From: Billy Derwent
Category: Books
Date: 13 March 2003
Glorious 1000 pages of capitalist schlock which won't let you stop reading. Who is John Galt? Why does the heroine only like rough sex? Rand's writing is a testament that ideas plus will can transcend style. She writes at about airport fiction level, yet her siren song in praise of money and contempt of charity/socialism seduces one and challenges us to resist the euphoria of production.
First published in the 50s we see the need to counter communism with a positive justification of capitalism, especially the American version in its purest form. This morality of property is now an accepted pillar of our society, and unquestionable, and what is great about this book, is that it comes from a time when the war on socialism had not been decisively won.
And the best thing is that when Rand's skewed genius has thrown all it has at you, when capitalism has for once shown its face and said its piece, that you're not convinced. We don't really want to use all our great intelligence to sell things or improve products. We are more generous than selfish. And in the end how boring it would to live with in a world where the accumulation of great property and wealth was the only way of measuring our success. Ayn Rand says the weak owe more to the strong than the rich do the poor. But if the poor must become the rich Americans of Rand's fantasies than perhaps they will cancel the debt.
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