Rand

Ayn Rand
The Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers series aims

to show that there is a rigorous, scholarly tradition of social
and political thought that may be broadly described as “con-
servative,” “libertarian,” or some combination of the two.
The series aims to show that conservatism is not simply
a reaction against contemporary events or a privileging of
intuitive thought over deductive reasoning; libertarianism
is not simply an apology for unfettered capitalism or an
attempt to justify a misguided atomistic concept of the indi-
vidual. Rather, the thinkers in this series have developed
coherent intellectual positions that are grounded in empir-
ical reality and also founded upon serious philosophical
reflection on the relationship between the individual and
society, how the social institutions necessary for a free soci-
ety are to be established and maintained, and the implica-
tions of the limits to human knowledge and certainty.
Each volume in the series presents a thinker’s ideas in an
accessible and cogent manner to provide an indispensable
work for both students with varying degrees of familiarity
with the topic as well as more advanced scholars.
The following 20 volumes that make up the entire Major
Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers series are written by
international scholars and experts.
The Salamanca School Andre Azevedo Alves and

José Manuel Moreira
Thomas Hobbes R. E. R. Bunce
John Locke Eric Mack
David Hume Christopher J. Berry
Adam Smith James Otteson
Edmund Burke Dennis O’Keeffe
Alexis de Tocqueville Alan S Kahan
Herbert Spencer Alberto Mingardi
Ludwig von Mises Richard Ebeling
Joseph A. Schumpeter John Medearis
F. A. Hayek Adam Tebble
Michael Oakeshott Edmund Neill
Karl Popper Phil Parvin
Ayn Rand Mimi Gladstein
Milton Friedman William Ruger
Russell Kirk John Pafford
James M. Buchanan John Meadowcroft
The Modern Papacy Samuel Gregg
Murray Rothbard Gerard Casey
Robert Nozick Ralf Bader
Of course, in any series of this nature, choices have to be

made as to which thinkers to include and which to leave out.
Two of the thinkers in the series—F.A. Hayek and James M.
Buchanan—have written explicit statements rejecting the
label “conservative.” Similarly, other thinkers, such as David
Hume and Karl Popper, may be more accurately described
as classical liberals than either conservatives or libertarians.
However, these thinkers have been included because a full
appreciation of this particular tradition of thought would
be impossible without their inclusion; conservative and lib-
ertarian thought cannot be fully understood without some
knowledge of the intellectual contributions of Hume,
Hayek, Popper, and Buchanan, among others. Although
no list of conservative and libertarian thinkers can be per-
fect, it is hoped that the volumes in this series come as close
as possible to providing a comprehensive account of the
key contributors to this particular tradition.
John Meadowcroft
King’s College London
This page intentionally left blank
Ayn Rand
Mimi R. Gladstein
Major Conservative and

Libertarian Thinkers
Series Editor: John Meadowcroft
Volume 10
Continuum International Publishing Group
The Tower Building 80 Maiden Lane

11 York Road Suite 704
London SE1 7NX New York NY 10038
www.continuumbooks.com
© Mimi R. Gladstein 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored

in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the written permission of the publishers.
ISBN: 978-0-8264-4513-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gladstein, Mimi Reisel.
Ayn Rand / Mimi R. Gladstein.
p. cm.—(Major conservative and libertarian thinkers; v. 10)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8264-4513-1 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8264-4513-6 (alk. paper)
1. Rand, Ayn—Political and social views. 2. Libertarianism.
3. Capitalism—Philosophy. 4. Philosophy in literature.
I. Title. II. Series.
PS3535.A547Z667 2010
813′.52–dc22
2009017316
Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India

Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Series Editor’s Preface ix
1 The Life 1
2 An Exposition of Rand’s Ideas 21
3 Reception and Influence of Rand’s Work 87
4 Contemporary Relevance 111
Notes 127
Bibliography 133
Index 155
Series Editor’s Preface
The novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand was one of the

most powerful and influential twentieth century advocates
of free market capitalism: in all, Rand’s novels have sold
more than 20 million copies and her works of nonfiction
more than 25 million; the philosophical movement her
work inspired, Objectivism, flourished during her lifetime
and continues to attract followers to this day; a host of
leading public figures, such as former US Federal Reserve
Chairman Alan Greenspan, cite Rand as a formative intel-
lectual influence; her most famous novel, Atlas Shrugged,
frequently appears high in lists of the American public’s
favorite books.
In this outstanding book, Professor Mimi Gladstein of
the University of Texas at El Paso sets out the philosophy
that Rand espoused in her work. At the heart of Rand’s
outlook was a belief in the moral supremacy of individ-
ualism over collectivism. For Rand, human progress was
dependent on the ingenuity and creativity of individuals
prepared to challenge received wisdom and accepted ways
of doing things. The collectivist mindset, by contrast, pun-
ished people for their achievements, taking money from
the most productive and giving it to the least productive
via redistributist taxation. Rand argued that the morality
of the collectivist state was no different to that of a bur-
glar: Both believed they were entitled to appropriate other
people’s property because they needed it more.
x Series Editor’s Preface
Rand celebrated selfishness and rejected altruism. For

Rand, altruism was a mask for collectivism; it undermined
individual self-esteem and the desire to achieve and put
in its place a negative attitude toward oneself (which was
deemed worthy of sacrifice) and others (who were deemed
in constant need of help). Selfishness, on the other hand,
inspired people to productive activity that creates goods
for people’s wants and needs, and independence, the
desire to take care of oneself, thereby not placing a bur-
den on others. In Rand’s view, altruism was the philosophy
of a society of serfs, whereas selfishness was the mindset of
a society of free men and women.
This valuable volume sets out Rand’s thought in a lucid
and cogent manner. It places Rand’s ideas in the context
of her life and times as an émigré from the Soviet Union to
the United States and considers the initial reception and
long-term influence of her work. Certainly no account of
libertarian thought would be complete without a thorough
treatment of the contribution made by Rand. This volume
will prove indispensable to those unfamiliar with Rand’s
work as well as the more advanced scholars.
John Meadowcroft
King’s College London
1
The Life
Ayn Rand was a polarizing and controversial person in

life, and her personality and ideas are of such dynamism
and force that even a quarter century after her death,
she still provokes strong emotions and controversy.
Those who reject her ideas are strident and derisive
in their condemnation. Her adherents are just as pas-
sionately committed to the power of their convictions.
However, even among those who accept the validity of
many of her views, there is division and denunciation.
The Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) in California maintains
the archives of her possessions and approves publica-
tion of works about her life and writing. On the other
coast of the United States, The Atlas Society: Center for
Objectivism promotes her ideas through summer study
courses, publications, and the occasional anniversary
celebration of her works. The most recent was a one day
seminar in Washington DC, cosponsored by the Cato
Institute, for the fiftieth anniversary of the publication
of Atlas Shrugged. The ARI conducted its celebration with
a fiftieth anniversary exhibit and a series of discussion
groups through the 2007 fall season at a regional library
in Hollywood. Antipathy between these groups has been
deep-seated, and even in a new era of leadership there
are few signs of rapprochement.
2 Ayn Rand
The source of these towering passions was born Alisa

Zinovievna Rosenbaum in 1905 in St. Petersburg, Russia.1
Raised in a largely secular household of Jewish descent,
Rand rejected religion at a relatively young age, declaring
herself an atheist in her early teens. Her youth was both
privileged and precarious. Before World War I and the
Bolshevik Revolution the Rosenbaums traveled abroad and
took vacations at seaside resorts; after Zinovy Zacharovich
Rosenbaum’s pharmacy was nationalized and their com-
fortable living quarters appropriated by the state, their
standard of living deteriorated considerably.
Rand’s intellectual powers and strong will were evident
from an early age. Her recollections of self are of a girl
who was the opposite of her mother, a graceful, social
person, not very interested in ideas. “I was antisocial. I
was insufficiently interested in other children” (quoted
in Branden 1986, Passion, 5). One friend she does recall,
a relationship based on the sharing of ideas, politics spe-
cifically, is the sister of Vladimir Nabakov. Chris Sciabarra,
who made an extensive study of Rand’s Russian roots,
theorizes that the girls must have attended the Stoiunin
Gymnasium, an avant-garde school designed to prepare
girls for the university (69).2 Evidence of Rand’s preco-
cious intellect is her enrollment in the University at age
16 and graduation three years later. From her early years,
Rand’s abiding interest was the world of the mind. She
always insisted that to know her, the most important thing
was to know her ideas, not her family history. In her earli-
est public autobiographical musings, she recalls that intel-
ligence was the quality in others that she cared the most
about.
Rand’s interest in literature was also stimulated in her
childhood. Her archetypal image of a hero was shaped
The Life 3
when at age nine she fell in love with Cyrus Paltons, the
heroic protagonist of a boy’s magazine serialization of The
Mysterious Valley by Maurice Champagne. Both the hero’s
exploits and the illustrations depicting him as tall, lean,
and long-legged suggest a pattern Rand’s heroes would
embody. The plots she was most drawn to were those that
centralized the battle between good and evil. “I believe
there is only one story in the world” wrote John Steinbeck
in East of Eden. “We have only one story. All novels, all
poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves
of good and evil” (475, 477).3 For Ayn Rand the contest
was not so much within the self as against the forces of
evil in the world, although some of her most interesting
characters must struggle first with the battle within. As the
girl Alisa matured, the novels of Victor Hugo enthralled
her and she came early to “the idea that writing would be
the defining passion of her life and the career she would
pursue as an adult” (Britting 2004, 8).
Two other artistic media were, after reading, the main
sources of Rand’s aesthetic pleasures. Rand credits the dis-
covery of operettas with saving her life. Their presentation
of what she called “a benevolent-universe shot in the arm”
(quoted in B. Branden 1986, 46) brought much-needed
respite in the throes of the dank and dismal Russian col-
lectivist state. Among her favorites were Millocher’s The
Beggar Student, Offenbach’s Grand Duchess, and Lehar’s The
Song of the Lark. Her other great joy came from going to
the movies—a pastime that would lead her far from the
drab existence of a tour guide in the Peter and Paul for-
tress, across an ocean and a continent to Hollywood and
the launching of her writing career.
Rand’s high school years were spent in the Crimea where
a pre-Soviet system of education still maintained. This was
4 Ayn Rand
during the period of the Russian Revolution (1918–1921),

and the Rosenbaums still had hopes that their situation
might be restored to some normalcy. In high school, Rand
studied Aristotle and the American political system of indi-
vidual rights, two topics that left indelible impressions on
her. When the Red army finally defeated the White in the
Crimea, the Rosenbaum family returned to St. Petersburg,
now Petrograd.
The location of the Rosenbaum home afforded the
young Alisa a ringside seat to the early machinations that
led from a revolution for freedom to the establishment
of a totalitarian state. Alexandr Fedorovich Kerenski, who
headed a provisional government, became her first real life
hero. However, his struggles to create a viable democratic
state were undermined by the Bolsheviks who attacked
Petrograd and took power. Kerenski escaped to the west, a
direction his hero-worshiper would follow. When they met
many years later in New York, her illusions about him had
evaporated.
The early years of the establishment of the Soviet Union
were times of privation and purges. Food was scarce; the
Rosenbaum family savings were quickly depleted. Although
he tried to practice his profession, Zinovy Zacharovich,
who had once owned a pharmacy, became a clerk in one
far from his home. Anna Rosenbaum became a teacher
of languages in high school. At one point, because of her
family’s bourgeois status, Alisa and many of her friends
were to be expelled from the university. A quirk of fate
caused them to be reinstated when a visiting delegation
of British scientists heard about the impending purge.
Because of the desire of the new regime to impress them,
some of the students, Rand among them, were allowed to
complete their degrees.
The Life 5
At the University, Alisa chose, over her father’s objec-

tions, to major in history. He wanted her to have a profes-
sion such as medicine or engineering. The one professor
Rand would mention by name when she recalled her uni-
versity education was N. O. Lossky, with whom she stud-
ied ancient philosophy. In her recollections for a series of
interviews prior to the writing of the biographical essay,
“Who Is Ayn Rand?” Rand remembers that Lossky was
a Platonist who did not think highly of female students.
Nonetheless, he gave her a “Perfect” on her final exam.4
Rand’s intellect developed as she sharpened her mental
teeth, both rejecting and interpolating the works of Plato,
Aristotle, and Nietzsche.
After the university, Alisa enrolled in the State Institute
for Cinematography: her purpose, to learn screenwriting.
After only one year in the program, she received permis-
sion to visit relatives in America and thus never studied
screenwriting, as it was part of the second year of the
program. Many years after Rand’s death, the Ayn Rand
Institute published translations and copies of her Russian
writings on Hollywood.5 In effect, although she did not list
these works on her vitae, they are interesting as her earli-
est publications.
The person, who was to be known as Ayn Rand, cel-
ebrated her twenty-first birthday in transit to a new life
and a new identity. Anna Borisovna, the mother with
whom she shared so little sensibility, was perceptive and
caring enough to arrange for an invitation from relatives
in Chicago and to pay for the transit by selling her jew-
elry. Both Alisa and her mother were aware that a per-
son of Rand’s beliefs would not fare well in Soviet Russia.
Again, fortuitous timing worked in Rand’s favor. Travel
restrictions on students had been temporarily eased in
6 Ayn Rand
the transition from Lenin’s to a new economic policy. As

Rand’s relatives owned a silent film theatre, it could be
convincingly argued that Rand was going to the United
States to study film. The actual birthday occurred in
Berlin where she visited with her cousin Vera Guzarchik,
a medical student.
Alice Rosenbaum, the name on her liner ticket stub,
arrived in New York harbor on February 19, 1926. She
was never to return to her birthplace, a country she was
to characterize as “the ugliest and incidentally, the most
mystical country on earth.”6 As a student in Leningrad, she
expressed strong anti-Soviet sentiments until such time as
she feared that her remarks might endanger her family.
Once she had left Russia, she was to devote much of her
life to revealing the tyranny, drudgery, and soul-destroying
evil of the Soviet state. In her first novel and in subsequent
nonfiction writing, she argued effectively about the disas-
trous consequences of collectivism, inveighing against the
rationalizations by socialists and their liberal sympathizers
of Soviet atrocities and rule of terror. “Complete loathing”
is the expression she chose to describe how she felt about
Russia.
Rand’s sojourn with her Chicago relatives was brief.
Although she credits them with providing a lifeline for
her, once she left Chicago she did not maintain strong
family ties. Barbara Branden theorizes that because the
Portnoy/Satrin/Goldberg families were deeply steeped
in living within their religious traditions—attending syn-
agogue, maintaining strong family ties—they were not
people with whom Rand felt she had much in common.
Their values were not her values (Passion, 72). However,
even though her visitor’s visa had expired, her Chicago
relatives provided a letter of introduction to someone in
The Life 7
the Cecil B. DeMille Studio, bought her a train ticket, and

gave Rand money for a new start in California.
It was at this juncture in her life that Alisa Rosenbaum
became Ayn Rand. According to most sources, the name
Ayn was chosen even before she reached America. Its
derivation is Finnish. A Chicago cousin, Fern Brown, a
successful writer herself, remembers an old Remington-
Rand typewriter as inspiring the choice for a last name.
According to Brown, Rand wanted to maintain her ini-
tials AR and preferred Ayn Rand to Ayn Remington.
Impact, the ARI newsletter, cites letters from family in
Russia that refer to the name “Rand” even before they
heard from her in America. They cite a New York Evening
Post article that quotes Rand to that effect. In the Cyrillic
spelling of her name are resemblances to both the names
“Ayn” and “Rand.” After leaving Chicago and starting a
new life in California, only a few of her closest friends in
the early days knew her birth name. During the zenith of
her career it was not referred to, even by her inner cote-
rie. It was only in 1983, during research for her book-
length biography, that Barbara Branden discovered it. It
had not been included in the early “official” biographi-
cal essay.
Rand was remarkably confident in herself for a young
immigrant woman whose security in a new country was ten-
uous at best. One of her mother’s early letters recounts the
departure scene and Alisa assuring her family that when
she would return, she would be famous. Ann Borisovna
writes that her father Zinovy concurred, remarking after
the train departed that he was sure his daughter would
show the world. By the time she left Chicago for Hollywood,
Rand had written four screenplays in English, a language
she had not quite mastered.
8 Ayn Rand
Once settled in the Hollywood Studio Club for women, a

residence that provided inexpensive living for the likes of
Donna Reed, Rita Moreno, Kim Novak, and Norma Jean
Baker before she was Marilyn Monroe, Rand again was
the beneficiary of amazingly fortuitous timing. Just at the
moment she was dejectedly exiting the DeMille lot when
the letter of introduction proved no entry to a job, Cecil
B. DeMille drove by and gave her a ride to the set of King
of Kings, which was then in production. His purpose was to
show her how a movie is made—a necessary preparation if
she wanted to be a screenwriter. After a number of days of
watching, DeMille offered Rand her first job in Hollywood
as an extra in his film about the life of Jesus Christ, rich
irony for a woman who was to be one of the country’s most
adamant atheists.
Another quirk of fate put in her path, during this first
job in her adopted country, the man who was to be her
husband till the end of his life, just three years before the
end of hers. When asked about her lack of belief in an
afterlife on the Phil Donahue show, she remarked that if
she believed there was an afterlife, she would immediately
kill herself so that she could be with her beloved husband.
When they met, he was also an extra in the DeMille movie.
For Rand it was love at first sight. Before she knew a thing
about him, she had decided that he had her kind of face—
aloof, aristocratic, strong, independent, cold, and grace-
ful. It is a look that would be replicated in some measure
in many of her heroic protagonists.
Frank O’Connor was, by most accounts, a handsome,
kind, gentle, and decent man. He was an actor who never
achieved much success in the field, although he appeared
in a few movies in the early 1930s. People who knew him
describe him as a passive man, rarely the major breadwinner
The Life 9
in the marriage. After DeMille’s studio closed, Ayn and

Frank met again, by chance in a public library. Their rela-
tionship developed and on April 15 of 1929, shortly before
her extended visa was about to expire, they were married
by a judge in Los Angeles, going to Mexicali some months
later so she could reenter the country as the wife of an
American citizen. As soon as she could, she applied for
citizenship.7
The early days for the O’Connors were difficult. Before
the marriage, Rand had worked for DeMille as a junior
screenwriter, doing treatments and synopses of others’
works. Her own scenarios were dismissed as improbable
and unrealistic. When DeMille closed his studio, Rand was
reduced to working whatever jobs she could find, such
as waiting tables and stuffing envelopes. In 1929 she got
a position in the wardrobe department of RKO Pictures
as a filing clerk. Although it certainly wasn’t the kind of
work she desired, the pay was steady and consistent with
her ethics of the importance of fair value, she did a good
enough job that she was promoted to head of the depart-
ment within a year. All this time, she continued working
on her own writing projects.
The economy and the intellectual zeitgeist could not
have been worse for a writer of Rand’s philosophical bent.
It is testimony to her perseverance and integrity that she
was able to prevail. Shortly after her marriage, the crash
of 1929 sent the economy into a tailspin. Concurrently, in
what is often referred to as the “Red Decade,” the prepon-
derance of the artistic and intellectual classes promulgated
leftist, collectivist, and communist themes. Rand, who had
seen collectivism in action, was appalled. How could it be
that in this country that she had come to in order to get
away from the suffocating strictures of communism, the
10 Ayn Rand
intelligentsia were advocating many of the same collectivist

and statist measures as brought privation and stultification
in Russia? Rand thought that Americans were obviously
not adequately knowledgeable about the dangers and
reality of communism. Thus, spurred on by Frank and
his brothers, she set about to write a novel that would tell
the American public what was really occurring in Russia.
A story goes that before she left Russia, a man at her fare-
well party told her to tell the world what was actually hap-
pening behind what later came to be known as the “Iron
Curtain.” Tell them Russia is a large cemetery and that we
are slowly dying he told her. We the Living is her fulfillment
of her promise to do so.
Airtight is the original title for what eventually became We
the Living, Rand’s first published novel. In some ways, that
title is more expressive of the cemetery and coffin imag-
ery evoked by the impetus of her promise. The Russia she
depicts shuts its citizens into an airtight coffin from which
there is no escape. Begun in 1930 and finally published
in 1936, although it was finished some years earlier, Rand
defined We the Living as the closest work to an autobiog-
raphy that she would ever write. As originally published,
the novel is remarkable for Rand’s ability to communicate
analytically and creatively in a newly learned language.
Few writers are able to accomplish this: Joseph Conrad
and Vladimir Nabakov are the ones who come to mind.
Once she had become famous, Rand made some revisions
to the original text. She claims that they were “minimal.”
However, a comparison of the 1936 and the 1959 editions
suggest more “substantial and substantive changes.”8
To develop her writing skills during this early period
of her professional life, Rand read extensively. Most con-
temporary writers did not appeal to her, but the works of
The Life 11
O. Henry did. His trademark plot twists and lighthearted

style as well as his novel and ingenious take on things
appealed to Rand. She described his main characteristic
as “pyrotechnical virtuosity of an inexhaustible imagina-
tion” (Manifesto 1969, 95). That influence can be seen
in some of her works. Rand also discovered a favorite
among the novels she read. It was Samuel Merwin and
Henry Kitchell Webster’s Calumet K. Its heroic protago-
nist, Charlie Bannon, prefigures, in his strength, integ-
rity, and perseverance against overwhelming opposition,
Howard Roark and John Galt. Although she appreciated
the intellect and ability of create interesting characters of
Sinclair Lewis, his tone and tenor did not jibe with Rand’s
sense of life. Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms she “hated”
and Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain she found “pre-
tentious” (Passion, 101).
In addition to her reading, Rand was writing persistently
and productively. She wrote several scenarios set in Russia.
One of them, Red Pawn, was good enough that Rand was
able to sell it to Universal Studios in 1932 for the consider-
able sum of 1500 dollars. That sum included a contract for
her to write the script. This story of a beautiful woman who
becomes the mistress of a prison commander in order to
be near her husband who is in the prison was never made
into a film.
The early thirties were a heady time for Rand. Her first
professional sale allowed her to quit her job with RKO
and devote herself to writing. In her letters to family, she
writes enthusiastically of her husband and their happiness
together. Frank was still working at his acting career, wait-
ing for a break that never came. Although his jobs became
fewer and fewer, Rand’s professional life was developing
steadily. In addition to working on We the Living, Rand,
12 Ayn Rand
inspired by viewing a courtroom drama and stories in the

newspapers about the suicide of Ivar Kreuger, a Swedish
business tycoon, decided to write a play. A noteworthy fea-
ture of the work is an O. Henry-like twist on the format of
the trial play, the use of audience members to serve as the
jury, thereby creating the possibility of a different ending
every night. Originally titled Penthouse Legend, produced
in Hollywood as Woman on Trial, the play that came to be
known as Night of January 16th opened on Broadway in
1935.
Rand’s determination and commitment to the integrity
of her ideas were evident from this early period in her
career. Never one to go along to get along, Rand bucked
the system and would not sign a contract that would
have allowed changes in her play. The Hollywood pro-
duction came about because she would not sign under
those conditions and although the California production
was not as lucrative, the character of her play remained
unchanged. After its Hollywood success, A.H. Woods
renewed his bid to produce the play on Broadway. This
time, although she had reservations, Rand signed a con-
tract in the belief that any changes would be made with
her consent. The production process was painful for
Rand who had to fight Woods to maintain the integrity
of her thematic content. Years later when she wrote an
introduction to a published version, she regrets allowing
the name change, calls the play’s history “hell,” and con-
tends that although she was able to “preserve the best
of the passages he [Woods] wanted to eliminate,” the
play became “an incongruous mongrel slapdashed out
of contradictory elements” (Night of January 16th 1936,
14). Broadway audiences were more kind; the play had a
respectable 283-performance run.
The Life 13
The year 1936 was a banner year for Rand’s career.

Success sometimes breeds success, and as Rand’s play was
being readied for Broadway, Macmillan made an offer to
publish We the Living. Although it was not promoted and
garnered only a few mostly negative reviews, after some
time it finally reached the readers who were Rand’s target
audience. However, that was too late as Macmillan, con-
vinced that it would not need a second printing, destroyed
the type. Revised and reissued, it was to sell millions of
copies once its author became well known.
The O’Connors had moved to New York for Ayn to work
on the production of Night of January 16th. Box office royal-
ties allowed them some financial comfort for the first time,
although Rand had to sue Woods for withholding some
of her monies to pay another writer for rewrites. She won
her case.9 They moved into a nice apartment at 66 Park
Avenue and Rand began trying to bring her family to the
United States. As We the Living was not, at that time, con-
tributing significantly to the family income, Rand’s agent
tried to get her a job as a screenwriter in Hollywood. Rand
was convinced that her inability to get a job was the result
of being blacklisted because of her anticommunist views.
By this time she had begun to make speeches on the sub-
ject, recounting her experiences and warning audiences
of the Soviet threat.
Anthem, Rand’s futuristic dystopian novelette, was also
completed during this New York period, but she could not
find an American publisher. Cassell, the British publishing
house that had issued the English version of We the Living,
bought the book. However, it too did not receive wide dis-
tribution till after Rand’s Fountainhead success. It became,
because of its length and accessibility, one of her best sell-
ers, particularly for school-age readers.
14 Ayn Rand
Rand was actively writing in a number of genres during

this period of her life. Besides the professional accomplish-
ments of a Broadway play and a novel put out by a major
publishing house, she also worked on adapting her novel
for the stage. The Unconquered opened on Broadway in
1940 but did not replicate even the moderate success of its
predecessor. It closed after a five-day run and was Rand’s
swansong of writing for the stage. Two other scripts, Ideal
and Think Twice, were never produced on Broadway.
For her next major project Rand kept notes in three
ring-bound notebooks. She begins with a quotation
from Nietzsche, “The noble soul has reverence for itself”
and then declares, “The first purpose of the book is a
defense of egoism in its real meaning, egoism as a new
faith. Therefore—a new definition of egoism and its liv-
ing example” (Journals 1997, 77). The year before, she
wrote in her journal that she had to study philosophy,
higher mathematics, physics and psychology. Rand was a
voracious researcher and did not limit herself to reading.
Having decided that her protagonist would be an archi-
tect, she then worked, without pay for six months in the
office of Eli Jacques Kahn, a famous New York architect of
the time, to gain some practical knowledge. Second Hand
Lives is an apt original title for a novel whose major theme
has to do with people who sell out, moochers and looters
without individuality or creativity. Rand’s term was second-
handers. The title change to The Fountainhead represents
more of an emphasis on the heroic protagonist rather than
the major and minor second-handers, the antagonists who
work against standards and competence.
Concerns about her depleting finances plagued Rand
during the writing of The Fountainhead. Her husband’s
lack of contribution to the family’s support was also a
The Life 15
disappointment. When Macmillan’s offer to publish did

not include a guarantee of adequate publicity and adver-
tising, Rand ended her association with that publishing
house. Knopf showed interest, but Rand did not meet
the agreed deadline and subsequent submissions to other
publishers brought eight rejections. Disagreement over
the manuscript also led to a break with her agent, Ann
Watkins, and for a period of time Rand acted as her own
advocate. Richard Meland, a story editor at Paramount
who was enthusiastic about the portions of the novel he
had read, recommended Archibald Ogden, an editor
with Bobbs-Merrill. Ogden championed the book and a
contract with an advance of US$1200 was signed. Timing
was again in Rand’s favor. Shortly after the signing, the
Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and with paper rationing
and the war effort, it was not likely that a public ready for
diversion would have been receptive to a long and serious
novel of ideas.
Rand’s narrative, describing the trajectory of Howard
Roark’s career in The Fountainhead, reads remarkably like a
description of the publishing history of the novel itself. “It
was as if an underground stream flowed through the coun-
try and broke out in sudden springs that shot to the sur-
face at random, in unpredictable places” (549). Although
not an instant best-seller, the novel was positively reviewed
in key venues such as The New York Times Book Review and
The Saturday Review of Literature, and it slowly reached its
kind of readers. A US$50,000 film rights sale set in motion
another battle of the wills between the author and the film-
makers who wanted to make certain changes. Neither Gary
Cooper as Roark nor Patricia Neal as Dominique found
favor with reviewers who also declared that the script was
heavy-handed, haranguing, and hectoring.
16 Ayn Rand
As Rand’s contract for the book sale to the movies also

called for her to write the screen adaptation, Ayn and Frank
again moved cross-country from New York to California.
The O’Connors bought a property in Tarzana with acre-
age and a house designed by Richard Neutra, a house that
was very much in keeping with the architectural principles
espoused in The Fountainhead. From all accounts, Frank
O’Connor was content in this setting, growing flowers,
raising peacocks, and developing the land. Rand, who did
not drive, preferred urban living.
Publication of The Fountainhead also brought Rand a
group of adherents, many of whom were to become quite
successful in their own right. The initial “fan” contact was
made by Nathan Blumenthal, later Nathaniel Branden,
then a psychology student at UCLA. As the relation-
ship developed, Rand was to call him her “ideal reader”
and “intellectual heir.” He introduced Rand to Barbara
Weidman, later Branden, who would become Rand’s
authorized and unauthorized biographer. A close rela-
tionship developed among Ayn Rand, Frank O’Connor,
Barbara Branden, and Nathaniel Branden. When Barbara
and Nathaniel moved to New York to continue their stud-
ies at New York University, Rand and her husband were not
far behind. Rand had always preferred the city to country
living, and as her personality was the dominant one in the
marriage, Frank acceded to her wishes. When Nathaniel
and Barbara were married in 1953, Ayn Rand and Frank
O’Connor stood up for them as their matron of honor
and best man.
Back in California when Barbara and Nathaniel would
visit the O’Connors in Tarzana, Rand read them portions
of Atlas Shrugged as it was being written. In New York,
as the group of her admirers and friends broadened,
The Life 17
she continued the practice. It was in these gatherings

of Fountainhead fans and readers of Atlas Shrugged in
manuscript that the nascent Objectivist movement was
engendered.
Atlas Shrugged was published in October 1957 and was to
be the last work of fiction published in Rand’s lifetime. It is
generally considered to be the “Bible” of Objectivism, the
philosophy Rand would develop in her subsequent writ-
ing and lecturing.10 The next year, Nathaniel and Barbara
Branden established the Nathaniel Branden Institute,
initially designed to teach the principles of Objectivism,
but it gradually developed into an intellectual movement.
During the 1960s Rand was interviewed and feted as a
major intellectual force. She lectured at Harvard, MIT,
and Johns Hopkins University. She was presented with
a Doctor of Human Letters degree at Lewis and Clark
College, where the students spent a semester studying her
works. Rand had a radio program, a newspaper column,
and a newsletter through which to promulgate her phi-
losophy. The newsletter grew into a journal and many of
her articles were reprinted in books of nonfiction such as
The Virtue of Selfishness, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, and
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.
A woman of towering intellect, Rand was so confident
in her opinions and so articulate in their defense that she
bested even the most erudite of New York intellectuals in
debate. Bennet Cerf (1974) recalls, “You can’t argue with
Ayn Rand. She’s so clever at it she makes a fool out of
you” (251). Her editor at Random House, Hiram Haydn,
whose political persuasion was contrary to the views
expressed in Atlas Shrugged, the novel he edited, said in
his autobiography that Rand always made him feel like
a “soft-headed, ambivalent, tortured liberal,” not unlike
18 Ayn Rand
the antagonists in her fiction. Alan Greenspan (2007)

credits her with being “a wholly original thinker, sharply
analytical, strong-willed, highly principled, and very
insistent on rationality as the highest value” (51). Only
a woman of Rand’s unwavering self-esteem would have
had the confidence to proclaim without a sense of the
outrageousness of her views that her favorite American
author was Mickey Spillane and her favorite television
show “Charley’s Angels.” Perhaps it was that she was so
intellectually gifted that she could justify even the most
controversial of opinions.
The year 1968 was a cataclysmic year for the followers
of Ayn Rand’s ideas. It was the year of her personal and
professional break with Nathaniel Branden and Barbara
Branden. Nathaniel Branden, who had been the primary
force behind the movement to disseminate Rand’s basic
philosophy through the medium of the Nathaniel Branden
Lectures that then became incorporated as the Nathaniel
Branden Institute, was the epicenter of the explosion,
reverberations of which are still felt today.
In an article titled “To Whom It May Concern” that
Rand published in The Objectivist, May 1968, issue, but
dated September, Ayn Rand repudiates both Nathaniel
and Barbara Branden, who were then in the process of
a divorce. Leonard Peikoff, who replaced Nathaniel as
Rand’s heir, Alan Greenspan, Allan Blumenthal, and Mary
Ann (Rukavina) Sures added their names in a brief adden-
dum to Rand’s renunciation. Rand accuses Nathaniel
Branden of concealing from her “certain ugly actions and
irrational behavior” (4), of “exploiting me intellectually
and professionally” (5), and of “psychological conflict
and contradictions” (8). Rand explains that her original
case was not against Barbara Branden but that Barbara’s
The Life 19
behavior subsequent to the break with Nathaniel con-

vinced her to take action against both of the Brandens.
The Brandens, in separate letters, responded to Rand’s
accusations. Although Nathaniel’s “In Answer to Ayn
Rand” hints at a source for the real problem, his rejec-
tion of her romantic advances, it was not until Barbara
Branden’s publication of the book-length biography The
Passion of Ayn Rand that certain facts about the Rand/
Branden relationship became public. This came in 1986,
four years after Rand’s death. Nathaniel Branden’s recol-
lections of his intimate relationship with Rand followed in
Judgment Day, published in 1989, and again in a revised ver-
sion of that same memoir, My Years with Ayn Rand, which
came out a decade later in 1999. Each of the Brandens
testify to the existence of an intimate sexual affair between
Nathaniel and Ayn.11 In Michael Paxton’s companion
book to his Academy Award-winning documentary on the
life of Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff acknowledges the affair,
stating: “This she did, of course, with the knowledge and
the consent of her husband” (1998, 142).
After the rupture, Leonard Peikoff became an intellec-
tual mainstay for Rand and her literary executor and heir.
He was the first head of The Ayn Rand Institute, founded
after her death to continue the promulgation of her phi-
losophy. When he stepped down and became the chair-
man emeritus, Michael Berliner succeeded him; presently
Yaron Brook holds that position. Although the Brandens
were gone, Rand still had the friendship and allegiance
of most of the people who had formed the core of the
Objectivist movement and her adherents and admirers
around the country were largely unaffected. Rand contin-
ued to publish The Objectivist with Leonard Peikoff as the
associate editor. It ceased publication in 1971 and The Ayn
20 Ayn Rand
Rand Letter followed. Publication ceased in 1976. In 1974

