It did so by isolating the dominant philosophy guiding her actions (altruism) and by examining what the consequences of those actions would be (self-destruction).

It was published at the time when liberalism began its rapid spread through the universities, the media, politics, etc. It provided a solid philosophical understanding of the liberal mind that one could use to follow the leftist trend and readily identify events and public utterances that confirmed the trend to the left in America.

Philosophy is powerful and important. It has consequences. The current economic model in DC is socialism/fascism. Rand had a personal close-up look at a similar system when she lived in communist Russia and she wrote clearly about the inevitable outcome of following these ideas.

The Marxist philosophy is based upon the idea “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” (altruism at its worst). This is a recipe for destroying motivation and is guaranteed to always end in the ruin of any society that adopts such ideas. We see it everywhere in America today where the producers (ability) are punished and the losers are rewarded (need).

Under current leadership the failure of America is guaranteed. There is no hope in sight, only more of the same (bracketing the possible miraculous election of Ron Paul). Prepare for the worst. It is the only logical thing to do.

(Joshua, so glad to see you are still active. Namaste.)

Thanks, Jim. Good to see you around. I hope life is treating you well in Albuquerque! :-)

Good analysis of the problem.

To add something that has yet to be stated here, interventionism causes a decrease in production. Interventionism is like capitalism but with government coercion favoring some groups over others.

Socialism causes a massive and abrupt decrease in production.

Interventionism causes a slower decrease in production.

Only capitalism causes production to increase.

For more, see _Liberalism: The Classical Tradition_, by Ludwig Von Mises.