Thread: Ayn Rand

Her novel was influential, and Greenspan was heavily influenced by her.


Thoughts and opinions?

Ayn Rand’s Literature of Capitalism

Published: September 15, 2007 One of the most influential business books ever written is a 1,200-page novel published 50 years ago, on Oct. 12, 1957. It is still drawing readers; it ranks 388th on Amazon.com’s best-seller list. (“Winning,” by John F. Welch Jr., at a breezy 384 pages, is No. 1,431.)
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The book is “Atlas Shrugged,” Ayn Rand’s glorification of the right of individuals to live entirely for their own interest.
For years, Rand’s message was attacked by intellectuals whom her circle labeled “do-gooders,” who argued that individuals should also work in the service of others. Her book was dismissed as an homage to greed. Gore Vidal described its philosophy as “nearly perfect in its immorality.”
But the book attracted a coterie of fans, some of them top corporate executives, who dared not speak of its impact except in private. When they read the book, often as college students, they now say, it gave form and substance to their inchoate thoughts, showing there is no conflict between private ambition and public benefit.


“I know from talking to a lot of Fortune 500 C.E.O.’s that ‘Atlas Shrugged’ has had a significant effect on their business decisions, even if they don’t agree with all of Ayn Rand’s ideas,” said John A. Allison, the chief executive of BB&T, one of the largest banks in the United States.
“It offers something other books don’t: the principles that apply to business and to life in general. I would call it complete,” he said.
One of Rand’s most famous devotees is Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, whose memoir, “The Age of Turbulence,” will be officially released Monday.


Mr. Greenspan met Rand when he was 25 and working as an economic forecaster. She was already renowned as the author of “The Fountainhead,” a novel about an architect true to his principles. Mr. Greenspan had married a member of Rand’s inner circle, known as the Collective, that met every Saturday night in her New York apartment. Rand did not pay much attention to Mr. Greenspan until he began praising drafts of “Atlas,” which she read aloud to her disciples, according to Jeff Britting, the archivist of Ayn Rand’s papers. He was attracted, Mr. Britting said, to “her moral defense of capitalism.”


Rand’s free-market philosophy was hard won. She was born in 1905 in Russia. Her life changed overnight when the Bolsheviks broke into her father’s pharmacy and declared his livelihood the property of the state. She fled the Soviet Union in 1926 and arrived later that year in Hollywood, where she peered through a gate at the set where the director Cecil B. DeMille was filming a silent movie, “King of Kings.”


He offered her a ride to the set, then a job as an extra on the film and later a position as a junior screenwriter. She sold several screenplays and intermittently wrote novels that were commercial failures, until 1943, when fans of “The Fountainhead” began a word-of-mouth campaign that helped sales immensely.


Shortly after “Atlas Shrugged” was published in 1957, Mr. Greenspan wrote a letter to The New York Times to counter a critic’s comment that “the book was written out of hate.” Mr. Greenspan wrote: “ ‘Atlas Shrugged’ is a celebration of life and happiness. Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should.”


Rand’s magazine, The Objectivist, later published several essays by Mr. Greenspan, including one on the gold standard in 1966.
Rand called “Atlas” a mystery, “not about the murder of man’s body, but about the murder — and rebirth — of man’s spirit.” It begins in a time of recession. To save the economy, the hero, John Galt, calls for a strike against government interference. Factories, farms and shops shut down. Riots break out as food becomes scarce.


Rand said she “set out to show how desperately the world needs prime movers and how viciously it treats them” and to portray “what happens to a world without them.”


The book was released to terrible reviews. Critics faulted its length, its philosophy and its literary ambitions. Both conservatives and liberals were unstinting in disparaging the book; the right saw promotion of godlessness, and the left saw a message of “greed is good.” Rand is said to have cried every day as the reviews came out.


Rand had a reputation for living for her own interest. She is said to have seduced her most serious reader, Nathaniel Branden, when he was 24 or 25 and she was at least 50. Each was married to someone else. In fact, Mr. Britting confirmed, they called their spouses to a meeting at which the pair announced their intention to make the mentor-protégé relationship a sexual one.

Entire: Ayn Rand’s Literature of Capitalism - New York Times

Yes, I am a fan. I abhor unions and stick to the ideal of work yer a** off to get what you want and need.

Originally Posted by Jet Gorgon

I abhor unions and stick to the ideal of work yer a** off to get what you want and need.

another clown born on second base who thinks he hit a double.....and in my experience this is precisely the type of person who becomes enamored with rand.

speaking of which, where's john galt these days?

She's was jewish.





I've read both Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead twice and the Art of Fiction countless times.

She is one of the few authors in history who knew how to write based upon theme/plot/characterization and style.

I highly recommend the Art of Fiction.

I've read both Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead twice and the Art of Fiction countless times.

so what, i have read them too as have others but fcuk me, countless times? - how old are you?

Originally Posted by DrB0b

Originally Posted by Jet Gorgon

Yes, I am a fan. I abhor unions and stick to the ideal of work yer a** off to get what you want and need.