Rand was the graduation speaker at West Point; the sev-
enties also included appearances on such popular televi-
sion interview shows as “Donahue” and “The Tomorrow
Show with Tom Snyder.” Her last public appearance was a
November 1981 presentation to the National Committee
for Monetary Reform. In the last years of her life, both her
health and the state of culture and government depressed
her to the point that she stopped writing. In the quarter
century since her death, the validity of many of her ideas
has gained credence. The statist and collectivist political
systems she railed against, Fascism and Communism, have
been consigned to the “dustbin of history.” The largest
remaining “communist” country in the world, China, has
adopted certain capitalist institutions.
Ayn Rand died in her apartment in New York on March 6,
1982. Her husband of 50 years had preceded her by three
years, dying in November of 1979. A big floral arrange-
ment in the shape of a six-foot tall dollar sign graced her
funeral, and the music that was played was what she had
affectionately termed her “tiddlywink” music.
2
An Exposition of Rand’s Ideas
Rand initially used the medium of fiction to explicate her

many ideas on everything from art to politics. However,
once she began to attract adherents to her philosophy,
Rand started publishing works of nonfiction in which she
amplified and augmented the particulars of specific areas
of her thought. Of her seven works of nonfiction, six were
published in Rand’s lifetime; one was published posthu-
mously.1 The titles are strong indicators of their subject
matter. The first is For the New Intellectual (1961), subtitled
The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. After a preface and lengthy essay
also titled “For the New Intellectual,” the book reprints
major philosophical sections of the works of fiction.
A speech by Kira, the protagonist of We the Living, about
the value of the individual human life, is the first selection,
followed by a section from Anthem about the rediscovery of
the word “I.” The three selections from The Fountainhead
are, “The Nature of the Second-Hander,” “The Soul of a
Collectivist,” and “The Soul of an Individualist.” Finally,
there are eight selections from Atlas Shrugged, including
Francisco’s “the meaning of money” speech, a section on
“the meaning of sex,” and John Galt’s summative speech
that Rand identifies as “the philosophy of Objectivism.”
Rand’s preface states that she thinks these main philo-
sophical passages from her novels embody implicitly a
22 Ayn Rand
full “outline for a new philosophical system” (For the New

Intellectual 1961, 1). Concluding the preface, she names
her philosophy Objectivism.
Although she was to work on fleshing out various aspects
of her philosophical system throughout her life, the heart
of it is in the fiction, most especially the selections she
chose to reprint in For the New Intellectual. These provide
an appropriate starting place for an exposition of her
philosophy.2
We the Living is the story of a young woman coming of
age during the dire days of the establishment of the Soviet
state, falling in love, and finally trying to escape the suffo-
cating strictures of the oppressive collectivist system. The
protagonist, Kira Argounova, wants to be an engineer and
construct skyscrapers but is not allowed to leave. She loves
Leo Kovalensky, a cynical and dissolute young aristocrat,
but becomes the mistress of Andrei Taganov, a Communist
hero, to save Leo and to get him the medical care he needs.
Through her main characters, Rand makes it clear that the
premises at the heart of Communism, that is, collectivism,
are at fault for crushing individual potential and dreams.
Rand spells out through both the narrative and dramati-
cally that any system that values the collective above the
individual is doomed to quash productivity and fulfillment
as it glorifies the mediocre. The plot also demonstrates
how in such an atmosphere those who can best work the
system and speculators can thrive, whereas worthwhile
individuals are sacrificed to the exigencies of the moment.
In the brief reprinted excerpt, Kira, who has been Andrei’s
lover so she can get Leo the help he needs to recuperate
from tuberculosis, lectures Andrei on the significance of
the individual human life as against the state, proclaiming
“who can tell me why I should live for anything but for
An Exposition of Rand’s Ideas 23
that which I want?” (72). She goes on to accuse him (as a

representative of Communism) of locking all the people
in an iron airtight cellar from which there is no escape.3
Rand’s statement is unambiguous. Her theme, she writes,
is about “the supreme value of a human life and the evil
of the totalitarian state that claims the right to sacrifice
it” (69). Through her main and minor characters, Rand
illustrates the various ways the collectivist state destroys the
life and/or spirit of those living within it. Even its greatest
proponents are not spared. Andrei, the hero of Melitopol,
who is a dedicated communist, who believed passionately
in the revolution’s promise, comes to understand that not
only is the party corrupt, but also the ideals under girding
it are not valid. In a way, Andrei is the most tragic figure in
the novel, as his destruction is both spiritual and physical.
Kira, whose desire is to be an engineer and build, remains
spiritually unbowed but is killed to prevent her achieving
her goal of freedom. Leo, who Rand describes as fine and
able initially, becomes thoroughly disillusioned and cyni-
cal, and although he lives, is spiritually defunct.
Early in her career, Rand’s work retained vestiges of
her encounter with Nietzschean thought. However, as
she honed and developed her own philosophy, she was to
expunge much of that from her texts. This she was able
to do in We the Living because the 1936 edition went out
of print and a new edition was issued in 1959. In his 2004
analysis of the details of what he calls the “Nietzschean”
flavor of the earlier texts, Robert Mayhew concludes that
many accusations of a Nietzschean impulse result from
over reading the implications of certain passages. His
rationale is that these passages were rewritten not so much
to edit out Nietzsche as because they were “dubious and
confused” (2004, 210).4
24 Ayn Rand
Anthem presents a future world in which the collectiv-

ist state has succeeded in implementing its philosophy so
thoroughly that even individual names have been obliter-
ated and people have numbers instead. In addition, the
language reflects the loss of individuality to the extent that
the word “I” has disappeared from usage and each per-
son uses the collective pronoun “we” to refer to self and
“they” to refer to someone else. Also, in what Rand sees as
the inevitable results of collectivist mentality, humans have
relapsed into a primitive state, technology having been
lost. The bureaucratic mindset is such that advances are
not allowed because they might interfere with an estab-
lished bureau, therefore, when the protagonist, Equality
7-2521, discovers electricity, it is denounced because it
would bring ruin to the Department of Candles. Also,
his discovery is condemned because it was not a collec-
tive effort but discovered by an individual. In the ensu-
ing flight to avoid punishment for his accomplishment,
the protagonist escapes and is joined in the Uncharted
Forest by Liberty 5-3000. She is a woman that he thinks of
as “the Golden One.” Since neither can commit the sin of
preference, they have not been able to act on their attrac-
tion. They find a house, somehow left standing from the
Unmentionable Times and move into it. In the library,
Equality 7-2521 begins to unravel the mysteries of its man-
uscripts, and it is then that he finds the word “I.”
This is the portion of the text Rand chose to highlight in
For the New Intellectual. Of significance is the protagonist’s
antialtruistic declaration: “I owe nothing to my brothers,
nor do I gather debts from them. I ask none to live for me,
nor do I live for any others” (74). Equality 7-2521 begins
to understand the tyranny accomplished through the
word “we” and rejects it as “a word by which the depraved
steal the virtue of the good” (74-5). For him the word “we”
comes to represent servitude, looting, wretchedness, false-
hood, and ignominy. After much reading of the ancient
texts Equality 7-2521 chooses the name Prometheus
because he learns that just as he had suffered for attempt-
ing to bring electricity to his fellows, so Prometheus had
been punished for his temerity in bringing fire to human-
ity. The Golden One takes the name of Gaea, who was the
original mother earth goddess. Anthem ends hopefully with
Prometheus planning to learn all he can and then sneak
back into the city to try to free the like-minded and eventu-
ally build a fort from which to fight for the freedom, the
rights, the honor, and the life of Man. The sacred word he
plans to inscribe on the portals of his fort is “Ego.”
Rand identifies the theme of The Fountainhead as “indi-
vidualism versus collectivism, not in politics, but in man’s
soul” (77). The novel chronicles the story of Howard Roark,
a talented and independent architect of impeccable integ-
rity, through his interactions with four other characters. It
is through these stories that Rand illustrates the sources,
psychological and societal, which go into the making of
either a collectivist or an individualist. The context for the
first excerpt, “The Nature of the Second-Hander,” is a con-
versation between Roark and Gail Wynand, a cynic with
qualities of greatness, who has co-opted his honor. Roark
recognizes Wynand’s core of inner integrity and they
have become friends. Roark explains what he has come
to understand about people who live secondhand, who
have no self. In his analysis of Peter Keating, a consum-
mate second-hander, Roark makes clear that when one’s
driving force is the opinion of others and becoming great
or important in their eyes is what dictates one’s choices in
life, then one loses the self; such people are egoless. For
26 Ayn Rand
such people, it is not what they accomplish but what oth-

ers think they have accomplished that matters. Although
such people realize their own mediocrity, as long as oth-
ers think them great, they are satisfied. They do not act
but want to give the appearance of action. They do not
judge for themselves but repeat the opinions of others.
But, Roark asserts, it is the doers, thinkers, workers, and
producers upon whom the world depends. He calls those
types the “egoists” and declares that they are hated by the
second-handers who will easily excuse criminals but har-
bor a “malignant kind of resentment against any idea that
propounds independence” (79). Roark blames the accep-
tance of altruism for those who live secondhand, who
seek self-esteem through what others think of them, who
have created a “world perishing from selflessness” (80).
Because the terms selfishness and egoism have taken on
negative connotations in contemporary society, Rand has
Roark select the term “a self-sufficient ego” to define the
quality he seeks in those he would choose for friends.5
The second excerpt from The Fountainhead is “The Soul
of a Collectivist.” Although the selection above is the indi-
vidualist, Roark, defining the quality he most admires in
people, this second explication of methods and motives is
by Ellsworth M. Toohey, the ultimate collectivist whose real
purpose is to rule others. Having reduced Peter Keating to
a selfless and willing pawn, Toohey has no fear in reveal-
ing the methodology of his plan to kill the individual and
man’s soul. The soul cannot be ruled and therefore must
be broken, according to Toohey, and the tools to do this
are to make a person feel small, guilty, to kill his aspiration
and his integrity. By setting selflessness and altruism as the
ideal, an ideal that is unachievable, one fills people with
guilt and a sense of unworthiness. Such people are more
easily ruled. Other of Toohey’s methods include making

people feel unclean, uncertain, and unable to trust them-
selves and killing a man’s sense of values. Killing a person’s
capacity to recognize or achieve greatness while concur-
rently setting up standards achievable by all, kills incentive
to improve, to excel, or to perfect. Setting low standards is
another method used by collectivists. Yet another weapon
against greatness and the sacred is laughter. By using
laughter as a means to undermine reverence or respect, by
reducing the seriousness of everything, the heroic and val-
ued are undermined. The most important thing Toohey
divulges as a weapon to beat people into obedience and
submission is, “Don’t allow men to be happy. . . . Happy
men are free men. So kill their joy in living” (83). Toohey
explains that all the great systems of ethics have preached
the repudiation of personal joy, extolling sacrifice, renun-
ciation, and self -denial and have thus gained world power
and ruled millions; their methods have included using
vague and obfuscating terminology to sell the concepts of
such things as Nirvana, Racial Supremacy, Paradise, or the
Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Toohey cautions that when
one hears a prophet speak of sacrifice and service, one
should remember that there is always someone collecting
those sacrifices and being served and that is unlikely to
be the person preached to. Nonetheless, he advises that
there is a weapon against those who would kill happiness
and freedom and that weapon is reason. To leave humans
unarmed, reason must be undermined and Toohey
describes the best way to challenge the power of reason
as extolling feeling not thinking and belief or faith, not
proof.
A key part of Toohey’s modus operandi is that he has
been very open about his plans. He tells the truth about
28 Ayn Rand
himself, but people don’t want to believe him. Like Hitler

who published his plans in Mein Kampf or current terrorist
groups who declare their desire to install Islamic theocra-
cies throughout the world, Toohey counts on his audience
not to want to hear and therefore to ignore that which
they don’t want to deal with.
In the third and final selection from The Fountainhead
reprinted in For the New Intellectual, Howard Roark defines
“The Soul of an Individualist.” The context is a trial; Roark
has dynamited an unfinished government housing project
because his agreement with Peter Keating, the architect of
record, called for his design to be built unchanged, and
although Keating had tried to prevent it, the government
made significant alterations. Because the government
agency that broke the agreement can’t be sued, neither
architect has recourse to law.
Roark defends himself and begins by reminding the jury
that throughout history creators have often been reviled,
theorizing that the first man who discovered how to make
fire was probably burned at the stake, although he brought
light and warmth to his fellows, whereas the inventor of the
wheel was doubtless broken on the rack using a weapon
of his own devising after bringing the gift of travel and
technology. Recalling the Promethean legend, Roark con-
jectures that it prefigures an archetypal situation where
human benefactors are punished for their courage. Instead
of being heralded in their times, great creators—be they
thinkers, artists, scientists, or inventors—usually stand
against the people of their era and find every great new
thought opposed. These creators are self-sufficient, self-
motivated, and self-generated, but not selfless.
Roark goes on to remind his audience that the mind is
a human’s only weapon and survival tool because unlike
animals, humans are not equipped by nature with fang,

claw, wings, or weapons with which to get food and shel-
ter. Implements of survival must be produced, and the
mind is the tool with which they are created. This is done
by the individual mind, as there is no such thing as a
collective brain. Whereas the creator works to achieve
by overcoming the laws of nature, the second-hander or
parasite works to control not nature but other human
beings. This he does by means of altruism, a philosophy
that requires humans to live for others and place others
above the self. Altruism produces a parasitic relationship
in that if one’s main purpose or motive is serving others,
then one become a slave, a slave not by conquest but a
slave by choice. Altruism privileges giving as a virtue, but
before there is something to give, it must be produced
and therefore Roark questions the concept of admiring
those who give what they have not produced while damn-
ing the creator/producer to servitude.
Roark calls into question a long list of prevalent ideas
such as that it is a virtue to agree with others, that the ego
is evil and that selflessness is a virtue. He identifies the
“greatest fraud ever perpetuated on mankind” (95) as the
false dichotomy between egoism and altruism, the former
implying sacrifice of others to self and the latter, sacrifice
of self to others. The choice, he counters, is not that at all,
but the choice between dependence and independence.
Although emperors, dictators, and the like have been
called egoists, they are anything but in that an egoist is
one who exists for the self and asks no one else to exist
for him, an impossibility for those who would rule others
and must function by controlling them. Ironically, tyrants
are the ultimate parasites, dependent on the exploitation
of producers and second-handers alike. A real egoist is
30 Ayn Rand
self-sufficient. For such an individual, all proper exchanges

should be those of mutual advantage and the only type of
relationship that between equals; the proper way to relate
to other human beings and for them to relate to you is
“hands off” (98).
The United States of America derived from a Declaration
of Independence, built on the principle of individualism,
one based on a person’s right to life, liberty, and the pur-
suit of happiness. Roark reminds his audience that it is
the pursuit of one’s own happiness and not the happiness
of someone else. Although the principles of indepen-
dence and individualism initially prevailed in building
the country he calls the “noblest country in the history of
man” (98), Roark fears the ancient and ugly monster of
collectivism that at the time was dominating Europe and
the thinking of many in the United States. Although he
does not name Fascism and Communism specifically, the
descriptions (one where the individual lives for the state
and the other for the masses) and the time of publication
(1943) make clear that for Rand these political systems are
two sides of the same coin.
Finally, Roark claims the right to destroy Cortlandt
because he designed it and was not paid the price he con-
tracted for—that it be built exactly as designed. He rejects
the right of the government to demand the gift of his tal-
ent and refuses to exist for others; he states that he recog-
nizes no obligation toward others except not to participate
in a slave society and to respect their freedom. The jury
acquits him.
Over a decade and a World War divided the writing of
The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. In the meantime,
Rand had become a best-selling author and a thinker
whose ideas attracted a number of fans. As she wrote Atlas
Shrugged, she was able to sharpen and hone her thinking

as she read excerpts to a select coterie of students of her
philosophy. Atlas Shrugged was the apogee for the fictional
explication of Rand’s philosophy through the medium of
narrative and character. Rand herself commented on the
fact that as all the major religions in the world have their
own mythologies, that is stories and parables that embody
their values, so she saw Atlas Shrugged as the foundational
myth that concretized her own philosophy.
The plot of Atlas Shrugged grew out of Rand’s response
to the idea of what would happen if the producers, the
people of the mind went on strike. She names the theme
of the novel “the role of the mind in man’s existence”
(103).6 The initial setting is New York City in an undefined
future time. The protagonist is Dagny Taggart, who runs
a railroad started by her father. Her problems in doing
so are complicated by the fact that as she tries to negoti-
ate the miasma of various bureaus, councils, and commit-
tees, the effective and capable people are disappearing.
She must also work around her brother James, the titular
head of Taggart Transcontinental. The world she inhabits
has devolved into a collectivist nightmare made up of peo-
ple’s states such as the People’s State of England and the
People’s State of Germany. Among other people’s states
named are Argentina, Chile, France, Guatemala, India,
Mexico, Norway, Portugal, and Turkey. A “Head of State,”
one Mr. Thompson, governs the United States. There is a
National Legislature, but no House of Representatives or
Senate.
“Money is the root of all evil” is the opening line of the
scene from which the first selection excerpted by Rand in
For the New Intellectual takes place. The setting is the recep-
tion following the wedding of James Taggart and Cherryl
32 Ayn Rand
Brooks. Most of the major and minor representatives of

the looting and mooching second-handers are in atten-
dance and as the party progresses, they articulate their
collectivist and antirational opinions. Francisco d’Anconia
makes his dramatic entrance by finishing James Taggart’s
sentence that the world is about to move from material
to spiritual aims and instead of an aristocracy of money
install, concludes Francisco: an aristocracy of pull. The
guests try to dismiss him by repeating the old bromide
about money and evil, and concluding that, as Francisco
is the product of money, one can expect nothing positive
from him. This selection that Rand names “The Meaning
of Money” is Francisco’s rejoinder. He delivers what is, in
effect, a “money is the root of all good” rebuttal.
Francisco tells the shocked onlookers that they should
ask themselves about what the root of money is. He explains
the importance of money as a tool of exchange made pos-
sible because there are goods produced and people able to
produce them. Money makes possible exchange of value
for value. Moochers use tears, and looters use guns to
achieve their goals, but it is only the producers that make
money possible.
In her journal notes as she prepared Francisco’s speech,
Rand noted that a proof of “the noble nature of money is
that people are able to keep it only so long as they keep
their virtues—and no longer” (596). For Rand there was
a comprehensible connection between money and moral-
ity. Accordingly, when people become corrupt, careless, or
lazy, there are always looters who will descend like locust
to appropriate the money. Examples of heirs who have lost
family fortunes because they have never learned the value
of money are referenced by Francisco who says, “If an heir
is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him”
(107). What Francisco means by being equal to his money

is that people must have respect for what the money rep-
resents in terms of creativity or work. The premise here
is that for a man to have respect for money, he has to
have earned it. Conversely, those who have not earned it
or have obtained money dishonorably find it easy to dis-
dain it. Furthermore, money is the product of virtue as it
is the end product of one’s own efforts. Francisco declares,
“To love money is to know and love the fact that money
is the creation of the best power within you. . . . The lov-
ers of money are willing to work for it. They know they
are able to deserve it” (108). Francisco states that as long
as humans live in societies and have need of a medium
through which to deal with one another, there is no sub-
stitute for money. The only alternative would be force.
However, there is much that money cannot do. It cannot
buy happiness, intelligence, admiration, or respect, and
the one who thinks it can, will probably attract cheats,
frauds, and parasites.
Although Francisco makes this generic defense of money
early in the novel, later when the productive and creative
people are revealed in their mini utopia, there is no paper
money, only coins of silver and gold. This is because as
Francisco explains, the people who would destroy and loot
first destabilize the value of money. Initially, they seize the
precious metals and leave the owners paper in their stead.
By doing this, they undermine any objective standard and
can thus practice arbitrary power to set value. Gold and
silver have objective value. Paper money was originally a
certificate for an equivalent value in silver or gold. Rand
believed that the nation should reestablish the gold stan-
dard. Her final speech was before the National Committee
for Monetary Reform, an organization that wanted to do
34 Ayn Rand
just that and to educate the citizens of United States about

the benefits of a free market economy.
The dollar sign is a key icon in the novel and Rand
reads it as a symbol for the United States as it is a combi-
nation of the letters U and S. For her, the United States
is the country that originated the concept of “making”
money and Francisco, as her spokesperson in this speech,
calls the American Industrialist “the real maker of wealth,
the greatest worker, the highest type of human being—
the self-made man” (111). Later in the novel, another
of the producers, Owen Kellogg calls the dollar sign a
mark of pride and observes that the United States is exem-
plary because “wealth was not acquired by looting, but by
production, not by force, but by trade, the only country
whose money was the symbol of a man’s right to his own
mind, to his work, to his life, to his happiness, to himself”
(AS 630).
“The Martyrdom of the Industrialists” is the title Rand
gives to the next selection reprinted from Atlas Shrugged.
Francisco is speaking again, this time specifically to Hank
Rearden, one of those self-made American Industrialists
he had lauded in his speech at the Taggart wedding. This
speech is directly tied to the title imagery. The underlying
concept is that industrialists and inventors such as Hank
Rearden are, contemporary versions of the Titan Atlas,
and like him, they are holding up the world. Francisco
explains to Rearden that rather than giving thanks and
being appreciative, the world only makes itself heavier and
heavier, expecting more and more of the Atlases. He asks
Rearden what he would tell a bleeding, buckling, overbur-
dened Atlas. When Rearden does not give a suitable reply,
Francisco proclaims that Atlas should be advised to shrug,
to relieve himself of the unappreciative burden.
In much of his presentation to Rearden, d’Anconia is ana-

lyzing the paradoxes inherent in a system which denounces
people, not for their faults but for their virtues, a system
that damns not those who make mistakes but those who
achieve. D’Anconia calls into question being labeled self-
ish for having the courage to act on one’s own judgment,
of being described as arrogant for being independent-
minded. Equally reprehensible to Francisco is a system
that calls the self-disciplined and strong ruthless because of
their purposefulness, which calls those who create wealth
greedy and those who create abundance out of nothing,
robbers. Most egregious, however, is Rearden’s willingness
to accept the code of the moocher. In Francisco’s words,
“The worst guilt is to accept an undeserved guilt” (114).
In other words, Rearden is providing the sanction of the
victim to those who offer their impotence and need as jus-
tification for taking advantage of his many abilities.
Although the reader does not know it at the time,
Francisco is preparing to ask Hank Rearden to join the
strike of the people of the mind. Francisco initiates a
discussion of the moral meaning of capitalism, indicat-
ing that Rearden’s mills are “an abstract principle, such
as a moral action, in material form” (AS 420). Leading
Rearden through a series of questions to try to get him to
understand that he has erroneously accepted the mooch-
er’s moral code, Francisco points out that every girder,
pipe, and valve in the mill had been chosen by Rearden,
using his best judgment, to make his steel. More than that,
Rearden has spent 10 years of his life developing Rearden
metal. This he has done with the expectation of making
money from exchanging his best effort for the best effort
of others. Nonetheless, in spite of his best efforts, Rearden
has encountered nothing but opposition.
36 Ayn Rand
In addition, d’Anconia asks Rearden for whom he has

made his metal. He expects that Rearden made it to be
used by the giants of productive energy who themselves
would think of creative and innovative ways to use it and
for appreciative average people who would be thankful for
the innovation and the innovator. When Rearden affirms
this, d’Anconia asks if he would have worked so hard for
a bunch of whining rotters who never create anything but
still demand that others pay their way, people who think
their need is a higher claim to reward than his effort. Such
people sneer and curse the very geniuses whose prod-
ucts they are using and whose inventions make their lives
easier.
Subsequently, at his trial for illegally selling the Rearden
metal he has developed, Hank Rearden delivers a speech
that Rand has titled “The Moral Meaning of Capitalism.”
Of particular significance in this presentation is his ques-
tioning of the premises underlying the concept that the
good of the group is more important than the individual’s
rights. This concept, foremost in the philosophy of col-
lectivism of every stripe, is based on false logic. To illus-
trate this, Rearden goes to the root of the oft-repeated
principle—the public good. First, he asks, who is the
public and who determines what is in their interest, their
good? Then he questions the difference between a public
that would appropriate someone else’s property because
it decides it needs it and a burglar who does the same.
Logically, if the public good is served by the sacrifice of
one, then the violation of the rights of the one is ulti-
mately the violation of the rights of all, as the public is
made up of single individuals. Why should one be sacri-
ficed and not another? “A public of rightless creatures is
doomed to destruction” (116). Rearden rejects as the
most contemptible of evils a society that is built on turn-

ing some, usually the most able, into sacrificial animals for
the sake of those who cannot survive on their own.
“The Meaning of Sex” is the selection that follows,
and its context is a conversation between d’Anconia and
Rearden; although they are both in love with Dagny,
they do not, at this point in the plot, know that theirs is
a mutual love object. What Francisco tries to explain to
Hank is that just as there is more to wealth than just mate-
rial resources, there is an intellectual dimension to its cre-
ation and maintenance, so there is more to sex than just
the physical capacity. Speaking for Rand, Francisco ques-
tions the old bromide that love is blind and impervious to
reason. He states instead that he can tell a lot about a man
by what he finds sexually attractive and that the woman
he sleeps with is a good indicator of his evaluation of him-
self. Thus if a man chooses the highest type of woman, a
woman he admires and finds strong and hard to conquer,
then he is demonstrating his attraction to a woman who
reflects his deepest vision of himself. A man of self-esteem
chooses a heroine. Sex is a most selfish act, performed for
one’s own enjoyment, one that develops from a sense of
being desired and being worthy of desire. Therefore, he
argues, a man will be attracted to a partner who repre-
sents his most profound sense of self because the woman’s
attraction to him allows him to either verify his self-esteem
or fake it. Sex with a “brainless slut” is no achievement.
One does not gain value through sex; one expresses it. For
Rand there is no conflict between the values of the mind
and the desires of the body.
By contrast, Francisco explains, the man who does not
think highly of himself will be drawn to a woman he thinks
little of. Such a woman can give him a momentary illusion
38 Ayn Rand
of his own value. However, only a man who despises himself

can gain self-esteem from sexual adventures. For Rand, sex
is not the cause but the effect of a man’s sense of self. She
wrote in her journal that sex is “the means for expressing
in physical form one’s greatest celebration of life, of joy, of
one’s highest self-exaltation and one’s highest moral val-
ues” (606). “Love is our response to our highest values,”
according to Francisco. People who damn existence as evil
are attracted to evil. If one feels damned, then depravity
is what will attract. Only the man who claims that love is
divorced from desire is capable of the “depravity of desire
devoid of love.”
“From Each According to His Ability, to Each According
to His Need” is the heading of the next section, which
explores the consequences when the premise underly-
ing the concept of a Marxist state is put into practice. Jeff
Allen, one of the survivors of the wreckage, tells Dagny
Taggart the story of the destruction caused when the heirs
of a vital industrial plant, Twentieth Century Motors, put
a plan based on this premise into effect. Allen accepts the
guilt for what happened because he, like most of the other
workers at the factory, voted for a plan they thought was
based on noble ideals, ideals that had been preached to
them continually through schools, by ministers, and in the
media. He calls himself and others who lived through four
years of the plan marked men, damned because of their
contribution to the ensuing evil.
In practice, he explains, trying to make that plan work
is like pouring liquid into a container that has a drain-
age pipe at the bottom with the additional caveat that the
more that is poured in, the wider the pipe becomes, so
that more and more is needed. The able are called on to
increase their hours and their production for the needs of
thousands of others. The devil, of course, is in the details.

