Stand Up For Ayn Rand: Fall Fashions For Free Markets

As our free market comes under deadly assault by the Socialists and the Trotskyists in the White House, we must rally around the principles of innovation, competition, and excellence that made our country great -- back when it was a free-market laboratory and not the USSR paradise it's turning into because of the Leninists known as "The Government."

If we don't stand our ground, circle our wagons, and march in a parade, everything that we and Ayn Rand have slaved for will be lost.

So I'm proposing we hold a big fashion show and give all the money to the free market. Who's with me?

I'm going to design a fall line whose amazing dresses and jackets will celebrate Ayn Rand's legacy as well as our continuing "guerilla war" against those who would chop off the legs of the free market and serve them to poor people as "Special Leg-Burgers."

The textures, colors, and clean lines of my fashion collection will suggest the power, elegance, and intellectual texture of the innovation that can only flourish when government gets out of the way and allows schemers, dreamers, and meme-ers to do what they do best. And just wait until you see the socks I'm designing!

Does anyone have Kenneth Cole on speed-dial? If you do, please press your phone button and call him and say, "We need some hot slogans and mottos for our Ayn Rand Fashion Fundraiser."

Does anyone wait tables at Le Bernaddian (sp)? (That fish restaurant that was on Top Chef last week.) If so, please tell your boss that we need to reserve the restaurant for our after-party dinner with exclusive flavors inspired by Alan Greenspan's breath.

More details soon ...

(If you didn't know I'm a free-market fundamentalist and budding fashion designer, I'm sorry.)

Comments

[TakeNoNeoConPrisoners]

"Again, you are mistaking the term capitalism for something it does not describe. Just like socialism does not describe dictatorship, capitalism is not automatically robber barons and Manchester factory owners."

I am not necessarily disagreeing with you only making the point that any system (poli-soci-econ systems) of government devised by mankind is susceptible to corruption, perversions and evolution. In that regard, none of these systems are that much different including especially capitalism. Capitalism is NOT the deserving god that many American people worship religiously. If we step back and get a perspective and realize this, then perhaps we could given the leadership and people's support, form a more perfect union of social, economic and political policies that are just, fair and difficult to pervert. That day of reckoning must come some day soon if we are to survive as a free and democratic nation. Traveling ahead on te same road will lead to self destruction.

[newshawk14]

After escaping the clutches of the US Army (I was drafted in 65), I dated an attractive young lady
who was a libertarian and disciple of Ayn Rand. I read a number of her books, including "Atlas
Shrugged", and being of sound mind, quickly came to the conclusion that Rand was an idiot.
Needless to say, my attractive young lady didn't approve of my conclusion, and we parted ways.

[DiogenesOfAlaska]

But you still remember her. How cute.

[Beaux510]

First off, I love Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged. That being said, as much as I love the rosy Ideal of Objectivism presented in Atlas, the realist in me recognizes that an Objectivist society only works for those who are pure of heart. The moment you add in the whole of humanity's imperfect condition(greed, envy, insecurity), it fails. It is precisely why Galt's Gulch was home to so few.

[mightbesane]

Rand hit one thing, and only one thing, spot on...the corrosive effect of popular culture. Ayn would love the Alec Baldwin commercial­...softene­d brains, indeed. They don't hate us for our freedom, they hate us for Desperate Housewives.

[Velocitor]

Rand doesn't hate you- she just doesn't see you. The only people Rand hates are average folk trying to subvert the Meritocratic system to get something they don't derserve. Well, we all hate that... but then why do half the readers despise her so? Probably because she's so preachy and outspoken about it.

[DiogenesOfAlaska]

Well, why don't you dream on?

Show me a meritocracy, and I'll show you a society that Ayn Rand has never even dreamed about. Come on. The lady was a self-important snob, and that's all there is to say about it.

[Velocitor]

Preston Tucker and Nicola Tesla get screwed, while that cheesy guy on the infomercials at 3am makes millions off his pyramid scheme. Some of my detractors will say "That's because the system has been tainted by the jealous connivings of lesser men." Yeah. And it always has been, and it always will be, because Capitalism is a human construction and therefore indivisable from human nature. It's a good system when it isn't too corrupt, but it's nothing to build a religion around. I like Ayn Rand because her idea of a perfect world resembles my idea of a perfect world. I dislike her because she seems to detest us for not being able to make her Utopian dreams a reality. I find most of what she says to be dead-on correct and completely irrelevent. Who could her books possible apply to? If you are a super genius with an Earth-shattering invention, don't get too smug- you're going to need a lot of help from a lot of lesser men to translate that invention into the riches you deserve. If you're just an average guy, Ayn doesn't leave much advice for how you're supposed to make your way in this world. Struggle to excel at SOMETHING, and hope for the best, I suppose. If you are (gasp) below average in some way- well, the book wasn't written for you to begin with.

[DiogenesOfAlaska]

Excuse me, but don't you realize that it is simply bad taste to speak of 'lesser men'?

There are differences in what people can achieve. But why would you build a religion out of rubbing it in their faces if their talents are indeed less than average?

This is just nonsense. Most people who have less than average talents know full well that this is so and are perfectly willing to get on with a decent job that never gets them to the top, exactly as you describe.

