Who cares who John Galt is?
This month marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Ayn Rand, creator of the Objectivist philosophy and author. That book famously opens with the question: “Who is John Galt?” But when I read it as a youth, mostly for the trains, I had “ceased to care who he was long before I found out”, says Peter Hitchens. She creates well a “thrillerish” atmosphere of impending doom as the US descends into collectivism, but the book’s message is ultimately “deeply unattractive, spiteful, and cold”. Yet her creed would today be a large and living one if she hadn’t missed a trick.
