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Martineau's fiction and Rand's?

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intellectualammo

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Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) collection of stories titled Illustrations of Political Economy, I was wondering if anyone has read? In a book I am currently reading (The Cult of Ayn Rand) it says that the collection was about "justifying and celebrating the entrepreneur and the laissez-faire economy, and advocating the clearing away of government controls" "In Martineau' s book looters reduce the society to primitivism, but principled men espousing laissez faire arise to guide that society back to prosperity." Sounds much like Rand's fiction, but just how similar, anyone know?

Edited by intellectualammo
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I haven't read it, but Illustrations of Political Economy was a famous, very successful series of stories in Victorian England. Reviews of it are all over the Internet.

While it has the same subject matter as some of Rand's works (laissez-faire capitalism), it is very clear that the similarities end there. Atlas Shrugged is a romantic work of fiction, Illustrations is a collection of fables, presented in an unorthodox form which combines fictional narrative with a didactic style.

"In Martineau' s book looters reduce the society to primitivism, but principled men espousing laissez faire arise to guide that society back to prosperity."

Illustrations is not a book, it's a collection of 24 separate stories, published over the course of three years. Which story is this person referring to?

P.S. Martineau is also very wrong in many of her claims about Economics, and she most certainly attempts to offer no moral defense for LFC, except for the utilitarian argument. She was also a determinist.

Edited by Nicky
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