Who Is John Galt?...Capitalism Under Siege

Phoenix Agenda Trilogy -- capitalism under siege

?“Who is John Galt?”

The tag line from Ayn Rand’s master work about the disintegration of economies.?Her experience growing up in in Russia going through a revolution and its aftermath made her think carefully about how societies turn on themselves.?In a way my novel was formed from reading and rereading Atlas Shrugged when I was a teenager.?I think I missed the philosophy of selfishness that Rand espoused.?But it is a compelling narrative despite its obvious flaws.??Even when I loved the story, I think I hated the philosophy.?So few people are in the .1%.?I think it’s a bit of luck of the genetic lottery and a bit of family money to help out, and not growing up in the ghetto, or having the connections to get into the right college.?Rand mixes up the Roosevelt New Deal with Soviet Russia.???????I probably never read the last 50 pages of the story when John Galt speaks to the nation about how useful greed and selfishness is to motivate capitalists and how socialism and idealism destroy self-interest.?Libertarianism with its limits on government activities can trace its intellectual roots to Rand’s philosophy, but libertarians may find that building their dream houses on the shores of the rising oceans will not save them when the waters rise.????

The story I’m telling in three parts in the Phoenix Agenda Trilogy (will be available on Kindle in 2021 unless I find a real agent for the story and try to do this the right way) ?is a different story with a different message about capitalism and free markets.?The world we live in is far more complex than the one that Rand described.?Liberal ideals are not always bad and while sometimes Bernie Sanders seems more like Leslie Mooch of the National Economic Planning Board in Rand’s story, he’s not a socialist nor is the world likely to be socialist in the future.?Which system of exchange and development is better at meeting goals of clean drinking water, health, food, shelter, and happiness depends upon your philosophy.?Each has its benefits and its costs.?Which is better -- American capitalism with its independence and self-interest, European social democracy which is somewhere mid-way between?laissez-faire capitalism and socialism, but is over regulated and far too rule based (a by-product of the rule based Napoleonic system of laws introduced during the 19th century in Europe). Unlikely to emerge is the Communist planned economy of Soviet Russia with its Commissars and secret stores, or the new Hybrid Capitalist-Socialism of China that can only exist so long as excess production is wholesaled to the world.?Equally unable to fulfil the needs of the world we are moving towards is the free wheeling, mostly underground economies that exist at the fringes of the established systems. ??

The multi-billionaires who are at the heart of this story are like the Bezos, Gates, and Buffets of the world, are so rich that they see their purpose in making things better or at least believe they can make it better by destroying American style, managerial capitalism with its short-term interests in next quarters profits and the stock price rather than long-term results based on innovation and growth.????While Larry Fink can, as the introduction suggests, argue that public and private companies must look to growth as much as profits in measuring success, in social obligation to communities and the world as to shareholders and pension funds,?his investment firm often as not rejects proposals that don’t return 40% returns in three years.?They have good intentions, but often the best laid plans for utopia (from various American utopias created in the 19th century to the present day notion of classless, moneyless societies) fail because of human greed to get more than a fair share or contribute less than you take, i.e. freeloaders or for companies, free riders who pollute leaving the clean-up to others).??By book three the protagonists have the hard task of reconciling their ownership positions to the needs of society without losing the power that markets and self-interest to drive progress.??