The Real Ayn Rand

Will Wilknson says that her detractors and many of her admirers misunderstand her:

Rand does not valorize the wealthy. She valorizes the uncompromising integrity of creative visionaries and the productivity of inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs. But there is little to assure the reader that the virtues she extols really pay. Rand’s view of the world was actually pretty bleak, pretty Russian. Her best novel, We the Living, is best precisely because she had yet to philosophically suppress her tragic instincts. One of the least plausible and certainly the saddest aspects of Rand’s thought is what she called the “benevolent universe premise” — a kind of as-if attitudinal stance of positivity meant to ensure “the inability to believe in the power or the triumph of evil.”

From the comments section, he adds:

I wouldn't say Rand leaves herself "wiggle room" in depicting fictional worlds in which "looters" and "moochers" and "second-handers" dominate. I'd say that she pretty conclusive doesn't think money in such worlds track virtue. And she thought our world was a lot like her fictional worlds.

I don't disagree that a lot of Rand's admirers ridiculously identify themselves with her heroes, despite the fact that even the best of them is Eddie Willers. And I don't disagree that a lot of Rand's admirers vacillate incoherently between the idea that our world is chillingly similar to the one depicted in Atlas Shrugged and the idea that wealth is in fact a measure of virtue. But the fact that Rand's admirers can't understand books doesn't speak to what the books actually say.