Category: Politics

Professional Objectivists on Election 2004

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

Still haven’t decided who to vote for this year? Some prominent Objectivists are offering to help clear the fog.
In his lecture earlier this year on the DIM Hypothesis, Leonard Peikoff came out in favor of voting for John Kerry, because of George W. Bush’s religious fanaticism. In fact, Peikoff arguest that it is immoral to abstain from voting against Bush.
Objectivist psychotherapist Michael Hurd, on the other hand, has a different take. According to his article “Looking Ahead While Living Today,” Bush is the lesser of two evils:

If the choice is between John Kerry, who almost certainly will never use military force to vigorously defend American interests versus George W. Bush, who will sometimes do so, then this is more important to me than whether or not the candidate approves of prayer or will appoint judges who are against abortion.

See the respective arguments from Drs. Peikoff and Hurd for their full rationale.

Notes on Whole Foods Owner John Mackey

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

Atlasphere member Will Wilkinson notes on his blog that his local Giant grocery store is lousy in just about every way a grocery store can be lousy:

Sure, it’s cheaper than my other local grocery, Whole Foods (libertarian-owned, I’m told), but I think I may be willing to add $10 to each bill in order to save myself the aggravation of standing in line while the check-out lady makes yet another historic attempt to break all known records in lethargy (while the manager, a creature rarely seen, camps in the fetid back room listening to “The Rest of the Story” on Paul Harvey News and Comment.) Whole Foods is often packed, yet I rarely wait more than five minutes. Did I mention that Giant is ugly, and that the produce is bad.

I don’t know anything about Giant, but I know something about Whole Foods. In the early 1990s they bought out Wellspring Grocery, the natural foods grocery store that I had worked at in high school. At the time, I remember reading that Whole Foods owner John Mackey called himself a “new-age libertarian environmentalist,” whatever that meant.
A little research on the ‘net shows that he’s a colorful character:

[W]hen left-leaning journalists began attacking him for resisting union demands last year, MacKey responded by putting together “Beyond Unions,” a 19-page summary of his libertarian views that included quotes from libertarian giants like Ludwig von Mises, Milton and Rose Friedman, Henry Hazlitt, and Robert Nozick.

Heh. And how did he arrive at such pro-freedom views? Reportedly by reading Ayn Rand, among other authors.
Kathy and I find ourselves doing more and more shopping at the Whole Foods here in Albuquerque. …Why? Because it’s the best store in town: incredible selection, immaculately kept, and friendly staff. Always teeming with happy shoppers and fresh, delicious food. (Viva Capitalism!)

Ayn Rand in South Korea

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

In his remarks to the Annual Liberty Forum of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in Chicago this April, Lawrence Reed reports on a new initiative called the Atlas International Freedom Corps (IFC):

The vision of the IFC is to develop a new generation of highly skilled and intellectually-savvy individuals who are committed to changing the world by spreading the ideas of the free society worldwide through cross-cultural exchanges of talent. It will develop the next generation of human capital for liberty by discovering, attracting, and nurturing individuals for potential careers within think tanks and other organizations.

Describing his own trip to South Korea on behalf of the IFC, Reed notes the role of Ayn Rand’s writings in spreading free market ideas in this part of the world:

The offices of the Center for Free Enterprise (CFE) in Seoul, South Korea, were my first stop on this three-country mission. Founded by Korean entrepreneur and business consultant Dr. Byoung-Ho Gong in April 1997, CFE?s staff of 10 disseminates a wealth of policy papers and commentary to Korean media and opinion leaders. Among CFE?s voluminous output are no fewer than 55 books. Both Dr. Gong and CFE president Dr. Chung-Ho Kim have translated into Korean numerous classics of free market literature and Austrian economics, including the writings of Frederic Bastiat, Ludwig von Mises, Ayn Rand and F.A. Hayek.

See Reed’s full remarks for additional information.

Excellent Interview with T.J. Rodgers

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

Cypress Semiconductor CEO T.J. RodgersDeclan McCullagh (writing for CNet’s News.com) has published an excellent interview with Cypress Semiconductor CEO T.J. Rodgers.
Some noteworthy excerpts:

Q: John Kerry is denouncing “Benedict Arnold” CEOs who send jobs overseas. Is it moral for American companies to increase their overseas outsourcing?
A: It is immoral for any CEO not to run his company in the best possible financial way for his shareholders. I used to hold Kerry’s naive view of the “all American” company, meaning all jobs in America. That was a foolish mistake on my part, and it cost my shareholders a lot of money, until I moved our entire assembly and test operation and several hundred jobs offshore in 1992. […]
Some AFL-CIO activists are pledging to make the offshoring of technology jobs a campaign issue this fall.
The AFL-CIO has been promoting losing economics causes for years. Other than the government members of the union, the AFL-CIO has lost pretty much all of its membership over the last few decades. The AFL-CIO consistently promotes economic policies that harm its own members. […]
Why not [expand your company in California]?
The wage rate is one problem, but it’s surmountable, because the cost of a wafer is only 15 percent labor. So if I paid a 20 percent premium for labor, the wafer would only cost 3 percent more. The killer factor in California for a manufacturer to create, say, a thousand blue-collar jobs is a hostile government that doesn’t want you there and demonstrates it in thousands of ways, through bureaucrats and regulations.
Ayn Rand said no society can jail an honest man. So if you want to use the power of society on citizens, you have to make normal behavior illegal. The zoning ordinances and environmental ordinances are a classic example. I guarantee you that nobody truly understands them, and no plant can meet all of them simultaneously. So you end up with a dynamic that there are no laws, and there are no rules, and you’re completely at the mercy of the local government, and they don’t want you there. And they tell you that. So you go away. That’s why there’s no silicon left in Silicon Valley.

