(1) Boeing being told by Obama & Company where the new Dreamliner should (will ?) be built . . . In Washington, rather than South Carolina (a Right to Work state).

(2) Barney Frank’s attempt to make certain the Fed is entirely controlled by Congress. (Granted, the Fed is objectionable is in its present form, but his grand idea will make it even worse.)

Now . . . Was the ticket for admission to “Atlas Shrugged” worth $7.00? Absolutely!

I, like you, feel perfecting any economic system “will always be a work in progess.”

In regard to your belief “that Mises is hands above the rest of the economists”, I can only say that perhaps you are right. No doubt there were, and still are, many people who felt that Bastiat reached the pinnacle in economics way back in 1850.)

About all we ‘know’ today is that Paul Krugman is unlikely to even be remembered some 160 years from now!

I suspect that, to some degree, Mr. French may unfortunately suffer from what many pupils of a gifted economist do ~ Hero Worship.

In his case it would appear that he believes only in Murray Rothbard, while I must admit that in my case, Dom Armentano (also a contributor of essays to the Mises Institute) was my hero, as well as F.A. Hayek (whom Armentano introduced me to him some 35 years ago).
And, I must admit, I still worship Hayek because he seemed to be more pragmatic than Rothbard.

Unlike Mr. French, however, I’ve never felt that any of the names mentioned ~ Rand, Hayek, Rothbard, or even Mises, had all the answers, so to speak. Each of them, along with Adam Smith, Fredrick Bastiat, and even Henry George, made significant contributions to economic thought. And, Robert Heinlein, the science fiction writer, certainly contributed to the field of economics with his book, “The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress”.

However, your suggestion that Mr. Tucker ‘get a handle on things’ at the Institute is certainly appropriate. It seems as if Mr. French, not to mention Thomas Dilorenzo (who seems to love ‘bashing’ such men as Lincoln and Hamilton) have almost gotten to the point of losing the respect that they have rightfully earned by basically saying, “It’s either my way, or the highway.” And, if my memory serves me correctly, that’s why Ayn Rand received so much harsh criticism.

To my way of thinking, the perfect economic system still has not been conceived. It’s a work in progress.

In the interim we would do well to praise the individual contributions of each free market economist, as well as such people as the producers of Atlas Shrugged. At least they have created a movie that might well have a positive impact on our younger Americans, who have been subjected to a continuous barrage of socialist propaganda during the past three decades.

Let’s forget the Ayn Rand and the Atlas Shrugged issue for a moment and just look at the situation and article.

Remember, the writer of this article is president of the Mises Institute.

First, the article is poorly written by basic essay standards and more so by the high standards set at mises.org.

The article is completely rhetorical and lacks any objective analysis or reasoning. It also lacks cohesiveness which is the standard of a well written essay.

His critique of the movie, in a strange and awkward way, becomes a critique of Rand. But that is not the title of the article. In fact, he never really addresses the main idea as set forth by the title.

Furthermore, (and most embarrassing) is the self promotion of his friend, the psychic, (Mystic Mona). This is personal information we don’t need to know and is inappropriate. Linking to her from mises.org (a site dedicated to the serious discussion of liberty and reason) is a major blunder if not an apparent character flaw. (Remember this is from the president of the Mises Institute not some writer off the grid.)

Jeffrey Tucker needs to reign in the mises inner circle and decide what direction the site wants to take and what standards of writing are to be expected from everyone…including the president of the institute.

Note:
I see today, Doug got back on the wagon and wrote about something he knows…home mortgages… Thank God.

I like Doug French, his articles, and lectures and I’ll assume he had too many jelly beans for Easter and it affected his reasoning skills. He’s forgiven.

I just hope this article is not an indication of the future here at mises.org. Perhaps we should consult Mystic Mona.

Let’s face it: You owe all libertarians, objectivists, capitalists and, most of all, Austrians an apology.

If you can’t critique the movie based on that criteria, then you have no business commenting on the subject. It’s apparent to me and perhaps others that Doug has ventured into an area that is not his expertise.

