How about football coaches in fallbrook turning our youth into fascist linebackers.
Just a fun fact:
“V” (the original miniseries) was based (loosely) upon “It Can’t Happen Here”.
Also, while I think Atlas Shrugged is about as intelligent as birthers and the gold standard, it ain’t Hitler.
Its just the dumbed-down understanding of capitalism shared by people from communist countries (eg: the author) and people who have done little actual study of economics (reading the drudge report and seeking alpha does not qualify).
Anecdotally, I have found that most people I know who love it are not true economics nerds but are usually engineers or code monkeys who read websites about the Austrian school. Also, weirdly, Realtors.
Economics is a science of observable behavior as governed by situational exigencies (like your real income) and cultural realities (like why you don’t need a bike lock in Japan and why socialism has a stigma in the USA).
When read as a natural science (akin to physics or math), it is easy to ascribe meaning to behavior in a way that does not necessarily map.
For example, if the skilled managers of most big banks and large companies in the US (lets say every senior manager and executive and board member of the Fortune 1000) were to take a holiday (or be dropped into Mono Lake for that matter) the result would be as follows:
NOBODY WOULD NOTICE OR CARE
One of the observations laid out by Smith was that the invisible hand works because the actors in commercial and industrial enterprise are interchangeable. This is as true of capitalists as it is of the proletariat.
