Reflections From a Murky Pond

In Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged there was a hidden refuge in a valley of Colorado where the people of ability had retreated to after relinquishing participation in American society. It was aptly nicknamed “Galt’s Gulch” by its inhabitants, though it was more properly named “Mulligan’s Valley” since it was the property of Michael “Midas” Mulligan, a banker and one of the first strikers to heed John Galt’s call.

The basic premise is that the United States has degenerated into an authoritarian, quasi-Marxist state, strangling business, innovation, and personal liberty in favor of an non merit-based egalitarian result. John Galt responds by convincing the productive and innovative people – the “Men of the Mind” – to withdraw from society and take their skills and visions with them, “stopping the motor of the world” by withdrawing the “minds” that drive society’s growth and productivity.

John Galt is Prometheus who changed his mind. After centuries of being torn by vultures in payment for having brought to men the fire of the gods, he broke his chains — and he withdrew his fire — until the day when men withdraw their vultures.

— Francisco d’Anconia
Atlas Shrugged, Part II, Chapter V

One thing that strikes me as odd – and more than a little frustrating – is that both Rand’s supporters and detractors view this as a Dystopian future, as if it wasn’t, in pragmatic effect, already well underway.

Ayn Rand’s Future Is Now

In the real world Galt’s Gulch aka Mulligan’s Valley isn’t some concealed refuge in Colorado; it’s the global marketplace and the Third World labor pool. Business leaders are finding Galt’s Gulch in many places outside of America’s borders and jurisdiction.

• Decline of Manufacturing
  America no longer produces much domestically. Over the last 60 years there’s been slightly over of 66% drop in employment within factories inside the US and a commensurate rise in off-shoring manufacturing to places such as Mexico and China.
• Decline of Innovation
  Scientific and technological advances are also, more and more, coming from overseas. Companies are now paying scientists in China, India, Singapore, and other foreign lands to perform R & D instead of using more expensive domestic scientists and research facilities.

The motor is already stopping. Corporations, faced with the inability to compete globally with less restrictive regimes and with lower order economies while using domestic labor and facilities, are already “striking” and moving more and more of their operations outside of America.

President Obama, in an unlooked-for paroxysm of sanity, reached an accord of sorts with the GOP and worked out a deal by which all, or most, of the “Bush Tax Cuts” were extended through 2012. Various Leftists – the Liberals and Progressives – have ranted about this and swear to punish Obama for this action.

Why is this? It’s because, in order to get the concessions that Obama wanted, he had to agree to extend the current tax rate of the top quintile of earners until 2012.

The puling Leftists cannot tolerate this irrespective of the incontrovertible fact that they’re already paying the vast majority of the federal taxes. They want to “eat the rich” and they prefer to do it in bigger bites.

So How Much of the Federal Taxes Does Each Group Pay?

But this is what truly defines the Left – an absolute and visceral hatred of the productive and successful of America and anyone who might support their right to keep as much of what they’ve earned as they possible can.

These domestic enemies of America do not care about what President Obama got in exchange for the “Bush Tax Cuts” being extended for the top earners. They do not care about how many billions of dollars of those Americans’ tax dollars will be spent on extending those cuts and providing subsidies to the less productive elements living within America. All they can see is that “the rich” weren’t penalized for being so.

These Liberals, weened upon hatred of America and a lust for class warfare, cannot understand that, when 20% of the population employs those among the remaining 80% who are willing and able to work, a wise government burdens that 20% lightly so as to increase the odds that they can prosper and bring prosperity to the rest of the society.

~*~

Keep your eyes open. Travel light but load heavy, and always put another round in the enemy after they’re down. 😉