Ayn Rand’s Literature of Capitalism (Many CEO's Influenced by Rand)

[RamboLiberal]

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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.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/15/business/15atlas.html...

[Stargazer99]

1. I find the general public is not aware of Ayn Rand's philosophy

No wonder Joe Six Pac is being screwed

[AX10]

2. Atlas Shrugged was a POS.

These CEO's think that they alone created those massive firms. WRONG! It took the millions of workers throughout the world to create those companies. Collectivly, they made those companies what they are!

[EVDebs]

3. We're just the hoi polloi to these patrician bastages. nt

[Steepler0t]

4. Right-wing Libertarians are annoying

They are the lowest form of a rightwinger, a total greedmonger type of wingnut with a religious fervor that tells them they are the "enlightened ones" and everyone else is a socialist/commie/collectivist.

Yet they seem to take the freeper types sides in arguements, (except things like pot, religion and usually the war) which amazes me since repugs are the worst about spending and big govt.

Oh well some enlightenment, shoulda got their dogma from something else besides that shitty book of rands.

[bemildred]

5. Juvenile drivel, really bad prose, and preachy all the way through. nt

[Sailing]

6. I never read Ayn Rand...

I feel like the luckiest guy in the world.

P.S. I just bought a copy of Brave New World. I'm reading it for the first time.

[stimbox]

7. Too bad more Libertarians don't follow her example.

And off themselves.

[Alcibiades]

8. Sheer masturbatory arrogance

This is hardly news. "Capitalists and managers praise their number-one suckass."

I didn't know that Rand cried when the reviews came out. What a contrast between herself and her own stupid ideal. Would John Galt have cried? No fucking way! John Galt is a man. A real manly man of action and greatness (whatever the fuck that is). Someone for her to dream about while she fondled her nasty, foul-smelling, bucketlike cooze.

I fucking hate fucking Ayn Rand. Objectivism is simply a vapid form of narcissism, replacing the gods and goddesses of myth with a new myth about the perfectly autonomous man of greatness. No wonder it appeals to teenagers and mental defectives. Her crap was, she thought, high art, the best political theory since Plato, but really it's proven to be self-congratulatory pap for snotty little freshmen rich kids at private colleges who were born on third base and think they hit a home run.

[OHdem10]

9. Altruism is evil??????

[Baby Snooks]

14. In a word...

Yes.

[Naturyl]

20. Yes, according to Ayn Orwell...

Altruism is evil and selfishness is good.

Is there any need to ask why she is so popular with right-wingers?

[Cronopio]

21. She spends most of her book "For the New Intellectual" trying to make just that point. nt

[Joanne98]

10. 'The Shock Doctrine' a short film

http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/short-film

[Paladin]

11. I Liked "The Fountainhead" When I Read It In College......

....and they made a pretty good movie of it with Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal. But you have to really drink the Koolaid to be a fan of "Atlas Shrugged." Like most people, I grew up and away from my admiration of Ayn Rand and her philosophy---who can possibly argue now that we need more egoism, selfishness and money-worship than we already have to put up with? You can always tell when you encounter a Rand disciple: they're assholes.....

[TomClash]

12. I love to ask these Corporate Libertarians

if they would support eliminating the corporation because it is merely a fictitious entity created to provide government protection for the assets of mostly wealthy shareholders - the chief welfare vehicle for the leisure class.

I usually get rhetoric, blank stares and lectures about the benefits of capital. Not too many Atlases in the corporate world.

I liked reading Ayn Rand's books - they are great page turners - but you have to be either naive or dumb to believe in the philosophy. Capitalism wouldn't last five minutes without government.

[Forrest Greene]

13. Too Bad They Never Read

..."Gravity's Rainbow."

[TrogL]

17. I STILL don't understand that book

other than its references to synchronicity.

[JPZenger]

15. Co. That Helped Kill NYC Firefighters Named After Her Hero

The end of the New York Times article mentions that one of the heros in Ayn Rand's book was John Galt. The company that was completing the demolition of the Deutsche Bank building next to the World Trade Center site was the John Galt Corp, named after him. That company is being blamed for creating conditions that resulted in an out of control fire in the building last month, that killed NYC firefighters. Among other violations, there was no water available in the building - the standpipe was disconnected.

I guess that company was carrying out the Rand's concept that selfishness is a virtue.

[nealmhughes]

16. Isn't it amazing how long a person could nurse a grudge against Lenin?

So Daddy got all his capital confiscated in Petersburg and Ayn declared war on anything she didn't like. It wasn't just anarch-capitalism, by far! Ms. Rand had opinions on everything under the sun from music to visual art to smoking.

Chris Hitchens, back when he was not frequently tired and nervous said it best about her: "Her sole known redeeming quality was her stringent atheirsm."

[TrogL]

18. It's amazing the amount of psychological damage caused by these books

They're an homage to single-minded perfectionism among other things with plentiful dose of "I'll take my ball and bat and go home".


***SPOILERS*************


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I devoured these in University until they drove me barking mad. My shrink had to keep reminding me that John Galt is a fictional character incompatible with real life.

I had a certain amount of respect for Howard Roarke (The Fountainhead) until he burned down the apartment buildings because the final version had balconies on them, spoiling the clean lines of his designs.

Atlas Shrugged is filled with ridiculous charicatures of "liberal thought".

[fasttense]

19. There was a sample essay for college entry

circulating the web about two years ago. It started with how much the girl liked Rand. I stumbled on it while trying to find samples for my daughter about that time.

Here is the first line of the sample essay that seemed to be on every site on how to write a college entry essay:

Scholarship Essay Two

- Winning National Merit Scholarship Essay

"Nothing in all the world is comparable to reading Ayn Rand beneath New York's skyline or to studying Nietzsche atop a mountain summit."

Ayn Rand? I just never found her very inspiring even with a view of the New York skyline. Sounds like a possible republican in the making, especially if she combines Rand's promotion of selfishness along with Nietzsche's radical questioning of the value and objectivity of truth.

[provis99]

22. Ayn Rand and Nietzsche? What a perfect combination

A bitter rich girl whining how the littlefolk oppress her brilliance, and don't recognize her as a superwoman, together with a self-loathing milquetoast who had so little personal appeal to women he slept with enough prostitutes to get syphilis, all the time complaining he was an oppressed superman. Superwoman and superman, together in their petulant self-pitying at last!

[bemildred]

23. No offense, but ...

Comparing Nietzsche to Rand, with all of his manifest flaws, is an insult to Nietzsche. He might have been all you say, he went nuts, but he was not stupid and shallow in the way that Rand was.

[CGowen]

24. Only read one chapter by Greenspan in "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal"

http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/books/rand/cui.html

http://www.321gold.com/fed/greenspan/1966.html