Atlas Shrugged

sponsoredwalk

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

And why doesn't it surprise me that your source is the Daily Mail?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

sponsoredwalk

Do you remember all of those big essay's I wrote over the last few pages, after the Allende thing, they are full of questions and criticisms you haven't answered. Of course you don't see any coherent arguments when you refuse to read, and respond to, challenges which I can't keep repeating over and over again...

My arguments, if you had read what I've been writing, are with the claims you've been making. You've also made quite a few claims on behalf of Rand that I've questioned. Also, I've challenged Rand herself when she wrote that nonsensical piece about anarchism in that essay I read. If other people are misrepresenting Rand that is not my fault, I'm going on what is in front of me and you'll notice I've said very little about Atlas Shrugged and more about the things you've written here and the things you've attributed to Rand. I really really challenge you to find flaws in my arguments because I think it would get you to properly acknowledge my concerns about these things you've been advocating.

Also, how can I argue when you read the material I give you and lie about it.

• [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Fernando Corbato at the MIT Computation Center led a team that created one of the first multi-user operating systems called the Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS), which was highly influential.[/FONT]

• [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]In the mid-1960's, CTSS was used to help build a next generation multi-user operating system called the Multiplexed Information and Computing System (MULTICS)[/FONT]

• [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]originally started as a joint research effort by AT&T Bell Labs, General Electric, and MIT. However, Bell Labs pulled out of the project in 1969 because of the high maintenance costs of the GE-645 computer and lack of immediately useful results. [/FONT]

• [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The Bell Labs staff involved with MULTICS, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, M. D. Mcllroy, and Joe Ossanna, saw great value in the communal environment enabled by a multi-user computer system, and started looking for a way to preserve the capability. [/FONT]

Now, from wikipedia as it's more consice than reading the demonic looking 3 whole paragraphs before you read the answer to your lie.

(The following is all from wikipedia
cleaned up so that you can actually
read it without all that blue writing).

"In the 1960s, Massacheusets Institute of Technology, AT&T Bell Labs, and General Electric,

developed an experimental operating system called Multics for the GE-645 mainframe.

Multics was highly innovative, but had many problems.
Bell Labs, frustrated by the size and complexity of Multics but not the aims,
slowly pulled out of the project.

Their last researchers to leave Multics, Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, M. D. McIlroy, and J. F. Ossanna,

decided to redo the work on a much smaller scale.

At the time, Ritchie says



"What we wanted to preserve was not just a good environment in which to do programming, but a system around which a fellowship could form.

We knew from experience that the essence of communal computing, as supplied by remote-access, time-shared machines,

is not just to type programs into a terminal instead of a keypunch,

but to encourage close communication."

(Edit: Were they lying
about this?Is this them
secretly doing all of
this for money?)

While Ken Thompson still had access to the Multics environment, he wrote simulations for the new file and paging system on it.

He also programmed a game called Space Travel, but the game needed a more efficient and less expensive machine to run on,

and eventually a little-used PDP-7, at Bell Labs fit the bill.

On this PDP7, a team of Bell Labs researchers led by Thompson and Ritchie, including Rudd Canaday, developed a heirarchical file system,

the notions of computer processes and device files, a command line interpreter, and some small utility programs.
1970s

In the 1970s Brian Kernighan coined the project name Unics as a play on Multics,

(MULTiplexed Information and Computing Service).



Unics could eventually support multiple simultaneous users, and it was renamed Unix.

Up until this point there had been no financial support from Bell Labs. "

So, can you explain how Bell would have gotten involved with UNIX if M.I.T had not created CTSS? Also, can you explain how Bell would have gotten UNIX if 3 of their workers hadn't had the passion to go against their companies policy of pulling out of projects because of saving money?

Also, can you explain how this private telecommunications company created UNIX when they hadn't given any money or funding until after the thing was first created, and even rejected offers from the 3 guys who independently put forward proposals early in the development :rolleyes:

sponsoredwalk

I have a feeling I left you a little wiggle room for getting out of this argument by some debating technique so I'll completely clarify.

If CTSS was not made in the public sector under government money none of this would have happened.

Based on the success of CTSS, the new MULTICS was initiated as a joint project between public and private industry.

Private industry, i.e. Bell, pulled out very quickly due to no immediate success.

