Ira Levin did a much better job of it and showed what it would lead to but his 'This Perfect Day' did not - predictably - get the same kind of reception as Atlas Shrugged did.
It’s also a hard book to read so it may be smart kids trying to signal being smart.
I can't help but think it's probably the "favourite book" of a lot of people who haven't finished it though, possibly to a greater extent than any other secular tome (at least LOTR's lightweight fans watched the movies!).
I mean, if you've only read the blurb on the back it's the perfect book to signal your belief in free markets, conservative values and the American Dream: what could be more a more strident defence of your views than a book about capitalists going on strike to prove how much the world really needs them?! If you read the first few pages, it's satisfyingly pro-industry and contemptuous of liberal archetypes. If you trudge through the whole thing, it's not only tedious and odd but contains whole subplots devoted to dumping on core conservative values (religion bad, military bad, marriage vows not that important really, and a rather jaded take on actually extant capitalism) in between the philosopher pirates and jarring absence of private transport, and the resolution is an odd combination of a handful of geniuses running away to form a commune and the world being saved by a multi-hour speech about philosophy which has surprisingly little to say on market economics...
Oh, there’s movies for lazy Rand fans, too.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480239/
More of a Fountainhead fan, are you? Do ya like Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal?
tbf that comment was about 50% a joke about their poor performance at the box office :D
Though a Gary Cooper The Fountainhead does tempt me on occasion. (Unlike Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead wasn’t horrible, but still some pretty poor writing.)