I get the impression that there are, mostly, what I would call traditional Conservative voters here on GN. The 'old-fashioned' Conservative voter, as opposed to the current rabid Right Wing Tories whose ideals are considerably removed from those of, for example, John Major, or even Theresa May.
Truss and Kwarteng, among others, represent- to me anyway - the Ayn Rand ideology of laissez-faire capitalism where self-interest is seen as the guiding principle. One that advocates a free-market economy, and to hell with any notion of consideration for others who might not, for many reasons, be able to compete in this dog-eat-dog world.
She (Rand) calls it rational self-interest and believed it was the natural socio-economic model. The problem with such an ideology is that it has the seeds of its own destruction within it. Huge disparity of wealth brings about strife, civil unrest, and even revolution, and the instability that these create. Her 'hero', in real life, was a man, a serial-killer, who never showed any regret, care or compassion for his victims - in her eyes he was the perfect example of self-interest because of his total lack of feeling for another. William Edward Hickman murdered and dismembered a 12-year old girl. Here's what Rand said about him,
"Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should," (she wrote, gushing that Hickman had) "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people.'"
It is worth noting that in America, in 2010...
The loudest of all the Republicans, right-wing attack-dog pundits and the Teabagger mobs fighting to kill health care reform and eviscerate "entitlement programs" increasingly hold up Ayn Rand as their guru. Sales of her books have soared in the past couple of years; one poll ranked Atlas Shrugged as the second most influential book of the 20th century, after the Bible.
Our former health secretary, Sajid Javid, was a devotee of Ayn Rand. Just sayin'
I think we are headed down the path of the glorification of the selfish brutality of capitalism, with this current mob. I'm not suggesting they condone murder BTW, but the dedication to self-interest propounded as 'growing the economy', I find rather disturbing.
(quoted texts are taken from various scholarly studies of Ayn Rand, apart from the quote from Rand herself)