Some of the workers used technology originating from the public sector to independently produce their UNIX precursor based off the technological advances made possible by CTSS.

Bell refused to fund their work initailly. The guys used a simpe, small machine inside their workplace to get further.
This is the extent of Bell's involvement, the guys used a machine inside Bell to run a computer game.

Then, when they get things going independently and even get the name UNIX going, Bell comes in and starts providing some funding.

This is your idea of a private industry creating something, i.e. getting everything done practically for free on their part...

(well, after losing money due to their business as usual approach and demand for instant monetary gratification).

Do your research before making bold claims...

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

stevejazzx

robindch wrote: »

Oh yes, and the iPhone's OS is based upon OS-X, which took much from Free-BSD, another open-source project.

free BSD (blue screen death;))? surely you mean windows!:)

B.O.T
I looked at another Rand interview, she claimed that most people don't deserve love and they should most defintely not get it, unless they are, in her view, worthy of it. It struck me instantly that perhaps some people need love to become better people. So her starting point seems to be some kind of hard line position where people are all organsied and productive from the get go - simply doesn't happen.

sponsoredwalk

So, because you say it is that makes it true, okay...

When I provide sources to my opinions and views you think it fit to deride them instead of seeing that I'm not just making sh*t up, that's how truth is acquired, I see...

If you read my 3000 word essay's they are simply proving a single sentence point that I make usually preceeding the quotes. Everything I've said is extremely simple and not hard to understand - unless it contradicts your claims...

If you're having a mature discussion that is truthful you expect hardcore evidence to show you're not waffling. I'm sorry if the caliber of my discussion is not at your level but I care about the truth of what someone says & care very much so that someone sees I'm not making stuff up or making unfounded claims, not only for their benefit but for mine - I don't like believing and propagating erroneous things...

Also, if you were in some historical or scientific conference and claimed these people were indulging in argumenta ad verbosium you'd be laughed out of the place, if I said that to you when you argued for something Rand said how would you react? In fact, how have you reacted to all of the people you claim to misrepresent her :rolleyes:
It's pure hypocrisy on your part to criticize others for misrepresenting things then go off and do it yourself tenfold, let alone being unable to defend it...


I suppose it is the internet though and we are able to get away with anything...

Now, what has Berkeley's BSD got to do with anything? Is this supposed to imply you know your stuff?

If you just checked the dates here you'd realise BSD comes well after all of the things I've provided evidence for.

We were talking about the origins here, and you blithely ignoring the fact that I have provided uncontroversial proof that UNIX was created independently by bell workers resisting company policy. This is not proof it all originated with Bell, it's the opposite. I'll leave it up to anyone reading this to decide who is right, there is no point in arguing over simple and uncontroversial historical records...

I'm growing tired of playing games, either you're interested in the truth of the matter or winning an argument, I'm simply working off historical evidence not what I just think to be the case.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

robindch

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Because, to a large extent, you appear to be ignoring them.

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

It was clear from page one that Atlas Shrugged is a crap book and I bow to Obni's superior nose-holding ability that he made it past page 150.

In fact, Rand's output is worth of a review like Macaulay's famous one of Dr Nares' Life of Burghley, of which the following is a short extract:

Thomas Babington Macaulay wrote:

Memoirs of the Life and Administration of the Right Honourable William Cecil Lord Burghley, Secretary of State in the Reign of King Edward the Sixth, and Lord High Treasurer, of England in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. Containing an historical View of the Times in which he lived, and of the many eminent and illustrious Persons with whom he was connected; with Extracts from his Private and Official Correspondence and other Papers, now first published from the Originals. By the Reverend EDWARD NARES, D.D., Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford. 3 vols. 4to. London: 1828, 1832.

THE work of Dr. Nares has filled us with astonishment similar to that which Captain Lemuel Gulliver felt when first he landed in Brobdingnag, and saw corn as high as the oaks in the New Forest, thimbles as large as buckets, and wrens of the bulk of turkeys. The whole book, and every component part of it, is on a gigantic scale. The title is as long as an ordinary preface: the prefatory matter would furnish out an ordinary book; and the book contains as much reading as an ordinary library. We cannot sum up the merits of the stupendous mass of paper which lies before us better than by saying that it consists of about two thousand closely printed quarto pages, that it occupies fifteen hundred inches cubic measure, and that it weighs sixty pounds avoirdupois. Such a book might, before the deluge, have been considered as light reading by Hilpa and Shallum. But unhappily the, life of man is now three-score years and ten; and we cannot but think it somewhat unfair in Dr. Nares to demand from us so large a portion of so short an existence.