How are need and ability established? It was decided at
Twentieth Century Motors that to determine need and abil-
ity, the entire group would vote. The result turned workers
into beggars because they would have to prove their need
to the others. Ability is also voted on, so people began to
hide their capabilities because it would only earn them
more work, without benefit. When those who are capable,
creative, and productive realize that rather than earning
rewards for their abilities, they will only be assigned more
work, they soon slow down and are not forthcoming. Allen
theorizes that although competition in a profit system has
been called vicious, there is nothing more vicious than
the competition to do poorly, not to display ability. Nor is
there anything more pernicious than when one chooses
to do poorly rather than one’s best. When efforts are not
rewarded, effort ceases. In a parallel manner, when one’s
efforts go not to one’s own welfare but to those more
needy and unfortunate, the needy become, not the object
of concern, but the objects of resentment.
In a collectivist system of mandated equality, everyone
gets a share of the benefits, but if there is not enough
for everyone, then no one gets anything. Thus, Allen
explains, although a man had worked all his life to send
his son to college, because there wasn’t enough to send
everybody’s sons to college, no one was sent. A man who
loved phonograph records and had no other pleasures
in life, as he was a widower with no family, was deprived
of funds to buy any records as that was called a “personal
luxury” and not a need. Those who were truly responsi-
ble, reduced their draw on “the family” funds, whereas
the irresponsible and shiftless found innumerable ways to
take advantage of the system, procreating irresponsibly,
40 Ayn Rand
adding worthless relatives to the family rolls, and nur-

turing all kinds of sicknesses and disabilities. The result,
ironically, is that those who tried to live up to the “moral-
ity” of the system they had accepted found themselves
punished for it. “Your honesty was like a tool left at the
mercy of the next man’s dishonesty. The honest ones paid,
the dishonest collected” (128). Consequently, although
the group began as hard working and able, the cream
of the country’s laborers, working under this system that
punished productivity, eventually turned them into chis-
elers, trying to outsmart the system. Theoretically, the
underlying moral law is to love one’s brothers as one’s
self. In practice, when one’s brothers are bums, loafers,
moochers, cheats, or just plain incompetent and one is
expected to become their beast of burden, to make one’s
virtues the slave of their vices, then rather than love, one
begins to hate—to hate them for their constant needs, for
their illnesses, or if they found love because that might
add a new burden to the group.
Allen questions why so many educated and cultured peo-
ple could possibly accept a premise as flawed as “from each
according to his ability, to each according to his need.” He
theorizes that when people choose to profess a system that
cannot possibly work, there is some underlying reason.
Thus, he explains, “There wasn’t a man voting for it who
didn’t think that under a setup of this kind he’d muscle in
on the profits of the men abler than himself.” The effect
then is that the best left almost immediately once the plan
was instituted because no one with self-esteem wishes to
be turned into a public spigot. As more and more of the
competent and able left, the factory production and repu-
tation suffered. In the world of production, need is not
a consideration. One does not give orders for airplane
engines to factories that produce defective motors no mat-

ter how much they “need” the orders.
The “noble” experiment of Twentieth Century Motors
produced bankruptcy in four years, yet professors and
leaders and thinkers want to institute such systems on a
global scale. Like many collectivist apologists, Ivy Starnes,
one of the heirs who instituted “the plan,” explains that
the plan was based on noble premises but that human
nature was not good enough for it. But, for Rand, what
this excerpt illustrates is that there is nothing noble about
the underlying premise that the best and the most hon-
est should become sacrificial animals for the criminal and
inept.
A smaller excerpt titled “The Forgotten Man of
Socialized Medicine” is a brain surgeon’s clarification of
his reasons for joining the strike of the men of the mind.
Dr. Hendricks explains that he left his practice when medi-
cine was put under state control. He questions the ability
or right of any bureaucrat or politician with no medical
education or knowledge to set the conditions of a doc-
tor’s work, the patients he should serve, and how much he
should charge. Furthermore, he reveals that in the discus-
sion of why a state-run health system is needed, the wel-
fare of the patients is paramount and really the only thing
discussed, whereas no attention is paid to the situation of
those who will provide that care. He wonders about the
thinking process of those who feel they have the right to
enslave, control, and force a doctor and then expect that
same doctor to be a man of sufficient moral integrity to
trust their lives to. Hendricks contends that a man who
would work under these conditions of compulsion is not
to be trusted. Furthermore, overworked doctors cannot
provide a sufficient level of individual care.
42 Ayn Rand
From the world of science to that of the artist, the strik-

ers are a varied group. The next section is titled “The
Nature of an Artist” and is part of a conversation between
Dagny Taggart and Richard Halley, the composer of the
novel’s recurring musical theme, his heroic fifth con-
certo. Halley has quit at the point of his greatest success
and joined the strikers mainly because he is appalled
by the implication that an artist owes his audience any
amount of struggle, suffering, and acceptance of their
negative reactions, their sneers and contempt to teach
them to accept his work. He explains to Dagny that what
he appreciates most is her understanding of his work, the
fact that she evaluates and judges his work intelligently
by the same values he used to create it. He does not
want to be evaluated by intuitive, emotional, or causeless
response—not by the heart but by the head. Halley sees
the artist as a trader who exchanges his performance for
a customer who appreciates it.
Rand, in her journals, explores the false dichotomy
between art and entertainment. She questions the popu-
lar fallacy that art is serious and dull, whereas entertain-
ment is empty and stupid but enjoyable. The source of
this misconception she identifies as an altruistic morality
that likens the good with the painful and the enjoyable
with the sinful. Her faith in the public is such that she is
sure that they do not buy into this morality. The issue of a
gulf between popular and critically acclaimed literature is
ever present. In Rand’s case, time has proven that her very
popular but critically unappreciated works have initiated
some very serious responses.
The concluding section of the excerpts from the fiction
is John Galt’s climactic speech from Atlas Shrugged, cap-
tioned “This is the Philosophy of Objectivism” by Rand.
In the plot of the novel, John Galt appropriates the air-

waves to explain to the government officials and the nation
the rationale for the strike of the productive and creative
people. Although what Galt has to say has been foreshad-
owed by d’Anconia, Hendricks, Halley, Danneskjöld, and
other of the strikers, it is not until this lengthy and detailed
working out of the philosophical bases for their actions, or
should we say inaction, that the reader has the complete
case. The speech, a carefully considered and meticulously
presented philosophical rationale, is an explanation of
and argument for the morality of the producers. It is the
thematic summation of Atlas Shrugged.
There are four major parts to the speech. A brief intro-
duction (142–145) is followed by a section on the moral
argument of the producers (145–166). The next segment
presents the possibilities inherent in alternative moralities
or what is essentially an argument between the producers’
morality and that of their opponents (166–222). Finally,
Galt concludes with a consideration of how the moral truth
explained in the earlier sections ought to be reflected in
action (223–242). Thus it is a diagnosis of the maladies
that infect the world and a prescription for their cure.
The critical situation that brings the plot to this point is
that production has dried up, and it is not only quality of
life that is affected but also life itself that is at risk. All the
directives and government intervention have not and, as
Galt argues, will not improve the situation. The world is in
crises because of a disagreement about moral questions.
At base is the fact that the strikers (people of the mind)
reject the popular understanding of good and evil. As the
morality preached by political leaders and popular psy-
chology gurus is that producers are selfish profit seekers,
so Galt counters, how is it that with these people removed
44 Ayn Rand
from society, there has not been a positive benefit? The

evil profit seekers have withdrawn themselves.
Galt then develops the moral argument for himself and
his fellow strikers.7 First he establishes the principle that
survival is a universal human desire. He argues that it is fun-
damental to the species but one not easily achieved. There
is a difference between having a desire and having that
desire fulfilled. Unlike other animals, human beings do
not have an instinct for self-preservation, but must choose
how to act in order to survive. Humans are beings of voli-
tional consciousness. They must use reason to choose to
act in ways that will further their purpose, which is sur-
vival. Those choices that bring about survival are good,
and those that are detrimental to it are bad. Human life,
then, remains as the standard of morality, and one’s own
life is its purpose.
Galt goes on to explain that he and his cohorts are on
strike in the name of a single axiom, one that is at the root of
their moral system and one that the mystics and misguided
philosophers deny: that axiom is that existence exists. This
implies both the end and means of moral action, for as
life (existence) is, so the first and fundamental objective
of human beings should be to preserve their existence as
human beings. The appropriate means is human reason.
To accept the axiom that existence exists is also to assume
a conscious subject to perceive that something exists. That
conscious being must identify the something that exists,
and reason is the tool for doing so. Human beings must
use reason to determine what exists. They must know what
is true, or right, to survive. Reason operates according to
a rule, the law of identity. It is the law of identity, “A is
A,” that allows human beings to identify the facts of real-
ity in a noncontradictory fashion. It is on these two basic
premises, that things exist and that human beings are able
to understand that particular things exist because they are
rational beings, that Galt builds a morality.
Virtuous actions achieve virtuous things. As the estab-
lished goal is human existence, humans should choose
those values that enhance it. Those values, according to
Galt, are reason, purpose, and self-esteem. Reason is essen-
tial because it is the means to the acquisition of the knowl-
edge that is needed to live. Purpose is valuable because it
provides a goal for reason to achieve. Self-esteem is impor-
tant because with it human beings can believe themselves
worthy of life and able to achieve it. Virtues are the qualities
that yield the values. Ironically, rather than seven deadly
sins, Galt enumerates seven life-affirming virtues. They are
rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, pro-
ductiveness, and pride. Rationality is the recognition that
the mind is the tool to both judge and guide, and faith is
a destructive substitute. Independence is the understand-
ing that no one but yourself has the responsibility of judg-
ment and acceptance of another’s mind as substitute for
your own is a form of self-abasement. Integrity permits no
breach between body and mind, between matter and con-
sciousness, or between action and thought. It is being true
to one’s own consciousness. Honesty is refusing to accept
anything unreal as having value and the realization that
love, fame, or money obtained by fraud has no value, for
then you have chosen to live as a dependent on the stupid-
ity of others. Honesty is a selfish virtue because it is a refusal
to sacrifice one’s own reality for another’s delusion. Justice
is evaluating and treating others according to what reason
shows to be their real worth. Productiveness is acquiring
knowledge and shaping matter to fit one’s own purpose.
Productive work is creative when done by a thinking mind
46 Ayn Rand
but not when done by an automaton. Galt warns against

cheating one’s way into a job bigger than your mind can
handle and also against settling into a job that is less than
requires your mind’s full capacity, for that sentences you to
stultification and decay. Finally, Pride is acknowledgment
that one has acquired the values and lives a self-made life,
that one is a being of self-made soul.
Once he has established his basic premises, Galt goes on
to address the issue of how virtuous human beings should
deal with each other and that, he asserts is voluntarily in a
trading situation where the self-interest of each is served.
Thus the most immediate virtue at issue is justice and he
contends “the moral symbol of respect for human beings
is the trader” (163). A trader respects his own reason as
well as that of others, understanding what is valuable. The
trader does not seek to take valuable things without earn-
ing them, and he does not give the valuable things that
are a result of his efforts to others without their earning
them. Disagreement as to value may disrupt trade, but the
premise behind trade remains respect for human reason
in selves and in others.
Having established the principles of good values and vir-
tues, Galt turns to the question of evil. The one act of evil
that no person may commit is the initiation of physical
force against another. The use of force negates rational-
ity. It makes human beings do other than what their rea-
son directs. The use of force denies reason, and therefore
denies that existence exists, for the person doing the forc-
ing as well as the person forced. The one who uses force
assumes that human beings are irrational and thus is, as a
human being irrational as well. The use of force can be rea-
sonable only in defense of reason or in defense of the con-
sequences of the axiom that existence exists. Thus, force is
just in defense of oneself against another who has initiated

the use of force, for that is the defense of the human and
rational against the nonhuman and irrational.
With the explanation of how the observation that
“existence exists” leads to the logical conclusion that no
human being should initiate the use of violence against
another, Galt has completed his basic explanation and
defense of his and his fellow strikers’ moral code. He has
explained more thoroughly than d’Anconia why money,
as the medium of the trader, is the root of good. He has
made a more complete argument than was made earlier
by Ragnar Danneskjöld about when it is appropriate to use
force. Above all, he has defended the strikers’ profit seek-
ing and withdrawal from society as actions of the most just
of human beings. He is ready, then, to compare his moral
code to that of those who are in control of the society,
those he calls moochers and looters from which he and
the other producers have chosen to remove themselves.
The first level of that comparison is on the basis of results.
In a world where producers are allowed to act according
to their material beliefs, everyone benefits from the resul-
tant products and development. However, it is not just the
material that concerns Galt. His more basic philosophi-
cal argument refers back to the introduction of his speech
where Galt explained that for ages, the battle of morality
was waged between the religious realm, those who claimed
your life belongs to God and the political realm, those who
preached that your life belongs to your brothers; in either
case the premise was self-sacrifice, either for what Galt
calls the ghosts in heaven or for those he calls the incom-
petents on earth. These two seemingly opposing forces
have fundamentally similar moralities. Galt gives them
the names of “mystics of spirit” and “mystics of muscle.”
48 Ayn Rand
Both are “mystics” because both moralities reject the fun-

damental rule of rational proof, that A is A. Both reject the
axiom that existence exists. Both are thus examples of the
“Morality of Death” (167).
The mystics of the spirit are those who claim that moral
truth is not derived from human reason but from divine
revelation. In the teaching of these mystics, man is natu-
rally evil, born with “original sin” or a natural tendency to
evil that originates in the body. Evil things are those things
that human beings do to secure the survival and pleasure
of the body. According to Galt’s interpretation, the mys-
tics of the spirit have divided humans into two, setting the
sides against each other. The mystics of the spirit teach
humans that their bodies and consciousness are enemies,
of opposite natures and contradictory claims, that to ben-
efit the one is to injure the other. Furthermore, the “soul
belongs to a supernatural realm” and the “body is an evil
prison holding it in bondage to this earth, and that the
good is to defeat the body” (170). This puts things that
serve the body in a category of evil.
Thus, the mystics of the spirit who privilege conscious-
ness above the physical are denying that existence exists.
In denying the legitimacy of the body, they also deny the
independence of the human mind along with the valid-
ity of its conclusions. When they claim that the body and
its needs and desires are evil, the spiritualists argue that
what appears to exist, the physical world, is not what
really exists. But it is perception of the physical world
that makes human consciousness manifest, so that in
disavowing the reality of the physical world the mystics
of the spirit deny consciousness as well. They appeal to
human consciousness with an argument that allows no
proof for the existence of that consciousness.
Thus, the spiritualists make an irrational argument.

Their claims are not supported by reason but by faith, and
they tell human beings that they must not live by their
minds but must live according to their faith in the truth of
revelation. Galt derides the mystics of the spirit who claim
that they have a knowledge that transcends reason, that
they have a special pipeline to some other world power.
By claiming special knowledge that others supposedly
lack, the mystics of the spirit are running, what he calls “a
protection racket” (190). They use the threat of eternal
damnation to make human life miserable by branding as
vices all the virtues like pride, independence, rationality,
and productiveness that are necessary to make human life
secure and happy.
The mystics of muscle appear very differently. They are
materialists, whereas the mystics of the spirit are spiritu-
alists. The spiritualists abjure the physical, whereas the
materialists decry consciousness. They argue that the only
thing that exists is matter in motion. Things such as truth,
knowledge, and concepts have no objective existence—it
is not possible to know things. Therefore, they argue that
there is no absolute knowledge, that one cannot know the
truth about what is good; therefore the good is whatever
most people—that is, whatever society—decide it is. They
declare that when the good of society is sufficiently well
served, that is, when human beings become “moral” and
subordinate their selfish desires and actions to the good of
all, people in the future will experience a sort of heaven
on earth where each material desire will be satisfied.
The key to the materialists’ case is their claim that
human beings should not trust their own reason because
they cannot know things that are not material. They teach
that axioms, concepts, ideas, and arguments have no
50 Ayn Rand
objective validity. Human ideas are created by material cir-

cumstances. Ideas do not control matter; matter controls
ideas. Individual ideas are not responsible for changes in
the quality of material life, but rather society and the mate-
rial means of production are responsible for generating
individual ideas and changes in material existence.
Galt argues that the materialists’ argument is self-
contradictory; they assert the independence of human
consciousness in the very act of declaring all claims to
rational truth are delusions:
“We know that we know nothing,” they chatter, blanking

out the fact that they are claiming knowledge—“There
are no absolutes,” they chatter, blanking out the fact that
they are uttering an absolute—“You cannot prove that
you exist or that you’re conscious,” blanking out the fact
that proof presupposes existence, consciousness and a
complex chain of knowledge: the existence of something
to know, of a consciousness to be able to know it, and
of a knowledge that has learned to distinguish between
such concepts as the proved and the unproved. (192)
It follows from Galt’s arguments that both the mystics of

the spirit and the mystics of the muscle make assertions for
their moralities that are fundamentally flawed. Both deny
what must be true in order for them to attempt to make
the denial.
Galt’s most important argument against both sets of
mystics is at the elemental philosophical level. That is,
his concern is to show that neither teaching can result in
human happiness because both are fundamentally flawed
theories. His primary objective, an objective not pres-
ent in any of the earlier speeches in the book, is to show
the rational errors that result in the practical problems

people face. In addition, the speech is replete with chal-
lenges to common misconceptions. In it Rand presents
some provocative ideas, confronting our traditional ways
of viewing and defining things. The impotence of evil is
one example. Galt explains that the only way evil is able
to succeed is if the good serves it. He also contends that
in any compromise between good and evil, it is evil that
wins. Another thing he questions is praising nonprofit
ventures while damning the profit ventures that are nec-
essary to sustain the nonprofits. The definition of public
welfare is also questioned. Why should public welfare be
the welfare of those who do not earn it, whereas those
who do earn it are entitled to no welfare? They are part of
the public too. An expression that Rand finds particularly
abhorrent is the one that asks, “Who am I to judge?” In
the context of a rational society, refusing to judge is evil in
that it is an escape from responsibility, which eventuates
in the responsibility for much of the blood spilled in the
world.
In sum, Galt affirms that the achievement of one’s hap-
piness is the moral purpose in one’s life. His rationale for
government, then, is that its purpose is to protect human
rights, to create a society wherein life, liberty, and the pur-
suit of happiness are maximized. He emphasizes that there
are basically only three fitting functions for government.
All have to do with protection of some sort. First there
are police to protect one from criminals; then an army
to protect one from foreign invaders. Finally, the govern-
ment should maintain courts to protect property and con-
tracts from breach or fraud and to settle rational disputes
according to objective law. Antithetically, a government
that initiates force against its neighbors or its own citizens
52 Ayn Rand
is a bully that substitutes the law of ‘might makes right’ for

the law of reason.
The role of the mind is emphasized again as Galt moves
into the conclusion of his speech. He maintains that every
one who produces an idea, who discovers new knowledge,
is a permanent benefactor of humanity (234). He explains
that although material products are consumed by individ-
uals and thus used up, the idea can be shared by all and
continually reproduced. Finally, Galt exhorts all citizens
to join the strike, to refuse to allow the looters to continue
using their abilities. He calls on them to be silent, not to
volunteer, to vanish if possible. Without the consent of the
capable, looter states will collapse. It is only then that all
the people of ability can build a rational society with the
dollar sign as its symbol, a sign of free minds and free mar-
kets, to rebuild the nation as it once was, a sanctuary for
the rational being.
In this exhortation not to act, Galt’s arguments echo
ideas developed earlier by both Henry David Thoreau
and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Thoreau in “On Civil
Disobedience” maintains that when laws are unjust, then
just men belong in jail. In like manner King, in his “Letter
from Birmingham Jail,” distinguishes between just and
unjust laws, emphasizing the “moral responsibility to dis-
obey unjust laws.” In Atlas Shrugged the strikers resolve not
to obey unjust laws and directives. However, their choice
is not to go to jail. Instead they follow a course of passive
resistance, a tool Mahatma Gandhi found effective in
bringing Great Britain to the negotiation table and gain-
ing independence for India. Martin Luther King Jr. also
used a type of passive resistance, fine-tuned into what was
called the “sit-in” for a nonviolent method of protest. In
effect, Rand’s strikers are following suit. They sit in the
world by being in it but not being of it; that is, they do not
use their abilities to help power its motor. Some do drop
out rather than sit in.
One speech Rand did not choose to include in For the
New Intellectual is Ragnar Danneskjöld’s excoriation of the
Robin Hood myth. Danneskjöld is one of the triumvirate
that originates the strike and has chosen to be a pirate in
the collectivist world of Atlas Shrugged. What he does is rob
from the undeserving and thieving collectivist states and
return the money to its rightful owners. In doing so, he is
a kind of reverse Robin Hood.
The context for the presentation of his ideas is a dark
and lonely road where he accosts Hank Rearden, not to
rob him but to give him gold. When Rearden questions his
actions, Danneskjöld explains that when robbery is done
in the daylight, sanctioned by law, then the only recourse
for acts of honor and restitution is to go underground. It
is a variation on the theme of when the laws are unjust,
just men belong in jail. He challenges the morality of the
Robin Hood myth by reversing what Robin Hood did. Of
course, he acknowledges that in the original Robin Hood
narratives, Robin Hood is robbing from an unjust King
and looting Barons and that he returned the loot to those
who had been robbed, but the myth as handed down has
become shorthand for robbing the rich and giving to the
poor. In Danneskjöld’s mind, Robin Hood is remembered
for assuming a crown of virtue by practicing charity with
wealth he did not own and giving away property that he
had not produced. As he puts it, Robin Hood made “oth-
ers pay for the luxury of his pity” (AS 534). As a pirate,
Danneskjöld seizes only those transports that carry the
results of looting, such as subsidy ships, loan ships, relief
ships, and those vessels that are laden with materials and
54 Ayn Rand
goods that were taken forcibly from those who earned or

produced them and given to those who have neither paid
for nor earned them.
In addition, Ragnar sees himself as a policeman whose
duty it is to protect people who have been and are being
robbed and return their goods to them. In this case, it
is the government that is doing the robbing, and what
Danneskjöld returns to Rearden is gold in the amount of
what Rearden has paid in income taxes for the last 12 years.
He challenges the acceptance of death and taxes as the
only certainties. Danneskjöld proclaims that humans have
to change their way of thinking so that it is not death and
taxes, but life and production that are at the heart of their
moral code and considered the two absolutes in life.
Rand’s celebration of work is another recurring fictional
theme that is consistent with the idea of returning earning
to those who have a right to them. In Atlas Shrugged and
other of her works, Rand makes it clear that although her
focus may be on the highly productive, a job well done is
important at every level of society. Ability is the touchstone
by which individuals are measured. In The Fountainhead,
a key example is the character of Mike, one of Howard
Roark’s good friends. Mike is an electrician whose full
name is Sean Xavier Donnigan. Roark meets Mike on his
first construction job. The man is passionate about his
work and respects those who feel similarly: “He worshipped
expertness.” Mutual passion and ability make the men life-
long friends. In Atlas Shrugged, although the strikers may
have had important jobs on the outside, in their own hide-
out of Mulligan’s Valley, they do whatever job is necessary.
When Dagny asks about a young brakeman who becomes
a grease monkey in the valley, Ellis Wyatt explains to her
that there is “no such thing as a lousy job—only lousy men
who don’t care to do it” (665). The statement parallels the

theatrical bromide about there being no small roles, only
small actors who don’t want to do them. In Rand’s hier-
archy of values how well one does one’s work, no matter
what that work is, is of key importance. The code of com-
petence represents a gold standard in Rand’s assessment
of productive and creative achievement.
In this lengthy novel, with numerous philosophical
speeches and plot turns, there are recurring references
to three antipodes: (1) individualism versus collectivism,
(2) egoism versus altruism, and (3) reason versus mysti-
cism. Collectivism, altruism, and mysticism all work to
undermine human potential and are the tools for desta-
bilization and a counterproductive future. The paths to a
vibrant future with maximum potential for human happi-
ness are through reason, egoism, and individualism.
Although the bulk of the For the New Intellectual is reprints
from the fiction as synopsized above, Rand inaugurates this
presentation of the essentials of her philosophy with a long
essay bearing the same title as the book. In this essay, Rand
declares that “America is culturally bankrupt” (3), “sold
out and abandoned by her intellectual bodyguards” (4)
and therefore in need of a new kind of intellectual, one
who rejects the prevailing philosophical, psychological,
literary, and political ways of thinking. Rand divides those
who would rule and oppress the individual, the enemies
of rationality into two archetypes: Attila (the brute) and
the Witch Doctor (the mystic); in other words, force and
faith. One seeks to conquer the body; the other subjugates
the mind, and most often, in Rand’s reading, they make
an alliance for their mutual power. She names force the
“practical expression” of faith and asserts that these two
have dominated every antirational epoch in history, be
56 Ayn Rand
they chieftain and shaman, king and bishop, or dictator

and logical positivist. Reason is their enemy. However, as
they do not produce anything themselves, people who pro-
duce and think and work are the hosts upon which these
parasites feed.
Rand then presents her précis of Western History,
beginning with the birth of philosophy in ancient Greece,
although she reads Plato’s system as “a monument to the
Witch Doctor’s metaphysics” (19). Conversely, Aristotle’s
philosophy she terms “the intellect’s Declaration of
Independence” (20) and claims that his influence is
apparent in “everything that makes us civilized beings,
every rational value that we possess” (20). Rand’s brief
survey of Western History categorizes different periods
according to whether they were ruled by Attila or the
Witch Doctor, claiming Attila’s ascendancy in the Roman
Empire, followed by the Witch Doctor in the Middle Ages.
The Renaissance begins the liberation of the human mind,
which then gains greater ground in the industrial revolu-
tion. Rand subsequently concludes, “The first society in his-
tory whose leaders were neither Attilas nor Witch Doctors,
a society led, dominated and created by the Producers, was
the United States of America” (23). In Rand’s system of
values, “a free mind and a free market are corollaries” [emphasis
in the original] (23). The free market system Rand extols,
although she allows that what the United States. has is not
“full, perfect, totally unregulated laissez-faire capitalism,”
(24) is nonetheless capitalism, which in her values is a sys-
tem that demands the best of every individual.
Certain philosophers are indicted as buttressing the
power of the Attilas and the Witch Doctors. Hume’s nega-
tion of the human mind is her first target, but the main
focus of her condemnation for shutting philosophy off
from reason is Immanuel Kant. In Rand’s reading Kant

“turned the world over to Attila” (31) and the realm of
morality to the Witch Doctor. The sorry state of contempo-
rary philosophies she blames on the fact that they all have
a Kantian base.
Rand heralds the “astounding feats” of scientists in every
field of knowledge during the nineteenth century and the
achievements of businessmen in combating poverty and
misery as they opened trade routes and created machines
to liberate humans from back-breaking labor and drudg-
ery. She indicts Hegel for proclaiming that “matter does
not exist at all, that everything is Idea” (34) and Marx who
claims the opposite—that matter is everything, and the
mind does not exist. In her opinion, “The great treason
of the philosophers was that they never stepped out of the
Middle Ages” (37).
The cover for the first printing of For the New Intellectual
claims that the book “presents the essentials” of Rand’s phi-
losophy, and the cover flap notes indicate that the book
“may serve as an outline or program or manifesto.” Rand’s
intent was to eventually create a full systematic presenta-
tion of Objectivism, her philosophy. In the fiction and the
early nonfiction, she focused on the political and ethical,
moving toward more metaphysical and epistemological
themes. She saw her philosophy as a system and, in her life-
time, approved such methodical presentations as Nathaniel
Branden’s courses in the basic principles of Objectivism.
After the rupture with Branden, Leonard Peikoff offered
a course in the “Philosophy of Objectivism.” Rand’s own
response to a challenge to present the essentials of her
philosophy while standing on one leg was, “Metaphysics:
objective reality. Epistemology: reason. Ethics: Self-interest.
Politics: capitalism.”
58 Ayn Rand
A few years after the publication of For the New Intellectual,

Rand took up the cause of rational self-interest. One of
Rand’s signature techniques is to take a term or concept
and challenge the traditional interpretation of it. It was
a technique she used effectively in Atlas Shrugged with
Francisco’s “Money is the Root of All Good” speech and
Ragnar’s denunciation of the concept that Robin Hood
was a positive symbol. In The Virtue of Selfishness: A New
Concept of Egoism (1964), Rand takes the concept of self-
ishness that had developed a negative connotation and
begins with its dictionary definition or denotation. Rand’s
introduction clarifies that the definition of “selfishness”
is “concern with one’s own interests” and emphasizes that the
dictionary definition does not include a moral dimen-
sion about whether such concern is good or evil. Rand
blames the ethics of altruism for encouraging what she
calls the “two inhuman tenets” (vii) that concern with
one’s own interests is evil and that force is in one’s own
interest. Rand indicts Altruism as a philosophy that holds
that anything done for the benefit of others is good and
that action taken for one’s own benefit is evil. What is
needed to counteract the antihuman happiness ideas and
moral relativism of altruistic ethics is a new concept of
rational morality. Rand provides one in her chapter “The
Objectivist Ethics,” originally one of her lectures. Rand
warns against reading her explication of the virtue of self-
ishness or objectivist ethics as a license to do whatever
one pleases or to adopt a Nietzschean egotistic stand. She
qualifies Objectivist Ethics as derived from the goal of
rational self-interest. After her introduction, the book con-
tains a group of her previously published essays along with
some additional pieces by Nathaniel Branden. Rand also
cautions the reader that the collection is not a systematic
discussion of ethics but often responses to questions that

derive from related issues.
Following from the fact that it was by reading her nov-
els that readers were attracted to her philosophy is Rand’s
penchant for quoting her fictional characters in her non-
fiction explications. “The Objectivist Ethics” begins with
John Galt’s declaration that what is needed in a world
beset by collectivist and altruistic ethics is not a return to
morality but the need to discover it (13). Rand affirms
that the first step in developing a code of ethics or moral-
ity is the need to answer the questions “What are values?
Why does man need them?” (13). She makes clear that
the concept of values presupposes a living entity capable
of originating and having goals. In her devolution the
fact that there is a living entity establishes what it ought
to do.
Altruism is again a target for Rand’s disquisition on “The
Ethics of Emergencies.” The emergencies she addresses
are things such as whether one should risk one’s life to
help a person who is drowning, trapped in a fire, step-
ping in front of a speeding truck, or hanging precariously
over an abyss. The result of an acceptance of the ethics of
altruism would, in her reading, lead to lack of self-esteem
because one is focused on sacrificing one’s life rather than
leading it and a negative attitude toward others as they
would all be viewed as constantly in need of one’s help.
In addition, altruism provokes a reading of the world as
malevolent and/or a lethargy or indifference brought
about with excessive concern with emergency situations
that are unlikely to happen. As Altruism is primarily con-
cerned with helping others, it creates for the individual a
sense of impending sacrifice, what Rand calls a “sacrificial
blank check.”
60 Ayn Rand
Rand’s definition of sacrifice is slightly different than

the dictionary’s in that she adds the words “greater” and
“lesser” to the idea of giving up one thing for another. The
dictionary definition includes the idea that what is given
up is cherished or valued, but does not specify a value for
the something else that replaces the sacrificed object or
thing. Rand defines sacrifice as the giving up of a greater
for a lesser or nonvalue. Her argument continues that as
love and friendship are personal, selfish values, actions
taken on behalf of those one cares about are an expression
of rational self-interest and not a sacrifice. Rand defines
the virtue of helping those one loves and/or cares about
as integrity, not selflessness or sacrifice. Rand does not
eschew helping others altogether as she concludes that in
helping others one is expressing one’s reverence for life,
a sort of solidarity of species. However, she emphasizes the
fact that helping strangers is something one should do
“only in an emergency” (53), with the caveat that all human
suffering and misfortune do not qualify as an emergency
or a mortgage on the lives of others. Emergencies, by def-
inition, are the exception, not the rule.
In her essay about conflicts of interest, Rand defines four
interrelated considerations that are central to the principle
she espouses that there are no conflicts of interest among
rational men.8 The four are reality, context, responsibility,
and effort, and she spends the rest of the essay defining and
clarifying them. In Rand’s analysis of reality, she explains
that the term “interests” is such a broad abstraction that
it can encompass the whole field of ethics as it includes
a person’s values, desires, goals, and their actual achieve-
ment in reality, all of which are dependent on another.
For example, a person’s values will determine desires and
consequently also goals. Values are chosen by the rational
mind. She warns that desires are not tools of cognition

and that just because one desires something it does not
necessarily follow that something is good. Furthermore,
in choosing one’s goals, one should be motivated not by
feeling, but by thinking. For Rand the law of identity holds
in all cases, A is A, and there are no contradictions in real-
ity. When a person’s interests are in conflict with reality,
she insists, then, that the problem is not a philosophical
one, but a psychological one. Moving to the issue of con-
text, Rand explains that any rational being must consider
context in all cases. “Context-dropping is one of the chief
tools of psychological evasion,” she states. The whole of a
person’s life is the appropriate context for setting goals.
The question of the achievement of those goals leads to
the issue of responsibility. One of Rand’s main explana-
tions has to do with evading the responsibility for evaluat-
ing the social world, something she terms “metaphysical
humility,” adjusting oneself blindly to what one considers
unknowable about the world. Rand offers many examples
of people who desire things without trying to figure out
how those desires can be achieved. The issue of effort
concludes this chapter, and as Rand has established the
premise that rational beings should know the means to
achieve their goals, they also know that benefits have to be
produced. Among the key concepts Rand underlines in
this section is that the gain of one does not mean the loss
of another and that achievement is not earned at the cost
of the nonachiever. She also contends that only passive
and parasitical individuals see competition as a threat, and
that is because they do not regard themselves as worthy
and therefore are threatened by the idea of merit. In con-
clusion, Rand reminds the reader that all of the aforemen-
tioned concepts work only in a free society where people
62 Ayn Rand
are free to avoid the irrational. In a nonfree society, she

sees only the possibility of slow destruction.
Rand articulates her attitudes toward compromise in a
brief but to-the-point essay on the topic. Concluding that in
the area of moral principles there can be no compromise,
Rand first clarifies exactly what she defines as compromise.
When one violates and goes back on one’s convictions, it
constitutes a compromise. It is not a compromise when all
that is affected is one’s comfort. For Rand, doing some-
thing one doesn’t like, following an employer’s orders, or
attending an event one doesn’t care for to please a mate are
not compromises. She clarifies what does constitute com-
promise in those instances, that is, pretending to share an
employer’s values or giving in to a mate’s irrational demands
for the sake of social conformity. There are, however, many
areas where there can be no compromise such as between
freedom and government controls, between truth and
falsehood, and/or reason and irrationality. Compromise is
legitimate mutual concession or trade, not betrayal of basic
principles or fundamental issues. Concluding, she quotes
from Atlas Shrugged that in any compromise between food
and poison, only death can win and in any compromise
between good and evil, only evil will benefit.
“One must never fail to pronounce moral judgment”
is Rand’s answer to the question of how one can lead a
rational life in an irrational society. This is her response
to what she defines as a prevalent moral agnosticism, both
a refusal and a failure to pass judgment, to praise virtue,
and condemn vice. Rand is not unmindful of the respon-
sibility that judging includes. She is unflinching in her
assessment that not to judge is to bear responsibility for
allowing evil to continue. No moral neutrality is allowed in
situations where moral values are at issue. Indiscriminate
forbearance and indiscriminate condemnation are not two

opposites, writes Rand, but variations on the same refusal
to judge. The relativistic bromides that nothing is fully
right or wrong, that there is some good in the worst and
some bad in the best and the question of who is qualified
to judge are all lethal to the creation and maintenance of
a rational society. A rational society cannot develop from
moral cowardice.
Following from her warnings about accepting relativistic
attitudes is Rand’s condemnation of what she terms “The
Cult of Moral Grayness,” which derives from the “fashion-
able” dictum that holds that everything is a shade of gray
as there are no blacks and whites. This she warns is a “sto-
len concept” as there can be no gray if there is no black
or white. White and black here are symbols for good and
evil, and one must be able to identify each. In Rand’s sense
of values, once one has determined which is which, there
is no excuse for choosing the evil, although more often
than not, people will rationalize a choice for the black by
trying to pretend that the black in only gray. However, she
also qualifies moral choices made as a result of errors of
knowledge as not gray but white because humans are not
infallible or omniscient. At the same time, she does not
excuse the one who does not desire to know as gray; evad-
ing knowledge is morally black.
The fact that, for any number of reasons, most people
are imperfect does not negate the need to pursue per-
fection, to try to achieve morality. Unless one is willing
to deny morality altogether and to make no distinction
between small infractions and great crimes, one must still
discriminate among the various shadings of gray and in
order to do that, there must be clear definitions of black
and white.
64 Ayn Rand
In addition to refuting the concept that as no one is per-

