Atlas Shrugged

This book, as much as I detest it, is actually rather useful. Those who have read it tend to be those whom I most especially desire to avoid. Because those who have read it are invariably proud of the fact--ostentatiously so--it is even easier for me to keep my life free and clear of delusional egomaniacs. Thank you Ayn Rand.

Atlas Shrugged is a flawed epic, strident with a swaggering ambition, yet almost fable-like in its overly simplistic social and economic criticisms.

This is more of a philosophical, social commentary than a literary monument. The characterization is where it fails; Rand draws stick figures for antagonists: caricatures, strawmen to act as foil to her politico-economic-social vehicle. This is the book that made everyone mad in the late fifties: progressive liberals were spurned due to its vitriolic anti-government stance and conservatives stayed away in droves due to Rand’s over the top atheism.

As provocative and controversial as it is, I wondered at the society that had produced Rand and marveled at the influence she had on our culture since its publication. I have read many controversial books, and have wondered how many critics have actually read the work; Atlas Shrugged makes me wonder how many fans have actually read it.

Rand would no doubt be critical of big business today with its corporate dollar laden cushions and aristocratically removed “leadership”. Rand’s libertarianism shares with Sinclair’s socialism in that it looks good in print.

The length? Yep, it’s a 1300 plus page monster. Rand forces her readers to be submerged, to live in the dystopian wasteland for two or three months to fully comprehend her vision.

Finally I am left with a feeling, an assurance, that I do not like Ms. Rand and don't care for her arrogance and her casual dismissal of much of what is good in society.

*** 2021 - thought about this and have decided that even if I don't care for Rand, disagree with much of her ideas, I did like parts of this book

As Ayn Rand's immortal opus, Atlas Shrugged, stands as a tome to a philosophy that is relevant today as it was in her time. Basically, the major moral theme is that there are two types of people in the world: the Creators and the Leeches.

The Creators are the innovators who use the power of their will and intelligence to better humanity. The first person to create fire is often referenced as the paradigm for these people. In the book, each of the major protagonists also represent Creators improving the human condition with their force of will.

The Leeches (my word) are the people who create nothing, but thrive off feeding on the Creators. In Rand's view, they are the bureaucrats, politicos, regulators, etc. Throughout human history she tells us, these people have benefited through no ingenuity of their own, but merely from piggybacking on - and often fettering - the success of the Creators.

Where the conflict in this book arises is when the Creators decide they have had enough and revolt. I won't spoil the book by describing specifics, but let's just say it causes quite the societal drama. For Leeches can't feed where there's no blood.

All that is fairly significant and involved and worth the read to begin with, but where this book really stimulates me is in the fact that it is still relevant. Today we have Creators and we have Leeches. Some titans of industry and technology move our culture forward and others hold it back to their own benefit. I work in Silicon Valley and I see this all the time. That's why in many ways I consider this voluminous novel to be as important to a business education as Art of War.

To cite other readers' posts, you don't have to agree with what Rand is extolling, but I think you'd be foolish to try and deny the existence of this struggle since it is ingrained in humanity. Yes, Ayn does get long winded and arrogant in parts as she draws the battle lines, but I don't think an author could have crafted such a powerful conflict without copious quantities of ego to accentuate the differences.

This book really makes you take a good hard look at yourself and your behavior, which is why I think a lot of people don't like this book. It's a lecture and most people don't like to get lectured. I loved it. It gave me a good swift kick in the ass. While I've never been a "looter," I have made several irrational decisions in my life, which this 1000+ page lecture has helped me to stop doing. It teaches you to think with your mind, rather than your heart. It doesn't make you an uncaring person. You still feel with your heart, but you think with your mind. Use your mind instead of expecting to get the rewards of others who do all the thinking. If everyone did this, the world would be perfect - that is the idea behind Ayn's story. Of course, this will never happen. Ayn knew that. She just wrote a story about her ideal world. A lot of authors do that. No need to get pissed off at her because of it.

