Ayn Rand (1905–1982)

It is hard to rate this book. It is an epic novel without nuance, written to illustrate a particular philosophical point. It is exactly what the author intended. I have never read another author who succeeded so well at her endeavor, so in that sense it deserves 5 stars. However, the premise of economic Darwinism = heroism is so far from reality that I just shake my head. Dagny Taggart did not get where she is by her own efforts. Neither did half the other characters. Success in a show more capitalistic system requires access to capital. If you don't have access, it doesn't matter how "productive" you are. Rich industrialists like to pretend that "they did it all on their own." In reality, companies piggyback on research funded by the government, infrastructure built and maintained by the government, law and order and emergency services provided by the government, education provided by the government, and also on the health and prosperity of their employees.

(The whole system relies on a consumer base with enough money to buy goods and services. Industrialists to not exist in a vaccuum. If there were ten billionaires and a million poor people in the system, who would the industrialists sell their goods and services to? Capitalism really only works when everyone has enough resources to buy stuff. So it is in a company's best long-term interests to pay their employees well. Unfortunately, no one seems to realize this, because capitalism is based on a scarcity mindset.)

When you start equating poor people with worthlessness, then there is a problem. Economic value and absolute value have nothing to do with each other. One life = one life, period. By Rand's reckoning, a serial killer who also owns a steel mill is more valuable than a poor person who helps others.

The success of any individual organism is tied to the success of the species, and vice versa. A species which destroys its own environment is doomed to be unsuccessful, no matter how "heroic" a particular individual is. In evolutionary terms, it is better for a whole species to thrive than for any particular individual of that species.

Getting back to Rand, her ideas just don't make sense in the real world. Plus, her beliefs about love and sex are creepy AF. show less

This relic of my university years is a strange kind of comfort food to be sure, but so it is. I appreciate revisiting Ayn Rand's straightforward view of the world in which everything in it is clearly right or wrong. It is at least half disagreeable to me now, but it is easy to remember what it was like to be under the spell of believing the combination lock on all the world's inner workings had been cracked open by this woman and laid out to dry in the sun for clear inspection.

Ayn Rand was a show more far cry from a fascist or a thousand other misapplied names that critics have tried to assign her over the decades. But as is displayed by the contents of this book, like any extremist she indulged in a lot of controversial opinions. She believed that people can only knowingly behave illogically or irrationally (or at worst, are lying to themselves.) She saw zero value in mysticism or religion as forces for good; just the opposite. Altruism she labelled as man's (always "man's") greatest enemy. No rational woman would wish to be President. Environmentalism was an invention of fools and con men. This volume, carefully manicured by her protégé, owns up to all of that and more, endorsing all of her opinions as virtuous. They are sold as one unquestionable, united bill of goods, sewn together in an internally consistent philosophy.

This book's audience is the converted, more than newcomers to Ayn Rand's philosophy. Those are expected to begin with her fiction, an innocent-seeming portal into viewing the world through her eyes. I've retained partial agreement with some of her views, but have long since become what she called a fence-sitter (as good as turning to the dark side, in her books.) The foot I keep on her side still likes to revisit now and then, for that nostalgic glimpse of when the world made perfect sense. show less

One idea that's always bubbled under the surface of our collective worldview is that "pessimism == realism". It's upheld by a circular argument, which is that all good things are an illusion. If something good happens, it's not that good, and if it is that good, then it's happening under the wrong circumstances, if it's the right circumstances, then wrong somewhere else, and so on. The same sort of scrutiny isn't applied to surface-level bad things. So if a person breaks their leg and during show more recovery develops a lifelong passion for drawing, then who cares? they broke their leg. Besides the drawings suck: not even one gun / big titty. Under the belief that pessimism == realism, things in the world are either: openly bad; or secretly bad. But it's a fantasy borne from laziness: the world appears to you as all bad because you seek out the bad in all things, you're not putting any work in seeking out the good to counterbalance it. Being a pessimist doesn't make you "see the world for what it really is", it makes you a pessimist. You have a bias. If you want to see the world for what it really is, you need to keep your bias in check, just like I have to throttle my optimism. With that said, Atlas Shrugged says we should all be evil because kindness doesn't exist.