fect and that perfection should be eschewed, Rand attacks
the misreading of the concept that there are two sides to
every issue. Just because there are two sides, she forewarns,
is not reason to believe that both sides are equally valid.
Although there can be complex situations where no side
is wholly right or wrong, for the most part one side will be
more justified than the other. A basic error in these areas
is that people often forget that morality is involved only
when something is an issue of choice. Not being able is
not the same as not being willing. Thus, she translates the
statement about there being no black and white as really
being about not being willing to be totally good and there-
fore also asking others not to judge one as totally evil.
After a lengthy explication of why most mixtures of gray
eventually become black, and in keeping with her state-
ment that one must always pronounce moral judgment,
Rand asserts that the appropriate response to the question
of whether one sees things in terms of the absolutes of
black or white should be, “You’re damn right I do!”
Among the most pertinent essays for contemporary con-
texts of multiculturalism and globalization is Rand’s essay
on “Racism.” She calls it “the lowest, most crudely primi-
tive form of collectivism” (172). Rand decries judging indi-
viduals by inherited physical factors that are beyond their
control. Like Martin Luther King, Jr., she calls for people
to be judged by their character and actions. Racism, she
derides as a form of determinism that ignores human rea-
son and choice.
For those racists who attempt to prove the superiority
of one group or another by claiming the achievements
of its members as evidence, Rand counters that there is
no such thing as a collective or racial mind and therefore
there can be no such thing as a collective or racial achieve-

ment. The individual creates achievements and cultures
are the aggregate of the intellectual accomplishments of
individuals. Furthermore, she argues that even if it were
so that one or another group had a higher incidence of
individuals with superior brain power, it would prove noth-
ing about this or that individual in the group. “A genius is
a genius, regardless of the number of morons who belong
to the same race” and vice versa she reasons (174). A Nazi
murderer is not superior just because his race is the race
of Goethe, Schiller, and Brahms. Rand sees the psycho-
logical root of racism as a sense of inferiority on the part of
the racist. She categorizes racism with other collectivism as
a pursuit of the unearned that is, automatic self-esteem.
Rand equates racism with collectivism, that is, statism,
something she terms an institutionalized form of gang
rule. She uses the illustrations of both Nazi Germany and
Soviet Russia as examples of how people were discrimi-
nated against or for as a group, in both cases on the bases
of descent. One had to be Aryan in the one case and pro-
letarian in the other. The philosophy of individualism and
its corollary political/economic system of laissez-faire capi-
talism are the only antidotes to racism, be it that of the
Fascists or that of the Communists. Rand argues that rac-
ism was strongest in the countries with the most controlled
economies and weakest in countries such as England with
less state control of the economy.
Addressing the situation for American Negroes (the
appropriate term when Rand was writing this essay in
1963), Rand decries the contradictions in the behavior of
many of the so-called conservatives who should be cham-
pions of freedom, capitalism, and property rights but
who advocate racism. She reminds them that denial of
66 Ayn Rand
individual rights to one group undercuts the support of

individual right for any and all groups. Thus the would-be
defenders of capitalism are helping to undermine it. Nor
does she ignore the contradictions of the so-called liberals
who call for the sacrifice of the one to the majority. They
claim to be champions of minorities, but as she reminds
her reader, the individual is the smallest minority on earth.
Finally, she addresses the contradictions in the behavior
of the so-called Negro leaders who at one and the same
time claim to be fighting racial discrimination but are
arguing for their own kind of racial discrimination in the
form of racial quotas. Instead of advancing the cause of
color blindness, they want to make color a primary con-
sideration. Blatant racism is the only term for penalizing
a person just because of his skin color, of making today’s
White laborer the inheritor of what could or might not
be the sins of his ancestors. After all, much of the United
States population is descended from people who were not
even in the country during the time of slavery.
Finally, Rand contends that just as the government and
other public institutions have no right to discriminate
against any citizen based on the race or other ethnic back-
ground, so by the same principle the government and
other public institutions have no right to discriminate for
individuals on the same basis. Although she despises rac-
ism as evil, irrational, and morally contemptible, she is
concerned about the difference between the public and
private realms. For all of her abhorrence, she maintains
that freedom of speech must be protected. Finally, she
warns against the racism of blaming all Negroes for the
racist demands of some of their leaders, remonstrating
that most groups of the time lack in moral and intellectual
leadership and representation.
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal was published two years

after The Virtue of Selfishness. More than any of the other
books published in her lifetime, it is a composite, contain-
ing not only her articles but also those of Alan Greenspan,
Robert Hessen, and Nathaniel Branden. Greenspan, the
economist of the group, contributed three essays, whereas
Branden wrote two and Hessen one. Rand introduces the
volume by alerting the reader that what follows is not a trea-
tise on economics but “a collection of essays on the moral
aspects of capitalism” (vii). In the context of Objectivism,
laissez-faire capitalism is the only system appropriate for
the life of a rational being. Rand stresses that Objectivists
are not conservatives but radicals for capitalism. The book is
necessitated because, in her opinion, all previous defend-
ers of capitalism have contributed to its precarious status in
that they have not fought for it on a moral–philosophical
basis. Rand identifies capitalism as the politico-economic
system that has more than any previous or subsequent sys-
tem in history, benefited humankind while being attacked
and misrepresented. Her concern was that young people
were not being presented with an appropriate explana-
tion of its moral basis. Composing her texts in the early
1960s, Rand was writing at the height of the global conflict
between Communism and Capitalism. She did not live to
see the validation of her critique of the flaws and failures
of a collectivist economic system, the collapse of the Soviet
Union, and the adoption of a form of Capitalism by the
largest Communist system in the world.
“Man’s Rights” and “The Nature of Government,” two
essays previously published in The Virtue of Selfishness, are
reprinted in this book because Rand contends that every
political system is based on a theory of ethics and there-
fore readers need a clear understanding of the concepts
68 Ayn Rand
of rights and governments to appreciate her presenta-

tion. As she suggests, readers should be familiar with
them prior to dealing with the issues of Capitalism, a
capsule summary of each is in order. In “Man’s Rights,”
Rand asserts that the basis for a free society is individual
rights and that historically the dominant political systems
have been based instead on some form of what she calls
“altruistic–collectivist doctrine,” a doctrine that subordi-
nates the individual to some higher authority, be it in the
form of religion (mystical) or state (social). Of particular
importance, as so many collectivist–altruistic systems place
society outside the moral code, is Rand’s decoding of the
concept. Rand declares that there is no such thing as “soci-
ety” because society as an entity is made up of individuals
and thus must not be placed outside the moral law. For
her, the fact that society is subordinated to moral law in
the United States is a significant revolutionary accomplish-
ment. The United States does not regard the individual as
belonging to the state or society but as an end in himself.
He is protected against the state and the state’s powers are
limited by the constitution.
One of Rand’s main concerns in this essay is that the
definition of a “right” is being adulterated. In her reading
there is only one fundamental “right” and that is the right
to one’s own life. From that right derives the freedom to
take those actions necessary to sustain and enjoy that life.
The right to property is an implementation of the right to
life, thus the individual has a right to the fruits of his own
efforts. One who produces but has the fruits of his efforts
dispensed by others is a slave. She is very clear on the fact
that the government was created to protect individual
rights and the Constitution to protect the individual from
the government.
The danger she decries is the altruistic–collectivist

attempt to enlarge the concept of rights to such an extent
that it is meaningless. The “gimmick,” she explains, is
switching from the political to the economic. Citing the
Democratic Party platform of 1960 for illustration, she
quotes language in it, which declares an “economic bill of
rights.” Thus, a “right” to a job, a home, medical care, a
good education, and even protection from economic fears
are proclaimed. Rand’s main question about the creation
of all these new “rights” is about who will pay for them. As
these “rights” are not natural rights, they have to be pro-
duced by human beings. If one human being is entitled
to the fruits of the labors of another, it makes the latter
a slave, thus the supposed rights of one is a violation of
the rights of another. Rand questions the right to enslave.
She points out that one’s rights do not include the obliga-
tion of others to provide them. One example she uses is
that just because one has the right to free speech, it does
not follow that anybody has to supply the microphone, lec-
ture hall, or broadcast medium through which to make
that speech. She reminds the reader that rights are moral
principles, and while they define and protect one’s free-
dom of action, they do not entail obligations on others.
She directs the reader to the precision of language used
in the United States founding documents; the language is
of the right to the pursuit of happiness, not the right to hap-
piness. Therefore, while all can do what may be necessary
to achieve happiness, there is no guarantee that others
have an obligation to make one happy. The same applies
to other rights such as property and free trade.
Rand encourages the reader to remember that criminals
are a small minority of the population in every era and
place. Whatever harm they do is minute when compared
70 Ayn Rand
with the devastation, horrors, bloodshed, and destruction

caused by governments. Rand cautions that a government
is potentially, if not limited, the most dangerous threat to
the individual and that it was against the dangers of gov-
ernment power that the Bill of Rights was written.
Rand’s concern about the erosion of individual liberty
by the blurring of the distinction between government
and the individual is expressed in her analysis of the
issue of “censorship.” The term is used promiscuously to
include such things as the refusal of a newspaper to hire
a writer who espoused views contradictory to its own or
for businessmen to refuse to advertise in a magazine that
denounces them. Rand clarifies that the term “censorship”
applies only to government action. For the individual it is
a matter of free speech or choice.
In conclusion, Rand declares that the crucial issue is
political rights versus economic rights. She declares that
there are no such things as economic rights, collective
rights, or public-interest rights. They only kind of rights
are individual rights, a term she sees as redundant because
there is no other kind of rights.
In the essay on government Rand addresses the issue of
whether humans need an institution that holds exclusive
power to enforce rules within its jurisdiction. Rand first
acknowledges the benefits of a social existence but quali-
fies it as being positive only if it’s a society that accepts the
basic principle of individual rights. As a person’s rights
can be violated only by the use of physical force, a pre-
condition of a civilized society is that reason will be the
only basis for social interaction and that all physical force
will be barred. However, the right of self-defense is nec-
essary, and the use of retaliatory force requires evidence
and proof as well as objective rules to classify degrees of
punishment and enforcement rules. Therefore, Rand con-

cludes that one appropriate role for government is to put
the retaliatory use of physical force under objective con-
trol, emphasizing that the individual is allowed to do all
that is not forbidden by law, whereas the government offi-
cial can do nothing that is not proscribed by law. Another
instance in which a government is needed is in the case of
contract disagreements or breaches, whether intentional,
criminal, or owing to irresponsibility or neglect. Rand
reiterates her thesis that the proper function of govern-
ment falls into three categories, all of them involving the
use of physical force but only to protect individual rights:
to protect men from each other—the police; to protect
against foreign invaders—the military; and to settle dis-
putes among people—the law courts.
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal is divided into two sections:
Theory, and History and Current State. Beginning with a
definition of terms, Rand calls into question the bases of
twentieth century psychology and political economy that
“attempt to study and to devise social systems without ref-
erence to man” (3), ignoring the fact that the community
or the group is made up of the individual human being.
This focus on the group or community Rand attributes
to a tribal view of man that developed out of European
culture, whose intellectuals never quite assimilated the
American philosophy of the Rights of Man. In her reading
of European intellectual history, the concept of being a
serf under the rule by a feudal lord or king was replaced by
the concept of the citizen being subservient to the needs
of the state, what she calls “switching from slavery to a
tribal chief into slavery to the tribe” (5). As evidence of the
depth of the penetration of this tribal view, Rand decon-
structs the Encyclopaedia Britannica article on capitalism, an
72 Ayn Rand
article she calls “disgraceful” for its failure to understand

that capitalism is a system that was able to outstrip previ-
ous economic systems in that it gave individuals the free-
dom to create wealth; Rand is especially put out with a
statement in the article that capitalism succeeded because
it used the “social surplus” productively. Rand denied the
existence of a “social surplus,” noting “all wealth is pro-
duced by somebody and belongs to somebody” (6). Like
Pope who wrote, “The proper study of mankind is man,”
Rand explains that one can learn about society by studying
the individual man but nothing about the individual man
by studying society. To study man, then, is to understand
his essential characteristics, the main one being his ratio-
nal faculty with the mind as his basic tool for survival and
only means of accumulating knowledge.
The issue of war is also important in the context of
Rand’s defense of capitalism. For her, there is only one
kind of war that is morally acceptable and that is a war of
self-defense. She reiterates here that the initiation of force
is wrong. As she reads the history of the Western world,
it is capitalism that creates the most propitious situation
for peace, having inaugurated one of the longest periods
of peace in recent memory, that period between the end
of the Napoleonic wars in 1815 and World War I in 1914.
Rand sees war as essentially an act of looting, theorizing
that societies that have freedom to produce do not need to
loot from others, therefore capitalist systems do not cause
wars. It was statist governments that caused both World
War I and World War II. Rand is also opposed to the draft,
which she sees as an infringement of individual rights. In
her view, the best army is a volunteer army and that is what
results when individuals value their rights and freedom or
when a country is under attack.
Among the other topics that Rand tackles in Capitalism:

The Unknown Ideal are “The Pull Peddlers” and “The
Property Status of Airwaves.” In the former, she decries
the sorry state of the United States foreign policy, which
she calls “grotesquely irrational.” It is defended either by
an “idealistic” or a “practical” argument, the one arguing
that we have a duty to support “underdeveloped” coun-
tries that will sink without our help while arguing that we
need to buy the favor of these same countries or they will
become a threat to us. The contradiction defies logic, and
Rand contends that when a country persists in following
a suicidal course, there is obviously a disjunction between
reality and the proclaimed rationale. The sad truth she
contends is that there is no truth that the rationalizations
are hiding, but only “scurrying cockroaches,” responding
to foreign lobbies. Going to the root of the problem, Rand
explains that as long as such concepts as the public inter-
est or national or international interests are considered
valid principles by those making the rules governing lob-
bying, this government by “pull” will continue. Again, she
questions the rational justification and objective criterion
for defining “the public interest.” Even the wisest person
in the world will not be able to define a criterion for an
unjust and irrational principle. Who is regarded as “the
public?” The ones with the most effective lobbyist?
Rand blames the suicidal bleeding of US foreign aid on
“the manipulations of little lawyers and public relations
men,” taking advantage of a cynical and bankrupt culture,
and intellectuals with worn-out ideologies.
In the chapter about the airwaves, Rand begins by reaf-
firming her premise that when something is produced by
human action and would not exist without that action, then
that thing should be a private property and subject to the
74 Ayn Rand
application of property rights. For its failure to define how

those property rights will be applied to the airwaves, she
blames the American government and predicts disastrous
results. Rand questions Justice Frankfurter’s argument
that because radio waves are limited and therefore not
available to everybody, they should be public property. She
counters that oil, wheat, diamonds, land, and most other
material things exist in limited quantities, yet they are not
public property. As the government is charged with pro-
tecting individual rights, it should have, as soon as this new
realm opened, defined the property rights. Her suggestion
is that the same method as was used in the Homestead Act
of 1862 should have been applied. As with any venture that
is the result of human creativity and invention, radio sta-
tions should be the property of those who establish them
and be subject to the vagaries of the free market. Again
Rand reiterates her quarrel with the whole notion of such
a thing as public property, a thing she calls a collectivist
fiction because the public as a whole can never really own
that property; instead it will be controlled by some politi-
cal “elite” and/or bureaucrats. Concluding, Rand calls for
healing the breach between scientific achievements and
ideological development.
Moving from the realms of economics and politics to
the world of the esthetic, Rand clarifies her philosophy
of art and establishes a defense of her artistic taste. In
The Romantic Manifesto (1969), subtitled A Philosophy of
Literature, Rand defines art as “a selective recreation of
reality according to an artist’s metaphysical value-judg-
ments.” She then develops an argument about the con-
nections between art and a sense of life, an explanation of
the basic principles of literature, the goals of her writing
and a definition of Romanticism. Rand identifies herself
as a writer of “Romantic realism” and indicts the abandon-

ment of rational esthetics as the cause of what she sees
as the contemporary degradation of art; “cultural sewer”
is the expression she uses to describe it. Identifying her-
self as a link to the great artistic achievements of the nine-
teenth century, she argues for an esthetic Renaissance to
the high art of Romanticism. Unlike her earlier nonfic-
tion works, The Romantic Manifesto contains only essays by
Rand, all except one having been published previously in
the Objectivist journal or newsletter. It is also the most uni-
fied and coherent of her nonfiction productions.
Rand’s philosophy of literature develops from an
Aristotelian base. She is in accordance with Aristotle’s
justification for literature as occupying a higher level of
truth than history, for history represents things only as
they are, whereas poetry (literature) represents them as
they might be or ought to be. Literature thus presents prin-
ciples and universal truths and is a conveyer of moral ide-
als. Communicating moral ideals in the persons of her
heroes and heroines is exactly what Rand’s art does. Rand
explains that if she were to compose a dedication page for
an anthology of all her works, it would read “To the glory
of man.”
In Rand’s estimation nineteenth-century Romanticism
was a product of an Aristotelian sense of life, fueled by
capitalism and rebellion against the prevailing Classicist
esthetic establishment but without an under girding phi-
losophy. Her quarrel is with what she considers a misread-
ing of Classicists as exemplars of reason and Romanticists
as advocates of the primacy of emotions. This she contends
is definition by nonessentials; the key, she explains is that
primacy of values was the essential Romantic qualifier. Rand
then presents her hierarchy of Romantic writers, placing
76 Ayn Rand
Victor Hugo and Feodor Dostoevsky in the primary cat-

egory for novelists and Friedrich Schiller and Edmond
Rostand as the leading playwrights. In the second tier
of Romanticists, she places Walter Scott and Alexander
Dumas. A special favorite, and one she tried to emulate
early in her writing career, is O. Henry for his ever-inventive
imagination and his zestful playfulness as well as his role
as a popularizer of Romanticism’s psychological mission
of making life interesting. Among the novels that she cites
for their Romantic vision are Quo Vadis? and The Scarlet
Letter. Still, for all her admiration for the Romantics, Rand
saw their inability to create a convincing image of a heroic
or virtuous man as a major flaw. Their main heroes remain
abstractions or cardboard figures, she argues, while at the
same time the best-drawn characters are the semivillains
or villains.
In the twentieth century, Naturalism was a prevailing lit-
erary mode and the antithesis of Romanticism. Whereas
Romanticism proceeds from a moral base and the con-
cept of human beings as capable of free will, Naturalism
attempts a nonjudgmental approach and depicts humans
as the victims of a deterministic universe. Its founder,
Emile Zolá, actually called for writers to approximate the
scientific method and evaluate human beings mainly on
the basis of heredity. Rand rejects what she calls Zolá’s
journalistic methods and points out the flaws in a deter-
ministic view. She demeans Shakespeare as the spiritual
precursor of nineteenth-century Naturalism and names
Honoré de Balzac and Leo Tolstoy as his heirs. Tolstoy’s
Anna Karenina she indicts as “the most evil book in serious
literature” (104) because of its message of hopelessness.
Rand explains that Naturalists, having eschewed
the elements of plot and even of story, concentrate
on characterization and thus the most effective of the

Naturalist writers can accomplish a level of psycholog-
ical perceptiveness. Third-rate writers of the school of
Naturalism may succeed to a greater extent than third-
rate Romanticists because the standards are much less
demanding. Romanticists must be ingenious, imaginative,
and have a sense of drama for they create a story from the
ground up. The Naturalist is not required to construct or
create an integrated plot and theme but only a progres-
sion of not necessarily purposeful events.
An interesting aspect of The Romantic Manifesto is Rand’s
evaluation of the literature of her time, particularly pop-
ular literary genres. Rand is willing to give good writers
their due, even if she disagrees with their esthetic prin-
ciples. Therefore, she points out that Naturalism did
include some novelists of great writing talent. Sinclair
Lewis is complimented for the perceptiveness of his criti-
cal acumen and John O’Hara for his insightful intelli-
gence and closely controlled style. In terms of Romantic
writers, however, she categorizes what she calls remnants
of Romanticism that sneak themselves into the periph-
eries of our culture. One such remnant she identifies as
literature of the supernatural with Rod Serling as one of
its most talented purveyors, although he had to place his
stories in another dimension, The Twilight Zone, to get his
theme across. Alfred Hitchcock is complimented for get-
ting away with Romanticism by his technique of quirky
horror plots and a sneaky sort of malevolence.
Rand follows up on her ideas about the way Romanticism
is indirectly expressed in our culture with an essay titled
“Bootleg Romanticism.” Before she begins explaining the
specifics of how Romanticism is bootlegged into the art
of our culture, she starts with some sweeping statements
78 Ayn Rand
about the nature of art and its relationship to the state of a

culture or civilization. She situates art as a barometer that
reflects a society’s profound philosophical values, that is,
the way that society views man and existence. Using the
analogy of a patient revealing naked truths about himself
on a psychiatrist’s coach, Rand declares that an analysis of
the culture is easily achieved by studying its art. From her
perspective, the patient is in dire shape. The cause is hav-
ing been nursed on generations of antirational philosophy
that produces fear, guilt, and pity (a pity she identifies as
self-pity). Her scorn for what she terms “the sewer school
of art” is manifest in every paragraph. Most especially she
highlights the evil way that “tongue-in-cheek” thrillers are
concocted. Thrillers, she identifies, as the last refuge of the
Romantic qualities of life, color, and imagination in the
popular art of her age. The thriller plot form can, if uti-
lized with the creative skill of a Victor Hugo or Doestoevsky,
lead to a masterpiece. In less-skilled hands, what results is
the contemporary thriller, which although it can follow the
classical plot structure, does not reach the full potential of
a piece of Romantic literature. Rand calls them kindergar-
ten arithmetic, simplified and elementary versions.
Rand’s hostility toward what she identifies as the tongue-
in-cheek approach to contemporary thrillers is not that
she objects to humor per se, but that humor is not an unal-
loyed virtue. When the humor is at the expense of not the
stupid, mean, miserly, but the bright, heroic, and gener-
ous, then it is a tool of destruction, an exercise in malice.
She sees it as a possible way to camouflage moral coward-
ice and is particularly disgusted by the appropriation of
the positive for the purpose of undercutting it.
The popularity of such best-selling writers of her time as
Mickey Spillane and Ian Fleming are evidence to Rand of
the common desire for literature of a Romantic nature.

Both Mike Hammer (Spillane’s detective) and James Bond
(Fleming’s secret agent) are exemplars of the heroic.9
Concluding her chapter, Rand follows through with her
use of the bootleg metaphor by calling for a repeal of the
Joyce-Kafka Amendment (likened to the 18th Amendment
that established prohibition).10 Rand equates Naturalism
with rotgut, an inferior and potentially dangerous alco-
holic mixture, often sold by moon shiners and bootleggers
during Prohibition.
In his 1997 Academy Award nominated documentary
film about Ayn Rand, Michael Paxton chose the subtitle
of “A Sense of Life” to communicate his theme. “Sense of
Life” was a trait that Rand found essential to understanding
individuals and evaluating art. In her essay “Art and Sense
of Life” she defines an individual’s sense of life as that part
of the psychology that governs a person’s responses to
humanity and existence. It would therefore be central to
an artist’s choices about subject matter, theme, and even
style, and consequently also govern how the viewer and/
or reader responds to a particular work of art. It is by what
the artist chooses to emphasize, what the artist considers
important that a sense of life is conveyed. If one’s sense of
life is in accord with that of the artist, then one appreci-
ates the art. Ronald E. Merrill challenges Rand’s definition,
pointing out that many will choose art that expresses not
the sense of life they have but the one they would like to
have.11 Merrill notes that in her novels Rand depicts a world
where great things can be accomplished, but only after dif-
ficult and tortured battles against great odds. However, in
her choice of music, for example, she appreciated what
she called her “tiddlywink” music, a lighthearted and chal-
lenge-free music that projected pure happiness.
80 Ayn Rand
The Romantic Manifesto contains much of Rand’s esthetic

philosophy and critique of the literature of her time.
Thirty-one years after its publication and after Rand’s
death, her informal lectures were edited and published as
The Art of Fiction.
Of interest for those who wonder about the evolution
of her thought is that these lectures were offered in her
living room in 1958 before the essays written and repub-
lished in the manifesto. The book could serve as a Creative
Writing and Literary Criticism class in one.
The year 1971 brought the publication of The New Left:
The Anti-Industrial Revolution. The zeitgeist of the times was
dropout, drugs, and rebellion and though the publication
decade was the seventies, it was in terms of happenings,
the heyday of what we have come to associate with the six-
ties. Rand addresses some contemporary phenomena that
may seem anachronistic for our times, but in her analysis
of what movements such as the hippies and “smorgasbord
education” will bring about, Rand was right on target.
Perhaps the most prescient of her observations is in the
extensive, five-part article called “The Comprachicos.”
In it she dissects and reveals the harmful effects of the
United States education system. The title alludes to a sec-
tion from Victor Hugo’s The Man Who Laughs in which
he describes a seventeenth-century association of that
name (comprachicos—child buyers). These people would
buy children and then purposefully deform them to
create freaks that would be saleable as entertainment
for courts and sideshows. Rand then makes the analogy
between that group and the United States education sys-
tem. Her thesis is that our progressive nursery schools
begin an educational process that stunts the mind in a
manner analogous to the way the comprachicos twisted the
bodies of the hapless children that fell in their clutches.

To compound the horror, the comprachicos of the mind do
their mutilations openly, without having to buy the chil-
dren but instead having them approvingly delivered to
them. Rand quotes an old Jesuit dictum that claims that
if they can teach a child up to the age of seven, that child
will forever bear the implant of those teachings. Rand
traces the development of a child’s cognitive and integra-
tive development and quotes extensively from Dr. Maria
Montessori’s handbook of her educational methods as an
example of rational educational methods, the opposite of
the progressive schools Rand condemns. In 1983 a blue-
ribbon commission appointed by President Reagan issued
its findings about the United States education system in “A
Nation at Risk.” “Goals 2000” and subsequent reports by
various commissions and think tanks verify that American
students are falling behind their counterparts in other
industrialized nations. A recent report places them sev-
enteenth in worldwide math and science skills. On the
twenty-fifth anniversary of “A Nation at Risk” and nearly
four decades after Rand’s indictment “Strong American
Schools,” a nonpartisan organization, reports that few of
the commission’s recommendations have been enacted
and that the United Stated education system, although
it spends more per student than its peer countries, rarely
comes in first or even second by most international mea-
sures. Rand’s sweeping denunciation was not heeded and,
in fact, she was condemned as reactionary by left-leaning
groups. Time, however, has vindicated her predictive
abilities.
The New Left: An Anti-Industrial Revolution has gone
through a number of editions. In 1975 it was published
with the added essay “The Age of Envy.” Return of the
82 Ayn Rand
Primitive: An Anti-Industrial Revolution, edited by Peter

Schwartz and with additional essays written by him was
published in 1999.
Ironically, although a theory of knowledge is basic to
philosophy, Ayn Rand did not publish her Introduction to
Objectvist Epistemology until 1979, just three years before
her death.12 In it Rand presents chapters on “Cognition
and Measurement,” “Concept-Formation,” “Abstractions
from Abstractions,” “Concepts of Consciousness,”
“Definitions,” “Axiomatic Concepts,” “The Cognitive
Role of Concepts,” and “Consciousness and Identity”
as her section of the text. She then offers a brief sum-
mary. What follows is a substantial essay “The Analytic–
Synthetic Dichotomy” by Leonard Peikoff that occupies
about a third of the book. In 1990 Harry Binswanger and
Leonard Peikoff published an expanded second edition
that included material from workshops Rand had con-
ducted from 1969 to 1971. Transcriptions of the question
and answer period of these workshops are the heart of
the additional material.
Rand clarifies that this work is mainly concerned with
the nature of concepts and that the organization of con-
cepts into propositions and the broader principles of lan-
guage are not addressed except minimally since for Rand
concepts function in the field of cognition as numbers do
in the field of mathematics, the function of a proposition
being like that of an equation. She warns that a proposi-
tion can function properly only if the concepts that com-
pose it are precisely defined.
Rand begins with a discussion of how it is that in the
form of percepts humans first grasp the evidence of their
senses and apprehend reality. The concept of “existent”
being implicit in every percept, it then goes through
three stages of development in the mind from entity to

identity to unit. Integrating two or more units based on
their same distinguishing characteristics then forms con-
cepts. Moving through the formation of abstractions to
the issues of definition and axiomatic concepts, Rand goes
on in her concluding section to once again lay the assault
on man’s conceptual faculty at the feet of Kant who she
blames for attacking man’s rational faculty. Rand stresses
the importance of epistemology because it answers the
second crucial question basic to every conclusion or deci-
sion. The first is: What do I know? And the second is: How
do I know it?
The last work Ayn Rand planned is Philosophy: Who Needs It,
published shortly after her death in 1982. The title is taken
from a speech Rand gave to the graduating class at West
Point in March of 1974, and it serves as the first chapter
of the book. Like her other nonfiction books this is a com-
pilation of previously written pieces, either for Objectivist
publications or to deliver as a speech. The other speech
in the volume, “Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the
Modern World,” delivered at both Brooklyn College and
Columbia University, dates back more than two decades
to 1960; most of the rest of the chapters are dated in the
early 1970s.
The fundamental contention of the opening essay is that
there are three questions every human being should ask:
(1) Where am I? (2) How do I know it? (3) What should
I do? Trouble comes if one does not seek to answer these
questions and philosophy is the tool by which they are
answered. Rand then correlates each question with the
branch of philosophy that deals with the answers to that
question, specifically identifying metaphysics and episte-
mology as the theoretical foundation of philosophy and
84 Ayn Rand
ethics as its technology. As ethics determines how humans

should treat other humans, so politics deals with questions
of proper social systems. Finally, she identifies esthetics, the
study of art, as being determined by the other branches,
excepting politics.
As this was originally an address to the cadets at West
Point, Rand uses military metaphors to explain why it is so
important for them to study not only Aristotle, whom she
considers positively, but also philosophers whose direction
has been and is, in Rand’s perspective, the destruction of
the human mind. Just as armies need intelligence about
the enemy’s weaponry and maneuvers to effectively fight
them, so in philosophy one must understand the opposi-
tion’s ideas and arguments to be able to rebut and counter-
act them. Rand commends West Point graduates on their
proud and disciplined posture and exhorts them to study
philosophy so that their minds achieve the same proud
and disciplined stance.
The archenemy Rand identifies is Kant, and she likens
his philosophical system to a booby trap. In Rand’s per-
ception, a Kantian–Hegelian–collectivist establishment
threatened the culture. The attacks on ROTC and the
defense budget are all part of their strategy for destroying
the country, which they hate for its being a refutation of a
Kantian universe. Rand emphasizes the importance of phi-
losophy as a weapon with which to counter the arguments
of those who undermine reason. Rand lauds the cadets
for preserving those characteristics she identifies with the
founding of the nation: earnestness, dedication, and a
sense of honor. Concluding her presentation she reiter-
ates her principles about the appropriate use of force as
self-defense and in retaliation against those who initiate its
use, thus subordinating might to right.
Many of the essays in this work proceed along an anti-

Kantian trajectory although he is named only in the title
of one: “Kant Versus Sullivan.”13 The Sullivan of the title
is Annie Sullivan, the woman who taught the blind–deaf–
mute Helen Keller language. Rand thinks that The Miracle
Worker, the play that dramatizes the education of Helen
Keller, may be the only epistemological play ever written
in that it illustrates the transformative power of language,
thus the development of conceptual learning. Sullivan
uses the sense of touch to help Helen connect things with
her spelling of them in the girl’s palm. At first, it is just a
meaningless game without understanding, but in the cli-
max of the play Helen absorbs the connect between the
word and the thing, gaining understanding that opens the
world for her through what Rand calls the “priceless pos-
session: language.”
It must be remembered that Rand’s works of nonfiction
were compilations, for the most part, of occasional pieces
that had been published or presented previously. As such,
they do not have the same kind of coherence as more tra-
ditional academic works of philosophy. Notwithstanding
this, a number of scholars have, since her death, attempted
to systematize her philosophy both for purposes of rebuttal
and clarification.14 Ed Younkins is one of a number of ana-
lysts who have attempted to clarify and synthesize Rand’s
philosophy. In a recent anthology chapter, he attempts
to “introduce, logically rearrange, and clarify through
rewording the ideas scattered throughout” Rand’s books
and essays to the end of explaining her “philosophy for liv-
ing on earth.”15 He summarizes Objectivism accordingly.
In Rand’s metaphysical philosophy, reality is objective and
absolute. For her epistemological system, the mind is capa-
ble of discovering valid information of that which exists.
86 Ayn Rand
Because of her basic premise that man is a rational being

and an end in himself , he has a right to choose those values
and goals that best serve his purpose to be the best person
he can be. This is in accordance with her moral theory of
self-interest. Younkins reinforces Rand’s contention that
a coherent philosophy that includes metaphysics, episte-
mology, and ethics must precede and determine politics
and that politics then precedes and determines econom-
ics. Leonard Peikoff, her chosen intellectual heir, pub-
lished Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand in 1991; he
calls it the only comprehensive study of her philosophy. A
paperback copy was issued in 1993. There is also an audio
CD of the course on Objectivism that Peikoff offered when
Rand was still alive. Currently, The Objectivist Academic
Center offers a 26-week course that can be audited.
3
Reception and Influence of

