It’s called “modeling” and economists and sociologists have been doing it since Pareto and earlier.

But there are better ways to model then trying to build up to macro generalizations, and that is to develop micro generalizations, or, more appropriately, simplifications.  Most first year undergrads in Econ 101 don’t realize that’s going on when they first see an indifference curve.

You don’t have to simply do it in economics, but most systems can be modeled by economic theory. 

There was a professor once, at a major nationally recognized university, who was bragging to his undergrads that ANY human behavior could be modeled economically.

A wise, clever, or mere smartass student said “Oh yeah? Well can you model the behavior of criminals in economics?”  This set the professor to thinking…...

It plagued him for weeks and months—How do you model the behavior of a wild, dangerous criminal with the cold logic of indifference curves and production curves? He looked to the sociologists and the criminologists for clues, with only a little luck. 

He began to pick at the corners of the Economics of Criminal Behavior and Crime.  And began to find a models, valid models he could test mathematically and statistically.

This is a true story—I worked for him as a research assistant about 10 years after he got into this.  I learned a lot about modeling and about valid and invalid statistical inference from him.  Also about proper falsifiability.

I also learned that mathematical analysis of human behavior isn’t vague and airy. It’s a hard, tough area where mistakes are easily made, by the greatest scholars. 

Samuelson, in his great text on Economics, screwed up and took the derivative of a constant—and didn’t get zero. 

Marshall never understood that his positive demand curve model for “Giffen Goods” had introduced an extra assumption. 

Friedman never understood that Hong Kong was a TERRIBLE model for capitalism in the US because in H/K there was little resistance to re-distribution of production resources.  In other words, if people became unemployed in H/K, they took a train or bus to another part of the city.  But if people become unemployed in Michigan, they have to find the resources to move their families…redistribution of labor in a vast country like the US or Russia is “sticky”

So I do believe in modeling’s generalizations.  But what describe sounds suspiciously like Hari Seldon’s “Psychohistory” invented by Isaac Asimov in the Foundation trilogy.

Inherit- of course they are generalities, I am talking about scientific abstractions. The problem is that these abstractions have implications that subvert the inherited misconceptions that the Educated classes have imposed on the population to legitimate their power.

But let’s take an example of a specific concept. Bush, or his handlers, introduced the notion of the American Homeland.  If Americans have a homeland, than so do the people of all other countries.  The notion of a homeland can be defined mathematically, generalized, and used to form an integrated conceptual structure from a world historical perspective, rather than from a national or regional perspective.

Doing so creates a conceptual structure which conceives simple relations among the past, present and future persons of the earth. This generates an earthperson worldview incompatible with the Western worldview that has legitmated capitalist Democracies the past few centuries.  By creating more abstract conceptual structures, one general structure can substitute for a variety of less general ones, which over historical time would make it simpler for people to learn, remember and apply.

The problem that you are having, which is common in the US, is that the conceptual language of political and social reality is so fragmented, specialized and restricted, that we all find it difficult to think in definite simple abstractions formulated in decades and centuries rather than in years of our personal lives.

In order to simplify, it is necessary to generalize.  In order to legitimate the heliocentric theory in the 17th century that eliminated the need for the complicated epcycles of the geocentric theory, it is necessary to perceive the earth as part of a more general system of the relation of all the planets. to legitimate the evolution of species, it is necessary to conceive humans as one species among all organisms.

When we do so in social theory, conceiving nations and regions as part of the world conceptual structure, the simple holistic abstractions appear to be surreal and ideologically absurd.

That is why I am commneting on Truthdig.  To try to find a simpler way to communicate to Americans who have been systematically deluded by the Aemrican power system.  Just as feudal power systems deluded their populations with religious-philosophical worldiveiws.  And let me tell you that Alyce Rosenbaum presents a real challenge.

I know you’re trying to explain your theory and I appreciate that.  It’s taken a few reads but it seems the two relevant paragraphs are:

The reason that social science has lagged conceptually so far behind the natural sciences is that its ideological implications are much more explosive.  conciving people from a world historical perspective, rather than from a national or regional perpestive subvers the Western worldview that has legitmated captialist Democracies the past few centuries.

But we happen to be living at a time in history when it is both politically and technically feasible to tell the simple holistic truth about people and power, transforming our common inherited worldviews.

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OK, now that I’ve got the essence, the next question is: What are you talking about? It sounds you are trying to say there needs to be a world-view of history/psychology/anthropology/economics/political science/sociology.

Why?
How does this differ from current studies (not vagaries, please)?
What is the implication?

How are you going to ignore cultural differences—binding women’s feet in China in the mid-19th century vs 12 year olds in L.A. dressing like whores?  Well, the Women’s Historians have done that—by pointing out (as a primitive example) that both involve objectifying women and making their self-image dependent solely on the PERCEPTION of their attractiveness to men, no matter how painful or stupid it seems.

