Posted on 01/13/2022 4:14:51 AM PST by MtnClimber
For most of my adult life I’ve been told about Ayn Rand’s famous novel…but had no idea what it was about. It was particularly popular among my Libertarian buddies. So, I finally ordered a copy…and when it came, I had to update the prescription for my reading glasses, because it’s over a thousand pages in nine-point type.
Early on I was able to kind of get a handle on what it was about. There are basically two kinds of people: problem solvers or innovators who are constantly trying to make things work better…and cronies, who have an overwhelming sense of entitlement and who ferociously cling to the status quo.
Not much later, the story began to creep me out. Not because of some quirky aspect of the story…but, due to our current pandemic. I was seeing Rand’s vision of authoritarian cronyism taking place right before my eyes. In the story, first published in 1957, crony bureaucrats assume control of businesses via some kind of vague government policy…and, guess what(?)…shortages of just about everything started happening. We now call these “supply chain” problems. The story mentioned black marketeers that snuck around under the radar in order to fill in some of the gaps.
Rand was born Alisa Rosenbaum in 1905, in St. Petersburg, Russia. When she was twelve, Lenin got off a train in her city…and zealous cronies took over her world. At the age of 21 she came to America. Eventually to become a Hollywood screen writer. By 1957, she was already an established novelist…and, now it seems, that she was also exceptionally prescient. Had I read this book more than two years ago, this may not have occurred to me.
Various concepts are presented in the story. The “Equalization of Opportunity Bill” and “The State Science Institute” are eerily...
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Lol
Actually 60 pages. I’d read 5 or 6 pages, put the book down, and ask out loud to no one (since I live alone), “What the he*l did I just read?”.
“Who is John Galt?”
5.56mm
Like you, very few people ever read it, or they started and then stopped because it was so overdone. She simply kept repeating the premise over and over for so many pages that many folks shrugged as well.
It was a repetitious political polemic dressed up as a terrible piece of literature.
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World or George Orwell’s 1984 or Animal Farm were much better because they communicated their ideas better.
I’m still miffed at the end for Eddie
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