Ayn Rand And The Invincible Cult Of Selfishness On The American Right | The New Republic

Paul Ryan And Ayn Rand | The New Republic

Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right
By Jennifer Burns
(Oxford University Press, 459 pp., $27.95)

Ayn Rand and the World She Made
By Anne C. Heller
(Doubleday, 559 pp., $35)

Christopher Beam's piece on libertarianism that caught my interest was this bit about Paul Ryan and his deep affinity for Ayn Rand:

Representative Paul Ryan, also of Wisconsin, requires staffers to read Atlas Shrugged, describes Obama’s economic policies as “something right out of an Ayn Rand novel,” and calls Rand “the reason I got involved in public service.”

Earlier this year I wrote about Ryan and his deep devotion to the philosophy of Rand, particularly her inverted Marxist economic-political worldview

Ross Douthat furiously objected, dismissing Ryan's relationship as him having "said kind words about Ayn Rand," as if he had merely offered pro forma praise at a banquet. I think at this point trying to deny Ryan's attachment to Rand is pretty hard to sustain. He's not requiring his staffers to read Ran because he thinks they need a good love story. And given that it's not just a teenage fascination but the continuing embodiment of his public philosophy, it's worth noting again that Rand is a twisted, hateful thinker.

Ayn Rand And The Invincible Cult Of Selfishness On The American Right | The New Republic