Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right | Date: 28 April 2011, 04:31
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Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right
By Jennifer Burns
* Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
* Number Of Pages: 384
* Publication Date: 2009-10-19
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0195324870
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780195324877
Product Description:
Worshipped by her fans, denounced by her enemies, and forever shadowed by controversy and scandal, the novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand was a powerful thinker whose views on government and markets shaped the conservative movement from its earliest days. Drawing on unprecedented access to Rand's private papers and the original, unedited versions of Rand's journals, Jennifer Burns offers a groundbreaking reassessment of this key cultural figure, examining her life, her ideas, and her impact on conservative political thought.
Goddess of the Market follows Rand from her childhood in Russia through her meteoric rise from struggling Hollywood screenwriter to bestselling novelist, including the writing of her wildly successful The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Burns highlights the two facets of Rand's work that make her a perennial draw for those on the right: her promotion of capitalism, and her defense of limited government. Both sprang from her early, bitter experience of life under Communism, and became among the most deeply enduring of her messages, attracting a diverse audience of college students and intellectuals, business people and Republican Party activists, libertarians and conservatives. The book also traces the development of Rand's Objectivist philosophy and her relationship with Nathaniel Branden, her closest intellectual partner, with whom she had an explosive falling out in 1968.
This extraordinary book captures the life of the woman who was a tireless champion of capitalism and the freedom of the individual, and whose ideas are still devoured by eager students, debated on blogs, cited by political candidates, and promoted by corporate tycoons.
Summary: Goddess of the Market is an insightful philosophical biograpy of the enigmatic and influential Ayn Rand
Rating: 4
Ayn Rand was born in St Petersburg Russia in 1905. She was the precocious daughter of middle class Jewish professionals who disappeared in the red swirl of the Communist revolution. Ayn did well in school and was looked up to by her two sisters. After completing a college degree she immigrated to the United States. She had been funded by her parents and relatives in the United States. Rand lived for a time in Chicago with her kinfolk and then moved on to a long career as a Hollywood scriptwriter at major studios such as Universal. In 1929 she married bit player, gardener and budding artist Frank O'Conner. The couple would be wed for 50 years although Rand was unfaithful to her spouse. They never had children. Ayn was a workaholic writing long into the night fueled by benzadrine tablets keeping her energy level at optimal level.
Ayn Rand became popular due to her two blockbuster and megalong novels "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged."
She also wrote the novel "Anthem"; stage plays and scripts. In her various journals she expounded her philosophy.
The movie "The Fountainhead" starring Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal was a moderate hit in 1949. Many of Rand's characters have become well known: e.g. John Galt from Atlas Revisited.
Rand's philosophy was based on the following tenets derived from such intellectual mentors as Nietzche and Aristotle:
1. Humankind exists in a universe devoid of a Creator God. Rand was an atheist which alienated many of her conservative supporters. She was not supported by Roman Catholic William F. Buckley who excoriated her in the pages of his periodical "The National Review." Whittaker Chambers, another Catholic and author of the anti-communist classic "Witness" also savaged Rand. She prospered despite these assaults become a bestselling author in the late 1940s and 1950s. She is still read widely by students, young people and movers and shakers in the business community (as well as people from all ages and walks of life).
2. The best people are those who serve there ego needs by creative endeavors being unshackled by the restraints of collectivistic society. Her philosophy is elitist and undemocratic.
3. Rand strongly favored laissez-fair economic life. She was a social darwinist believing in the survival of the fittest.
4. Rand believed reason should guide all of human decisions. Rand had no truck with emotions but was a fiery, easily angry woman in her personal life. She was autocratic and would accept no deviation from her teachings among her coterie.
5. Rand was against feminisism and the military draft though she did defend abortion rights for women. She was also a vocal critic of the Vietnam War. Rand voted for men like Wilkie and Goldwater who she thought defended individualism vs. collective government.
6. Rand was against altruism and government support of the poor and elderly.
7. Rand was an inspiration for those in the libetarian movement though she criticized this offshoot from conservative thinking.
Ayn Rand had a torrid affair with her chief disciple Nathaniel Branden who left his wife Barbara. He ditched Barbara and married several more times. Through his NBI (Nathaniel Branden Institute) he taught the theories of Rand but later developed his own pyschological approaches to therapy. Rand never spoke to Branden after he broke the news to her that their affair of the heart and mind was over.
Rand's most famous acolyte is A. Greenspan the former chairman of the United States Federal Reserve System.
Rand died in 1982 but her ideas are becoming more popular in these difficult economic times. She is to be viewed as most influential as a pop novelist and a political philosopher of the far right.
The author Jennifer Burns is a young professor at the University of Virginia. This relatively short book was originally crafted as her PH.D thesis in History. Despite the academic provenance of this work it is written in a
readable style. Her interviews with those who knew Rand and her library research on Rand, her circle and her works is impressive. The author is not a disciple of Rand and gives a fair and balanced view of the complex woman who was Ayn Rand. I saw Jennifer Burns on a recent C-Spain presentation on Ayn Rand and her legacy. Burns was informative and impressive in her presentation. Rand's chief symbol was the "$" sign!
Summary: A New Treatment of Ayn Rand's Life
Rating: 5
Jennifer Burns has written a great narrative of both Rand's life as well as her immersion in and effect on the economics and politics of her time. I enjoyed her psychological treatment of Rand's life as well as her depiction of how Rand's relationships changed "post-Atlas." Burns citation of sources seems comprehensive to me but does not detract from the readability. If you find Rand a compelling player on the stage of 20th-Century thought I think you'll enjoy this
Summary: Background to a movement
Rating: 5
I read Atlas Shrugged and fell in love with Any Rand and her ideas. The Goddess of the Market gives a good insight into Ayn Rand. It is well written and researched.
Summary: The Fountainhead Of The Modern Libertarian Movement
Rating: 5
There are few figures in the American libertarian movement that gave rise to as much controversy or passion as Ayn Rand. Love her or hate her, it's hard to find a libertarian who doesn't have an opinion about the author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. For many of us, she was the one who lit the spark that sent us down the road toward becoming a libertarian. Even after her death, some still consider themselves hard-core Objectivists in the model of those who gravitated around the Nathanial Branden Institute in the 1960s. For most libertarians, though, while Rand is arguably the most influential moral philosopher, she is also someone who's flaws, both personal and philoso
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