Outside of the silly notion that Randians are going to flock to this movie and dress up like “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”, he seems fixated on cigarettes and drinking and to be honest I don’t remember (and don’t care about ) those things from reading the novel…but then I was immersed into the characters and the values they represented…

I have always taken a rather elitist view, that when it comes to Rand, you either get it or you don’t and most people don’t get it… and I’m afraid Doug French is in that group.

If you want a more balanced and intelligent review, then I suggest this one by J. Patrick Rhamey Jr.
http://mises.org/daily/5218/The-Continued-Relevance-of-Rands-Villains

Perhaps if Doug had consulted his mystic friend, she could have forewarned him … then again, maybe he did and this is the result…

‘”… literary and philosophical widely known defender[..] of capitalism and freedom.”

I’m very confident in saying Rand would have been extremely disappointed in what was done with her novel. She deserved better and many of the reviewers noted such fact.

The leftie blogs like HuffPo and DailyKos…they are shooting off the expected garbage. Several Christian writers have written with such hatred that I expected Jesus to reach down and drag them to hell even if they WERE attacking an atheist.

But the snide and smarmy sideways — here I self edit the alliterative word that would finish my thought — dished out by “libertarians” such as Reason and the now the president of the Mises Institute deserves the foulest rotten tomatoes I could find to smash you up.

John Donohue
Pasadena, CA

30 “official reviews” resulted in the 6% rating.
7431 “moviegoers” resulted in a rating of 85%

And who are these reviewers? You know the answer.

John Donohue
Pasadena, CA

I don’t ever remember of hearing that Barbara Stanwyck, nor any of the other actors and the actresses you mentioned, would leave our country if a Republican presidential candidate was elected.

See?

I was indeed uninformed — I got the wrong connotation…

or is it: wrong ‘ascription’?.

Cheers!

Let them experience what the world will be like without us who are still valiantly holding things together while letting the spit drip off our faces and watching the looters gamble with civilization itself.

We (you and I) don’t precisely know where we are going as a Western society. Heck, we don’t know where we are going as a world. There are a lot of things that need fixing, not least of all, IMHO, our Broken Money System operated by a Broken Federal Reserve.

Here’s Dr. Ron Paul making that same point in 1983 (!!!)… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hMeNnbSqkk&feature=related

Everyone seemingly has their own worst-case Future Scenario. “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, “Brave New World”, “Fahrenheit 451″ are just a few.

In his novel Player Piano Kurt Vonnegut warns of a future that has a rebellion against the automated society… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_Piano

But an “Automated Society” is probably the only kind of society most of us in the future will know how to survive in. Very few of us any longer know how to grow our own food, make our own shelter, sew our own clothes, obtain our own clean water, and so on. (We do know how to play video games, it seems.)
We are “babes in the woods” and are easy prey for others if and when things turn nasty, brutish, and uncivilized — a road, some would argue, we are well along on by now.

As things get tougher, humans tend toward tribalism, much like forming gangs in many inner cities today.

And, as things get tougher, Central Governments tend to get either more ineffectual, or themselves become brutal in their attempts to “hold things together”. [Look at Syria today.]
Part of that trend to fascism or communism, or whatever you wish to call it, is indeed what you describe with your words as

Let it be a warning to those who are wanting to tax the rich out of existence.

Heck, my point is, that given conditions extant already TODAY [let alone the future conditions that ATLAS SHRUGGED describes] it won’t only be the so-called “rich”, it will be ALL of us that The Government comes after [and is already coming after].

ATLAS SHRUGGED does have a meaningful message, as you suggest.
However IMHO we may just be past THAT point, where that message can still be acted on. We may be past the point where that message is still meaningful in that sense.

While ATLAS SHRUGGED suggests what might happen if the “Productive Class” goes on strike, today we may be at a point where it would be better to prepare for conditions that harken back to a much more primitive time.

And I submit that it will not take the “Productive Class” to go “on strike” for this to unfold.

No, I submit that this will unfold, whether or not that “strike” takes place.

In other words, we did have a chance to listen to Dr. Ron Paul back in 1983 and do something about the future.

TODAY, that Future has already been “baked into the cake”.