Free Republic

Way, way back in Econ 101 you might remember hearing about a guy named Adam Smith. He described what nowadays would be called an "emergent event of a complex system" that he named "the invisible hand of the free market." Simply put, it means that the economic market is too complex for conscious control, but is self-correcting (the invisible hand) if everyone pursues their own interests on a level playing field (equal rules). After Smith, some historical stuff happened for awhile, and then a writer appeared named Ayn Rand. People read her books, and immediately started arguing whether she is...

According to Politico.com, Ayn Rand — the subject of two new biographies, one of which is titled Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right — is “having a mainstream moment,” including among conservatives. (Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina wrote a piece in Newsweek on Rand, saying, “This is a very good time for a Rand resurgence. She’s more relevant than ever.”). I hope the moment passes. Ms. Rand may have been a popular novelist, but her philosophy is deeply problematic and morally indefensible.....

Objectively, Ayn Rand Was a Nut [Peter Wehner] According to Politico.com, Ayn Rand — the subject of two new biographies, one of which is titled Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right — is “having a mainstream moment,” including among conservatives. (Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina wrote a piece in Newsweek on Rand, saying, “This is a very good time for a Rand resurgence. She’s more relevant than ever.”). I hope the moment passes. Ms. Rand may have been a popular novelist, but her philosophy is deeply problematic and morally indefensible. Ayn Rand was, of course,...

Ayn Rand is one of America's great mysteries. She was an amphetamine-addicted author of sub-Dan Brown potboilers, who in her spare time wrote lavish torrents of praise for serial killers and the Bernie Madoff-style embezzlers of her day. She opposed democracy on the grounds that "the masses"—her readers—were "lice" and "parasites" who scarcely deserved to live. Yet she remains one of the most popular writers in the United States, still selling 800,000 books a year from beyond the grave. She regularly tops any list of books that Americans say have most influenced them. Since the great crash of 2008, her...

Whenever Ayn Rand met someone new—an acolyte who’d traveled cross-country to study at her feet, an editor hoping to publish her next novel—she would open the conversation with a line that seems destined to go down as one of history’s all-time classic icebreakers: “Tell me your premises.” Once you’d managed to mumble something halfhearted about loving your family, say, or the Golden Rule, Rand would set about systematically exposing all of your logical contradictions, then steer you toward her own inviolable set of premises: that man is a heroic being, achievement is the aim of life, existence exists, A is...

AYN RAND AND THE WORLD SHE MADE By Anne C. Heller Illustrated. 567 pp. Nan A. Talese/Doubleday. $35A specter is haunting the Republican Party — the specter of John Galt. In Ayn Rand’s libertarian epic “Atlas Shrugged,” Galt, an inventor disgusted by creeping American collectivism, leads the country’s capitalists on a retributive strike. “We have granted you everything you demanded of us, we who had always been the givers, but have only now understood it,” Galt lectures the “looters” and “moochers” who make up the populace. “We have no demands to present you, no terms to bargain about, no compromise...

Ayn Rand has drifted in and out of favor, but she may be more relevant today than ever before.In my experience, people who've read Ayn Rand's books either love them or hate them. I'm one of the few who fall somewhere in between. When I first read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged in the 1980s, I was blown away. Those books portray the power of the free individual in ways I had never thought about before. Since then, I've grown more critical of Rand's outlook because it doesn't include the human needs we have for grace, love, faith, or any...

Several years ago, Miss Ayn Rand wrote The Fountainhead. Despite a generally poor press, it is said to have sold some four hundred thousand copies. Thus, it became a wonder of the book trade of a kind that publishers dream about after taxes. So Atlas Shrugged had a first printing of one hundred thousand copies. It appears to be slowly climbing the best-seller lists. The news about this book seems to me to be that any ordinarily sensible head could not possibly take it seriously, and that, apparently, a good many do. Somebody has called it: "Excruciatingly awful." I find...

Note: To All Fifth Columnists is an open letter written by Ayn Rand around the beginning of 1941, when she was encouraging conservative intellectuals to form a national organization advocating individualism. She desired for the letter be issued by such an organization. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You who read this represent the greatest danger to America. No matter what the outcome of the war in Europe may be, Totalitarianism has already won a complete victory in many American minds and conquered all of our intellectual life. You have helped it to win. Perhaps it is your right to destroy civilization and bring dictatorship...