But this whole thing of yours, FT, is expressed in such generalities that I simply cannot make heads or tails of it without some really big guesses here.

So help me out and give me some specific examples of what you mean.  Even if I disagree with your facts I’ll try to see past the context of the example to the concept behind it and see if I can gen up another example.

Until then, I’m not sure I know WTF you’re talking about!

inherit- the conceptions underlie the mathematics or the theory.  Whether the earth goes around the sun or the sun around the earth is not a math concept.  But a change in our authorized conceptons and preconceptions of reality change our worldviews, as Thomas Kuhn outlined, within liberal learned constraints, in his influential essay THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTONS.

But the preconceptions or presuppositions underlieing theory subverted the religious-philosophical worldviews of feudal power systems or polities.  In evolutionary theory, it is necessary to assume that humans are species like all the others, and evolved as they did.  But this subverted the notion that humans were differnt from other animals because we have immortal souls.

The reason that social science has lagged conceptually so far behind the natural sciences is that its ideological implications are much more explosive.  conciving people from a world historical perspective, rather than from a national or regional perpestive subvers the Western worldview that has legitmated captialist Democracies the past few centuries.

So the learned have ideologcially repressed these conceptions.  Learned repression is very common in the history of scholarship, science and mathematics, but it so mars the public image of authorized learning that the concept of learned repression has itself been learnedly repressed.

Guass, for example, did not publish his researches in non-Euclidian geometry because of fear of criticism by his collegues.  After a while his student Riemann published them, but only after Bolyai and Lobachevsky.  When Cantor publish his set theory, he was attacked so viciously by colleagues that he was driven insane.  And the problem of ideological repression is much greater in social science than it was in the natural sciences or the math tradition.

But we happen to be living at a time in history when it is both politically and technically feasible to tell the simple holistic truth about people and power, transforming our common inherited worldviews.

FT:

OK, I need to back up here and say I’m not understanding what you are driving at. You’re being too general and you need to be more specific.  Use of mathematics?  There already exist statistical branches of most social sciences: Sociometrics, Econometrics, Psychometric, Polymetrics and Cliometrics.  Use of hard science?  Been happening.  Completely new strategies of analysis?  Yup, that’s been going on too.

So what this “new” view of all people on Earth as one is actually happening.  Of course the POPULAR awareness of this is just at the dawn, particularly with the ecological movements against pollution, global warming, decimation of rare species to extinction, population explosion, etc.

And, BTW, thanks. The FIRST tool a scientist or social scientist needs is skepticism—Einstein said that.  The next is to mistrust “authority”.  Einstein said that too.  Is Einstein an “authority”? Probably…but he meant don’t take HIS statements on faith either.

Your comments here, Inherit,  are far above your usual discorse and I appreciate them.  Far better than the comments I get from social scientists.

You are quite right that people go with winners of power struggles of various sorts.  they identify with power.  the Dem-Gop elections are conceived as kind of a sporting contest and the population want to be on the winning side.

But the winning side is usually one that promotes policies that are against their interests.  the ruling class nominates the candidates of both parties and the population gets to choose, often based on who is most Sincere, which one rules them.

The revolution I am talking about is a CONCEPTUAL revolution.  Simplifying conceptual structures, such as the heliocentric theory, were legitmated in scientific revolutions over the past four centuries to tell the simple truth about bodies in motion, notably the planets.  Some of these simple truths were called Scientific Laws in scientific ideology.  A conceptual revolution is possible in social science similar to those of the natural sciences.

Math innovations in 20th century American social science make it possible to begin to tell the simple truth about relations among the past, present and future persons of the earth.  This generates and earthperson worldview, formulated from a world historical perspective, incompatible with our religious, political and scientific worldviews formulated from a national and regional perspective.

This worldview is already emerging because of the world communiation and transformation networks installed by global capitalism.  In his book on world economics, ONE WORLD READY OR NOT, William Greider calls this worldview “global humanism.”

It can be systemitized, simplified and elaborated by conceptual innovations associated with American social science.  But it has highly uneducated ideoligical implications, which is why it cannot be done within American social science.

Folktruther, March 21 at 2:22 pm #

All power structures systematiclly delude the population, to distort our religious, political and scientific worldviews of reality.  Power delusions that legitimate the power systems are incorporated into our worldviews to induce us to identify with power rather than the people ruled by power.  This is why earthpeople tend to identify with their own oppression and the oppression of other people.
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Whoops! You were doing good till this last sentence. The “Stockholm Syndrome” is not appropriate.  People tend to identify with winners so that they can see themselves as winners. Look at sports fans—that’s your analogy.

