A little surprise here at NPR. I expect to hear" free market " champion Mike Stenhouse on right-wing talk radio interviews ( with John DePetro or Gene Valicenti, 630wpro.com ). Stenhouse is personable and has expertise in a field that is radio-active to me : free market capitalism. Last year in a letter to the Providence Journal he was critical of my very negative view of that Tea Party heroine, Ayn Rand :

The Providence Journal Dec 31, 2014 - Mike Stenhouse: Taking arrows in defense of freedom ... As for “Atlas Shrugged,” considered by many to be one of the great literary works .....

So Mike Stenhouse admires Ayn Rand but the author of " The Virtue of Selfishness " is despised by almost every literate person with a liberal bone in body. Now I hear his favorite presidential candidate was that union hating FAR RIGHT guy Scott Walker- a very scary American politician.
The FAR RIGHT has no problem with BIG GOVERNMENT as long as its main purpose is to serve and protect BIG BUSINESS . No problem with billions of dollars in taxes for the police state --or imperialist wars.
Mike Stenhouse wondered if ALL socialists hate their Queen of Mean ," Ayn Rand , and her cult book " Atlas Shrugged " as much as this socialist.
The hatred of socialists for capitalism - which generates misery not profits for the masses- is mostly impersonal. Conservatives in general think that a world in which THEY are comfortable is the best of all possible worlds.
I can only guess what " socialist " Democrat Bernie Sanders thinks about Scott Walker. Only a pathetic low voter turn out for the 2016 presidential election might produce a Republican winner they can celebrate at the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity.
[ http://radicalrons.blogspot... ]

Atlas Shrugged is not "one of the great literary works"--it is THE greatest literary work in the English language. But what do I know, I'm only a Ph.D. with 50 years of reading, writing, and teaching philosophy.

A book that has inspired so many of the Republican presidential candidates must be a great read. And I know that nothing great is accomplished without enthusiasm. So perhaps you can explain why " Atlas Shrugged " and Ayn Rand's militant atheism can win the hearts and minds of ordinary working class people who might succumb to the pernicious influence of Bernie Sanders and Pope Francis . Bertrand Russell spent more than 50 years reading, writing, and teaching philosophy too. He always described himself as a SOCIALIST-and even won the Nobel Prize for Literature. I will check to see if Lord Russell dignified " Atlas Shrugged " with a book review.
Albert Einstein was also a philosopher ( who believed in Spinoza's God ) . Einstein wrote " Why Socialism ? " way back in 1949.
Does capitalism represent ABSOLUTE WISDOM - a primordial order of things encoded in the very fabric of the universe-before the Big Bang ? Or just one more shabby-and doomed- social system of the Simian Brotherhood ?
What is Lovecraft's COSMIC HORROR planning for our way of life ? By the way, H.P. Lovecraft was a convinced SOCIALIST by the time he died in 1937- a victim of global capitalism's last great crisis : the Great Depression.Judging from his many letters, the cult horror writer lived on Campbell's soup -in an East Side home of decaying Old Yankee, New England aristocracy.
I read that Ayn Rand herself-buried under a DOLLAR SIGN floral arrangement- ended up on social security and Medicare. A ironic end to " A Life of Contempt ".
[ http://radicalrons.blogspot...]

[And in a recent issue of Forbes, the Ayn Rand apostle Harry Binswanger proposed that those earning over one million dollars should be exempt from
paying taxes, and the highest earner each year should be awarded a Medal
of Honor — as a reward (and incentive) for producing so much market
value. Again, Binswanger explained that “the real issue is not
financial, but moral.”]
Really now, there is always the philosophy of the Absurd, Mr. Harry Binswanger.
And which Ayn Rand Republican do you endorse ? Vladimir Putin - a convert to capitalism - just endorsed Donald Trump.

Hello Dr. Binswanger--Thank you for writing "How We Know" Epistemology on an Objectivist Foundation.

@Ron Ruggieri
Fans of Atlas Shrugged do not champion it primarily as a "great literary work." We do so because it is a great philosophical work with illustrations. How did your hatred of capitalism slip out of the impersonal? I detect it has, by the slur adjectives on Miss Rand. I could help you heal that, as I have leisure time, being one of the masses elevated by freedom and capitalism -- to the extent Rand's philosophy has prevailed.