President Obama has hailed a “historic agreement [with drug companies] to lower drugs costs” for older Americans, although some still doubted the government would reap in savings. The government wants to use the savings to pay for coverage of the uninsured. This could be a boon to Medicare beneficiaries, and AARP praised the deal, under which the lobby for drug companies, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said it had pledged $80 billion over 10 years to help “reform our troubled health care system.” Rand wants to help the president to get something for ordinary Americans. He was there...

A. Barry Rand, chairman of the Board of Trustees at Howard University and a nationally recognized agent for social change, has been tapped as AARP’s new chief executive officer, it was announced Thursday. Rand, 64, a former top executive at Xerox and Avis Rent A Car, will succeed Bill Novelli when he takes over the association’s top post on April 6. He will become AARP’s first African American CEO. According to an AARP press release, Rand is “a catalyst for social change and inclusion in the workplace.” He was selected to lead AARP after a national search that lasted nearly...

Nearly 10 years after a RAND study predicted the US side easily beats China in an air war over the Taiwan Straits, the think-tank has published a new monograph online today that reverses its former opinion. Now, a People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) bristling with a newly acquired arsenal -- including Su-27 and J-10 fighters, AA-12 and PL-12 missiles, and short-range ballistic missiles -- defeats the US side. Moreover, the PLAAF defeats the US side with or without F-22s, with or without access to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa and with or without the participation of two US carrier...

OVER much of the last four decades, John A. Allison IV built BB&T from a local bank in North Carolina into a regional powerhouse that has weathered the economic crisis far better than many of its troubled rivals — largely by avoiding financial gimmickry. And in his spare time, Mr. Allison travels the country making speeches about his bank’s distinctive philosophy.

In a first-of-its-kind study, the non-profit Rand Corp linked the rapid growth in U.S. health care costs to job losses and lower output. The study, published online by the journal Health Services Research, gives weight to President Barack Obama’s dire warnings about the impact of rising costs if Congress does not enact health care reform. The rate of growth in U.S. health care costs has outpaced the growth rate in the gross domestic product (GDP) for many years. In 1940, the share of GDP accounted for by health care spending was just 4.5%. By 1990, it had reached 12.2%, and...

AARP sent me one of those unsolicited AARP membership letters with the pre-printed membership card. So I called their 800 number and said I was interested in joining however I have a few questions and wanted to understand the AARP position on the Healthcare Bill. The nice lady that I spoke with was located in Nevada. She explained to me that AARP supports this bill and it not a “socialist” plan as some are saying. She want on to tell me that this plan would cover the 47 million individuals not insured and that number was probably a lot higher....

The events of this past week really gave clarity as to why I remain ‘sans political party’. Having once been a staunch Democrat, I could never quite bring myself to become a Republican, even as a business owner. Consequently, I’ve since been a registered Independent voting almost entirely, as much as it was possible, Republican/Conservative. To prove my point, today was the first time in at least ten years I’ve ever agreed with anything written in the New York Times, 'The Audacity of the Pope'. Not only did I agree with Ross Douthat , he was spot on! But Benedict’s...

In stunningly self-centered, cruel fashion, Nicholas Provenzo, writer for the Center for the Advancement of Capitalism suggests that Sarah Palin’s decision to give birth to a child with Down Syndrome, is a financial burden that others are forced to suffer with. Provenzo, who has written opinion pieces for the Washington Times, Capitalism Magazine, and the Atlanta Journal Constitution, as well as being a guest on Bill Maher’s former show, Politically Incorrect, makes his case for “the morality of aborting a fetus diagnosed with Down syndrome.” The full first paragraph of the piece which is circulating amidst the blogosphere reads (emphasis...

Despite a number of differences I have with Ayn Rand on issues of religion and philosophy, her 1957 magnum opus, "Atlas Shrugged," definitely steered me away from the leftist upbringing I had, and introduced me to the world of conservative ideas and authors: Ludwig von Mises, Henry Hazlitt, Milton Friedman, Isabel Paterson, and many others. Universally panned by literary critics of the day, "Atlas" was, nevertheless, a bestseller in 1957, and continued to sell about 100,000 copies a year for 51 consecutive years. 52 years later -- just after the inauguration of zerobama -- "Atlas" has apparently tripled its sales...

"Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man's genetic lineage—the notion that a man's intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors."- Ayn Rand  The Department of Homeland Security has, as been the case time and time again, chosen to lump the 'Right' with radical racist groups such as the...

