Rich People Aren't Makers, They Are Takers
How does one even go about attaining this level of stupid?
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While we're very happy to have you in the Gulch and appreciate your wanting to fully engage, some things in the Gulch (e.g. voting, links in comments) are a privilege, not a right. To get you up to speed as quickly as possible, we've provided two options for earning these privileges.
Taking from one to give to another is thievery, no matter how pitiful or deserving the recipient is.
2) The "Green Revolution" was Borlaug's technique for vastly increasing crop yields, so millions of people wouldn't starve, an "in-your-face" to the neo-Malthusidans, such as Stanford's Paul Ehrlich ("The Population Bomb"). Has nothing whatsoever to to with the "Green Movement", a bunch of trust-fund lefty tree-huggers and professional trouble makers.
Try again, sport...
Apparently you have greatly confused Atlas Shrugged and Elysium. In fact it seems as if you only perused the Cliff Notes of Atlas Shrugged in order to spew the blatant inaccuracies you have poured forth in this piece. It seems like you are intentionally casting yourself as a real life Wesley Mouch (from Atlas Shrugged) but you will likely be unable to understand how great an insult that truly is. I only pray that your political goals utterly fail before things get as bad as they are portrayed in Atlas Shrugged.
This is what the main characters in AS come to realize. It's what going on strike means. Some socialist acquaintances of mine were ridiculing me about going off somewhere as the movies talk about. They explained that there were laws to prevent it. I told them their anger proves they are in the wrong. If all the socialists in the US moved away from the taxpayers, the taxpayers would give them a going away party. The socialist response is to pass laws preventing the taxpayers from moving.
"The errors in this article are so apparent and numerous that it's amazing it ever got published. Here are just a few of them. Rand did not celebrate the wealthy. For example, a main character in Atlas Shrugged, James Taggart, is very wealthy and a villain. There are several characters with no wealth, including the hero in Atlas Shrugged. Much like the false narrative the author is trying to set up regarding Ayn Rand, "social Darwinism" tries to set up regarding Capitalism. The suggestion in Social Darwinism, is that iin a capitalistic structure, there is no cooperation among individuals. However, a key foundation to Capitalism is voluntary trade among individuals, which is most certainly cooperation.
Another false narrative is the so-called vital role government has played in innovation. However, the government's own studies have shown that most emerging technologies are invented by individuals or small start ups- hardly the wealhiest and NOT government. http://archive.sba.gov/advo/research/rs3...
Ayn Rand celebrated creators, including inventors, and producers and in no way suggested people should not cooperate with one another. Please read Atlas Shrugged before you write articles mis-characterizing the novel."
Mr McEllwee is the real-life Bertram Scudder when he says things like "To justify their wealth, the titans of industry must make themselves the center of economic progress and society..." Notice the presumption that those with wealth need to justify their ownership of it to the rest of society? You didn't build it, it's not yours, and we expect you to use it for "good" or we're going to label you evil.
The rich don't use their money for good, as defined by Mr McEllwee. We have a problem.
Mr Gates gives away 30 BILLION dollars, and....in Mr McEllwee's morality, that is not "good" enough.
"Imagine the good we could do with the fortunes of the rich...."
Read between the lines there. He wants to take it ALL.
He lays out a moral justification for doing so: you didn't build that.
"Once great men created fortunes; today a great system creates fortunate men."
This is the same liberal attitude that justifies progressively higher taxes on high earners out of the belief that they have effectively "won a lottery" by getting their job, rather than actually obtaining it by effort.
You have created a successful business? Good! Did you attend public school? Well then, you didn't build that. You owe us whatever we decide to take because you clearly didn't make it on your own.
"Private space flight is only imaginable because the government went there first." Really? Mr McElwee really ought to read a biography about Robert Goddard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Godd...). He's got it completely backwards.
Memorize his face, people. If he's standing around you some day, guard your wallet.
How about this quote: "The Randian vision praises hedge fund managers, even though most hedge funds underperform the market " Which Randian vision praises people for underperforming?
How about this one: "It seems almost axiomatic that no good person has ever done something great merely for a profit." Axiomatic means something you accept without any evidence. I agree with quote: Yes, the author is not using evidence.
Regarding the stuff about Peter Singer, I agree. But if you read Singer's book, he talks about how much of the world has barely enough to stay a life while a billion people have cameras and other toys. Why focus on one wealthy person? Why not ask this question of the billion human beings who have way more than enough? I think it's a fair question, but I don't see why we only ask it of Bill Gates. The hundreds of millions of us who have a significant positive networth control way more wealth than "the richest "0.01%" he talks about.