"The century of the self" - I like that. Atlas Shrugged is the capstone. The content seems silly, though. In sociology classes, we learned about Robert King Merton and Paul Lazarsfeld who formed a public relations firm based on their social science (or "science"). The firm was not successful. Lazarsfeld was in fact a Marxist who thought that he understood markets. In our time Sir Anthony Giddens is the sociologist who guided New Labour. He is the author of the best selling college textbook on sociology. He said (admitted, in fact) that socialism just cannot deliver the goods: you need capitalism for that - global capitalism.