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We are miseducated, misinformed and misentertained from childhood to identify with with these power delusions.  This included such presuppositions historically that the earth was the center of the universe and the people were fundamentally separate from other species.
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OK…I’ve long insisted that the “history” we learned through High School was crap.  Still with you here.

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Consequently it took great scientific revolutions to legitmate simple truths that are now famous, such as THE EARTH MOVES AROUND THE SUN, or that PEOPLE EVOLVED FROM OTHER SPECIEs.  Thes truths subverted the religious-philosophical worldviews of feudal polities, and thus were ideological repressed for many centuries.
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Still going good, FT, but you’re about to step on your w**-w**.....

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The conceptual revolution in social science is now in its beginning stages, the ‘crisis’ stage, to use Thomas Kuhn’s termenology in THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS.  But the conceptual revolution in social science has much more explosive ideological implications than did the revolutions in the natrual sciences.  This is the major historical reason why social science lags conceptually so far behind the natural sciences.
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Here you crash and burn, FT, like the Hindenburg!  Where have you been for the last 100 years?  There have been revolutions in sociology, psychology, economics, historiography, political science, archeology, anthropology, paleontology and, of course, history.

For example: The concepts and methods of Women’s History had to be developed from scratch as the usual written sources had almost nothing—and what there was covered either famous women or was invented to fit male egos.

Economic history (originally pioneered by K. Marx) takes on a archeological sources and statistical methodology to recreate lives in rural areas where records are scarce or non-existent—soil layer analysis, for example.

************************************************
A revolution in social science would transform over historical time the way we think about and perceive people.  Our concepttions and preconceptions of the past, present and future persons of the earth have been deform by the restictions, conceptual fragmentations and power delusions imposed by power.  the simple truth about relations among earthpersons generate an earthperson worldview, incompatible with our national and regional worldviews.  It subverts the Western worldview that has legitimated capitalist Democracies the past few centuries.
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A revolution in social sciences did occur and is still in progress. Either you missed it or you refuse to accept it because it doesn’t fit your pat set of pre-conceived analyses that you then cherry-pick facts to fit.

Still, this is one of your better attempts to try to rationalize your “unusual” view points.

All power structures systematiclly delude the population, to distort our religious, political and scientific worldviews of reality.  Power delusions that legitimate the power systems are incorporated into our worldviews to induce us to identify with power rather than the people ruled by power.  This is why earthpeople tend to identify with their own oppression and the oppression of other people.

We are miseducated, misinformed and misentertained from childhood to identify with with these power delusions.  This included such presuppositions historically that the earth was the center of the universe and the people were fundamentally separate from other species. 

Consequently it took great scientific revolutions to legitmate simple truths that are now famous, such as THE EARTH MOVES AROUND THE SUN, or that PEOPLE EVOLVED FROM OTHER SPECIEs.  Thes truths subverted the religious-philosophical worldviews of feudal polities, and thus were ideological repressed for many centuries.

The conceptual revolution in social science is now in its beginning stages, the ‘crisis’ stage, to use Thomas Kuhn’s termenology in THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS.  But the conceptual revolution in social science has much more explosive ideological implications than did the revolutions in the natrual sciences.  This is the major historical reason why social science lags conceptually so far behind the natural sciences.

A revolution in social science would transform over historical time the way we think about and perceive people.  Our concepttions and preconceptions of the past, present and future persons of the earth have been deform by the restictions, conceptual fragmentations and power delusions imposed by power.  the simple truth about relations among earthpersons generate an earthperson worldview, incompatible with our national and regional worldviews.  It subverts the Western worldview that has legitimated capitalist Democracies the past few centuries.

Folktruther:
’... Marxism was the major world social theory of the 20th century, which left out a lot.  It stated, in learned language, that the ruling class steals from the working population.  My theory innovation is that it must lie as well historically to conceal, disguise, divert attention from, and justify the stealing. ...’

I don’t think that’s an innovation.  It has been known for some time that knowledge is power, and that for a ruling class to maintain its power its has to lie, obscure, propagandize, and if possible govern the whole framework of public discourse to suit its interests.  We observe not only “divide and rule” but “misinform and rule”.  Once the worldview and lying have been adopted and absorbed by most of the people, the r.c. can pretend that it possesses the one and only truth, for example the objectivity of the New York Times.

This is the sort of thing Chomsky is so tediously on about versus the mainstream media—he call it the “propaganda model”.  However, with alternative modes of expression popping up, we see a lot of leaks in the ideological ship of state.

FT:

I can’t take your criticisms of Ayn Rand seriously because it’s clear you have no idea what you are criticizing.  I also must presume that you cannot understand MY fundamental criticisms of Rand for the same reason.

BTW, saying that the ruling elite has to lie to preserve its power isn’t a secret or an innovation.  Where are you on the idea that Botch, Newt, and their neo-cons were going further, and were looking to establish a new, baronial feudal system? Clearly they were looking for more than wealth and power, but, rather, a self-sustaining system whereby people of their “class” would always have wealth, power, and access to the most sexually desirable, REGARDLESS of their ability to earn it.

