Update, today's xkcd:

n  n

The mouseover of which says:

I had a hard time with Ayn Rand because I found myself enthusiastically agreeing with the first 90% of every sentence, but getting lost at 'therefore, be a huge asshole to everyone.'



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I was so very determined to read this, not least because I have acquaintances who live in a day-to-day way with Rand the way some people live with Jesus. You can't get through a meal or a game of bridge or a walk down to the lake without Objectivism coming into play. I thought at the very least we might be able to have a conversation if I learnt some of the rules.

Birdbrian asks why reviews of this are always so emotional*

Well. I wonder too. But my bemusement is based on the solitary page I read before it went on the got-to-go pile.


* http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand opened a whole new world for me. One of the best books I’ve read in a long time. The Earth Children’s Series by Jean Auel were my favorite books until reading this and now they both are. Picking up some of the classics to read on my list in Barnes & Noble, I ran into an older gentleman who worked there and noticed what I was perusing. He recommended Atlas Shrugged and I had never heard of it. When I realized it was the same person who wrote Fountainhead, I thought that it sounded vaguely familiar but I had not known of it or could remember anything I had heard about it. So, I bought the paperback with the tiny writing and over 1000 pages. I can not tell you how much I absolutely loved this book. It took me about 200 pages to get into it. I was never much on philosophy and didn’t know much about this Objectivism that Any Rand was writing about. But she used politics as an analogy, and threw in her beliefs about Capitalism which I very much agreed with, so after getting past the setup of the story, I was abruptly drawn in. Objectivism specializes in showing how all our motives are really just stem from selfishness or should be, leading up to the pursuit of one’s own happiness. She wraps this idea around a government in America in the 40’s who begin to embrace Socialism at its worst and follows it to its extreme. It reaffirmed everything I believed in concerning taxes, welfare, and monopolies. An economy that is forced over time to subject itself to extreme socialism eventually fails, and the book, in a nutshell, ends with all social structures collapsing, and NY growing dark for lack of energy being able to be piped to it. Meanwhile, in a little valley far away, the most intelligent, productive minds of the era, make plans for economy regrowth with plenty of new and innovative ideas thrown in. Ideas that they were not allowed to possess in the socialist economy. It also had some good romance thrown in for good measure. It was beautifully written and touched me deeply. I wanted to run around shouting yes! This is what will happen if we let Obama get his way with our health care! But since I don’t have a pulpit, only a car, I instead got a bumper sticker that said, Who is John Galt? Hopefully that might cause at least one person in this world to sit up and ask some questions, like I did. I already got an older copy of Fountainhead and added it to my list of must read classics. I also began acquiring any book written by or about Ayn Rand that I could find. She is a phenomenal writer. I absolutely loved this book and her writing is in such a class all its own, it is, it its own right, a classic.

Note: I think that even if someone doesn't agree with the ideologies of Rand, if they're honest, they have to at least admit her writing is amazing. I'm really not convinced that the people who wrote how awful this book is, aren't really attributing their dislike for Rand's opinions to her style of writing.

Ayn Rand is Nietzche for stupid people She was an evil woman, with evil ideas who wrote pathetic books . Nothing she ever said or wrote is worth taking notice of.

4 ⭐️ stars from me! “Who is John Galt?” Finally I know what that means! I have heard many references to this story so I’m glad I finally read it. It’s a daunting read, the audio version is 52 hours long! Once I got into the story however, I was captivated and couldn’t wait to see how it was going to end.

People seem to either love or to hate this book. I loved it but also didn’t agree with all of Ayn Rand’s philosophies. The story is very thought provoking and will stay with me for a long time.

Parallels between the society in Atlas Shrugged and our society right now are incredibly alarming. The corruption of our politicians, unions, and bureaucracies are obvious to anyone paying attention. Politicians run on platforms of empathy instead of problem solving. They are “career” politicians and remind me of the Washington cronies in the book.

