I was a huge Ayn Rand devotee until I realized it tried to see the world in black and white...and we don't live in a black and white world. This is my view of her philosophy after reading Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead multiple times as well as all her other essays and smaller fiction books. Like most other philosophies such as communism, it can sound good in theory and works on a small scale if everyone agrees to play by the rules. It would never work in a country of 330 million people.

The idea is that the free market is able to solve every problem. Businessmen will serve their own self interests but that is OK because in the process - others will benefit via the goods they produce and the jobs they provide. So businessmen will always offer fair wages and benefits to their employees because if they don't, those employees will go work for another business owner that does offer them and will get the benefit of more motivated workers. The best workers will always be offered the best wages, again because this benefits the owners bottom line to have the best employees. (collusion between businesses to depress wages, people stuck in locations with few employers and no competition for wages, the reality of businesses paying off politicians - are just a few real world flaws here IMO)

As far as regulation goes - the government does not need to be involved there. The free market will sort it out! Businesses that offer dangerous products will not get any customers so the incentive is there to only provide safe products (of course, what happens to the people that initially buy those products before people find out how dangerous they are or never find out about the dangers at all until it is too late? How do you fight a polluter that ruins the water source in your town, especially if they are also the main employer?).

As far as social programs - again, the government need not be involved there. All the rich (as well as the other people just trying to get by) will help their neighbors out of the kindness of their own hearts. Or not! Being forced to be altruistic ruins the whole point and regardless of the benefit to society, is one of the worst sins to a Randian. There are many references to money being taken from the wealthy via force - at the end of a gun. How a society handles the disabled, the poor, the elderly - if everyone doesn't out of the kindness of their own hearts - was never really addressed and was the final flaw for me. Just let them die I guess?

I'm sure I'll get some flack for this from the true believers and many will say I have it wrong. I guess I'd say that it is a great personal philosophy if you want to use it that way, but to try to apply it to governing or to any large scale modern society is impractical and, in the end, just downright cruel. Just one man's thoughts.