I read Atlas Shrugged, thank you.
While quite interesting on some angles, you might like to remember that Ayn Rand's childhood in the Soviet Union has significantly affected her point of view, and has turned her somewhat psychotically capitalist.
So in her "Objectivism", selfishness is not a vice. Far from it, her philosophy proclaims the virtues of selfishness.
I read all her books and liked them at the time, despite some glaringly strange points like Reardon et al (you know the guy who does the $ cigarettes etc) go hide in some remote corner and start doing business on their own - one guy runs the railroads, one guy produces the cigarettes, and the reader is asked to believe that these tasks can be handled by one single person. That was a long time ago, so I don't remember all such examples, but Atlas Shrugged was particularly egregious in its disconnect from economic reality, based on the strange assumption that individuals with stamina & volition don't need the masses, they can just work their own factories.
Ayn Rand was of course Alan Greenspan's mentor. Ouch.
:-) |
