In What Ways Has Ayn Rand Influenced the Culture? | Yaron Answers

Yaron Brook tackles questions on contemporary controversies and current events in this Q&A series.

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[check]

Ayn Rand has had an impact on a substantial number of thinking people. But she's unknown in the larger culture, where capitalism remains a dirty word.

[freedomwriter]

She didn't influence it enough considering the fact that the government has become the very authoritarian regime she warned us about and no one did a thing to stop it.

[donnasherwood]

unfortunately her work, which is in my view vastly and deliberately mischaracterized, has served as some focal point to attack free market economic activity. People have been conditioned to think of it as some rejection of faith. I think the philosophical system is much more nuanced. She argues her own convictions about issues of faith but again her ultimate argument is that people be left free and absent coercion from outside forces to use come to their own rational conclusions.

[M_Pross]

I don't think she has. If you asked the average American who she was or what she believed you'd draw a blank expression. America is what it has always been from the beginning, a nation of ambitious free people not prone to being told how to live or what to think.