Ayn Rand

Elliot Gerson, secretary of the Rhodes trust, points to an interesting trend: In the past thirty or so years, Rhodes Scholars have disproportionately chosen to go into Wall Street careers. He writes:

In early December of 2008, the California State legislature passed a measure that would attempt to decrease the level of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

Originally published in 1957, Atlas Shrugged, one of the most controversial novels in American fiction, celebrated its 50th anniversary last year. Annual sales have been growing for years, and may grow even faster if Hollywood talk of a film-adaptation proves accurate.

Atlas Shrugged is routinely included on ‘favorite books’ surveys.

Put down that salad! Have you considered the dignity of the vegetables you’re about to crush into easily-digestible pieces? Have you no concern for their inherent worth as living beings? Have you made sure to carefully justify the moral necessity of harming those plants for your own ends?

Those are the topics recently under serious consideration by a Swiss governmental ethics panel. Their conclusion? Plants do indeed possess “inherent worth” and must be protected “for their own sake” from human destruction.