DeLay even hinted at it, with his theory of establishing a “permanent” Republican majority to obviously offset democracy and enable the modern feudal society.  Isn’t it strangely ironic how many of them, like Newt, DeLay, Cheney, Botch, Gram, et al are all Southern Republicans—descendants, at least intellectually, of the old Southern plantation slaveholders who seem to seek to return to those “halcyon” ante-bellum days.

The reason I get a kick out of you, Inherit, is because you are an intellectual primitive like I am, but trapped in a bourgeois-Zionist ideology.  Alyce Rosenbaum’s criticism of marxism is a joke.  do yourself a favor and read A PEOPLE’S HISOTRY OF THE WORLD to at least understand what you are criticizing.

Marxism was the major world social theory of the 20th century, which left out a lot.  It stated, in learned language, that the ruling class steals from the working population.  My theory innovation is that it must lie as well historically to conceal, disguise, divert attention from, and justify the stealing.

When put in simplifying conceptual structures, such a view, if legitmated, would change our historical worldviews of reality.

Folktruther, March 18 at 9:21 pm #

However, I still maintain you have to lay off these junk theories.
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Apology accepted. ‘nuf ced on that.

I won’t lay off the junk theories until you do. 

See, I can and DO dissect and point out the critical flaws of Objectivism. 

Rand’s primary message, when you get past the hero crap and the rape fantasy crap and the dumb speeches crap, is that merit is the ONLY true currency of value—merit means that if you grow the most wheat, or make the best car, you should be paid best for it, no more, no less.  Truly, labor, including creativity, being the source of ALL wealth.

Curiously, Rand doesn’t object to charity, as long as the giver does it happily and the recipient appreciates and understand what it is.  Remember the curious 19th century phrase, “Cold as charity”? (or is it 18th century?—I just know it’s old) Rand is responding to THAT kind of charity, and to the Robin Hood kind—and to the kind that the recipient thinks they are owed.

BTW, just because I know a lot about Rand doesn’t mean anything.  I also know a fair bit about Hitler, Woodrow Wilson (whom I detest), George Washington (whom I admire), John Adams (who doesn’t get nearly the credit he deserves) and Pete Seeger (who is a HUGE hero of mine).

your right, Ihherit.  I apologize about your dad. Of he refused Vietnam war contracting, he deserved to be remembered favorably on that ground alone.  And probably on others as well.

However, I still maintain you have to lay off these junk theories.

One thing about Paris Hilton:

She has more sense than you ever will.  And considering how little she has…..

As for my “dingbat dad”, you don’t know squat, and should have the DECENCY to be a little more respectful of my DEAD father, whom I loved and still miss…A man who could teach you a thing or two or ten-THOUSAND things about morality—he didn’t just preach it, he lived it, taking care of a crippled, ungrateful brother for 40 years, refusing to take Viet Nam war contracting when it would have made him rich, and making sure, when he was dying and in pain, that his wife (my mother) would be taken care of.  Morality begins in your own home, in your own family and spreads to how you deal with the people you see, BEFORE it reaches nations and politic.

Sometimes, FT, you really need to curb your keyboard diarrhea, especially when you are suffering mental constipation.

STUDIED Ann Rand? You mean, Inherit, that there are people who STUDY Alyce Rosenbaum?  Well, why not; I I see people studying the movie magazines.
Hell, I do myself if the checkout line is long enough at the supermarket. It leads to the important questions of the time, like why Paris Hilton is never featured.  Inquiring minds want to know.

I’ll have you know that I have a very bad habit, Iherit; reading.  I read the back of cornflakes boxes if there is nothing else.  And in that spirit, like Anarcissie, I plowed through her major novel, something about Atlas,  and tried to get through another.  Tolstoy she’s not.  I’d rather read the Bible or the back of cornflakes boxes.  When I got to part with the dollar signs on the Heroes chests, I had to stop.  Even I have SOME standards.

But appparently you don’t.  So that’s where you get your boobish ideas, Inherit, that and your dingbat dad.  When I told my mate that Rand was Jewish, she was appalled, like anyone would be.  And she influenced America’s great financial genuises?  God help us.  Possibly the source of their irrational exuberance.

I really liked your comments, though, about Alyce being a major force in refuting marxism. O if it were only so.  You should go on TV, Inherit, I’m sure they would be glad to get you.  Or have you thought about a treatise on Objectivism in the movie magizines?  The American intellectual tradition has reached the point where it is Time, and no force on earth can resist an idea whose Time Has Come.  Maybe with Paris Hilton as co-author?  we really have to get her some ink.

