The Fountainhead & Atlas shrugged

[Serial_Apologist]

I think a key word omitted is 'well-thumbed' - which doesn't suggest someone who has read the work once, but one who has it virtually by their bedside and treats it as their Bible for life. Only by reading it can you be sure that her critics see things through your prism. Otherwise one judges by the criticisms of people who will most often think like you do because those are the critics you trust. On those grounds I do feel she would be 'worth reading' but she must take her place below a hundred others who interest me even more

Why do people hate the rich? On a purely theoretical ground, because in a universe where equality is recognised as an ideal, they have more than their fair share, indulge themselves too selfishly and have seldom worked harder for their wealth that people who have far less. If the rich were forced to engage in philanthropy proportionate to their wealth, who knows? They might even become loved in another sort of society than the one we live in now.

The problem there being that "the rich" get to decide on what it is that they consider worthy of spending their money on.

Capitalism apologists have occasionally pointed out - not nearly as often as it would advantage their arguments to do so - that were both capital and earnings of the richest to be shared out, this would not on its own solve the problems of poverty. The problem of capitalism is that it is, basically, systemically faulty. So much money has constantly to be printed (in so many terms) to keep it afloat, and then constantly destroyed, and it is this, especially, that hits those without reserves. The truth of the matter is that it is not the rich that we should be hating - this is just another solution deferred, scapegoat - they are only people, after all, and people can change - but the system.

[Mario]

The truth of the matter is that it is not the rich that we should be hating - this is just another solution deferred, scapegoat - they are only people, after all, and people can change - but the system.

YES, oh YES!

You see SA? When you write simply, your message gets through to even simpletons like me!

Mario

[LHC]

Because it's never made honestly. Look at the history of capitalism. The wealth was (still is) stolen in the first place, then that wealth is increased and perpetuated through exploitation of workers.

What do you consider to be rich? Like Heldenleben my partner and I have always worked in the public sector, and I am not aware of either of us having ever knowingly exploited the workers, but even though we are both retired, our household income would put us in the top 6% for income in the UK. I don’t personally feel as if I am one of ‘the rich’, and there are still a lot of people who are considerably richer than me/us, but on a statistical basis, I clearly am.

[french frank]

The problem there being that "the rich" get to decide on what it is that they consider worthy of spending their money on.

True - my 'other sort of society' was a theoretical one, not this one.

Capitalism apologists have occasionally pointed out - not nearly as often as it would advantage their arguments to do so - that were both capital and earnings of the richest to be shared out, this would not on its own solve the problems of poverty.

Leaving capitalism for the experts to sort out, this is also the reason why penalising "the rich" doesn't solve the problems of the poor, provide necessary services and infrastructure, because there are too few "rich people".

Wealth depends on where you view it from. There are people who earn £40,000 a year who don't consider themselves "rich" but it's probably because they have found enough to spend their disposable income on so that there is much they 'can't afford'. But if one family of four human beings must and does live on £500pw, then theoretically any family of four can do so.

[LHC]

Wealth depends on where you view it from. There are people who earn £40,000 a year who don't consider themselves "rich" but it's probably because they have found enough to spend their disposable income on so that there is much they 'can't afford'. But if one family of four human beings must and does live on £500pw, then theoretically any family of four can do so.

Most people have very little understanding of how their income compares to that of the rest of the Country. During the election there was an audience member on Question Time who described his income of £80k+ as ‘average’, apparently unaware that this would place him comfortably in the top 5%. When most people talk of ‘the rich’, they mean people who are richer than them.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Honestly Heldenleben, I think you raise some crucially fundamental points here.

1) Thank you for keeping the discussion serious,

2) Yes of course, monopolies are highly undesirable and extremely dangerous,

3) I have never used, do not now and will never use comparison sites, and if people are too dumb (yes I use that word deliberately) to understand that it is they who are paying the business’s cost in advertising on such sites, then they are beyond help,

4) I love, absolutely love, your last line. I wonder what mathematical, ideological, ethical, moral, Christian, financial, social, democratic or political formula is used by who, where or when, and why, that someone on say £150k or more, should pay more tax? I guess the reply that he/she IS ALREADY paying more tax is considered facile? So we reach the immoral stage (again, I use that word deliberately), that the harder you work and the more successful you become, and the more satisfied customers reward you with their business, then the more you should be penalised, but the more indolent, lazy, non-productive parasite you become, the more you should be rewarded? We are not here talking about the elderly, the sick, the unemployed or the poor agreed?

