My View: Republican prophets offer freedom for some
By Tom Maertens
The Free Press, Mankato, MN
October 23, 2012
John Maynard Keynes once wrote that “even the most practical man of affairs is usually in the thrall to the ideas of some long-dead economist.” If you include pseudo-economists like Ayn Rand, then that description applies to Paul Ryan, who credited Rand’s fiction for inspiring him to enter public life.
Ryan told the Atlas Society in 2005 that his views on monetary policy were based on a speech by a character in Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” extolling the inherent superiority and morality of rich people. Her paean to unfettered capitalism includes the assertions that “Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue,” and further, “If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject” — later modified in a TV interview to “altruism is evil.”
Alan Greenspan, another “practical man of affairs,” was also a Rand devotee, who swallowed her economic fantasies whole. The most damaging was the astonishing claim that markets were self-correcting, despite one market failure after another and a thousand people being sent to prison for S & L fraud during his time. It would have been less damaging if he had taken his economic theories from Alice in Wonderland. Only after the economy had crashed and Greenspan retired did he acknowledge that he — and Rand — were wrong.
The Right’s other hero these days is F.A. Hayek of the Austrian School, whose works have been cherry-picked to justify the Republicans’ so-called free market policies, which in practice, are really pro-corporation rather than pro-market.
George Orwell said of Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” that free competition means for the great mass of people a tyranny probably worse than that of the state because it’s more irresponsible. “The trouble with competitions is that somebody wins them. Professor Hayek denies that free capitalism necessarily leads to monopolies, but that in practice is where it has led.”
The consequence is inevitably a concentration of wealth at the top and poverty at the bottom. The 400 richest people in America now have more wealth than the bottom 150 million combined. The economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty found that 93 percent of the income gains from the 2009-10 recovery went to the top 1 percent of taxpayers. Because of favorable tax laws for the wealthy, six of the 400 richest taxpayers paid no federal income tax at all in 2009, and 27 paid 10 percent or less according to the IRS. None paid more than 35 percent.
As for free markets, corporate leaders do everything they can to undercut them by “lobbying” legislators for favorable tax treatment, import restrictions, government-protected market share and weakened environmental protections. They use their financial power to obtain favorable property rights and eminent domain laws, zoning rules, patent monopolies, copyright provisions, trade pacts and contract regulations. Money buys political influence which gets corporations breaks like the “Halliburton loophole” that exempts fracking from compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act.
There is a reason that there is no totally free market country in the world: an unregulated market leads to endless boom-and-busts with wealth becoming more concentrated after every cycle. Even Hayek recognized that the state had to protect against this by providing universal health care and basic housing.
Among the many advantages bought by the wealthy are loopholes that allow them to store trillions overseas. A new report by the Tax Justice Network reveals that wealthy individuals and their families, including Mitt Romney, have between $21 trillion and $32 trillion of hidden financial assets in tax havens around the world. Now Romney and Ryan want to cut middle class programs so they can give even more tax breaks to the wealthy.
Then there is the conservative social agenda. Hayek, in “The Constitution of Liberty” (1960), declared that conservatives were like socialists, and that both held detestable, undemocratic views. “The conservative does not object to coercion or arbitrary power so long as it is used for what he regards as the right purposes. Like the socialist, he regards himself as entitled to force the values he holds on other people.”
We see that today in the Republicans’ efforts to impose their views on abortion, to force women to undergo medically unnecessary ultrasounds, to restrict access to contraception, and in their nationwide voter suppression campaign.
One more thing: the hero of Rand’s novel “The Fountainhead” is an architect who blows up a building because his design was changed. In other words, he’s a terrorist.
Mediocre times, wrote Albert Camus in “The Fall,” beget empty prophets.
The Free Press, Mankato, MN
October 23, 2012
John Maynard Keynes once wrote that “even the most practical man of affairs is usually in the thrall to the ideas of some long-dead economist.” If you include pseudo-economists like Ayn Rand, then that description applies to Paul Ryan, who credited Rand’s fiction for inspiring him to enter public life.
Ryan told the Atlas Society in 2005 that his views on monetary policy were based on a speech by a character in Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” extolling the inherent superiority and morality of rich people. Her paean to unfettered capitalism includes the assertions that “Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue,” and further, “If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject” — later modified in a TV interview to “altruism is evil.”
