Ayn Rand had a peculiar way of looking at things. She fled the Soviet Union in its earlier days, when its mind-numbing conformity and brutal suppression of independent thought were at their heights, and in the heady atmosphere of the West, she argued for the resistance to all forms of suppression and conformity. She could get very wordy, and when we finally determined who John Galt was, we found ourselves on the other side of a very long lecture. “Atlas Shrugged”, and the equilibrium of the whole world, tenuous as it was, just went spinning off its orbit into chaos and despair, the unthinking ones left to drift aimlessly in their own spoil.
Was Ayn Rand “right wing”? She was one of the greatest exponents ever of libertarian thought, though many libertarians never progressed so deeply into that logical application of the principles.
For those who don’t want to slog through Atlas Shrugged there is a great collection of some of her non-fiction (outstanding) essays:
https://www.amazon.com/Virtue-Selfishness-Fiftieth-Anniversary/dp/0451163931
One very important life lesson I learned from her is that when someone tells you that you are “selfish” what they are really saying is they want to be your master and they want you to be their slave.