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<\/a><\/p>\nAtlas Shrugged, in the liberal California<\/p>\n<\/div>
I want to address here what I’ve learned in these months, so that European newcomers can sharpen their learning curve !<\/p><\/p>\n
Atlas Shrugged<\/h3>
Atlas Shrugged has a tremendous influence on the psyche here. For people who are unaware of what this book is about, you can check the Atlantic’s Atlas Shrugged book club<\/a>, which will give you an indication of why this book is considered the second bible here (it is a long book, and the notion of providence is re-enacted, even though it is not called divine providence here.)<\/p>It turns out that there’s quite a few Rando-libertarian, such as Travis Kalanick, CEO of Uber (read Travis Shrugged: The creepy, dangerous ideology behind Silicon Valley\u2019s Cult of Disruption<\/a>), or just plain libertarian such as Paypal Peter Thiel (with his crazy idea of Thiel fellows,<\/a> where he gives money to young innocent to dodge college and start their business instead. I’ve had the chance to meet some of them… and that’s really creepy) or Paul Graham (founder of the famous Y-combinator<\/a>. His book “Hackers and Painters<\/a>” is interesting in many ways, but describes a world that I’m not part of.). Sometimes, you have people like Elon Musk, for whom I have very mixed feeling but I still admire is efforts in making engineers dreaming of a better future again.<\/p>\n Leonard E. Read’s “I, Pencil<\/a>” (French translation here<\/a>) is an interesting text for another trend at work here, which is the belief in the Free-Market. The story in this text is interesting, since it basically says that even for a very common tool such as a pencil, nobody can make it from scratch : humans have to collaborate\/cooperate.<\/p>Yet the conclusion of the text (let the free market do its job) seems erroneous to me. It\u2019s not as if the market mistakenly behaves as if she created the pencil\u00a0ex nihilo<\/em>. Rather, the market will tend to pay her her\u00a0marginal contribution<\/a> or marginal product. We can still debate whether she deserves or is entitled to her marginal product –> taxes must be marginal, too.<\/p>In a cavern deep below the Earth, Ayn Rand, Paul Ryan, Rand Paul, Ann Druyan, Paul Rudd, Alan Alda, and Duran Duran meet together in the Secret Council<\/p><\/blockquote> This story reminded of that experiment by Thomas Thwaites, where he tries to build a toaster from scratch :I, Pencil<\/h3>
\nI’ve found an interesting argument against the conclusion of the original story : You didn’t build that pencil<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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