Who Is Ayn Rand

I had not read Atlas Shrugged in the early 1970s (my early 20s) because I was too busy reading Charles Reich's The Greening of America in between sips of beer at the Wooden Keg on Pitt's Oakland campus. If I had, I might have been a millionaire today, a Gordon Gekko! Thank goodness for cheap drafts, Charles Reich, Carlos Castaneda, Van Morrison, and Carole King. I still have not read completely through any of Ayn Rand's four novels but did, many decades ago, see the film The Fountainhead starring Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal, the final scene of which still haunts me today where the two stars stare heavenward as they rise in the construction elevator of Cooper's budding skyscraper. Who is Ayn Rand??? She was born in Russia in 1905 and experienced, first hand, the Bolshevik takeover of human life and property. She came to America and was enamored by the silver screen ( I can relate to that) and wound up in Hollywood as a screenwriter and then author turned philosopher whose philosophy of Objectivism drew devotees including Alan Greenspan and has remained popular to this day. She died in 1982. They tried to make a movie of Atlas Shrugged for decades, finally accomplishing it recently in what could not be a more apropos time. I saw the film (first of a trilogy) this past week on a rainy day in Myrtle Beach. The small crowd (most families were filling the other theaters) applauded at its conclusion. If you do not see imminent catastrophe for America, or the world for that matter, or even the possibility thereof, you will probably find the film boring. If you do see dark tornado clouds moving fast over our heritage you will get your money's worth. It was well made and acted and it was good seeing a film that did not have the usual movie stars who hop from project to project. A 2009 cover story from Hank Hanegraaf's Christian Research Journal, which can be Googled easily (Was Ayn Rand Right, Jay W. Richards) captured the allure of Ayn Rand and the reason for criticism. Ayn Rand, as Richards relates, called greed a virtue. He wrote "Rand was a staunch defender of capitalism, but also an anti-Christian atheist who argued that capitalism was based on greed." Richards contends that "she missed the subtleties of capitalism." He brings Adam Smith into the equation and his 1776 classic work on economics The Wealth Of Nations and points out in detail how Smith admitted that "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." Richards points out that "every time you wash your hands or look both ways before you cross a street, you're pursuing your self-interest-but neither activity is selfish." Richards second point concerning Smith is that "in a free market, each of us can pursue ends within our narrow sphere of competence and concern-our self interest- and yet an order will emerge that vastly exceeds anyone's deliberations." His third point from Adam Smith is that even if capitalism channels greed and "even if the butcher is selfish, he can't make you buy his meat. He has to offer you meat at a price you'll willingly buy." So "capitalism doesn't need greed" and Richards would say that it doesn't need Ayn Rand either. The author continues with, and I would agree, that Rand's appeal is because she "mercilessly skewered every leftist cliche'." That is what the American pubic is calling for, why the film is a success and why the audience applauded at the end. It's Rand's defense of capitalism, and not definition of capitalism that allures. Richards mentions a survey that I had heard of before where he writes "In a poll conducted by the Library of Congress and the Book Of The Month Club in the 1990s, Atlas Shrugged came in second behind the Bible as the most influential  book." Richards conclusion is that "her hatred of Marxism and collectivism led her to defend a caricature of capitalism more grotesque than anything Marx imagined." It was Ayn Rand's accurate critique of leftist economic philosophy that woke the author up many years previous. This critique by Ayn Rand's is her only contribution, but a contribution nonetheless. My only disagreement with Jay W. Richards' article is where he writes "Competition between entrepreneurs in a free economy thus becomes an altruistic competition, not because the entrepreneurs have warm and fuzzies in their hearts, or are unconcerned with personal wealth, but because they seek to meet the desires of others more than their competitors do." I agree with this statement but it stops short of seeing how a nation can in the beginning see desires and wants as food, raiment and a home, and then evolve into those desires and wants becoming 65" television screens, risk derivatives, Facebook and various other narcissistic pursuits, etc., etc..  Wall Street is as capable of distorting capitalism into a grotesque caricature as Ayn Rand. Her contribution is best acknowledged and then put aside for the number one influential book in that survey.