Yes, the book is wordy, but her words are genius in my opinion. I loved the long radio speech. Skip it if you are hating the book or better yet, stop reading it. Go out and smell the flowers instead. Is the story black and white? Definitely. Authors have different styles - people complain. If every author wrote in the same style, people would complain.

I can't tell you how many co-workers I've met who complain about how the CEO is making so much money and they should get some of that money. Well, go to college, get a business degree and work you're way up the corporate ladder if you want the CEO's salary. Don't sit around and expect those kinds of rewards because you work in accounts payable. You know what it takes, so do it and shut up. If it wasn't for the person who created this company, you wouldn't even have a job. I'm an administrative assistant making less money than the people complaing about wanting more money. It just makes me sick. But the people in Ayn's story didn't work for money. They loved their jobs. And she wasn't saying you had to be a rich, corporate big shot to hold the world up. There were teachers and stay at home moms in her little world in the mountains.

Ayn has extremely valuable points and if you are someone who is constantly looking for something to criticize in every book, then don't read it. If you can't handle looking at your imperfections, don't read it. If you have an open mind and are willing to learn something from every book and experience you have and grow as a person, then you will benefit from reading this book.

Honestly this book isn’t even worth talking about. It’s a genre of its own called Dumb Dystopia. Here’s my old review I guess:

Recently someone told me this was their favorite novel. I believe they referred to it as 'the greatest book ever written.' I find a lot wrong with that statement. Because who cares about Ulysses, right? No, that won't do, I'm going to have to drink and rant for a moment. I refrained from commenting to the customer, because I'm sure it is typically for political reasons that people like this book and, whatever, some people swing left, some people swing right, some people suckle the golden calf of capitalism and some love thy socialist ways and who am I to judge. I'm not a politician and you should all thank me for that. I'd like to push politics aside but, frankly, I think it is solely for political reasons and edgelord posturing that this book managed to stay relevant and in print. However, I suppose you are all here to hear about the politics of this book and I would be boring you with talks of wooden character and language and overall juvenile writing abilities, so I'll save those for after. I don't want to argue politics, especially not while drinking, so lets take a moment to look at the plot (and oh what a plot it is) and see how the politics hold up within. Besides, there isn't much to analyze in this one as the writing barely goes beneath the surface. It’s basically people got sad they couldn’t profit in the specific way they decided they should so they turned the world into a dumb dystopia because their vocation only mattered to them if they could lord it over people. The people the novel praises are those who simply sit back and let the workers make money for them and then call themselves the doers. It’s weird and kind of gross.

Once upon a time there were some factory owners. These factory owners loved to preach about the pride in working for their company, and hey, maybe conditions are piss-poor and maybe you are barely scraping by to feed your growing family, but at least you can take pride in working for a great company and that should satisfy you and give you meaning (some cool existentialist thought could have been added into the book for that, but Rand misunderstood Kant so I doubt she'd be able to add anything beyond surface detail and pop-philosophy). Then one day the great evil government (the government is such a caricature and it's almost a surprise she didn't have them all wearing black hooded cloaks. And really, who voted for those guys?) passed some outlandish laws that people couldn't have a monopoly and maybe we should pay our workers. Suddenly, having pride in what they did seemed terrible. Instead of taking pride in their company and working hard to sustain the nation they so loved, like they preached to their employees, they bitched about it a bunch and then stopped working. Nice guys, right? They set up a utopia (Ayn Rand of all people should know utopia is a word for 'fake') society where competing is so cool and they say stuff like 'man, I hope someone competes with me and nearly puts me out of business', which isn't all that different from what was going on in the society they fucked off into the woods from in the most comically shameful manner possible. Meanwhile Rand says cheating on your wife is way cool and general chaos ensues.