And the culture! The entitlement and victimization in Atlas Shrugged mirror what I see every day among millennials and main stream media alike. And many seem unable or unwilling to take responsibilities for their own actions. The prosperity and freedoms we enjoy in America are taken for granted. As if prosperity and freedoms are a right and not to be earned. As if all societies from the beginning of time have been free and easy and wonderful.

We live in the most free society that has ever existed! And yet the movement growing at a rapid pace to hate on our country is strong. I think this book should be a must read for college students. If for no other reason, to consider another philosophy, other than the trending socialism.

I don’t agree with all of Ayn Rand’s philosophies. But I think Atlas Shrugged demonstrates a perfect example of capitalism and communism magnified. Any system that robs from the rich and gives to the poor is doomed and will end in poverty for all. I especially loved the portrayal of the decline of the Twentieth Century Motor Factory. The ideal “from each according to his ability to each according to his need” was practiced on a smaller scale at the company. How is it to be determined what a man’s “ability” and “need” are? At the Motor company they decided ability and need would be determined by voting. At the beginning, their experiment was exciting and promising. But the downfall was fast and riveting. And makes so much sense. There’s a reason why socialism has never been successful!

What I don’t agree with is Rand’s belief to “pursue your own happiness as your highest moral aim”. I don’t believe you can find true happiness in selfishness. Being selfless and thinking of others is not a weakness.

The craziest thing about this story is finishing it and then comparing it to the Green New Deal and/or Roosevelt’s New Deal. Yikes

no, REALLY?!?! people LOVE this...but i just... i realize that, in disliking cucumbers, i am siding with a very scant and unpopular team, but i have my reasons: i chewed on them while i was teething, so it's an association thing. i realize they have merit and i love all other veggies, it's just they're not for me. but it seems more people like this book than even cucumbers, which we know is saying a lot. and this book's got NOTHING going for it. except it's heavy. i mean, is that it? b/c there are other long great books; you have a long trip and need entertainment and a paperweight, take maybe moby dick!! this is a zillion pages of awfully constructed sentences and achingly stupid storyline with cardboard characters and uninspired philosophy. really, ayn rand has so little to say in general that it is just shocking that so many people will listen to her attempt to flesh out a one-line theory ad nauseum in painful and impotent redundancy. it's really really awful. which would be fine except people really claim to glean something from it. i think i missed the page with the free money or something. i'd rather eat a cucumber for every worthless page than have to suffer through it again.

Want to see Rand's so-called philosophy in action? Just look at Bush, Cheney & Co., Enron, and the rest of that mess. Ayn Rand, in real life, was a person who lied, had affairs, and generally did whatever she felt like doing without regard to who got hurt as long as it wasn't her. In other words, a spoiled brat in an adult body, i.e. a sociopath. This "philosophy" is simply a rationalization of that behavior, a refusal to accept the responsibility for one another that is supposed to go with membership in the human race and an abdication from the social contract that makes civilization possible.
As other reviewers have noted, this simplistic and narcissistic perspective appeals to the immature and naive, but doesn't hold up well to real world experience, and by the time we're in our mid-to-late 20s, if not earlier, most of us have had enough run-ins with Randian types to see them as the shallow jerks they are. Beyond the cardboard characterization, dumb plotting, and condescending lecturing, this kind of "thinking" is a big part of what's wrong in American society today.
I can't see how any adults other than fascists or sociopaths could buy into this.

First of all I like trains. That may be the most retarded thing ever to start a review of this book, but I really do in a very serious way have a great love of railroads that I think ought to be taken in consideration when reviewing this book. I knew absolutely nothing about this book when I started reading it. Other than that a great deal of my friends either fervently loved it or were completely bored and disgusted by it, I knew relatively little about the premise or the details and was pleasantly surprised and excited to see a book centered around railroads! What fun!

This all leads to more serious matters to consider. First of all as a former business owner myself, and as someone who has had intricate dealings with issues concerning health and so forth I have some points to make.

