Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
by Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen

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Book Reviews of Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

Book Review: Makes sense to me.
Summary: 5 Stars

To criticise this book in a negative way is difficult, since neither I nor anybody else has lived in a society based on capitalism. But I have lived in a capitalistic society within the bounds of the United Kingdom. My observation is that the parts of the United Kingdom that tend more towards capitalism are more successful and prosperous than those parts that are not: the southeast of England being the greatest exemplar. Taking a step further, the United States of America with its greater capitalistic tendencies, is demonstrably more successful and prosperous than the United Kingdom.

The clarity of the book is helped by the many examples provided by Ayn Rand and her contributors. Some of these are a bit historical for todays readers, and the piece on what a patent applies to has been superseded by the recent allowing of patents for discoveries relating to human and animal gene sequences. A few examples from recent and ongoing state activity would be as follows:

Cuba is regarded by the IMF as the best example of a third world country doing comparatively well by first world standards. But Cuba doesnt have to be a third world country. Cuba has the human resources to compete perfectly well with the first world if the state were not in total control, as the enterprising Cubans who moved elsewhere have demonstrated.

Zimbabwe has been reduced to a state of hopelessness and starvation because of gangsterism promoted by the state. Even more developed countries like India and Pakistan are borderline cases because their states choose to fritter away in excess of a hundred million dollars a year fighting each over Kashmir, instead of promoting a way for their people to take part in capitalism, and so improve their circumstances. The Palestinian situation is another example where the lack of a capitalist philosophy is creating so much trouble, its leadership preferring to loot and mooch, and gallivant in luxury around the world instead of staying at home and sorting things out.

Where I come from, the economy is totally dependant on handouts from the British Government. This mean that anyone with sense and enterprise has to leave the province because the sources of start-up capital are too busy mooching from the gravy-train of government handouts and other sources of handouts from Europe and the United States ( the international fund for Ireland and the peace process dividend to name two ). And the so called Celtic-Tiger isnt too far behind.

In England the travelling public and commerce are benefiting from the fiasco that was the piece-meal privatisation of the rail system. This mess has come home to roost with a vengeance, and all because the private operators were being relentlessly interfered with and have ended up as the whipping boy for the state, which should have kept its hands off and let the competitive process do its work. The only good thing, so far, is that Steven Byers, the current transport secretary, got his butt kicked by the City.

Not content with that the education system is to be partially privatised and interfered with. So again, the private part will take the fall for the state.

And the Millennium Dome, what a mess that was. All they would have to have done was leave it be and run the thing as a leisure attraction under its in-place management for a couple more years. After all, the whole site has lain empty for that long, at a cost of a million pounds a month. But then the sate can afford to waste that kind of money, since its not theirs.

Capitalism, as defined in this book, would seem to offer a better way forward than what is currently draining the life blood from the more civilised parts of the world.

Summary of Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

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