Rand

What I walked away with from Ayn Rand's fiction (specifically, Anthem, the Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged) was the importance of striving to be one's very best, which has nothing to do with money. I do not see it as an excuse for Capitalism whatsoever. If anything, it is very much the opposite, as those obsessed with amassing wealth are still Looters, leaching money from (and so dependent upon) consumers.

Early in her career, she did say repeatedly that she was a novelist first, not a philosopher. However, her ideas were thorough enough that it is easy to see her characters as puppets for promoting said ideals. Later in life she did, in her non-fiction writings, embrace degrees of Western Capitalism, though I wonder how much of that really was little more than others trying to misconstrue her own words. Obviously, the persons who continued her legacy in the form of the Ayn Rand Institute are clearly Conservative Republicans, and so her efforts have been reappropriated for their aims. But how many of the current publicly-devout Rand enthusiasts actually read her fiction? How closely do NeoCons mimic the looters devastated in Atlas Shrugged, the persons pursuing only personal greed were the villains of the story! What on earth does any politician have in common with John Galt? These people would never inspire strikes, they would be the ones hiring mobsters to break up said strikes. They depend on others doing their work for them. Of course, even if she did fully accept Capitalism in her later years, such a change of opinion goes against the core of her own Objectivism belief structure.

As such, no matter her later changes of heart, the ROOT of her beliefs was Individualism. Any one of us, singularly trying to conquer our own individual life. Not getting rich. If you strive to make a great product, no matter your trade, then do it, BE the grand Producer. But success rests on the job well done, on the work itself, on the work of art created. Success is not measured on monetary wealth. Then the money takes on more meaning than the product itself.

The greatest happiness comes from self-assurance and self-reliability and self-dependence, from the SELF, and that's something that cannot be bought.