Point 1: Ayn has created a stark and perhaps unrealistic overemphasis on "types" of characters, settings, and events in this book to help her make her point strong and well understood. I don't think this naturally leads to well rounded characters or a completely realistic plot as this is not typical of how real humans are or interact, but you can see that it was done with purpose and intent and I think it helps her get her message across, so lets leave the multi dimensionality that everyone has an issue with out of the equation when reviewing the work.

Point 2: Taking point one into consideration I asked myself if what she is proposing as the true "evils of society" are in fact concerns. The answer is unmistakably Yes Yes Yes! One need only to look at the past few years and see the bailouts in America to see that the government loves to wrap its sticky fingers around issues that it deems are for the "good of society" or the "good of the economy" or the "good of the nation" for that matter that is a further perpetuation of bad enterprise and bad business. I admit Obama had a hard situation to come into. He had two choices and neither of them were going to be pretty. Either let the companies seal their own doom as it were, spiraling the country into a huge economic crash because of the loss of such ventures and business or bail them out to stabilize the economy (always a good option when you want to get votes since your term is only so many years long) thus rewarding bad business and allowing poor businessmen to continue along a poorly constructed route, but allowing many to keep their jobs and their bank accounts.
Was Obama's choice a good one? I think in some ways it was. For the common people it was an excellent choice in the short term, whether they realize it or not. Though I have serious doubts as to whether this will not lead to more serious issues in the long run. The problem was the set up. The loans that were given were astronomical in relation to what many people should have been qualified for. The business were not strong enough to do well in the economy. If they had fallen it would have been terrible on the economy as a whole to be sure but it would have provided the way for new businesses, or better businesses to come in and take over thus rewarding good business and paving the way for stronger business in the future which would mean a stronger overall economy in the long run. What is the best call? It is always hard to say, but to say that Ayns ideas are of no consequence or not useful in the society in which we live is simply not the case.

Point 3: When you own your own business you are always bombarded by the legalities of not only the state and nation in which you live, but also the private interests of others around you. Everyone is looking to make money in the easiest way possible. The number of people willing to truthfully "work" towards this enterprise is astoundingly low. If the characters in this book make your skin crawl, meet business men and women in real life. Blackmail, extortion, and outright treachery abound. Even individuals with a good product, that is personally produced by them must struggle against the government and other interests (like in the book, many times against their own family). I have seen this first hand in my own life, but as a comparison read Dava Sobels "Longitude" and this sentiment can be felt with a great deal of vigor. What happened to earning something fair and outright? What in these cases is to be said about enterprise or the great undertakings of the mind? How much power and money allows you to bypass the government?

Point 4: I understand that competition is important and even necessary, that capitalism in and of itself leads to high productivity. On the other hand as someone who suffers from an illness that far outreaches my ability to pay for this illness for the term of my short life, I often get left out of this equation and can see in some ways the benefits of a more socialist outlook. This is why I made the choice to move to Australia. I want to work hard. I want to earn what I make. I want to be able to be a woman of enterprise, and accomplishment. I want to climb in the world. I have these aspirations, but the medical system in America is broken and there is no reasonable way for me to do so in the states. In the states I had to work three jobs to pay just for my medical and never amass anything for myself. Or I could have taken the easy route and worked zero jobs and collected a government check and had my bills paid for. I find this abhorrent and sick. I have no desire to live my life on the back of a corrupt system. I want to work for my own. I want to earn and succeed and I feel that the system is set up for you to lay down and let others do for you in these cases it is too much of a "need" based system as Ayn puts it. Hence I move to a country where medical is a non issue. Now I can work and amass what I will, and no one can take that from me. Now I have a chance at an actual life in which it is of my own making. This is one of the things that I think Ayn Rand is railing against in this book. Let us EARN our keep! We want to! I want to live in a world where hard work and industry matter, and not just in words and homage but in the reality of execution. I want this reality~!

This books makes you care and makes you think, whether or not all of the points are valid etc. is not really this issue here. At the end of the day making you see the darker parts of the world are just as important as our views of the light.

