How would Ayn Rand react to the current policies and realities in the USA?
Rand would throw a major hissy fit. Rand believed in a pure (even naive) form of capitalism, in which a few entrepreneurs would create the industries that would employ the rest of us, and we should be grateful for those jobs. Anything that interfered with those entrepreneurs is “looting”. No form of taxation is justified: anything we need would be provided by those entrepreneurs, who would discover the need and fill it, for a price lower than we’d get from taxation. Rand would be horrified at the state of the US government today. Bailing out automakers prevents smaller, more innovative companies from rising in their places. (Exactly what the workers for the current manufacturers are supposed to eat in the meantime is their problem.) Same for bailing out the banks; it prevents us from learning our lessons about what the market really wants. Social welfare programs cause laziness among workers. Stimulus programs pick the wrong winners and losers. I find Rand’s notion of capitalism naive.
