Who is ayn rand atlas shrugged

Among them was an economic forecaster called Alan Greenspan, who became her close friend and eventually chairman of the US Federal Reserve. Despite this dedicated following, reviews of Atlas Shrugged in were not favourable, and its message united both left and right in condemnation.

Gore Vidal described it as "almost perfect in its immorality". But this didn't stop it from becoming an international bestseller, as millions were drawn to her central message of individualism and unfettered capitalism, even if they didn't buy into her whole philosophy.

And more than 50 years after publication, sales are booming. According to Nielsen BookScan, more than , copies were sold in the US in , pushing sales for all her works past the half-million mark that year. The extent of her influence was demonstrated this week when Paul Ryan joined the Mitt Romney ticket, although he has now distanced himself from her work. In , Ryan told the Atlas Society how Rand "taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are".

But earlier this year, he told the National Review that as a Catholic he rejected her atheism. Beyond politics, the novel also had an impact in Silicon Valley, where entrepreneurs identified with its emphasis on heroic individuals and their work ethic. Some have named their companies or their newborn children after the author or her characters. It's less about the economy or your relationship with government, so there is very little in Ayn Rand that they could identify with.

Paul Ryan genuinely fell out of love with Randian ideas, says Stanley, and that comes with age. She massages the egos of juveniles. Dagny and Hank in particular are shown as devoted to their careers — a devotion that requires a solemn commitment to virtue: to thought, integrity, courage, responsibility, tenacity. The basic difference is that they betray the actual nature of business: for them business is not a realm in which to use their minds to create values.

Instead, it is a means to appropriate values produced by others. For the first time in history, in the pages of Atlas , those who pursue business rationally receive profound moral recognition, while those who enter the realm to expropriate values receive condemnation. Reason and freedom are corollaries, Ayn Rand holds, as are faith and force.

Atlas Shrugged showcases both relationships. The heroes are unwavering thinkers. Whether it is a destructive business scheme proclaimed as moral, the potential collapse of the economy, or a personal life filled with pain, the heroes seek to face the facts and understand.

To them, reason is an absolute. Politically, therefore, what they require and demand is freedom. Freedom to think, to venture into the new and unknown, to earn, to trade, to succeed and fail and pursue their own individual happiness.

The villains, by contrast, reject the absolutism of reason. They want a world ruled by their feelings, in which wishing makes it so. James Taggart, for instance, wants to be the head of a railroad without the need of effort. No amount of thinking can bring such a world about — he must attempt to bring it about by force. Traditionally, love is regarded as spiritual and selfless. Sex, on the other hand, is regarded as low and animalistic, with some claiming we should therefore renounce it in the name of higher values, and others saying there are no higher values and so we should indulge in it indiscriminately.

Atlas Shrugged challenges this entire perspective. Love is shown as an inherently selfish emotion. To love is to value, and the proper expression of romantic valuing is sex.

Sex is not an animalistic desire, but a union of the spiritual and material, mind and body. Updates From ARI. Reproduction of content and images in whole or in part is prohibited. All rights reserved. ARI is a c 3 nonprofit organization. Newsletter Sign Up.

Search for:. Atlas Shrugged Overview Background Synopsis Excerpt. It is a book that is worth re-reading every few years. In this sense, it takes its place alongside books like as 20th-century cautionary tales that teach lessons we ignore at our peril.

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