I just spent a few weeks in the People’s Republic of Minnesota.

The Democrat campaign ads were 24/7 promises of unlimited abortion and putting a halt to greedy corporate profiteering.

Coincidentally, I was re-reading Atlas Shrugged at the time and surprise of surprises, it had a few things to say on the subject. The federal government in Ayn Rand’s fictional future is concerned first and foremost with stopping greedy corporate profiteering (though abortion isn’t featured in the book). The similarities between our present-day Democrat party rhetoric and that of the book’s villains is striking.

In Atlas Shrugged, government regulators tinker with the economy to fix the problem of the rich getting too rich.

Unfortunately, they only manage to make things worse – with rising prices, product shortages, and economic stagnation.

Rand’s fictional bureaucrats apparently got their economics training from the same school as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. They reach the inevitable conclusion that the only way to fix the problems created by centralized control, is more centralized control.

They go the whole megillah, attempting to regulate the entire economy – but just until the economic crisis passes. The federal government issues Directive 10-289, which fixes prices, production levels, consumption, wages, and employment at the previous year’s levels. Just for good measure, the regulators also seize all intellectual property, and prohibit any new product innovations.

The implementation of Directive 10-289 in Atlas Shrugged signals the end stage of society’s suicide. Businesses fail. The infrastructure collapses. People find themselves hungry, cold, and in the dark. It is a cautionary tale of how disincentivizing productivity leads to civilizational collapse.

Luckily, our Democrats aren’t proposing anything like Directive 10-289.

They just want to fix inflation with a few price controls. Kamala promises to use the power of government to prohibit businesses from “price-gouging.”

Just like that, inflation will be fixed by the stroke of a pen wielded by our first female (according to Willie Brown) chief executive. Then the government will merely need to deal with a few unintended consequences. You know, the type that always seem to crop up unexpectedly, when the Democrats pass a major bill.

Unfortunately, all past attempts at price control, by any government, have created product shortages.

Either people buy too much of the products which are made artificially economical, or companies stop making products which are unprofitable under the imposed regulations. Since empty grocery shelves don’t make for loyal “hope and joy” voters, the Democrats will need to fix that, too. They’ll have to do something to regulate production and consumption levels – for the public good.

But companies will still have to make payroll. The government isn’t imposing slavery, after all. We can’t have troublesome bankruptcies disrupting production levels. If prices aren’t going up, wages can’t either. There will need to be wage freezes, too.

We also can’t have people trying to beat the wage freeze by shopping around in the job market. That would jeopardize production. If farmers were to try to make more money by becoming oilfield roughnecks, food production would suffer. People can’t be allowed to change jobs – until the economy stabilizes. But it should be O.K., because people won’t need more income with prices being frozen and all.

Innovation is going to be a problem for price control, too. There’s a reason big technological advancements are called “disrupters” – they disrupt the economy. Leap-ahead technologies allow some companies to thrive (i.e., profiteer), while causing others to fail. It’s going to be very difficult to maintain steady production if there’s any “disruption” going on. The government may need to throw a few hurdles in front of any innovators hellbent on shifting economics in their favor.

But don’t worry. The Dems aren’t calling for us to replace capitalism with communism. They know the word “communism” doesn’t inspire “hope and joy.” They just want to stop corporate greed, and are willing to create a cascade of problems towards that end. They’re hoping that we’ll “feel good” about defeating greed, regardless of what the complications are.

Ayn Rand masterfully illustrated in her novel that attempts to regulate the economy are destined to failure, because they are based on a denial of reality. Human beings are not hive creatures. The laws of economics predict prosperity when we are allowed to work for our own benefit (being greedy). Those same laws predict failure when we are enslaved to a collective (denied the fair market value of our labors). Attempts to cheat the laws of economics lead to unfortunate consequences, because they are based on false assumptions about human nature.

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are only avatars on the ballot this November. Our choice isn’t Republican vs Democrat. It’s not even MAGA vs. “hope and joy.” Our choice is between prosperity while accepting greed, or virtue-signaling while accepting destitution.

John Green is a retired engineer and political refugee from Minnesota, now residing in Idaho. He spent his career designing complex defense systems, developing high performance organizations, and doing corporate strategic planning. He is a contributor to The American Spectator, and the American Free News Network. He can be reached at greenjeg@gmail.com.

Image: Siddhant Kumar, via Unsplash // Unsplash License