Ayn Rand and her capitalist super heroes.

 

I've read Ayn Rand's book Atlas Shrugged and her fictional heroic capitalists aren't real estate developers or edge fund managers. They're steel and oil barons, car manufacturers and railway tycoons.

Although Rand has acquired many devotees over the years, mainly on the right of politics, her gospel of selfishness didn't go down very well in late 1950s America. Rand was criticised for being immoral and her advocacy of unrestrained laissez-faire capitalism, wasn't popular either. The National Review described it as a "silly book", which I think is fair comment. 

The book, which some consider to be the Bible of the American Congress, is also very American. One government employee, called Cuffy Meigs, is straight out of the wild west. He carries a loaded revolver even in the office, and a rabbit's foot for good luck.  

The Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, the archpriest of neoliberal capitalism, wrote to Ayn Rand in 1958 praising the book. He basically told her that she had the courage to tell the masses what no politician was prepared to tell them. That they were inferior and that they owed their conditions in life and social improvements in life, to the efforts of "men who are better than you." Margaret Thatcher would have subscribed to this view. She believed that all of us are indebted to a small number of talented people (wealth creators), for our conditions in life. 

Yet, I think it's true to say, that the greatest of inventions, is never likely to see the light of day or leave the drawing board, if we haven't got the labour and skills to make it. As Adam Smith tells us, it's labour that creates wealth and some have argued that all wealth should go to labour. The relationship between labour and capital is a dialectical relationship. 

I don't think Ayn Rand can be considered a serious philosopher. She was once asked if she could sum up her philosophy when standing on one foot. She answered: Metaphysics, 'Objective Reality'; Epistemology, 'Reason'; Ethics, 'Self-Interest'; Politics, 'Capitalism'. 

Like Charlie Kirk, Rand railed against altruism and despised government welfare systems that support the poor. Yet, in later life, when her health failed her, she finished up on social security and Medicare. She couldn't even live up to her own philosophy. Rand is one of very few authors to have written a pro-capitalist novel and her capitalist super heroes, who like Atlas, hold up the heavens aloft on their shoulders, are like Nietzsche's supermen. Rand denied that she had ever been influenced by Nietzsche. 

Joseph Stalin and the art of tyranny.

 

Joseph Stalin

I think it was either Solzhenitsyn or the Yugoslavian communist, Ante Ciliga, in his book 'The Russian Enigma', who described the communist as "good thinkers." What was meant by this, is that many didn't really believe or want to believe, that comrade Stalin was directing and orchestrating the terror and the mass arrests, from his little corner in the Kremlin. They always wanted to believe that others were responsible for what was taking place and that the boss was unaware of it.

Stalin had members of his wife's family arrested, interrogated and imprisoned and some were executed. Many of these thought Stalin was unaware of their predicament. Molotov's wife was denounced and arrested on trumped up charges and Molotov voted in favour of his wife arrest at a Politburo meeting. She was sent to a labour camp.

Just before Zinoviev was shot, he was pleading hysterically with his guards to contact comrade Stalin because he believed that Stalin would save him. He literally begged for his life and clung to the leg of an NKVD officer. Kamenev told him to die like a man. When Stalin was told about Zinoviev's pleas to his guards, he pissed himself laughing. Uncle Joe wasn't just a peasant slayer; he liquidated a lot of communists as well.

Glossop has been dubbed one of best places to live. It's also known as the place where pensioners go to die.

 

Glossop Town Centre

I don't think Glossop, in Derbyshire, is anything to shout about. The people are rather parochial and are very wary of strangers or what they call 'townies'. 

During the COVID lockdown in 2020, I saw pubs displaying signs that said "Tier Three People Not Welcome" and in some pubs, they would ask an unfamiliar face, if they were from a tier three area. 

In the local JD Wetherspoon pub, in Glossop, they had B.F. Skinner pigeon boxes for single people who were put into isolation by a female staff member, who was a complete control freak. She reminded me of nurse Ratched in the film 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'. She definitely displayed signs of deep-rooted psychological issues. The last time that I heard of her, she was working as 'greeter' in a Ben and Jerry's ice cream parlour.

Glossop was once known for being a centre for transcendental meditation but it's also known, for having elevated radon gas levels, that are consistent with the geographical composition of the Derbyshire Peak District.

In my view, a better place to live, would be Uppermill, in what was once the West Ridings of Yorkshire. It's a quaint little place, with a nice community feel about it, and the locals are very friendly and welcoming. They love brass bands and still Celebrate Yorkshire Day.

Comrade Vasily Blokhin; Stalin's trigger finger.

 

The Soviet communist dictator Joseph Stalin, was responsible for the deaths of millions of Russian citizens and many of these, were executed by the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, during Stalin's purges. Although Stalin's regime built a society on a mountain of corpses, he never personally pulled the trigger. You might say that he hadn't got the stomach for it, so he delegated this "black work" to NKVD officers like comrade Vasily Blokhin, the NKVD's official executioner.

Comrade Blokhin personally executed Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin, as well as 7,000 Polish prisoners at Katyn. He also personally executed his NKVD bosses, Yagoda and Yezhov. Blokhin was very meticulous when it came to carrying out the executions. At Katyn, a sound proof building was constructed with a sloping floor to wash away the blood of his victims and he used a German Walther pistol, to shoot the prisoners, at the base of the skull. Blokhin liked to work throughout the night, preferably, when there was a full moon. He wore a leather apron, leather gloves and a leather hat. He's considered one of the most prolific official executioners in world recorded history. Unlike many of his victims, Blokhin survived the Stalinist era but succumbed to chronic alcoholism and committed suicide.