Now there is something from the Volokh Conspiracy, found here.
The author of the review, Adam Kirsch, is taking some hits.
One of the key hits is for being innumerate and for not understanding capitalism. He takes Ms Ayn Rand to task for giving up 7¢ in royalties on each copy of the book, when Random House publisher Bennett Cerf♠ made that the cost of keeping John Galt's speech in the book—the speech she had slaved over for weeks, at one point not leaving the house for 33 days.
So, if without the John Galt speech the book had sold 10,000 copies, she would have lost $700. In fact, the initial press run was 100,000 copies, of which 70,000 sold in the first year, which meant a $4,900 loss for Ms Rand. However, by 2008 some 6,500,000 copies had been printed, which suggests that even if she (or her estate) was making only a penny a copy, it was still $65,000. It looks like Ms Rand's capitalist gamble paid off for her and also for all those Tea Party people who are carrying signs saying "Let's Go John Galt."
The review itself can be found here. Interestingly enough, the title of the review in print is "Capitalist With a $" and in the on-line version "Ayn Rand's Revenge." I think it all has to do with sticking it to the Republicans, as the lede shows.
A specter is haunting the Republican Party — the specter of John Galt.Perhaps, as Kad Barma suggested to me with this link to an AP article, a third party is emerging. While I like the stability of the two-party system, there is the example of the United Kingdom, with its three-party system (now edging toward the four-party system with the rise of the BNP, heaven help us). In the decades after World War II Italy had constantly changing governments due to a multi-party system, but really the membership of the cabinet was surprisingly stable.
Maybe the future is going to be a political adventure. Tuesday might be an indicator.
UPDATE: Neal Crossland found a typo, corrected, and then I found a typo, corrected.
Regards — Cliff
♠ The New York Times Book Review reviewer, Mr Adam Kirsch, suggests that Mr Bennett Cerf, the founder of Random House publishing, was opposed to Ms Rand's philosophy, but the fact is he went after the book. Mr Cerf was no wilting flower. He is the one who arranged for a copy of James Joyce's Ulysses to be shipped to the United States, where it was seized by the US Customs and became a court case that was eventually decided for Random House—and decided against censorship.
BTW Cliff.....it's censorship rather than sensorship.....well....now that I think of the play on words that the use of "s" suggests.....maybe you are on target.
ReplyDeleteMethinks that the "sudden" rise in the public's curiousity about Ayn Rand and particularly Atlas Shrugged is symptomatic of a societal trend that the grand dragons of our vaunted two party system either don't know about or, like the Congress, choose to ignore. After all, who knows better what is right and good for the great unwashed than those icons of political power.
I am not necessarily suggesting that there is a huge resurgence in the capitalist mindset vis a vis the growing socialist bent of the sheeple. Instead, I think that there is a growing unrest regarding the freedom to choose and to be. This against the specter of our getting to keep less and less while the hungery Feds need more and more. If you push hard enough, long enough, and single-mindedly enough, even a pacifist will pick up a weapon and fight back.
Not EXACTLY on point with Ayn Rand, but I noted with a certain wry humor that the Brits have just today passed a law that requires the right of a patient to seek private care at government expense if he or she is not seen by a government provider within 18 weeks of the speciality referral by a government primary care doc. At the same time, a major legal case is headed on a fast track to the British high court regarding the government's authority to pull the plug on a patient deemed by government medical personnel to not be worth saving. Apparently, Sarah may have a point about government medicine.
Tomorrow will be a good weathervane day and I predict measured victory to all Ayn Rand's latest readers....and the beginning of the end for Obama Bin Laden.
Regards,
Neal
I'm glad you linked to that AP piece. There was an article in the Globe today about the embattled northeast GOP fighting back in 2010. At the very end of the article, there was a reference from Lincoln Chaffee who was advising the moderate RINO types to "just go independent."
ReplyDeleteI tilt R on things like foreign policy and taxation. But I tilt D on things like gay rights and immigration.
I definitely want nothing to do with the hack-ocracy and corruption I associated with the D side of our fine state, but I also know enough to stay away from certain R elements that frankly scare me.
Mr. Chaffee's advice becomes more and more practical as the Internet changes the way people can raise money and spread their name. Reliance on the party is being chipped away. Whether out of a real need to strike a middle ground (as in some of the races mentioned) or out of sheer, naked opportunism (can you say Cahill?!!??) more and more people seem to be figuring this out..
Interview with the author here.
ReplyDeleteThere's also an excerpt there