Compared with the labour of reading through these volumes, all other labour, the labour of thieves on the treadmill, of children in factories, of negroes in sugar plantations, is an agreeable recreation. There was, it is said, a criminal in Italy, who was suffered to make his choice between Guicciardini and the galleys. He chose the history. But the war of Pisa was too much for him. He changed his mind, and went to the oar. Guicciardini, though certainly not the most amusing of writers, is a Herodotus or a Froissart, when compared with Dr. Nares, It is not merely in bulk, but in specific gravity also, that these memoirs exceed all other human compositions. On every subject which the Professor discusses, he produces three times as many pages as another man; and one of his pages is as tedious as another man's three. His book is swelled to its vast dimensions by endless repetitions, by episodes which have nothing to do with the main action, by quotations from books which are in every circulating library, and by reflections which, when they happen to be just, are so obvious that they must necessarily occur to the mind of every reader. He employs more words in expounding and defending a truism than any other writer would employ in supporting a paradox. Of the rules of historical perspective, he has not the faintest notion. There is neither foreground nor background in his delineation. The wars of Charles the Fifth in Germany are detailed at almost as much length as in Robertson's life of that prince. The troubles of Scotland are related as fully as in M'Crie's Life of John Knox. It would be most unjust to deny that Dr. Nares is a man of great industry and research; but he is so utterly incompetent to, arrange the materials which he has collected that he might as well have left them in their original repositories.

Neither the facts which Dr. Nares has discovered, nor the arguments which he urges, will, we apprehend, materially alter the opinion generally entertained by judicious readers of history concerning his hero. Lord Burleigh can hardly be called a great man.

Etc, etc, etc.

robindch

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

[/QUOTE]Methinks the author didn't receive a Valentine's Day card.

strobe

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

First, I didn't mention waving a magic wand, or anything happening instantaneously overnight, or that I really thought it could happen. If you would like me to expand on how exactly the shift to the system proposed by anarcho-communism is supposed to be brought about I would be happy to expand. But first to see if there is any point I'd need you to read the text below this:

Ah now come on man first you come out with

Will people invent everything from microchips to iPhones so as to "contribute to society"? No, they simply won't.

as an argument......"No, they simply won't." Without even the pretense of trying to explain why they won't. Next you respond to my explanation of why they possibly would with

this is so naive that I don't even know where to begin.

without addressing even one of the reasons why I suggested people might.......

Would you even bother responding to a post I made that went:

You think people will donate altruistically and that will provide help for the people that genuinly need and deserve it?!? They simply won't.....That is unbelievably naive

:without any argument whatsoever presented as to why they wouldn't or why I believe it to be naive??

I realise you are trying to respond to several people at a time here but if you are going to respond to specific posts at all it has to be with something more than "No you are wrong!".

---

The reason I came back into the thread today before seeing your quoted post was to address, what I see as some very obvious and very serious problems I see with implementing and maintaining a anarcho-communist system. You haven't put them forward at the time of typing your response to me and I was waiting for you to do so to see how Sponsoredwalk or anyone else advocating that system would respond. So I'll throw them up myself as an open question to see if there is a proposed solution to the problems, that I am unaware of.

stevejazzx

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

That article addresses the traditional notion of love between a couple and not the more rounded notions of love that exists freely between family and friends etc. Nonetheless I will address it - What it claims is that love is (on a subconscious level sometimes) really selfish becasue a person is only in it for themselves, to further their position, in one way or the other, in life. It's a poor argument becasue it assumes these feelings typify your regualr person upon entering a realtionship and second guesses the nature of this regualr person as being some kind Randian liberal with a penchant for wanting over realise existence and under aprreciate life and people. Pity.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

stevejazzx

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

jk rowling is a popular author with millions of sales
and i can tell you - it's dreadful almost all of it; likewise dan brown and you can add coutless other bestselling hacks to that list.

life is not about money, its important - lets not make it more important than it needs to be.

