There are some great points in that article.

"It is the left that divides up the world into “the rich” and “everybody else.” Rand doesn’t think in those terms.



Atlas, for instance, includes rich heroes (Hank Rearden, Francisco D’Anconia) and non-rich heroes (John Galt, Quentin Daniels), as well as rich villains (James Taggart, Orren Boyle) and non-rich villains (the Starnes heirs)."

The novel is all about productive and unproductive, and that is a big difference. Those who hate the novel are generally unproductive. It is very unlikely that a hard worker would find Atlas Shrugged bad literature. Because they can relate to it. Those who are lazy, can't.

I have never met a true leftist who could understand anything A.R. has written, especially Atlas. It's as if they filter everything through a distortion lens which makes their conclusions fit a pre-determined pattern, and no matter how you try, you can never get them to unscrew their convoluted view.

I think of all the great teachers I had in my school days. They certainly were not rich, but they were, indeed, producers. Among my class of graduates there are family doctors, surgeons, military officers, lawyers, accountants, architects, engineers ... practically every profession you can name. None of them would be where they are today without those dedicated teachers who had high standards and accepted no excuses from us. Wish education today were as rigidly academic.

A very good article. Everyone will not be a Galt, Rearden, Franciso, or Dagny. Anyone who does their job well and produces value is good for the world.

You do not need to read Atlas Shrugged to have a very poor opinion of it. All you need is to listen to someone who feels threatened by Rand's ideas. "Don't bother reading that crap. Nobody reads Rand. She's useless. she's all for the rich, and has no feelings for the poor people."

Those people who are Rand's villains in real life recognize themselves in her fiction, and don't want others to discover their dirty secrets.

my favorite Pat Logan was the young crop duster Collett Everman Woolman, who in 1925 started a tiny air mail service. by his personal example, Delta Airlines grew up around him, and when he retired, it took 13 people to replace him.

Once I took a flight from Boston to China. I was about 22 years old and I was not an objectivist at the time. I ordered a value meal from Burger King at the terminal in Vancovour, CA and encounter the best crew worker ever.

I was impressed by her speed, compentency, accurancy, and level service she was able to provide. She put just about every crew worker I remember from my job to shame (myself included). At the time, I wondered why she took her job so seriously. I mean it is a "shit job". I guess I have grown a lot since then :).

Rachel is not mature enough to appreciate AS. All of the people I know that truly understand AS have read it several times. To the immature that alone is beyond understanding. There are rich and powerful people in AS, most of them are takers. The heroine is also rich. The difference between Dagny and her brother is not money, it is the solving problems in such a way that "unintended consequences" are minimal and the sum of the solution's parts is greater than the individual tally, or what we call "productivity." All of the key producer's in the book had a different vision of the world and their place in it than the government and society as shaped by the government. That different vision is important because if everyone liked the same thing, there would only be 1 thing. This is why central committee, top down, government can't provide the wealth and diversity of ideas that capitalism does.

I'm not certain anyone will ever know all of the nuances Rand built into the context of her writing. If there were an audio book of her reading the script that would be revealing as well. We can only imagine the inflection she would use, and that communicates as much or more than her words. Even if we knew all the Rand intended, Rachel would never get it. It perfectly normal for her and her government to tell us how to live. Even if she were bluntly told how the world works she would shut the door to her mind. Maddow and her ilk have great disdain for any ideas that are contrary to their world view of sheople, brother's keepers, and wealth redistribution.

To expect anything resembling an honest opinion from Maddow is as ridiculous as pigs flying. Although with bioengineering I'd at least give that one a chance.

An interesting article. It's obvious that Maddow didn't read AS before she offered that description.

For examples of Pat Logan in my life, I could literally list at least several dozens, if not a few hundred. I've worked with others since I was 8 or so in more varied fields and areas than I could possibly list here. In every one of those experiences, I've met and admired men and a few women, (often wishing that I could also find the contentment and pride in finding a satisfying niche) that were so competent and happy in their work, that they demonstrated an ease, grace, and confidence that was simply amazing. In all of those cases, I seldom heard a complaint about pay or relative positions (except when obviously dealing with incompetence), generally they were glad to accept new projects and invariably found or had apprentice types that they gladly taught and/or mentored. They were commonly honorable and loyal to those that remembered to acknowledge them with a simple 'Thank you' or 'Good job.'

Such people were often very key persons to operations and companies, though seldom willing to look for or accept promotion. I found myself using those individuals to 'teach' new supervisors and managers, much like the grizzled platoon Sgt. with the shavetail 1st Lt.

I think that it's a matter of pride in oneself and the happiness developed in having found that expertise that provides that pride.

I have always thought that many people on the left that despise Atlas Shrugged never read it. I am guessing that someone they respect told them not to like it for reasons X Y Z. I think if they could read it with an open mind they might be surprised.

Rachel Madcow: you just can't fix "stupid".

Maddow wrote an interpretation of Atlas that was in line with her own worldview. She did not try to understand the novel. From her point of view, Rand was against empowering the government to give to the poor. So that meant she must be for the rich against the poor.

A second thought on Rachel's attempt to demean Ayn's writing of Atlas Shrugged. Rachel's report summarized, "In Ayn Rand’s novel, she leads her readers to see the wealthiest people as heroes, heroes that must be protected. . . . The rich are heroes and everybody else is a taker. The more the rich have, the better. The better for everyone. That is not fiscal conservatism either. It is something else."

