129. Ayn Rand

Midst all the squabbling about “personal choice” and the “common good,” I’ve heard little about the role Ayn Rand plays in the debate. Those of us who remember Paul Ryan as House Speaker might remember that he required his staff to read Rand. And other prominent figures, going back to Allen Greenspan at the Fed, have had ties to or promoted the Russian émigré. 

 

Rand was the author of two big philosophically charged novels, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, but also wrote non-fiction, promoting her “objectivism” in essays and at a salon in New York, where Greenspan was a member. In simple terms, Rand believed that personal freedom is the highest good, and that it is our duty to pursue it. In her philosophical essays, the idea is carried to the edge of anarchism—the role of the state is reduced to protecting us from other states, and policing us so that we don’t kill each other. Everything else should be left to individualism and laissez faire capitalism. That might sound harsh, but I challenge you to read her and find other interpretations. She herself denounced heretics who diluted or amended her own objectivist dictums.

 

Rand died in 1982, discouraged, as I recall, by the “collectivism” of Johnson’s Great Society and socialist expansion in Europe, not aware or hopeful with the impacts of Ronald Reagan’s “Government is the problem” and David Stockton’s “trickle-down economics.” I don’t know whether Reagan and Stockton were fans, but they have helped propel us into the present, where libertarians rail against governmental promotion of common goods. Vaccine and mask mandates are the glaring current points of conflict.

 

Ayn Rand is with us still, directly and indirectly influencing the lives and beliefs of many. She’s helped by a vigorous Ayn Rand Society and offshoots—Ayn Rand Institute, The Atlas Society, Freeobjectivistbooks.org, et al—promoting her through outright donations of millions of her books to schools and libraries. The Ayn Rand Society boasts that

 

“Ayn Rand’s dramatic and thought-provoking novels appeal strongly to young readers. Thanks to the generous support of our donors, we provide free physical and digital copies of Rand’s novels, along with guides and lesson plans, to educators in the United States and Canada (including homeschool teachers). To date, 4,500,000 free books have been provided to more than 65,000 teachers!”

 

Those of us who oppose radical libertarianism have nothing to match this.

 

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