Rand’s Work
Compared to her later novels and works of nonfiction,

Ayn Rand’s early works created minimal stir or buzz in
the publishing or political world. Her play Night of January
16th, although not a big hit, did have a respectable run
on Broadway, opening in late 1935. Brooks Atkinson of
the New York Times was dismissive, but most of the other
reviews were appreciative of the gimmick of having audi-
ence members picked each night to act as the jury; some
approved the perceived melodrama of the action. Few
addressed Rand’s thematic concerns. Opening night, Jack
Dempsey, heavy weight boxing champion was part of the
jury; another significant jury member was Helen Keller
at a performance for a blind audience. The play closed
after a run of 283 performances. Two road companies per-
formed the play, and it is a staple of summer stock and
community theatre.1 In 1941 a film version of the play star-
ring Robert Preston and Ellen Drew was released. Rand
had nothing to do with the screen adaptation and claims
that it bears little resemblance to her play except for char-
acter names and a line of dialogue. She had a low opinion
of it. Although Rand’s first professional writing impact was
as a playwright, it is curious that she never had another
successful play mounted during her lifetime. In 1940, her
88 Ayn Rand
adaptation of We the Living was produced under the title

The Unconquered. Barbara Branden catalogues all of the fac-
tors that went into making the play a disaster, among them
a famous comedy director who was not good at directing
a serious play, poor casting, and a script that had been
doctored too much. The reviews pronounced it a mishap
and unimpressive (1986, 150–54). After a five-day run, the
play closed, and Rand never again exercised her playwrit-
ing ability. Ideal and Think Twice, two other plays she had
written in the early period of her career were neither pub-
lished nor produced in her lifetime. One positive effect of
Rand’s first professional success was that the royalties from
the box office of Night of January 16th allowed Rand and
her husband to live comfortably for the first time since
their marriage.
Shortly after Night of January 16th closed its Broadway
run, We the Living was published. Rand’s success as a play-
wright did not translate into much interest in publishing
houses for her novel, initially titled Airtight. Perhaps, this
was caused by the seemingly great difference in subject
matter between the play and the novel and in the distinct
genres that often attract different readers. The play, set
in the United States, is a courtroom drama, basically with
what Rand called a “sense of life” theme. The novel depicts
the destructive happenings in the Soviet Union and its
tragic and crushing effects on both its proponents and
antagonists. Rand’s clear indictment of the Soviet system,
during this period that is often called the “Red Decade,”
is another likely cause for the lack of promotion of her
first novel. Condemnation of the Soviet experiment did
not cohere with the national zeitgeist of sympathy for the
communist revolution, particularly among the intelligent-
sia. Rand’s contract with MacMillan, the novel’s initial
Reception and Influence of Rand’s Work 89
publisher, was preceded by rejections from such major

publishing houses as Dutton, Knopf, Little Brown & Co.,
Longmans Green, Viking Press, Bobbs-Merrill, Farrar &
Rinehart, Simon & Schuster, and Appleton-Century-Crofts
(Ralston 2004, 157).
We the Living is the opening volley in Ayn Rand’s life-
long battle against the forces of collectivism. But, if the
publishing houses did not recognize the significance of
the novel’s plot and theme, Rand was quite clear about
the import of her novel. She understood that this work
was unique in that it was the first novel in English to
present, from one who had witnessed it firsthand, the
everyday mind-numbing and spirit-destroying reality
of life for middle-class Russians during and after the
Bolshevik takeover of the revolution. In a letter to her ini-
tial agent Jean Wick, Rand wrote, “The American Reader
has no knowledge of it [existence in Leningrad]. . . . If
he had—we would not have the appalling number of
parlor Bolsheviks and idealistic sympathizers with the
Soviet regime, liberals who would scream with horror if
they knew the truth of Soviet existence” (Berliner ed.
1995, 17–18). A significant early ally was H.L. Menken
who wrote to her that he sympathized with her position
and thought it important to counter Communist propa-
ganda (Ralston 2004, 136).
As could be expected, reviews of We the Living often
divided along political lines. Strangely, although Ayn
Rand’s memory is of reviews “not appearing” or that
those that appeared were mostly negative (B. Branden
1986, 126), Michael Berliner reports that there are some
125 reviews in the Ayn Rand Archives and that it was
the “most reviewed of any of her works” (2004, 147).
Both major New York papers, The Times and The Herald
90 Ayn Rand
Tribune reviewed it, the Times finding artistic flaws and

a tendency to propagandize but not questioning the
accuracy of Rand’s depiction. In contrast, The Tribune
reviewer called the novel “passionate and powerful”
(quoted in Berliner 2004, 147). Interestingly enough,
reviewers who had never been to Russia often questioned
the accuracy of Rand’s depiction of the desperate state
of the bourgeoisie or remarked as did Ida Zeitlin, the
Tribune reviewer, that she was sure things had improved
for the people in Soviet Russia since the time Rand was
depicting. Another criticism was of Rand’s choice of Kira
Argounova as a spokesperson. Ben Belitt, writing in The
Nation, reveals more about his moral values than about
his appreciation of the novel. He cannot respect Kira’s
actions because she chooses to sleep with Andrei to
save Leo. He sees her as shuttling about “aimlessly from
bedroom to rostrum.” Going through Rand’s archives
Berliner comments about which reviews she circled and
her response to the phenomenon of wildly contradic-
tory reviews. Besides the major review venues, We the
Living received attention in such diverse print media
as Salt Lake City’s Desert News, the Oklahoman, and the
Indianapolis Times. Inexplicably and notwithstanding the
critical attention and the fact that all of the first printing
sold out, Macmillan destroyed the plates and thus lost
the rights to publish Rand’s next novel. It also meant
that We the Living was out of print in the United States for
a generation until 1959 when Random House published
the second edition. However, this did not mean that the
novel sank out of sight. Of note is that although it was out
of print in the United States, Cassell & Co., Ltd., Rand’s
British publisher released it in 1937 and kept it in print
for some time; Rand received royalties for ten years. The
reviews in the British Isles were generally complimentary,

although The Times Literary Supplement opined that, given
the material, Rand could have written a more interest-
ing novel. A number of the British reviews remarked on
Rand’s command of the English language. The Irish Press
review assessment was that Rand’s depiction of the miser-
able situation under Communism was “as convincing as
a Rembrandt drawing” (quoted in Berliner 2004, 150).
We the Living was also reviewed in Australia where the
critics were of many minds. One found fault with Rand’s
command of the language, another rightly understood
that her theme was against state tyranny in all its mani-
festations. Another took a love story message from it,
deducing that although there may be political changes,
a woman’s heart resists new orders.
Rand also received a handsome royalty check from the
Danish publisher and the book was so popular in Italy that
an Italian movie company pirated it and made an unau-
thorized film version during World War II (Ralston 2004,
141). Of course, the Italian fascists read it solely as an indict-
ment of Communism and Soviet Russia. The lengthy film,
made in two segments actually, Noi Vivi and Addio Kira, was
popular in Italy. It starred Alida Valli, Rossano Brazzi, and
Fosco Giachetti; after the war Valli and Brazzi became pop-
ular with American audiences. A shortened and subtitled
version was released and first shown to American audience
at the 1986 Telluride film festival. It was reviled, as could
be expected from a left-leaning press, with such adjectives
as “fanatic,” “simplistic,” “political kitsch,” and “not quite
nutty enough to qualify as camp.”2 Berliner assesses the
British reviews as “generally more intellectual” than those
in the United States, as more often than not, they got
the anticollectivist message.3 Notwithstanding, it was also
92 Ayn Rand
hailed as an “amazing piece of cinema” and as both “ambi-

tious and ingenious.”
Once Rand became a major novelist with the success
of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, a new and revised
hardback edition of We the Living was published and fol-
lowed by a paperback edition. Sales continue to do well
and over three million copies have been sold to date. Also
noteworthy is the fact that the book was finally published
in Russia in 1993 and has also sold well there.
Of course, as a creative writer, Rand was always con-
cerned with plot and character, but from the onset, the
importance of theme was paramount in her hopes of reach-
ing her kind of reader. A July 1936 letter to John Temple
Graves, a reviewer from Alabama, expresses her apprecia-
tion of the fact that his review recognizes that the novel is
not “merely an argument against Communism, but against
all forms of collectivism, against any manner of sacrilege
toward the Individual” (Berliner ed. 1995, 33).
Rand’s second novel experienced a similar trajectory
to her first, that is, difficulty finding a publisher at first,
going out of print and then a renaissance when it was reis-
sued. But, unlike We the Living, Anthem could not find any
American publisher initially and was first published in
England in 1937 by Cassell & Co., who had put out the
British edition of We the Living. After the success of The
Fountainhead, Anthem was published in the United States
by Pamphleteers, a small press dedicated to promoting
liberty. That was in 1946 and then Caxton Press put it out
in hard cover in 1953. In the transition from England to
the United States, a number of changes were made to
the manuscript. Mayhew (2005) surveyed significant and
minor differences between the two versions, among them
more word count, precision, clarity, accuracy, elimination
of excessive and Biblical language, and some interesting

philosophical changes. Like Rand’s first novel, Anthem is
still in print, selling some 100,000 copies a year, with over
three-and-a-half million sold as of 2005. Early reviews were
not plentiful, but mostly positive, especially in England.
British reviewers were generally appreciative of Rand’s
message against the “submergence of the individual in
the State” and cognizant of the fact that “collectivist tyr-
anny is threatening us, whether labeled Communism or
Fascism” (quoted in Berliner 2005, 50). Anthem may be
one of Rand’s better-known works in the public schools.
Because of its novella-like length, it is more accessible for
the classroom than her lengthy later works.
The Fountainhead, first published in 1943, is the work that
catapulted Rand to national and international attention. It
has become cliché to notice the parallels between Rand’s
description of the trajectory of Roark’s career in the novel
and the path she and this novel took in reaching their
readership. In the novel, people with firsthand souls, peo-
ple who want to build to suit themselves and not follow the
crowd, see a Roark building and then look for its architect.
In keeping with the novel’s title, Rand uses the metaphor
of a stream that builds below ground, quietly and unobtru-
sively, but then bursts forth, bubbling to the surface until
it builds into a full torrent. As The Fountainhead began to
find its readers, mostly by word of mouth, sales grew and
interest in Rand built among those readers who were open
to her ideas about individualism. It was The Fountainhead
that drew to her that core of fans that would first develop
and spread her ideas, individuals who would become her
closest friends and confidantes.
If the reviews of We the Living and Anthem were gener-
ally positive, the reviews of The Fountainhead were less so.
94 Ayn Rand
Ironically, although The Fountainhead was the work that

made Rand famous and was a best-seller twice, once in
1945 and again when the movie came out in 1949, Berliner
reports that there were far fewer reviews of it than of We the
Living that went out of print in the United States after its
first run (2007, 77).
However, The Fountainhead did receive strong commen-
dation in such important venues as The Saturday Review of
Literature and The New York Times. In the one, Rand’s work
was described as strong and dramatic, whereas in the Times,
Lorine Pruette recognizes the work as not only brilliant,
beautiful, and bitter but also as a novel of ideas.
The sale of film rights to The Fountainhead necessitated
a move back to California from New York, as Rand was
to write the script. It also gave the O’Connors a certain
level of financial security. In the years between the pub-
lication of the novel and the making of the film ver-
sion, Rand became active in anticollectivist politics in
Hollywood. She was keenly conscious of the overt and
covert inroads Communist propaganda was making in the
film industry and wanted to do her part to thwart it. As
a start, and because she did not want force to be used,
she suggested some voluntary guidelines for filmmakers
in a pamphlet written for the Motion Picture Alliance for
the Preservation of American Ideals. In “Screen Guide for
Americans” Rand recommends against hiring Communists
to write, direct, or produce pictures with political themes.
She opposes glorifying failure and the collective, while
smearing the independent individual, free enterprise,
industrialists, and American political institutions. In 1947
Rand was asked to speak before the House Un-American
Activities Committee, which was investigating Communist
infiltration of the film industry. The experience was, in
Rand’s words, “a disgusting spectacle.” However, Rand did

take credit for helping to encourage a much better image
of the businessman and greatly reducing Communist pro-
paganda in Hollywood movies. Her “Screen Guide” was
reprinted in the New York Times and a number of other
papers.
Gary Cooper played the lead in the film version of The
Fountainhead with Patricia Neal, a newcomer at the time,
playing the role of Dominique. Near universal disapproval
characterizes the reviews. Adjectives such as pathetic and
affected were used to describe the acting, with the terms
muddleheaded, stagy, pretentious, and ideological fury
used to describe the plot and theme. Neither Rand nor
anyone else was very pleased with the finished product.
Although the film version may not have been a success
except as far as it helped by influencing book sales, in
terms of influence, The Fountainhead was arguably Rand’s
most effective work. Its consequences are still felt today
for it was The Fountainhead that made fans of Nathan
Blumenthal [later Nathaniel Branden], a psychology stu-
dent, and Barbara Weidman [Barbara Branden], a phi-
losophy student, two Canadians studying at UCLA. Their
mutual admiration for the book had begun in Canada and
then, in 1950, when Nathan Blumenthal wrote a fan letter
to Ayn Rand, events were set in motion that would affect
many lives and inspire the development of a movement
that serves as the basis of contemporary Objectivism, in its
sundry manifestations.
The Brandens were the catalyst for the creation of a
group, fans of the novel, who would become that nucleus
of admirers Rand would call, alternately “the children” or
the “class of ’43.” Sometimes they would ironically refer
to themselves as “the Collective” as their commitment to
96 Ayn Rand
individualism was the diametric opposite. Leonard Peikoff,

Barbara Branden’s cousin, later the founder of the Ayn
Rand Institute, would become Rand’s heir after her break
with the Brandens. When Rand and her husband and
the Brandens moved to New York, Elayne Kalberman,
Nathaniel Branden’s sister, a nurse, and her husband
Harry Kalberman, a broker, joined the group. Kalberman
became the first circulation manager for The Objectivist
Newsletter. Mary Ann Rukavina, later Sures, was an art histo-
rian; she and her husband, Charles Sures, maintain their
connection with the Ayn Rand Institute to this day. Others
in the group who met with Rand to discuss her ideas were
Allan Blumenthal, Nathaniel’s cousin, and Joan Mitchell,
Barbara’s childhood friend who was married first to Alan
Greenspan and then to Allan Blumenthal. Blumenthal was
a physician who studied music at Julliard. Joan Mitchell, an
artist, introduced Frank O’Connor to drawing, providing
for him a consuming passion for much of the rest of his
life. Members of the group were treated to regular philo-
sophical discussions at Rand’s apartment and the privilege
of reading Atlas Shrugged as it was being written.
Of all of that initial group of enthusiasts, perhaps none
would go on to greater international fame than Alan
Greenspan, whose initial contact was a result of his mar-
riage to Joan Mitchell. During his record-setting tenure
as Chairman of the Federal Reserve (1987–2006), Alan
Greenspan was arguably one of the most powerful men in
the United States. Stories about Greenspan often allude
to the impact that Rand had on his life, an influence he
embraced wholeheartedly in his 2007 autobiography where
he calls her a “stabilizing force” in his life (51). Greenspan
credits Rand with broadening his horizons, with taking
him from being a talented technician to one who studied
“how different cultures grow and create material wealth

in profoundly different ways” (2007, 53). She stood by his
side when he took the Oath of Office as part of President’s
Ford’s administration. They were friends till her death in
1982.
Nathaniel Branden claims that the idea of teaching
and discussing Ayn Rand’s philosophy beyond the scope
of their group of friends “was sparked by the enormous
amount of fan mail” Rand was still receiving in the 1950s
as more and more readers found The Fountainhead (1989,
191). He first broached the subject with her, before the
publication of Atlas Shrugged, originally thinking to offer
a series of lectures and use a list of those, within the New
York City environs, who had sent fan mail, as a contact
list. However, it was not until January of 1958, after Atlas
Shrugged was published that Branden offered the 20 lec-
tures that became the first course in “Basic Principles of
Objectivism.” A small group of 28 students met in a room
at the Sheraton-Russell hotel on Park and Thirty-Seventh
Street. That group of 28 grew to 45 students the next time
the course was offered and then to 65, finally achieving
an average attendance of 160 per class; the classes were
offered twice a year. Nathaniel Branden Lectures was the
original name for the enterprise, which when incorpo-
rated became The Nathaniel Branden Institute. Ayn Rand
had no business interest in the project, although it could
not have gone forward without her approval. The impact
of this project cannot be overemphasized. This was the
launching of Ayn Rand as a public philosopher; it was the
catalyst for a movement. The subject matter, at first, was
mainly Rand’s philosophy and some of Branden’s ideas on
psychology. With success, courses multiplied to include,
at one time or another, lectures by other members of the
98 Ayn Rand
“collective.” Alan Greenspan spoke on “the Economics of

a Free Society”; Barbara Branden presented a course in
“Principles of Efficient Thinking”; Mary Ann Sures deliv-
ered “The Aesthetics of the Visual Arts”; and Leonard
Peikoff gave “A Critical History of Philosophy.” From the
onset of the intellectual movement that would come to be
known as Objectivism, adherents represented a variety of
disciplines.
The publication of Atlas Shrugged in 1957 was a watershed
event in the promulgation of Rand’s ideas into a variety of
disciplines. Although The Fountainhead makes forays into
the underlying premises of art and architecture, in Atlas
Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s plotline encompasses the whole world
and challenges predominant political, economic, religious,
and philosophical thinking of the time. Rand’s challenge
was met with multivocal and strident hostility. Many of the
reviews, particularly from those to the left of the political
spectrum, were blistering. Granville Hicks, writing in the
New York Times, found the book misanthropic, because of
what he perceived as the author’s glee at the destruction
of the world. He calls it a book “written out of hate.” In
the Saturday Review Helen Beal Woodward is appreciative
of Rand’s writing ability. She calls her a writer of “dazzling
virtuosity” but remarks that Rand is wasting her writing
gifts because of her remorseless hectoring and prolixity.
Like Hicks, Woodward finds the book “shot through with
hatred.” Woodward lists Rand’s objects of hatred as moral-
ists, mystics, professors, evangelists, Communists, altruists,
and bureaucrats.
One particularly nasty episode in the negative onslaught
against Atlas Shrugged is the review it received in National
Review, the journal founded by William F. Buckley. The
antipathy between Buckley and Rand was well known.
Its genesis had to do with Buckley’s combination of

Catholicism and capitalism, which Rand saw as implying
“that reason and science are on the side of collectivists”
(quoted in Branden 1999, 201). The story goes that the
first time they met, Rand suggested that Buckley was too
smart to believe in G-d. The relationship went downhill
from there. Buckley assigned Whittaker Chambers, a for-
mer communist, to write the review of this strongly antic-
ollectivist work. Chambers allies Rand’s strikers to Nazis as
he comments that “from almost any page of Atlas Shrugged,
a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding:
‘To a gas chamber—go!’ ” This is a particularly egregious
analogy as many of Jewish-born Rand’s family perished in
Russia during World War II and Rand equated Fascism
with Communism as collectivist political philosophies.
Chambers has issues with Rand’s tone, which he terms
dictatorial; he also denounces her “overriding arrogance,”
“shrillness,” and total lack of any humor to alleviate the
above. Time did nothing to ameliorate Buckley’s hostility
and at Rand’s death in 1982, he published an almost glee-
ful obituary, proclaiming: “Ayn Rand is dead. So, inciden-
tally, is the philosophy she sought to launch dead; it was in
fact stillborn” (1982, 380). He lived to see himself proven
wrong as interest in Rand flourished after her death, and
her philosophy is taught at institutes and summer semi-
nars across the United States.
Equally hostile is the review by Charles Rolo in Atlantic
Monthly. Rolo dismisses Rand’s magnum opus as “execrable
claptrap” and a “solemn grotesquerie.” The Time reviewer
found much that he considered Nietzschean, particularly
the idea of an übermensch and so opens the review with
a play on the classic introduction of radio’s Superman
series: “Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Superman.”
100 Ayn Rand
The Time version reads, “Is it a novel? Is it a nightmare?

Is it Superman—in the comic strip or the Nietzschean
version?”
Some of the reviews were more evenhanded. Richard
McLaughlin was cognizant of the significance of Rand’s
message and compared Atlas Shrugged to Uncle Tom’s Cabin
in terms of political importance. Although he does fault
the author’s “long-windedness,” he is complimentary
about her skillful arguments. The New York Herald Tribune’s
John Chamberlain saw the novel as functioning on mul-
tiple levels. Therefore, the reader could satisfactorily
approach it as science fiction, a “philosophical detec-
tive story,” or as a political parable. Chamberlain points
out how Rand develops her theses through a method of
Socratic dialog.
In the aftermath of the disappointing reception of
Atlas Shrugged, Rand went through a period of depres-
sion. Nathaniel Branden and Barbara Branden who were
both very close with Rand during this period posit a num-
ber of theories about its causes. One idea is that having
accomplished her goal of creating the ideal man, there
was nowhere else for her to go with her fiction. Barbara
Branden reports that after the enormity of the task of writ-
ing Atlas Shrugged, which had been Rand’s focus for the
better part of 14 years, physical, emotional, and intellec-
tual exhaustion overtook her (1986, 302). Rand’s disap-
pointment at the lack of acknowledgment of her signal
accomplishment by the leading intellectuals of the period
was profound. She wondered about an audience for her
ideas; she was concerned with the state of the culture.
Notwithstanding her disappointment with the profes-
sional reviewers, she did respond to fan mail. To one fan,
who misinterpreted the “trader principle” of Atlas Shrugged
and thus offered Rand money to meet her, she explained

that “the currency must be appropriate to that which is
traded” (Letters 1995, 498). Rand goes on to advise the man
that “good premises” is a better expression in writing to her
than “good luck.” To another, she counsels that thinking is
more important than feeling for a writer. A 16-year-old fan
is praised for his writing ability and his ability “to think in
terms of essentials” (501). One of her letters, shortly after
Atlas Shrugged was published, was to the actress Barbara
Stanwyck. Rand greatly admired Stanwyck and hoped she
would consider the role of Dagny Taggert in a film ver-
sion of the novel. (Years earlier, although her original
choice was Greta Garbo for the role, Rand had lobbied for
Stanwyck to play Dominique in The Fountainhead movie.)
Stanwyck responded that she was highly complimented
that Rand wanted her to do it but that she was sure that the
Hollywood moguls would want someone younger for the
role. It is poignantly ironic to think that both Rand and
Stanwyck are dead and a film version is yet to be made.4
Though the Journals of Ayn Rand demonstrate that Rand
had a number of ideas for fiction writing after the publi-
cation of Atlas Shrugged, none of these ideas was carried
to fruition in her lifetime. Her attention turned instead
to nonfiction as the medium through which to articu-
late her philosophical ideas. The first of these nonfiction
works was For the New Intellectual (1961), a compilation of
the major philosophical speeches from her works of fic-
tion with an introduction which presents an overview of
her interpretation of those forces, historically, that had
undermined human happiness, Attila who stands for
force and the witch doctor who represents faith. By con-
trast, the best in humanity are the producers, the thinkers,
and the reasoners, individuals who make human survival
102 Ayn Rand
possible. The book was not widely reviewed, but a few who
did write about it approved the idea of having all the main
philosophical speeches gathered in one book while others
found it redundant.
Rand obviously rejected the idea of redundancy as a neg-
ative; instead, she adopted it as a strategy, repeating many
of her previously published articles or speeches in her
nonfiction books. Her main sources were the periodicals,
newsletters, and journals published in connection with the
Objectivist movement. They are The Objectivist Newsletter,
published from January 1962 through December of 1965;
The Objectivist, published from January of 1966 through
September of 1971; and finally The Ayn Rand Letter, pub-
lished from October of 1971 through February of 1976.
Besides these publications of limited circulation, in 1962
Rand also wrote a newspaper column for The Los Angeles
Times. The topics run the gamut from the joys of stamp
collecting to the death of Marilyn Monroe. The columns
were published in a book titled The Ayn Rand Column years
after Rand’s death.
Many critics, particularly altruists, castigated Rand for
promoting a selfish lifestyle. Rand’s response was The Virtue
of Selfishness (1964). Although she had effectively dealt
with the subject in her fiction, The Fountainhead in particu-
lar, the introductory essay allows her to clarify the essen-
tial definition of selfishness. Rand makes clear her ethical
standards, particularly the concept that one’s life should
be one’s ethical purpose and that values should be chosen
that forward that purpose. Just as the title challenges the
widespread idea of selfishness as a negative trait, so in a
number of essays in the book, Rand refutes the morality
and logic of many popular platitudes, such as “There are
no black and whites, there are only grays” or “Who am
I to judge?” She explains why accepting such premises is

harmful to one’s moral health. The book includes a num-
ber of essays by Nathaniel Branden, essays in which he
sets the foundation for concepts about romantic love and
self esteem that he would enlarge in future books. Some
reviewers of this book found correlations between Rand’s
philosophy and existentialism. The Virtue of Selfishness, sub-
titled “A New Concept of Egoism,” was one of Rand’s best-
selling nonfiction books.
Rand called her next book, Capitalism: The Unknown
Ideal (1966), “a collection of essays on the moral aspects of
capitalism.” Rand, who sometimes called herself a radical
for capitalism, thought that capitalism was the only moral
politico-economic system in history. In her thinking, capi-
talism was a great boon to humankind, having produced
goods and technology that enhance the quality of life. The
anthology is also noteworthy as it contains three articles
by Alan Greenspan as well as one each by Robert Hessen
and Nathaniel Branden. Two of the essays from The Virtue
of Selfishness, one on rights and one on the nature of gov-
ernment, are also included. Reviews were not enthusias-
tic and a number of them pointed out that these essays
were all already available in other sources. The book was
distinctive, however, in that Rand was a lone defender of
capitalism on moral grounds and her deflation of many of
the then current anticapitalist myths was eye-opening to a
public that had heard little but negative critiques of capi-
talism. This book reinforced her image as a heroine to the
world of business and industry.
A key quality of Objectivism is that it embraces such a
wide variety of topics; thus it is not surprising that after
a foray into the world of economics Rand should turn to
aesthetics. It follows that once one has ingested the basic
104 Ayn Rand
premises of the philosophy, one can deduce opinions

on subjects as diverse as abortion and literary criticism.
Underlying Rand’s ideas in The Romantic Manifesto is her
definition of art as “a selective re-creation of reality accord-
ing to an artist’s metaphysical value-judgments.” As reason
is a prime value of Objectivism, Rand condemns modern
and postmodern art for its celebration of the irrational.
Rand’s philosophy of art develops from an Aristotelian
base and in her reading of Aristotle, art is justified because
it represents things not just as they are, but as they might
be or ought to be. For Rand, communicating moral ideals
through her heroic characters is a main purpose of her
writing.
Additionally, in a series of articles, mostly published
first in The Objectivist, Rand developed a theory about how
human beings form concepts, abstractions and definitions.
These were then published in book form as Introduction to
Objectivist Epistemology. After her death, an expanded ver-
sion with transcriptions of her workshop on the theory of
knowledge was issued.
At the height of the Objectivist culture during Rand’s
lifetime, the movement came under fire from a number of
quarters. Among Rand’s targets as antithetical to human
happiness, both in the fiction and nonfiction, is religion,
which she identifies as mysticism. A self-proclaimed athe-
ist from an early age, Rand found religious belief suspect
as it was founded on faith and not on reason. It is not
surprising that people of faith would engage Rand’s argu-
ments. In 1971 John W. Robbins published Answer to Ayn
Rand: A Critique of the Philosophy of Objectivism. The initial
part of the book points out what Robbins perceives as
the inconsistent aspects of Objectivism, arguing that its
“epistemology must lead to skepticism, its metaphysics to
the void, its ethics to hedonism, and its politics to anar-

chy” (12). Robbins, who identifies himself as responding
to Rand in the name of Jesus Christ, makes clear that he
does not believe in reason; he is a champion of revelation.
Albert Ellis, a pioneer figure in cognitive- behavioral ther-
apies, accuses Objectivism of being a religion, in light of
the fact that its adherents more often than not exemplify
the ten characteristics of “true believers.” In Is Objectivism
a Religion? (1968) Ellis argues, among other things, that
Objectivism in harmful to the psychological health of
its practitioners. After his break with Rand, Nathaniel
Branden stated that one of his objectives in writing The
Disowned Self (1971) was to undo some of the psychologi-
cal damage that might have been done to students of
Objectivism. Another critique of Rand’s philosophy that
was written during her lifetime was William F. O’Neill’s
With Charity Toward None (1971). O’Neill is admiring of
Rand’s intellectual and moral courage and of the impor-
tance of her as an intellectual catalyst. However, in his
analysis of her philosophy, using the scientific verification
process, he faults Objectivism for ambiguities, inconsis-
tencies, and contradictions. Another of the critical books
about Rand published during her lifetime was Jerome
Tuccille’s It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand, an amusing and
satirical sojourn through the mazes of right-wing poli-
tics. The first two chapters take aim at the contradictions
in Rand’s applications of her own theories, particularly
in his pointed satire of “The Collective’s” anything but
ironic exemplification of its name. He too concludes that
Objectivism is very much like a substitute religion. Rand’s
imperious behavior and the devotion of her adherents
were also attacked for being cult-like. In his reminiscence,
Bennett Cerf, her editor at Random House, recalls her
106 Ayn Rand
as a “remarkable woman,” but blames what he calls “her

sycophants” for contributing to her difficult behavior.
Cerf compared her to “a movie queen with her retinue,
or a prizefight champion who’s followed by a bunch of
hangers-on, or a big crooner and his worshippers” (251).
Like them, he thought that she came to depend on the
adulation. Eventually, many of those who found Rand’s
ideas convincing but who clashed with Rand were either
purged from the group or became disenchanted with
aspects of Objectivism, such as Rand’s infallibility. As
Barbara Branden explained in her response to her own
excommunication, she had to choose between Ayn Rand
and the values Rand had taught her.
Any discussion of Rand’s influence must include,
although Rand would publicly distance herself from them,
both feminists and libertarians. Neither feminism nor lib-
ertarianism is a monolithic structure and so adherents to
the underlying philosophy of each may believe in different
approaches to putting their beliefs into practice. Feminism,
as it developed in its twentieth century United States mani-
festation, has a decidedly left-leaning bent. Therefore it is
not surprising that many feminists would disavow Rand.
Her rejection of what she termed “Women’s Lib” as “the
caricature to end all caricatures” was based on her con-
clusion that the contemporary movement was riding “on
the historical prestige of women who fought for individual
rights against government power” in order to get “special
privileges by means of government power” (Schwartz ed.
1999, 147). Of feminists, Rand would write derisively that
with their “screaming” demands, they “support the worst
prejudices of the bitterest misogynist.”5
On the one hand, those feminists who see government
solutions to all problems and capitalism as one of the
main agents of female subjugation see Rand as an apolo-

gist for the enemy. Susan Brownmiller, who wrote Against
Our Will, one of the era’s pioneer antirape texts, calls
Rand a traitor to her sex for what Brownmiller sees as the
romantization of rape in The Fountainhead. On the other
hand, although leftist feminists deride Rand, among indi-
vidualist feminists there are strong voices in appreciation
of her relevance for their cause. In her introduction to
the anthology Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in
the Twenty-First Century, Wendy McElroy defines individu-
alist feminism or ifeminism as based in “the belief that all
human beings have a right to the protection of their per-
sons and property” and that individuals, male or female,
have the right “to make any peaceful choice whatsoever
with her or his own body” (5). Camile Paglia explores
“Libertarian Feminism in the Twenty-First Century,”
pointing out the political biases of the established wom-
en’s movement and calling those who are opposed, like
herself, equity feminists. Billie Jean King, a towering fig-
ure in women’s sports, credits Rand with turning her life
around by teaching her, among other things, the impor-
tance of being selfish.6 Barbara Branden, her authorized
and unauthorized biographer, sees in Rand’s life a femi-
nist manifesto, albeit she was a reluctant one.7
Like feminists, libertarians come in a variety of casings.
On the one end are the anarcho-libertarians who would
have no government to interfere with human autonomy;
whereas at the other are the minarchists, who believe
in a limited government, taking their cue from Thomas
Jefferson who said. “That government is best that governs
least.” Many of the significant figures in the early libertar-
ian movement in the United States came to it as admirers
of Rand. However, if many libertarians credit Rand with
108 Ayn Rand
inspiring them and admire her work, Rand did not return
the compliment. She accused libertarians of being pub-
licity seekers, calling the libertarian movement a “leftist
discard,” and hippies on the right. Rand thought that the
libertarian movement had plagiarized her ideas, modify-
ing and perverting them.
The enmity between Objectivists, at least those allied
with the Ayn Rand Institute, and the libertarian movement
continued after her death. Neo-objectivists, those who do
not view Objectivism as a closed system, often work with
and identify themselves with the libertarian movement.
The Cato Institute was the site for one of the events for
the 50th Anniversary celebration of the publication of
Atlas Shrugged. Many individuals allied with The Institute
for Humane Studies also participated.8
The reception and influence of Rand in the last quarter
of her life were considerable. Signal honors came her way.
Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, presented
Rand with the honorary degree, Doctor of Humane
Letters. Her appearance at Yale Law School required over-
flow speakers in the corridors for those who could not
get into the packed auditorium. She was invited to be the
Graduation Speaker at West Point; she was the object of
a Playboy interview. She was a regular speaker at the Ford
Hall Forum. Growing national interest in her ideas was
such that she was a guest on a number of popular televi-
sion shows. Edwin Newman interviewed her on “Speaking
Freely,” as did Phil Donahue on the show bearing his name
and Tom Snyder on the “Tomorrow” show. She appeared
on “Johnny Carson.” She was invited to the White House
for a State Dinner honoring Malcolm Fraser, then Prime
Minister of Australia. Fraser specifically requested her
presence, as she was his favorite author.
Ayn Rand’s final years were marred by ill health, prob-

