Sunday, May 27, 2012
• Face it, the US economy is socialist
So far, we’ve talked about a faux socialism and a real socialism. One is defined as socialism by those to the right of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman. The other serves human needs, not the potentially dehumanising demands of shareholders. But there is yet another kind of socialism that libertarian Republicans approve of. Socialism for corporations and the rich.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
• The Tale of Two Romneys
The question going into the general election is: who is the real Mitt Romney? We don’t really know which of them is running, the moderate from Massachusetts, as Newt Gingrich never tired of saying, or the conservative mantle bearer who is philosophically to the right of Ayn Rand.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
• In Florida, Romney could lead Republicans out of the wilderness
That [Ron Paul is] running at all suggests an incredible realignment of the stars and planets so that voters who are to the extreme right of the Strom Thurmond and Ayn Rand have a fantastic shot at taking hold of the heart of the Republican Party. [....] What liberals don’t see is that Paul’s platforms are rooted in pre-modernity.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
• • Worse than you think
Influenced by the novelist Ayn Rand (The Fountainhead), whose pseudo-philosophy of moral greed influenced economic thinkers like Milton Friedman (University of Chicago economist) and Alan Greenspan (former Federal Reserve Chairman), Reagan championed a conceptual framework — free-market ideology — that systematically weakened regulation for a generation. Of course, it’s largely a myth. In a complex society, there’s only so much control you can have over your own life. [....] If you believe in self-reliance, individual ruggedness and Nixon/Reagan-style “private virtue,” and if you believe, as Oral Roberts did, that God will reward you with wealth, or, as Ayn Rand did, that excessive wealth is morally justifiable — and if you do, you probably don’t care much for the idea of welfare, getting something for nothing — then what happens when your job is outsourced to India or China? You feel something. Probably shame. Like it’s all your fault.
Monday, November 09, 2009
• Here and eternity
Which comes first: Material factors, like the price of wheat on the commodities exchange, or highfalutin concepts, like a free-market ideology, which gives principles for how wheat should be sold and the proper role of government? Both? Neither? Even Ayn Rand couldn't say for sure.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
• Duke law professor Jedediah Purdy
On the book A Tolerable Anarchy: Rebels, Reactionaries, and the Making of American Freedom, by Jedediah Purdy.
Reagan was influenced by economic thinkers such as Milton Friedman and polemicists such as Ayn Rand.