Ayn Rand had a lot of terrific things to say. For example, Collectivism is not a good idea that has been implemented poorly (referring to the NYTimes favorite collectivist, Uncle Joe). It’s a morally repugnant idea, not matter how it is implemented.
She was the bulwark against the fashionable intellectual leftism of her day (1940’s - 1950’s). That being said, Atlas Shrugged is a fantasy morality tale. Ayn Rand was also a raging narcissist and anti-religion bigot. Let’s keep things in perspective.
BTW, I met my wife 30 years ago and we fell for each other because we were Ayn Rand fans. She still thinks Atlas Shrugged was her best work. I still go for The Fountainhead (i.e., “Man’s ego is the fountainhead of his progress”.).
I read “The Fountainhead” many years ago, and I think the one thing in it that stuck in my mind was the relentless total control of the individual that the socialist state finally lapses into. . the petty, obsessive need of the state to hound the individual to death. . with people (thugs) given jobs by the state to harrass and follow ordinary people and keep tabs on them. Wasn’t this the one with the main character being named Kyra Argounova?
But her "Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal" spells it out without the novel intertwined.
Every school kid should be required to read it - and every adult, come to think of it.
She grew up in Russia, as you know, in the midst of the Bolshevik Revolution. She knew, from inside, what the steps to Socialist take over were.
She escaped to relatives in Chicago and soon had a job as script writer in Hollywood - at the same time as one Ronald Reagan was President of the Screen Acters Guild.
They became friends and he learned well from her what the danger signals were - and they fought to keep the Commies from taking over Hollywood...Reagan's house was even fire-bombed.
But he knew what Communism is/was. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Ayn Rand's prophetic warnings about becoming a welfare state with those of us who work - being expected to work even harder as more and more of the paycheck was taken to give to those who don't - and how the Socialists take over a country, are invaluable.
Unfortunately, too many people chose not to listen.
Her personal life, however, was about as bad as it gets. I've often thought that she saw herself as a tall, beautiful, blonde Dagney Taggart - unfortunately, she was trapped inside a short, far from beautiful, dumpy, dark-haired body. She was a miserable person to know or to live with.