What if John Galt is a criminal or a con man?

[yurbud]

I posted this little exercise on Reddit to see if any of them would take the bait.

A lot of libertarians and conservatives resist socializing any government functions or regulating capitalism on the grounds that it would stifle the creativity and contribution of the Ayn Randian John Galts of the world.

If by that they mean inventors, artists, and those who come up with a business model that delivers products or services to people in a new and better way, I agree that we need to be careful not to box them in so that they can't contribute to the world or enjoy the fruits of their labor.

But what if someone's peculiar genius is profiting from dismantling the businesses that others have made that actually delivered goods and services, defrauding others by creating bubbles then cashing out before they burst or even creating forms of investment that allowed them to profit from the collapse of businesses, bribed politicians so that their actions would be legal, and continued doing all of the above until they bring not just the economy of their own country to its knees, but the entire world?

Is that person, who created no product, delivered no service, and done nothing but figure out how to take the wealth from those who created it through honest labor and creativity, is that person John Galt?

If not, why would anyone complain about giving the sociopaths on Wall Street the regulatory and criminal charges spanking they deserve?

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/abu84/what_if_john_galt_is_a_criminal_or_a_con_man/

[Brickbat]

1. Well done. I've never understood why each libertarian assumes he or she will be the one left on top

if the utopia were to come about. It's so incredibly short-sighted and self-serving.

[yurbud]

2. and if they were, who would fix their breakfast and wipe their asses?

[guruoo]

22. exactly...

[NMMNG]

23. They always like to belittle "the little people"

They always sneer at those who do "menial labor" and pretend that such individuals are expendable and worthless. But imagine them going a week--or even a day--without their gardeners, maids, garbage collectors, nannies, baristas, cooks, factory workers etc. Their worlds would come to a screeching halt and they'd be waist high in shit and trash in no time.

[Blue_Tires]

11. i like the really delusional ones who claim

they would last more than 30 seconds in their dream "no rules, laws, government, survival of the fittest, complete-societal-breakdown" -utopia

[Brickbat]

13. Exactly. Me too.

They crack my shit up.

[MisterP]

3. a lot of them insist that such scammers aren't "real" CEOs, or not the ones that they do adore

they love individual entrepreneurs, and neatly conceal the labor and society behind all businesses and railroads

the thing is, they see money as objective, and something that came before labor--not something subjective and artificial (which it is, since you can't eat paper or that Cross of Gold they keep trying to nail everyone onto)

[Orrex]

4. Galt is a farming colony.

[Orrex]

24. What? Nothing?

You faux-geeks totally bum me out.

[anonymous171]

5. Rand would still support him. She wrote pages upon pages of praise for serial killers in her diaries

She was a sick person. Why anyone takes her drug induced rants seriously I will never know.

[Nikki Stone1]

6. Really? Do you have links to her praise for serial killers?

That was one sick fuck!

[anonymous171]

7. Here:

The newspapers were filled for months with stories about serial killer called William Hickman, who kidnapped a 12-year-old girl called Marion Parker from her junior high school, raped her, and dismembered her body, which he sent mockingly to the police in pieces. Rand wrote great stretches of praise for him, saying he represented "the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatsoever for all that a society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul. … Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should." She called him "a brilliant, unusual, exceptional boy," shimmering with "immense, explicit egotism." Rand had only one regret: "A strong man can eventually trample society under its feet. That boy was not strong enough."

http://www.slate.com/id/2233966/

[Nikki Stone1]

17. I had no idea. Thank you for posting this.

..

[Occulus]

8. It's fairly well-documented

He was a rapist and murderer, if I recall correctly. Try here to start out:

http://michaelprescott.net/hickman.htm

[Nikki Stone1]

16. Thank you for the link, and OMG!

She worshipped sociopaths.

[Nikki Stone1]

18. Prescott is right: Rand does sound like the kind of woman who writes love letters to prisoners

And if her books are any indication, she needed to be brutualized, physically and or mentally, to be sexually aroused. I wonder what was really wrong with the woman.,

[burning rain]

9. The hardcore Randians make heroes of economic criminals.

They certainly did of Michael Milkin, who more cautious mainstream conservatives declined to defend.

Galt? I'd go French Revolution on his ass.

[Naked_Ape]

10. I am this Galt dude, I guess

I own a biz, invent things, make the wheels of industry go round...
I have never met a Libertarian who built a business with more than a handful of employees. They are often intelligent and talented people who worked in technical fields with little interaction with the general public. A disproportionate number seem to be mechanical engineers, especially aircraft engineers, or commercial pilots. I don't recall ever meeting a female Libertarian. Or a non-white one. Or one that had more than modest personal means.

These are a gross generalizations but I believe them to be reasonably accurate. I think Libertarianism is a self selecting and self limiting emotional disorder that would be well treated by, in fact, getting them all to "shrug" and just go away to be together somewhere. Alaska would be nice.

[Marr]

14. I definitely agree with you on the "white, technical field" thing--

as half the Libertarians I've known were male caucasions employed as software engineers or programmers. But I've also known several who were of modest means as well. One worked in a 7-11, in fact. For him, I think Libertarianism was a kind of ready excuse. He would be John Galt, if only the evil liberals hadn't twisted the system so.

[yurbud]

19. I hate to say it, but most engineers have social skills deficits, so they would have trouble

recognizing that the smooth operation of their lives and even their very survival depends on other people.

[FSogol]

20. Hey, Why bash mechanical engineers? Many of us are liberals.

:cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry:
:cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry:

[yurbud]

21. I didn't say ALL. It is weird though, I've had interaction with a lot of techie people over the

years in a couple of different states, and the observation has held up pretty well. Maybe it's related to the amount of concentration that's required in those fields.

[dorktv]

12. I always wanted to know who does the farming in that world

she invented.

Because one of the reasons we have had such startling change in society is that people no longer have to grow their own food. When you are struggling to keep enough on the table through winter from your own farm, kind of keeps you from having much time to invent stuff much less market it successfully.

[Ikonoklast]

15. They forgot to take a plumber with them to Galt's Gulch.

Just one lowly, blue-collar plumber.

Because none of those vast intellects, creative geniuses, and captains of industry never got the hang of sweating a pipe correctly and their fresh water was contaminated with sewage, they all died from dysentery within six months.

And the world kept turning without them.