Abstract

Sixteen essays on Ayn Rand's contribution to economic and business thought question, explore, and extend what makes her writings such a prominent inspiration to businessmen and free-market economists. Most of the contributors agree it is principally her use of a Romanticist literary style, which restored the nineteenth century's idealization of inventors, engineers, and entrepreneurs. Some also believe that she brought philosophic depth to the analysis of business by adding wealth creation to the traditional Aristotelian morality of self-realization. A few credit her invocation of a nonexploitative egoism to oust the image of businessmen as servants of shareholders and customers.