So it goes for awhile, but then, THEN, after a overlong speech that takes all the points any reader with half a mind already put together for themselves and regurgitates it out without the metaphors and into a boring speech that repeats itself many times about the points already mentioned in the novel and then makes sure you know the stuff already mentioned in the novel through a long speech, all hell breaks loose and the main characters bust into town like the goddamn A-Team. Guns blaze, Dagny murders a few dudes and the one character who was actually worth reading about blows up the super-weapon (because that guy was awesome. Screw the rest of the characters, I want to read more about that guy. He was 'about it', like people who are apparently 'about it' say right before ending up a viral youtube injury video.) All integrity of the novel was lost with the hysterically overblown rescue scene. I mean, they even got out on 'choppers' at the end. It was the worst action movie I've ever seen, and I'm not even going to go into the scene where apparently it is okay to shoot your employees in the head for going on strike. And that, my friends, is Atlas Shrugged. People seem to really like the politics, which are “if things aren't going your way just fuck off into the woods shouting ‘and fuck america too.'” Also she’s really into talking about shooting soldiers in the face.

Finally. What I really want to talk about is the book as a piece of literature, so don't get all steamed up about politics on me here, pal! Granted, there are a few pretty lines here, particularly the line about cigarettes and how all great thinkers should have that glowing ember at their fingertips while the lightbulb of thought is burning, but other than that Rand is a forgettable sci-fi novelist that has poorly aged with time. Not a line of dialogue rings true to actual speech, not a cough or a scoff can go without her graciously informing the reader that the scoff or cough shows their disapproval or discomfort and whatnot. Furthermore, she certainly can't let a metaphor slip out without explaining it; reading Ayn Rand feels like being a grown adult and sitting in a elementary reading class and having the teacher explain how books work. It's as if she has no faith in her reader as a literate, thinking human being. Worse, the characters are the sort that can only exist on the page and have such narrow-minded two-dimensional aspects that one can't possibly imagine them walking around in the real world. Of course the government is terrible in this novel, its such a caricature that nobody in their right mind would bother being submissive to it. Granted, this book is satire, but come on Rand, put some effort into your creativity.

' James, you ought to discover some day that words have an exact meaning.' This idea pops up constantly in Atlas Shrugged, that words have a specific and definite meaning, and the character always wields this like a weapon straight to the heart (James does suck as a person and character so I don't feel bad for him for his inability to easily retort. However, Rand seems fully unable to build three-dimensional characters so is it that James is garbage or Rand’s novel itself?). This idea is possibly my least favorite aspect of the book because it is comically incorrect. Though maybe my English degree is as useless as it is as finding me a job (totally useless), but from what I've gathered reading books (and Derrida) is that language is anything but exact. Language is pliable, words are an attempt at harnessing the abstract into sound, caging thought into something more tangible. If words have an exact meaning then all the poets have been doing is creating gibberish. And how can Rand go on writing her weak metaphors if she actually believes that statement.

Briefly, Ayn Rand separates people into two catagories: those that make, and the 'looters'. Interestingly “those who make” spend the whole book only making things hard for the working class who actually make the things they make money off of.

Somehow, people still rave about this book. I will say, however, that the chapter where they kill everyone by putting a steam engine through a tunnel was incredibly well done. She could have cut the rest of the novel and simply published that chapter because all the major points are present and for a brief moment the book felt worth reading. I also loved the bits about the pirate and the scene where the government takes over the mines to find them desolated. There are some great 'fight the man' moments but they are buried under a god-awful plot that puts the plot and politics before the writing and told through characters that are so two-dimensional that I can't even believe the scenes that have them walking down a street. There's some politics here I guess some people could get down with if your goal is to be a freshman year edgelord in a poly sci class, and I do understand that this is a response to the horrors of Communist Russia, but she did this so much better in Anthem (though even in that she contradicts herself often. Right after a large discussion on freedom and not letting others think for you, the man names the woman character. He just tells her, this is now your name. Which seems suspiciously not like the freedom the man was fighting for) and others have tackled the issue in a much more agreeable and artistic manner. All sarcasm and jokes aside, I simply do not think this book is well written. I could honestly not care less about the political aspects, its the literary aspects that cause the low rating. I came, I read, I shrugged.
1/5

Disclaimer: I read this while working in a factory that had no heat or AC and paid minimum wage as the salary cap. However, the office had AC, heat and tons of paid vacation. Perhaps I'm just bitter about the time I was sent home for listening to a DFW interview on Bookworm because it was 'spreading liberal propaganda in the workplace.'
Disclaimer #2: 1 star is probably too harsh, but I really wanted to try writing an angry rant review for once. Sorry, I'm most likely the asshole in this situation.

