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Ayn Rand on Xmas Shopping

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"Christmas is a spiritual holiday whose leitmotif is personal, selfish pleasure and joy. The season's commercialism, far from detracting from this celebration, as we're often told, is integral to it."

So wrote Onkar Ghate, a senior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, in his pre-holiday opinion piece for U.S. News, "Commercialism Only Adds to Joy of the Holidays"


Ghate's piece also says: "'The best aspect of Christmas,' Ayn Rand once observed, is 'that Christmas has been commercialized.'"


Photo Credit: The image accompanying this post was taken by Flickr user Aine D. It was used under Creative Commons license.

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