Diamond:
Again a mis-interpretation. Look, I fully agree with your list of villains, but not that Rand would worship them.  Most of them she would classify as Orren Boyle, James Taggart, Lillian Reardon, Cuffy Meigs, Wesley Mouch (love that name: “mooch”) or Mr. Thompson—all Randian villains who pretended they were doing good as they were robbing people blind—except Cuffy Meigs who was simply a moronic thug.

Nor do I disagree that people who PRETEND to follow Rand’s concept of “hero” frequently are on your list.

Sure, the proof of the pudding is in the tasting—after all, Tomas de Torquemada was a devout follower of Jesus Christ, as was Savonarola.  So should we say that Jesus’ teachings were that we should torture anyone who dares deviate? (and I’m not a Christian).

The flaws in Objectivism are real, very serious and I’ve pointed out some. That’s why I’m not a Randian.  But the alternative is NOT Marxism or monarchy.

Inherit I think you should take another look. I say the proof of the pudding is in the eating and look at the fascistic consequences of her teachings as they play out in the real workplaces and banks and country clubs of America. If you can’t see that AIG is run by fascists you’re just not trying. I can tell you why too. Here’s a list of the banks that have CIA links:

Let’s look at the history of CIA, Wall Street and the big banks by looking at some of the key players in CIA’s history.

CLARK CLIFFORD – The National Security Act of 1947 was written by Clark Clifford, a Democratic Party powerhouse, former Secretary of Defense, and one-time advisor to President Harry Truman. In the 1980s, as Chairman of First American Bancshares, Clifford was instrumental in getting the corrupt CIA drug bank BCCI a license to operate on American shores. His profession: Wall Street lawyer and banker.

JOHN FOSTER AND ALLEN DULLES – These two brothers “designed” the CIA for Clifford. Both were active in intelligence operations during WW II. Allen Dulles was the U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland where he met frequently with Nazi leaders and looked after U.S. investments in Germany. John Foster went on to become Secretary of State under Dwight Eisenhower and Allen went on to serve as CIA Director under Eisenhower and was later fired by JFK. Their professions: partners in the most powerful - to this day - Wall Street law firm of Sullivan, Cromwell.

BILL CASEY – Ronald Reagan’s CIA Director and OSS veteran who served as chief wrangler during the Iran-Contra years was, under President Richard Nixon, Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. His profession: Wall Street lawyer and stockbroker.
David Doherty - The current Vice President of the New York Stock Exchange for enforcement is the retired General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency.

GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH – President from 1989 to January 1993, also served as CIA Director for 13 months from 1976-7. He is now a paid consultant to the Carlyle Group, the 11th largest defense contractor in the nation, which also shares joint investments with the bin Laden family.

A.B. ‘BUZZY’ KRONGARD – The former Executive Director of the Central Intelligence Agency is the former Chairman of the investment bank A.B. Brown and former Vice Chairman of Banker’s Trust.

JOHN DEUTCH- This retired CIA Director from the Clinton Administration currently sits on the board at Citigroup, the nation’s second largest bank, which has been repeatedly and overtly involved in the documented laundering of drug money. This includes Citigroup’s 2001 purchase of a Mexican bank known to launder drug money, Banamex.

NORA SLATKIN – This retired CIA Executive Director also sits on Citibank’s board.   

MAURICE ‘HANK’ GREENBERG – The former CEO of AIG insurance, former manager of the third largest capital investment pool in the world, was floated as a possible CIA Director in 1995. FTW exposed Greenberg’s and AIG’s long connection to CIA drug trafficking and covert operations in a two-part series that was interrupted just prior to the attacks of September 11.

And surely you can see that Rand’s worship of perfect, heroic males is an exact match for Hitler’s desire to take Germany (and in fact the entire world) back to the fascist, misogynist, phallocentric, slave owning era of pagan Rome. People can see all this right off if you mention Leni Riefenstahl but they just can’t bring themselves to use the ‘f’ word about Americans -male or female.

While I certainly haven’t studied Rand, I’ve plowed through some of it, and various squibs of what are supposed to be the more illuminated parts of her work have been presented to me by enthusiasts and believers.  I can’t say that any of it led me to believe that Rand had read very much of Marx or his associates or competitors, much less refuted them.  For instance, she goes on, apparently at great length, about the evils of altruism and asserts that socialism and communism are altruistic.  However, they’re not altruistic at all—they are a proposal aimed at the self-interest of the working class. Altruism, though, was greatly flogged by Christian organizations (which Rand also hated), and has also been used as a front for social democracy, that is, the Welfare state, whose purpose is to preserve the privileges of Capital by playing Soft Cop while closely regulating the lower orders (which Rand also hated—she was a woman who was familiar with the pleasures of hatred.  A partially redeeming quality, I admit.)