Catsmokinpot

strobe wrote: »

Fairly big contradiction there do surely. To say "people shouldn't have power over other people" and then "why shouldn't we ensure everyone is doing their fair share?" How can you ensure that everyone is doing their fair share without coercion? You could encourage others to help disadvantaged people while keeping it entirely voluntary but to ensure they do is impossible without coercion, meaning you would have to advocate some form of power over people.

The only power the state should have over people is to prevent suffering of another person, ensuring everyone does their fair share falls under that category.

Catsmokinpot

sponsoredwalk wrote: »

Remember, under this form of governance you're advocating, there will be no laws that the government can impose on companies like in the current situation, and if nobodies lives are directly ruined then they get away with it scot free.

Causing no harm to another by definition would include both directly and indirectly

I know barely anyone is looking at my links at this stage but there is a film about this exact question free online called "The Corporation", it's 3 hours of well documented material that just shows how stupid the suggestion that BP are cleaning up out of everyone's interest is...

I saw the corporation, 3 hours of win if you ask me! Definitely one of my top 5 - all time favourite documentaries.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

sponsoredwalk

It's an awesome documentary, isn't it? It's very related to that Adam Curtis doc too, with Bernaise being the propaganda behind the corporation as a person. I've got to watch is again soon

Causing harm has nothing to do with their ideas in the way you make it out to be, under libertarian governance, or a system of liberal capitalism, the whole idea is to abolish the state or restrict it to the max . This includes welfare systems and those systems that aid people when they are down so how does the state aid people from harm if these are gone? As I'll repeat, a mother with children who dares to see rearing children as work as opposed to the economic variety so highly lusted over has 3 choices: die; work even though she chooses not to, (in contrast to libertarian/objectivist principles of freedom of choice); hope for a handout from some person who either finds some way to profit from it or chooses to lose money for the benefit of a human being(s).

If some forms of welfare/aid are introduced can you please point out the difference between this idea and contemporary capitalism, bar giving companies more freedom to pillage? Oh, remember plenty of companies already do have freedom throughout the world to use extortion and practically slave-wage labor to get the job done and make our lives so glamorous, and lie about the nutritious value of their product to mothers so that their children die of malnutrition, and lie about medicine through advertising, etc.... So, with this in mind, spot the difference :rolleyes:

I have yet to read an author of this ilk talk about harming people indirectly by their programs, i.e. it doesn't exist to them because it's not personal. Goodbye L.H.C. unless a consortium of astounding investors figure out a way to make a quick buck out of it.

Valmont

robindch wrote: »

Because, to a large extent, you appear to be ignoring them.It was clear from page one that Atlas Shrugged is a crap book and I bow to Obni's superior nose-holding ability that he made it past page 150.

24 pages in and we are back where we started; Robindch making grandiose pronouncements on a book he still hasn't read and about a philosophy he refuses to engage with on any level.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

sponsoredwalk

Valmont wrote: »

24 pages in and we are back where we started; Robindch making grandiose pronouncements on a book he still hasn't read and about a philosophy he refuses to engage with on any level.

Look, he's entitled to his opinion, he's after reading 24 pages of questions and challenges and is no less convinced by any arguments put forth in favour of Rand's philosophy and has asked questions but gotten few answers other than read the 1500 page book. Rand's work, a work of fiction, has one* purpose of setting out a particular philosophy & we've questioned that general philosophy. If Rand is allowed to condense 100 years of Anarchism into a misrepresentation in order to atempt to show how she is right - and have me correct her, I think it's fair to ask those knowledgeable of Rand's work to correct Robindch's pronouncements with more than just 'read the 1500 page book', assuming there are arguments to be made.

If you know the answers to some of his questions, or mine, it would be helpful to target them as opposed to those kinds of comments, his posts are small so his key points should be easy to target by scrolling back a few pages, mine, if you dare to read them , are also in want of answers - if possible, ty


*among others

liamw

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Perhaps if you clairified where his points are incorrect about her philosophy, rather than saying over and over again how he's not allowed have an opinion, then we might all learn something about Rand. I would get you if Robin just said 'Her philosophy sucks' over and over again but he's just made some points about why he thinks it is bad?