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. - John Rogers

Ayn Rand's characters are almost completely defined by the extent to which they embrace her beliefs. A good guy by definition is someone who agrees with her; a bad guy someone who dares to have a different point of view. For all the lip-service Rand pays to individualism, she brooks no dissent from her heroes; none of her so-called individualists ever expresses a point of view significantly different from hers.

To illustrate the gulf between Rand's characters and human reality, consider this behavior. When Dagny Taggart meets Hank Rearden, she dutifully becomes his property, for no other reason than that he's the most Randian male around. When John Galt arrives, ownership of the prize female transfers from Rearden to Galt, because Galt is the more Randian of the two. Does it ever occur to Hank to be resentful or jealous? Does Taggart experience loyalty or regret? Might Taggart love Rearden despite his lesser Randness? No, those are all things that human beings might feel.

(In a related departure from reality, sex in Randland is more or less indistinguishable from rape. Foreplay? Romance? Capitalists don't have time for that commie nonsense.)

The real focus of Atlas Shrugged is to extoll Rand's philosophy. (Not to debate it, since no one in Randland with any any intelligence or competence could have a different point of view.) About Rand's philosophy I'll just make two points (which I'm not going to bother providing evidence for at the moment).

The first is that, like most social Darwinists, Rand fell short in her understanding of natural selection. Her philosophy was largely based on the false belief that nature invariably favors individual selfishness. In reality, evolution has made homo sapiens a social animal; cooperation and compassion are very human traits. More importantly, even if cold selfishness were man's nature in the wild, it would not necessarily follow that that would be the best way for us to behave in our semi-civilized modern condition.

The second point is that, contrary to Rand's belief, pure laissez-faire capitalism never works; it invariably leads to exploitation of the poor and middle class and to environmental catastrophe. The best economic system that has ever been devised -- so far -- is a mixture of capitalism and socialism.

In some ways, this is a very bad book. The style is stiff and clunky, and the world-view she is trying to sell you has holes you could drive a train through. There is a nice putdown in One Fat Englishman. The main character has just been given a precis of Objectivism. He says "I bet I'm at least as selfish as you. But I don't why I need to turn that into a philosophy". Thank you, Kingsley Amis.

But on the plus side, the book is a page-turner; it does a great job of helping people brought up in a left-wing tradition to understand the right as not just deluded or evil (my friend Gen said she had the same experience after reading it); and it is good at voicing the frustration that competent and honest people feel when they are surrounded by incompetent and dishonest ones. And the romance between Dagny and Hank is emotionally very satisfying. I was so disappointed when she... hm, no spoilers. But I fear the author's desire to push her philosophical agenda got in the way of the story.

_________________________________________


OK, let's try again. I haven't exactly changed my mind on any of the above, but, as Jordan persuasively argues, it's kind of missing the point. And, with all due respect to the other reviews here, most of them are also missing the point.

Why? Well, because we're answering the wrong question. Some people uncritically adore this book. Guys, dare I suggest that you might want to broaden your reading tastes just the tiniest amount, and see if you still feel that way? A rather larger group of reviewers can't stand Ayn Rand, and point out various obvious flaws: lack of feeling for English prose style, lack of character development, lack of realistic dialogue, interminable sermons on Objectivism, and sundry other charges. Of course. All of that's clearly true. But here's the question I find more interesting: if the book is so terrible, how come it's been such a gigantic success? It's been said that only the Bible has had a greater influence on 20th century American thought. It must have something going for it. What?

