: : Who said:
This whole edifice of civilization is in its foundations and in all its stones nothing else than the result of the creative capacity, the achievement, the intelligence, the industry, of individuals: in its greatest triumphs it represents the great crowning achievement of individual God-favored geniuses in its average accomplishment the achievement of men of average capacity, and in its sum doubtless the result of the use of human labor-force in order to turn to account the creations of genius and of talent.
: : Was it Ayn Rand (the ideological mentor of Leonard Peikoff)---or was it Hitler?
: Is the intention here to associate Rand with Hitler, or the above passage with Nazi-ism?
My overall point was to demonstrate that---contrary to Piekoff's misleading 'scholarship'---Hitler approached the capitalists of Germany with campaign speeches that glorified individual sovereignty. The Dusseldorf Club speech of '32, quoted above, where Hitler cozied up to the leading industrialists of the nation, is a classic example that Nazism was compatible with individual autonomoy (at least regarding powerful individuals) AND capitalism (in general).
That it sounded just like any passage out of Atlas Shrugged was simply a serendipitous bonus...
