Ayn Rand Institute and monopoly capitalism

[Psy]

Yaron Brook president of the Ayn Rand Institute stated in a lecture that Bill Gates made the computer revolution possible by creating a standard. Does this mean Ayn Rand Institute real goal is monoploy capitalism? The Microsoft standard is only standard because Microsoft is has a monopoly over the market, it only got monopoly powers by inheriting it from IBM.

Or is it that their theories are so bankrupt that they revise the history of how Bill Gates got his power in the market to fit with their ideology?

To me it is just laughable to on one hand to proclaim the superiority of free markets then hold up a monopolist as the good free marketer, unless they actually mean monopoly capitalism is their vision of how free market naturally work and that it is a good thing that monopolies naturally form.

[IcarusAngel]

A little from column A a little from column B. MS sets standards through its monopolistic practices, and Libertarians revise history to make things more favorable to the capitalists. Bill gates also received help from the govt in the 90s.

Microsoft is more of an example of corporatism than capitalism. They can continue to research and innovate because they have like 90% of the market share and are to a large extent protected from "risk." Also, many of their 'innovaters,' such as the creator of the C# language, have a long history working in computer science at Universities.

Libertarians claim MS isn't a monopoly because of Apple and Linux. However, these two hold only a small marketshare. Furthermore, their weaknesses are due to the monopoly that MS holds (such as working directly with hardware and software companies to ensure that they only develop for MS). That is the very definition of monopoly, the power to bully other industries.

[anticap]

To me it is just laughable to on one hand to proclaim the superiority of free markets then hold up a monopolist as the good free marketer....

This sort of contradiction is nothing new among worshipers of the Invisible Hand. You see it every time they trot out graphs of China's economic growth as evidence of the glories of the Hand, while simultaneously accusing the U$ of blaspheming the Hand. All that is good in the world is due to worshiping the Hand; all that is bad in the world is due to not worshiping the Hand.

[Robocommie]

I'll fucking give 'em the Hand.

Is there any motion at all to bust Microsoft's hold?

[Bankotsu]

Let me give you a few examples of how the lack of adequate paradigms blocks our understanding of the history of our subject.

The area of political action in our society is a circle in which at least four actors may intervene: the government, individuals, communities, and voluntary associations, especially corporations.

Yet, for the last century, discussion of political actions, and especially the controversies arising out of such actions, have been carried on in terms of only two actors, the government and the individual.

Nineteenth century books often assumed a polarization of the individual versus the state, while many twentieth century books seek to portray the state as the solution of most individuals' problems.

Conservatives, from von Hayek to Ayn Rand, now try to curtail government in the excuse that this will give more freedom to individuals, while liberals try to destroy communities with the aim of making all individuals identical, including boys and girls.

And since what we get in history is never what any one individual or group is struggling for, but is the resultant of diverse groups struggling, the area of political action will be increasingly reduced to an arena where the individual, detached from any sustaining community, is faced by gigantic and irresponsible corporations...

http://www.carrollquigley.net/Lectures/The-State-of-Communities-AD-976-1576.htm (http://www.carrollquigley.net/Lectures/The-State-of-Communities-AD-976-1576.htm)

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Yaron Brook president of the Ayn Rand Institute stated in a lecture that Bill Gates made the computer revolution possible by creating a standard. Does this mean Ayn Rand Institute real goal is monoploy capitalism? The Microsoft standard is only standard because Microsoft is has a monopoly over the market, it only got monopoly powers by inheriting it from IBM.

Or is it that their theories are so bankrupt that they revise the history of how Bill Gates got his power in the market to fit with their ideology?

To me it is just laughable to on one hand to proclaim the superiority of free markets then hold up a monopolist as the good free marketer, unless they actually mean monopoly capitalism is their vision of how free market naturally work and that it is a good thing that monopolies naturally form.
Apparently, the free market is good because it never creates monopolies, since monopolies are bad... except when the free market does create monopolies, in which case monopolies are good. Or something like that.

Remember, the Ayn Rand Institute also says that capitalism is the only moral economic system because it does not rely on violence, while at the same time saying that the United States should bomb the shit out of Iraq and take their oil (because American capitalists invented engines that run on oil, which apparently gives them property rights over the fuel they need for their engines). Don't expect these people to make much sense.

[Kovacs]

What a despicable ideology Rand espouses. Unfettered Capital, a recipe for a monster with bigger claws than those it already has.

[Bud Struggle]

What a despicable ideology Rand espouses. Unfettered Capital, a recipe for a monster with bigger claws than those it already has.

