Robert Tracinski on Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged

Robert Tracinski is the author of the book, So Who Is John Galt, Anyway?: A Reader's Guide to Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged." Tracinski also writes the Tracinski Letter and Symposium at Substack, and he is a columnist for various other publications. This is the Self in Society Podcast #26.

Time Markers

00 Intro

1:22 Would Any Rand be more concerned with today's "woke" anti-capitalist left or religious ethno-nationalist right?

6:06 The collapse of fusionism; Rand's influence on conservatism

9:50 Are Objectivists on "the right?"

11:47 Trumpists and Putin apologists among Objectivists

15:35 Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump as Atlas Shrugged villains

19:50 Open vs. Closed Objectivism

25:53 Ayn Rand as a liberal

29:32 Today's conservative right as anti-liberal

35:33 Problems with the welfare state; a baseline of life-serving values

43:54 Why a reader's guide to Atlas Shrugged

46:07 To what degree are Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk Randian heroes?

51:04 And Rand vs. the Stoics

59:53 Parental love

1:05:29 Should we be optimistic about America's future?

1:10:17 Wrap-up

One article of Tracinski’s I found helpful is “Which Way, Western Man?” He also wrote, “Ukrainians Are Nobody's Pawns.”

In 2016 I wrote an article, “Ayn Rand Is the Anti-Trump.”

PopeHat has the parody of Trump.

Sherri and Robert wrote, “10 Amazingly Enjoyable Things About Having Kids.”