Atlas Shrugged revisted

A while back, I posted on a piece of the social and economic relevance of the novel Atlas Shrugged, the inspiration of Midas' pen name.

Here's another piece on the significance of the novel.

Money quote

The central philosophical theme of Atlas Shrugged is Ayn Rand's demolition of the intellectuals' dichotomy between the high-minded pursuits of the intellect and the allegedly grubby, un-intellectual world of business and industry. Ayn Rand's answer to this is provided early in the novel by Francisco D'Anconia. A flashback shows us Francisco and Dagny Taggart as teenagers combing through the machinery of a junk yard, to the disapproval of a friend of the family:

Once, an elderly professor of literature, Mrs. Taggart's friend, saw them on top of a pile in a junk yard, dismantling the carcass of an automobile. He stopped, shook his head and said to Francisco, "A young man of your position ought to spend his time in libraries, absorbing the culture of the world." "What do you think I'm doing?" asked Francisco.

More...