I may never finish this book because it is so depressing! It explains so much of our current society. ( )

Weiss is a investigative reporter, focusing on financial matters (Barron's and Business Weekly). Ayn Rand Nation is a kind of mea culpa, as Weiss admits he was not initially aware of the influence of Ayn Rand on the upper echelons of business management. Weiss interviews both the leading people in the Rand Movement, as well as Tea Partiers who espouse Rand's philosophy without having read Rand, and 'fellow travelers' who accept Rand's beliefs on Capitalism while rejecting other parts of Objectivism. Weiss makes a good argument that Rand's thinking and ideas give an intellectual underpinning to what many people feel and believe, making her works far more influential; people who wish to be Selfish (in the Randian sense) can justify their behavior and even think themselves heroic while committing heinous acts. Weiss also devotes some time to Alan Greenspan, who carefully disassociated himself from Rand while reaching a position where he could implement Rand's policies on a grand scale. Weiss thinks that like any true believer, Greenspan is still a Randite, and despite some waffling testimony, still doesn't think that he did anything wrong while chairman of the Federal Reserve. Weiss's concern is that Rand's philosophy continues to energize political movements, and is well-financed by those who would benefit from wholesale adoption of Rand's ideas. (Complete to free copies of [Atlas Shrugged] being donated to public schools; the same schools who are struggling because of budget cuts made to avoid raising taxes on the wealthy. Note that the vast majority of Randites first read her books while in high school...) If the disparate forces that believe Rand was correct can put aside their differences and work together, we might live in a vastly different (and bleaker) America. (And as improbable as 'born again' Christians working with outspoken atheists and pro-abortion Randites might seem, stranger allies have worked together before.) A troubling, informative book. ( )