Atlas Shrugged and the Decline of New York

This past Tuesday I had to take my wife to her dentist in Manhattan, so I spent a little time walking around our old neighborhood, the Upper West Side, while she got her crown.  I learned that apartment buildings now have policies that can ban smoking outside the building; supermarket plastic bags are now illegal; if you want to use paper bags, you must pay a 5-cent penalty.

With so many meddlesome laws, New York is not a place in which I care to live. I first realized that the city had gone past the point of no return in 2000, when I sat on a Manhattan narcotics grand jury.  The grand jury was in the New York Supreme Court Building, 60 Centre Street, where the 1957 movie 12 Angry Men takes place.  In interacting with my fellow Manhattanites, I realized that the people of New York had gone far down the left-wing path, that they no longer believed in the rule of law, and that the ultimate result would be increasing socialism and moral chaos.

I was just rereading Atlas Shrugged, which I assigned to my class as an extra credit assignment. When I was in Manhattan on Tuesday, several things reminded me of it.  It is about the exodus of industrialists, managers, and the competent from a United States increasingly dominated by socialist looters, with an end result of the country's reverting to 18th century standards—a goal advocated today by  environmentalists.   

This passage is an example of Ayn Rand's perception of how backward-trending socialist law works.  A bureaucrat named Dr. Ferris explains the process to capitalist Hank Rearden, inventor of Rearden Metal:

“Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?” said Dr. Ferris.  We want them to be broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against—then you’ll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures.  We’re after power, and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you’d be better get wise to it. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals.  Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens?  What’s there in that for anyone?  But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted—and you create a nation of lawbreakers—and then you cash in on guilt.  Now that’s the system, Mr. Rearden, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.

 I can picture a Democratic Party policy adopted by di Blasio, Warren, Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, et al. whereby neighbors are encouraged to inform on each other:  "Hello, police? I just saw my neighbor,  Mrs. Taggart, entering her apartment with a plastic bag of groceries.  Yes, we're at 140 Riverside Drive, Apt. 16-k. Please send a squad car."