"In the 1935 Telling, Redistribution Was the Mechanism of Abundance"

"Even in those invocations of abundance, the stark differences between the socialist abundance movement of 1935 and the moderate abundance agenda of 2025 are apparent. The concept of 'production for use' is in contrast to the capitalist profit motive. In socialist thought, one of the core issues of a capitalist economy is that profit motives result in wealth accumulation becoming divorced from the creation of actual economic value. A production for use system makes production and allocation decisions based on need (or 'use value'), rather than market prices."

Dylan Gyauch-Lewis at The New Republic describes "An Altogether Different Kind of Abundance Agenda."

"Jeffersonian Socialists"

"Finally, the leading representatives of American socialism may have been too American for their own good. The Jeffersonian elements Ross prizes were most appealing to middle-class Midwestern Protestants. As Lipset and Marks have pointed out, anti-statist themes were less exciting to a working class composed of new immigrants, particularly Catholics. They responded to Father Coughlin, not Norman Thomas.

"It is possible that better luck and more skillful tactics could have overcome these obstacles. But it is not clear how much that would have mattered in the end. Despite their antimilitarist beginnings, socialist parties in most of Europe supported both World Wars and then embraced much the same blend of social welfare, economic corporatism, and militarized internationalism that has defined the Democratic Party at least since FDR.

"Perhaps America is not exceptional after all."

Samuel Goldman in The American Conservative reviews Jack Ross's The Socialist Party of America: A Complete History.

"Winners Deserve to Be Winners Because They Are Winners"

"'The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand,' Paul Ryan said in 2009.  'And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.' In time for Team Romney’s vetting process, the freshly-minted V.P. nominee has since walked back his devotion to Rand and her philosophy, telling National Review that an admiration for the mid-century Soviet émigré does not 'suggest that a person is therefore an Objectivist.'

"Wherever Ryan currently stands on Objectivism, which Rand invented, it’s worth reviewing the basics of the world’s greediest philosophy."

In The New Republic, Simon van Zuylen-Wood names "The Ten Strangest Things About Objectivism."

Ann Friedman at New York calls Paul Ryan "Your Annoying Libertarian Ex-Boyfriend."

David Stockman in The New York Times says that Ryan "is preaching the same empty conservative sermon."

John Nichols at The Nation writes that Wisconsinite Ryan is against the "Wisconsin Idea."

Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic argues that Ryan makes for a poor Randian.

In The New Republic, Jennifer Burns traces Ayn Rand's influence over the past fifty years.