Two major new books on Ayn Rand testify to the continuing impact of America's most influential novelist of ideas. Sales of Rand's books have been impressive for 66 years -- more than 25 million -- and have recently surged, perhaps in response to the dramatic increase in government intrusion into the free market. Rand remains a major influence on both libertarian and conservative communities, and these two new studies illustrate the growing scholarly interest in her impact.
Jennifer Burns, a professor of history at the University of Virginia, looks at the development of Rand's ideas and her alliances -- and clashes -- with other intellectual and political figures. New York writer Anne Heller draws on original research in Russia, dozens of interviews with Rand's relatives and acquaintances, and previously unexamined archives to develop the first complete and independent biography.
Bio
David Boaz
Cato's executive vice president David Boaz has played a key role in the development of the Cato Institute and the libertarian movement. He is a provocative commentator and a leading authority on domestic issues such as education choice, drug legalization, the growth of government, and the rise of libertarianism.
He is the author of Libertarianism: A Primer, described by the Los Angeles Times as "a well-researched manifesto of libertarian ideas," the editor of The Libertarian Reader, and coeditor of the Cato Handbook on Policy.
Boaz is the former editor of New Guard magazine and was executive director of the Council for a Competitive Economy prior to joining Cato in 1981. His articles have been published in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, National Review, and Slate.
He is a frequent guest on national television and radio shows, and has appeared on ABC's "Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher", CNN's "Crossfire", NPR's "Talk of the Nation" and "All Things Considered", "John McLaughlin's One on One", Fox News Channel, BBC, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and other media.
Jennifer Burns
Jennifer Burns was educated at Harvard College and received her Ph.D. in American History from the University of California, Berkeley. Her new book, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, began as her doctoral dissertation. She spent more than eight years working on the book, and was fortunate to be granted access to Rand's personal papers and private diaries for her research.
Professor Burns teaches American history at the University of Virginia, and divides her time between Charlottesville, VA and Menlo Park, CA. Lectures from her introductory course on American history are available at iTunes.berkeley.edu and can be found by searching for History 7b in Social Sciences.
Anne C. Heller
Anne C. Heller is a magazine editor and journalist. She has been the managing editor of The Antioch Review, a fiction editor of Esquire and Redbook, the features editor of Lear's, and the executive editor of the magazine development group at Conde Nast Publications, with a special emphasis on money and finance.
It was Ayn Rand's writing about money that first aroused her interest in the author, who is one of the most passionate defenders of capitalism of all time. Heller has written for a number of national magazines.
(born Feb. 2, 1905, St. Petersburg, Russia—died March 6, 1982, New York, N.Y., U.S.) Russian-born U.S. writer. She immigrated to the U.S. in 1926 after graduating from the University of Petrograd and worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood. She won a cult following with two best-selling novels presenting her belief that all real achievement comes from individual ability and effort, that laissez-faire capitalism is most congenial to the exercise of talent, and that selfishness is a virtue, altruism a vice. In The Fountainhead (1943), a superior individual transcends traditionalism and conformism. The allegorical Atlas Shrugged (1957) combines science fiction with her political message. She expounded her philosophy, which she called objectivism, in nonfiction works and as editor of two journals and became an icon of radical libertarianism.
Ayn rands brand of rampant individualist greed is as bankrupt as the "free" market system it spawned;To any Randyites out there Just stick to listening to RUSH concept albums!
Rand had a sick mind.
She thought society consists of beings with worse sins and crimes than the child killer William Edward Hickman, and decried society for condemning that criminal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Edward_Hickman
William Edward Hickman (1908 – October 19, 1928) was an American killer responsible for the kidnapping and murder of Marion Parker, a 12-year-old girl.
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In 1928, the writer Ayn Rand began planning a novel called The Little Street, whose hero, Danny Renahan, was to be based on Hickman. The novel was never finished, but Rand wrote notes for it which were published after her death in the book Journals of Ayn Rand. In her notes, Rand quoted a statement by Hickman that "I am like the state: what is good for me is right." Rand called this "The best and strongest expression of a real man's psychology I ever heard."[2]
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Rand also expressed sympathy for Hickman, writing, "The first thing that impresses me about the case is the ferocious rage of a whole society against one man. No matter what the man did, there is always something loathsome in the 'virtuous' indignation and mass-hatred of the 'majority.'... It is repulsive to see all these beings with worse sins and crimes in their own lives, virtuously condemning a criminal..."[5]
I think the questions asked took the focus away from what the author of "The Goddess of the Market" was saying. That she thinks that Ayn's work can be the catalyst for solutions in our current economic state. That reason and the logic of her beliefs can very well allow us to examine our world individually and as a collective in a time where govt. and the average person are both looking the other way. I feel as if she was "Howard" in court during his speech, only to finish it with no real purpose unfolding, letting himself be heard in front of people who care more about their own agenda, so much, that they really didn't pay close enough attention. Which is what i think the purveying, almost comical futility of Ayn's message tends to lead toward, that everyone wants to be right, and even if one achieves this with mathematic precision, not everyone is going to reinforce this, quite possibly no one.