You are being a troll.

[Kovacs]

You are being a troll.

You really think that? Take a read of this, and I am in agreement with almost every word save those addressing her former book as I have only read Atlas Shrugged.
gq.com/entertainment/books/200911/ayn-rand-dick-books-fountainhead?printable=true



THE SPEECH. To understand what an Ayn Rand Asshole is, you have to study that sixty-page Speech Rand stuffed in John Galt's mouth at the end of Atlas. She spent two years writing it. Her publisher asked for cuts. "Would you cut the Bible?" she snapped. Thing is, Rand was right. (And not just because a Library of Congress/Book-of-the-Month Club survey conducted thirty-four years after its publication ranked Atlas Shrugged the second most influential book ever written after, you guessed it, the Bible.) She viewed the Speech as the keystone to…everything. And to a degree that still confounds mainstream academic philosophers (most of whom find Rand's work laughable), that is how it has been taken. Which means there are three things that all Americans must know about it.

The first is that the Speech serves as both the foundation and finished edifice of Objectivism, Rand's utopian vision of an entrepreneurial elite freed at last from any obligation, financial or moral, to the hangers-on of the world; free from religious hokum and from having to feign concern for the wee; free to exercise the "virtue of selfishness" in pursuit of money and glory. (The novel ends with Galt atop a mountain, raising a hand to trace the sacred sign of the dollar over the desolate earth that he and his A-Team are at last ready to return to and revive.) Is greed good, you ask? My friend, in the Objectivist world of Ayn Rand, whose funeral featured a six-foot dollar sign made out of flowers next to the open casket, greed is God.

Link broken cos I can't post links yet. Add the http/www etc yaself if you are interested

[Antiks72]

You are being a troll. You didn't like what he had to say, so you relegated him to troll status. Nice try, but no cigar. Grow a brain, please.

[Psy]

I've noticed another glaring contradiction in the role of nation states in the industrialization process, they talk like the invisible hand of market was solely responsible for the industrial revolution, yet the ignore the industrial revolution was fueled by imperialism as at the time imperialist armies were by far the largest consumers, for example the British Navy consumed more coal in the 19th century then all other consumers of coal put together, railways originally were constructed in Britain to fuel the British war machine yes by capitalists but it was military spending that was driving the initial phase of industrialization.

[Comrade B]

Didn't read many of the posts, sorry if I missed something, but I thought I would put this one out there
I heard that the Gates were social democrats. Bill Gates's father spoke at a local university's graduation ceremony and gave a whole shtuck on how we are obligated to help those less fortunate than us...

[Agnapostate]

I'm certain that the Rand Institute's veneration of Gates is due to an interest in providing an example of a "self-made billionaire," to promote the myth of equality of opportunity. Since Gates's case is an anecdotal one, this actually does effectively nothing so long as we have empirical research that demonstrates that social mobility remains restricted to a degree that prevents equality of opportunity.

[anticap]

I heard that the Gates were social democrats.

Hard to believe, after reading this nonsense (http://my.telegraph.co.uk/mikeyp/blog/2008/04/14/bill_gates_talks_sense_believe_it_or_not).

[IcarusAngel]

Gates didn't write that and it's definitely Ungatesian.
http://www.snopes.com/language/document/liferule.asp

#2 also isn't that bad even for a communist society.

Most of those though are just facts of the capitalist system and the way it treats human beings and makes them slaves. Notice how the underlying assumption is that you should submit yourself to wage slavery.

[anticap]

http://www.snopes.com/language/document/liferule.asp

D'oh!


Most of those though are just facts of the capitalist system and the way it treats human beings and makes them slaves. Notice how the underlying assumption is that you should submit yourself to wage slavery.

Right; therein lies the nonsense.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Apparently, the free market is good because it never creates monopolies, since monopolies are bad... except when the free market does create monopolies, in which case monopolies are good. Or something like that.

The actual Randian formulation of this is A=A unless A is bad.

[Psy]

#2 also isn't that bad even for a communist society.

I don't think so, a communist society would care about the moral of workers so I don't think we'd see the dog eat dog competition that drives many people to have low self-esteem.

[Psy]

The actual Randian formulation of this is A=A unless A is bad.
Well not really, they claim that it is in everybody's rational self-interest to be nice capitalists so when a capitalists is not nice they claim they are not being rational enough in their selfish pursuit where this logic breaks down is when it does rationally work for capitalists to not play fair.

[Orange Juche]

Never trade in your blue properties for red ones. Statistically speaking, you are much more likely to land on Illinois Ave than Park Place.