Alan Greenspan, another “practical man of affairs,” was also a Rand devotee, who swallowed her economic fantasies whole. The most damaging was the astonishing claim that markets were self-correcting, despite one market failure after another and a thousand people being sent to prison for S & L fraud during his time. It would have been less damaging if he had taken his economic theories from Alice in Wonderland. Only after the economy had crashed and Greenspan retired did he acknowledge that he — and Rand — were wrong.
The Right’s other hero these days is F.A. Hayek of the Austrian School, whose works have been cherry-picked to justify the Republicans’ so-called free market policies, which in practice, are really pro-corporation rather than pro-market.
George Orwell said of Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” that free competition means for the great mass of people a tyranny probably worse than that of the state because it’s more irresponsible. “The trouble with competitions is that somebody wins them. Professor Hayek denies that free capitalism necessarily leads to monopolies, but that in practice is where it has led.”
The consequence is inevitably a concentration of wealth at the top and poverty at the bottom. The 400 richest people in America now have more wealth than the bottom 150 million combined. The economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty found that 93 percent of the income gains from the 2009-10 recovery went to the top 1 percent of taxpayers. Because of favorable tax laws for the wealthy, six of the 400 richest taxpayers paid no federal income tax at all in 2009, and 27 paid 10 percent or less according to the IRS. None paid more than 35 percent.
As for free markets, corporate leaders do everything they can to undercut them by “lobbying” legislators for favorable tax treatment, import restrictions, government-protected market share and weakened environmental protections. They use their financial power to obtain favorable property rights and eminent domain laws, zoning rules, patent monopolies, copyright provisions, trade pacts and contract regulations. Money buys political influence which gets corporations breaks like the “Halliburton loophole” that exempts fracking from compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act.
There is a reason that there is no totally free market country in the world: an unregulated market leads to endless boom-and-busts with wealth becoming more concentrated after every cycle. Even Hayek recognized that the state had to protect against this by providing universal health care and basic housing.
Among the many advantages bought by the wealthy are loopholes that allow them to store trillions overseas. A new report by the Tax Justice Network reveals that wealthy individuals and their families, including Mitt Romney, have between $21 trillion and $32 trillion of hidden financial assets in tax havens around the world. Now Romney and Ryan want to cut middle class programs so they can give even more tax breaks to the wealthy.
Then there is the conservative social agenda. Hayek, in “The Constitution of Liberty” (1960), declared that conservatives were like socialists, and that both held detestable, undemocratic views. “The conservative does not object to coercion or arbitrary power so long as it is used for what he regards as the right purposes. Like the socialist, he regards himself as entitled to force the values he holds on other people.”
We see that today in the Republicans’ efforts to impose their views on abortion, to force women to undergo medically unnecessary ultrasounds, to restrict access to contraception, and in their nationwide voter suppression campaign.
One more thing: the hero of Rand’s novel “The Fountainhead” is an architect who blows up a building because his design was changed. In other words, he’s a terrorist.
Mediocre times, wrote Albert Camus in “The Fall,” beget empty prophets.
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1 Comments:
You missed the Koch Brothers in your laundry list of straw men, Tom. Perhaps a follow up editorial to include them would be good.
It is precisely opinions like this that suggest to me Obama is finished. Obama is now personally attacking Romney (e.g. Romnesia) and Obama's obsequious media acolytes like Tom Maertens are getting more and more unhinged with their opinions of late. I am convinced that Obama's internal polling shows a Romney landslide and the desperate Obama campaign emails are going out for the last ditch effort to sway those last undecided voters. The only tactic left is personal attacks. Tom, of course, obliges.
The problem here is, Obama already has Minnesota locked up. Obama will get 58% of the vote in Minnesota, so Tom's opinion here will not make any difference on the presidential campaign in Minnesota. Still a good effort on Tom's part even though it sway anyone in the Mankato area.
I look forward to reading your opinion regarding the Benghazi attack, Tom. You, having worked in high levels of prior administrations, should be able to shed light on what happened there. I would love to have you tell us that an internet video caused the imbroglio and where our intelligence that was able to get bin Laden (and centrists like yourself to spike the football over and over over bin Laden) broke down in Benghazi and missed the growing al Qaeda threat. Also, tell us exactly what direct American interest was at stake that led to us helping depose Ghaddafi? But, I suppose you would just tell us all that Paul Ryan's fault, too.
Next you'll tell us the payroll tax cuts will spur economic growth!!
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