• Slideshow: Succe$$ 
Karl Stevens and Gustavo Turner , Boston Phoenix Atlas Shrugged  The original pitch for [the web comic] "Succe$$" (from last April) described it as "a post-9-11 story about a new breed of young capitalists. They're eco-friendly, gadget-obsessed and they scorn the gaucheness and vanity of the Gordon Gekko yuppies. They're Reagan babies, programmed to "Just Say No" and "Just Do It" at the same time. If you looked at the back seat of their Priuses, you'd find well-thumbed copies of "Atlas Shrugged.""   View blog reactions

• The anti-bailout Republicans’ highway to economic hell 
John H. Richardson, Esquire - The Richardson Report Capitalism  [One] favorite argument [of free market absolutists] is that it actually took World War II to make the economy whole again. I've been hearing this one since the early 1980s, when I worked on Wall Street amongst devotees of Ayn Rand and Friedrich von Hayek. But all my "collectivist"-bashing friends never said why World War II had such a happy economic effect. Because it led to massive government spending.   View blog reactions

• The end of capitalism? 
Ann Robertson, Global Research Capitalism  Inaccurate  Greed is the fuel that energizes [capitalism]. Ayn Rand, the most virulent defender of capitalism, simply put it this way: greed is good.   View blog reactions

• Hip-hop artist LL Cool J leaves footprints beyond music 
Budd Mishkin, NY1 (New York) LL Cool J’s conversation is literary, peppered with references to Winston Churchill, and authors Ayn Rand and Malcolm Gladwell.   View blog reactions

• How are banks spending bailout money? Anyone’s guess 
William Patalon III, Seeking Alpha Capitalism  A spokesman for BB&T told the Charleston (W.V.) Daily Mail newspaper just before Christmas that the bank doesn’t like the federal government’s $700 billion financial rescue plan - and actually didn’t want to participate - but took the $3.1 billion because competitors are participating and because the Treasury Department urged it to. According to the newspaper, BB&T - the largest bank in West Virginia - has been asked how it justifies participating in the federal government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, in light of BB&T Chairman John A. Allison IV’s promotion of the late author Ayn Rand’s philosophy of free market capitalism.   View blog reactions

• Live boldly by your chosen priorities 
K Vijayaraghavan, Economic Times (India) Egoism  [According to the] Bhagavad Gita [...] it is necessary to subdue and if imperative, to eliminate one’s own kith and kin, in one’s journey to rightful living. [....] These also are Ayn Rand’s concept of enlightened selfishness and Patanjali’s reference to healthy indifference (upekshana) to the sinful (Sutra: 1, 33).   View blog reactions

• Rethinking free trade 
Vox Day, WorldNetDaily Capitalism  I was first introduced to economics when given Milton Friedman's book, "Free to Choose," when I was still in junior high. By the time I graduated from high school, I had read Adam Smith, Paul Samuelson, Friedrich von Hayek, Ayn Rand, Peter Drucker and a number of authors whose works touched tangentially on economics.   View blog reactions

• • Recession/depression or innovation/change? 
Kevin Masterson, The Examiner Atlas Shrugged  One of my favorite books of all time is “Atlas Shrugged.” Although I don’t agree with all of her philosophical & political views, Ayn Rand’s examples of the need for personal responsibility seem very timely right now. There is one brief scene in the book that really made an impression on me. The main character, Dagny, goes to a little market in the mountains. She asks the very downtrodden storeowner why she does not move the produce out of the sun where it is rotting & into the shade. The storeowner responds “that’s where it has always been.”   View blog reactions

• Das Bailout: A conversation with Karl Marx 
James P. Pinkerton, Huffington Post Capitalism  Me: "[...] there are some who oppose these bailouts, on principle. There are some who make the moral case for laissez-faire capitalism--the freedom to succeed, coupled, of course, with the freedom to fail." KM: "Oh, you mean, like your Ayn Rand. She was an interesting woman. And your Milton Friedman, too, always linked capitalism and freedom." Me: "And so did other famous free-marketeers, such as Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. Hayek wrote that socialism and communism were akin to serfdom, while Mises linked his economic ideas to what he called "'the constitution of liberty.'" KM: "Yeah, yeah, but they're all gone now, aren't they? And their followers these days are mostly on the fringes, exiled to a few ivory towers. The practical men of power have no time for what they dismiss as mere 'ideology.' They just want the bailout money, as we have seen. And so, happily, the mask of 'free enterprise' has fallen away, and the naked face of greedy and unprincipled finance capitalism has been revealed."   View blog reactions

• • Using taxpayer money for stimulus won’t work 
David M. Weatherell, Denver Post Atlas Shrugged  Capitalism  Letter to the editor.The novel “Atlas Shrugged,” by Ayn Rand, shows what happens to civilization when government strays from its only moral purpose of securing individual rights and instead engages in the violation of individual rights.   View blog reactions