On other points about the book, Hank is a hunk as handsome as his metal and I want him! Yes to Hank! The descriptions were luminous though of course given the pages she used to accomplish this task one can hardly laud her for this. The ending was trite and stupid. I pity Ayn her ending, especially as I consider this a very enjoyable work.

If you must read Ayn Rand, start with Anthem. It's awful, but it's wicked short and it'll give you an idea about what Rand's like. (She is awful.) Move on (if you still must) to The Fountainhead, which is her least bad book, and just look this up on Wikipedia. It's way too long. There's a famous 70-page speech by John Galt near the end that's famous because literally no one has ever read it. You know who writes 70-page political screeds? The Unabomber and Ayn Rand and that's it.

Rand's political views are one thing, and that one thing is inane, but she's also a mostly dreadful writer - boring at best, wincingly amateur at worst - and her characters, particularly the women, are sock puppets. Rand has very little going for her as an author of books.

Here's the problem with Rand's philosophy. Let's take John Galt's utopia, a group of high achievers taking care of themselves. Sounds fun! What happens when two of us have a kid who turns out not so bright, or lazy? That seems inevitable, and what do we do? Kick him out? That won't happen; it's not how parents work. We will have to take care of that good-for-nothing kid. And over time, we'll have them at a regular clip, because that's how humans work, and eventually we'll end up with a society just like ours, where there are some high achievers and some low achievers and we must make decisions about how the fortunate among us take care of the less fortunate.

What I'm getting at here is that any decent philosophy must envelop all humans, the awesome ones and the not-so-awesome ones. Libertarianism doesn't deal with that, which is why it's naive and stupid.

And of course we haven't even touched on racism - there are only white people in Rand's books - or other social injustice. Real societies must also deal with the fact that many humans - even high-functioning ones! - have bad judgment.

When you take these things into account, I don't know about you but I end up with a messy, imperfect society where few people are perfectly happy: we have to take more than is comfortable from the fortunate, and we have to give less than is comfortable to the less fortunate, and it's all kindof a pain in the ass. But that's how humans work, and to imagine less is a failure of imagination.

When I first put this book on my "to-read" list, I really had no idea what it was. Now that I do know, I recken it would be a collosal waste of my time, and just make my head explode from seething anger.......

But again, if I suffered through it, I could write an amazing vitriolic review that would gain many of votes.


What to do, what to do.

"Atlas Shrugged" is a novel. This ought to be fairly obvious, considering the fact that none of the events in it bear any resemblance to reality, and it's a brick-sized prose thing. Alas, some people take it as a sort of manifesto about how working hard is good and socialism is bad.

Plot-wise, Dagny has a railway and train business - and by God, she does everything to make it run well. A lot of things get in her way: a socialist government redistributing resources to everyone without an ounce of brain, incompetent collaborators, and good businessmen vanishing off without a trace. Luckily, she has extraordinary businessman Hank Rearden on her side, and together they will double-handedly try to save the world. They'll also fall in love with each other, because it feels like they're the last two competent people left.

Alas, who is John Galt? The question is asked repeatedly whenever a competent man disappears, and the mystery grows deeper and deeper before it finally gets resolved (spoiler): John Galt is the man of ultimate competence, who has realized that all competent people can give the socialist world the middle finger by removing themselves from it and letting it die on its own. It's very dramatic. Seduced by so much competence and a speech that's so long it could go around the Ecuator twice, Dagny throws herself in his arms, forsaking Rearden. Who is John Galt? He's the biggest disappointment in this novel.

Honestly, as a novel, it's not that bad (except for the speech and the ending). Come for the extreme views on the wonders of working hard, stay for the train porn.

After working on this book for several months, I finally finished it and loved it. I've learned that I rate a book highly when it forces me to think and broadens my perspective. Rand definitely accomplishes this in Atlas Shrugged and earns five stars. I am amazed at the depth of her philosophy, her intelligence, and her ability to write and communicate her ideas through strong, entertaining fictional characters.

