Clueless Ayn Rand Worshiping Objectivist Concerned About Wealth Inequality Doesn't Realize His Ideology Fosters It

Oh, for an honest Libertarian who would say "Yes, in Libertopia we'd have rampant quackery, organ-seizure, baby-selling, slavery in all but name - BUT THAT'S FREEDOM! ~ Seth Finkelstein, programmer and author who writes for The Guardian.

The video at the bottom of this commentary was recently included in a post about wealth inequality in the United States on the ironically titled blog "rAtional nAtion uSA". The proprietor of this blog, Lester Nation, is an individual who believes in the greed rationalizing ideology of Ayn Rand. Given that, his including of this video in his post proves just how clueless this guy is when it comes to the end game the plutocrats who endorse Libertarianism (like the Koch Brothers) desire.

The endgame of the plutocrats; the entire goal of pushing Libertarianism and Randism on our nation is to further enrich themselves and impoverish everyone else. This is a zero-sum game and when the rich get richer we all get poorer. It doesn't have to be, but the way Libertarians play the game it is. If they were willing to pay their workers more those workers would spend that money into the economy, thus increasing demand and benefiting the "job creators". Instead they seek to pay the workers as little as possible, thus decreasing demand.

Libertarians say economics isn't a zero-sum game, but that is only true when the economy is growing. The economy only grows when the workers have money to spend; which generates demand; which grows the economy. Problem is, when the corportist and CEO class seeks to increase their wealth by paying workers less and less, this causes the economy to contract (workers have less money to spend) and then the game is zero sum (the workers can't spend unless they borrow against the equity in their home, use their credit cards, or otherwise go into debt). For the plutocrats to win the workers must lose, which they have been over the past 40 years, ever since this country adopted Reaganomics (also known as "trickle down").

But Libertarians (the true believers like Lester) fail to realize this. They think that if government simply gets out of the way the wealthy elites will (unrestrained) be able to make more money and that money will trickle down to everyone else (those who work hard). This, despite the fact that the employers seek to pay as little as possible and, without government "restraining" them, they will engage in practices that drive down wages to an even greater extent... insourcing, outsourcing (using cheap overseas labor and then importing the goods sans tariffs), anti-unionism, etc.

Question is, for how long with the citizens tolerate this inequality before they demand change? And what kind of change will they demand? That really concerns Lester. He articulates these fears in a comment to his own post as follows...

rAtional nAtion: How this is going to shake out is uncertain. But my money rests on serious social unrest, a serious depression, and the results will be exactly what Capitalists have railed against for years. MORE GOVERNMENT CONTROL and HIGHER TAXES. (10/22/2013 AT 4:56pm).

All I can say to that is... amen, Lester. I pray you are right, but I also pray the middle class isn't decimated before we reach a breaking point. BTW, by "more government control" Lester refers to more democracy. Libertarians hate democracy, as they foolishly believe the "free market" should rule, not "we the people". Me, I'm a Progressive who believes in democracy and believe that "more government control" equates to our elected representatives doing more of what we want. And, of course taxes aren't high enough (FactCheck.org and PolitiFact both confirm that taxes are at a historical low).

I think Lester is right, but unlike him I don't fear the results he predicts. I am not looking forward to a possible depression, but if the people wake up and demand more democracy, higher taxes and other economic policies that will rebuild the middle class I'd be on board with that 100 percent.

According to Thomas Jefferson, "those seeking profits, were they given total freedom, would not be the ones to trust to keep government pure and our rights secure". The "free market", in other words, will destroy rights in order to gain more profit... and reduce the rest of us to paupers (or vassals). A country with a large and vibrant middle class, as pointed out by Progressive talker Thom Hartmann, is not natural.

When the plutocrats rule (as the Libertarians desire) the end result is a small number of uber wealthy rulers, an equally small middle class, and a large number of working poor. "We the people" via our elected officials must create and enforce legislation and economic policies to foster and enable the existence of a middle class... this would be the government that Libertarians and Randians like Lester Nation fear and despise. These foolish individuals fail to recognize the wisdom in Jefferson's words because they have been thoroughly duped by the plutocrats.

Video Description: Video posted on the rAtional nAtion uSA blog to complement a 10/22/2013 post by the proprietor titled "The Great American Income Shift". The video points out just how much more money the wealthy have than the rest of us (and that the inequality is significantly more than most Americans think)...

Further Reading
[1] Libertarianism Makes You Stupid by Seth Finkelstein, August 1997.
[2] Garbage and Gravitas... Ayn Rand was a melodramatist of the moral life: the battle is between the producer and the moochers, and it must end in life or death by Corey Robin, The Nation 5/20/2010.

SWTD #217, lDel #11.