Is there honestly no way we can have a conversation about Rand until we read Altas Shrugged?

strobe

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

A long long time ago, and probably at an age too young to understand it fully. I can't claim to be in a position to offer any kind of a rebuttal of it, not that I would particularly feel a need to. So maybe you can help me out here, I don't really see how an argument against government coercion in the market place would have the slightest bearing on an anarchistic society. You can't criticise a government that does not exist surely? Was Hayek's main beef not with totalitarian socialism, as opposed to a society where non-coercion is given a supreme importance? You appear to be dismissing the anarcho part of anarcho-communism in order to challenge it, when that first part, the part that stresses individualism, liberalism, non coercion and freedom is the over-riding, non negotiable point of the whole theory........

Tell you what—you feed my baby daughter her dinner, and I'll type responses to 3,000 Wikipedia cut-and-paste jobs.

That's fair enough man, like I said I know you are answering several people at once but I personally haven't copy pasted anything in this thread that I am aware of. My issue was with you quoting and replying to my specific posts, making me feel like I should respond, but only replying with one or two sentence dissmissive remarks. While not trying to refute anything I said in anyway other than to basically say "No, you're wrong, I'm right" with no explanation or not even an attempt to back it up.

If you don't have the time to post more (not even more, just something that contributes in some way) in response, opr you just can't be bothered I'd prefer if you either waited untill you had the time or simply didn't repond at all. I'll return the favour.

Well, yes, there are obvious and serious problems—but you're clearly already aware of them, so why were you waiting for me to spell them out?

Well you seem to be pointing out problems that could be easily overcome or simply don't exist. "Why would anyone invent a microchip if they weren't going to make a fortune out of it?" then ignoring the valid explanation of why someone would invent a microchip.

What you should have been doing is pointing out the problems that do exist. "Who is going to clean the piss off the pub toilet floors after a busy Saturday night?" or "Who is going to stand beside a conveyor belt making sure an endless stream of jars going past are in a straight line for 8 hours five days a week when they would be intitled to the same quality of life if they spent those 40 hours a week sitting at home posting on boards.ie?"

The solution to the problems of so-called "anarcho-communism," although you won't want to hear it, is liberal capitalism.

I agree completely. Just as I would agree, although you won't want to hear it, that the solution to the problems of so-called "liberal capatilism" are called anarcho-communism. {and you really really won't want to hear this but totalitarian facism also solves many of the problems of liberal capitalism and anarcho-communism.....doesn't mean I am going to start breaking in my jack boots any time soon}

The Mad Hatter

liamw wrote: »

Is there honestly no way we can have a conversation about Rand until we read Altas Shrugged?

Christians Libertarians are like that about The Bible Atlas Shrugged, though. They think if we just read it with an open mind, we'll come around to their religion philosophy.

Valmont

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Christians Libertarians are like that about The Bible Atlas Shrugged, though. They think if we just read it with an open mind, we'll come around to their religion philosophy.

Speaking of libertarians, I'm guessing you aren't familiar with the ideas of Nobel laureates Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman then? Or even those of Rothbard, Bastiat, and Von Mises? Ironically, I would suggest you look closer to home with your religious parallels. Who deifies a vague and ambiguous society above all individuality? Who proposes subservience to the "greater good"? It's definitely not Ayn Rand or any libertarians that's for sure.

"No Gods or Kings, only Man"

sponsoredwalk

I think it's pretty obvious what he meant

We certainly know Friedman and Hayek wouldn't be able to conceive of anything higher than money...

robindch

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Valmont wrote: »

24 pages in and we are back where we started; Robindch making grandiose pronouncements on a book he still hasn't read and about a philosophy he refuses to engage with on any level.

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

sponsoredwalk wrote: »

Look, he's entitled to his opinion, he's after reading 24 pages of questions and challenges and is no less convinced by any arguments put forth in favour of Rand's philosophy and has asked questions but gotten few answers other than read the 1500 page book.

Answers certainly have been few and far between.

Which is not all that surprising since the only people whom I know outside of boards.ie who support Rand and her views are similarly unhappy at seeing public criticism of her and appear likewise incapable of describing in clear, straightforward terms what Rand actually said and how these ideas can form the basis for a workable, productive polity. But far from mounting a credible, thoughtful, carefully-worded defense -- as one would expect of people who genuinely seem to think that they believe in the supremacy of rationality -- instead, these good people simply choose instead to insult the messenger, when he cannot be shot.

