Global Domination by Modern Day Robber Barons by Edwin Young

The irony of Ayn Rand’s political/economic philosophy emerges now as we see how she framed the economic ideology debate:  She was fiercely anti-communist and pro-free enterprise capitalism.  Those many followers during her era, the ‘me generation,’ now find themselves the subjects of even more heavy-handed, tyrannical, autonomous ‘wanna be’ sovereigns than was her dreaded communism.  

These latter day sovereigns are a new breed in the mode of 19^th century, unscrupulous business tycoons called robber barons.  Now, however, their lineage, with its long history of unaccountability to any heads of states has now become a breed of king-like figures that have acceded, without notice, to their throne, out of sight from the American populace.  Their behavior is or seeks to be unaccountable to any modern-day democratically elected presidents.  They see themselves as even more above the law than their forebears.  Their individual and collective corporate wealth and power has made them sui generis dominions, self-governing, and tantamount to being immune to any type of governmental, superordinate legal restraint; they cannot be restrained by nations, regulatory boards within nations, or the International Court; immune to censure by the UN; favored still, regardless of their corrupt and criminal activities by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

They are the new, self-ordained kings of the new multi-national, corporate feudal states.  They are monarchs who in effect claim the antiquated divine right of kings; unmatched by any of grandiose emperors of the past.  Each of these multi-national economic giants now is their own State.  They own their employees with more control than any prior slave or indentured servant was owned.  With impunity, they can exploit people, especially those of underdeveloped countries.  They have engaged in and now are ravaging countries’ natural environments, seizing their natural resources, and then abandoning them, leaving behind impoverished and jobless residents to live on wastelands plagued with deadly toxic waste.

Their corporate enterprises starve whole regions of people, including their helpless and innocent children.  Their contract security armies (customarily referred to as soldiers of fortune or mercenaries) even kill (murder) any of the locals who interfere or revolt against them.  Theirs is ruthlessness unparalleled in human history, the only exceptions being the decimation of North and South American Native Indians by Conquistadors and American settlers.  Ayn Rand, that is only a fraction of, only the beginnings of, the devastation wreaked by your lauded free enterprise capitalism and heartless rugged individualism.