Sales of “Atlas Shrugged” (by Ayn Rand) Soar in the Face of Economic Crisis (interviews as well/

Washington, D.C., February 23, 2009--Sales of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” have almost tripled over the first seven weeks of this year compared with sales for the same period in 2008. This continues a strong trend after bookstore sales reached an all-time annual high in 2008 of about 200,000 copies sold. “Americans are flocking to buy and read ‘Atlas Shrugged’ because there are uncanny similarities between the plot-line of the book and the events of our day” said Yaron Brook, Executive Director at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “Americans are rightfully concerned about the economic crisis and government’s increasing intervention and attempts to control the economy. Ayn Rand understood and identified the deeper causes of the crisis we’re facing, and she offered, in ‘Atlas Shrugged,’ a principled and practical solution consistent with American values."

www.aynrand.org...

I've never read this book or any books by Ayn Rand...although i heard this one was very good.

Last year was the most it had ever sold "for a year" since it was released way back when.

Now the sales have tripled from last year....more people seem to be interested of the similiarites of what she said and what is happening right now in our country.

Ayn Rand Video Extravaganza!

[edit on 3-3-2009 by David9176]

I thought I would post a few videos...interviews with ayn rand.





[edit on 3-3-2009 by David9176]

It seems as though people are starting wake up to the realities of what is going on around them.

After they read Rand's Atlas Shrugged people will awake in mass.

reply to post by Hastobemoretolife


I think people will be surprised by what they see in these videos if they have never heard of ayn rand.

I'm going to pick up "Atlas Shrugged" as soon as I get the chance.

What is happening now is just too similar to what this woman's philosophy states WOULD happen to our country.

[edit on 3-3-2009 by David9176]

reply to post by David9176


David man.. all I can say is you've made an outstanding connection and I welcome you into the fold ;-) Thanks for posting these interviews - I read Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead in my early 20's and they're more relevant now then they were then. Atlas Shrugged is a perfect mirror of our times. Spread the word.

Let's see, undervalue the true creators and innovators - the people who actually know enough to MAKE anything tangible… check. Offload the manufacturing base of your country in a bid to line the pockets of criminals...check. Let mega corporations run by committee that pander to the lowest common denominator call the shots in business and government... check. The parallels are downright mind-boggling.



[edit on 4-3-2009 by maudeeb]

[edit on 4-3-2009 by maudeeb]

reply to post by maudeeb


After watchign some of these videos...I can't believe it's not selling EVEN MORE than it is.

Too see someone back in the 50's stating where our political system was headed and to actually see it happening right in front of our eyes....that's saying something.

I appreciate your posting these.

I plan to watch them all, but I must admit that listening to her speak gives me a giant headache.

I would also like to say that while I like what she "preaches," I also like what Kant preached, as well, and I don't see them as mutually exclusive.

I do believe that one's morals can be derived from one's reason and that one be altruistic, too.

I also believe that one can believe in God and know that God is not empirically available nor does God need to be.

I couldn't help but think that Rand is somehow speaking a language that most of us do not. She is obviously very intelligent and fluent in English, but the words she uses are not defined in her philosophy as we commonly use them.

Rand is obviously the product of a very harsh environment, one in which emotion was suppressed. Her view of humanity and society is stark, yet beneath her rational shell, you can see that there is a very warm individual who has a full complement of those emotions that we sum up as "heart"--love, hope, humility, etc.

I'm not saying that Rand is wrong, only that man is both rational and emotional and we have both reason and emotion for very good reasons.

I look forward to the rest of the videos and I can only hope that her speech will become easier to understand with time.



[edit on 2009/3/4 by GradyPhilpott]

David, my friend, you MUST read it! And "The Fountainhead" too, also by Rand.

I am waiting to see the new graffiti craze of Who is John Galt spread - like Kirby was here once did.

I've even made my children read Atlas Shrugged (they were teens).

If they hadn't done such an efficient job of dumbing down our schools, it would be required reading in High school.

Maybe if it was, we wouldn't be here now...

When I first saw the Wallace interview, I was glued to the screen. Simply an outstanding interview.

Later, I ran across the Donahue interview. I didn't care too much for that one.

I haven't seen the Snyder interview before. Nice job finding it.

EDIT: Just finished the Snyder interview. It is as good as the Wallace interview. Very good stuff.

I think that today's conservatives are worse than today's liberals...If anyone destroys this country, it will be the conservatives because they do not know how to preach capitalism ...to explain it to the people...because they do nothing except apologize and because they are all altruists...they are all based upon religious altruism...and on that combination of ideas, you can not save this country.

--Ayn Rand

[edit on 4-3-2009 by loam]

For those new to Ayn Rand's writings, Atlas shrugged might be a bit of an overload (and long-winded in parts). I suggest some 'warm up' books, such as

Anthem
The Virtue of Selfishness
The Fountainhead (one of my favorites).

Here at the library copies of both have been circulating with unprecedented frequency and each have a list of reservations longer than even the Twilight books at the movies release.

Personally, I'm glad and I hope the message isnt getting lost and/or twisted.