So here's my second attempt. I think the book is dishonest, but it's dazzlingly dishonest, on a grand scale, and that's what readers find fascinating. As everyone knows, the basic thesis is that people should be more selfish, and that this will in some mystical way be good for society as a whole; a boldly paradoxical idea, and, at first sight, it's complete nonsense. I can well believe that my selfishness might be good for me personally, but why on Earth should it be good for anyone else? It flies in the face of at least two thousand years of Western ethical thought, which has been largely focused on making people less selfish, not more. As has been widely pointed out, Objectivism is pretty much the antithesis of Christianity. Which does suggest the question of why many people on the American Right claim both to be Christians and at the same time supporters of Rand's ideas, but let's not get into that right now. I don't really understand how the American Right thinks, so it'll be more productive to consider my own reactions to the book, which were by no means all negative.

Okay: at risk of appalling many of my GR friends, I have to admit that I liked a good deal of Atlas Shrugged. In particular, I find Dagny a sympathetic main character. Yes, she's the Mary Sue to end all Mary Sues, but that's exactly it. Rand believes in her so completely that I can't help being swept along. I am aware that few real women are hypercompetent technical and managerial geniuses, who think nothing of working 48 hours straight and then looking drop-dead gorgeous in a designer gown. (If the movie ever does get made, though, you must admit that Angelina Jolie was a shrewd piece of casting). Even if Dagny doesn't exist, I want her to, and I've seen many worse role-models for young women. That mixture of beauty, intelligence and passion is appealing. And sure, most of the other characters are one-dimensional stereotypes, but, when you're as self-centered as Ayn Rand was, that's how you see things. It's a subjective view, and I find it interesting to look at the world through her eyes.

Now that I've admitted that I love Dagny - I must admit that I can't decide whether I want to be her or sleep with her; probably a bit of both - let's get on to analyzing Rand's big con. A large part of the book is a lavish, over-the-top, melodramatic romance. Will Dagny get her guy? She's hopelessly in love with Hank, who feels just the same way about her. But Hank's ghastly wife, Lillian, seems to be an insuperable obstacle to their happiness. Hank's got all these mistaken principles, see, which mean he has to stay with Lillian, who doesn't appreciate him one bit, rather than go off with his true love. The best scene in the book is the confrontation at the party. Hank has created his new miracle alloy, which is a thousand times stronger than steel and a cool blue-green color to boot. The very first thing he makes from is it a bracelet for Lillian. And is she grateful? Of course not! She's actually going around complaining to the other women about this ugly thing her dumb husband has given her to wear on her wrist. Why couldn't he give her a diamond bracelet like a normal guy? But Dagny, in a blazing fury, goes up to her, and in front of everyone says that she'll be so happy to swap her own diamond bracelet for Hank's unappreciated present. Honestly, if you're not on Dagny's side at this point, I fear you have no heart at all. I was certainly cheering her on, and given the general success of the novel I assume I was one of millions.

Rand has stacked the deck, but she's not exactly the first author to do so. The reasonable point she's making here is that, in romantic matters, people should often do what they want to do, rather than than what they feel they ought to do. Straightforwardly selfish behavior is better for everyone; people need love, which makes them happy, rather than pity, which ultimately makes them miserable. At least, it's true in this particular case. You're sitting there willing Hank to understand what's so blatantly obvious. And, once she's got you to buy into her idea, she switches the cards right under your nose. In just the same way, she argues, people should always act selfishly! See, if you're given something you haven't truly earned (whatever that means), it won't make you happy. Moreover, the people who are actually entitled to it will feel hurt and frustrated, just like Dagny, and in the end they'll lose their motivation. And thus, um, if you tax multi-billionaires at more than whatever the fashionable rate is, civilization will collapse. QED. I may have condensed the argument a little, but I think that's roughly it.

As already mentioned, this is nonsense, and shows that romance authors, even quite good ones, shouldn't try their hand at political philosophy. But that needn't stop you from appreciating their romances, and I certainly did. Next week, I will be reviewing Barbara Cartland's commentaries on Kant. To be continued.

Press 1 if you would like to wait on hold for 3 hours and 45 minutes for a representative. Press 2 if you would like to listen to a recording of our website. Press 3 if you are so disgusted with this process that you just want to give up.

Option 3 is more and more tempting these days…

Atlas Shrugged is on many college admission essays that I wonder how often this very review with be plagiarized. Hi, Harvard and Oxford!

