I can think of a better title for this AlterNet story.

It says, "How Ayn Rand Seduced Generations of Young Men and Helped Make the U.S. Into a Selfish, Greedy Nation."

I think it really should say, "How the progressive indoctrination machine failed to seduce generations of young men into making them do what progressives want."

I find it amusing that progressives continue to attack Ayn Rand, though some of the criticisms seem beside the point, like her alleged infatuation with a murderer in her 20's. Fortunately progressives never idolize sociopaths & murderers like, say, Che Guevara; why, I bet you couldn't even get a T-shirt with Che's image on it.

No, I suspect that Ayn Rand's influence on the right pisses off progressives because it bypassed their educational and propaganda systems based in elite universities. Rand went straight to the people by offering her novels & other writings in a competitive market, and she had plenty of takers. After incubating in the hinterlands for a couple of generations, Rand's alternative view of society has recently emerged as an effective form of resistance to progressivism. Progressives feel that they have lost control of the framing situation, and they don't know how to respond to Rand's challenge to their agenda.

AlterNet's title for this attack on Rand also brings to mind the sense I have that progressivism doesn't act in the best interests of society's lower status males. The welfare state offers women a substitute for the yucky beta males they would otherwise have to marry to support their children. That leaves beta males pretty much disposable and undervalued. The Strict Father world view of conservatism, by contrast, tends to act more in the interests of beta males by restricting women's often self-destructive sexual inclinations (through outlawing abortion, for example) and leaving marriage to beta males as a more appealing option.