What would Ayn Rand say?

In 1957 Ayn Rand published Atlas Shrugged.

In the appendix, she wrote:

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

Atlas Shrugged is Rand's nightmare vision of the destruction of individualism, innovation, reason and moral purpose. This destruction comes about at the hands of liberal socialists who put entitlements, collectivism, and anti-intellectualism ahead of industriousness.

The producers, the men of industry who manage coal mines, run factories, invent technology are treated as slaves. Their work is expected to support the masses who are no longer competent or interested in doing real work.

As a result, all these producers rebel. They go into hiding somewhere in Colorado, if I remember correctly. Without these virtuous men with "moral purpose" society collapses into chaos. Only when the world falls apart can the men of industry return and save the day. Only then are the insipid leeches of society willing to bow their heads and say "Yes, we need you to show us the way. Please save us from ourselves."

What would Ayn Rand think of our great country today?

She saw virtue in the men of industry, the men of capital. From their ranks would come men of reason who would keep society on the right path, so long as they fought off the socialists, the liberal, etc.

Well those men have won. The party that serves industry and capital faithfully controls all branches of government. It controls the mainstream media, no matter how much Rupert Murdoch's media empire would say otherwise. It controls the military.

In Rand's view, all would be well.

But it isn't.

Where is the age of reason? Where are the men of science? Where is the productive achievement?

Our president fills his administration with political appointees who are obsessed with subjugating science to religion and corporate interests.

Our economy founders and the president tells us its flourishing. How can it be flourishing when wages are stagnant and our trade deficit and budget deficits are bigger than ever? When billions of our tax dollars go to a pointless war everyday.

How can this be an age of reason when the oil barons who serve as our president and vice president continue to dissemble about how the war is progressing? It's been almost 3 years since the "mission accomplished" banner flew over Bush's head on that aircraft carrier 40 miles off the coast of San Diego. How many more thousands of our troops will die before our Iraq adventure is over?

How can the men of industry fail us when they are most needed? When the levees broke, they stood by and did nothing.

In Rand's nightmare vision, it was the sniveling liberal socialists who stood and watched as factories stumbled and infrastructure crumbled.

But today we see the opposite has happened. It is the conservatives and capitalists who have abandoned reason. They refuse to accept global warming. The refuse to spend tax dollars rationally. They refuse to tell the truth. They let the country's icon companies such as GM and Ford crumble under the pressure of a flawed and bloated health care industry. They stand by and tell us the market will cure all.

It never has.

Rand's greatest failing is her blind believe that men of imagination, men of industry and men of capital are always men of virtue.

The most brilliant man can be consumed by greed, just as the most incompetent man can be act virtuously. It isn't talent that makes someone good and just. It is a sense of morality and a sense of restraint. We can't rely on the hope that all men in power will have these qualities. There must be checks and balances. We can't hand the keys to the car over to a Texas oilman with and MBA and say, "Well, you're rich and your daddy was a good man. I'm sure you'll do the right thing." We especially can't hand the keys to an oilman who ran every company he ever managed right into the ground.