How Bad Writing Destroyed the World : Ayn Rand and the Literary Origins of the Financial Crisis

Literature can be used to disseminate ideas with devastating real-life consequences. In __How Bad Writing Destroyed the World__, Adam Weiner spans decades and continents to reveal the surprising connections between the 2008-2009 financial crisis and a relatively unknown nineteenth-century Russian author. A congressional investigation placed the blame for the financial crisis on Alan Greenspan and his deregulatory policies-his attempts, in essence, to put Ayn Rand's Objectivism into practice. Though developed most famously in Rand's __Atlas Shrugged__, Objectivism sprouted from the Rational Egoism of Nikolai Chernyshevsky's __What Is to be Done?__ (1863), an enormously influential Russian novel decried by the likes of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Vladimir Nabokov for its destructive radical ethics. In tracing the origins of Greenspan's ruinous ideology, __How Bad Writing Destroyed the World__ combines literary and intellectual history to uncover the danger of hawking “the virtues of selfishness,” even in fiction. Literary history meets economic policy in this entertaining polemic on the ethical and potentially destructive power of terrible literature. --Publisher. "Literature can be used to disseminate ideas with devastating real-life consequences. In How Bad Writing Destroyed the World, Adam Weiner spans decades and continents to reveal the surprising connections between the 2008-2009 financial crisis and a relatively unknown nineteenth-century Russian author. A congressional investigation placed the blame for the financial crisis on Alan Greenspan and his deregulatory policies-his attempts, in essence, to put Ayn Rand's Objectivism into practice. Though developed most famously in Rand's Atlas Shrugged, Objectivism sprouted from the Rational Egoism of Nikolai Chernyshevsky's What Is to be Done? (1863), an enormously influential Russian novel decried by the likes of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Vladimir Nabokov for its destructive radical ethics. In tracing the origins of Greenspan's ruinous ideology, How Bad Writing Destroyed the World combines literary and intellectual history to uncover the danger of hawking "the virtues of selfishness," even in fiction." Literary History Meets Economic Policy In This Entertaining Polemic On The Ethical And Potentially Destructive Power Of Terrible Literature. --publisher Introduction: On The Dubious Virtue Of Selfishness -- Radicalizing Dostoevsky -- The Most Atrocious Work Of Russian Literature -- Dostoevsky Reborn -- Rigor Mortus Or Waiting For Rakhmetov -- Fire In The Minds Of Men -- Rakhmetov Lives! -- The Vengeance Of The Muse -- In The Graveyard Of Bad Ideas. Adam Weiner. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 220-244) And Index.