It's extremely obvious to me that Rachel never read it, her prejudices got in the way of telling the truth, and/or she is an outright liar. Now give this some thought. Which do you think would better promote or demote Ayn's book, Rachel's review above or mine below?

"The sex in Ayn's writing of Atlas Shrugged was outstanding, subdued and realistic, yet imaginative, but still outstanding. And to imagine that she wrote it in the 1950's. I can still imagine in my mind some of the spicy scenes. Very hot and stimulating."

This is a fact of life as we know it today, sex works. I would think there would be a lot more of the other side reading Atlas Shrugged from my review as opposed to Rachel Maddow's. This thought was triggered by my previous post idea of misrepresentation and/or just plain outright lying to promote your beliefs and just plain prejudices. Do whatever it takes to get the votes, just find the right key, one that won't come back to haunt you. Each reader can then determine on their own which side of the equation, which characters, they associate with.

Honestly, I actually did think that Dagny was hot and very sexy and I read AS the first time in about 1960 or so. I read it because my parents were so Republican. My last reading was just a couple years ago. I also remember a book, "Peyton Place" from the mid 50's, it was huge, 60,000 copies in fist ten days and remained on best seller list for 59 week, and you could get it in a plain brown wrapper.

The Republican Party, the Tea Party, or any opposition to what we are experiencing today needs to learn from these examples that there are specific keys to making the other side get interested in learning more about their opposition. And this needs be done, "unwittingly" (another lie) of course.

2nd comment & specific Thanks, KH: the people who give us competent personal service, whether in the hospital or at Arby's drive-through, are often Pat Logans. I confuse people by tipping restaurant wait staff heavily and thanking the folks at the hardware store profusely -- but it's the Pat Logan effect: they, like the nurse at my doctor's office the other day, make life possible. I told the RN, "If it weren't for nurses, we'd all be dead." No joke!

Not surprised, as usual, she's highly inaccurate and doesn't know what she's talking about.

Duck, everyone... I posted the link to this page on RM's FB page....

The Maddow quote is so far from AS I don't feel the need to explain why. Everyone here knows why Maddow is wrong in that quote.

I would also add we don't know if Pat Logan was a productive genius. Maybe he liked something obscure, like fixing up old trains for the fun of it. It wasn't trying to get rich or anything, but people in the world of fixing up old trains for hobby purposes recognized him as an undisputed leader at it. So he was living his dreams and making train hobbyist happy. Maybe, like the architect in Fountainhead, some young man was feeling like turning to suicide or drug addiction, but found an outlet learning about trains from Logan. If all that stuff I made up were true, then Logan could be living the dream of AS every bit as much as a Rearden or Galt. The book never says your dream has to be to run a for-profit enterprise.

I know 2 gentlemen who come to mind. I know not if they have visited the sight although I have invited them both. I have listened and learned from them both that not only do you have to find that edge that will propel themselves to the next level in their conquests, but they also have their peripheral vision on incoming attacks by those who want to keep them at bay. You may not know them, but there are a few still left.

"This is, to put it bluntly, a totally inaccurate description of Atlas Shrugged and of Rand’s view." At best, incomplete. As others have pointed out here: not all who are rich, came by their riches honestly, either in the novel or in the life we know. And not all of modest means desire to "take" rather than trade.

The real issue is that Rachel Maddow viewers don't need to think for themselves. Why should they, they've got Rachel Maddow and Chris Mathews, and others like them, to do it for them?

Rachel Maddow, like most others of her political persuasion don't have actually read a novel or anything else to criticize and demean it because they are not responsible for lying or misrepresenting anything they say. Nancy Pelosi taught us all that, teaching us we can pass laws without actually reading them.

What hurts me is when someone I thought to be an intelligent person makes completely false statements, anything to promote their personal prejudices, and sticks to it no matter what facts face them. But then again, this is what they learned to do.

I guess if our President can lie, and I assume he does it because he knows a certain part of the population will believe anything he says true or not. Those that don't believe him, he could care less about, just call them racists. It's like the increase in oral sex among children after Bill Clinton's "didn't have sexual relations with that woman" was exposed. The children learned from what they saw and heard, that it's okay to tell lies, as nothing will happen, and it's okay to have oral sex with acquaintances (classmates). So they experimented with it.

What can the opposition do to equal the lying tactics? Obviously telling lies will backfire or just result in being called a racist. We do however, need to find a key in persuading people to look at and think about the facts.

Rachel M. like Jane F. (from Viet Nam era) I personally consider treasonous. What they are doing or did, is not good for the country? The problem, there will be no real consequences.

rm is an idiot. why anyone would listen to her is beyond me. why anyone would give her audience here is out of line.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Jobs wasn't a programmer. It was Woz that did the code in the beginning. Jobs was just the salesman.

Hello khalling,
Thank you for bringing this succinct article to our attention. The point of respecting all for doing their best and being productive being at the heart of the matter, not how rich you are, can't be stressed enough.
When has Rachel been right??? I tried for too long to hear something reasonable from her and gave up. Her analysis is so shallow and biased I worry for her audience.
Regards,
O.A.