Whether it’s a religion or a political movement, the most effective critics are always those who were once believers. Whether it’s David Horowitz dissecting the American Left, Bart Ehrman challenging fundamentalist Christianity, or Ayaan Hirsi Ali critiquing Islam, those that have been on the inside can cut the deepest. Not all critics write academic tomes. Ex-Muslim cum Objectivist Bosch Fawstin's new book will contain several essays explaining his challenging, often controversial views on Islam and the War on Terror. But as a cartoonist, Fawstin is the ideal person to make the definitive anti-Jihad superhero: Pigman. For the past several years,...

How can you tell that conservatives have responded to the Obama presidency by retrenching rather than reflecting? By what they apparently are reading in droves. The Ayn Rand Institute this week announced that sales of the novel "Atlas Shrugged" by the eponymous high priestess of capitalism have tripled in the first four months of 2009 compared to the same period last year — all but guaranteeing a new annual record to top last year's benchmark of 200,000. That this turgid, tedious novel, published in 1957, has continually found fellow travelers on the right is a great oddity of American intellectual...

The number are in, and paleo-capitalist Ayn Rand’s hot again. “Atlas Shrugged” is selling at a pace not seen since the novel was published in 1957. Sales of her other major novel, “The Fountainhead,” are up as well. It’s clear that the recession and a very liberal political leadership have caused the renewed interest. Economist Stephen Moore recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the Obama strategy mirrors the plot of “Atlas Shrugged. “The more incompetent you are in business, the more handouts the politicians will bestow on you,” Moore said. I recently re-read “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”...

In the midst of the credit crisis and the federal government's massive bailout plan, the works of Rand, a proponent of a libertarian, free-market philosophy she called Objectivism, are getting new attention. "If only 'Atlas' were required reading for every member of Congress and political appointee in the Obama administration. I'm confident that we'd get out of the current financial mess a lot faster," Wall Street Journal columnist Stephen Moore wrote in early January. It's obviously getting attention from the general public. Rand book sales are "going through the roof," said Yaron Brook, the president of the Ayn Rand Institute....

Bestsellers in Books Any Category > Books The most popular items in Books. Updated hourly. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto by Mark R. Levin (Author) 299 Reviews 5 star: (243) 4 star: (12) 3 star: (5) 2 star: (5) 1 star: (34) › See all 299 customer reviews... (299 customer reviews) | 31 customer discussions Usually ships in 1 to 3 weeks List Price: $25.00 Price: $13.75 You Save: $11.25 (45%) 26 used & new from $13.75 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 22. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (Author) 1,738 Reviews 5 star: (1,029) 4 star: (247) 3 star: (143) 2...

Part II: Either-OrChapter I: The Man Who Belonged on EarthSynopsisAt the State Science Institute, Dr. Robert Stadler reflects on the harsh winter just ended. There had been rail incidents that affected society, a five day power outage at the Institute and talk about conserving fuel. What irks Stadler is the book on his desk, Why Do You Think You Think?. It demeans logic and rational thought, questions the very nature of reality, is written by Dr. Floyd Ferris, Top Coordinator of the State Science Institute, and is published under the Institute’s aegis. Dr. Ferris arrives half an hour late due...

My syndicated column today spotlights two related phenomenon: the Tea Party revolt on the streets and the “Going Galt” revolt with our wallets. For new readers who are just learning about the protest movement and want to join, the best organizational resources are Tax Day Tea Party (nationwide April 15 events), Twitter #teaparty, PJTV’s list of upcoming protests, Re-TeaParty (send teabags to Washington and find July 4 events), and TCOT Report. And one more good one: New American Tea Party. Some tinfoil-hatted kooks are still pimping their conspiracy theories about the movement. The latest: Aha! Malkin once gave a speech...

President Barack Obama’s rapid race into socialism is creating an escalating tax revolt. With a never-ending stream of stimulus packages and new entitlement programs, the Americans who will be stuck with the bill are shouting a clear message: “Enough!” Many organizations are calling for a Tax Day Tea Party (http://taxdayteaparty.com/) on April 15. To Democrats, “the rich” aren’t paying their “fair share,” but many of the top 20 percent of wage-owners who pay 83 percent of the income taxes are taking to the streets. Yes, Obama is my president, and as Warren Buffett said, “We’re all in the same boat.”...