Actually, I don’t believe Rand even got as far as Hume.  In her writing, she seems unaware of the degree to which her metaphysical ideas had been impugned even as far back as the 18th century.  I know her favorite philosopher was Aristotle, an apologist for slavery and, as far as I know, a tedious bore.

If you want a rational (although somewhat narrow) critique of Marxism or other flavors of socialism I recommend Von Mises, Hayek, Nozick—people who can think and write and have read something.  Of course, they didn’t write fiction for adolescents, but plenty of other people have stepped into that gap.

FT:
If ignorance is bliss then you must be in 7th heaven!
I’m sure your neo-Marxist “authorities” have tried to paint her as simple and cartoonish because Rand was the first to try to create an intellectual response to Marxism.  To belittle her is to try (unsuccessfully) to disarm Marxism’s most dangerous enemy—a mind capable of showing Marxism’s flaws.

Take the classic Marxist truism “From each according to his ability. To each according to his need.”

Rand destroys that by observing that the first part makes slaves of us all and the latter part makes beggers of us.  The currency of MERIT is replaced with the currency of NEED.  Those that are capable are rewarded by…more work.  Those that can produce more kids and an inability to work are rewarded because they have…more need. 

Slaves and beggers.

Nothing she ever wrote was a more devastating condemnation of Marxism.

You, never having studied Rand, are clearly not qualified to criticize her work.  I can, because I can pull out the essential logical inferences and separate it from the mistakes and sheer head-case stuff (like her life-long rape fantasies).

But…I don’t expect you to actually do the work—fair’s fair—I’m not interested in your neo-Marxist writers either. 

Still, it’s nice to know nothing has changed.  You still have no clue as to what you are talking about but that hasn’t slowed ya down!

Inherit- It’s depressing how much you know about Alice Rosenbaum.  Or as she would spell it Alyce.  If only you spent your time in poolrooms like everybody else.  She is not fascist because her stuff is too childish and cartoonlike to be anything other than-what was it- Objectivism?  Good lord.  It’s too bad one can’t change one’s origins, people like Rand would drive one to it.

Heine said they if he was remembered by future generations, it wasn’t his plays or poems that he wanted to be known for.  He wanted future generations to remember him as a good soldier in the war for human liberation.

From Henrich Heine to Alice Rosenbaum in less than two centuries.  It’s enough to make you puke.

Diamond:

Much criticism of Rand is appropriate.

Yes, she had a salon—Alan Greenspan was part of that innermost circle.

She is well-known to have bedded Nathanial Brandon, but none of the others—but the circumstances were sick. She drove her husband to drink and he ultimately drank himself to death.  Helen Mirren’s portrayal of Rand is quite accurate, even though Mirren is tall and slim and Rand was short and dumpy.

Rand personally could not tolerate criticism—it was perhaps her biggest flaw.

When I first read Atlas Shrugged I, too, thought it was fascist for its Nietschean qualities, but it is not and at no point advocates any of the main points of fascism.  Every one of the 10 amendments of the Bill of Rights, along with the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments are totally compatible with the philosophy.

The godlike male heroes that are all tall, thin and with chiseled features is a failing that Rand couldn’t get over—remember, I said she had a rape fantasy so strong she couldn’t separate it.  She couldn’t separate appearance from action—she herself was short, dumpy, dark and, as is obvious from the pictures, fairly homely—her heroes were anti-herself.

She even advocated smoking as a Good Thing though lung cancer eventually killed her.

Rand spoke against seizure of private property, both physical and intellectual.  She spoke against all government regulation of commerce, but didn’t recognize that the air, rivers, and land belong to everyone.  She didn’t recognize, AS I’VE SAID that bankers could craft ways to steal money none of us could imagine—as the last 8 years have shown.

Rand DID say that Americans invented the phrase “To make money”, that money must be made before it can be stolen, looted, taxed, etc.  In other words, the foundation of production of value must exist first—it’s oddly not THAT different than the Marxist statement that “Labor is the source of all wealth” especially if you include intellectual labor and creativity.  She also pointed out that the dollar symbol, $, is really the letters U-S superimposed over each other.

As for her writing: well, it makes a good romp.  Sometimes the language is stilted—the sexier the scene the more hilariously inappropriate is the language.  But then, so was James Clavell in “Shogun” and “Tai Pan”.  Atlas Shugged is eminently readable—except for the major 66 page credo towards the end, a credo she spent 2 years writing and re-writing.  Her non-fictional writing is interminable.

Objectivism isn’t Libertarianism on steroids—it’s older and more dedicated to being “true” to Rand’s vision. The Objectivist Newsletter was her personal voice.  Libertarianism was born later. I don’t know if she passed before it’s founding or not.

