Ayn Rand Would've Hated Elon Musk

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Many very rich men who support Trump fancy themselves heroes from the novels of Ayn Rand. I've never done an episode of this show on Rand's ideas, because I'm not a Randian, and don't think about political questions through anything like an Objectivist perspective. But the fact that so many men breaking the country believe they are Randian archetypes makes her ideas now, I think, worth talking about. Particularly because, as my guest argues, Rand would hate these guys.

Paul Crider is an associate editor at Liberal Currents and an admirer of Rand. But he comes at from an interesting perspective, being on the whole pretty progressive, and decidedly not an Objectivist libertarian. He recently published an essay at The Bulwark about how Elon Musk, far from being a Randian heroes, is in fact a representative of her villains.

Paul and I discuss Rand's ideas and their influence, and then walk through how men like Musk are just the sort of people she loathed.

Produced by Landry Ayres. Podcast art by Sergio R. M. Duarte. Music by Kevin MacLeod.