I don't wish to discuss the pending meat shortage, FEMA taking 5 million masks intended for use by veterans, or Mitch McConnell suddenly worrying that the deficit is too high. I just want to express my gratitude that the pandemic has done one major positive thing: It has shown once and for all that Ayn Rand was wrong.
Most of us are now living out the Randian fantasy of "going Galt" and we can see the results in real time. The "heroes" of capitalism, the captains of industry, who only act out of self interest without any expressions of altruism have turned out to not be the drivers that make civilization work, but instead are black holes that devour money. Meanwhile the workers and the bureaucratic government, so hated in Rand's work, turn out to operate just fine without these leaders, and in fact are the true engines of society, without which these "heroes" could not operate. I think Bob the Angry Flower expressed it best:
Except this time we have more than a cartoonist's concept of what a post-Galt world might look like. We now are living through it, and it has given us proof that those leaders were only leaches, and Rand was just a spokesman that gave them and air of legitimacy and a method of indoctrination. As John Rogers once wrote:
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
So from this time forward, I would hope that everyone refrains from referencing the works of Ayn Rand. In fact I think we could propose legislation that if anyone anywhere references any of her work outside of a humorous context that they receive a punitive punch in the face. For it has finally be proven, using objective evidence, that Ayn Rand is simply full of shit.