Inherit the Wind, I’ve read her books and books about her. She was a fascist who preached the most anti-democratic, 19th century garbage I’ve ever read, that revolved around elite, godlike and heroic male figures. She also couldn’t write for sour apples so you couldn’t even enjoy the beauty of the writing the way you can with D.H. Lawrence, even at his most unhinged. She ran a salon that was more like a cult and sometimes went to bed with the starstruck young men drawn to her certainty and forcefulness and her theories on how to put those damn workers in their place. You know how they say everyone’s entitled to their opinion? Well, not if they’re saying, ‘Two and two is five’. It’s hard to find any reason to praise what Rand’s crazy ideas on social justice have done to America’s economy and society, not to mention the rest of the world. Her theories can be summed up as, ‘Crush the workers and everything else will fall into place’. She was a horrible, deluded misfit with a daddy complex and an empty space where any sense of justice should have been. Apart from that, she was okay!

Folktruther, March 15 at 4:16 pm #

I don’t think there is another country in the world where a childish dingbat like Ann Rand could be taqken seriosly.  She even spells her name wrong.  the glorification of individual selfishness, with the manly sefish wearing dollar signs on their chests, wouldn’t even make a good comic book in most countries.
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I think one of the funniest debates would be between the neo-cons like Limbaugh and Malkin and TDr’ like FT and Diamond on Ayn Rand!

Since neither side has a f***in’ CLUE what Rand was all about, they don’t have a clue where to begin criticizing her.

BTW, FT, you ignorant clod, “Ayn” is not “Ann”, but is pronounced “Eye-n” like the German word for “one”—“ein”. She claimed it had some Finnish significance.  “Rand” was for her type-writer, a Remington-Rand. She was a Russian-Jewish immigrant born Alice Rosenbaum.

There is much to be criticized in Objectivism, starting with Rand’s own rape fantasy that she built into the philosophy in a way that made no logical sense. 

Second was her inability to understand the sophistication of modern stock ownership or the stock market.

Third was her failure to recognize that many of the greatest industrialists and entrepreneurs were BOTH creative AND crooked as hell (Andrew Carnegie would have been a ball-buster for her to explain).

Fourth was her inability to understand that like it or not, the Federal Government is the biggest single actor in the economy and cannot be avoided if you want to avoid chaos.

Fifth was her false premise that gold has absolute unchanging value. She did not understand that gold is nothing more than a numeraire and its price rises and falls like any other commodity—based on the old familiar Supply AND Demand.

Sixth was her failure to recognize that money, too, not just gold, has a price and this price is the interest rate—and it too fluctuates with supply and demand.

But Rand’s understanding of the interplay of money as the lubricant of trade and that bills represent a promise of payment with crystalizations of labor is surprisingly astute for a non-economist.

Her prediction of the mess we are in is ironic—because she felt it would come from liberals and progressives creating socialism, not neo-cons and Reaganites creating boardroom socialism!

Once you get past the totalitarian-hysterical style, it’s just standard-issue classical liberalism.  People seek their self-interest and in doing so normally benefit one another through trade.  The role of government is only to protect property, trade, and the rights of the people to seek their self-interest and associate for mutual benefit.  The weird thing is that so many people think it’s some kind of new revelation.  But as one of my friends says, “Smart people need smart theories and dumb people need dumb theories.”  Whatever gets you through the night, I guess.

Atlas Shrugged is interminable, but it might be all right as an action movie or a comic book.

I don’t think there is another country in the world where a childish dingbat like Ann Rand could be taqken seriosly.  She even spells her name wrong.  the glorification of individual selfishness, with the manly sefish wearing dollar signs on their chests, wouldn’t even make a good comic book in most countries.

wet blanket:
I’ve read the “Going Galt” story the other day, and I have to wonder if there isn’t some form of “Astroturfing” going on?

Really, has anyone checked to see if these are individual sales or bulk sales? Who was tracking the original sales, some group of Randians?

I’m sure that the same people who are against Obama’s economic polices for philosophical reasons are already familiar with Rand’s work, so why are these sudden spikes only happening when he mentions the stimulus package?’

I suppose it’s possible that Randians are inspired to buy copies of the book to hand out free, like religious tracts.

It would be sort of amusing to get a national discussion of Rand going.  Rand’s principle of selfishness runs counter to much that the Right holds dear, such as religion. patriotism, militarism and imperial war.

What sickens me big B is that Americans DESERVE a functioning democracy. They are among the hardest working people in the world and they’re clever and forward looking and full of innovative ideas but a tiny group of rich fascists has decided they will never get their due, financially or electorally and these hideous people get extremely angry if anyone tries to give American workers the society they have earned many times over. Instead they choose to cheat them with laughable wages and horrible conditions, a lethal health care sytem and a political culture that is corrupt from top to bottom and serves the interests of the top 1% of the population. You had a revolution in the 1700’s and you need another one to clean out the parasites who are sucking America dry and making money out of crime and war. What makes me really angry is that they’re not content to do this to their own workers but have tried to export their disastrous and unworkable system all over the world by calling it ‘economic rationalism’. Economic barbarism would be a more accurate description.

