Amazon now has Andrew Bernstein’s Capitalist Manifesto back in stock, at the terrific price of $19.95.
When we published our review of The Capitalist Manifesto last week, Amazon didn’t have any in stock and the best place to buy them was through the publisher, for about $35.00.
The Amazon price is much better, obviously, so have at it. It’s an important book to read — and deserves a permanent place on your bookshelf.
Category: The Atlasphere
All things Atlasphere can be found here, columns, podcasts, interesting anecdotes, and more.
Russia's Future without Andrei Illarionov
The Times Online has a terrific article discussing the problems Russia may face now, attenuant to Illarianov’s resignation:
WHEN Andrei Illarionov joined the Kremlin as an economic adviser in 2000, he and most of the Western world were convinced that Russia was finally heading towards a brighter, freer future.
For five years he advised President Putin and headed Russiaâ??s negotiations with the G8, which Russia joined in 1997 as a reward for its liberal political and economic reforms.
But yesterday â?? five days before Russia takes over the rotating G8 presidency for the first time â?? Mr Illarionov resigned from the Kremlin, saying that his country was no longer politically or economically free.
â??It is one thing to work in a country that is partly free. It is another thing when the political system has changed, and the country has stopped being free and democratic,â? he told reporters. â??I did not go to work for such a country.â?
Mr Illarionov, 44, had been sidelined since he described last yearâ??s forced renationalisation of the oil company Yukos as the â??scam of the yearâ? and was replaced as Russiaâ??s G8 â??sherpaâ? in January.
But his resignation will fuel concern in the West that Russia is not fit to lead the G8 group of leading industrialised nations, comprising Britain, the United States, Japan, France, Germany, Italy and Canada.
Mr Putin wants to use the presidency to reclaim Russiaâ??s status as a world power and to focus the G8 on issues affecting the former Soviet Union â?? energy security, education and health.
The G8 summit in St Petersburg is supposed to be the high point of his presidency, and by the end of the year he hopes to win full membership of the group, whose finance ministers still meet as the G7.
But after recent moves by the Kremlin to curb democracy Western leaders are under pressure to deny Russia full membership, boycott its G8 summit, or even evict it from the club altogether.
The article ends with this laundry list of Russia’s recent grievances against democracy:
1 President Putin has re-established direct or indirect control over all national TV channels and most newspapers
2 The Kremlin scrapped direct elections for regional governors this year
3 Russiaâ??s hardline policies in the North Caucasus, especially Chechnya, are radicalising Muslims in neighbouring republics and around the world
4 The oil company Yukos was effectively renationalised and its founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, jailed this year in what was widely seen as punishment for his meddling in politics
5 The Duma passed a Bill last week allowing the Kremlin to shut down NGOs that criticise its policies
6 Russia is helping Iran to build a nuclear reactor and sold Tehran $1 billion of weapons last month
7 Moscow is blocking moves to censure Syria over the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese Prime Minister
8 Kremlin has backed Uzbekistanâ??s auto- cratic regime over the massacre of protesters in the city of Andijan
9 Russia maintains troops in Transdniester, a separatist region of Moldova, despite committing to withdraw them in 1999
10 Moscow is trying to reform the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe to prevent it from criticising rigged elections in the former Soviet Union
High point of the article: the rationalizations the bureaucrats provide for curbing individual rights and free market reforms. What goons.
Putin Economic Advisor Andrei Illarionov Resigns
Andrei Illarionov, a vocal proponent of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, has resigned as Putin’s chief economic advisor:
MOSCOW – An outspoken economic adviser to President Vladimir Putin who has become increasingly critical of a return to inefficient state control of the economy has offered his resignation, complaining that he was no longer able to speak his mind, Russian news agencies reported Tuesday.
Andrei Illarionov, the lone dissenter in a Kremlin dominated by Putin’s fellow KGB veterans, was stripped of his duties as envoy to the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations earlier this year. However, he has remained Putin’s economic adviser.
Last week he charged that political freedom has steadily declined and said that government-controlled corporations have stifled competition and ignored public interests.
“I considered it important to remain here at this post as long as I had the possibility to do something, including speaking out,” the ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Illarionov as saying.
“Until recently, no one put any restrictions on me expressing my point of view. Now the situation has changed,” he added.
Illarionov, 44, a free-market economist who worked in the Russian government in the early 1990s, was appointed an adviser to Putin in 2000.
But he increasingly fell out of favor after he became a vocal critic of moves to restore state control over the strategic energy sector. In particular, he lambasted the effective nationalization of the Yukos oil empire of jailed tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2004 as the “swindle of the year.”