Before I really get into this 1,000+ page tome, GoodReads, can you do me a favor and give out badges when we read 1,000+ page books?

Readings books of this size is like climbing Mount Everest, and it is an event worth celebrating. As an aside, I would also like to see a lifetime pages badge.

Anyways…

In some respects, Atlas Shrugged is more relevant today than when it was first authored. It speaks to the weariness of overachievers as they go about the world with so many people not doing a good job.

Why does it take 45 minutes to buy a single loaf of bread at the store?

About two years ago, I ordered a treadmill for under the desk. After meticulously following the instruction manual, the belt would jump forward then slide back. The situation was especially dangerous because there were no handrails. After spending 30 minutes on the phone, I was told that the product was sold by a third-party seller. Up came the chat box where the seller tried to get me to load the 300-pound treadmill into my car, drive it to UPS, haul it in on my bare shoulders, and pay at my expense to ship it back to China. Let’s just say that didn’t happen…

COVID is now the blanket excuse for everything. People now make TikToks about quiet quitting, brazenly describing with pride how they intentionally do a bad job.

Withdrawing completely from society is so tempting, hitting Option 3.

Another point raised in Atlas Shrugged is how the government, non-businesspeople who don’t really understand the situation are making the rules governing business. This really resonated with me but in a slightly different way.

Human genome-editing is banned in most countries. In the US, the FDA prohibits DNA-editing.

Sorry, you probably fell asleep. What am I talking about?

A bunch of scientists at the FDA in their gilded white towers decided that people with life threatening genetic conditions cannot be cured before they are born. It is easy to pass such a sentence onto other people.

Have they bothered asking the person who has had two heart surgeries, can’t control their left leg, is covered head-to-toe in rashes, takes 14 pills a day, spends 4 hours a week at the hospital, is told by the very same United States government that she can work with restrictions while her heart was stopped, literally dead, treated as a pariah by society with no support, and it all could have been avoided if just one gene, ALDH4A1, was tweaked before she was born? No. No, they haven’t.

There are so many parallels between gene editing and Rearden Metal.

However, Atlas Shrugged is deeply problematic.

This book needs to check its premises.

Ayn Rand subscribed to a philosophy known as Objectivism and referred to the poor as “takers” and “refuse.”

Only two women are overachievers in Atlas Shrugged: one is a wife of an overachiever and the other is the granddaughter of the company founder.

What if Dagny was born poor or of color? What if she had a major illness or accident?

How do I really feel about this book? Take my hand. Let’s go back in time…..

Once upon a time, there was a young but poor scholar who attended a snobby, expensive elite university.

The financial aid officer told the scholar that she would have to drop out because her parents could not help with tuition.

One day, the scholar took out her sharpened pencils and turned her notebook to a fresh, clean, crisp page, arriving early to her psychology class. Her classmates consisted of the uber-wealthy of America, the types who have summer houses and fathers who work as CEOs of global corporations.

As she waited for class to begin, raised voices broke the stillness of the classroom. Two distinct voices engaged in an argument, turning to shouting, and then escalated into threats of violence.

“I’m going to throw this book at you!”

The young scholar leapt to her feet and bolted out of the room, intent on helping, while the rich students were still giving each other awkward stares and shifting uncomfortably in their seats.

She quickly located the students in question, determined that they were merely playing, and high-tailed it back to class.

As the scholar returned to her seat, her rich classmates turned their attention to her, smothering her with the same question, “What happened?”

Before the scholar could respond, the psychology professor burst into the classroom, exuberant, an enormous smile crossing her face.

“Lisa is the first person in seven years to respond to this experiment.”

Is there room in these esteemed academic institutions for the virtuous?

You say who is John Galt. I say who is Lisa of Troy.

2025 Reading Schedule
JantA Town Like Alice
FebtBirdsong
MartCaptain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Berniere
AprtWar and Peace
MaytThe Woman in White
JuntAtonement
JultThe Shadow of the Wind
AugtJude the Obscure
SeptUlysses
OcttVanity Fair
NovtA Fine Balance
DectGerminal

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