“Ideology is as much about understanding the past as shaping the future.” So starts Mike Konczal’s recent Democracy Journal article, “The Voluntarism Fantasy.” And on this point, he couldn’t be more right.
Washington Post writer Steven Pearlstein recently published a thoughtful piece on the morality of capitalism that has gotten a lot of attention. I have a lot to say about it, and I want to start with one of the more intriguing questions raised by Pearlstein.
From Obama’s inauguration speech: “The commitments we make to each other — through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security — these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us.”
Why has Ayn Rand been so influential on the right? That was one of the questions a segment on CNN today tried to answer. According to one of the guests, Rand critic Gary Weiss, the answer is simple: “Ayn Rand made it morally acceptable to be harsh in your treatment of the poor.”
Ayn Rand, author of the 1957 classic Atlas Shrugged, is one of history’s most celebrated champions of capitalism. Her books have sold in the tens of millions, and her ideas continue to be debated thirty years after her death. Many of today’s top opinion leaders, businessmen, and politicians—everyone from Rush Limbaugh to Mark Cuban to Paul Ryan—have cited Rand as an important influence on their development.
