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The Obscure Economist Silicon Valley Billionaires Should Dump Ayn Rand For

by dchun on 9/2/17, 6:41 AM with 27 comments

• by homarp on 9/2/17, 8:16 AM

  The book is available here: http://www.henrygeorge.org/pcontents.htm

  Previous HN Discussions: "Land-value tax: Why Henry George had a point" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10442929

  How I Used Eve Online to Predict the Great Recession - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9158868

• by kashkhan on 9/2/17, 9:37 AM

  > When you work for an hour, you increase society’s wealth (and your own) by an hour’s worth of wages.

  true.

  > When you save a dollar rather than spending it, you increase society’s (and your own) wealth by a dollar

  um no. spending only transfers the dollars, and normally you trade the dollar for something worth more to you than the dollar & vice versa, and society's wealth increases due to trade.

• by tim333 on 9/2/17, 10:41 AM

  > You’ve got to think of “land” as a metaphor for all unproductive forms of capitalism... Goldman...

  Banking existed in George's day too and when he said land I think he meant land. Land issues are still relevant today - in SF/silicon valley much of the value created by the tech industry has ended up with landlords who did nothing to produce it. You could make an argument for taxing that and spending it on social stuff. Also places like Monaco and Hong Kong have been successful in having low / zero taxes on wages etc by the government keeping ownership of much of the land and getting income from that.

• by notacoward on 9/2/17, 12:59 PM

  I have a lot of respect for Georgists and geolibertarians, unlike the much more common Randroids and propertarians (which one geolibertarian author quite rightly calls "royal libertarians" both because of where their wealth came from and the role they aspire to). The central Georgist/geolib idea of a land value tax has been tried quite a few times, generally with quite positive economic effects even before factoring in the moral effect of taxing rents instead of productive enterprise. The author's right that these ideas deserve more exposure than the melange of crappy fiction and crappier ideology that is Ayn Rand.

• by sparkzilla on 9/2/17, 10:58 AM

  The author of the piece says Rand "rationalizes greed," which is false, as there are many forms of greed, not just financial. My understanding is that she says that society is most moral when people are able to trade without coercion, and therefore the wealth generated from free trade cannot be classified as "greed".

• by mnm1 on 9/2/17, 9:41 AM

  "Chances are that will be Ayn Rand and her extreme form of capitalism, which she called objectivism."

  Rand's views on capitalism are only a small part of her philosophy and not at all the most interesting or compelling by far. By reducing objectivism to a form of capitalism, the author and most contemporary Rand proponents show they know little to nothing about objectivism and understand little to nothing of Rand's philosophy. It's sad that this aspect of her writings is so emphasized over everything else when it's the least interesting and least compelling of her writings about the human condition and the self. Most people using Rand's philosophy as a justification for their exploits of others would be considered looters by Rand, the exact opposite of what she espouses.

• by british_india on 9/2/17, 3:08 PM

  The author of the piece, Michael Kinsley, is a flat out genius. That is and has been apparent going back to his both incisive and funny comments on Crossfire.

  I started reading the article and was blown away within the first paragraph by the quality of the writing and I scrolled up to see the author and.... Michael Kinsley.

• by mindcrash on 9/2/17, 4:32 PM

  "According to James Stewart (the prominent business journalist, not the even more prominent actor), writing in The New York Times, President Trump says Ayn Rand is his favorite writer and that The Fountainhead, her pulmonary embolism of a book, is his favorite novel. Travis Kalanick, the onetime Übermensch of Uber, is on board, as is (liberal foodies, please note) John Mackey, co-founder and C.E.O. of Whole Foods."

  Or the actual reason why the author thinks Ayn Rand should be "dumped", in case you are wondering.

  President Trump is a fan of Ayn Rand. Travis Kalanick likes her books. John Mackey likes her books aswell. This proofs that Ayn Rand is evil and therefore her ideas are evil. Guilty by association.

  Someone who somehow survived the atrocities of communism and dedicated the rest of her life to make sure nobody would face the same atrocities like she did again. And this person is considered to be evil.

  Well, you know what, author over at Vanity Fair? Maybe Ayn Rand had some points which are debatable but YOU have unmasked yourself as a far left "liberal" ideologue. So fuck off, and take your ideological bullshit with you.

• by dnautics on 9/2/17, 9:33 AM

  on the other hand, nobody built a world-changing global repository of information based on Henry George's principles, so as much I dislike her, empirically speaking Ayn Rand has that going for her.