The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought

Rand's strident right-wing rhetoric is on display in these posthumously collected essays. Upholding egoistic self-interest as the wellspring of capitalism, she derides liberals ``crawling on their stomachs to Moscow'' and targets ``psychologizers'' who excuse the behavior of ``college-campus thugs'' and criminals; in her estimation, the modern arts are a ``sewer.'' Novelist ( Atlas Shrugged ) and self-styled Objectivist philosopher, Rand, who died in 1982, staunchly opposes a ``mixed economy,'' a term which seems to stand for anything contrary to unregulated monopoly capitalism. Liberals should appreciate her diatribe against the Catholic Church's opposition to birth control and abortion. Her eulogy of Marilyn Monroe is sentimental and silly, while her argument to the effect that no psychologically balanced woman would want to be U.S. president is old-fashioned. In supplementary essays, Peikoff, an Objectivist follower of Rand, condemns the New Right's religious zeal and attacks socialized medicine. (Jan.)