I haven't read "Atlas Shrugged," but I agree the premise

yoffwe wrote:

Just paying an honest amount of tax would be a start.

First, the rich already pay majority of the taxes in America. So, how much more should the government extort from them?

Second,no amount of theft is fair. You are not entitled to anything I work for, as Thomas Sowell said, "I have never understood why it is greed to want to keep the money you earned, but not greed to want to take someone else's money" .Taxation is theft as Lysander Spooner said, "If taxation without consent is not robbery, then any band of robbers have only to declare themselves a government, and all their robberies are legalized." The government is nothing more than a mafia style extortion racket as Murray Rothbard said, " The State is a gang of thieves writ large - the most immoral, grasping and unscrupulous individuals in any society."

Broadly speaking - its whatever is in line with the country in which you live and accumulate your money.

Without getting into a debate about loopholes and evasion vs avoision; if youre happy to take the money off folks who benefit from public services then you can help to pay proportionally for those public services as well.

"No action can be virtuous unless it is freely chosen."-Murray N. Rothbard

hahaha - you think you'd be richer without a Government. Hilarious.

DiscoGary wrote:

What's most amazing about this is that Atlas Shrugged was released in 1957, and in 1960 the US auto industry led the world and Detroit was the richest city in the US per capita. So Rand looked at the most successful part of society and predicted that Liberalism would reduce it to ruins , and she was right! Very, very impressive.

Oh boy. And then you get confirmation bias like this from the far right that further erodes the conversation. This thread is already a microcosm of why it's impossible to have an intelligent conversation about Rand's writing.

That's one step too far for me. A society without a government is anarchy, and that's not good. Any form of government needs to be funded, so taxes are necessary to pay for that government. I would put it this way, and I have put it this way many times in the past:

A just government helps the individual protect their rights to

Life

Liberty and

Property.

Anything less is a dereliction of duty.

Anything more is an abuse of power.

So any tax which funds a government program which goes beyond its core responsibilities is immoral, theft, mafia extortion, etc.. So given that at least 75% of the Fed Gov budget goes to un-Constitutional programs which have nothing to do with protecting an individual's rights, I would agree with you at least 75%.

I agree that “Rand died a hypocrite” is ad hominem, but I don’t think criticizing the quality of the writing is. If a novel truly does depend upon a naive and unrealistic view of humanity, the world, etc., then how good of a job can it really do at providing the reader with a useful story for thinking on big issues like socialism/calitalism.

I think Atlas Shrugged did a poor job of conveying her “core ideas.” It was a unrealistic novel that gives the reader a fantasy world devoid from the realities of life. It would be like reading a pro-socialist novel that has a capitalistic world where capitalists are portayed as utterly contemptible characters, while a band of perfect heroic socialists are trying to right the ship. That isn’t the world we have ever lived in. The dark side of human nature precludes the possibility of living in a purely socialist or free-market capitalist society.

I think a good novel would at least make an attempt to convey the vagaries of the human condition and not portray complex issues as such an incredibly naive black-and-white fashion.

moist wrote:

DiscoGary wrote:

What's most amazing about this is that Atlas Shrugged was released in 1957, and in 1960 the US auto industry led the world and Detroit was the richest city in the US per capita. So Rand looked at the most successful part of society and predicted that Liberalism would reduce it to ruins , and she was right! Very, very impressive.

Oh boy. And then you get confirmation bias like this from the far right that further erodes the conversation. This thread is already a microcosm of why it's impossible to have an intelligent conversation about Rand's writing.

Well then, please begin the "intelligent conversation". You can begin by explaining what's unintelligent about the point I made.

Forgot to add:

I’m not a Ayn Rand fan myself, but if someone wanta to understand her Objectivist philosophy, then I would highly recommend her philosophical writings rather than her fiction. The former is good (despite the fact that I diasgree with her), while the latter is pretty darn bad.

I don’t think rich people are the problem. The problem is that you have families like the Walton’s who create huge, successful companies and then hoard the wealth to a ridiculous degree while not rewarding their employees. Companies that hire the cheapest possible labor, offer no benefits, and generally have no concern for the welfare of their employees, while also raking in more profit then they could ever spend is definitely a problem. Capitalism is an exceptional system, but it has its problems just like everything else. Nothing is perfect.

yoffwe wrote:

hahaha - you think you'd be richer without a Government. Hilarious.

First, I know I would be just look at what the government has done to the money. Second, even if I wasn't I would as Thomas Jefferson said, "I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery."

Those are nice quotes, but still do not paint the entire picture. The rich also benefit the most. They have the people and the means to pay effective rates lower than your common middle class worker. So yea, a guy making 10 million a year paying 2% effective rate pays way more than I do with my 120k and 17% effective rate (numbers for illustration purposes). That does not mean the rich guy is paying is fair share.

If 100% taxation is slavery, at what percent is it no longer slavery? The government is nothing more than a extortion racket. And, you aren't entitled to anything someone else's earns.

Ukrainian women don't like the premise. Which is more important to you?

If you already agree then don't read it. It sucks. It's grim and extremely laborious, even if you agree with the ideas and viewpoints, which I do.

I'm not sure the pro-socialist novel you describe would be worthless. There are certainly flaws and pitfalls to capitalism that are worth exploring. I think that exploring ideas at the extremes can be useful.

Atlas Shrugged beats you over the head with Rand's views. It depicts her Utopia, which isn't realistic and I agree is fantasy. However, the criticisms of socialistic behavior and values taken to an extreme are insightful and surprisingly accurate. I most appreciated her view of "inverted morality" and criticisms of a value system that rewards the wrong thing. Those are central points to the novel, and the lack of writing quality doesn't diminish their value, in my opinion.

Read The Fountainhead. Terrific book with same ideology

moist wrote:

Atlas Shrugged beats you over the head with Rand's views. It depicts her Utopia, which isn't realistic and I agree is fantasy.

over and over and over and over and over

the book sucks and never ends

moist wrote:

...

It depicts her Utopia, which isn't realistic and I agree is fantasy.

....

Actually, at the time of writing, that Utopia existed. It was called the United States and it was the place that all the producers and achievers of the world ran to to escape from oppression and socialism, so that they could keep the product of their labors. The process Rand describes in Shrugged actually happened on a massive scale, and was responsible for the explosion of economic success in the US ( Galt's Gulch). It used to be called "The Brain Drain" from the perspective of all other countries because all their most successful people were moving here.

Is this too low on intellect for you?