NEW YORK, July 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Readers of Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand's prophetic, best-selling 1957 novel (which was turned into a recent movie), understand what's behind the debt crisis and what will happen if America continues on its current moral path. It portrays the collapse of industrial America as a war between producers and expropriators—just what we see in America today.
"To solve the debt crisis, productive Americans must declare to every elected official that they have a right to their own lives and the fruits of their labor; that government has no right to redistribute their wealth; and that other Americans should be ashamed of themselves for trying to steal it," says Edward Hudgins of The Atlas Society (www.atlassociety.org). "Productive individuals would reject government handouts and thus governments would not run up debts that will destroy the productive."
Rand pointed out that producers seek their own happiness and prosperity by creating goods and services to trade with their fellows, based on mutual consent. They put a premium on productivity and take pride in their achievements. They want government to protect their lives, liberty, and property and otherwise leave them alone. However, the expropriators feel that the producers owe them a living and have a duty to serve them. They pressure government to use its taxing and regulatory authority to give them welfare, handouts, business bailouts, and special favors at the expense of the producers.
In Atlas the productive people wake up to the moral obscenity inflicted upon them and quit, disappear, go on strike. Without victims from whom to steal, the country collapses.
"In America paternalist politicians needed to pace themselves, taking just enough from producers at any given time so that their victims won't revolt," says Hudgins. "Thus politicians both tax and borrow to hand out 'free' healthcare and waste 'stimulus' money, hoping there would be victims in the future who would pay the bill. And they've addicted some producers to handouts as well—student loans, expanded Social Security. Thus the Feds have run up a $14.5 trillion debt, equal to the GDP."
Many productive Americans now understand that even more of their purchasing power will be stolen as the dollar drops, inflation ensues, and as they pay higher taxes if government continues with this "steal from makers, give to takers" scheme. They are saying "Enough!"
Atlas is shrugging.
(Contact Hudgins at 202-AYN-RAND or [email protected].)
SOURCE The Atlas Society
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