The Good Fight

The super overpaid CEO's of large corporations, of course.

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HAHA, owned Guy. The fact is we don't need extremely overpaid CEOs and executives. Ayn Rand aside, the system works just fine without them. In fact, they're simply parasites. Two words prove this: workers cooperatives. Look it up. Instead of being owned by and run for the benefit of share-holders, cooperatives are owned by and run for the benefit of all the workers. What a concept! And cooperatives aren't some pie in the sky socialist utopia-there's hundreds of them in existence right now, functioning just fine.

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How many of those CEOs make steel? How many of them mine minerals? How many of them do pharmaceutical research? How many of them refine oil? How many of them transport goods on land, sea and in the air?

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Are you saying that workers are less equal then their "leaders"? Doesn't that fly against the prevailing wisdom of the tea party?

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"How many of the co-ops make steel? How many of them mine minerals? How many of them do pharmaceutical research? How many of them refine oil? How many of them transport goods on land, sea and in the air?"
I'm not familiar with every coop in the world, so I couldn't answer that. For all I know, they do all those things. Even if they don't, there's nothing that says they couldn't.

"What do employees of a co-op get for their participation?"
They own equal shares of the company, meaning they get an equal vote on all matters. Also, they're not employees-they're worker-owners. There's a difference.

"Are you saying that all members of a co-op are equal and there are no leaders?"

Only in the sense that members of a democracy are all equal and leaderless.

Why do you assume that we need a dictatorship (or oligarchy) in the workplace Guy? Presumably you support democracy in politics, so why are you so eager to give up democracy every day you go into work? Aren't conservatives against a small number of elites deciding things for everyone? Isn't that exactly what CEOs and boards of directors do for companies?

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Sark, I'll answer that...the reason that we need a "dictatorship" in the workplace rather than a "democracy" is because everyone wants to be a chief, not an indian. You live in a fantasy world where humanity is basically good, not basically evil, and if only people were better educated and more enlightened by Marxist ideology they would freely choose benevolence all the time.

Do you really think selfishness and greed doesn't exist in a co-op? Or in a socialist society? Party leaders in the former Soviet Union were notorious for having homes out in the countryside while the proletariat was forced to endure crowded housing in polluted cities. To draw a comparison to American society, look at the salaries and benefits for members of Congress. The most liberal members of Congress never fail to raise their pay and to avail themselves of all the perks and privileges at their disposal. Congress has had a pay raise every year since 2000, even through the recession while the rest of us were struggling and scraping to get by.

So are for that co-op society that you are proposing, there's no reason to think that people would not act on their human nature and greedily seek out ways to enrich themselves at the majority's expense, just like people always do. This isn't to say that people don't do good, it's just that they don't sacrifice themselves for the greater good 100% of the time. Unfortunately for socialism, 100% sacrifice all of the time is what it takes for the concept to work. As soon as one person finds a way to enrich himself and exploits it, the whole arrangement falls apart.

And I went off on a bit of a tangent there, but I hope I answered your question.

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apparently both Will and John de Graaf never read Atlas Shrugged. In the book Ayn Rand expressed that society should not be run by speculators aka "Wall Street". only actual producers, creators and innovators of goods are the engine of the economy.

This article was written by a person who 1-knows nothing about Ayn Rand. 2-knows his readers do not know anything about Ayn Rand.

The author also claims that for 35 years prior to Reagan America was more fair and secure. Well let's take a look at each of those decades.

---40s was wwII (FDR rounding up Japanese citizens because they "might be" terrorist) In the 40s the Government also created nuclear weapons (this one government creation has caused more international problems than any of the others)
---50s had a huge illegal immigration problem similar to the one we have today, and the red scare.
---60s the Cuban missile crisis and Vietnam.
---70s oil embargo, huge recession, and Carter's "war on Poverty" which lead to the housing bubble and ultimate burst in 2008).
---In all of these decades, women and minorities were definitely not treated fair and didnt leave securely.

All those stemmed from an intrusive and oppressive federal government that stepped outside of its constitutional duty.

--Only a fool would think these were great, fair and secure times.

certain people are scared about empowering individuals, but remember a government big enough to provide everything for its citizens is powerful enough to take it all away.

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From John de Graaf: whatever "John Galt" says about Rand's feeling regarding speculators, the actually exisiting anti-government view she spawned would leave them free to do what they've been doing and oppose taxing them on their ill-gained millions. The issues he raises about their being problems in the 50s to 70s, etc., especially racism, greater gender inequaliity and the vietnam was are true, but each of these changes for the better was won by the struggles of the left, not the Libertarian Randians. Rand Paul would still get rid of the civil rights act and allow businesses to discriminate, for example. And overall inequality is certainly worse today.