Illarionov said he had a number of reasons for his decision to resign but that his main concern was the development of an increasingly state-controlled economy, with major public companies run by self-interested bureaucrats.
“Six years ago when I came to this post I dedicated my work to increasing economic freedoms in Russia. Six years on, the situation has changed radically,” he said.
“This is a state model with the participation of state corporations, which although they are public in name and status, are managed above all for their own personal interests,” said Illarionov.
Last week, Russia’s biggest carmaker, Avtovaz, elected a new board with top managers representing the state, cementing control of a key company after parallel moves to increase the state’s hold on the energy sector.
Under Putin, Russia has moved to snap up chunks of the strategically important oil sector and the state now controls around 30 percent of the national oil industry.
In December 2004, the biggest oil fields of the embattled Yukos oil giant â?? once Russia’s No. 1 producer â?? were transferred to the state to reclaim billions in disputed tax bills, and this year, the giant gas monopoly Gazprom bought the privately held OAO Sibneft oil company.
Illarionov said last week that after state-owned Rosneft took over OAO Yukos’ main subsidiary, Yuganskneftegaz, the unit’s revenues dropped and costs soared.
Earlier coverage of this subject at the Atlasphere includes the following:
Putin Advisor Illarionov Profiled in WSJ (May 12, 2005)
Putin Demotes Economic Advisor Andrei Illarionov (May 1, 2005)
Spreading Ayn Rand in Russia (April 1, 2005)
I would love to know how to get in touch with Illarionov for an interview. If you have any suggestions, please contact me.
UPDATE: More coverage on this topic is available from AFP.
Putin Advisor Illarionov Profiled in WSJ
Forwarded to us by Don Hauptman:
Today’s (Friday, Dec 23, 2005) Wall Street Journal, page A13, has a long profile of top Putin economic adviser Andrei Illarionov. First para notes that he “has been preaching no-hold-barred, laissez-faire capitalism in Russia for more than a decade.” Of course, Rand’s enormous influence on his ideas is cited, albeit briefly.
If Russia’s horrible recent regression to communism and fascism is to be averted, he’s one one who will do it. But the article reports, sadly, that his influence is waning. Still, Putin hasn’t yet canned him, so perhaps there’s still hope.
We’ve written before about Illarionov, his connection with Rand, and his tenure in Putin’s cabinet.
Hudgins: Why We Give Gifts
Why We Give Gifts
by Edward Hudgins
One year I gave my then-young nephew who was in the first years of elementary school a rock for Christmas. Not just any old rock but a piece of sandstone from a science store. In it were embedded fossils, shells and other little surprises. But you couldnâ??t just take a hammer, smash it to pieces and extract your prizes. The rock came with little scraping and brushing tools and, like a paleontologist, you had to slowly and methodically scrape away the rock.
It was exciting for me over the next weeks to get my nephew’s excited phone calls telling me that he thought he could see a little white piece of bone sticking out and he would keep me informed on his progress. I was watching a curious mind and a fired imagination learning patience and perseverance.
One Christmas season tradition that makes this holiday stand out from all others is gift-giving. Crowded malls lead to brightly-wrapped packages and then to bright eyes and smiles as the surprises are revealed to their recipients. Inevitably this tradition is criticized as too commercial, although it seems strange that anyone should complain about living in a society of productive individuals, which allows us to purchase all the material comforts that make life pleasant. In any case, we need to produce before we can give. Some suggest that it is more blessed to give than to receive. Is this true? Is this pure altruism or is there something in it for us the givers? This is a good time to ask about some of the reasons why is it of value to us to give gifts.
Continue reading “Hudgins: Why We Give Gifts”
Munich Looking Worse and Worse
A few weeks ago, I blogged that Spielberg’s new Munich movie might be worth seeing, at least for those with an interest in the fate of Israel. However, the reviews I’ve seen so far are not promising. Here’s an example:
When Steven Spielberg began filming Munich in June 2004, he set the tone for his fictional movie about Israeli agents who hunted down the Palestinian terrorists responsible for the slaughter of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Spielberg abruptly stopped filming and closed up shop. Why? Because the 2004 Summer Games were happening in August, and Steven Spielberg didnâ??t want to upset the terrorists.
Thatâ??s what Munich is about: not upsetting the terrorists. And rolling over while they attack and kill us. In Steven Spielbergâ??s world, not going after terrorists brings peace. In the real world, not going after terrorists brings more bloodshed.
