The Ayn Rand Schism

SHOW NOTES: • Two great American novels: Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. • She championed “objectivism” and individual accomplishment. • It’s not subtle, and it’s not modest. It’s a full-throated defense of reason, individualism, and self-interest—often misunderstood because people hear “selfishness” and stop listening. • Today we have “soak the rich” and “tax the rich” and “occupy Wall Street” and people defending Luigi Mangione who killed an insurance executive on the streets in New York. • I don’t think a company needs a Jim Anderson of Coherent making $100 million as CEO. I do think that any founder of a company deserves whatever money he or she can make. • We’ve moved from a society that prized innovation and initiative and the wealth that ensues to one where entitlement is a prevailing belief. • Yet we idolize red carpet movie stars, athletes, and simply rich celebrities without discernable talents, like the Kardashians. • We find excuses not to succeed, such as “toxic workplaces” which, if they do exist, are probably caused by toxic employees who are not pulling their weight yet demanding more and more. • We blame the “boomers” as having taken everything and not replaced it, which is total hogwash. The boomers created jobs and entire industries. • I’ve always believed in “healthy selfishness,” meaning you can’t help others (with money, time, ideas, coaching, emotional support, and so forth) unless you possess the resources that allow you to do so. • A great many people who take ultra-progressive stances, from Bernie Sanders to the women on “The View,” themselves are so wealthy that no amount of their espouse government taxation will seriously cause them discomfort. • Unless we reward creativity and jobs creation (along with star athletes and performers and “celebrities”) we won’t have the opportunity creation for everyone else. • Australia’s “tall poppy” vs. my Rolls Royce. • We need to take care of our homeless, and ill, and incapacitated, but not people who are able but unwilling to work. • States creating “millionaire taxes” are losing taxable citizens at an alarming rate. Massachusetts and along with them $4.2 billion in adjusted gross income. • You don’t eliminate poverty by creating more of it. I’m for a version of Ayn Rand’s healthy selfishness.