Billionaires bolt from blue states amid tax fears, mirroring rebellion in ‘Atlas Shrugged’ novel

Ayn Rand was a Russian-born writer who immigrated to the United States in 1926, worked as a screenwriter and playwright and wrote several novels expressing an individualistic philosophy she called “objectivism.” Rand’s novels and outspoken ideology were subjects of academic and media debate from the onset of her literary career, but controversy soared with the 1957 publication of her 1,168-page “Atlas Shrugged.” The novel describes a revolt by business executives, inventors, artists and other accomplished Americans who opposed suffocating taxes and regulations. Rand likens the rebels to Atlas, a figure of Greek mythology who holds the world on his shoulders....