"I would encourage professors who were required to teach Ayn Rand’s books to explain how her
simple minded, uncaring, every man for himself philosophy is extremely economically inefficient, due to things that scientific economics has known for a long time, like externalities, monopoly power, asymmetric information, etc.

But obviously this shows just how ugly and harmful things can get after decades of conservative government."
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Great, just great! Just what our beleaguered country needs: steelyjawed, gimleteyed ideologues “misunderstanding all they see.” All of them dead certain they have All The Answers as they trample on their neighbors in their rush to weed out the weaklings who are slowing them down. And just look at what they’ve already accomplished since they hijacked the federal government: Basically they are rapidly doing to the whole world what they’ve managed to accomplish in Iraq and New Orleans and now the financial system. They have fouled their own nest. The rest of us are collateral damage."
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I hope this development will encourage real philosophers and ethicists to speak up about the intellectual weakness and moral barrenness of Rand and her work. We don’t need any more “greed is good”, “nice people finish last”, and “might defines right” jeremiads from narcissistic hot heads in the cheap seats. What we need most, and what business is desperate for, is intellectually sound guidance on how to have a virtuous life."
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Since I live in NC, I saw this in the local paper last week. At first I was annoyed that we haven’t learned how “greed is good” has had lousy unintended consequences. I read “Atlas Shrugged” as a teen, and it spoke to my teenaged angst and selfcenteredness. I outgrew it, thank God."
 

The egotist's egotist, author Ayn Rand (born Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum) is the patron saint of Thinking You're Better Than Everybody Else.

Her most famous novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, are massive dramatizations of Objectivism, her selfspun OscartheGrouch philosophy for success. Objectivism champions ego and accomplishment, shuns all religion as folly, and condemns any form of charity or altruism as counterproductive to society.
 

"Ayn Rand has been dismissed — usually based on serious misrepresentations of her views (e.g. as social darwinism, as hostile to charity, as hedonism) — by academics for too long. Happily, that’s starting to change, as indicated by Tara Smith’s recent (and excellent) book _Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics_, published by the prestigious Cambridge University Press.

The simple fact is that Ayn Rand’s unique and compelling *moral* defense of capitalism is worthy of study — whether one ultimately agrees with it or not. The same applies to her theory of concepts, her wholly new defense of egoism, her defense of virtues like honesty and integrity on the basis of longterm selfinterest, and more. _Atlas Shrugged_ is an excellent — and gripping — introduction to those ideas."
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It is refreshing to read of academia’s increasing consideration of ideas that could actually change the culture for the better. Having read Atlas Shrugged when in college, and several times since, I see it as essential in advocating ideas that offer the best, last hope to our ailing culture, and which will challenge the habitual premises of any intelligent college student. I applaud any academic institution that not only refuses to censor such ideas, but allows them into serious discussion."
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The negative comments above have frequently indicated a clear misconception of her ideas, where enough information was given to make such a judgment. Read her works and think hard about what she has to say and some will be able to understand her philosophy. It tends to appeal much more to realityoriented people than to academics whose theories are so readily disassociated from the real world. This is why it is more popular with businessmen and engineers as a group than with the academics. They cannot afford the luxury of ignoring reality."