I understand some of her articles, essays and interviews were more pointedly anti-welfare and anti-regulation. I really haven't paid a lot of attention to those. But I find her novels fascinating.
I read The Fountainhead on the recommendation of Professor Brooke Overby at Tulane Law School back in the day. She was a supporter of President Clinton (as was I). I had no idea that these rather preachy novels by an avowed atheist were the intellectual foundation on which the conservatives in this country were building a campaign against the poor. Moreover, being that Brooke was one of the smartest people I knew, and the professor I worked for as a research assistant, I went to the bookstore and bought the paperback.
I had already had my liberal awakening by the time I read The Fountainhead, and I read them feeling genuine anger at the rich, unworthy users taking advantage of Roark. (Though I have to say he became a lot less sympathetic when he raped a woman, but that's probably a topic for another blog entry.) Roark is an insightful, genius architect, highly educated, hard working, who designs brilliant structures based on modern engineering. The industry is controlled by talentless sycophants who use modern materials to build structures that look like monstrous atrocities merging classic, gothic and other outdated styles. Everyone loves his buildings, but no one knows who designed them, the establishment will not let him succeed. Others take credit for what he does, and when he gets a contract, it gets sabotaged. It is infuriating to see Roark's talents being abused.
I read Atlas Shrugged later. Do you remember the scene in Dirty Dancing (the original one, the classic) when rich douchebag Robby is waiving around a copy of Atlas Shrugged at Baby? He says, referring to the book, "Some people matter, some people don't." I did not get that lesson from the book.
The lesson I got was, "the world is full of people looking to succeed by stepping on you on the way up." I remember people who wanted my notes in school because I did the work and they didn't. Brooke told me about her time clerking for a federal judge and the other clerk, a man, just started dumping his notes on her expecting her to type them for him because she had ovaries. As you're reading this, you are remembering people from your life who have tried to take advantage of you for their own advancement.
If you've read these books, you know the characters and plot-lines are rather extreme, like a comic book. In the real world, few people are completely worthless and few people earn everything they get. But in these books, that's what we get. Do you remember who the villains are? It's been years since I read the books, but I recall that the villains in both books are not slothful people on welfare, but wealthy, powerful people who have not earned what they have.
In my opinion, a real-life example of a Rand villain would be someone like George W. Bush: the son of a former Senator, CIA chief, and President, who had mediocre grades, went AWOL for a year in the Air National Guard, had a drug habit during the 1980s, never owned a profitable business, and ascended to be a two-term President. Everything W has - his money, his resume, his influence - is the result of nepotism and money his family accumulated. He made nothing on his own, but rode the shoulders of others. This experience does not make him stupid or lazy or evil, but it does make him a "taker" in the truest sense of the word.
To be fair, no one makes it purely on his or her own. But when I see people like Paul Ryan - who was born into a family with a successful business, who used his father's social security death benefits to pay for college - rave about how the "takers" in our society are too big a burden, I alternatively roll my eyes and shake my fist at the TV. It is the definition of hypocrisy for him to vilify others for doing what he did. He didn't earn everything he has. Part of what he has was earned by his father, another part of what he has resulted from tax dollars, and he has worked to add to it.
The modern corruption of Ayn Rand used by people like Paul Ryan seems to be that if you are rich, you are deserving, and that if you are poor, you are undeserving. That is neither what Rand taught, nor rational. The GOP's version of Ayn Rand's lessons are not the lessons I learned. Nor are they the lesson I think she was trying to teach. The lesson I think she was trying to teach is that hard work, creativity, innovation, productivity should be rewarded, that people should be self-sufficient and not parasites on the productivity of others.
My way of applying this lesson is to try to create a system where everyone (or as many people as possible) can be self-sufficient and productive. That means public schools, health care, and a fair marketplace are necessary so that people born in different circumstances have a chance to be "rugged individualists." In contrast, the GOP application of the lesson is to ignore people's circumstances - whether you are Donald Trump born to a multi-millionaire or a kid born to a poor family in a crime-ridden area of a big city - and pretend they both have the same chance of being self-reliant and productive. It's delusional to think this, and it is cruel to advocate policies based on this delusion.
I'm not suggesting that Ayn Rand would agree with my application of her writings. In fact, I concede that she might not since she was ardently against all public programs. But the fact that she signed up for and took Medicare and Social Security in her old age illustrates how truly irrational and cruel her lessons are when taken to the extreme.
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