Diamond, you absolutely correct. Instead of america holding itself up as a beacon for the world to live up to, we have chosen to play down to the rest of the world, and hopefully meet them in the middle.

Like the old saying says, never get into a fight where your opponent has everything to gain and you have everything to lose.

Objectivism could be described as Libertarianism on steroids. But it was quickly co-opted by capitalists, and became associated with old-fashioned elitism all dressed up in the latest fashion of that day - Social Darwinism. It appealed to wealthy Americans who were looking for a way to justify their mostly exploitation-based profits. And it also had it’s followers among working class patriots, who clung to the romantic notion of America as an aspiring meritocracy - a juste society in which each individual gets in precise measure to his/her give. Traces of these ideas are coded into the American psyche, explaining in part our tendency to treat foreign countries as our international plebs.

Americans are quick to embrace such intellectual contortions, because failing to do so would force us to come face to face with the fundamental injustice of capitalism, and the implied immorality of capitalism’s most celebrated practitioners. Just lately, it seems we’ve had a head on collision with that injustice, and it’s giving everyone a five-aspirin headache. So it’s no surprise that some are trying to bring a few mummified philosophies back to life. What’s next, a revival of Feudalism?

Colbert brilliance once again. The ‘upper crust’ should be encouraged to pack up and get gone. There should be a ‘power-point’ incentive for them to do that getting gone drill. Viola! We are back to the ultimate in ‘power-point’ incentives, the guillotine. Erect one on the National Mall and give it a test run with say Pills Limbaugh and then Michele Malkin for a “test” drive and leave the rest to mainstream media. You can just hear Mad Money Cramer screaming for plane tickets after the first test run.
Yup, Colbert has opined wisely. Well, he did leave out that guillotine part but that must be simply an over sight on the Colbert’s part.

“Going Galt,”  what an idea! Let the “capitalist elite,” go on strike and you will see productivity rise like never before. The only thing that these leeches do is to live off the hard work and slave wages of people who are giving their lives for something that Madison Ave, helps to sell, “an American Dream,” which will never happen unless we start changing the social and political dynamic.
I for one, am appalled at the idea of a cultural and socio-economic elite, trying their best to take over the world.  It is high time, that these abhorrent and evil men and women learn that they cannot survive
without the maids, butlers, drivers and suppliers of goods that are absolutely necessary for their pampered lives to continue.
Should the “capitalist elite,” ever go on strike, then it will be time, to socialize the medicine, socialize the monetary system, and do away with the moneyed elite, so that there is equity among the people.

How did this woman’s ideas reach the status they have? It seems incredible that her badly written books could have done it.‘Atlas Shrugged’ is about what would happen if the capitalist elite withdrew capital to punish uppity workers. As you can see, jobs are now being shipped to India and other low wage areas at an ever increasing pace. This is the real meaning of globalization. Workers will soon all be involved in a global race to the bottom, where the worker who will work for the least gets the jobs. This is not a new idea - the same thing applied in Dickens’ time and anyone who is familiar with that era from history books and Dickens’ own books knows what the result was. Workers working endless hours for starvation wages. Wages so low they couldn’t provide food, shelter and decent clothing for themselves or their families. Of course the Randites will always claim that these policies have lifted millions out of poverty in the third world. The truth is they’ve also plunged millions into poverty in the first world and kept millions in poverty in the first world, in America for example. The truth is that Rand essentially believed in a capitalist illuminati, an elite group that only needed to fool the voters into electing their mouthpieces so they could continue to hoodwink the workers and take the lion’s share of the spoils, as is only fitting since they are members of an enlightened elite and workers are not.If you look at the way the American socio/political culture operates you can see her beliefs in action from the highest levels of the political and military culture to the $5 an hour unskilled labourer. If someone in power doesn’t face the fact that this system is fatally flawed and a recipe for self-destruction, America’s future will be as dark as the present financial fiasco makes it appear to be. Ayn Rand named herself after her (Rand) typewriter and her ideology shows a similar lack of imagination and creativity.

But according to Ayn Rand, everyone needs to take control of their lives and do whatever is in their own self interest, which means we don’t have to wait for the conservatives to go, we can just pick an island and ship them off ourselves.

We can’t all be capitalists.  Somebody has to do the work.

I’ve read the “Going Galt” story the other day, and I have to wonder if there isn’t some form of “Astroturfing” going on?

Really, has anyone checked to see if these are individual sales or bulk sales? Who was tracking the original sales, some group of Randians? 

I’m sure that the same people who are against Obama’s economic polices for philosophical reasons are already familiar with Rand’s work, so why are these sudden spikes only happening when he mentions the stimulus package?