Rand-O-Rama: The Long Shelf Life of Ayn Rand's Legacy

Few authors have ever achieved the popularity that the novelist and essayist Ayn Rand (1905-1982) did.

With the publication of The Fountainhead in 1943 and Atlas Shrugged in 1957, Rand became a full-blown cultural phenomenon, selling millions of books and inspiring countless readers—ranging from former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan to Playboy founder Hugh Hefner to actress Angelina Jolie—with her moral defense of capitalism.

A refugee from Soviet Russia, Rand argued that capitalism was the best way of organizing society not simply because it was more efficient than communism but because it allowed the individual to fill his or her potential. A self-declared "radical for capitalism," Rand emphatically rejected collectivism of all stripes and embraced "man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."

Decades after her death, Rand's work is hotter than ever. In an age of massive government intervention into every aspect of the economy and personal lives, sales of her books are way up and a movie version of Atlas Shrugged is in the works. References to Rand are everywhere from Mad Men to The Colbert Report to The Simpsons and there's even a new critical appreciation, as evidenced by two new biographies, Ayn Rand And The World She Made and Goddess of The Market: Ayn Rand And The American Right.

Approximately four minutes long and produced by Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie, "Rand-O-Rama" analyzes the 21st-century Rand renaissance.

It is part of the Reason.tv series Radicals For Capitalism: Celebrating the Ideas of Ayn Rand. Go here for more information, other videos, and related materials. http://reason.org/rand

For downloadable versions of all videos, go to http://reason.tv

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• ayn rand
• fountainhead
• atlas shrugged
• cathy young
• reason.tv
• nick gillespie
• objectivism
• radicals for capitalism
• libertarianism
• mad men
• the simpsons
• colbert report
• jimmy fallon

[SargNickFury]

@shakyra1

There is nothing irrationable about using ones wealth or influence voluntarily to help a person or a group of people you see striving for the same values you hold yourself. There is a difference between that, and forced socialist altruism for anyone asking for a handout.

[MrDarknessandDeath]

It appears the impossible has come true: Jimmy Fallon has made a bigger idiot of himself than before.

[itachi705]

@logtype47 Your ridiculous disgusting insult laden diatribe without an actual argument proves Rand was right. You lose, bitch.

[MrAdvancedAtheist]

Progressives hate Rand in part because she bypassed their ideological control of education and created an alternative humanism through the sales of her writings in the market.

[logtype47]

Ayn Rand was a moron who thought she could survive on her own genius but when cancer threatened to wipe out the little bit of wealth she managed to put away for her old age she changed her name and applied for welfare benefits. The queen of the Libertarians, a stupid bitch preaching to the ignorant. She had a modicum of success on her own but like other so called self made successes, when she failed and she turned to the state to keep her ass off the street.

[SpellboundSolution]

@bondurango You win a hyperbole. Ooh, have I invented a new meme? Nice reductio ad Hitlerum there too.

[bondurango]

@SpellboundSolution

Newsflash this, junior. Support from ANY religious group for Ayn Rand is like Jewish membership in Hitler's SS. Of course, there were a few when there should have been none.

[backlighting]

"Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others" — Ayn Rand

[SpellboundSolution]

@bondurango News flash buddy: there is more to the world than the US and the only reason there are more "Judeo-Christians" (read: Christians) in the US who claim to understand Objectivism is because only, what is it, 9-11% of the population of the US is atheist.

[bondurango]

Objectivism is religion & her books are popular because they function as gospels for that religion.

Like Christians eating the body & drinking the blood of Jesus, they turn common sense upside down by calling greed a virtue. And like Christians, they defend everything she ever did or said like some Jesus. Her followers regard her as infallible, like the pope.

Fact is, there are more Judeo Christians than atheists who support Ayn Rand.