hell did we go from GraX sucking in Open ( :D ) to .. whatever it is this lot *waves above* are on about?
 
the parasitical relationship

Symbiotic - and objectivism is all too damning. Relies on lack of perspective. Can't only look down on people.

Capitalism can't self regulate without chewing up humans mercilessly on it's way and we can all produce examples of that. We're humans. We like not getting chewed up. Balance is the key to avoiding living in purely theoretical applications of views that only ever represent a few facets of the situation and fail to get the big picture.
 
Symbiotic - and objectivism is all too damning. Relies on lack of perspective. Can't only look down on people.

Capitalism can't self regulate without chewing up humans mercilessly on it's way and we can all produce examples of that. We're humans. We like not getting chewed up. Balance is the key to avoiding living in purely theoretical applications of views that only ever represent a few facets of the situation and fail to get the big picture.

Do you have the technical prowess to 'stache my avatar or not? That's all I care about now!
 
For a poster who thrives on controversy, using this avatar pic is the best thing that's ever happened to me. It's like equipping a g5 engineered 8A Fuel Scoop to my profile:)
Heh, how true. One sucks at an immense rate, the other is a fuel scoop.

Nope, not the best I could do but I'm pressed for time, so it'll have to do for the controversy bucket.
 
Back
Top Bottom