It seems to me this passage speaks against the bankers, intellectual property owners, monopolists, land owners and the like. All gate keepers of resources.
Perhaps Atlas is actually someone else than Rand thought.
It speaks against a system where political favour dictates your success as a producer over your ability to compete. If you feel land owners and intellectual property owners are gate keepers in a society where your can have your own ideas and buy your own property I don’t know what to say.
The permits, policies, regulation and political apparatuses which Rand so despises are legal fictions which allow a small group of people control, who gets to use what resources and how.
Currencies, fractional reserve banking, patents and land ownership are similar legal fiction, which allow a small group to control who gets to use what resources and how.
If I want to sell razor blades to a Gillette razor, I will get sued for patent infringement. Is their gatekeepping somehow more morally valid than the politician’s who gives a tax break to their competitor since their production line is in his city?
I was trying to humorously point out, that the quoted part of Rand’s text could be read almost as a socialist opinion, where the value created arises from the worker and not the owners.
It seems to me this passage speaks against the bankers, intellectual property owners, monopolists, land owners and the like. All gate keepers of resources.
Perhaps Atlas is actually someone else than Rand thought.
It speaks against a system where political favour dictates your success as a producer over your ability to compete. If you feel land owners and intellectual property owners are gate keepers in a society where your can have your own ideas and buy your own property I don’t know what to say.
I know.
The permits, policies, regulation and political apparatuses which Rand so despises are legal fictions which allow a small group of people control, who gets to use what resources and how.
Currencies, fractional reserve banking, patents and land ownership are similar legal fiction, which allow a small group to control who gets to use what resources and how.
If I want to sell razor blades to a Gillette razor, I will get sued for patent infringement. Is their gatekeepping somehow more morally valid than the politician’s who gives a tax break to their competitor since their production line is in his city?
I was trying to humorously point out, that the quoted part of Rand’s text could be read almost as a socialist opinion, where the value created arises from the worker and not the owners.