As I implied somewhere previously, and the Mad Hatter said much more succinctly just here, Rand and her followers appear to share much with religious fundamentalists in this respect.

Valmont

liamw wrote: »

Is there honestly no way we can have a conversation about Rand until we read Altas Shrugged?

Forget Atlas Shrugged. Forget The Fountainhead. Read The Road to Serfdom. Read An Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. Read Libertarianism: A Primer. Goodness just read anything about classic liberal thought and philosophy. This thread started with "Rand is shit" and pretty much developed as any argument based on such a partisan opinion would be expected to go. Nowhere.

robindch wrote: »

...likewise incapable of describing in clear, straightforward terms what Rand actually said and how these ideas can form the basis for a workable, productive polity.

Again, you made your mind up long ago and as such, are incapable of listening to any contrary evidence.

Donegalfella wrote:

The central idea of Atlas Shrugged is highly relevant to our present moment—which is that if the productive, wealth-generating capacity of the private sector is taxed and regulated out of existence by an overbearing, interfering, redistributionist government, under the guise of protecting the "common good," we ultimately force industrialists, businesspeople, and entrepreneurs out of existence. As we target "the wealthy" for the alleged benefit of "the vulnerable," we only make our economies sluggish and inefficient—and if we push things to their logical conclusion, we invite a complete societal and economic collapse that ironically impacts the most vulnerable in society most of all. The book is a fierce and impassioned argument for a government that does not inhibit individuals from accomplishing whatever they can in life, and that does not attempt to confiscate the fruits of their innovation, creativity, ingenuity, and labour. In Rand's view, nobody should be "entitled" through the redistributionist power of government to live off someone else's work.

Here is the novel in its condensed form yet you still can't read it.

strobe

Ahh the thread hasn't been that bad Valmont. These kinds of threads never really "go anywhere" per se, anymore than a thread called "does god exists" would go anywhere because the most vocal people on both sides seem to be the ones most polarised and resistant to changing their opinion.

But if it's any consilation I'm certainly learning a lot and finding it very interesting, and seeing as the thread has nearly 7,000 views there must be a few more lurkers here with me following it. I said early on I hadn't read Atlas Shrugged, but I'd definately say I'm more informed on the subject of liberal capitalism now than I was, aswell as socialism, anarchism and political theory in general. Although I get how it would be frustrating for the people that have been posting consistantly from the start as a lot of the same ground seems to be getting covered over and over.

Am I the only one coming out of this thread better informed than when I went in? Any of my fellow lurkers out there want to give a shout out? Just me huh?

Anyway were where we? Oh, that's right........Jesus was never...eh...no, no.......Muslims are always........that wasn't it.........something about the Book of Genesis?

sponsoredwalk

If you read most comments questioning and criticizing these idea's put forth in this thread you'll notice that they are criticizing that exact idea...

If you'd go back and read the criticisms they are all directly related to that idea, this little game claiming we don't know what we're talking about is not fair because that is the claim most people are criticizing.

Don't you realise that what you've described is the society we have now, except there is taxation on the wealthy, but also plenty of subidizing in their favour...

All that paragraph advocates is to stop taxing the rich by saying that those people that make money are the creative people in the world, ignoring the fact that money isn't everything...

If that's the best description of Rand possible then I'm surprised, I was able to do a lot more justice to anarchism in a small essay than you've probably done to Rand, (assuming quite a lot after reaing the things posited in this thread), so if Rand is so impossibly complex as you's are attempting to make it out to be then I doubt you understand the thing.

The sad thing is that people have implemented the idea's in that paragraph in Russia, Chile and Brazil and all these countries economies turned into basketcases, (That term is justified by plenty of historical evidence), so everything is not so hunky dory as it appears. Real human beings have died because of these policies and force was required in each case to kep these policies in place because the people didn't want them. I believe Russia had like 18 Billionaire's in the 90's while the rest of the country sunk from a 2nd world country to a 3rd world country...

You have to admit that is pretty crazy, and that not all of Russia's people would be able to become captain's of industry together - some people have to subservient to these leaders of enterprise...

So, who is this theory written for...?