GREED? THY NAME IS AYN
In Business, History, Politics, Social commentary on March 13, 2013 at 12:00 am
“Thirty years after her death, Ayn Rand’s ideas have never been more important.
“Unfettered capitalism, unregulated business, bare-bones government
providing no social services, glorification of selfishness, disdain for
Judeo-Christian morality—these are the tenets of Rand’s harsh
philosophy.”
So reads the jacket blurb for
Ayn Rand Nation: The Struggle for America’s Soul, by Gary Weiss.
“The timing of this book couldn’t be better for Americans who are
trying to understand where in the hell the far-out right’s anti-worker,
anti-egalitarian extremism is coming from,” asserts Jim Hightower,
New York Times bestselling author of
Thieves in High Places.
“
Ayn Rand Nation introduces us to the godmother of such Tea
Party craziness as destroying Social Security and eliminating Wall
Street regulation. Weiss writes with perception and wit.”
For those who believe that Rand’s philosophy is the remedy for America’s economic and social ills, a
60 Minutes news story sounds a warning.
New England Compounding Center (NECC) pharmacy, based in Framington,
Massachusetts, is under criminal investigation. The reason: Shipping,
in the fall of 2012, 17,000 vials of a steroid to be injected into the
joints or spines of patients suffering chronic pain.
But instead of relieving pain, this steroid–contaminated with fungal meningitis–brought only agony and death.
The vials went out to thousands of pharmacies scattered across 23 states.
Forty-eight people have died, and 720 are still fighting horrific infections caused by the drug.
Just as Ayn Rand would have wanted, the pharmacy managed to avoid supervision by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
NECC was one of thousands of pharmacies that Congress exempted from
FDA oversight. The reason: By law, they are allowed to make custom drugs
for just one patient at a time.
But within a few years, NECC went national–and vastly expanded the quantities of drugs produced.
“The underlying factor is that the company got greedy and
overextended and we got sloppy, and something happened,” John Connolly, a
lab technician for the company, told
60 Minutes, the CBS news magazine.
And, also as Rand would have wanted, the four family members who
founded the pharmacy were enriched by it–receiving over $16 million in
wages and profits, from December 2011 through November 2012.
Bankruptcy records show the family members racked up $90,000 on
corporate American Express credit cards, including charges made after
the company shut down in early October.
A month before the first steroid death, Connolly says he warned his
supervisor: “Something’s gonna happen, something’s gonna get missed and
we’re gonna get shut down.”
His supervisor just shrugged.
NECC was shut down by the authorities. Barry Cadden, the president
and lead pharmacist of the company, was subpoenaed by Congress to
testify. In true gangster fashion, he pleaded the Fifth.
He claims he doesn’t know how the contamination started.
Which brings us back to Ayn Rand–and, more specifically,
Ayn Rand Nation.
Among the themes explored in Weiss’ book:
- Atlas Shrugged–Rand’s 1957 novel–depicts a United States
where many of society’s most productive citizens refuse to be exploited
by increasing taxation and government regulations and go on strike. The
refusal evokes the imagery of what would happen if the mythological
Atlas refused to continue to hold up the world. The novel continues to
influence those who aren’t hard-core Rand followers, who are known as
Objectivists.
- Ayn Rand’s novels dramatically affirm such bedrock American values
as independence, creativity, self-reliance, and above all, a permanent
distrust of government.
- In Rand’s 1936 novel, We the Living–set in Soviet
Russia–her heroine, Kira Argounova, tells a Communist: “I loathe your
ideals; I admire your methods.” Objectivists believe in defending
capitalism with the same ruthless methods of Communists.
- In Rand’s ideal world, government would control only police, armies
and law courts. To her, a government which performs more than these
three functions is not simply impractical or expensive: it is evil.
Many of those who embrace Rand substitute rage for logic: Tea
Partiers are furious about the 2008 Wall Street crash, yet they blame
the government for it.
(Ironically, in a way, they are right: The government can be blamed–but not for
too much regulation of greed-fueled capitalists but
too little.)
Weiss asserts that Tea Party members resent the social and economic
realities facing the nation, but lack a coherent intellectual framework
to help them focus and justify their rage. But Objectivists have–and
offer–such a framework.
Thus, Tea Partiers form the ideological part of the right wing, and
the clarity–and fanaticism–of their views gives them a power far out of
proportion to their numbers.
Weiss believes that Rand is presenting a moral argument for
laissez-faire capitalism, which means eliminating Social Security,
Medicare, public road system, fire departments, parks, building
codes–and, above all, any type of financial regulation.
Weiss maintains that Rand’s moral argument must be directly
confronted–and defeated–with moral arguments calling for charity and
rationality.
Given the fanaticism of Tea Partiers and the right-wing Republicans
they support, success in countering Rand’s
“I’ve-got-mine-and-the-hell-with-everybody-else” morality is by no means
assured.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) coined a spirited term over the weekend for a trio of high-powered Republicans from the Badger State.
In a Saturday interview with USA Today’s Capital Download, Walker talked about his friendship with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). When asked if both he and Ryan could run for president in 2016, Walker said it was an "interesting question," adding that "who knows what the future will bring?"
What he was sure of was the success of three big-name Wisconsin Republicans, remarking how he, Ryan and Reince Priebus all grew up within miles of one another.
"Paul grew up 15 miles to the west of me," Walker said. "Reince Priebus, who’s the RNC (Republican National Committee) chair, grew up about 20 miles to the east of me. There must have been something in the water at the time….We say it’s kind of a Cheesehead Revolution."
With nearly three years to go before the 2016 presidential picture hits its peak, HuffPost Pollster's latest compilation of 27 publicly available polls shows Ryan and Walker both in the mix as potential GOP candidates. Ryan, who served as the party's 2012 vice presidential candidate, netted 11 percent of the hypothetical vote, while Walker earned eight percent.