It's socialism

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

The front page headline on the Sunday, June 26, Trib asked about our sluggish economy, "Is this the new normal?" Well, yeah, under socialism it is. This collectivist ideal kills incentive that fuels motivation and growth. Socialism contributes to "the tragedy of the commons," the fate of collectively owned assets collapsed from overuse by free-riders. Or in the extreme, socialism destroys citizens, as in Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union or Mao Zedong's China. Votes have consequences, and we're living them in "the new normal."

Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged chronicles the collapse of society as the government increasingly asserts smothering control over industry, and as a result society's leading titans — innovators, industrialists and artists — refuse to be exploited and go off the grid. Hank Reardon, a self-made steel magnate, is asked how he would advise Atlas, who with each exertion to hold the world up, "the heavier the world bore down on his shoulders." The answer: "To shrug."

With our new normal, I guess it happened, our Atlases shrugged, or they will soon.

Marshall D. Beall

Murray