ably a result of the cigarettes she had used so effectively
as a symbol in Atlas Shrugged. She also suffered the devas-
tating loss of her beloved husband and life’s mate, Frank
O’Connor. Through it all, she remained a figure of influ-
ence in the world of ideas, accepting speech engagements
and writing as long as she could.
4
Contemporary Relevance
The year: 2007. The occasion: the fiftieth anniversary of

the publication of Atlas Shrugged. The amount of atten-
tion and the diversity of sources of this attention speak
volumes about the continuing impact of Rand’s ideas.
A U.S. News & World Report article calls her “one of the
most prominent figures of the late 20th century” because
of her impact on American individualism.1 In a 2007 Wall
Street Journal opinion piece, Brian Doherty reminds read-
ers that Rand’s virtues as a political thinker and polemicist
touch on the most important matters of modern politics
(A11). An article in The New York Times, a newspaper whose
editorial philosophy is often antithetical to Rand’s ideas,
terms Atlas Shrugged “one of the most influential business
books ever written.”2 Book TV C-SPAN2 tapes the panels
of the October 6, 2007, fiftieth anniversary celebration in
Washington DC and broadcasts and rebroadcasts them to
a national audience. This celebration was organized and
sponsored by the Washington-based Atlas Society of the
Center for Objectivism.
The organization of the panels and the span of disci-
plines included are other indicators of the breadth and
depth of Rand’s impact on contemporary thought.
Typically, a conference celebrating a work of fiction would
feature mostly literature professors or creative writers. In
112 Ayn Rand
this case the far-reaching influence of Rand’s work is evi-

dent in the diversity of professions and areas of interest
represented by the various panelists. If I am not mistaken,
although the panels included professors from disciplines
such as Philosophy, Economics, Business Ethics, I was the
only Literature professor on the program.3 Anne Heller,
Rand’s latest biographer comes to an interest in Rand from
a financial angle. It was Rand’s writing about money that
first interested her in the author of Atlas Shrugged. Before
beginning the Rand biography, Heller had collaborated
with Suze Orman, known for her financial advice television
show and columns, on two books, The Road to Wealth and
The Laws of Money. Edward Younkins, who edited a volume
of essays on Atlas Shrugged that was published as part of
the anniversary celebration, is a professor of Accountancy.
The business world was represented by Ed Snider, who
heads Comcast Spectacor, a Philadelphia-based enter-
prise that owns a variety of sports and entertainment
entities such as the Philadelphia Flyers Hockey team, the
Philadelphia 76ers basketball team and sports venues such
as the Wachovia Center and the Wachovia Spectrum, that
combine to make the most prominent sports and enter-
tainment complex in that city. Highlighting the program,
as the Gala Banquet’s keynote speaker was John Stossel,
whose 19 Emmy Awards are testaments to his status as a
television news correspondent and commentator.
On the West coast, The Ayn Rand Institute’s celebration of
the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Atlas Shrugged
was spaced out over a number of weeks and included
speakers and an exhibit. The exhibit, which contained
items from the Ayn Rand Archives, ran from October 8
to December 11, 2007 at the Frances Howard Goldwyn
Hollywood Regional Library and included a reception
Contemporary Relevance 113
on the actual date of the publication, October 10. The

series of speakers from the Ayn Rand Institute spoke on
capitalism, morality, foreign policy, and environmentalism.
In New York City, the NYU Objectivist Club sponsored a
full-day event on April 7, with speakers such as Dr. Andrew
Berstein, Dr. Shoshana Milgram, and Peter Schwartz.
Further testament to the continuing relevance of the
novel Atlas Shrugged is its presence on nationwide polls.
In a 1991 Library of Congress poll, readers rated it sec-
ond only to the Bible among books that had had the most
influence on their lives. That influence on readers con-
tinues. More recently, on April 9, 2008, Reuters posted an
article about a Harris poll that asked people to rate their
10 most favorite books. Atlas Shrugged made the list along
with To Kill a Mockingbird, Gone with the Wind, Lord of the
Rings, and The Bible.
Two years before the Atlas Shrugged anniversary,
Rand’s centenary year, 2005, was marked by celebratory
events and evaluative scholarship. Writing for a two-part
Centenary Symposium in the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies,
scholars explored everything from Rand’s influence on
American fiction to teaching economics through Rand.
In terms of her contemporary influence, the proliferation
of her impact on the culture is telling. From meaning-
ful treatment in a variety of scholarly journals, reference
works, and books to a marked effect on illustrated media,
“Rand has so profoundly entered the Zeitgeist” that she
has become an “iconic” figure.4 Both Jeff Riggenbach and
Chris Sciabarra also highlight Rand’s direct and indirect
presence in popular culture. Steve Ditko, the cocreator
of “Spider-Man,” and Frank Miller, noteworthy for his
Batman “Dark Knight” series, are two who openly credit
their debt to Rand.5 In more tradition fiction genres
114 Ayn Rand
Rand-like characters and out-and-out references to Rand

are present in everything from Gene Bell Villada’s The
Pianist Who Loved Ayn Rand to Tobias Wolff’s Old School.
Riggenbach identifies three waves or generations of writ-
ers of what is packaged as popular fiction who have been
influenced by Rand. The first generation (Antediluvians)
is the group that began publishing during Rand’s lifetime;
the first generation began to publish after her death and
the second generation is that group writing and publish-
ing in the twenty-first century.6 A recent example of the lat-
ter group is Nicholas Dykes’s Old Nick’s Guide to Happiness,
which John Hospers describes as being an “enthralling
philosophical mystery story” that does justice to Rand’s
views.7
In addition to Rand’s emergence as an iconic figure in
popular culture, the literary scholarship since her death
has shown a marked increase. The 1990s were a break-
through decade for Rand literary studies.8 Noteworthy in
this upsurge is the international character of the critical
interest. The Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand anthology
includes scholars from Norway, France, and Australia.
In the United States, The Ayn Rand Institute and The
Atlas Society are the two most prominent contempo-
rary advocates for Rand’s enduring significance.9 The
Atlas Society is an offshoot of the Institute for Objectivist
Studies (IOS), which David Kelley founded after his split
with Peikoff and ARI in 1991. The IOS then became The
Objectivist Center (TOC). When the Center moved from
Poughkeepsie, New York, to Washington DC, it became
The Atlas Society (TAS). The Ayn Rand Institute, located
in California, created an arm of its program, The Ayn Rand
Center for Individual Rights, in Washington DC in 2008.
The Center is described as their public policy and outreach
division. These two Objectivist groups publish magazines,

journals, sponsor campus and community groups as well as
a number of Internet sites and forums. Both ARI and TAS
sponsor yearly weeklong summer conferences at different
sites around the country. In 2008 the Objectivist Summer
Conference, sponsored by ARI was held in Newport
Beach, California; the 2007 Conference was in Telluride,
Colorado; in 2006 Boston was the site and is projected as
a return site for the 2009 conference. The nine-day con-
ference includes optional courses as well as general ses-
sion lectures. The Atlas Society calls their event a Summer
Seminar. Portland, Oregon, was the 2008 venue; in 2007
Towson University near Baltimore, Maryland, was the site
of the Summer Seminar. Chapman University in Orange,
California, was the location in 2006. In 2008, besides the
Summer Seminar a Graduate Seminar was also offered at
George Washington University in Washington DC.
Harvard University, Pennsylvania State University, UCLA,
and George Mason University are some of the universities
that have Objectivist Clubs. Nor are the clubs restricted to
the United States. McGill University in Montreal, Canada,
also has an active Objectivist Club. ARI’s annual report to
members indicates its support of more than 40 college and
university campus clubs around the world.
An ongoing project of both ARI and TAS is to provide
the Objectivist perspective on any number of contempo-
rary issues. Members get regular e-mails announcing that
this or that person will appear on television or radio. For
example, Ed Hudgins, TAS Executive Director, spoke at
a Tax Day press conference at the National Press Club.
The event was broadcast several times on CSPAN TV.
Yaron Brook of ARI appears weekly on Fox Business News
Network. Opinion pieces (Op Ed) appear from time to
116 Ayn Rand
time in the pages of The Wall Street Journal and other major
newspapers.
In the field of education, Rand’s relevance has grown
considerably and all indications are for a continuing
impact. In the early days of the movement, there was con-
sistent complaint from Objectivist circles about the acad-
emy’s antagonism toward Rand and her ideas. In literature
departments her works were not considered worthy of
serious literary reflection. In philosophy departments she
was dismissed as a figure of popular culture. Indications
are that the situation is changing. In July 13, 2007, The
Chronicle of Higher Education devoted a substantial portion,
four lengthy articles, of its “Research and Faculty” section
to “Ayn Rand’s Academic Legacy.” David Glenn, the main
author, notes that his report is mostly about that group of
scholars who see the serious study of Rand in academe as
a key to cultural renewal.
However, the articles also cover evidence of resistance to
securing Rand a place in the university canon. In “Advocates
of Objectivism Make New Inroads” Glenn chronicles the
story of why the philosophy department of the San Marcos
campus of Texas State University turned down a long-
term grant from the Anthem Foundation for Objectivist
Studies to fund the salary for a professor whose specialty
would be Ayn Rand’s philosophy. Glenn cites faculty who
objected to the idea of buying “a spot in the philosophical
canon for Rand” and their concerns that the grant would
be “enforcing rigid ideological conformity” (2007, A7).
One of the professors who led the opposition to accepting
the grant cited the questionable scholarly practices asso-
ciated with ARI, such as the refusal to acknowledge the
work of scholars not allied with it. A sidebar, humorously
titled “Rand Grant Universities,” lists seven universities in
that category: Ashland, Brown, Princeton, University of

North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Pittsburg, the
University of Texas at Austin, and Texas State University at
San Marcos, which had accepted a small grant to fund a lec-
ture series before it rejected the larger grant cited above.
Much of the brouhaha in Higher Education has to do
with the academic ethics of accepting grants from founda-
tions that require an ideological litmus test for possible
grantees. The Anthem Foundation (Anthem being the title
of Rand’s dystopian novel) was founded in 2001 by John
McCasky and a group of like-minded friends in the soft-
ware industry. Their common concern was that Ayn Rand,
who had been a key influence in their lives, was not being
taught at universities, and they sought a way to remedy
that. Another substantial support for Objectivist studies
is BB&T. In 2002 the BB&T Charitable Foundation made
a $1,000,000 gift to the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill’s philosophy department to support a visiting
professor or postdoctoral fellow. The chair of the depart-
ment at UNC stated that neither BB&T nor Anthem have
tried to direct department curriculum or policy. The
BB&T Foundation is the brainchild of John Allison IV,
chair and chief executive office of BB&T Corporation,
a financial holding company with billions of dollars in
assets.
In his address at the Atlas Shrugged fiftieth anniversary
celebration in Washington, David Kelley presented his per-
spective on progress in the academy. Commenting on his
own field of philosophy, Kelley observed that many text-
books on Ethics now include readings on Rand, particu-
larly as an example of egoism. If there has not been much
progress in accepting Rand’s ideas, he wryly reported that
the vehemence of the hostility to her has diminished.
118 Ayn Rand
Cutting it finely, he reported his findings that although

university philosophers may not necessarily respect Rand,
they now, at least, tolerate people who are engaged in
scholarship on and respect Rand.
Of key importance, in terms of academic respectabil-
ity, is the establishment of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies
(JARS). Unlike some of the other publications from
Objectivist groups, JARS, edited by independent scholar
Chris Matthew Sciabarra, Professor of Literature Stephen
Cox, University of California, San Diego and Professor
of Philosophy Roderick T. Long, Auburn University, is
a multidisciplinary refereed journal that is indexed and
abstracted in major indices. The 2008 fall/winter issue
marks its tenth year anniversary.
Although financial investments go a long way toward
assuring an Objectivist presence on college campuses, not
all visions for maintaining Rand-friendly sites of higher edu-
cation have been as fruitful as what has been accomplished
by foundations. “Train Your Mind to Change the World,”
an article by Elyse Ashburn reports on efforts to establish a
for-profit liberal arts college in Virginia. Founders College
is the dream of Gary Hull. Notwithstanding the financial
support of Hull, the college, which opened in 2007, closed
in spring of 2008. The failure of Founders, however, has not
dampened the spirits of those who, appalled by the state of
higher education in the United States, still have the goal
of creating an institution of higher learning, free from
government funds and intervention. Currently, Marsha
Familiaro Enright, President of the Reason, Individualism,
Freedom Institute, who founded the highly rated Council
Oak Montessori School in Chicago, is raising funds to
create what she terms, a rational college alternative: The
College of the United States.
Higher Education is not the only target for Objectivist

aspirations. Rand’s growing relevance in public education
is even more marked. This is due mainly to the efforts of
the Ayn Rand Institute. In 1993 ARI began a program of
essay contests for high school and college students. Essay
entries have increased almost every year of the program.
A record was set in 2007 with 14,062 students submitting
essays.10 The competition attracts contestants from all over
the world. The 2007 Atlas Shrugged Essay winner was a
Mr. John DeWald, a student at University College London
in England.11 The increased prize money, twice as much as
in the previous year for the top categories, attracted a large
response; 50 students in all won prizes that ranged from
US$50 to US$2000, the first place prize was US$10,000.
In concert with the essay contest, ARI funds a Free Books
to Teachers program. Books are provided to high school
teachers who would like to teach Rand but are hampered
financially by school funding deficiencies. In May 2008 the
ARI newsletter Impact announced that more than a mil-
lion copies of Rand’s novels had been distributed under
the free books program. The article notes that although
the great majority of students who read these books will
not become Objectivists, some will and the others will be
cognizant of Rand’s name and her importance as a writer
and thinker. The article concludes that there is a “massive
potential of the Free Books program” to “transform the
culture.”
As Rand’s philosophy encompasses many fields so does
her contemporary relevance. If anything, the twenty-first
century business world is even more tuned in to what
Rand had to say than was the entrepreneurial community
during her lifetime. It should be remembered that her
last speech, shortly before her death, was to the National
120 Ayn Rand
Committee for Monetary Reform. It is from that world of

business that so many of the big donors and key support-
ers of the ongoing programs derive.
Although there is no direct connection between Rand
and The American Enterprise Institute, it is another of
those organizations whose ideals and philosophy mirror
and parallel the ones directly influenced by Rand. Like
Libertarian and Objectivist think tanks, the American
Enterprise Institute was created to defend the principles
and improve the institutions of American freedom and
democratic capitalism. It is dedicated to limited gov-
ernment, private enterprise, and individual liberty and
responsibility. The health of such an enterprise attests to
the currency of the ideas Rand espoused.
The entertainment world is still another venue in which
Rand’s contemporary relevance is writ large. Over the
years, the quality and cache of the individuals who sought
to produce a film adaptation of Rand’s magnum opus,
Atlas Shrugged, is ongoing testimony to her significance.
Albert S. Ruddy, producer of The Godfather, is but one of
the earliest key figures in the entertainment world who
attempted to produce a film version of Atlas. He speaks of
literally wooing Rand to get her consent to film the book.
Their rapport foundered on her refusal to give up script
approval. In the late 1970s, Rand worked with Sterling
Silliphant, whose screen credits included the award-win-
ning Sidney Poitier movie In the Heat of the Night, to write an
eight-hour miniseries script for Atlas Shrugged. The project
was never completed. Each time rumors were floated that
a movie was in the offing, fans have played guessing games
about possible casting. Early favorites for key roles includ-
ing Rand’s own casting ideas, have long since past their
primes or plausibility in the parts.12 A January 2007 New
York Times article divides the blame for the failure of the
various attempts to produce a film version among Rand
herself, her Objectivist heirs, and the “vicissitudes of net-
work politics and media mergers.”13
Notwithstanding past failures, Rand’s continuing rel-
evance has kept the prospect of the film project alive. As
of this writing a group of what the New York Times calls
“heavy hitters” is taking on the difficult task of making at
once an entertaining movie and an acceptable presenta-
tion of the philosophy promulgated in this novel that has
been called “The Bible of Objectivism.” John Tagliafero,
CEO of Cybex International, has owned the rights for
some 15 years. Now, Howard and Karen Baldwin, produc-
ers of Ray, the film biography of Ray Charles that won
Jamie Foxx a 2004 Academy Award, have joined him as
producers. Lionsgate is the production and distribution
company. Randall Wallace, whose script for Braveheart was
nominated for numerous awards, has completed a 129-
page adaptation and Angelina Jolie, surely one of the
twenty-first century’s hottest box office stars, has signed on
to play the lead role of Dagny Taggart. Vadim Perelman
is the chosen director. Script magazine article calls their
task one of the “legendary impossibilities” of filming an
“impossible novel.”14
Not all assessments of Rand’s continuing relevance
are sanguine. Writing in The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies,
Nicholas Dykes (2004) found limited interest in Rand
and her ideas in England, even to the point that he could
find only one obituary and that in an architecture jour-
nal (395). He does find one positive note, however, and
that is that her novels are readily available in most British
bookshops, indication, at least, of an abiding interest by
readers.
122 Ayn Rand
Evidence of that interest in Rand’s books also continues

elsewhere. Strong substantiation is the fact that data com-
piled through the end of 2007 show that since publica-
tion 25 million have been sold, and the chart of paperback
novel sales shows an upward trajectory. The year 2007 was
a year of record sales. Impact of May 2008, lists individual
sales numbers for the novels with The Fountainhead at more
than 6.5 million and Atlas Shrugged at a bit more than 6
million. In all, the novels have sold more than 20 million
copies with the nonfiction books bringing the total to 25
million. These numbers do not include sales of transla-
tions, which are often difficult to track. Three new titles
in Spanish were recently announced: Filosopfia: Quién la
Necessita, El Manifesto Romántico, and Capitalism: El Ideal
Desconocido. The fact that new translations are being pub-
lished is another indication of Rand’s ongoing relevance
in more than the English-speaking world.15
Continuing interest in Rand is also evidenced by the
small but steady increase in publications that explore her
life, works, and influence. When she died in 1982, the
only biographical study was a brief, carefully monitored
essay called “Who Is Ayn Rand?” in a book by the same
name. Barbara Branden taped some 40 hours of interviews
in preparation for writing this authorized piece and used
them and her personal experience, research, and numer-
ous interviews with those who knew and worked with
Rand to write the full-length unauthorized biography The
Passion of Ayn Rand, published in 1986 after Rand’s death
but in process while she was still alive. Branden says she
called Rand and informed her of the project. There was
enough interest in Branden’s biography to inspire a televi-
sion adaptation, which was aired to much critical acclaim,
including an Emmy for Helen Mirren for her portrayal of
Rand. Barbara Branden’s biography was the first public

acknowledgment of the sexual relationship between Ayn
Rand and Branden’s then husband, Nathaniel Branden.
Several years later in 1989, Nathaniel Branden added his
version of the story in Judgment Day, followed a decade
later by My Years with Ayn Rand, a revised version of the
first book.
Currently, there are two new biographies in progress.
Anne C. Heller is working on one and Shoshana Milgram
Knapp on another. Heller’s biography, due out in the
spring of 2009 is titled, Ayn Rand and the World She Made.
Heller’s book is based on new research done in Russia and
in other hitherto unpublished materials as well as inter-
views with those who knew and were affected by Rand.
Knapp’s biography is being done with the cooperation
and approval of the Ayn Rand Institute and thus will have
access to primary sources held in the Ayn Rand Archives.
Her study will present Rand’s vision of the human ideal—
the individual, rational mind in triumphant action—as the
integrating principle of Rand’s public and private life. It
will cover the years up to the publication of the final novel,
Atlas Shrugged.
Although the Atlas Society and the Ayn Rand Institute
are the direct purveyors of Rand’s ongoing legacy, other
organizations or movements have been influenced by her
ideas and are therefore important indicators of Rand’s
ongoing intellectual heritage. The Institute for Humane
Studies at George Mason University runs numerous sum-
mer institutes around the country. When it hands out
T-shirts to all the students and faculty of those institutes,
the T-shirts are emblazoned with a parody of the faces
on Mt. Rushmore. Tom Jefferson’s likeness remains, but
instead of the other presidents, he is joined by Murray
124 Ayn Rand
Rothbard, Friedrich Hayek, and Ayn Rand.16 The IHS

was founded in 1961 by Dr. F. A. “Baldy” Harper, who
had taught economics at Cornell University. He believed
that through education about human affairs and free-
dom, students could develop the inspiration to foster
peace and prosperity. Having lived through two destruc-
tive world wars and the rise of totalitarian dictatorships,
Harper still believed in what he called “the practice
and potentials of freedom.” The Institute for Humane
Studies’ main mission is to educate intelligent and tal-
ented students in the principles and practice of freedom
with the goal of helping to change the current collectiv-
ist climate of opinion to one that encourages liberty and
individualism. To that end they award some US$400,000
in scholarships yearly to students from universities
around the world to attend their summer seminars or
for internships.
In the earlier chapter about “Relevance and Influence”
Rand’s impact on the early founders of the nascent
Libertarian movement was noted. That influence contin-
ues into the twenty-first century. A November 2008 article
“Bob Barr Talks” questions the best-known Libertarian
presidential candidate thus far about his being influenced
by Rand. Although he had formerly won election to the
House of Representatives as a Republican, Barr joined the
Libertarian Party in 2006 and was selected as the ninth
man to head the Libertarian Party in the run for President
in 2008. Asked about his philosophy, Barr noted his “very
high regard for Ayn Rand,” although he observed that
neither he was nor did he know any perfect Randians.
Barr identified Rand’s ideas as being at the core of the
Libertarian Party, especially in terms of the limitations of
government power.17
As world events unroll, particularly as government

involvement in economies eventuate in disastrous effects,
the relevance of Rand continues to loom large. A January
2009 Wall Street Journal article underlines the ominous par-
allels between the situation Rand depicts in Atlas Shrugged
and the economic crisis in the United States at the time
of the writing.18 The author, a senior economics writer for
the newspaper, cites the similarities between the succes-
sive bailout and economic stimulus plans unveiled almost
weekly in Washington and the “economic lunacy that ‘Atlas
Shrugged’ parodied in 1957.” Noting the downward spiral
created when politicians responding to crises create more
regulations, programs, and laws that only make the situa-
tion worse, the article reminds readers that in a situation
like that, the productive sectors of the economy eventually
collapse under the burden. Rand named the wealth redis-
tributionists in the novel, moochers and looters, who use
benevolent language to mask the basic felonious intent of
their laws and edicts. Moore makes the convincing argu-
ment that what was considered exaggeration in the novel
is not as absurd as current reality, which seems to reward
incompetence and malfeasance with handouts and subsi-
dies, although it denigrates as greedy resourceful business
people who create jobs and wealth.
It is difficult to predict which writers and thinkers will
continue to be read and discussed years after their death.
For every Jonathan Swift, there are dozens of Wilkie Collins
and Colley Cibbers. The names of many of the dramatists
who won the laurels at the Dionysian festivals have long
faded into obscurity, whereas we still read some second
and third place winners. Even closer to our era, playwrights
such as Karel Capek, whose R.U.R gave the world the term
“robot,” was a staple in drama anthologies of the 1950s and
126 Ayn Rand
1960s. He is nowhere to be found in contemporary the-

atre texts. On the one hand, reading Khalil Gibran was de
rigueur in the twentieth century, but his works have little
resonance in the twenty-first. On the other hand, writers
once forgotten are resurrected. The women’s movement
and the Black civil rights movements have resuscitated
some of these writers. Zora Neale Hurston died in obscu-
rity and was buried in an unmarked grave. Now she is read
as a leading light of African-American literature while her
hometown is celebrated as an historic district in the mid-
dle of Orlando with a festival every year. Most of Faulkner’s
works were out of print when he won the Nobel Prize. Now
his works are considered a major stylistic influence on
world literature. As has been demonstrated, Rand’s liter-
ary works are slowly moving out of a category of popular
fiction into the realm of masterworks.19 However, Rand
has an advantage over most creative writers in that, unlike
writers who work only in the realm of fiction, Rand has
the added benefit of being a major figure in both fiction
and nonfiction. Her influence is felt in a diversity of disci-
plines, including economics, business, aesthetics, and poli-
tics. In the continuing and continuous conflict between
those forces in the world that promote individuality, free-
dom, and human dignity and their opposite, those forces
that encourage conformity, obedience, and subservience
to the group, Rand’s relevance should continue to be felt.
Notes
1 The Life
1
Transliterations from the Cyrillic alphabet can vary. Publications
from The Ayn Rand Institute spell her name Alisa. Chris Sciabarra,
citing the Archive of the University of Leningrad, spells the name
Alissa. On her liner ticket for the United States, she had already
anglicized her name to Alice. On her marriage license, Rand also
lists herself as Alice.
2
See also “The Rand Transcript, Revisited,” Journal of Ayn Rand
Studies 7, No. 1, (Fall 2005): 1–17. The specific information about the
Stoiunim Gymnasium is on p. 16, n. 9.
3
Shoshana Milgram Knapp has demonstrated a possible link between
Steinbeck’s ideas in East of Eden and Rand’s The Fountainhead.
“ ‘Nothing good was ever created by two men’: Parallel Passages in
Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and John Steinbeck’s East of Eden,” John
Steinbeck: Global Dimensions. Kyoko Ariki, Luchen Li, and Scott Pugh
(Eds). Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2007, 25–38.
4
Sciabarra (1995) explored the validity of this recollection as a result
of his interviews with both relatives and other academics, who were
well acquainted with Lossky’s situation (84–91).
5
Michael S. Berliner (Ed.), Ayn Rand Russian Writings on Hollywood.
Ayn Rand Institute Press, 1999. The volume includes the facsimi-
les and translations of two essays, “Pola Negri” and “Hollywood:
American City of Movies.” In addition, there is a copy of Rand’s
movie diary and lists of her favorite actors and actresses.
6
Appearance, Donahue WGN-TV Chicago, IL, April 29, 1980.
7
According to several people who knew the couple in those days,
Rand’s ability to stay in this country legally was a key issue in
bringing about the marriage. Branden quotes a number of
their acquaintances about the fact that although Ayn was crazy
128 Notes
about Frank, the same intensity of feeling was not reciprocated

(Passion, 93).
8
Robert Mayhew, “We the Living: ’36 and ’59,” Essays on Ayn Rand’s “We
the Living,” Robert Mayhew (Ed.), New York: Lexington Books, 2004,
185–219. Mayhew details the changes in everything from punctua-
tion to philosophy.
9
“Author Wins Royalty Row,” New York Times, February 11, 1936, 19.
10
The term is used advisedly. Bennett Cerf (1974, 253) recalls that
when he suggested reducing the length of John Galt’s speech to
Rand, she countered, “Would you cut the Bible?”
11
Barbara Branden, The Passion of Ayn Rand, 272; N. Branden, Judgment
Day, 158, B. Branden writes that she, Nathaniel, and Frank (Rand’s
husband) were “sworn to lifelong secrecy.” In N. Branden’s version
five months after he and Ayn acquainted their spouses with the fact
that they were in love with each other, their sexual affair began in
January 1955.
2 An Exposition of Rand’s Ideas

1
The Ayn Rand Institute continues to publish much of Rand’s
unpublished works, mostly nonfiction, such as her marginalia, her
journals, the letters, and her early work. The works I refer to here
are the thematically philosophical work in progress or published
during her lifetime.
2
In-text page citations will be from For the New Intellectual for the
speeches from the novels reprinted in it unless otherwise indicated.
3
Airtight was Rand’s original title.
4
Robert Merrill thinks otherwise. He calls her early writings “clearly
and explicitly Nietzschean—so much so that even her later sub-
stantial textual revisions were insufficient to conceal the evidence”
(1991, 21). However, he concludes that it was in the struggle against
Nietzsche’s influence that she was able to clarify her philosophy of
Objectivism (27).
5
Later in The Virtue of Selfishness, Rand would challenge that concep-
tion and define selfishness as a positive value.
6
Various studies follow from Rand’s declaration. Andrew Bernstein
delivered a two-hour lecture, put out on cassette by Second
Notes 129
Renaissance Books in 1994. His lecture is titled The Mind as Hero in

Atlas Shrugged. Atlas Shrugged: Manifesto of the Mind is the title of my
study for Twayne’s Masterwork series.
7
Much of this explication of John Galt’s speech appears in “John
Galt’s Argument for Human Productivity in Atlas Shrugged,”
University of Windsor Review 21, No. 1, 1988, 73–83, coauthored with
Robert Webking.
8
When discussing Rand’s articulation of her ideas, in some cases I
will use the term “men” in the generic sense because that is the way
she used it. It is obvious that she meant all human beings, male or
female.
9
Spillane’s popularity has waned since Rand’s time, whereas
Fleming’s James Bond is more popular than ever, particularly in his
film incarnation.
10
James Joyce, as the father of stream-of-consciousness style of writ-
ing, and Franz Kafka, whose nightmarish presentation of man in an
unintelligible universe, would be two of Rand’s bêtes noires of mod-
ern literature.
11
The Ideas of Ayn Rand, 124.
12
Much of the book had been serialized in The Objectivist magazine
from 1967 to 1968.
13
“From the Horse’s Mouth,” the chapter that precedes “Kant versus
Sullivan, “ is occasioned by Rand’s reading of a 1898 publication
Immanuel Kant: His Life and Doctrine.
14
Works that refute or critique Rand’s philosophy will be covered
in the chapters on reception and contemporary relevance. The
main purpose of this chapter is an explication of her ideas as she
presented them with minimal reference to other scholars of her
ideas.
15
“Ayn Rand’s Philosophy for Living on Earth,” Philosophers of
Capitalism: Menger, Mises, Rand, and Beyond. Edward W. Younkins
(Ed.) Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005, 81–110.
3 Reception and Influence of Rand’s Work

