Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Donald Trump: I Am an Ayn Rand Fan



Donald Trump, who threatens to put tariffs on China, Mexico and other trading partners, if he becomes president and who claims he will warn Ford, Apple and Carrier about moving business out of the country, says he is an Ayn Rand fan.

 Kirsten Powers recently sat down for an interview with Trump. Her report on the exchnage was  published today at USA Today and included this:
 Trump described himself as an Ayn Rand fan. He said of her novel The Fountainhead, “It relates to business (and) beauty (and) life and inner emotions. That book relates to ... everything.” He identified with Howard Roark, the novel's idealistic protagonist who designs skyscrapers and rages against the establishment.

When I pointed out that The Fountainhead is in a way about the tyranny of groupthink, Trump sat up and said, “That’s what is happening here.” He then recounted a call he received from a liberal journalist: “How does it feel to have done what you have done? I said what have I done. He said nobody ever in the history of this country has done what you have done. And I said, well, if I lose, then no big deal. And he said no, no, if you lose, it doesn’t matter because this will be talked about forever.

"And I said it will be talked about more if I win.”
Somebody should hand Trump a copy of Rand's  Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, where she writes in a chapter titled, The Roots of War:
The essence of capitalism's foreign policy is free trade--i.e., the abolition of trade barriers, of protective tariffs, of special privileges--the opening of the world's trade routes to free international exchange and competition among the private citizens of all countries dealing directly with one another. During the nineteenth century, it was free trade that liberated the world, undercutting and wrecking the remnants of feudalism and the statist tyranny of absolute monarchies.
 -RW

4 comments:

  1. re: "The essence of capitalism's foreign policy is free trade" RW

    You appear to be expressing the concept of Democratic Peace, that is, Democracies don't fight wars between themselves. Suggest you read:

    http://mason.gmu.edu/~gtulloc1/OpenSecretsofAmericanPolicy.pdf

    Dan Kurt

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    Replies
    1. You appear to be confusing capitalism with democracy...

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  2. All very interesting but wonder if what we have now is free trade? I have to admit I have no idea. Bob have you read any of the US trade agreements with other nations? If so, how do you rate them? Free trade or crony trade? The media doesnt seem to go in depth when reporting on these agreements.

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  3. By free trade Rand meant free trade between free countries. By private citizens she meant free citizens. With that in mind, free trade with the People’s Republic of China is difficult.

    The people at the Ayn Rand Institute – you might say the official, organized Objectivists – agree with RW. In fact they hate Trump all around. See
    Fear and Loathing of Donald Trump.

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