And as for the quote given in message 5 by FF, well then, in Hal Crowther’s eyes, I’m now, all of a sudden, “a poor reader, a poor thinker and an unpleasant person”.

And there was I thinking I was such a nice guy. I should be burnt at the stake, just because I've decided to read a book I didn't know the existence of less than two weeks ago.

Mario

All the evidence is that the more you earn (or more accurately the more your limited company owned by a shell company and ultimately untraceable trust based in the Caribbean earns ) the less tax proportionately you pay . As one private equity company director admitted “ I pay less tax than my cleaner “:
PS there are hedge funds that pay their receptionists more than £150k ...

[Joseph K]

What do you consider to be rich? Like Heldenleben my partner and I have always worked in the public sector, and I am not aware of either of us having ever knowingly exploited the workers, but even though we are both retired, our household income would put us in the top 6% for income in the UK. I don’t personally feel as if I am one of ‘the rich’, and there are still a lot of people who are considerably richer than me/us, but on a statistical basis, I clearly am.

I had in mind billionaires. I am well aware that there may well be people who escape my admittedly simple analysis, but then, I would say that simply by living in the country we do most people are heirs to the riches stolen and the struggles fought since the end of feudalism and the beginning of capitalism. You don't have had to have exploited workers to have indirectly benefitted from it. We have poverty and homelessness which is why I said 'most' but we do not have people working 12 hours a day for a pittance, as far as I'm aware. So, our workers are certainly privileged compared to many of those in the global south - thankfully, for example, British children don't have to mine for cobalt. Nonetheless, while there are many people in some respects peripheral to it, I think the concept of class and the dichotomy of the owners of the means of production and the producers of wealth is essentially true.

[Mario]

I love these wide, woolly, inaccurate generalisations, don’t you?

How many people did Sir Paul McCartney crush under his feet to make millions thanks to the creative process of his mind writing songs that gave millions of people a lot of pleasure?

How many people did Bill Gates crush under his feet to make billions thanks to the creative process of his mind enabling you and I to converse over the distance of hundreds of miles, instantaneously?

How many people did Warren Buffett crush under his feet to make billions thanks to the creative process of his mind helping people achieve their dreams by improving their investment returns?

How many people did Sir Richard Branson (no friend of mine I assure you for personal reasons), crush under his feet to make billions thanks to the creative process of his mind helping people achieve their dreams by giving them cheap holidays? Were it not for him, British Airways would still be charging £1,000 to fly us across the Atlantic.

Just a few examples of the billionaires that are so despised, each of which give millions to charitable causes. Not once have these individuals evaded their responsibility to the tax system, by becoming tax exiles.

I will always clap and applaud the man who works hard and achieves success by providing a service which we as his clients reward him with, through our custom.

As for the comment regarding hedge funds, without personalising the issue, this is an area I’ve spent my life working in, not just in the City of London, but in Indonesia, Singapore and that very den of iniquitous capitalism, Hong Kong. I have yet to meet a receptionist who earns £150k p.a.

So, in the fairness of unbiased reporting, can we have some evidence of such mendacious approaches to tax evasion (as opposed to tax avoidance)?

There are indeed despicable individuals who use others for a leg-up (your very own politicians, with their despicable Expenses Claims scandal, are an example), but to tar everyone with the same brush – no, that is not fair.

Again, without personalising the issue, if your own composer-in-residence writes music that millions will download, and makes himself a fortune, as reward for the hundreds of hours he has worked for no payment, no reward, no recognition, nothing to spur him on but his own will and determination, will you now deprive him of his success?

You know, not all rustlings in the bushes are monsters.

Ian Hislop has made a fortune riding on the back of his criticisms of others, while collecting £20,000 for an hour’s work a week for HIGNFY. I wonder how much he contributes to charity?

Hypocrisy? Heaven forbid!

(Still, he’s not all bad – vide his You Tube video on Beethoven’s 5th)

[Frances_iom]

Gates made his millions by using an illegal restraint of competition by requiring that the Microsoft operating system be placed on all computers produced by a licensee - thus even if there was a better O/S you have to persuade buyers to throwaway the fraction (quite high it seems) of the purchase price for an unwanted O/S - the illegal operation he was done for was the forced bundling of the M/S browser thus locking out competition - there were many other anticompetitive devices M/S employed to thwart competition - the industry reckons M/S held back development of personal computers by several years and considerable cost to consumers - he was a nasty nerd - luckily for humanity his wife isn't but even now he retains control of his charity.

