...Of course, Ayn Rand was a crank. It is neither desirable nor possible to swallow the whole of her message, even assuming it was consistent. She was, like Marx, one of the "great simplifiers" that Edmund Burke warned against, and her work has more in common with that of Marx than the disciples of either should feel comfortable about. The best of what she had to say was said more elegantly and intelligently by Adam Smith in the 18th century, by von Hayek in "The Road to Serfdom," or any number of other writers in the classic economic tradition.
The point is that it is possible to take the best of what she had to say and discard the rest, without the moral bullying and hectoring of the Christian Left or anyone else. The same point could be made about far greater philosophers. Colebatch, AmSpec
'Nuff said.
2 comments:
So I know Rand wrote non-fiction as well, but by and large she is known for her novels. Hardly comparable to Marx or Smith.
If the T-party really wanted to embrace Rand, they should adopt her stances on atheism and abortion.
Meh. They'll stick with picking and choosing philisophical bits and pieces from her novels instead.
But they had precedent: They pick-and-choose from the Bible, they pick-and-choose from Rand.
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