These two books always attract more interest during financial crises, especially the current one, due to the relevance of the issues they address.

Rand's supporters maintain that the route to financial stability is to follow her principles, while opponents believe that various examples of corporate abuse, such as the recent banking crisis, illustrate exactly why her beliefs are flawed and inconsistent.

These books are certainly influential.  Rand provides a "philosophy" which provides a justification for anyone who wants to critices or oppose social welfare or equality of opportunity, while providing a useful collection of arguments for anyone who needs to justify irresponsible corporate behaviour.

Rand herself was a bitter and politically highly conservative person with a reamarkable level of intellectual arrogance (she compared herself favourably to Aristotle).  She was an active supporter of McCarthyism in The US and believed that any form of support for the under-priviledged "would lead to collectivism"; a view that was clearly born of her upbringing in The Soviet Union.

As works of fiction, I personally find these books to be terribly dull in writing style, making the reading of them to be a bit of an endurance test, while also being rather melodramatic.

With these reservations in mind, I would recommend everyone to read at least one of these books simply because of their influence on the American political Right, but it is best to maintain a certain intellectual distance and to allow a lot of time.

If you are not involved already, you should sign up for the Geneva International Book Club:

http://www.glocals.com/groups/geneva/geneva-book-club.htm

Our next book selection meeting is not far away, so you have a chance to nominate one of these books for a discussion meeting.

Andy

My god !!!  I never thought I would see that name on a glocal forum !!!

Wow...  Objectivism...go go go

Yup. If you want to read up on crazy, 'Catcher in the Rye' is much more enjoyable

I have read Ayn Rand, I think it was ‘the virtue of selfishness’, interesting and profound read which says a lot about humanity, she states we are not really altruists and we are only motivated by greed, perhaps there is an element of truth in that, it is certainly a reflection of today’s modern world but where I think Ayn Rand has missed a point in her philosophy called objectivism in which laisser faire capitalism is the catalyst of that philosophy, she never seems to mention the dangers of a global elite, she seems to have a very naïve and idealistic view on capitalism without the state interfering.  Well the problem here of course is not the state but the global elite that is above the state, I think we need a modern Ayn Rand now with a revised ideology based around objectivism.

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