ETA - he had nothing to do with the web - in fact M/S actually held back development as they didn't want the open nature as foreseen by the developers of the web

[Ein Heldenleben]

Gates made his millions by using an illegal restraint of competition by requiring that the Microsoft operating system be placed on all computers produced by a licensee - thus even if there was a better O/S you have to persuade buyers to throwaway the fraction (quite high it seems) of the purchase price for an unwanted O/S - the illegal operation he was done for was the forced bundling of the M/S browser thus locking out competition - there were many other anticompetitive devices M/S employed to thwart competition - the industry reckons M/S held back development of personal computers by several years and considerable cost to consumers - he was a nasty nerd - luckily for humanity his wife isn't but even now he retains control of his charity.

Thanks for pointing this out. Absolutely in line with the monopolist practices throughout tech that I highlighted . I don’t think Buffet , McCartney and Branson are monopolists - in fact the latter did help bring down prices through competition. But really much of the credit for that must go to Freddie Laker.

Auferstehen - you’re working for the wrong hedgies mate ! (The figure included a bonus and a cut of the fund to be fair)

[eighthobstruction]

I really am sorry if I’m coming across as being particularly dense here, but Howard Roark refuses to compromise on his ideals, yet the few individual clients he does
attract, become life-long supporters in following his services whenever they need a new house. Stand for something or fall for anything?

I lived in England through the whole phase of “the ugly face of capitalism”, so I think I understand this argument.

Clearly, I am not as well versed or as well read as most here, but is this “untrammelled capitalism”? If Howard Roark gives people what they want - no scratch that, if he gives them what he knows they want even before they realise it, and becomes successful at it in attracting further business, why is this evil?

Why are the rich so hated? Seriously, why are the rich so hated? Always assuming they made their wealth honestly, why are the rich so hated?

Mario

....you'll be praying for it to end....glad you choose the shorter more innocuous one....

[Frances_iom]

It should also be pointed out the unusual way Gates acquired this near monopoly - the PC was developed by IBM who published their design - normally IBM would have been expected to write the necessary operating system - after all it's not that they had no background in writing such software being one of the major computer companies BUT Gates' Aunt was on the IBM board where it was suggested that the market for such machines was very limited and somehow the supply of the software was to be from an otherwise unknown company who actually had 'bought' it from elsewhere.

[Joseph K]

How many people did Sir Paul McCartney crush under his feet to make millions thanks to the creative process of his mind writing songs that gave millions of people a lot of pleasure?

How many people did Bill Gates crush under his feet to make billions thanks to the creative process of his mind enabling you and I to converse over the distance of hundreds of miles, instantaneously?

How many people did Warren Buffett crush under his feet to make billions thanks to the creative process of his mind helping people achieve their dreams by improving their investment returns?

How many people did Sir Richard Branson (no friend of mine I assure you for personal reasons), crush under his feet to make billions thanks to the creative process of his mind helping people achieve their dreams by giving them cheap holidays? Were it not for him, British Airways would still be charging £1,000 to fly us across the Atlantic.

Just a few examples of the billionaires that are so despised, each of which give millions to charitable causes. Not once have these individuals evaded their responsibility to the tax system, by becoming tax exiles.

Nothing personal against any of these people. They're all clever, talented people. But animosity towards the class that perpetuates a system that increasingly looks as though it's pushing us towards irreversible climate catastrophe, and not to mention the gross amount of inequality that is its corollary? Yes.

You perhaps ought to spend some time thinking about the sort of social and political contexts that helped create the men you mention. The Beatles benefitted from the post-war Welfare state, as did their many fans. Likewise, Richard Branson benefitted from Thatcherite privatisation, pouring millions of tax-payer money straight into his pockets. As for Warren Buffett, I admire his candour:

'There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning.'

Sums it up, really.

[Ein Heldenleben]

It should also be pointed out the unusual way Gates acquired this near monopoly - the PC was developed by IBM who published their design - normally IBM would have been expected to write the necessary operating system - after all it's not that they had no background in writing such software being one of the major computer companies BUT Gates' Aunt was on the IBM board where it was suggested that the market for such machines was very limited and somehow the supply of the software was to be from an otherwise unknown company who actually had 'bought' it from elsewhere.

Often classed as the greatest mistake in corporate history...

[Bryn]

It should also be pointed out the unusual way Gates acquired this near monopoly - the PC was developed by IBM who published their design - normally IBM would have been expected to write the necessary operating system - after all it's not that they had no background in writing such software being one of the major computer companies BUT Gates' Aunt was on the IBM board where it was suggested that the market for such machines was very limited and somehow the supply of the software was to be from an otherwise unknown company who actually had 'bought' it from elsewhere.

Kudos, eh?