Ayn Rand's Conservative Call Echoes Today
In Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal policies, Ayn Rand saw the makings of a fascist nation. The author of a new biography of the conservative icon says Rand would have seen Obama's stimulus plan, bank bailout program and health care initiative as "a gigantic power grab." "She would have been horrified," Anne Heller tells All Things Considered host Guy Raz. Heller's new book is titled Ayn Rand and the World She Made. Heller calls Rand "perhaps the most important communicator of conservative ideas to the America people." Rand believed the dollar sign "was a better symbol than the cross, because it didn't require the sacrifice of anybody." Rand parodied Roosevelt's support for things like collective bargaining and wage and price controls during the Great Depression in her famous book, Atlas Shrugged. That 1957 novel, a dystopian tale of how entrepreneurs, industrialists and innovators all go on strike to protest excessive government interference in the marketplace, has sold more than 6 million copies since its publication.
Over the past year, Rand's books have reappeared on the bestseller lists. Heller says that makes perfect sense. "When there are periods of economic decline," she says, "people are more likely to absorb [Rand's] message." At last summer's tea-party rallies, some people held signs with the famous first line from Atlas Shrugged, "Who is John Galt?" Galt is the character who personifies capitalist idealism. Critics of the Obama administration, like Fox's Glenn Beck and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), count themselves among Rand's devotees. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was a member of her inner circle. Heller says Rand "wouldn't have liked Glenn Beck, but she would have been shouting some of the same things he was shouting." November 5, 2009 Copyright © 2009 NPR
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