Ayn Rand — VOICES for REASON

The Wall Street Journal recently commissioned Karen Armstrong, author of numerous books on religion, and Richard Dawkins, author of numerous books on evolution and atheism, to answer the question: “Where does evolution leave God?”

What I found most interesting about the exchange was an issue that neither discussed explicitly, but which lurked just beneath the surface of their answers: the fact that religion has co-opted the entire realm of the spiritual.

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CNBC just published a blog post by ARC’s Yaron Brook and me on Ayn Rand’s relevance to today. (Last I checked, it topped CNBC’s “most shared” story list.) The short answer:

Atlas Shrugged shows us an all-too-familiar pattern: Washington do-gooders blaming the problems they’ve created on the free market, and using them as a pretext for expanding their power. And more: it provides the fundamental explanation for why the government gets away with continually increasing its control over the economy and our lives.

I encourage anyone interested in learning more about the relevance of Atlas to today’s events to attend The Atlas Shrugged Revolution, coming up in September.

I’ve registered my pleasure at the news that FCC chairman-to-be Julius Genachowski has vowed not to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. But some of you may recall an article in which Ayn Rand seemed to support the Fairness Doctrine and even recommended extending it to the field of education. Let’s look at what she actually said.

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“What we need is a moderate approach—we can’t afford to go to extremes.”

How many times have you heard that from Washington, and in how many contexts? We need to be “moderate” in our response to the financial crisis—we don’t want to strangle businesses completely with regulation, but we need to yank back their leashes a little. We need to be “moderate” in our response to North Korea—we don’t want to subject our citizens to a nuclear attack, but we can’t be too firm about it or we’ll jeopardize negotiations. We need to be “moderate” about free speech on the airwaves—we like the idea that people should have the right to speak their mind, but only if they don’t offend anyone or hold an unpopular opinion. This list could continue ad infinitum if one follows today’s news.

I was reading Objectively Speaking: Ayn Rand Interviewed, and came across a brilliant statement by Ayn Rand on her views regarding what a “moderate” means: Read the rest of this entry »

Here is a flyer I wrote for the upcoming Independence Day Tea Parties. Many of those attending today’s Tea Parties are fed up with the assault on freedom they read about in each morning’s paper–but they have no positive alternative to offer. If the Tea Parties are to have a lasting impact it will be because they go from being a grassroots outpouring of frustration to a movement that stands for limited government, individualism, and individual rights. This, I argue, is the value of Atlas Shrugged to Tea Party attendees: it provides a powerful and revolutionary defense of those ideals.

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The publication of “Essays on Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged,” edited by Dr. Robert Mayhew, couldn’t come at a better time. With all the attention the book and its author are getting in the media lately, those interested in learning more about the novel, its development and the revolutionary message it contains will find a wealth of information and analysis from experts in this new volume.

As a contributing author, I received my advance copy of the book today and am looking forward to reading it cover to cover. My own essay, titled “The Businessmen’s Crucial Role: Material Men of the Mind,” argues that Atlas Shrugged had to have businessmen such as Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggart as its heroes by necessity because of Rand’s chosen plot-theme: “The men of the mind going on strike against an altruist-collectivist society.” Given that the leader of this strike says that the strikers will return to the world only when the lights of New York City are extinguished, what will it take to extinguish those lights? Who is it that keeps those lights on? My full answer is in Chapter 16.

As I look over the table of contents, I see titles of chapters such as “Who Was John Galt? The Creation of Ayn Rand’s Ultimate Ideal Man” by Shoshana Milgram, “No Tributes to Caesar: Good or Evil in Atlas Shrugged” by Tara Smith, and “Discovering Atlantis: Atlas Shrugged‘s Demonstration of a New Moral Philosophy” by Greg Salmieri. Each of the twenty-two essays brings out the virtues of the novel and its underlying philosophy, Objectivism. Holding this volume in my hands, I am reminded once again of the sheer genius behind Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. I’m honored to have had participated in this project.

The title of this article in The Week magazine was so perfect, I made it the title of this post. Ayn Rand was indeed a crusader for capitalism, one whose works have proven to be enduring. Just witness the surging sales of Atlas Shrugged and the burgeoning interest in her philosophy.

The article has some factual errors (such as describing Alan Greenspan’s tenure at the Federal Reserve as the “apogee of Objectivism”) and misses some big points. However, I can’t resist quoting a few of the article’s better passages: Read the rest of this entry »

On its website Playboy has posted its dynamite 1964 interview with Ayn Rand. In the interview, Rand discusses her work and some of the practical implications of her ideas. The frank, wide-ranging conversation is particularly notable for its breadth.

Among the topics covered: guilt, original sin, emotions, motherhood, religion, morality, romantic love, sex, hedonism, promiscuity, charity, compassion, literature, government, free will, foreign policy, nuclear treaties, politicians and others.

Rand’s words, as they so often do, resonate as if they were spoken yesterday.

Read the whole thing here: http://www.playboy.com/articles/ayn-rand-playboy-interview/index.html.

April 28 is the official publication date for Essays on Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged,” a welcome addition to the area of Rand scholarship.

Kudos to Dr. Robert Mayhew, the book’s editor, for his work spearheading this project. He’s also responsible for bringing to light three earlier collections of essays, on Rand’s We the Living, Anthem, and The Fountainhead. For readers already familiar with Rand’s fiction and her non-fiction writing, there’s much to be gained from the essays in these collections. I recall learning a great deal in the collection on The Fountainhead (I’d point, for example, to the superb chapter by my colleague Dr. Onkar Ghate).

The new book on Atlas Shrugged should now be available for pre-order at bookstores. You may also want to pick up the three earlier books of essays and complete the set.

For the first time in American legal history, a judge has explicitly endorsed important principles of Ayn Rand’s political theory in a published appellate opinion.

Judge William Nels Swandal’s passionate dissent in the case of Buhmann v. State, decided by the Montana Supreme Court, concludes as follows (beginning at page 94):

Ayn Rand correctly observed that the right to life is the source of all rights–and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. These principles are embodied in the Montana Constitution in Article II, Sections 3 and 29. I invite the majority to read them. The fundamental rights to acquire, possess, and protect property are not even given lip service by this Court. Under the majority’s opinion, the State suffers no consequences for the exercise of coercive and unreasonable power in destroying these businesses. There is no serious effort to balance benefits and burdens. It may be too early to start asking, “Who is John Galt?” but more decisions like this will seriously impact all private property and business owners in this State.

I strongly dissent from the majority opinion.

In a footnote explaining the John Galt reference, Judge Swandal wrote: “In Ayn Rand’s work Atlas Shrugged, the phrase becomes an expression of helplessness and despair at the current state of the novel’s fictionalized world.

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