I saw this article when looking up “Atlas Shrugged”,  which I had not heard of until a friend remarked “ I guess you won’t be reading Atlas Shrugged”.  I had been tweeting about a TED  talk given by Naomi Klein that I had seen on CNN.com. 

I looked  it up on Wikipedia,  and it sounded like a novel written that Milton Freidman would have loved,  as well as be a hero for freemarket fundamentalism.   When people laud the “ideal” of “unfettered capitalism”,  that’s a sure giveaway.

I read a little ways into the comments,  and no surprise,  the free  market fundies lash out in droves,  and the comments are closed.

I’m always amused when people hurl accusations to writers that “they’re selling their books”.  well,  yeah.  And the views they espouse,  and the writers they like to read,  they don’t “sell books”?  Gimme a break.

I also saw a Wall Street Journal article where a Mr. Moore says that if Obama had read “Atlas Shrugged” and taken it to heart,  that the economic crisis would have never happened.  RIGHT.  “Unfettered” hands off principles were EXACTLY what allowed people such insane free reign.  Lunacy.

Anyway,  after reading the summaries of the book and noticing the praise from the free market fundies,  I was not surprised at all that Klein was very aware of the book. 

Thanks a million, Ayn Rand, for setting the greedy free

Naomi Klein: Thanks a million, Ayn Rand, for setting the greedy free | Comment is free | The Guardian

The Shock Doctrine takes aim at the deification of “the market”  by Milton Friedman,  but Atlas Shrugged seems to be the kind of novel Mr. Friedman would have  loved. 

I just realized that the “interaction” in comments that I so desire may come back to bite  me on this one,  since my inclusion of the words “Free market” and “Atlas Shrugged”  will probably attract “trolls for free market fundamentalism”.  We’ll see.