Rich vs. poor: Ayn Rand and America's clamour for a tax on the rich

If you’ve been following the ups and downs of the world’s fortunes, you’d know that a huge chunk of the globe is reeling under debt and everyone’s baying for the blood of the rich.Generally, we all love characters like Robin Hood who “robbed from the rich to give to the poor”. And with good reason. We believe that people who are literally ‘swimming’ in wealth — a la Disney’s Scrooge Mc Duck — have worked their way to the top through unscrupulous ways, and not the least by underpaying their worker-ants. That’s what had led to the birth of capitalism’s greatest foe. And now, the resentment against the ‘filthy’ rich is what’s leading to the growing clamour in the US for taxing them.Of course, as the rich say — we earned it, so we can darn well keep it! Now, I’m no enemy of Robin Hood, but anyone who’s remotely familiar with Ayn Rand would know that the rich may also be heroes and heroines. And labour unions can also be cast as the bloodsuckers. At least, that’s what you get in Atlas Shrugged, the 50’s novel that immortalised the query “Who is John Galt?”The 1,000-page tome is an industrial mystery of sorts, where an unknown John Galt is out to “stop the motor of the world”. Factories are shu­tting down, min­es are catching fire and industries are going down like nine­pins. Nobody can really figure out what is driving all the destruction. Dag­ny Taggart, the headstrong heroine of the story, determines to challenge the mysterious ‘John Galt’ by naming her new railway line in his name, and of course he comes to “claim it.”Behind all the mystery and the twists of tale is a very strong capitalistic flavour — what happens when instead of the workers, the owners go on “strike”? What happens when the biggest industries in the country shut down and slowly leave everyone unemployed, with the state on the verge of chaos? It is actually, an echo of the theory of objectivism propounded by Rand. The theory isn’t about capitalism per se, of course. It talks about man being a “heroic being”, motivated by self-interest and guided by reason, producing magnificent creations for humanity. Of course, the only way she sees this being manifested is through laissez-faire capitalism, which, if you read carefully, is supposed to bring ultimate happiness and prosperity to all.The protagonists, in such a world, are the men and women who have undying passion for their work, and are guided by pure pleasure of carrying it out. That’s what helps them get power and wealth, and in the process, create more for others too. So far, so good. We really do have examples of people in this world who have, through their passion and dedication — purely for their own benefit — brought about the benefit of humanity in general.But, there’s a minor point that we’re overlooking. Rand’s basic presumption about her characters is their ‘honesty and fairness’; their being willing to give everyone his/her rightful due. That, sadly, doesn’t always happen in the real world. That’s not to say that the world is a bunch of liars and opportunists, but who’s to stop a person from turning into one?