The Rich and John Galt

I had an thought the other day, is there another reason for the fact that the largest corporations in the country have higher profits than ever yet they aren't hiring more workers? OK, other than the inherent flaws in Supply Side economics. Why would employers increase their workforce when there isn't a larger market for their products if they were given more money? They wouldn't, it's as simple as that.

My hypothesis is that their behavior is based more in ideology rather than economics. One of the sacred tomes for conservatives  is Ayn Rand's gargantuan novel Atlas Shrugged. The premise of the novel is that in a dystopian future, where the 'burdens' that politicians and greedy workers place on the job creators of America, the rich all decide that America doesn't deserve their genius so they abandon the country to create a utopia somewhere else. This was done under the overarching pseudonym 'John Galt.' After the cultural impact that the novel had, the term 'Going Galt' came to signify the possibility that a similar tactic might be employed by the corporate heads in our country.

If you look at the majority of these disgustingly rich individuals (the Koch Brothers, and the Walton Family are great examples), and you can see them modeling themselves as Randian heroes in opposition to the lowly workers. Through union-busting and putting out propaganda against any talk of forming a union... they defeat the Proletariat before they even put up a fight.

My point is this, for the past 30 years our country has been operating under the premise that if we gave the wealthiest of the wealthy billions upon billions in tax cuts, they would hire more workers and grow the economy out of the goodness of the hearts. Shockingly, that hasn't happened. Any growth that we've experienced as a nation is a byproduct of bubbles that have been inflated beyond any reasonable value (Tech, Housing), only to have said bubble burst and jolt our economy into recession. The wealthy have pocketed the vast majority of this money for themselves.

I will call this phenomenon 'John Galt Syndrome.' It's the best possible situation that corporations could hope to achieve. They continue to rake in outrageous profits that they wouldn't be able to if they did really 'Go Galt,' they are able to refuse to put money into an economy that desperately needs investment and they are able to put unlimited amounts of money into political campaigns of Republicans that have vowed to regulate and ask of them even less than they are expected to now (Thanks Citizens United!). So, there you have it. Right wing ideologues are able to fulfill their ideology all while making an ungodly amount of money. And if that doesn't work, there's always government bailouts! It isn't Socialism when its given to bankers and not poor people.

I am part of the 99 Percent and I'm pretty fair in assuming that you are too. Let's change this paradigm and set up an economy that actually works.