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Again you clearly have not read Atlas Shrugged. Ayn Rand clearly explains that the characters in Atlas Shrugged who received ill-gained millions were granted that money via big government who seized private property and forced businesses who were run properly to turn their businesses over to the government because it was "unfair" to corrupt business owners. If a business is run properly then it has not received $.01 in ill-gained funds.

Limit the size of government and the corrupt businesses do not have an organization to run to when they want to eliminate "fair" competition.

The left has been polluted with a progressive movement, and has truly lost it's way from the original meaning of liberalism (which is to empower the individual from government--not to enslave them to government) the progressives want nothing more than to empower the government, even though time and time again it is the government which has shown itself to be corrupt, broken, and invasive.

Remember Mr. de Graaf, your party isn't always the one in power, and every law you create will only empower the other party to use against you when they take control.

Last note--Rand Paul is a GOP, not a Libertarian, and if you studied Ayn Rand you would also know she hated the word Libertarian and did not identify with that movement. But I still think you have neither read any of her works, and hope your readers have not read her works.

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"Abandon, all ye who enter the co-op, your individuality. For you shall all be compensated equally for your output. Your individual effort and ability be damned."
I said they own equal shares of company stock, not that they receive equal salaries. Rather, the worker-owners vote on what everyone's salary should be. If they decide that someone deserves a greater salary, they'll vote to give him one.

"Sark, I'll answer that...the reason that we need a "dictatorship" in the workplace rather than a "democracy" is because everyone wants to be a chief, not an indian. You live in a fantasy world where humanity is basically good, not basically evil, and if only people were better educated and more enlightened by Marxist ideology they would freely choose benevolence all the time."
Don't assume you know what I believe, you don't. I believe that people are basically self-interested at bottom, which is why the concept of equal pay for all is unrealistic. Doctors DO deserve greater pay than garbage men, I've never said anything differently.

You're still not answered why democracy is a-ok in the political world, but completely unworkable in the workplace. Your argument could just as easily be used against democracy-in fact it has.

"Do you really think selfishness and greed doesn't exist in a co-op? Or in a socialist society?"
Nope. See above-I believe people are basically self-interested-although they're capable of rising above that self-interest (ie firefighters, soldiers).

"So are for that co-op society that you are proposing, there's no reason to think that people would not act on their human nature and greedily seek out ways to enrich themselves at the majority's expense, just like people always do. This isn't to say that people don't do good, it's just that they don't sacrifice themselves for the greater good 100% of the time. Unfortunately for socialism, 100% sacrifice all of the time is what it takes for the concept to work. As soon as one person finds a way to enrich himself and exploits it, the whole arrangement falls apart."
In a co-op they couldn't enrich themselves at the majority's expense-because the majority would just vote them down! Again, one person can't "finds a way to enrich himself and exploits it" in a co-op, because all decisions are made democratically. If someone did all the others would ask him "why are you being so freaking greedy?"

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I also have to point out the fact that de Graaf refers to Ayn Rand as "Ayn Rand, the embittered Russian émigré", not Ayn Rand, the woman who watched her country get destroyed by the socialist communists regime and wrote a book warning the world about the problems that arise when you empower the government over the individuals.

The communist regime that Rand was so embittered over because the state ruled every aspect of the individual's life. The communist country that couldn't even provide enough toilet paper for it's citizens.

Progressives now point to China as a role model communist state---China, the country where over 2/3 of the populations doesn't have electricity or running water. The China that is the #1 polluter in the world, the China that suppresses free speech and has a one party dictatorship. The China that is behind Darfur http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7503428.stm and suppressing the Tibetan people.

Then we hear talks about the Scandinavian countries that are the smaller than most of states in America, and are a part of the European Union which is about to collapse for it's welfare state programs. The Scandinavian countries we are lead to believe has more happy people than America because they pay high taxes and live peacefully among each other. However reality is they have the highest suicide rates over most developed countries and are some of the most racist countries on the planet, as are most of the European countries in the EU.

Why do progressives not want people educated so they can make their own choices about their own lives and live freely to do so? Why do progressives hate individuals so much? What has any government do that is so compelling to them that they wish to enslave their neighbors?

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OMG--not the Eisenhower-era canard about Sweden's suicide rate! I read about that in the News & Courier way back then. It was then and is now about the same as ours. Perhaps a better index of social dysfunction would be comparative murder rates or levels of incarceration

I am multitasking at the moment and must suppress the volcanic diatribe building within me. I'll check in with you guys later. Hope everyone had a happy 7/4.

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Sark, Those coops? The "Board" rapes the members instead, it's all the same difference...

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So, if we are to believe that the Wall Street magnates and power brokers are not true expressions of Ayn Rand's ideas, then what solution does the Randian Mr. Galt propose? If you can't use government to reign them in, then what?