Ed Hudgins Reviews New King Kong Movie
We Three Kongs
by Edward Hudgins
If art holds a mirror to reality, the original 1933 King Kong, the 1976 remake and the latest version by Peter Jackson, show a culture that swung from a romantic optimism to cynicism and now perhaps is returning to a healthier sense of life.
The original Kong very much reflected the values of its maker, Merian C. Cooper. As a six-year old a book his uncle gave him on â??Adventures in Equatorial Africaâ? inspired Cooperâ??s imagination with tales of the jungle and strange animals, including gorillas. He wanted to be an explorer! He went to the U.S. Naval Academy but got booted out for suggesting that the recently-invented airplane could some day sink battleships. He became a bomber pilot in World War I and was shot down and imprisoned by the Germans. After the war, in 1920 he flew for the Poles who fought Soviet invaders. He was shot down again and thrown into a communist slave camp but escaped. Years later he made movies celebrating American values to counter communist propaganda.
Continue reading “Ed Hudgins Reviews New King Kong Movie”
C-Span2 Book TV on "The Capitalist Manifesto"
C-Span2 Book TV will broadcast a recording of Andrew Bernstein’s talk on his new book, The Capitalist Manifesto, which he recently gave at Marist College in Poughkeepsie. The broadcast includes the entire talk and Q&A, and is scheduled for Monday, December 19th, between 5:00am-7:00am EST.
Make sure to set up your DVD or VCR recorder.
Update: The program will be broadcast several additional times through the end of Januray. You can check the C-Span2 Book TV schedule for the times. The program is also available on the Internet during the broadcast, via RealPlayer or Microsoft Media Player.
"The Objective Standard" – a New Objectivist Journal
The Objective Standard is a new quarterly journal of culture and politics, written from an Objectivist perspective.
The purpose of the journal is to analyze and evaluate ideas, trends, events, and policies according to the philosophy of Ayn Rand – a philosophy of reason, egoism, and laissez-faire capitalism. The new journal provides a rational, principled alternative to the ideas of both liberalism and conservatism.
“Whereas liberals hold that morality is subjective (i.e., feeling-based), that majority opinion is the standard of value, that sacrifice for the common good is noble, and that rights are social conventions; and whereas conservatives hold that morality is grounded in religion (i.e., faith-based), that Godâ??s will is the standard of value, that sacrifice in obedience to His commands is good, and that rights are divine decrees; we hold that morality is grounded in the objective requirements of human life (i.e., reason-based), that manâ??s life is the standard of value, that the selfish pursuit of oneâ??s life-serving goals is good, and that individual rights are moral principles defining the basic requirements of a civilized society.”
The permiere issue is scheduled for April 2006.
Broadway's Jerad Bortz Inspired by Anthem
An article in Sunday’s edition of the Pittsburg Tribine-Review includes an interesting article titled “Triple threat,” about Broadway performer Jerad Bortz. It begins:
He’s always been a performer. As a 6- and 7-year-old at home, in Latrobe, he would dance and sing his way out of the shower. Today, Jerad Bortz is doing what he did way back then, only on Broadway.
A principal understudy in the smash hit “Wicked,” Bortz arrived at the Gershwin Theater on West 51st Street from “Mamma Mia,” another of the Great White Way’s bright lights.
Appearing on a recent cover of Dance Spirit magazine, the Greater Latrobe High School graduate was hailed as one of six young “triple threat” performers who are living their dream of making it in New York.
Triple threat?
Singing. Dancing. Acting.
Bortz, 26, was a natural from the time he walked on stage, said John Noble, a Greensburg attorney whose passion is the theater. In addition to starring in amateur productions, Noble founded “Night of the Stars” to showcase high school talent.
The first “Night of the Stars” nine years ago featured Bortz in the role of Broadway legend George M. Cohan in the musical “George M.”
“It gives me chills just to think about it,” Noble said.
“There are a lot of talented kids,” Noble continued. “The difference with Jerad is that his talent continued to grow and expand.”
And later in the article comes this story:
One day, in school, Bortz asked Cavanaugh to drop by the band room.
Cavanaugh’s English class had been studying the Ayn Rand novel “Anthem,” a story of rediscovered individuality in a world of mass conformity. The saga fired Bortz’s imagination, so much so that he wrote a song based on the novel, complete with orchestration.
Waiting for Cavanaugh in the band room was the high school band, Bortz and two other singers. Together, they performed Bortz’s composition for their teacher.
See the full article to learn more about Bortz.