Ayn Rand died more than a quarter of a century ago, yet her name appears regularly in discussions of our current economic turmoil. Pundits including Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santelli urge listeners to read her books, and her magnum opus, "Atlas Shrugged," is selling at a faster rate today than at any time during its 51-year history. There's a reason. In "Atlas," Rand tells the story of the U.S. economy crumbling under the weight of crushing government interventions and regulations. Meanwhile, blaming greed and the free market, Washington responds with more controls that only deepen the crisis. Sound familiar? The...

Link only due to posting restrictions.

Could Obama's carbon emission policies re-create the economic conditions that led to Southern secession?Who Pays for Cap and Trade? (Wall Street Journal, 3/9/09, A18) describes how Barack Obama's proposed carbon taxes and cap-and-trade mandates will affect different regions of the United States. The table shows per capita carbon emissions in tons. Highest are Wyoming, North Dakota, Alaska, West Virginia, Montana, Louisiana, Indiana, Nebraska, Kentucky, and Iowa. All are either Red States or conservative Blue States. Lowest are NJ, FL, WA, OR, MA, CT, VT, CA, NY, and RI. All except Florida are reliable Blue States with high populations of latte-sipping...

There’s a new craze hitting the conservative tubes on the Internets these days: “Going Galt!” While it’s difficult to identify an exact date of reference or to provide any unique person with credit for the general meme, Michelle Malkin and Helen Smith certainly deserve honorable mention for recently popularizing the phrase. This movement seems to have manifested itself in two distinct, but related, forms: those who say, more-or-less, that “I ain’t gonna produce more that 249,999 dollars and 99 cents of taxable income” as well as those more accustomed to singing “Amazing Grace” than Twisted Sister taking to the streets...

"A genius is a genius, regardless of the number of morons who belong to the same race -- and a moron is a moron, regardless of the number of geniuses who share his racial origin."excerpts from "Racism"by Ayn Rand(An article published in the September, 1963 issue of The Objectivist Newsletterand included as a chapter in the book, The Virtue of Selfishness ) _____    Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism.  It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man's genetic lineage -- the notion that a man's intellectual and characterological traits...

"The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles." (Also, Ayn Rand) Rahm Emmanuel once said. Now Hillary’s singing it – to young European sheeple: "never waste a good crisis" Only a sociopath would take that kind of position in times like these where we are at the brink of a worldwide catastrophic depression the likes of which we have never seen before. No one knows exactly what is going to happen...

Atlas is done with merely shrugging. Atlas is raging. The Ayn Rand novel, "Atlas Shrugged" is much in the news this week because of the absolutely fantastic rant on CNBC the other morning by on-air editor Rick Santelli. I happened to be watching CNBC when this all took place, although I suspect this may become one of those thinks like Woodstock which, over the years, seven million baby boomers have proclaimed they were in attendance. This was the morning after President Obama had announced his plan to save the housing industry by helping bail out people who weren't making their...

Enough. In a word, that is the message of disgusted taxpayers fed up with the confiscatory policies of both parties in Washington. George Bush pre-socialized the economy with billion-dollar bailouts of the financial and auto industries. Barack Obama is pouring billions more down those sinkholes. It isn't just the camel's back that's broken. His neck and four legs have all snapped, too. Enough. Last Friday, thousands of Americans turned out to protest reckless government spending in the pork-laden stimulus package, the earmark-clogged budget bill, the massive mortgage-entitlement program and taxpayer-funded corporate rescues. Contrary to false left-wing blog smears that the...

March 4, 2009"Going Galt": America's Wealth Producers Vs. Wealth Redistributors Michelle Malkin Enough. In a word, that is the message of disgusted taxpayers fed up with the confiscatory policies of both parties in Washington. George Bush pre-socialized the economy with billion-dollar bailouts of the financial and auto industries. Barack Obama is pouring billions more down those sinkholes. It isn't just the camel's back that's broken. His neck and four legs have all snapped, too. Enough. Last Friday, thousands of Americans turned out to protest reckless government spending in the pork-laden stimulus package, the earmark-clogged budget bill, the massive mortgage-entitlement...

A hidden effect of the November 4 elections and the national events that preceded them during this past year is perhaps best called the “John Galt Effect� in honor of Ayn Rand’s famous character in Atlas Shrugged.  It is occurring to a very significant extent. Our technological civilization stands upon the shoulders of many generations of free Americans and the great accomplishments that they bequeathed to us. Among those Americans and their counterparts in other countries have been a small special group of people whose unusual genius, work ethic, and love for their specialties were especially outstanding. These men,...