Originally posted by jsobecky
For those new to Ayn Rand's writings, Atlas shrugged might be a bit of an overload (and long-winded in parts). I suggest some 'warm up' books, such as

Anthem
The Virtue of Selfishness
The Fountainhead (one of my favorites).

Not a bad idea, but if you're not put off by length I'd recommend going straight for Atlas. The others have their rightfull places, but for me Atlas is the "master thesis" .

Last, an interesting factoid - for those of us who were teenagers in the 80's the band Rush's "2112" album was inspired by Anthem.

[edit on 4-3-2009 by maudeeb]

There is an amazing parallel.

I can't wait until FlyersFan sees this thread. This is her latest passion. I'm sure she'll have a lot to add...

Although I loved the books, Objectivism seems to me to be pretty selfish.

I'm at the library, so I figured I'd do a search for it. They keep six copies. Of those:

One is available.
Four are overdue.
One is missing.

Atlas Shrugged should be required reading by everyone who voted for Obama. Rand's message is timeless but never more appropriate than now.

reply to post by jsobecky


My advice is the exact opposite.

Read 'We the living' first.
Read 'Atlas Shruggred' second.

DON'T BOTHER with Fountainhead.
I found it vile.

I started this thread yesterday. It's about upper income people cutting back on production in order to not have to pay outrageously high taxes and give their hard earned money to those that don't work for it.

Who is John Galt? Atlas has shrugged.

(those have been my signature/mood for about 2 weeks now as you can see by what is under my avatar and at the bottom of your screen)

Originally posted by kosmicjack
I can't wait until FlyersFan sees this thread. This is her latest passion. I'm sure she'll have a lot to add...

OMG! Yet another sign of the pending apocolypse!
Someone here 'can't wait' until I show up!
(just teasing ya' kosmicjack )

Although I loved the books, Objectivism seems to me to be pretty selfish.

Fantastic writing. Completely selfish.
But then again .. so is overtaxing the wealthy.
It's completely selfish of the have-nots to steal from those that have.

I could make a case for the other side - that giving to those around you such as paying for public education makes your own life easier. The more
educated the other people are in this country, then the easier your life
will be. There will be more doctors, more trained people in positions that
require training, etc .... This is a positive effect on your life. So a case
can be made against 'Atlas Shrugged'. But the stronger case is for it,
not against. There are more 'parasites, freeloaders, and looters'
(to quote the book) then there are those who are benefiting and
giving back to the people they looted from.

As for Fountainhead .. I thought it was vile. Dominique and Roark ... UGH! She's frigid. He's a rapist. She loved being raped and discovered her own sexuality. They end up in love. I know that's not the theme of the book but all that was too distracting to enjoy the objectivism of the rest of the story.

Originally posted by theWCH
I'm at the library, so I figured I'd do a search for it.

Our Barnes and Nobels just got a load of 'Atlas Shrugged' paperbacks in.
Best darn book I've read in a long time.
The writing was amazing. Books are written like that anymore ...




[edit on 3/4/2009 by FlyersFan]

Great videos, she was an amazing woman. ...But...

She was raised in a psychologically poor environment and I think that made Anna very hard. Her lack of emotion and fellow feeling for her own husband is apparent to anyone who reads Barbara Branden's book. I'm not anti-Objectivist, it's just that she never really succeeded in making her "philosophy" suitable for anyone of average intelligence.

Take a look: It is Alan Greenspan who was in her inner gold-worshipping circle, and he just bucketted the US economy. She was surrounded by agents or whatever kind, both Russian and US no doubt. In the middle of all this, Ayn Rand was a very great person, I'll agree.

If you listen to her college Q&A you can see that the depth of her thinking was limited to the subject of capital and aesthetics, and that she had no taste for ANY talk of psychology (though she clearly needed therapy) or religion (she'd imagined a religuious Galtian character for AS but discarded the idea as being impossible to imagine).

A gold-worshipping Neitzschian-atheist who saw her father's harm at the hands of the Bolsheviks and escaped Russia, marrying an American man to stay in the US. Once she got into the "Safe Valley" of the US, she never left. ...Very much like John Galt and his band of rich-geniuses who have deep pleasure at the collapse of the whole world outside their little hidden valley (sorry if I ruin the book for anyone). Pooint is this: Everyone wants a safe place to hide, Galt and Rand alike.

Ask yourselves why dumb old Eddie Willers would slave his whole life for Hank Rearden and the Galt-ians and then get left outside the valley to rot? Yep, I learned a lot from reading Atlas Shrugged. Mainly I learned this: The rich will fortify themselves against the poor huddled masses when it gets real bad, and they'll re-write the constitution on their own.

Hey when's the sequel coming? You know, the made-for-Hollywood sequel where they presumably emerge from Galt's Gulch? My question is this: Would they have to burn the bodies left over or would they wait long enough for these to turn to skeletons?

Probably they'd stay in the valley for 100 years or so so it'd be Dagny and Galt's uber-humanistic grandchildren that'd emerge to rule that future world. Huzzah! The Return of the Kingly Class!