See the full interview with T.J. Rodgers for more gems of insight and wit from this prominent admirer of Atlas Shrugged.
PS. For some video footage, check out this EE Times interview with T.J. Rodgers.

Bush Reappoints Alan Greenspan

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

Reuters reports that today George W. Bush reappointed Alan Greenspan to a fifth term as chairman of the Federal Reserve:

Alan Greenspan will take the helm of the U.S. Federal Reserve for a fifth term with his reputation as the world’s top central banker intact, though a little less gilded than it was during the golden 1990s.
With the White House’s blessing on Tuesday, the 78-year-old Greenspan will stay on in the role he has held since August 1987.
President George W. Bush wants him “to serve as long as possible,” a White House spokesman said. His current term as chairman is scheduled to end June 20. […]
His tenure could make history even without a full four-year stretch. If he holds the Fed chair until June 2006, Greenspan will be the longest-serving chairman in the U.S. central bank’s 91-year history.

The article provides some interesting background, as well, for those who have not yet read Greenspan’s bio:

A longtime Republican, Greenspan in his youth was a friend and associate of late novelist Ayn Rand, who espoused the supremacy of the free markets and the profit motive in books such as “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”
When President Ronald Reagan named him to succeed the legendary Volcker in 1987, Greenspan was the favored candidate on Wall Street. But some were worried about whether he could live up to the reputation of the tough-minded Volcker.
Greenspan quickly proved his mettle. The “Black Monday” stock market crash of October 1987 came just two months after he took office.
In what is now seen as a textbook example of how to handle crises, Greenspan opened up the monetary spigots to keep the financial system from seizing up.
The move was widely seen as having staved off a recession in the U.S. economy. While a recession did later ensue a few years later, it was not a result of the market crash.

See the full article for further details.

Canadian Authorities Confiscate ARI Article

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

An opinion editorial in the Jerusalem Post [requires free registration] notes evidence for increasing anti-semitism in Canada. Included in their long list of examples is the confiscation, by Canadian authorities, of an article published by the Ayn Rand Institute:

In early October, the Canadian Customs and Revenue Agency confiscated newsletters published by the Ayn Rand Institute entitled In Moral Defense of Israel, claiming they had to determine whether the material constituted “hate propaganda.” The newsletters were released a few days later.

See the full article for additional background.

Social Change Workshop for Graduate Students

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

We’ve reported before in this space about the free but valuable IHS Summer Seminars.
Will Wilkinson particularly recommends the Social Change Workshop for Graduate Students. From his comments:

Let me start here… I got an email a while back from one of last summer’s faculty–it was her first time teaching at the workshop. She told me that the workshop was like she’d always hoped grad school would be, but sadly wasn’t (having gone to Harvard for grad school and Berkeley for law). And that’s really it. That’s why I love it. At the Workshop you’re surrounded by brilliant people. It’s like the united nations of smart. Chinese students from Yale, Russians from Chicago, Poles from Oxford… Africans, Mexicans, you name it, and from some of the best grad programs in the world. (Interestingly, most of the european students come from central/eastern post-communist europe, and not France, Germany, etc, although we get those too.)

Will’s entire discussion of this subject is worth reading, if you think you (or a graduate student you know) might be interested.

Ayn Rand & Capitalism Grant at Univ of South Carolina

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

The Associated Press reports (via The Mercury News) that the University of South Carolina has received a $1 million grant from Branch Banking & Trust Company (BB&T) to promote the study of capitalism:

USC will get the funds over the next couple years, said business school dean Joel Smith III, and will use the money to create a capitalism ethics class, a capitalism-focused professorship, a lecture series and a room in the business library dedicated to the works of authors that support free enterprise such as Ayn Rand.
John Allison, chairman and CEO of BB&T, said USC and the bank jointly developed the focus of the endowment.
“If you look at a lot of business education programs, they do a good job of teaching people the technical part of business,” Allison said. “But they don’t often explain the philosophical foundations for capitalism, and anybody can make better decisions if they understand the context.”
Smith said the study of ethics has become more common in recent years but the way USC will study “the moral defense of capitalism as a mechanism is fairly unique.” […]
Smith said recent business ethics scandals have brought to light the need for a program of the ethics of capitalism.
“What’s more important is that the leaders of the future and the practitioners of the future understand the difference and practice properly,” Smith said.

See the full article in The Mercury News for additional information.
UPDATE: “USC also will dedicate an Ayn Rand reading room as part of the renovated Springs Library at the business school and launch a BB&T speaker series.”
UPDATE (3/25): This story just doesn’t quit. Now they’re adding a graduate course to study Atlas Shrugged, too.

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