

We’re living in an Ayn Rand economy - denzil_correa
http://www.salon.com/2013/05/18/were_living_in_an_ayn_rand_economy_partner/

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maxharris
So we're living in an economy with no regulations, enabled by a strong but
limited government dedicated to protecting the individual rights of its
citizens and absolutely nothing more?

The author is so far off the mark here, that I'll stop with two charts that
show that we don't have anything close to an unregulated economy.

As a proxy for the size of our economy's regulatory burden, here's a chart
showing the length of the federal register, in pages:
[http://research.columbian.gwu.edu/regulatorystudies/sites/de...](http://research.columbian.gwu.edu/regulatorystudies/sites/default/files/u43/2014-3_FR%20pages_webimage2013.jpg)

Here's a chart showing the inflation-adjusted budget spent just on
_administering_ those regulations:
[http://research.columbian.gwu.edu/regulatorystudies/sites/de...](http://research.columbian.gwu.edu/regulatorystudies/sites/default/files/u43/Budgetary%20Cost%20of%20federal%20regulation%2C%20gwu.jpg)

Here's the context for both of those charts:
[http://research.columbian.gwu.edu/regulatorystudies/regstats](http://research.columbian.gwu.edu/regulatorystudies/regstats)

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duncan_bayne
I can only presume the author hasn't actually read any of Rand's writing.
Either that or this is an intentional smear piece.

~~~
seehafer
Salon is well known for intentional smear pieces (against Rand and others)

EDIT: Not that I want to draw attention to hackery, but here is another
example:
[http://www.salon.com/2013/01/19/ayn_rand_is_for_children/](http://www.salon.com/2013/01/19/ayn_rand_is_for_children/)

~~~
duncan_bayne
Right, that makes sense. I'm totally okay with strongly-worded debate over
Rand's philosophy; she was (intentionally) inflammatory in a lot of cases. But
Salon's piece was ... well ... so much of a strawman that I really didn't
understand how the author could characterise Rand's work in that way.