1
This author last saw the play in production in the 1990s in Ruidoso,
New Mexico, a resort community.
130 Notes
2
Michael S. Berliner. “Reviews of ‘We the Living,’ ” Essays on Ayn
Rand’s “We the Living.” Lanham, MD: 2004, 145–54. Berliner pro-
vides names and dates of the individual reviews.
3
Rand did the major reediting. The black and white 174- minute fi lm
with English subtitles is available from the Ayn Rand Bookstore.
4
As of this writing, plans are to make a fi lm of Atlas Shrugged with
Angelina Jolie in the part of Dagny. However, over the years there
have been numerous pronouncements of forthcoming versions, so
it is difficult to be optimistic. I can only hope that by the time this
book is published I will have been proven wrong.
5
“The Age of Envy,” Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution,
Peter Schwartz (Ed.), New York: Meridian, 1999, 147. This is a new
and expanded edition of The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution
published in 1971. Schwartz has added an introduction and addi-
tional essays.
6
King elaborates on Rand’s effect on her in a Playboy interview in
1976.
7
“Ayn Rand: The Reluctant Feminist,” Feminist Interpretations of Ayn
Rand, Mimi Reisel Gladstein and Chris Matthew Sciabarra (Eds).
University Park: Pennsylvania University Press, 1999, 25–46.
8
The Cato Institute is a nonprofit think tank with strong libertarian
leanings, headquartered in Washington, DC. It regularly publishes
studies, papers, and books and holds seminars on public policy. The
Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) at George Mason University acts
as a libertarian talent scout, identifying, developing, and support-
ing the brightest graduate and undergraduate students with schol-
arships, internships, and seminars. The IHS is housed at George
Mason University and sponsors seminars and workshops dedicated
to the concepts of liberty.
4 Contemporary Relevance
1
Tisdale, S. D. (2007), “A Celebration of Self: Ayn Rand’s
Masterpiece—Or the Worst Book of Its Time.” U.S. News & World
Report, 72.
2
Rubin, H. (2007), “Ayn Rand’s Literature of Capitalism,” The New
York Times, September 15, C1, 8.
Notes 131
3
The roster of speakers were, besides myself and Anne Heller,
David Kelley (Philosophy), Tibor Machan (Philosophy), William
Thomas (Economics), David Mayer (History), Charles Murray
(American Enterprise Institute-Political Science), Edward Younkins
(Accountancy), Ed Snider (CEO Comcast Spectacor), Rob Bradley
(Institute for Energy Research), Fred Smith (Competitive Enterprise
Institute), Edward Crane (The Cato Institute), Edward Hudgins
(The Atlas Society-Economics), Nathaniel Branden (Psychology),
and Barbara Branden (Philosophy).
4
Sciabarra (2004) lists some 47 scholarly journals and 18 reference
works as evidence. He even notes that Cliff Notes, a popular student
aid series, includes three Rand titles.
5
Sciabarra (2004) quotes a number of Rand-inspired passages in
Ditko’s stories. Ditko’s character Mr. A delivers a speech parallel to
d’Anconia’s “Money is the root of all good” in Atlas Shrugged (11).
Miller states, in an “Afterword” how he was drawn to the ideas Rand
developed in Atlas Shrugged (12).
6
Riggenbach (2004) provides descriptions and critiques of these
various generations of writers. He concludes his assessment, “Ayn
Rand has exercised a truly decisive influence on a surprisingly large
number of both well- and less-known authors of American popular
fiction over the last forty years” (141).
7
Other reviews and information about the book can be found at
www.oldnicksguidetohappiness.co.uk
8
My 2005 article details the paucity of critical studies before Rand’s
death and the upward trajectory since the 1980s.
9
For this chapter on Contemporary Relevance, I will focus mainly on
the twenty-first century. Although I also reference things that hap-
pened before 2000, the main focus will be on twenty-fi rst century
activities. As Rand has been dead for over a generation, this best
illustrates her continuing relevance.
10
“New Record for Anthem Essay Contest” (2007), Impact 13, 5, 1–2.
11
I note the 2007 winner to indicate that the entries are not limited
to the United States. The 2008 winner is Robert Sanders, a math
major from University of California, Los Angeles.
12
Erika Holzer remembers long discussion with Rand on the topic.
Holzer reports that Rand’s favorite for Galt was Robert Redford.
Although they never settled on an actress to play Dagny, Rand
132 Notes
being a Barbara Stanwyck fan, Holzer remembers Faye Dunaway as

a strong contender. http://www.wordofatlasshrugged.com/eh ayn rand
casts atlas shrugged.asp
13
Brown, Kimberly (2007), “Ayn Rand No Longer Has Script
Approval,” The New York Times, 9,14.
14
Verini, Bob (2007), “The World on His Shoulders: Randall Wallace
takes on Atlas Shrugged,” Script, 30-35.
15
The New Ayn Rand Companion: Revised and Updated lists some 11 other
translations of Rand’s works, 131.
16
Hayek is the subject of another of the volumes in this series.
17
“Bob Barr Talks,” Interview by David Weigel, Reason, November
2008, 27–34.
18
Stephen Moore. (2009), “ ‘Atlas Shrugged’: From Fiction to Fact in
52 Years,” The Wall Street Journal, 9 January, Editorial Page.
19
Volumes on both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead were added to
the Twayne Masterwork Series.
Bibliography
I. Works by Rand
1. Books
Anthem. (1938), London: Cassell and Company; revised edition,
Los Angeles: Pamphleteers, 1946; Caldwell, Idaho: The Caxton
Printers, 1953. Paperback: New York: New American Library, 1946.
50th Anniversary Edition, New York: Dutton, 1996.
Atlas Shrugged. (1957), New York: Random House, Paperback: New
York: New American Library. 35th Anniversary Edition, New York:
Dutton, 1992.
The Ayn Rand Column. (1991), Oceanside, CA: Second Renaissance
Books. Robert Mayhew (Ed.) New Milford, CT: Second Renaissance
Books, 1995.
Ayn Rand’s Marginalia. (1995), Robert Mayhew (Ed.) New Milford, CT:
Second Renaissance Books, 1995.
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. (1966), New York: New American
Library, Paperback: New York: New American Library, 1967.
The Early Ayn Rand: A Selection from Her Unpublished Fiction. (1983),
Leonard Peikoff (Ed). New York: New American Library, 1984.
For the New Intellectual. (1961), New York: Random House, Paperback:
New York: New American Library, 1961.
The Fountainhead. (1943), New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company,
Paperback: New York: New American Library, 1952. 50th Anniversary
Edition, New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1993.
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. (1979), New York: New American
Library, Paperback only. Expanded second edition, Harry
Binswanger and Leonard Peikoff (Eds). New York: Meridian, 1990.
Journals of Ayn Rand. (1997), David Harriman (Ed.). New York:
Dutton.
134 Bibliography
Letters of Ayn Rand. (1995), Michael S. Berliner (Ed.). New York:

Dutton.
The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution. (197l), New York: New
American Library, Paperback only. Revised and expanded second
edition 1975. Revised, expanded, and republished as Return of the
Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution (Ed.) With introduction and
additional essays by Peter Schwartz. New York: Meridian, 1999.
Night of January 16th. (1936), New York: Longmans, Green. Paperback:
New York: World Publishing, 1968. New American Library, 197l.
Philosophy: Who Needs It. (1982), New York: The Bobbs-Merrill
Company.
The Romantic Manifesto. (1969), New York: The World Publishing, 1969.
Paperback: New York: New American Library, 197l.
The Virtue of Selfishness. (1964), New York: New American Library,
Paperback only.
The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought. (1988), Leonard Peikoff
(Ed.) and additional essays. New York: New American Library,
1988.
We the Living. (1936), New York: The Macmillan Company; London:
Cassell, 1937 . New York: Random House, 1959. Paperback: New
York: New American Library, 1959. 60th Anniversary Edition, New
York: Signet, 1996.
2. Newsletters
Rand et al. (1962–65), The Objectivist Newsletter. Volumes 1–4. New York:
The Objectivist .
—(1966–71), The Objectivist. Volumes 5–10. New York: The Objectivist.
Rand and Peikoff. (1971–76), The Ayn Rand Letter. Volumes 1–4. New
York: The Ayn Rand Letter.
3. Articles, Short Stories, Letters

“Ayn Rand Explains.” (1976), Letter. New York Times, August 11, 34,
col. 5.
“Ayn Rand Replies to Criticism of Her Film.” (1949), Letter. New York
Times, July 24, sec. 2, 4, col. 1.
Bibliography 135
“Introduction.” (1983), Calumet “K” by Merwin-Webster. Originally

published New York: Macmillan, 1901. Version with Rand introduc-
tion reissued by Palo Alto Book Service.
“Introduction.” (1983), The God of the Machine by Isabel Patterson.
Originally published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1943; 1964 version
with Rand introduction published in Caldwell, Idaho, by Caxton
Printers; reissued by Palo Alto Book Service.
“Introduction.” (1982), The Ominous Parallels by Leonard Peikoff. New
York: Stein and Day.
“Introduction.” (1983), Ninety-Three by Victor Hugo, translated by
Lowell Bair, New York: Bantam Books , 1962. Reissued by Palo Alto
Book Service.
“J.F.K.—High Class Beatnik?” (1960), Human Events, XVII, September
1, 393–394.
“Let Us Alone!” (1964), Yale Political Magazine. Summer.
“The Money-Making Personality.” (1963), Cosmopolitan, April, 37–41.
“The New Left Represents an Intellectual Vacuum.” (1970), New York
Times Magazine, May 17, 113, 116.
“The Only Path to Tomorrow.” (1944), Reader’s Digest XXXIV, January,
88–90.
Rand, Nader et al. (1972), “Do Our Tax Laws Need a Shake-Up?”
Saturday Review of the Society, LV, No. 43 (Nov.), 45–52.
“A Screen Guide for Americans.” (1947), Plain Talk, November,
37–42.
“Textbook of Americanism.” (1946), The Vigil.
“Why I Like Stamp Collecting.” (1971), Minkus Stamp Journal VI, No.
2, 2–5.
4. Translations
These are the translations listed in the National Union Catalog and
therefore easily accessible in major libraries.
Atlas Shrugged
La Rebelion de Atlas . (1961), trans. Julio Fernandez-Yanez. Barcelona:
Caralt.
Mered ha-nefilim. (n.d.), Tel Aviv: S. Peridamo.
136 Bibliography
The Fountainhead
Der ewige Quell. (1946), trans. Harry Kahn. Zurich: Morgarten Verlag.
El Manantial. (1966), trans. Luis de Paola. Barcelona: Editorial
Planeta.
Ke-ma’yan ha-mitgaber: roman. (1958), Tel Aviv: Hotsa’at S. Fridman.
La Fonte Meravigliosa. (n.d.), trans. Giangi Colombo Taccani and Maria
Silvi (Milano: Baldini & Castoldi).
La Source Vive. (1945), trans. Jane Fillion. Geneve: J. H. Jejeber.
Night of January 16th

La Nuit du 16 Janvier. (1946), trans. Marcel Dubois. Paris: Editions
Billaudot.
The Virtue of Selfishness

Cnota egoizmu. (1989), Warszawa: Oficyna Liberalow.
We the Living
Los Que Vivimos. (1965), trans. Fernando Acevedo. Mexico: Editorial
Diana.
Vi, der lever. (1946), trans. Else Brudenell-Bruce. Copenhagen:
Berlingske forlag.
5. Soviet Publications
Rosenbaum, A. (1926), Hollywood: American Movie-City. Leningrad:
Cinema Printing. (Published without the author’s knowledge).
—(1925), Pola Negri. Leningrad and Moscow: Cinematographic
Publishing House of the Russian Federation.
II. Works about Rand
1. Books
Alexander, J. (1988), Ayn Rand, Libertarians, and the Fifth Revolution.
San Francisco: Sitnalta Press.
Bibliography 137
Amsden, D. (1983), Some Observations on Ayn Rand and Her Work. North
Hollywood: Architekton, 1983.
Baker, J. T. (1987), Ayn Rand. Boston: Twayne Publishers.
Binswanger, H. (Ed.) (1986), The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to
Z. New York: New American Library.
Branden, B. (1986), The Passion of Ayn Rand. Garden City: Doubleday
& Company.
Branden, B. and Branden, N. (1962), Who Is Ayn Rand? New York:
Random House. Paperback Library , 1964.
Branden, N. (1989), Judgment Day: My Years with Ayn Rand. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin. Revised and republished as My Years with Ayn
Rand: The Truth behind the Myth. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998.
Britting, J. (2004), Ayn Rand. New York: Overlook Duckworth.
Den Uyl, D. and D. Rasmussen (Eds) (1984), The Philosophic Thought of
Ayn Rand. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Den Uyl, D. J. (1999), The Fountainhead: An American Novel. New York:
Twayne Publishing.
Ellis, A. (1968), Is Objectivism a Religion? New York: Lyle Stuart .
Erickson, P. (1997), The Stance of Atlas. Portland, OR: Herakles
Press .
Gladstein, M. R. (1984), The Ayn Rand Companion. Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press.
—(1999), The New Ayn Rand Companion, Revised and Expanded
Edition. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
—(2000), Atlas Shrugged: Manifesto of the Mind. New York: Twayne
Publishers.
Gladstein, M. R. and Sciabarra, C. M. (Eds) (1999), Feminist Interpreta-
tions of Ayn Rand. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania
State University Press.
Hamel, V. L. L. (1990), In Defense of Ayn Rand. Brookline, MA: New
Beacon.
Johnson, D. L. (2005), The Fountainheads. Jefferson, NC: McFarland,
2005.
Lepanto, P. (1971), Return to Reason. New York: Exposition Press.
Mayhew, R. (Ed.) (2004), Essays on Ayn Rand’s “We the Living,” Lanham,
MD: Lexington Books.
—(2005), Ayn Rand and “Song of Russia”: Communism and Anti-
Communism in 1940s Hollywood. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
138 Bibliography
Mayhew, R. (Ed.) (2005), Essays on Ayn Rand’s “Anthem,” Lanham, MD:

Lexington Books.
—(2007), Essays on Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead,” Lanham, MD:
Lexington Books.
Merrill, R. E. (1991), The Ideas of Ayn Rand. La Salle, Illinois: Open
Court.
O’Neill, W. (1971), With Charity Toward None: An Analysis of Ayn Rand’s
Philosophy. New York: Philosophical Library.
Paxton, M. (1998), Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life. Layton, UT: Gibb Smith.
Peikoff, L. (1991), Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. New York:
Dutton.
Perinn, V. L. (1990), Ayn Rand: The First Descriptive Bibliography.
Rockville, MD: Quill & Brush.
Robbins, J. W. (1974), Answer to Ayn Rand: A Critique of the Philosophy of
Objectivism. Washington DC: Mt. Vernon Publishing.
Robbins, J. W. (1997), Ayn Rand and the Close of Her System. Hobbs, NM:
The Trinity Foundation.
Sciabarra, C. M. (1995), Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical. University
Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.
Smith, G. H. (1991), Atheism, Ayn Rand, and Other Heresies. Buffalo:
Prometheus Books.
Snodgrass, M. E. (1990), Anthem: Ayn Rand. Jacksonville, IL: Perma-
Bound.
Torres, L. and Kamhi, M. M. (2000), What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of
Ayn Rand. Chicago: Open Court.
Tuccille, J. (1972), It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand. New York: Stein and
Day.
Walker, J. (1999), The Ayn Rand Cult. Chicago: Open Court.
Yang, M. B. M.D. (2000), Reconsidering Ayn Rand. Enumclaw, WA:
Winepress.
Younkins, E. W. (Ed.) (2007), Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”: A Philosophical
and Literary Companion. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
2. Articles in Books, Magazines, Journals,

and Newspapers
(1999–2009), The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, C. M. Sciabarra, (Ed.).
“Author Wins Royalty Row.” (1936), New York Times, February 11, 19.
Bibliography 139
“Ayn Rand Reports to S.E.C. Hearings.” (1958), New York Times,

September 9, 23, col.3.
“Ayn Rand Returns.” (1979), Look, May 14, 72–73.
Barnes, H. E. (1967), “Egoistic Humanism: Ayn Rand’s Objectivism,”
An Existentialist Ethics. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 124–49.
Barry, N. P. (1987), “Ayn Rand and Egoism,” On Classical Liberalism and
Libertarianism. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 108–31.
Bear, M. (1993), “Fountainhead of Youth,” New York 26, May 31, 24.
Berliner, M. S. (1982), “Ayn Rand and Education.” The Objectivist Forum
3, August, 10–13.
—(2004), “Reviews of We the Living,” Essays on Ayn Rand’s “We the Living”
R. Mayhew (Ed.). New York: Lexington Books, 145–54.
—(2007), “The Fountainhead Reviews,” Essays on Ayn Rand’s “The
Fountainhead” Mayhew, R. (Ed.). New York: Lexington Books,
77–85.
Binswanger, H. (1982), “Ayn Rand’s Philosophic Achievement.” The
Objectivist Forum 3, June, 8–13.
—(1982), “Ayn Rand’s Philosophic Achievement, Part II.” The Objectivist
Forum, August, 1–3.
—(1982), “Ayn Rand’s Philosophic Achievement, Part III.” The
Objectivist Forum, October, 1–4.
—(1982), “Ayn Rand’s Philosophic Achievement, Part IV.” December,
1–12.
Bissell, R. (1973), “Resolving the Government Issue.” Reason 5,
November, 26–29.
Bloom, A. (1987), “Thoughts on Reading: Ayn Rand, Pop Psychology,
and a New Enemy of the Classics,” Chronicle of Higher Education, May
6, 96.
“Books into Films.” (1944), Publisher’s Weekly, CXXXVI, September 30,
1418.
Bradford, R. W. (1996), “The Truth and Ayn Rand,” Liberty, May,
39–41.
—(1997), “Alan Greenspan—Cultist? The Fascinating Personal History
of Mr. Pinstripe,” The American Enterprise 8, (Sept./Oct.), 31–3.
—(1997), “Deep Cover Radical for Capitalism?” Liberty, November,
37–42.
Branden, B. (1990), “Ayn Rand and Her Movement,” Liberty, January,
49–57.
140 Bibliography
Branden, B. (1998), “Passion Play,” Liberty, July, 29–30.

—(1999), “Ayn Rand: The Reluctant Feminist,” Feminist Interpretations
of Ayn Rand M. R. Gladstein and C. M. Sciabarra (Eds). University
Park: Pennsylvania University Press, 25–46.
Branden, N. (1978), “Thank You Ayn Rand, and Goodbye,” Reason,
May, 58–61.
Buechner, M. N. (1982), “Ayn Rand and Economics,” The Objectivist
Forum 3, August, 3–9.
Cerf, Bennet. (1977), At Random: The Reminiscences of Bennett Cerf. New
York: Random House, 249–53.
“The Chairman’s Favorite Author.” (1974), Time, September 30, 87–8.
Childs, R. A., Jr. (1968), “The Contradiction of Objectivism,” Rampart
Journal of Individualist Thought, IV, No. l (Spring), 84.
—(1969), “An Open Letter to Ayn Rand: Objectivism and the State,”
Rational Individualist, August, 145–56.
—(1994), “Ayn Rand and the Libertarian Movement,” Liberty Against
Power: Essays by Roy A. Childs Jr., J. K. Taylor (Ed.). San Francisco: Fox
& Wilkes, 1994, 265–81.
Cody, J. (1973), “Ayn Rand’s Promethean Heroes,” Reason 5, November,
30–5.
Collins, J. (1961), “Ayn Rand’s Talents for Getting Headlines,” America
105, July 29, 569.
Collins, K. (1973), “The Girder and the Trellis,” Reason 5, November,
13–16.
Cook, B. (1965). “Ayn Rand: A Voice in the Wilderness,” Catholic World
cci, May, 119–24.
Cory, S. (1982), “Rerouting Ayn Rand’s ‘Virtue of Selfishness’,”
Christianity Today 26, June 18, 72.
Cox, S. (1986), “Ayn Rand: Theory versus Creative Life,” The Journal of
Libertarian Studies, VIII, No. 1 (Winter), 19–29.
—(1987), “The Films of Ayn Rand,” Liberty, August, 5–10.
Deane, P. (1970), “Ayn Rand’s Neurotic Personalities of Our Times,”
Revue des Langues Vivantes 36, 125–9.
Den Uyl, D. (1973), “The New Republic,” Reason 5, November, 6–11.
Den Uyl, D. and Rasmussen, D. (1978), “Nozick on the Randian
Argument,” Personalist 59, April, 184–205.
“Disturber of the Peace: Ayn Rand.” (1962), Mademoiselle 55, May,
172–73, 194–96.
Bibliography 141
Dowd, M. (1987), “Where ‘Atlas Shrugged’ Is Still Read—Forthrightly,”

The New York Times, September 13, E 5.
“Down with Altruism.” (1960), Time, February 29, 94–5.
Dykes, N. (2004), “Ayn Rand in England,” The Journal of Ayn Rand
Studies, Spring, 365–400.
Ephron, N. (1968), “A Strange Kind of Simplicity,” New York Times Book
Review, May 5, 8.
Evans, M. S. (1967), “The Gospel According to Ayn Rand,” National
Review, Vol. XIX, No. 39, October 3, 1059–63.
Fletcher, M. E. (1974), “Harriet Martineau and Ayn Rand: Economics
in the Guise of Fiction,” American Journal of Economics and Sociology
33, October, 367–79.
—(1976), “A Rejoinder,” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 35,
April, 224.
Forman, F. (1989), “Ayn Rand and Natural Rights,” The Metaphysics of
Liberty, London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 101–12.
Gimpelvich, Z. (1997), “ ‘We’ and ‘I’ in Zamyatin’s We and Rand’s
Anthem,” Germano-Salavica: A Canadian Journal of Germanic and
Sloavic Comparative and Interdisciplinary Studies 10, 1–23.
Gladstein, M. R. (1978), “Ayn Rand and Feminism: An Unlikely
Alliance,” College English, 39, February, 25–30.
—(2005), “Breakthroughs in Ayn Rand Literary Criticism,” The Literary
Art of Ayn Rand, William Thomas (Ed.) Poughkeeepsie, The Objectivist
Center, 58–74.
Gladstein, M. R. and R. Webking. (1988), “John Galt’s Argument for
Human Productivity in Atlas Shrugged,” The University of Windsor
Review, Vol. 21, 73–83.
Glenn, D. (2007), “Advocates of Objectivism Make New Inroads,” The
Chronicle of Higher Education, July 13, A7–8.
—(2007), “Ayn Rand’s Academic Legacy,” The Chronicle of Higher
Education, July 13, A6.
—“Tenure Shrugged,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 13, A12–13.
Goldman, M. (1986–87), “Capitalism, Socialism, Objectivism,”
Philosophy Research Archives XII, 143–54.
Gordon, P. (1977), “The Extroflective Hero: A Look at Ayn Rand,”
Journal of Popular Culture X, No. 4, Spring, 70l–10.
Gotz, I. (1995), “Ayn Rand,” Conceptions of Happiness. Lanham, MD:
University Press of America, 417–23.
142 Bibliography
Greenberg, P. (1993), “Greed Glorified,” Resonant Lives: 60 Figures of

Consequence. Washington DC: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 150–3.
Greenspan, A. (2007), The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World.
New York: The Penguin Press, 40–1, 51–3.
Greenwood, R. (1974), “Ayn Rand and the Literary Critics,” Reason,
November, 44–50.
Hamblin, D. J. (1967), “The Cult of Angry Ayn Rand,” Life Magazine,
62, April 7, 92–102.
Hanscom, L. (196l), “Lecture Circuit: Born Eccentric,” Newsweek 57,
March 27, 104–05.
Harrison, B. G. (1978), “Psyching Out Ayn Rand,” Ms., September,
24–34.
Haught, J. A. (1996), “Ayn Rand,” 2000 Years of Disbelief: Famous People
with the Courage to Doubt. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 271–2.
Heider, U. (1994) “The Queen of Reason: Ayn Rand,” Anarchism: Left,
Right, and Green. trans. D. Lewis and U. Bode. San Francisco: City
Lights Books, 104–07.
Hunt, R. (1984), “Science Fiction for the Age of Inflation: Reading Atlas
Shrugged in the l980s,” Coordinates: Placing Science Fiction and Fantasy.
G. E. Slusser, E. S. Rabkin and R. Scholes (Eds). Carbondale and
Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 80–98.
Johnson, D. B. (1995), “Nabakov, Ayn Rand, and Russian-American
Literature: Or, The Odd Couple,” Cycnos, 101–08.
Kamhi, M. M. (1988), “Ayn Rand’s ‘We the Living’,” Aristos: the Journal
of Esthetics, December, 1–6.
Kelley, D. (2007), “Capitalist Heroes,” Wall Street Journal, October
10, A21.
King, B. J. (1976) “Interview,” Playboy, March, 55–70, 194–6.
King, F. (1992), “Our Lady’s Juggler Shrugged on the Installment
Plan,” With Charity Toward None: A Fond Look at Misanthropy. New
York: St. Martin’s Press, 113–38.
—(1994), “Parodic Verses: Hillarique Shrugged, after Ayn Rand,”
National Review 46, September 26, 61–4.
Knapp, S. M. (2008), “ ‘Nothing Good Was Ever Created by Two
Men’ ”: Parallel Passages in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and John
Steinbeck’s East of Eden,” John Steinbeck’s Global Dimensions. K. Ariki,
L. Li and S. Pugh (Eds). Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press,
25–38.
Bibliography 143
Kobler, J. (196l), “The Curious Cult of Ayn Rand,” The Saturday Evening
Post 234, November 11, 98–101.
Kornstein, D. (1982), “Ayn Rand’s Legal World,” The Music of the Laws.
New York: Everest House, 89–93.
Landrum, G. M. (1994), “Ayn Rand—Macro-Oriented Intuitor,” Profiles
of Female Genius, Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 299–310.
Lennox, J. G. (1976), “Fletcher’s Oblique Attack on Ayn Rand’s
Economics and Ethics,” American Journal of Economics and Sociology
35, April, 217–24.
Letwin, William. (1962), “A Credo for the Ultras,” The Reporter, 27,
October 11, 56–62.
Lipper, Arthur III. (1989), “Leaders: An Objectivist’s Vision,” Jun 11/
Jul 18–19.
Locke, E. A. (1982), “Ayn Rand and Psychology,” The Objectivist Forum,
October, 5–8.
—(1982), “Ayn Rand and Psychology,” The Objectivist Forum, December,
12–15.
Machan, T. R. (1973), “Editorial Introduction: The Significance of
Ayn Rand,” Reason 5, November, 5.
—(1976), “Ayn Rand: A Contemporary Heretic?” The Occasional Review,
Issue 4, Winter, 133–49.
—(1977), “Nozick and Rand on Property Rights,” Personalist 58, April.
192–5.
—(1994), “Ayn Rand versus Karl Marx,” International Journal of Social
Economics 21, No. 2–3–4, 54–67.
Matzer, M. (1992), “She the Living,” Los Angeles Magazine, November,
70–6.
McDonald, M. (1998), “Fighting Over Ayn Rand,” U.S. News & World
Report, March 9, 54– 57.
McGann, K. (1978), “Ayn Rand and the Stockyard of the Spirit,” The
Modern American Novel and the Movies. G. Peary and R. Shatzkin
(Eds). New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing , 325–35.
Merrill, J. C. (1994), “Ayn Rand,” Legacy of Wisdom. Ames: Iowa State
University Press, 116–20.
Moore, S. (2009), “ ‘Atlas Shrugged’: From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years,”
The Wall Street Journal, January 9, Editorial Page.
Nozick, R. (1971), “On the Randian Argument,” Personalist 52, Spring,
282–304.
144 Bibliography
Oliver, C. (1998), “Novelist Ayn Rand: How She Became the most
Influential Writer in America,” Investors Business Daily, June 25, 1.
Olsten, S. (1997), “Something Old, Something New, Something
Borrowed, Something Red, White, and Blue: Ayn Rand’s Atlas
Shrugged and Objectivist Ideology,” The Other Fifties Interrogating
Mid-Century American Icons, J. Foreman (Ed.). Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 288–306.
O’Neil, P. M. (1983), “Ayn Rand and the Is–Ought Problem,” Journal of
Libertarian Studies VII, (Spring), 81–99.
O’Quinn, K. (1982), “Ayn Rand’s Heroism,” Starlog 59, June.
Overbeek, R. (1988), “Rand-Bashing: Enough is Enough,” Liberty, July,
56–8.
Pierpont, C. R. (1996), “Twilight of the Goddess,” The New Yorker, July
24, 70–81.
—(2000), Passionate Minds: Women Rewriting the World. New York:
Knopf, 199–221.
Powell, J. (1996), “Rose Wilder Lane, Isabel Paterson, and Ayn Rand:
Three Women Who Inspired the Modern Libertarian Movement,”
The Freeman 46, May 1, 322.
Ralston, R. E. (2004) “Publishing We the Living,” Essays on Ayn Rand’s
‘We the Living’, R. Mayhew (Ed.). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books,
133–44.
Ridpath, J. B. (1976), “Fletcher’s Views of the Novelist’s Aesthetic
Purpose in Writing,” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 35,
April, 211–17.
Riggenbach, J. (1982), “The Disowned Children of Ayn Rand,” Reason,
December, 57–59.
—(2004), “Ayn Rand’s Influence on American Popular Fiction,” The
Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 6, Fall, 91–144.
Robinson, K. (1989), “Ayn Rand’s Objectivism: A Humanistic
Interpretation,” The Humanist, January/February, 29–30.
Rockwell, L. H. and Tucker, J. A. (1990) “Christian Libertarianism:
Ayn Rand Is Dead,” National Review 42, May 28, 35–6.
Rothbard, M. N. (1987), “The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult,” 12-page
Monograph. Port Townsend: Liberty Publishing. Republished
(1990), Burlingame, CA: Center for Libertarian Studies.
Rubin, H. (2007), “Ayn Rand’s Literature of Capitalism,” The New York
Times, September 15, Business, 1.
Bibliography 145
Ryerson, A. (1986), “Capitalism and Selfishness,” Commentary 82,

December, 37–40.
Sayre, N. (1966), “The Cult of Ayn Rand,” New Statesman, March 11,
332. Reprinted in Sixties Going on Seventies. (1996), New Brunswick:
Rutgers University Press [with “Hindsight” addition], 173–7.
Schroder, C. F. (1961), “Ayn Rand: Far Right Prophetess,” Christian
Century 78, December 13, 1493–5.
Schwartz, J. (1980), “Interview with Ayn Rand, “ The Objectivist Forum
1, June, 1–6.
—(1980), “Interview with Ayn Rand, Part II,” The Objectivist Forum 1,
August, 1–3.
—(1982), “Ayn Rand and Journalism,” The Objectivist Forum, October,
8–13.
Sciabarra, C. (1998), “A Renaissance in Rand Scholarship,” Reason
Papers, No. 23, Fall, 132–59.
—(2004), “The Illustrated Rand,” The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 6,
No. 1, Fall, 1–20.
—(2005), “The Rand Transcript, Revisited,” The Journal of Ayn Rand
Studies 7, Fall, 1–17.
“Second Arbitration on Play Royalties.” (1936), New York Times, January
17, 15.
Shea, R. (1987), “Ayn Rand Is Still at Work: A Personal Reflection,”
Nomos, May/June, 12–21.
Shermer, M. (1993), “The Unlikeliest Cult in History,” Skeptic 2, No.
2, 74–81. Reprinted in (1997) Why People Believe Weird Things:
Psuedoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time. New York:
W. H. Freeman.
Smith, G. (1973), “Atheism and Objectivism,” Reason 5, November,
18–24.
Smith, K. (1970), “Ayn Rand: Objectivism or Existentialism,” Religious
Humanism 4, Winter, 23–8.
Smith, T. (2004), “Forbidding Life to Those Still Living,” Essays on Ayn
Rand’s “We the Living,” R. Mayhew (Ed.). Lanham, MD: Lexington
Books, 317–34.
St. John, J. (1967), “Are American Students Flunking Capitalism?”
Nation’s Business 55, July, 90.
Stadnychenko, T. (1983), “Anthem: A Book for All Reasons,” English
Journal 72, February, 77–8.
146 Bibliography
“A Steel House with a Suave Finish.” (1949), House and Garden, August,
54–7.
Steele, D. R. (1988), “Alice in Wonderland,” Liberty, May, 35–43.
Taylor, S. E. (1969), “Is Ayn Rand Really Selfish, or Only Confused?”
Journal of Thought, January 4, 12–29.
Teachout, T. (1986), “The Goddess that Failed,” [Review Essay of The
Passion of Ayn Rand], Commentary, July, 68–72.
“TIA’s Interview with Leonard Peikoff.” (1983), in The Battle for Laissez-
Faire Capitalism, P. Schwartz, (Ed.). New York: The Intellectual
Activist, 56–64.
Tisdale, S. D. (2007), “A Celebration of Self: Ayn Rand’s
Masterpiece—or the Worst Book of Its Time,” U.S. News & World
Report, 72.
Torres, L. (1987), “Boswell’s Johnson–Branden’s Rand,” Aristos: The
Journal of Esthetics, May, 1–6.
Torres, L. and M. M. Kamhi. (1991), “Ayn Rand’s Philosophy of Art,”
January, 1–5; September 1991, 1–6; January 1992, 1–8; September
1992, 1–8.
Turner, D. (1989–90), “Rand Socialist?” Journal of Philosophical Research
Vol. XV, 351–59.
Veatch, H. B. (1992), “Might ‘Objectivism’ Ever Become Academically
Respectable?’ Liberty, January, 61–5.
Verini, B. (2007), “The World on His Shoulders: Randall Wallace
Takes on Atlas Shrugged, Script 13, No. 3, 30–5.
Walker, J. (1994), “Was Ayn Rand a Humanist?” Free Inquiry, Summer,
51–3.
Whissen, T. R. (1992), “The Fountainhead: Ayn Rand (1943),” Classic
Cult Fiction. New York: Greenwood Press, 92–101.
White, R. L. (1962), “Ayn Rand—Hipster on the Right,” New University
Thought II, Autumn 57–72.
Wilson, C. (1965), “The Works of Ayn Rand,” The Eagle and the Earwig.
London: John Baker, 210–24.
Wilson, P. E. (1993), “The Fiction of Corporate Scapegoating,” Journal
of Business Ethics, October. 779–84.
Wolcott, J. (1989), “Rand Inquisitor,” Vanity Fair 52, June 6, 32–8.
Younkins, E. W. (2005), “Ayn Rand’s Philosophy for Living on Earth,”
Philosophers of Capitalism: Menger, Mises, Rand and Beyond. Lanham,
MD: Lexington Books, 81–110.
Bibliography 147
III. Reviews of Rand’s Works: The Fiction
1. Anthem
“Briefer Mention.” (1953), Freeman, September 21, 931.
2. Atlas Shrugged
Blackman, R. C. (1957), “Controversial Books by Ayn Rand and Caitlin
Thomas,” Christian Science Monitor, October 10, 13.
“Book Event.” (1957), Human Events 14, No. 43.
Chamberlain, J. (1957), “Ayn Rand’s Political Parable and Thundering
Melodrama,” New York Herald Tribune, October 6, sec. 6, 1.
Chambers, W. (1957), “Big Sister Is Watching You,” National Review,
December 28, 594–96.
Donegan, P. (1957), “A Point of View,” Commonweal 67, November 8, 155.
Hicks, G. (1957), “A Parable of Buried Talents,” New York Times Book
Review, October 13, 4–5.
Hughes, R. (1958), “Novels Reviewed,” Catholic World, January, 309.
Malcolm, D. (1957), “The New Rand Atlas,” The New Yorker 33, October
26, 194–96.
McLaughlin, R. (1958), “The Lady Has a Message. . . . ” The American
Mercury 86, January, 144–46.
“No Walls Will Fall.” (1957), Newsweek 50, October 14, 130–2.
Rolo, C. (1957), “Comes the Revolution,” Atlantic Monthly, November,
249–50.
“The Solid-Gold Dollar Sign.” (1957), Time, October 14, 128.
Vidal, G. (1961), “Comment,” Esquire 56, July, 24–7.
Woodward, H. B. (1957), “Non-Stop Daydream,” Saturday Review 40,
October 12, 25.
3. The Fountainhead
The Book
Derleth, A. (1943), Review in Book Week, June 13, 4.
Hirsch, F. E. (1943), Review in Library Journal, April 15, 328.
Pruette, L. (1943), “Battle Against Evil,” The New York Times Book Review.
May 16, 7. Reprinted October 6, 1996, 57.
148 Bibliography
Rothman, N. L. (1943), “H. Roark, Architect,” Saturday Review of