The only way to create some nonsense out of this is if you add pretense.

Actually, it hurts to even think about this. Because it is just so plain obvious that there are many different ways in which people can be excellent, and to make them feel small because they don't excel in some particular thing is simply snobbery. Tell me: what's the gain? what does anybody gain from curtailing people? I don't get it.

Of course, sometimes people need to be fired. But that's not a religious act.

[Velocitor]

sigh)... Ayn Rand. Why do all the reviews of this book have to be so emotional? From half the reviewers, you'd think that Moses himself came down the mountain with a copy of Atlas Shugged, fresh off the Divine Creator's press. The other half think Satan wrote it for his seminar on How To Be Evil.
Here's my two cents: Ayn Rand lived her first 20-something years in the Soviet Union, and as you can imagine: it sucked. She came to America, met with some success writing, fell in with the glamourous Hollywood crowd, and decided that since she did so well, Capitalism must be a Meritocracy. She's a starry-eyed idealist, head-over-heals in love with Meritocracy, but living under the misguided notion that Capitalism is meritocratic. In her novels, "all" you have to do to get rich is invent a mind-bogglingly wonderful product which everybody needs, and which is universally loved for its exceptional value and utility. Do that, and your competition will melt away, you'll make boatloads of money, most importantly you'll be able to tell anybody who doesn't see things your way to go pound salt. Rand's Utopian industrialists make no bones about the fact that they're just in it for the money...bu­t who WOULDN'T sleep well if they got rich making a wonderful, useful product sold in a fair market? Sadly, Capitalism and Meritocracy are divergent far too often to ignore.

[DiogenesOfAlaska]

Totally agreed. Show me a capitalist society which fully does deserve the name of a meritocracy and I will put flowers on Ayn Rand's grave - if there is one.

To be sure: the flaw is not in the notion of free markets. The flaw is in the notion that it is unnecessary to curb the (self-)corrupting effects of power abuse, of the temptation of creating false impressions, and of shifting blame on those who cannot speak up against it.

A meritocracy - if there is one - is a society which is fully aware of these dangers and counteracts them. This is not automatic. And to foster the creed that it is automatic is to invite disaster.

The best thing one can hope for Ayn Rand is that she hoped for the best and simply didn't understand these complications. I doubt it. But I certainly don't care.

[guyzer]

Having drunk deeply of the Randite well as a teenager, it's hard to focus all my thoughts about her in this context. But : The idea of an Ayn Rand-inspired fashion show is weirdly appropriate. She lived and worked in Hollywood for more than 20 years and had a real theatrical flair; check out the photos of her before the House Un-American Activities Committee. In her later years, she strode indomitably through the streets of New York in a Napoleonic tricorn hat and a long black cape flashing a dollar-sign brooch. She kept the Deco-era bob for decades, and tho' by the end of her life she pretty much looked like a grandma who worked in a sweatshop, in her youth she projected the image of an individual filled with purpose, absolutely free of doubt and Romantically heroic in scale. Her public image was as much about a compelling illusion as the Hollywood product she created and the economics she inspired.

[Rog49Thomas]

Real objectivists don't wear clothes.

That's why they're very particular who's allowed in Galt's Gulch.

[sixx]

David if you and your friends just send $10,000 each from the proceeds. I guarantee you a ten percent monthly return on this investment until I stop receiving your checks.

[DryIce]

I seriously think Rand would flip at the association of her name with today's market practices. She advocated for an individual's right to profit from their intelligen­ce/endeavo­rs, integrity in business dealing and never living for the sake of another - concepts that are anathema to today's corporations.

I'm not saying I agree with her 100% (e.g. she indicated no grasp of population growth or environmental impact), but the "free market" types should re-consider the name-dropping.

[jaundicedview]

Great idea this fashion show, but beware. There is bound to be some evil fashion reviewer like Ellsworth Monkton Toohey who will whip mobs of union thugs (dedicated readers of the fashion page) into a riotous frenzy. It could get ugly, but so could objectivist fashion.

[arvay]

I read and admired Ayn Rand when i was a teenager.

Then, I reached adulthood.

[CharlieBS]

I hate to debunk the myth around Ayn Rand but you guys have her message VERY WRONG! I have read "Atlas Shrugged" over the past 20 years exactly 20 times. First of all the image of capitalism that Ayn evokes in this novel is in opposition to greed and corruption of "pretend" capitalist. In fact, I challenge each Republican to quit talking about Ayn's philosophy and actually READ THE BOOK. This may be a stretch because the print is small the the book is over 1000 pages long but do so. In fact, you will find yourselves portrayed in Jim Taggert, Orren Boyle, Wesley Mouch, and the rest of the crowd of thugs. And remember it is a BOOK! Ayn has a vision of purity to expound in which John Galt would be standing shoulder-t­o-shoulder with President Obama taking these thugs down one by one.

Welcome to the valley the real Ayn Rand characters!

[Hirnlego]

"So I'm proposing we hold a big fashion show and give all the money to the free market. Who's with me?"
So the wealthiest do not have enough money? For that is where it would mostly continue to go.

Thanks but no thanks.