UPDATE: “AYN RAND & ATLAS SHRUGGED IN UNDER 10 MINUTES.”

[JEFF9K]

35. "Ayn Rand Cult" by Jeff Walker ...

Some say that Rand was an original thinker, but Jeff Walker, in his excellent book "Ayn Rand Cult," (Open Court, Chicago and La Salle, Illinois Copyright 1999) says otherwise.

From my notes:

page 4: Many of Rand's ideas are taken directly from 1920s business theory. Atlas Shrugged was written to serve as pro-business propaganda. There have been other Ayn Rands: Mary Baker Eddy, Edward Bellamy, Count Alfred Korzybski, L. Ron Hubbard, Werner Erhard, Bhagwan Rajneesh.
page 81: Rand's thinking was narrow-minded and slipshod
page 225: Rand was no great originator of ideas
page 226: Philosophers are mostly appalled by her sloppiness and ignorance
page 227: Rand had egregiously poor scholarship
page 288: Rand's rhetoric of selfishness and satisfaction in productive achievement is lifted wholesale from many writers.
page 300: the basic idea of the plot of Atlas Shrugged, that prosperity and civilization depend on a few creative minds, was familiar to 1920s business theorists.
page 305: Atlas Shrugged was similar to Garrett's THE DRIVER
page 308: Atlas Shrugged is so similar to Ernest Bramah's THE SECRET OF THE LEAGUE that some think Rand plagiarized from it.


Books about Ayn Rand are much more interesting and fun to read than Atlas Shrugged, but that's a really low bar!