Literature, May 29, 30–31.
Trilling, D. (1943), “Fiction in Review,” The Nation, June 12, 843.
The Film
Crowther, B. (1949), “Gary Cooper Plays an Idealistic Architect in Film
Version of ‘The Fountainhead,’ ” New York Times, July 9, 8, col. 5.
—(1949), “In a Glass House,” New York Times, July 17, sec. 2, 1.
McCarten, J. (1949), Review. The New Yorker, July 16, 46–7.
Review in Good Housekeeping 129, July 1949, 200.
Review in Newsweek, July 25, 1949, 76.
Review in Time, July 11, 1949, 95.
4. Ideal
“ ‘Ideal’: A Tour de Force from Ayn Rand,” Los Angeles Times, October 20,
1989, F 17.
5. Night of January 16th

Atkinson, B. (1935), Review in New York Times, September 17, 26, col. 4.
Barnes, C. (1973), “ ‘Penthouse Legend,’ A Courtroom Drama,” New
York Times, February 23, 20, col. 1.
“Blind Jury Finds a Slayer Guilty.” (l935), New York Times, December
16, 22, col. 5.
Garebian, K. (1987–88), “ ‘Night of January 16th’: Play Review,” Journal
of Canadian Studies Winter, 137–8.
“Play Uses Audience in Jury Box on Stage,” (1935), New York Times,
September 10, 26, col. 1.
6. The Unconquered
Hartung, P. T. (1940), “The Stage and Screen,” The Commonweal,
March 1, 412.
7. We the Living
Belitt, B. (1936), “The Red and the White,” The Nation, April 22,
522–4.
Bibliography 149
Bradford, R. W. (1996), “We the Revising,” (Review of 60th Anniversary

Edition) Liberty, July, 54–5.
Cannon, L. E. (1936), “The Quick and the Dead,” The Christian Century,
July 1, 941.
Straus, H. (1936), “Soviet Triangle,” New York Times Book Review, April
19, 7.
IV. Reviews of Rand’s Works: The Nonfiction
1. Ayn Rand’s Marginalia

Hospers, J. (1997), “Leaving a Margin for Error,” Liberty, September,
67–8.
2. Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

Christian Century. (1966), November 23, 1449.
Gillett, E. (1967), “Other Books,” The Freeman 17, March, 189–90.
O’Shea, D. G. (1967), American, January 21, 118–20.
Tracy, H. (1966), “Here We Go Gathering Nuts,” New Republic,
December 10, 27–8.
VanDerhoof, J. (1966), Review in Library Journal, December 1, 84.
3. For the New Intellectual

Browning, N. L. (196l), “Limping Crusade for Intellectualism,” Chicago
Sunday Tribune, July 19, sec. 6, 5.
Caritas, Sister M. C. H. M. (1965), Review in Social Justice Review,
May, 69.
Donahugh, R. H. (1961), Review in Library Journal, May 1, 1781.
Hook, S. (1961), “Each Man for Himself,” New York Times Book Review,
April 9, 3, 28.
Review. (1960), Kirkus Service Reviews, December 15, 1065–6.
Review. (1961), The Journal of Family Welfare, 8, No. 1, 50–1.
Rosenblum, J. (1961), “The Ends and Means of Ayn Rand,” The New
Republic 144, April 24, 28–9.
150 Bibliography
4. Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology

Bynagle, H. (1979), Review. Library Journal V. 104, May 1, 1062.
O’Neill, W. F. (1980), Review. Teaching Philosophy 3, Fall, 511–16.
5. Journals of Ayn Rand

Brooks, D. (1997), “The Wonder That Is Me,” The New York Times Book
Review, October 5, 38.
Sciabarra, C. (1998), “Bowderlizing [sic] Ayn Rand,” Liberty, September,
65–6.
6. Letters of Ayn Rand

Bradford, R. W. (1995), “ Rand: Behind the Self-Mythology,” Liberty,
September, 51–56.
Cox, C. (1995), “Behind ‘The Fountainhead,’ ” The New York Times Book
Review, August 6, sec. 7, 9.
Frank, J. A. (1995), Review, Book World 25, July 9, 4.
Overmyer, J. (1996), Review, Choice 33, February, 952.
Sciabarra, C. (1995), “Rand the Living,” Reason 27, November, 52–4.
Winters, D. (1995), Review, Choice 91, June 1–15, 1720.
7. Philosophy: Who Needs It

Davis, L. J. (1982), “Ayn Rand’s Last Shrug,” Washington Post, December
12, 7.
Den Uyl, D. (1983), “Rand’s Last Words,” Reason, May, 71–4.
Svetkey, B. (1984), “The Resurrection of Ayn Rand,” Boston Review 9,
December, 28.
8. The Romantic Manifesto

Cattani, R. J. (1970), “Ayn Rand and All That,” Christian Science Monitor,
February 5, 11.
Hughes, J. W. (1970), “None Dare Call It Reason,” The New Leader,
March 2, 21–2.
Bibliography 151
Michelson, P. (1970), “Fictive Babble,” New Republic, February 21,

21–4.
Review. (1969), Kirkus Service Reviews, September 15, 1049.
Review. (1969), Publisher’s Weekly, October 6, 48.
Wadsworth, C. E. (1970), Review, The Library Journal, February 15,
378–9.
9. The Virtue of Selfishness

Brodie, J. M. (1967), “Summaries and Comments,” Review of Metaphysics,
June, 729.
Colimore, V. J. (1966), Review, Best Sellers, January 1, 386–7.
Loughan, T. (1966), Review, American, February 5, 208.
Review. (1965), Choice 2, April, 100.
Review. (1965), Kirkus Service Reviews, October, 1060.
V. Reference Articles and Obituaries

American Authors and Books. 1962 edition, 603.
American Novelists of Today, 1951 edition, 350.
(1982), “Ayn Rand, ‘Fountainhead’ Author, Dies,” New York Times,
March 8, 6.
(1982), “Ayn Rand, R.I.P,” Reason 14, May 1, 13.
Bryant, J. H. (1970), The Open Decision: The Contemporary American
Novel and Its Intellectual Background. New York: The Free Press,
169–71.
Buckley, W. F. (1982), “On the Right: Ayn Rand RIP,” National Review,
April 2, 380–1.
Cassell’s Encyclopedia of World Literature, 1973 edition. New York:
Morrow & Company.
Childs, R. A. Jr. (1982), “Ayn Rand 1905–1982,” Inquiry, April 26,
33–4.
Chira, S. (1982), “Tributes to Ayn Rand Stress Wide Influence of Her
Work,” New York Times, March 10, 3.
Contemporary Authors. (1975), Vols. 13–16, Detroit: Gale Research,
654–6.
152 Bibliography
Contemporary Literary Criticism. (1975), Vol. 3, Detroit: Gale Research.,

423–4.
Contemporary Novelists, second edition. (1976), New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1139–41.
Gladstein, M. (1981), “Ayn Rand,” American Women Writers: A Critical
Reference Guide, Vol. 3, Mainiero, L. (Ed.). New York: Frederick
Ungar Publishing. 438–39. Paperback, Vol. 2, 167–8.
—(1989), “Ayn Rand,” Notable Women in the American Theatre,
A. M. Robinson, V. M. Roberts and M. S. Barrenger (Eds). Westport,
CT: Greenwood Press.
—(1989), “Ayn Rand—Sidelights,” Contemporary Authors: New Revision
Series, Vol. 27, Detroit: Gale Research, 395–9.
Handbook to American Literature. (1975), 407.
Heyl, J. A. (1995), “Ayn Rand (1905–1982),” Contemporary Women
Philosophers, Vol. 4, M. E. Waithe, (Ed.). Boston: Kluwer Academic,
207–24.
McDowell, E. (1982), “Ayn Rand: Novelist with a Message,” New York
Times, March 9, 24.
“Obituary Notes.” (1982), Publisher’s Weekly 221, March 19, 24.
Oxford Companion to American Literature, fourth edition. (1965), New
York: Oxford University Press, 694.
Oxford Companion to Women’s Writing in the United States. (1995), New
York: Oxford University Press, 739.
Penguin Companion to American Literature. (1971), New York: McGraw-
Hill, 213.
Political Profiles: The Eisenhower Years. (1977), New York: Facts on File,
493–4.
The Reader’s Encyclopedia of American Literature, second edition. (1968),
New York: T. Y. Crowell, 840.
Saxon, W. (1982), “Writer Ayn Rand Dies at 77,” Los Angeles Herald
Examiner, March 7, A4, col. 2.
Sciabarra, C. M. (1996), “Ayn Rand 1905–1982,” American Writers:
A Collection of Literary Biographies, Supplement IV, Part 2, IN:
Macmillan, 517–35.
—(2001), “Ayn Rand,” Encyclopedia of Ethics, second edition, Vol.
III, L. C. Becker and C. B. Becker (Eds). New York and London:
Routledge, 1440–3.
Bibliography 153
Teachout, T. (1882), “Farewell, Dagny Taggart,” National Review

XXXIV, May 14, 566–67.
Twentieth Century Authors: First Supplement. (1955), New York: Wilson,
811–12.
200 Contemporary Authors. (1969), Detroit: Gale Research, 225–7.
Webster’s New World Companion to English and American Literature. (1973),
New York: World Publishing, 557–8.
Wheeler, K. M. (1997), A Guide to Twentieth Century American Novelists.
Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 341.
Who’s Who in 20th Century Literature, (1976), New York: Holt, Rinehart,
301.
Writer’s Directory. (1976–78), 874.
Index
Addio Kira (movie, AR) 91 see also Argounova, Kira Alexandrovna

We the Living (We the Living) 21, 22, 90
“Advocates of Objectivism Make ARI see Ayn Rand Institute
New Inroads” (article, Aristotle 5, 56, 75
Glenn) 116 Art of Fiction, The (AR) 80
“Aesthetics of the Visual Arts” Ashburn, Elyse 18
(course, Sures) 98 Atkinson, Brooks 87
Against Our Will Atlantic Monthly 99
(Brownmiller) 107 Atlas Shrugged (novel, AR) 16, 17,
“Age of Envy, The” (essay, AR) 81 21, 30, 62, 92, 97, 98, 111,
Airtight see We the Living 10 112, 113, 117, 122, 123, 125
Allen, Jeff (Atlas Shrugged) 38 anniversary celebration
Allison IV, John 117 (50th) 1, 108, 111, 112
altruism 26, 29, 58, 59 critical reception of 98–101
American Enterprise Institute essay contest 119
The 120 film adaptation 120
“Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy” main philosophical passages:
(Peikoff) 82 “The Forgotten Man of
Anna Karenina 76 Socialized Medicine” 41
Answer to Ayn Rand “From Each According to His
(Robbins) 104–5 Ability, to Each According
Anthem (novel, AR) 13, 21, 24–5, to His Need” 38–41
92, 93 “The Martyrdom of the
reviews of 92–3 Industrialists” 34–6
Anthem Foundation for Objectivist “The Meaning of
Studies The 116–17 Money” 21, 31–4
antipodes: Individualism versus “The Meaning of Sex” 21, 37–8
Collectivism; Egoism versus “The Moral Meaning of
Altruism; Reason versus Capitalism” 36–7
Mysticism 55 “The Nature of an Artist” 42
156 Index
Atlas Shrugged—Continued Blumenthal, Nathan (Nathaniel

“This is the Philosophy of Branden) 16, 95
Objectivism” 21, 42–53 Bobbs-Merrill 15
the Robin Hood myth 53–4 Bolshevik Revolution 2
sales record 122 Bond, James 79
title imagery 34 Branden, Barbara 2n, 3n, 6, 7,
work ethic 54–5 18, 89, 95, 98, 100, 106, 107,
Atlas Society: Center for 122–33
Objectivism 1, 111, Branden, Nathaniel 16, 18,
114–15, 123 58, 67, 95–7, 100, 103,
Attila 55–7, 101 105, 123
Axelrod, George 25 Nathaniel Branden
Ayn Rand and the World She Institute 17, 18, 57, 97
Made 123 Nathaniel Branden
Ayn Rand Archives 112, 123 Lectures 18, 97
Ayn Rand Center for Individual Britting, Jeff 3n
Rights 114 Brook, Yaron 19, 115
Ayn Rand Column, The 102 Brooks, Cherryl (Atlas
Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) 1, 5, 19, Shrugged) 31
96, 108,113, 114–15, 119, 123 Brown, Fern 7
Ayn Rand Letter, The (newsletter, Brownmiller, Susan 107
AR) 20, 102 Buckley, William F. 98
Ayn Rand Russian Writings on
Hollywood 127 n5 Calumet K 11
“Ayn Rand’s Academic Legacy” Capek, Karel 125
(article, Glenn) 116 capitalism 56, 67
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
Baldwin, Howard and Karen 121 (AR) 17, 67–74, 103
Bannon, Charlie (Calumet K) 11 Cassell & Co. 13, 90, 92
Barnes, Hazel 1 Cato Institute 1, 108, 130 n8
Barr, Bob 124 Caxton Press 92
BB & T Foundation 117 censorship 70
Berliner, Michael 19, 89, 91, 92, 94 Cerf, Bennett 17, 105–6
Bernstein, Andrew 113 Chamberlain, John 100
Bill of Rights 70 Chambers, Whittaker 99
Binswanger, Harry 82 Champagne, Maurice 3
Blumenthal, Allan 18, 96 “Charley’s Angels” (TV Show) 18
Blumenthal, Joan (nee “children, the,” 95 see also “class
Mitchell) 96 of ’43” and “the collective”
Index 157
Chronicle of Higher Education, Danneskjöld, Ragnar (Atlas

The 116 Shrugged) 47, 53–4, 58
Cibber, Colley 125 DeMille, Cecil B. 7, 8, 9
class of ’43, 95 see also “the Dempsey, Jack 87
children” and “the DeWald, John 119
collective” Disowned Self, The
classicism 75 (Branden, N.) 105
“collective, the” 95, 98, 105 see Ditko, Steve 113
also “class of ’43” and “the Doherty, Brian 111
children” dollar sign 20, 34, 52
collectivism (collectivist) 26, 30 Dominique 15
as form of racism 65, 93 see also Donahue, Phil 8,
antipodes, individualism 20, 108
methods of 27 Donnigan, Sean Xavier “Mike”
College of the United States, (The Fountainhead) 54
The 118 Dostoevsky, Feodor 76, 77
Collins, Wilkie 125 Drew, Ellen 87
communism (communist) 30, Dumas, Alexander 76
67, 92, 94, 99 Dykes, Nicholas 114, 121
“Comprachicos, The” (essay,
AR) 80–1 ecological movements 109, 110
compromise 62 education 1
concepts 82–3 egoism 25, 28, 58
conflicts of interest 60 Ellis, Albert 105
Conrad, Joseph 10 emergencies, ethics of 60
conservatism 65 Encyclopaedia Britannica 71–2
Cooper, Gary 15, 95 Enright, Marsha
Cox, Stephen 118 Familiaro 118
“Critical History of equality 7–2521 (Anthem) 24, 25
Philosophy” (course, evil 46
Peikoff) 98 “existence exists” 44, 47
“Cult of Moral Grayness, The” existentialism 13
(essay, AR) 63
Cyrus, 11 see also Kira “Faith and Force: The Destroyers
Argounova of the Modern World,”
(speech, AR) 83
d’Anconia, Francisco (Atlas fascism 1, 30, 99
Shrugged) 21, 32, 34–6, Faulkner, William 126
47, 58 feminism 106–7
158 Index
Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Glenn, David 116

Rand 114 “Goals 2000” (Commission
Fleming, Ian 78 report) 81
Ford, Gerald 97 Gordon, Philip 135
Ford Hall Forum, The 108 government
For the New Intellectual (AR) 21, proper function of 51
53, 55–7, 101 “On Government” (essay, AR) 70
Founders College 118 Graves, John Temple 92
Fountainhead, The (novel, AR) 13, Greenspan, Alan 18, 67, 96–7,
14, 16, 17, 21, 30, 92, 93, 95, 98, 103
97, 102, 122 Guzarchiuk, Vera (cousin) 6
“The Nature of the Second-
Hander” 21, 25–6 Halley, Richard (Atlas
“The Soul of a Collectivist” 21, Shrugged) 42
26–8 Halsey, Catherine “Katie” (The
“The Soul of an Fountainhead) 86, 106
Individualist” 21, 28–30 Hammer, Mike 79
plot summary, reviews of 93–4 Harper, F. A. “Baldy” 124
sales record 122 Haydn, Hiram 17
screen version 16, 95 (original Hayek, Friedrich 124
title Second Hand Lives) Hegel, Georg Wilhelm
Francon, Dominique (The Friedrich 57
Fountainhead) 95, 101 Heller, Anne 112, 123
Frankfurter, Justice Felix 74 Hemingway, Ernest
Fraser, Malcolm 108 A Farewell to Arms 11
Free Books to Teachers Hendricks, Thomas, Dr. (Atlas
program 119 Shrugged) 41
free markets 56 Herald Tribune, The 89–90
Hessen, Robert 67, 103
Gaea (Liberty 5–3000) 55, 70 Hicks, Granville 98
Galt, John (Atlas Shrugged) 11, Hitchcock, Alfred 77
21, 42–52, 59 Hitler, Adolph 28
Gandhi, Mahatma 52 Hollywood Studio Club 8
Garbo, Greta 101 honesty 45
George Mason University 123 Hospers, John 114
Gibran, Khalil 126 House Un-American Activities
“Girder and the Trellis, The” Committee 94
(Kathleen Collins) 135 Hudgins, Ed 115
Index 159
Hugo, Victor 3, 76, 77, 80 Kalberman, Elayne 96

Hull, Gary 118 Kalberman, Harry 96
Hume, David 56 Kant, Immanuel 57, 84–5
humor 78 “Kant Versus Sullivan” (essay,
Hurston, Zora Neale 126 AR) 85
Keating, Peter (The
Ideal (play AR) 14, 88 Fountainhead) 25, 26, 28
Impact 7, 119, 122 Keller, Helen 85, 87
“In Answer to Ayn Rand” Kelley, David 114, 117
(Branden, N.) 19 Kerenski, Alexandr
“In Answer to Ayn Rand” Fedorovich 4
(Branden, B.) 19 King, Billie Jean 107
independence 45 King, Martin Luther, Jr. 52, 64
individualism 24, 28 see also King of Kings 8
antipodes, collectivism Knapp, Shoshana Milgram 113,
individual rights 70 123
Institute for Humane Studies Knopf 15
(IHS) 123, 130 n8 Kovalensky, Leo (We the
integrity 45 Living) 22, 23
Introduction to Objectivist Krueger, Ivar 12
Epistemology (AR) 17, 82–3,
104 laissez-faire capitalism 56, 65, 67
Irish Press 91 law of identity (A is A) 44, 61
Is Objectivism a Religion? leeches 14 see also looters,
(Ellis) 105 moochers, second-handers
It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand Lewis, Sinclair 11, 77
(Tuccille) 105 Lewis and Clark College 108
liberals 66
Jefferson, Thomas 123 libertarian 106–8, 120, 124
Jolie, Angelina 121 “Libertarian Feminism in the
Journals of Ayn Rand 101 Twenty-First Century,”
Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 113, (Paglia) 107
118, 121 Liberty for Women: Freedom, and
Joyce-Kafka Amendment 79 Feminism in the Twenty-First
Judgment Day 19, 123 Century 107
justice 45 Liberty 5–3000 “Gaea”
(Anthem) 24, 25
Kahn, Eli Jacques 14 life-affirming virtues 45
160 Index
lobbies 73 Mulligan’s Valley “Atlantis” 54

Long, Roderick T. 118 Mysterious Valley, The 3
looters 14, 32 see also leeches, mystics of muscle 47, 49, 50
moochers, second-handers mystics of spirit 47–9, 50
Los Angeles Times, The 102 My Years with Ayn Rand 19, 123
Lossky, N. O. 5
Nabokov, Vladimir 2, 10
Macmillan 15, 88, 90 National Committee for
Mann, Thomas, The Magic Monetary Reform, The 20,
Mountain 11 33, 119–20
“Man’s Rights” (essay, AR) 67–70 National Review 98
Man Who Laughs, The (Hugo) 80 “Nation at Risk, A” (Commission
Marx, Karl 57 report) 81
Marxism 38 Naturalism 76
materialism 50 “Nature of Government, The”
Mayhew, Robert 23, 92 (essay, AR) 67, 70–2
McCasky, John 117 Neal, Patricia 15, 95
McElroy, Wendy 107 Neutra, Richard 16
McLaughlin, Richard 100 New Left: The Anti-Industrial
Meland, Richard 15 Revolution, The (AR)
Menken, H. L., 89 80–2
Merrill, Ronald E., 79 Newman, Edwin, (“Speaking
Merwin, Samuel (Calumet K) 11 Freely”) 108
Milgram, Shoshana see Shoshana New York Herald Tribune 100
Milgram Knapp New York Times, The 87, 90, 94,
Miller, Frank 113 95, 98, 111, 120–1
Mirren, Helen 122 New York Times Book Review 15
Monroe, Marilyn 101 Nietzche, Friedrich 5, 14, 23, 58,
Montessori, Maria, Dr. 81 99, 128 n4
moochers 14, 32, 35 see also Night of January 16th (play,
looters, leeches, second- AR) 12, 13, 87, 88 see also
handers Penthouse Legend, Woman on
Moore, Stephen 125 Trial
moral agnosticism 62 Non Vivi (movie, AR) 91 see also
moral judgment 62 We the Living
Motion Picture Alliance for the
Preservation of American objectivism 17, 22, 57, 95, 98,
Ideals 94 103–5, 120
Index 161
as cult/religion 105 Perelman, Vadim 121

and Christianity 105 Philosophy: Who Needs It? (AR) 83–4
and Libertarians 108 Pianist Who Loved Ayn Rand, The
see also The Objectivist, The (Villada) 114
Objectivist Newsletter, The Plato 5, 56
Ayn Rand Letter Playboy 108
Objectivism: The Philosophy of Preston, Robert 87
Ayn Rand (Peikoff) 86 pride 45–6
Objectivist, The 18, 19, 102, 104 “Principles of Efficient
Objectivist Academic Center 86 Thinking” (course, B.
Objectivist Clubs 115 Branden) 98
“Objectivist Ethics, The” (essay, productiveness 45–6
AR) 58–9 Prometheus see also (Equality
Objectivist Newsletter, The 102 7–2521) 25, 28
O’Connor, Charles Francis “Property Status of Airwaves,
“Frank” 8, 9, 11, 16, 96, 109 The” (essay, AR) 73–4
Ogden, Archibald G. 15 Pruette, Lorine 94
O’Hara, John 77 public good, the 36
O. Henry 11, 12, 76 public property 74
Old Nick’s Guide to Happiness 114 “Pull Peddlers, The”
Old School (Wolff) 114 (essay, AR) 73
O’Neill, William F. 105 purpose 45
Orman, Suze 112
Quo Vadis? 76
Paglia, Camile 107
Paltons, Cyrus (The Mysterious racism 64–6
Valley) 3 Rand, Ayn
Pamphleteers 92 anti-collectivism and anti-
parasitism see also leeches, communism 6, 9, 13, 22
looters, moochers as atheist 2
Passion of Ayn Rand, The attitude toward art and
(Branden, B.) 2, 11n, entertainment 42
19, 122 attitude toward cities 16
Paxton, Michael 19, 79 attitude toward education
Peikoff, Leonard 18, 19, 57, 82, system 90–1
85, 96, 98 attitude toward family
Penthouse Legends also Night of (Chicago) 6
January 16th, Woman on Trial attitude toward intelligence 2
162 Index
Rand, Ayn—Continued Rearden, Hank (Atlas

attitude toward music 3 Shrugged) 34–7
attitude toward reason 27, 44, 45, see the
philosophy 107E antipodes: reason versus faith
attitude toward religion 99, 104 Reason, Individualism, Freedom
attitude toward Russia 6, 9, 10 Institute 118
attitude toward the United “Red Decade” 9, 88
States 30, 56 Red Pawn (screenplay, AR) 11
attitude toward work 54–5 relativism 63
centenary 113 Return of the Primitive: An
concepts, theory of 82–3 Anti-Industrial
defense of egoism 14, 29 Revolution 81–2 see also The
defense of gold standard 33 New Left: An Anti-Industrial
definition of art 74, Revolution
104 Riggenbach, Jeff 113, 131 n6
Doctor of Humane Letters 17, rights 68–70
108 RKO Pictures 9, 11
essentials of philosophy 57 Roark, Howard (The
final years 20, 109 Fountainhead) 11, 15, 25, 28
given name and chosen Robbins, John W. 104
name 2, 7, 127, n1 Robin Hood 53
as heroine 103 Rolo, Charles 99
individualism of 3 romanticism 74–9
lectures 17, 20 Romantic Manifesto, The
literary theory of 74–80 (AR) 11n, 74–80
litigiousness of 13 Rosenbaum, Alisa Zinovievna
pessimism/depression of 20, (Alice) 2, 6 see Ayn Rand
100 Rosenbaum, Anna Borisovna
philosophic journals of 14 (mother) 4, 5, 7
on popular platitudes 102–3 Rosenbaum, Zinovy Zacharovich
public philosopher 97 (father) 2, 4, 7
schooling 3, 4, 5 Rostand, Edmond 76
on selfishness 29, 102 Rothbard, Murray N. 124
“Rand Grant Universities” 116 Rothman, N. L. 17
Random House 17, 90, 105 Ruddy, Albert S. 120
rationality 45 Rukavina, Mary Ann (Sures) see
rational self-interest 58 Mary Ann Sures
Reagan, Ronald 81 Russian Revolution 4
Index 163
Saturday Review 15, 94, 98 Swift, Jonathan 125

Scarlet Letter, The
(Hawthorne) 76 Taganov, Andrei (We The
Schiller, Friedrich 76 Living) 22, 23
Schwartz, Peter 82, 113 Taggart, Dagny (Atlas
Sciabarra, Chris 2, 113, 118 Shrugged) 31, 37, 42,
Scott, Sir Walter 76 101, 121
“Screen Guide for Americans,” Taggart, James (Atlas
(pamphlet, AR) 94 Shrugged) 31
Script 121 Tagliafero, John 121
second-handers 24 see also Think Twice (play, AR)
looters, leeches, mooches 14, 88
Second Hand Lives, (original Thoreau, Henry David 52
title of The Fountainhead) 14 “tiddlywink” music 20, 79
self-esteem 45 Time 99–100
selfishness 58, 102 Times Literary Supplement 91
“Sense of Life” 79, 88 Tolstoy, Leo 76
Serling, Rod 77 Toohey, Ellsworth Monkton (The
sexual attraction 37–8 Fountainhead) 26
Shakespeare, William 76 “To Whom It May Concern”
Silliphant, Stirling 18, 120 (article, AR) 18
Snider, Ed 112 trader/trader principle 46,
Snyder, Tom (“Tomorrow”) 20, 100–1
108 “Train Your Mind to Change the
Soviet Union (Soviet Russia) 4, World” (article,
5, 6, 88, 89 Ashburn) 118
Spillane, Mickey 18, 78 Trilling, Diana 140
Stanwyck, Barbara 101 Tuchille, Jerome 105
Starnes, Ivy (Atlas Shrugged) 41 Twentieth Century Motors (Atlas
State Institute for Shrugged) 39–41
Cinematography 5 Twilight Zone, The 77
Steinbeck, John 3, 127n3
Stoiunin Gymnasium 2 Uncle Tom’s Cabin 100
Stossel, John 112 The Unconquered (play, AR) 14,
St. Petersburg (Leningrad) 2, 4, 6 88 see also We the Living
Sullivan, Annie 85 United States of America 30
Sures, Mary Ann (nee Universal Studios 11
Rukavina) 18, 96, 98 U.S. News & World Report 111
164 Index
values 45 Wick, Jean 89

Villada, Gene Bell 114 Witch Doctor 55–7, 101
Virtue of Selfishness, The (AR) 17, Who Is Ayn Rand? (Branden, B.
67, 102–3 and N.) 5, 122
With Charity Toward None
Wallace, Randall 121 (O’Neill) 105
Wall Street Journal 111, 116, 125 Wolff, Tobias 114
war 72 Woman on Trial 11–12 see also
Watkins, Ann 15 Night of January 16th,
Webster, Henry Kitchell Penthouse Legend
(Calumet K) 11 Woods, A. H. 12
Weidman, Barbara (Barbara Woodward, Helen Beal 98
Branden) 16, 95 Wyatt, Ellis (Atlas Shrugged) 54
West Point 83–4, 108 Wynand, Gail (The
We the Living (novel, Fountainhead) 25
AR—original title
Airtight) 10, 11, 13, 22, Yale Law School 109
87, 88, 89 Younkins, Ed 85–6, 112
reviews of 89–91 see also The
Unconquered, Non Vivi, Zeitlin, Ida 90
Addio Kira Zola, Emile 76

Rand

Diunggah oleh

Informasi Dokumen

Judul Asli

Hak Cipta

Format Tersedia

Bagikan dokumen Ini

Bagikan atau Tanam Dokumen

Opsi Berbagi

Apakah menurut Anda dokumen ini bermanfaat?

Apakah konten ini tidak pantas?

Hak Cipta:

Format Tersedia

Rand

Diunggah oleh

Hak Cipta:

Format Tersedia

Ayn Rand

The Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers series aims

The Salamanca School Andre Azevedo Alves and

Of course, in any series of this nature, choices have to be

Major Conservative and

The Tower Building 80 Maiden Lane

© Mimi R. Gladstein 2010

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India

Series Editor’s Preface ix

The novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand was one of the

Rand celebrated selfishness and rejected altruism. For

Ayn Rand was a polarizing and controversial person in

The source of these towering passions was born Alisa

during the period of the Russian Revolution (1918–1921),

At the University, Alisa chose, over her father’s objec-

the transition from Lenin’s to a new economic policy. As

the Cecil B. DeMille Studio, bought her a train ticket, and

Once settled in the Hollywood Studio Club for women, a

in the marriage. After DeMille’s studio closed, Ayn and

intelligentsia were advocating many of the same collectivist

O. Henry did. His trademark plot twists and lighthearted

inspired by viewing a courtroom drama and stories in the

The year 1936 was a banner year for Rand’s career.

Rand was actively writing in a number of genres during

disappointment. When Macmillan’s offer to publish did

As Rand’s contract for the book sale to the movies also

she continued the practice. It was in these gatherings

the antagonists in her fiction. Alan Greenspan (2007)

behavior subsequent to the break with Nathaniel con-

Rand Letter followed. Publication ceased in 1976. In 1974

An Exposition of Rand’s Ideas

Rand initially used the medium of fiction to explicate her

full “outline for a new philosophical system” (For the New

that which I want?” (72). She goes on to accuse him (as a

Anthem presents a future world in which the collectiv-

such people, it is not what they accomplish but what oth-

easily ruled. Other of Toohey’s methods include making

himself, but people don’t want to believe him. Like Hitler

animals, humans are not equipped by nature with fang,

self-sufficient. For such an individual, all proper exchanges

Shrugged, she was able to sharpen and hone her thinking

Brooks. Most of the major and minor representatives of

(107). What Francisco means by being equal to his money

just that and to educate the citizens of United States about

In much of his presentation to Rearden, d’Anconia is ana-

In addition, d’Anconia asks Rearden for whom he has

most contemptible of evils a society that is built on turn-

of his own value. However, only a man who despises himself

thousands of others. The devil, of course, is in the details.

adding worthless relatives to the family rolls, and nur-

engines to factories that produce defective motors no mat-

From the world of science to that of the artist, the strik-

In the plot of the novel, John Galt appropriates the air-

from society, there has not been a positive benefit? The

but not when done by an automaton. Galt warns against

just in defense of oneself against another who has initiated

Both are “mystics” because both moralities reject the fun-

Thus, the spiritualists make an irrational argument.

objective validity. Human ideas are created by material cir-

“We know that we know nothing,” they chatter, blanking

It follows from Galt’s arguments that both the mystics of