I find "Atlas Shrugged" to be an amazing book, not because of its philosophy but because it a textbook example of how to write propaganda and get people to pay to read it. Her literary sleight-of-hand is transparent once you know enough about writing to perceive it, but she applies her techniques with remarkable consistency and vigor considering the length of the work. If you're a writer, you can learn a lot about how to make characters seem admirable or despicable from Rand's magnum opus, although you'd probably want to do it with a bit more subtlety than she does. Certainly she did a much better job here than she did with "The Fountainhead"; I found myself despising most of the characters in that book. On the other hand, even though I know Rand is manipulating me and can even see how she's doing it, I still find Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggart compelling and admirable characters.

A world ruled by a super-competent elite has a great deal of appeal, but Chambers is right that this would essentially be a dictatorship, and as much as I'd love to see the trains run on time, I value freedom and democracy more. Still, I find it fun occasionally to slip into Rand's make-believe world where the competent win in the end and the hangers-on get their comeuppance. Wouldn't it be great if the world were really like that? Well, it'd be a nice place to visit, but I'm not sure I'd want to live there. What is enjoyable as a fantasy is rarely desirable or even workable in real life. Rand actually seemed to believe that her world was both workable and desirable, and hoped to persuade her readers of it, but though I bought that when I was twenty, I no longer do.

There's a certain similarity between Marxism and Objectivism, in the sense that both tend to be Utopian in nature and both purport to be The Philosophical System That Explains Everything, And Everyone Who Disagrees Is Stupid, Venal, Misguided, Oppressive, Or Selfish. It's a trait both share with radical feminism and certain fundamentalist religious viewpoints.

There are many things I admire about Rand--her indomitable will, her fierce independence, her incredible intellect, and her willingness to stand up and defend free markets and individualism in a time when most of elite society preferred central government management and collectivism. As a refugee from the Soviet Union, she was also quite brave to stand up and tell the truth about what was going on over there, even when many of the intellectual elite here savagely accused her of lying or exaggerating. (Not unlike Whittaker Chambers, ironically enough.)

Furthermore, you cannot deny her profound influence as a philosopher, since she's influenced many of the most powerful political figures of our age. For example, Alan Greenspan (yes, that Greenspan) was one of her proteges.

On the other hand, any time I've encountered someone who tries to emulate Ayn Rand's heroes, I've found him to be humorless and ill-mannered. Ironically, I've yet to hear of one becoming wealthy and powerful. As Chambers notes, such people also seem largely to be childless; once people have kids, I think most realize that they'd never want them to grow up in Ayn Rand's version of Utopia.

On the gripping hand, Marx's Utopia may be prettier, but efforts to bring it to fruition resulted in at least 100 million deaths in the 20th Century. You can't say that about the Objectivists.

Still, all this is why, even though some people say they are very similar, I find Heinlein much more likable and much more human. Like Rand, Heinlein was an unwavering supporter of free markets and individualism in a time when such ideas were out of vogue. He often took withering criticism for it, but remained undaunted. But he never pretended to have a Unified Field Theory to explain all human interaction and everything that was wrong with the world. Love and affection and decency and good manners and friendship were all just as important to him as standing up for individualism and not living your life based on other people's expectations.

Case in point: Rand would go on and on at great length about the evils of altruism. Heinlein broadly agreed with her, but with more grace and humor could capture the thought's essence in a couple of deft lines:

"If tempted by something that feels 'altruistic,' examine your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want to do it, wallow in it!"

Or, on acting like a civil, well-mannered human being, the Ayn Rand hero feels no need for such foolishness, which is the artiface of the venal manipulators who oppress the truly creative man.

Heinlein, on the other hand, would simply say this:

Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide the lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as "empty," "meaningless," or "dishonest," and scorn to use them. No matter how "pure" their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.

I've long suspected that line in particular was written as a response to Ayn Rand. (They knew each other somewhat.)