In the world concocted for the novel, the "openly bad / secretly bad" dichotomy is applied to people. You can either be: evil; or secretly evil. With that premise, the end result is that the world is a better place when everyone's honest about the complete dirtbags they are. I hold the conjecture that everyone comes out better off when people choose honesty even to their own detriment, so, for the world Rand has created, I totally agree with her thesis: if everyone's a cruel monster, just be a cruel monster already, who cares?

It's with the whole bit about "taking the conclusions from the book and applying them in real life" that I have a problem. I don't think Rand's world is like our own, and I think most people can just present their own experience as evidence for that. I get the sense that most people have a hard time being selfish jerks, no matter how much society drills that attitude into them. In my case, for example, it straight up physiologically feels bad to do, and I'm not exceptional in any way, so if I have that reaction, then probably most people do as well. I just don't think it's behavior that comes naturally for us, it's self-torture. I think there's a lot of (at least anecdotal) evidence that we have not evolved to be assholes, and in contrast, being kind feels kinda good: it's difficult to feel guilt or shame over having done a good deed, even when society demands that you do. Ayn Rand's "openly evil / secretly evil ppl" dichotomy relies on it being true that all people who aren't openly evil are secretly evil, and her conclusion that we should all be evil all the time depends on the dichotomy being correct, which can only be correct if kindness doesn't exist. That's why the book is so long: she spends 1100 pages "proving" that kindness doesn't exist, but the end result reveals less about the world and more about Ayn Rand herself. It's populated by cartoon villains and ... villains ... and nothing else. It's even cliché by now to list the actions of the protagonists here and say at the end "...and they're THE GOOD GUYS". That's how crazy this worldview is. If kindness doesn't exist, then why do the actions of these characters make people so uncomfortable?

Picture if someone made a treatise on how it's stupid that we have two names for literally the same color and why the hell does one green light mean "stop the car" and the other mean "go"? Obviously the person's colorblind. You wouldn't say that person "sees the world for what it really is", right? The world is not all blue, yellow, and dirty yellow. Atlas Shrugged is kinda like that treatise.

In conclusion, if this is your favorite book, go check your eyesight. show less

Atlas Shrugged has been probably one of the most powerful, well-written books I have ever read. I understand why pundits, libertarian, Republican, and in general conservatives, so often reference Ayn Rand and this book. However, most of these people who use Atlas Shrugged to demonstrate their arguments have either not read the book or misinterpret it altogether.
Although Atlas Shrugged does proclaim libertarian values of extreme private property and the glories of a stateless society, it show more only directs this concept at the book’s heroes, an elite set of geniuses. To broadly claim that this why libertarianism is best for the population at large using this book is to miss the point of Atlas Shrugged altogether. This book does not argue that all people should have the benefits of extreme private property, it simply tells a tale where it’s exceptionally capable protagonists suffer in a society that uses their ideas to benefit people (the book would argue: undeserving, stupid people). Atlas Shrugged argues that extreme private property and statelessness would be best for these wonderful, chosen people.
Ayn Rand writes so well that it is hard to disagree with her on this point. Certainly, if you have ever been mooched off of or used for your superior talents in any field, her story quickly strikes a chord and becomes a gripping epic. The thing one must never forget, however, is that while you might have been mooched off of or used, you are not one of the irreplaceable geniuses that form the crux of this novel. You have your talents, more so or less so than the average person, but you are likely not one of the few elite that John Galt has chosen. This being the case, can you really agree with this story and how the average person is portrayed as utterly useless, insipid user?
But even if one were one of these elite geniuses, one could argue like a Progressive, like a Socialist, like a left-winger that a person is part of society and responsible for it. One should not escape to an Ark and let society crumple to dust and create a new society from its ashes under the rule of the elite, capable ones.
I disagree with Ayn Rand’s views on selfishness, on liberty, on society, and on private property, and the ruthlessness she displays in this novel toward the common man is frighteningly awful. Nonetheless, this is an excellent book and captivating. Atlas Shrugged is seductive in language and incredibly poignant. By opening this book, you are more than challenged deeply morally, ethically, and politically -- you are tempted by Ayn Rand's views. show less