"Ayn Rand, of course, was a kind of politicized L. Ron Hubbard—a novelist-philosopher who inspired a cult of acolytes who deem her the greatest human being who ever lived. The enduring heart of Rand’s totalistic philosophy was Marxism flipped upside down. Rand viewed the capitalists, not the workers, as the producers of all wealth, and the workers, not the capitalists, as useless parasites."
—

The GOP’s War on the Poor (via azspot)

The thing that kills me about people adoring Rand and holding her up as a beacon of how Capitalism should work is this:

In Atlas Shrugged Rand’s main character talks about how her workers are paid better than union wages and treated better than union workers. And this was during a time when belonging to a union generally meant the best possible wages/working conditions (comparatively speaking).

This made sense - the powerful companies paid their successful workers really well and provided for them. So the workers were happy to continue producing, because they were getting results, too.

Somewhere this very vital part gets lost in practice. Instead we have mega corporations cutting every corner and eliminating unions and paying people the least amount of money possible. Yet the mega corporations are expecting the same results.