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FROM NOVELIST TO PHILOSOPHER, 1944–1957
I should put up over the fi replace in my own offi ce. So I came home, got
into my slippers, provided myself with a good quantity of martini and
was reading Roark’s speech for the most suitable quotation.” On another
occasion he thanked Rand for praise she had given him, noting, “Your
comments about my speech please me to no end. Getting that kind of
approval from you is what I call ‘passing muster.’ ” Read tapped Rand to
serve as FEE’s “ghost,” asking her to read material he intended to publish
to make sure it was ideologically coherent. 41 Rand was delighted with
the chance to infl uence the new organization.
From the start she pushed Read to assume a stance that mirrored her
own. She was particularly insistent that Read promote her moral views.
He must explain that profi t and individual gain were “the capitalist’s real
and proper motive” and ought to be defended as such. Otherwise, if the
very motive of capitalism was “declared to be immoral, the whole system
becomes immoral, and the motor of the system stops dead.” 42 It was the
same criticism she had made of Hayek: a partial case for the free market
was worse than no argument at all. Read was naturally more cautious.
Like Rand he believed that government functions such as rent control,
public education, the Interstate Commerce Commission, military training,
and the Post Offi ce should all be done by “voluntary action.” But he
told her, “I had luncheon last week with the chief executive of the country’s
largest utility holding Corp. and a fi nancial editor of the Journal
American. They are regarded as reactionaries, yet each of these gents,
while being [against] price controls generally, suffered rent control. This
is typical.” With an eye to public perception, Read had chosen the FEE’s
rather bland name rather than use the infl ammatory word “individualism,”
as Rand had urged. 43 Although Rand was generally pleased with
Read’s efforts, she could see nothing but apostasy where others saw necessary
compromises with political and economic realities. Despite their
early productive collaboration, signifi cant differences underlay Rand’s
and Read’s approach to political activism.
Trouble came on the occasion of FEE’s inaugural booklet, Roofs or
Ceilings?, authored by Milton Friedman and George Stigler, then young
economists at the University of Minnesota. Like her reaction to Hayek,
Rand’s reaction to Friedman is illuminating for the differences it highlights
between her and another famous libertarian. Roofs or Ceilings?
was written as Friedman, then a new faculty member at Minnesota,
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