Comment by danielvaughn
10 hours ago
From what I can remember (of reading the book 25 years ago), it predicted an increasing suspicion and resentment of excellence and competence, coinciding with a rise in socialist sentiments. The net result is that various aspects of society would begin to break down as the total amount of competence in the culture vanishes.
I think she attributed too much of the symptoms merely to socialism; obviously the world is more complex than that. But we've got this train crash, the ongoing issues with Boeing airplanes, several multi-billion dollar public infrastructure projects across America that have stalled and will likely never be completed (like the California high speed rail system), the list goes on.
To me it seems the opposite is happening: the push for higher profits by the Capitalists is overriding the competence of rank and file, resulting in these disasters. And all these profits just shoring up wealth that is accruing unequally to those same Capitalists is what is inciting socialist sentiments.
To me Ayn Rand's writings always seemed like an Economics Horror story: effective at instilling dread in its readers, but of some highly unrealistic boogeyman.
When I said that the world is more complex than that, I meant that she oversimplified it. To say that the opposite has happened is also an oversimplification.
It's a more correct oversimplification than the other one though ;-)
Like I'd be really curious to see evidence of people saying, either directly or indirectly, that "we should be suspicious of competence and excellence."
On the other hand, you already mentioned concrete evidence of money-seeking causing disasters: Boeing.
Did capitialism cause this train crash? I suppose it is too early to say what exactly happened.
Right, we don't know about this one, but typically there are some corners being cut somewhere or some other money motive lurking in the background, like the Boeing one OP mentioned.