Reply #8: I'm not sure if Rand's ideas were utopian

[Prophet 451]

Her ideal of a world controlled by and for a small class of the rich doesn't strike me as utopian because she seems aware of how objectionable it would be to the plebians. She just doesn't think the plebs have any moral right to complain. Really, her arguments read more like the justifications of slave owners. That kind of "We have a duty to rule them" thinking.

I'll confess that globalisation isn't my area but, from what I do understand of it, it can hardly be considered a force for the good. I mean, I like my cheap cigarettes (which are made in Virginia, looking at the pack) but not at the expense of driving wages toward some global lowest common denominator or shipping my neighbour's jobs overseas. In American Theocracy (I forget the author's name), the author advances the theory that any nation where the largest sector of the economy is people moving money around rather than actually making things is a nation in decline.