Atlas Shrugged as Sacred Bull.

[Requia ☣]

So i am formulating an idea, that Ayn Rand wasn't really a libertarian, rather, she was the biggest practical Joker since Jesus.

To start with, she wrote her great libertarian hero as a railroad mogul, but digging into the history of the railroad would have told you right away that the national rail networks simply couldn't have been built without the government taking land away from people in order to do it.  Another was a mining mogul, whose fortune was built during an era of slavery and horrible safety records in mining.

Most of the villains in her book are exactly the kind of conniving backstabbing businessmen that will do anything for a buck everyone complains about when they talk about getting new regulations as well.

Towards the start of the book there is a rant about how money flows towards the person with the biggest pile of shit to sell.

One of the heroes also engages in a seriously /good/ scam to ruin the fortunes of any number of investors who don't do the research into his latest project, undermining the financial system.

One of the key themes of the book is the making of wealth rather than money, again attacking the same kind of inflation and collapse of the financial system that occurred in the late 20s, and again this decade, both following an era of major de-regulation.

In one of her earlier books, it states that boards of directors don't actually exist, that there are one or two people with a personality, and a lot of people who are completely useless, belying that she believes *most* executives are useless, and not just some of them.


Or maybe I'm law of 5ing and she really was so dense she never saw it.

[BADGE OF HONOR]

I'm not sure if Rand's intent is as important as the fact that people actually take Atlas Shrugged seriously and try to espouse and promote the principles* they find in it.









*being a selfish monster

[Cain]

While Badge is right in that Rand the person is not as important as Rand the social phenomenon you might be onto something here.

Rand never referred to herself as a Libertarian, for starters.  She was an Objectivist (I know, no functional difference between the two).  That was almost certainly her ego getting in the way.

Also, other supposedly libertarian writers had a tendency to undermine themselves too.  If you ever read Hayek, you'll see this.  On one hand, Hayek is a principled defender of a mixed, market-orientated economy with enough checks and balances to undo the potential damage and power imbalances it can cause (for instance, Hayek was in favour of regulations to prevent pollution, safety regs and welfare).  On the other hand, he was a shameless and ahistorical social scientist turned hack, who raved against the counterculture, every piece of social progress since 1950, and condemned anything that wasn't in line with his libertarian ideals as some sort of Nazi-Communist collusion.

I'm pretty sure if you did some Straussian or deconstructive reading technique on what is considered the great libertarian works of the last three centuries, you could either show none of them believed what they said, and were either intellectually incoherent, or, with the Straussian method, using the flaws in their argument to lay down secret teachings for the true elect.  And this would feed back into the "Rand as practical joker" idea.

[Faust]

Secret motives exposed!
Ayn Rand working for the devil, see news at 11.

[Cainad (dec.)]

Even if it makes Rand turn in her grave, I support Requia's interpretation. Heck, I support this interpretation especially if it makes Rand turn in her grave.

[Captain Utopia]

Even if it makes Rand turn in her grave, I support Requia's interpretation. Heck, I support this interpretation especially if it makes Rand turn in her grave.

I think Cain added something more interesting to the mix with this:

the Straussian method, using the flaws in their argument to lay down secret teachings for the true elect.  And this would feed back into the "Rand as practical joker" idea.

Because to me the common concepts appear to be:

• A desire to make the world into what it should be.
• A belief that the world cannot be persuaded, through direct reason, into taking the correct course.
• No hesitation in appealing to other faculties in those "not smart enough" to accept their ideas. Read: Manipulation.
• They believe their own lies.
• Their lies to them is what the truth which cannot be spoken means to us - which self-fulfils a less active forum for communication.

That last line, btw, is why they will fail. As long as a group advocates and supports dishonesty within its own belief systems, ithose ideas are living on borrowed time. I'd say the Republican party is a good example of this right now - literally - they have no way to cut through their own bullshit. Although it seems most likely that the Republican label will happily live on - e.g. all the voters who thought "Why on earth wouldn't New Labour still mean Labour?"

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

Write this, and publicize it. A major win for subversion, regardless of the intent of Rand.

The author is dead. Literally.


Additionally, this puts a whole new spin on the fact that her coffin was a giant dollar sign, not to mention the way she kept telling people that the idea that smoking causes cancer is a communist conspiracy.

[Requia ☣]

I have decided that this cannot really be answered, and am leaning toward Rand drinking her own kool-aid.  I'm still going to push this idea out onto the internet though, just to screw with people.

[Requia ☣]

She apparently lists Aristotle as her primary philosophical influence.

Explains a lot about her really 

[Remington]

Atlas Shrugged = 1,100+ pages. Seems like a lot of effort for a practical joke.

[LMNO]

Tell that to James Joyce.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I like this idea, it's fucking awesome.

[Reginald Ret]

what the hell does drinking your own koolaid mean?

[Cain]

I have decided that this cannot really be answered

You shouldn't let that get in your way.

There are over 200 papers on whether Shakespeare was homosexual, after all.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

what the hell does drinking your own koolaid mean?

Eating your own bullshit. Except, presumably more fatal. Like Jim Jones, or that guy who bought Nikes to ride on Halley's comet to heaven.