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November 8, 2009

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Goddess of the Market Author Jennifer Burns on Ayn Rand

Why did conservatives hate Rand and how did she feel about libertarians?

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Reason Foundation Co-Founder Tibor Machan on Ayn Rand

Machan on Rand's background and the power of her writing

"I think that for Ayn Rand to have survived and made a life for herself, she almost needed that edgy personality, otherwise she would have been destroyed," says Tibor Machan, who was born in Hungary in 1939. At 14 years of age, his father smuggled Machan out of the country, fearing the Hungarian communist government. His background helps give Machan insight into how the intellectual mind of Ayn Rand functioned. "Her unpleasantness," he says, "ultimately can be fully justified given the treatment she was given when she came out the Soviet Union, told the truth about that country, and nobody paid attention." 

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Reason Foundation Co-Founder Manny Klausner on Ayn Rand

Klausner on Rand v. Reason magazine

"Rand is, I think, a very valuable resource in the movement for people who take liberty seriously," says Manny Klausner. "When I was editor of Reason in the early 1970s, we got an article that was submitted that proposed a method for converting the world to libertarianism, and that was by going door-to-door and distributing to every household a copy of Atlas Shrugged. We rejected the article...but it was an example of the kind of impact Rand has had and continues to have on many many people."

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Reason Foundation's Robert Poole on Ayn Rand's Impact

Video interview with the founder of Reason Foundation and Reason magazine

"Rand really inspired a lot of people who otherwise might have become conservatives, like me," says Poole. "If you go back and look at surveys that were done of libertarians in the 1960s, '70s, and even the '80s, and asked what single book or thought leader most inspired you to become a libertarian, it was always Rand by a large large majority—always a plurality and usually a majority."

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The Long Shelf Life of Ayn Rand's Legacy

Reason video analyzes the 21st-century Rand renaissance

Decades after her death, Ayn Rand's work is hotter than ever. In an age of massive government intervention into every aspect of the economy and personal lives, sales of her books are way up and a movie version of Atlas Shrugged is in the works. References to Rand are everywhere from Mad Men to The Colbert Report to The Simpsons and there's even a new critical appreciation, as evidenced by two new biographies, Ayn Rand And The World She Made and Goddess of The Right.

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Radicals for Capitalism

Reason celebrates freedom and the ideas of Ayn Rand

"Radicals for Capitalism: Celebrating the Enduring Power of Ayn Rand's Ideas," a new Reason video series featuring segments on the novelist's continuing presence in American culture and exclusive interviews with Nathaniel Branden, Barbara Branden, Reason Foundation Founder Robert W. Poole, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), and many others.

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