246 million children are child labourers
73 million child workers are less than 10 years of age
2.5 million children work in developed economies
2.5 million work in transitional economies
127 million - the largest number of working children under 14 years of age - work in the Asia Pacific region
1 million children work in mines or quarries
22,000 children die in work-related accidents each year
BBC NEWS | Business | Lightening the load of child miners

Quite right, Jet. If we had unions we wouldn't be able to force these kids to work 20 hours a day 7 days a week, we'd probably even have to do something to stop them dying in the mines (children are a renewable resource, why should we worry about their safety?). Why, we'd probably even have to pay them enough that they could actually eat! Rank communism of the worst order, I mean what, apart from lack of electricity, medicine, water, food, education, and money, is to stop them getting off their lazy asses and improving their own lot?

WTF do unions have to do with the starving millions in third world countries? Many big charities are like unions and I don't donate to them because I read their accounts and often 90% of my donation goes for the admin's fekin salaries. How would you use unions to save these kids? Unions are corrupt here, imagine what they'd be like over there. Get these people contraceptives and teach them how to farm. They often have kids so they can sell them. What's a union gonna do, ensure they get a good rate?

Unions bleed companies dry and IMO, union workers are some of the laziest gits on earth. Three union guys walk into a bar. The first guy says, you guys get the drinks, I'm on disabilty. The second guy says, it's not in my job description. The thrird guy says, not me, I've got seniority. So they all walk out sober, which is good as they are alkies, like most union members. (stolen from the Georgia Straight)

Give us a plan to save the starving masses, Dr Bob. There will always be rich and poor, happy and sad, lazy and industrious. I got a sob story childhood, too. So what. Life ain't fair. Go fix the UN or something.

Ayn Rand the philosopher had some interesting things to say about individualism and individual rights.
Her novels I recommend- both Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead are good reads, I'd start with Fountainhead.

As a philosopher, some interesting things to say but hardly one of the greats. Here's a dose-
Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to become the means by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of other men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other.
from Atlas Shrugged

Better?

huh - thanks but how'd you do dat?

Opened the link keda, then opened the picture.
Right clicked on it, opened properties and copied.
Then pasted it to the 'insert image' button above, that is one of the buttons that appear above when you are posting.
Presto! I'm no puter whiz btw- if i can do it, so can you.

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

if you don't earn it, you don't deserve it

really?

i'd be interested to read your views on the estate tax----you probably know it as the 'death tax'.

Rand's philosophy seems to be a perverted form of libertarianism. Certainly, the sanctity of private property and personal freedom are admirable values. But she takes it a step further to glorify selfishness. Why the f*ck does personal freedom imply the need to embark on some humorless, godless pursuit of wealth and power? Why doesn't she find it equally admirable to exercise personal freedom by helping one's extended family or promoting charity or studying the spiritual world or even sitting on one's rear end in Thailand drinking beer and banging hookers? Ayn Rand a miserable twat used by amoral, equally miserable, sociopathic businesspeople to justify their plunder.

^ Rand's half baked philosophy forms an expedient 'justification' for the excesses of capitalism, much as Nietsche's did for Nazism, and Marx's for Communism.

Originally Posted by sabang

Opened the link keda, then opened the picture.
Right clicked on it, opened properties and copied.
Then pasted it to the 'insert image' button above, that is one of the buttons that appear above when you are posting.
Presto! I'm no puter whiz btw- if i can do it, so can you.

Many thanks...open the pic through td gallery, copy/paste...ok, now you're for it...

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

if you don't earn it, you don't deserve it...

Originally Posted by raycarey

really? i'd be interested to read your views on the estate tax----you probably know it as the 'death tax'.

boonie?

Human nature to care for the young and secure the future of one's genes.

Everyone please take note ray is in charge now. You speak when spoken to. Await further orders. Ray has spoken.

Originally Posted by JohnGalt

Selfishness implies the right for a person to be who they want to be. If we want to be capitalist orphilanthropist -- what's it to you? What right would I have to bully you into helping others?

I think freedom should include anything that doesn't impinge on someone else's freedom to have the very same choices.

I don't see where Rand endorses victimizing others.

I think her preaching the message that people should live for themselves has got to be one of most "Godly" things she ever did -- IF you want to put godly terms on it.

Building people up to be self sufficient works.... doling out free gifts to people doesn't work.

I tell the Thais that work for me frequently --- "Do you want to have an easy life -- then work your ass off for it".

Being driven to achieve self-sufficiency is a great message. But Rand's philosophy takes on a creepy aspect when the quest for power (after one is entirely self-sufficient) is glorified over other lifestyles. Kurt Vonnegut once defined original sin as "taking ourselves too seriously". The bitch was humorless, had very little respect for the spiritual world and was thoroughly convinced that the mad dash for power was the only path to a meaningful life. Famed banker Allen Greenspan, once a 'disciple' of Rand', wrote of Atlas Shrugged, "Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should.” The denigrating tone of his comment is representative of the arrogance and lack of spirituality of many of Rand's followers. It's also simply an untrue statement. Many of the happiest people I know avoid both purpose and reason.

Originally Posted by JohnGalt

Building people up to be self sufficient works.... doling out free gifts to people doesn't work. I tell the Thais that work for me frequently --- "Do you want to have an easy life -- then work your ass off for it".

hey eiger, how much of your original capital came from your family? why don't you consider that 'free gifts'.