The problem I have with libertarianism is that it seems very much like South Park's Underwear Gnomes. Step one: Deregulate everything. Step two: ??? Step three: Utopia.

Not much of a plan, there. Just a whole lot of the same unicorns and ice cream nonsense that they complain everyone else offers.

The simple sad fact is, no matter what system you believe in or what steps you want to use to enact it, there has got to be a radical change in how people define "success" and "profitability". As long as people define those things as simply having a lot more money than someone else, we won't ever get anywhere. Anything that is acquired above and beyond that which is necessary to provide a comfortable existence is a theft from those who do not have it.

And no, I'm not moved by any crying from the monied class about their "rights" or how they wouldn't be motivated to do anything if they couldn't profit. If that's true, then to hell with you anyway. You are exactly the cause of the problem.

So, when the whole system collapses, who will you blame for the failures? Those who aimed at spreading out wealth and resources, or those who sought only to acquire more and more, taking it out of circulation and hoarding it?

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"Who determines what is necessary to provide a comfortable existence?"

That is an EXCELLENT question, and one that I'll entertain. Everyone has a different idea of happiness. For some, happiness necessarily involves spending money. This would probably be true for everyone with a few exceptions.

Some people spend money on clothes. It makes them happy. Who will decide for them how much clothing makes for a "comfortable existence?" And how much clothing should our government watchdogs decide is enough for one person?

Some people spend a lot of money on eating out. They could be buying groceries, but they spend a lot of money on restaurants instead. How much should the government czar decide is too much eating out? After all, a "comfortable existence" for someone in a third world country would be 3 square meals a day of bread and water!

And alcohol...a total waste of money in my book. But I'm a non-drinker, and a lot of people find happiness in spending ungodly amounts of money on drinking every weekend. How much is enough fun for one person? What government agency will decide this? After all, if you put a Baptist in charge you might find a lot less fun will be allowed than if you put an Episcopalian in charge. Who's to say that your definition of "comfortable existence" is somehow more valid than mine?

Do y'all see where I'm going? Nobody can decide for us what our version of happiness should be, and any attempt to do so by putting limits on income would just cause more misery. The difference is that this scenario would be a government-engineered spread of misery.

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Mat - The fact that you watch South Park explains a lot...

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"Sark, Those coops? The "Board" rapes the members instead, it's all the same difference..."

You're thinking of the wrong kind of co-op. We're not talking about Berkeley Electric.

Why has no one answered by central question: why is democracy good in politics but bad in the workplace? My guess is that you all realize that the very arguments you make against democracy in the workplace apply equally well (and have been used by authoritarians for hundreds of years) to political democracy, and you don't want to go on record as being pro-oligarchy.

How much is enough Jason? Galt? How much money would it take to satisfy you? Economics is not always a zero-sum game, but every dollar in every bonus that an executive takes home is a dollar that could have gone to one of the workers. With that in mind, what percentage of your company's bottom line would you feel right about taking home?

Jason said "The most liberal members of Congress never fail to raise their pay and to avail themselves of all the perks and privileges at their disposal. Congress has had a pay raise every year since 2000, even through the recession while the rest of us were struggling and scraping to get by."
That's EXACTLY what executives do. Except you never get the chance to vote them out of the corner office.

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Actually, Jason did go pretty pro-oligarchy a few comments back. Why does he hate democracy?

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Democracy doesn't work in the workplace for the same reason that it doesn't work in the military. Everybody wants to be a chief, not an indian. Therefore, somebody has to have the final say.

Can you imagine what the military would look like if they adopted democracy? What if they fired all officers and allowed the enlisted personnel to each have an equal vote on how things are run? btw...I personally have no use for the military, but that's another issue.

And I might add, democracy isn't even a good idea in the political realm. Democracy was historically associated with mob rule. Remember Jim Crow laws? THAT was democracy. The majority ruled, regardless of the consequences. Thankfully our country was founded as a constitutional republic, not a democracy, so this shouldn't even be a debate.

Morally speaking, the majority cannot simply vote away the rights of the minority. The majority rules in most cases, but a line has to be drawn when the majority uses the political process as a form of mob rule. There are certain rights that people retain regardless of their minority status. Democracy doesn't recognize this.

So to answer your question, democracy doesn't work in the workplace because it was only intended to be a form of political governance, not a form of labor or social governance, and it doesn't even work very well in the political realm.

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Mat--the only reason the Wall Street corruption exists, or any Big Corporation Corruption exists, is because we have an even bigger, more corrupt government willing to bail them out. Limit the size of government and there will be no company that can get "too big" unless they are doing things properly because society determines their growth rate.

Right now our expansive government can be bought off, through lawyers and lobbyists, to write laws that make competition, that would naturally keep the market in check, eliminated from the equation.

We do not have a capitalist society, no matter how much Michael Moore says we do.

