Recently at Target, I happened to notice a misplaced book. "Atlas Shrugged" was in the self-help section. I joked about how Ayn Rand needed all the help she could get, and a passer by stopped and commented about how that book was amazing. I replied that it failed in that the underlying structure was impossible, therefore the core element of the story falls apart under any reasonable analysis.
Simply put, Rand was Wrong.
For those of you who have not read the story, one of the key elements to it is that Business leaders decide on withholding their services, in a kind of blackmail, in order to topple the government as people cry out for what only they can provide. A kind of Libertarian paradise of no government would then erupt. So long as these businessmen were absent, conditions would collapse, so it was written.
This is absolutely why the whole book is not only fiction, but a fairy tale. This could not happen, and I'll explain to you why.
For it to occur, a fundimental element of Nature must be suspended. To wit: Nature abhors a Vacuum. If a business were to withhold its services or products, another one would rise up to fill the void left in the market place. That is the nature of the business world, otherwise there would be no competitive advantage to a Monopoly, to isolate out new entries into a market. For a business to intentionally seal itself out of the market, in a kind of "do it or else", the market soundly tells them to bugger off and finds a replacement.
Let's use a real world example. At one time, all household and small business computers ran a single operating system. This OS dominated the market, no system made was sold without it. The company making this OS was the must-have-could-not-be-without end-all-be-all. Then, the CEO of this company misbehaved, he did not enable its use on a new machine.
The company was Digital Research, the OS was CP/M, and the machine he did not put his OS onto, the IBM PC. IBM could have waited for DR to get its act together, possibly delaying themselves by months or years. Instead, they picked an upstart, a new company, and handed the keys of the kingdom to them. That company, Microsoft, and it's OS, DOS.
This is but one example. But it is a valid one. Rand's idea, that business leaders control through what they provide is absolute fiction. The customers control, the business only supplies to the customers. If the business does not supply, the customers will seek an alternative. If no alternative is there, an entrepreneur will step up to fill that need. That is what a Free Market is, and for all of Rand's endorsement of it, she failed to grasp even the most basic structure by which it works.
Those which espouse the philosophy of Ms. Rand have time and again proven themselves dangerous, for they believe that the business is the key to the market. This inversion of the nature of the market instead breeds corruption, and collapse, undermining the supports needed for the market to function.
This is why when the focus is, instead, on the worker, which then expand the consumer base, the market works so much smoother. This is why in the 1950's, we could support dozens of airlines, multiple automobile manufacturers, both fast food as well as mom and pop restaurants. Because the focus was on the consumer, the middle class worker. Until we stop believing in Rands delusional state, and start focusing on the true engine of our economy, the true master of our fate as it were, we shall never again achieve the greatness that we once had.
Forget John Galt, embrace Rosie the Riveter!
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