"She did? Where? One can see some intellectual exercise value in Rand's work -- I do -- but please, let us not pretend that her pitiful philosophy ever convinced anyone outside of a very narrow circle of fellow-theorizers."
Hmmm, that's funny. I suppose since you seem to believe that the numbers convinced gives validity to a philosophy, you probably are willing to give 100% credence to Karl Marx. What the heck, we have half the country believing in socialism so it must be a valid and workable philosophy!
The more I look around, the more I see "Atlas Shrugged" coming to life!
I know she can sell books, and I know that libertarianism is an attractive philosophy for the modern mind.
The fact remains that the intellectual attraction did not result in a libertarian society. Moreover, the trend is in the opposite direction, toward more and more statism. This is unfortunate, and Rand shares some of the blame for this.
There are pockets of acceptance of libertarianism, mostly in economic thought. Thanks to her and her fellow-thinkers such as Hayek, Friedman and Mises, planned command economy has been discredited.
But I think that her inability to reach beyond that is in the falsehood of the ethical system of Objectivism. Intuitively, all have an understanding of good and evil, and most find her ethical system inattractive. The falsity of her moral philosophy shows through in her sneering attitude toward charity, acceptance of abortion (I know that many libertarians these days are pro-life, for reasons extraneous to libertarianism), indifference toward cultural values, and myopic views on immigration and foreign trade.