Saint Petersburg in revolt gave us Vladimir Nabokov, Isaiah Berlin, and Ayn Rand. The first was a novelist, the second a philosopher. The third was neither but thought she was both.
--Corey Robin
The Reactionary Mind
It’s been a long time since I read it – because it has been a long time since I was an idiot adolescent – but I recall that there is a scene toward the end of Atlas Shrugged in which Rand’s ragtag team of superhero industrialists, flying in a plane, look down and see the lights of New York begin to go out.
In Rand’s narrative, you see, the Mighty 1%™ had chosen to withdraw their creativity, their entrepreneur-based superpowers, their special genius . . . and now New York and the entire world would go dark. That’d show the rest of us!
In the Real World, another narrative is shaping up. The ending is similar, but the story is very, very different.
In the Real World, the narrative runs like this . . . .