Washington, D.C., February 23, 2009--Sales of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” have almost tripled over the first seven weeks of this year compared with sales for the same period in 2008. This continues a strong trend after bookstore sales reached an all-time annual high in 2008 of about 200,000 copies sold. “Americans are flocking to buy and read ‘Atlas Shrugged’ because there are uncanny similarities between the plot-line of the book and the events of our day” said Yaron Brook, Executive Director at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “Americans are rightfully concerned about the economic crisis and government’s increasing...

From The Economist print edition The economic bust has caused a boom for at least one author BOOKS do not sell themselves: that is what films are for. “The Reader”, the book that inspired the Oscar-winning film, has shot up the bestseller lists. Another recent publishing success, however, has had more help from Washington, DC, than Hollywood. That book is Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”.Reviled in some circles and mocked in others, Rand’s 1957 novel of embattled capitalism is a favourite of libertarians and college students. Lately, though, its appeal has been growing. According to data from TitleZ, a firm that...

The economic miracle that has been the United States was not produced by socialized enterprises, by government-union-industry cartels or by centralized economic planning. It was produced by private enterprises in a profit-and-loss system. And losses were at least as important in weeding out failures as profits in fostering successes. Let government succor failures, and we shall be headed for stagnation and decline. -Milton FriedmanWhen you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that...

Glenn Beck discusses Atlas Shrugged and Socialism with Yaron Brook the Executive Director for the Ayn Rand Center 2/17/09.

The simple fact is the Democrats are going to pass whatever they want to pass. They have the votes. And when they are bring bills to the floor of Congress that are topping $1 trillion dollars, with $335,000,000 for the prevention of sexually transmitted disease, there is no logical reason for any Republican to vote for the bill. But the Democrats, Obama included, want the Republicans to put aside politics and vote for what is best for the country. Understand exactly what he wants. Obama wants limited government Republicans to put aside those values and vote for a bill that...

Particularly valid today, in the age of Obamessiah, Pelosocialist and Reichd. Enjoy watching

Part I: Non-ContradictionChapter II: The ChainSynopsisHank Rearden watches the first “heat” of steel for Rearden Metal poured at his mill. Then he walks home, fingering a chain of Rearden Metal in his pocket. At home he is greeted by his mother, his wife Lillian, his brother Philip and his friend Paul Larkin. The group makes fun of the fact that his mind is back at the steel mill and complains that all he cares about is money. Lillian, in a catty way, asks Hank to set aside December 10 for a party for their wedding anniversary.. Hank tries to tell...

It's interesting that on the same day that America's new Socialist in Chief will be inaugurated, Turner Classic Movies is featuring The Fountainhead.

If you need an alternative to watching the bootlicking during the unclothed emperor's coronation tomorrow... The Fountainhead is airing on TCM (Turner Movies) at 7:30 a.m. Link to TCM overview

Are there any sane Americans out in the Internet world? Where are all of the true capitalist? It's too quiet in the media world...not enough capitalists protesting the BS Congress is telling us and how they are spending the money you and I earned. I feel like Dagney Taggert...I hope I haven't missed the window of opportunity...

Atlas Shrugged has been on my mind a great deal these past few weeks. I don't hold with Ayn Rand on everything -- her view of what constitutes "morality," for example, is in complete opposition to my closely held religious faith. And she could have used a good editor; the damn book could have been half its size but just as effective. However, Rand did have incredible foresight into the political and socioeconomic ills that were occurring around her and that abound, nearly unchecked, in our world of 2008. Apparently, I'm not the only person who has been thinking along these...

Over the past few weeks, Ayn Rand’s classic, Atlas Shrugged, has been mentioned in articles in the Wall Street Journal and among conservative and libertarian bloggers. Two questions are being debated by those who have read the book. Are we living in a time line that follows the book? What chapter are we in? Besides those who have read the book, there are FReepers with little awareness of Rand and her work. Some are turned off by the length of her works of fiction. Some of a more religious bent have problems with Rand’s atheism. Some wish she had left...

Stephen Moore writes that the central themes of Ayn Rand's massive book are playing out even now in Washington D.C. as an incompetent government hurries to create massive new legislative programs to dole out ever greater amounts of money to mis-run businesses, all under the guise of keeping the American economy healthy. The current economic strategy is right out of "Atlas Shrugged": The more incompetent you are in business, the more handouts the politicians will bestow on you. That's the justification for the $2 trillion of subsidies doled out already to keep afloat distressed insurance companies, banks, Wall Street investment...