The Soundboard: Comprachicos Edition

I just finished re-reading Ayn Rand’s The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, and I highly recommend it for all.

It is quite frustrating to read this collection of essays, first published in The Objectivist Newsletter from 1965 to 1971, and see that we are living with the ends of the means she was writing about.

It is as though no one was listening.

The final essay is titled “The Comprachicos” (whose definition you can find here). It is easily the best essay in the book, containing page after page of reasonable arguments against Uncle enrolling Junior in Kindergarten (and neither should you enroll yours).

However, one of the best reasons it is my favorite is that it took today’s tunage and switched it from a catchy pop-track with a kick-ass Alex Leifson solo to one of the more meaningful Rush tracks of that era.

So, from the 1984 Grace Under Pressure album

Kid Gloves – Rush

And in the same vein, from the same album

The Enemy Within – Rush

Enjoy

PS: When I say “re-reading” I read this book in high school, didn’t understand most of it and shelved it. Reading The Comprachicos now explains why I didn’t understand it.

Seriously, highly recommended.