Capitalism's Wicked Witch

One point which I rarely see addressed in various internet fora is the striking similarity of form between orthodox Marxism and orthodox Objectivism. I realize this may be a repugnant idea to fans of either philosophy, but consider the following nutshell summary:

There are two classes of people in society. One class, which we call the ____, is productive and labors to bring forth all manner of useful things. The other class, which we call the ____, is not productive and, in fact, consists entirely of parasites who suck the life's blood out of their fellow men. These parasites accomplish their goal via exploitation and alienation: unjustly separating others from the fruits of their labor, though they wrap themselves in a philosophy by which they seek to justify their theft. One day, the revolution will come and the productive class will rise up and throw off the yoke of the parasites.

Broadly speaking, one can insert "poor" into the first blank and "rich" into the second and obtain the works of Marx. Or one can insert "rich" into the first blank and "poor" into the second and obtain the works of Rand.

"Allen Barra writes about sports for the Wall Street Journal".

Oh, ok.

The Daily Beast is one of the most dubious sources that isn't banned here on HN. I thought the article in The Economist on the same person was much more interesting.

http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=146...

It is more accurate to say that Rand hate anything that is not her own views. She also hate anarcho-capitalists, libertarians who are not randians, anti-intellectual property libertarians, and anybody who are more extreme and consistent than her.

She isn't some wicked witch for capitalism. She have her own kingdom.

Does this really belong on HN?

As a sidenote, why is it okay to quote Nietze (who died in a mental hospital) whilst wearing a Che Guevera T-shirt yet it is wrong to say anything about Rand?

Does the author’s personal life have any bearing on his argument?

(Btw, my favourite writer was on death row and second favourite was addicted to morphine and shot his brains out. This does not detract any of their works – on the contrary, it makes it more interesting).

Warning, this page seems to invoke the print dialog in the browser.

The author of this piece sounds like he has sand in his vagina (to quote South Park).