• End tax addiction 
Mark Strauch, Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, CA) Atlas Shrugged  Letter to the editor.This would [...] be a good time for everyone in Sacramento to read "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand; we continue to drive the golden geese out of this state.   View blog reactions

• Putting good food on a plate 
Andrea Weigl, News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) Interview with chef Ricky Moore.We thought Moore might be an interesting interview, given this paragraph from his bio: "Chef Moore attributes his enthusiasm for food and cooking to his family upbringing and life experiences, but he also credits Fernand Point, the greatest influence on modern French cuisine; Alain Chapel, one of the founders of nouvelle cuisine; Sidney Poitier; James Baldwin; Grandmaster Flash; Norman Rockwell; Ralph Waldo Emerson; Ayn Rand; and Vince Lombardi."   View blog reactions

• • Bible’s humor outlined in Washington University professor’s new book 
Tim Townsend, Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, MO) Atlas Shrugged  When pollsters for Harris Interactive asked Americans last year to name their favorite book of all time, there weren't a lot of rollicking gut-busters at the top of the list. Margaret Mitchell's "Gone with the Wind" tackles the Civil War. Stephen King's "The Stand" describes a superflu that all but wipes out the human race. Ayn Rand's 1,000-plus page "Atlas Shrugged" is a philosophical exploration of the role of man's mind in the decline of Western civilization.   View blog reactions

• The Great Book Adventure: The end 
Chris Bancells, Blogcritics Had I listened to my gut instead of other people, I likely would have left The Picture of Dorian Gray alone, and if I never read it again, I'll be just fine. Having learned this lesson, I know I won't be picking up anything by Ayn Rand anytime soon. Don't ask me why, but I am positive I will not like her stuff, and that's enough for me.   View blog reactions

• • Our future, your choice: What happens to local news if newspapers aren’t there to report it? 
Matt Fredmonsky, Record-Courier (Ravenna, OH) Atlas Shrugged  If newspapers disappear, so, too, may local news and its countless jobs. Reporters, once vigilant attendants of local government meetings, could be replaced by empty seats. What's new in the community may become a rhetorical question, much like Ayn Rand's line "Who is John Galt?," an expression of helplessness from her popular novel "Atlas Shrugged."   View blog reactions

• • • Ayn Rand’s Promethean myth 
François Flahault, Le Monde diplomatique Altruism  Atlas Shrugged movie  Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Capitalism  Egoism  Personal life  (Full article requires subscription.)Ayn Rand’s ideology is addressed first and foremost to the powerful. She confirms their favourable self-image and allows them to overlook what they really are: members of powerful networks striving to maintain their positions within them. But her popular appeal extends to people in less exalted positions; the models of Galt and Roark offer them an imaginary compensation for feelings of loneliness and inadequacy and provide a source of self-respect. She allows them to feel proud of what in reality makes them weak. As faith in the individual is founded on the example of those who succeed, the social capital from which the successful benefit goes unmentioned so as to increase their personal value. For those who are at the bottom of the ladder, failure is attributed to a lack of personal qualities.   View blog reactions

• • Sinister folly 
Jesse Larner, Le Monde diplomatique Excerpt from a 2007 Huffington Post article.I find Rand’s and Hitler’s idea of the Romantic individual repugnant for the same reason; it is the same Romantic individual. It’s no accident that the only group in Europe that takes Rand seriously at all is the neo-Nazis.   View blog reactions

• • The scapegoat 
Ayn Rand, Le Monde diplomatique Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal  Capitalism  Excerpt from Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group or scapegoat which it can blame for the nation’s troubles and use as a justification of its own demands for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen.   View blog reactions

• • Economics actually 
Michael C. Moynihan, Reason Atlas Shrugged  Capitalism  Interview with economist Russ Roberts.Q: What didactic novel has had the most impact? A: [....] The most successful didactic novel clearly is Atlas Shrugged [....]. Atlas Shrugged is supposedly the second most influential book in people’s lives after the Bible. One wonders then why the United States is not a more libertarian or liberty-oriented place if that is the case. I think what a lot of people learn from Atlas Shrugged is the lesson that it’s OK to be happy, which is a good lesson. It’s true; it is OK to be happy. But I don’t think everyone absorbed the economic freedom lessons quite the way that they were intended.   View blog reactions

• The durability of market fundamentalism 
Arthur Alpert, New Mexico Independent Capitalism  James Galbraith reports in “The Predator State” that conservative economists are disillusioned, it’s hard to find dedicated monetarists (money supply is everything!) or supply-siders. And, true, Alan Greenspan, the Ayn Rand acolyte, is on the record doubting his own dogma. But I find free market fanaticism lingers on, like a hangover, in the print press and on the Web. Faced with the utter failure of their ideology, some fundamentalists deny, some prate about “greed,” some blame the victims. And liberals still talk respectfully of discredited doctrines. Why? How many “free market” busts does it take?   View blog reactions