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Article and recent book about Ayn Rand

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Ayn Rand's Legacy of Unifying Social Cruelty

https://truthout.org/articles/ayn-rands-legacy-of-unifying-social-cruelty/

I suggest also clicking on the link within "she advocated a cartoon fantasy of economic "freedom"” about half-way through the article.

The book is Mean Girl: Ayn Rand and the Culture of Greed.

I haven't read the book, but it's likely a screed like the article.

Edited by merjet
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"But the unifying social cruelty, the full deference to the wealthiest as the most deserving of tax breaks, the representation of the poor and of immigrants as unworthy and undeserving of any kind of assistance, the opposition to unions, to universal health care, to minimum wages — that is pure Rand."

This is pretty weird. At least the stuff earlier in the article were things Rand actually talked about. But tax breaks? Never heard Rand even mention them, let alone people deserving them or not. The poor as unworthy? John Galt was a working class guy, not to mention all the positive portrayals of working-class people in all her books. I never even heard Rand talking about immigrants negatively. (So sure, she didn't think they were deserving of government assistance, but she didn't think anyone did actually.)
 

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  • 2 weeks later...
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... Drawing on deeply familiar cultural narratives derived from the fantasies of European empire, she outlines heroic characters and romance plots that appeal especially to white teenagers.

...

She denigrated most feminists as ugly and obnoxious, from the woman “comrades” of the Bolshevik revolution (portrayed in her novel, We the Living), to 1970s women’s liberationists. She definitely advocated for women’s equality as individuals up to a point — but the limits were race (white), class (business) and sexuality.

 

This is probably the most dishonest article I have ever read about her. We've all heard the charges of "sociopathy" and "immaturity" before, and there is a reason for them; in these examples, we're "sociopaths" because we're not secondhanders and "immature" because we haven't given up on life.

But "white"? She would only advocate for "white" businesswomen?

 

 

idontwanttoliveonthisplanet.jpg

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