From “Brief Summary,” in The Objectivist, Sept. 1971, 1. Miss Rand wrote:
“Libertarians”
For the record, I shall repeat what I have said many times before: I do not join or endorse any political group or movement. More specifically, I disapprove of, disagree with, and have no connection with, the latest aberration of some conservatives, the so-called “hippies of the right,” who attempt to snare the younger or more careless ones of my readers by claiming simultanteously to be followers of my philosophy and advocates of anarchism. Anyone offering such a combination confesses his inability to understand either. Anarchism is the most irrational, anti-intellectual notion ever spun by the concrete-bound, context-dropping, whim-worshiping fringe of the collectivist movement, where it properly belongs.
She specifically denied the validity of the Libertarian ideas; and she proved why Libertarianism is a bankrupt philosophy...that it wants the effect (Capitalism) while denying the cause (the mind)
The Libertarian attempt to "wrap your arms" around her and claim that she is one of you, though she didn't know it; simply betrays your need to somehow acquire some validity by giving the mistaken appearance of closeness.
It's sort of like getting your picture taken when standing near the President, then trying to peddle yourself as having some connection to the President.
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: “The Lord of the Rings” and “Atlas Shrugged.”
One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves hobbits, elves, and wizards.
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Read also Andrew Corsello's article in the 27 October issue of GQ 'The Bitch is Back.'
Antiks
You really need to stop huffing glue with Michael Moore.Borrowers dp have an obligation to pay there loans. The reason deregulation is ignored is that it is not the real culprit. Deregulation did not come up with The Community Reinvestment Act which, according to wikipedia, "requires the appropriate federal financial supervisory agencies to encourage regulated financial institutions to meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they are chartered, consistent with safe and sound operation (Section 802.). To enforce the statute, federal regulatory agencies examine banking institutions for CRA compliance, and take this information into consideration when approving applications for new bank branches or for mergers or acquisitions (Section 804.).[6]."
That is, to say Federal regulators could deny a bank merger, aquisition or expansion based on whether the bank granted the right percentage of loans to the right communities.
During one of the Congressional hearings addressing the proposed changes in 1995, William A. Niskanen, chair of the Cato Institute, criticized both the 1993 and 1994 sets of proposals for political favoritism in allocating credit, for micromanagement by regulators and for the lack of assurances that banks would not be expected to operate at a loss to achieve CRA compliance. He predicted the proposed changes would be very costly to the economy and the banking system in general my emphasis.
Thus it is Barney Frank and Chris Dodd not Phil Gram that one needs to look to.
deregulation would never have produced a crisis this big. Government is needed for that.
Alan Greenspan was only superficially and theoretically Randian. In action and practical terms he was exactly the opposite. He built and oversaw what was essentially a centrally planned monetary policy framework (to the extent that it is now very difficult, in our context, to see any alternative). It was not always thus. Monetary policy, one of the most powerful and (for a libertarian) dangerously concentrated policy levers is still now driven by the opinions of one or a few people who attempt to control the (superficially free) real economy. The very name inflation targeting evokes this sense of control but its short term success created worse hubris - the sense that we could use disinflation to will markets ever higher. Mistakes in this domain are a direct cause of too much concentration of economic decision-making power and are objectively the cause of what has created capitalism's latest crisis (artificially low real interest and savings rates). This is all directly analogous to Rand's view of the ill's of big government, just in a slightly different context than that which she had explicitly envisaged and wrote about (or maybe that's just because I haven't read enough).
Does she offer a way out? Unfortunately yes. Government will become even bigger and we will eventually blow the system up properly. However, this will probably take the form of an economic depression and maybe a few wars before we enter another age of endeavour. It would have been nice to think that we had our crisis last year but the last six months suggest that we are not yet ready to pull up our sleeves - we have asked politicians to bolster our ill-gotten (windfall) gains from the post '82 disinflationary period with desperate monetary policy and then government handouts. Only when, as a society, we come to despise and distrust such measures and seek to individually work our way out of this will we things improve in a sustainable manner
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