An example of this is the BP oil spill. BP was able to pay off government regulators and conduct business however they felt they should. if we had a limited government that was not powerful enough to rewrite laws in favor of who was paying them off; they would have only been able to work how society wanted them to work. And if an incident did occur, new markets would rise up to "clean up the situation". Right now in Gulf there are private citizens with doable solutions to help clean up the oil spill, but the government has to wait and debate over which would be the most effective ways to clean it up...the private market sits idly by while DC decides.

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What color is the sky in your world, John?

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mat--it depends on the time of day due to the fact that the color changes due to light refraction with the gases in our atmosphere.

I don't really see how that astronomy has anything to do with the connection between massive government and massive corporations. The bigger the government, the bigger the problems that occur because governments can be used as a crutch to manipulate markets and override the rule of the people. Big corporations paying off law makers can not happen when the role of the government is limited. The business must then answer solely to the citizens.

Why are you afraid of empowering the individual? Why do you hate mankind so much that you believe a group of politicians know better about your decisions than you do? Why are you willing to enslave yourself to these politicians?

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"Democracy doesn't work in the workplace for the same reason that it doesn't work in the military. Everybody wants to be a chief, not an indian. Therefore, somebody has to have the final say."
That's just..... breathe.... The words I was going to use would cause some people to get all worked up. Suffice it to say that the comparison between the normal workplace and the military is really, really, really stupid. They're not even close to the same thing. Most jobs don't ask you to kill or be willing to be killed.

And (do I really have to say this?) worker-cooperatives prove your whole point wrong. Democracy DOES work in the workplace. We know because it IS working. What part of that aren't you getting?

I knew, knew, knew, that somebody would bring out the old "we're not a democracy BS". The working definitions are close enough. Your comparison to Jim Crow is stupid as well. Some Southern states had MAJORITY black populations, so it wasn't even a case of majority tyranny. By the way, who decided that minorities (or all sorts) have the right to disagree in the Bill of Rights? Oh yeah, it was the majority that voted for that. The point being that the majority CAN revoke the rights of the minority in either a republic or democracy. There's nothing in the definition of democracy that says the rights of the minority can't be protected.

"Why are you afraid of empowering the individual? Why do you hate mankind so much that you believe a group of politicians know better about your decisions than you do? Why are you willing to enslave yourself to these politicians?"

Why are you afraid of empowering the individual?

Why do you hate mankind so much that you believe a group of executives know better about your decisions than you do?

Why are you willing to enslave yourself to these corporations?

(btw, Mat's an anarchist, or can't you tell by his avatar? The LAST thing he wants is to empower the state/politicians. It's just that he applies that same standard to economics)

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I'm fuzzy, John. Big government is bad because it is big, which allows big business to be bad but is big business bad? Do you advocate for an end to corporations? If not, why do you hate small business?

And sark is mostly right. I prefer the term libertarian socialist, though. Anarchist has just become such a silly word, what with the agent provocateurs and all that.

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Trying to get an Ayn-Randian to think twice like trying to find a redeeming quality of Glenn Beck, but .... This is a very nice article about Rand that takes her worshipers to task by shining a light on her less admirable qualities. http://www.thenation.com/article/garbage-a…

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Big government is bad as is big corporations. they equal fascism. scale back government and the markets will regulate businesses growth.

I have always stated that in every one of my replies. Success is great and should be left up to the public to decide. When a corporation know it can manipulate a government to rewrite laws and destroy their competition with the stroke of a pen, then you have removed the consumer from the equation and left your fate to a few greedy law makers.

If you actually read Atlas Shrugged, and did not rely on others to tell you what to think about a book, then you would realize that the only characters in the book that do illegal business practices are those who manipulate the government.

FYI--i am a free market loving small business owner and libertarian socialist is such a contradiction of terms and shows your lack of understanding the terms is the only way you would be able to logically (loosely used) think they could work together.

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Beersnob - Are you actually trying to pass off an opinion piece as fact, no wonder you guys are so easily suckered into believing the tripe from the left! You guys never fact check...

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"Big government is bad as is big corporations. they equal fascism. scale back government and the markets will regulate businesses growth."
This is an article of faith. This is the first of the five pillars for market fundamentalists. It is not supported by history. Look at the 19th century. It's frequently hailed as a golden age by market fundamentalist types, the last time we were 'truly capitalist'. What happened? Huge monopolies. Companies that got so big they eventually had to be broken up (ie trust-busting).

"Libertarian" was a term originally used by left-wingers. It wasn't appropriated by the worshipers of the Invisible Hand until much, much later. Yeah, so you're wrong again.

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Sark, government regulations, lobbied by "Big Business", is what kept smaller companies from being able to compete in the "Free Market"...

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What regulations are you referring to? There were extremely few regulations, if any, in the 19th century before 'trust-busting'.

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