In Atlas Shrugged, she shares her philosophy which she calls Objectivism, which in a word is a system of justice. Before reading this book, I always viewed justice as cold, distant, and inferior to mercy, but Rand helps me view the essentiality and virtues of justice. In a few other words, Rand is an advocate of reason, logic, accountability, production, capitalism, agency, human ability, and she believes that working for one's happiness is essential and each person's personal responsilibity. She is against pity, mediocrity, taxation, seizing wealth and production from those who produce to redistribute to those who are unwilling to work hard. In the story, she illustrates what would happen to the world if incentive to produce is removed from the intelligent and able - the motor of the world would stop.

I love how Rand's character Dagny Taggart is such an example of intelligence and ability. She will move heaven and earth to accomplish her purposes and she approaches life with such passion. She runs the leading transcontinental railroad in the country, and Rand created this character in the 1950's!

Despite my love of the book, there were a few drawbacks for me. Rand believes that one's professional work, what he is able to produce, is THE purpose of life, definitely a "live to work" approach. Also, I didn't find any thread of mercy in her philosophy, which makes me wonder her view on caring for those who cannot care for themselves. Rand also has a sexual theme that emerges several times in the book which I didn't know I was in for when I began the book. Be forewarned that it's there, and she has a strong theory on sexuality that you'll be exposed to in reading the book.

Reading Atlas Shrugged reminded and empowered me to work hard for what I want in life, to stop making excuses, and to hold myself accountable and responsible for what I do or don't acoomplish.

I have a soft spot for Ayn Rand. Not for her ideas, God no, her frothing, short sighted capitalism worship and rape fetishes are fouler than Satan's unwashed boxers. Nonetheless, Ayn Rand the wordsmith and person is still strangely fascinating, and she is undoubtedly the B-movie star of philosophy and the Ed Wood of literature.

Her villains are single minded robots made of spray painted buckets and colanders; her protagonists are as one-dimensional as background props with garish colour jobs. Her plots are endless rambles of terrible exposition and philosophical speeches, shoe-horned in because the director worried the metaphors weren't clear enough. She also has her absurd 'robot leopard versus giant octopus in a volcano' moments no sane writer would attempt.

The above description is true for all her books and plays (save  Anthem which is unforgivably boring), but as for Atlas Shrugged itself:
I liked Dagny. She's a no nonsense, get shit done heroine with sexual independence and agency, which is especially commendable for the time this was published. It's a shame then that she is ultimately seen as the 'grand prize', awarded to whichever of our male protagonists can demonstrate they're the most obnoxiously objectivist stud. Two of our male protagonists were "alright", but the infamous John Galt is simutaneously the most interesting man in the world and rather forgettable in person. Every other character has their role rigidly defined, with good and bad split exclusively into 'blood sucking parasite villains' or 'salt of the earth paragons of objectivist ideals', and eveyone's dialogue is so unreal and prescribed it becomes hilarious pantomime, all with the authenticity and power of sock puppets.

Ayn Rand, from a story telling and philosophy standpoint, is not very good, but I find her just competent and incompetent enough to enjoy as unintentional comedy.

And that would be fine if that's how we all treat her work,  A Modest Proposal written by an actual cannibal, but the problem is Rand is also competent enough for people to take her seriously, because she appears to agree with their own bias that everything should be about money and looking after number one.

What's even more annoying is many of the people who applaud her for that clearly didn't do what I did, which was actually read this brick from start to finish, including the John Galt speech (I'm still angry a chocolate biscuit didn't materialise from the ether to reward me for that). Rand praised people who create, stuck to principles (flawed as they may be), are willing to get their hands dirty and take risks. Someone who makes cash by selling off production to sweat shops or through aggressive stock takeovers, all while knowing Daddy or the government will bail them out when it all goes tits up, were never Rand's idea of Objectivist heroes at all. They don't make anything but money and they're doing Rand a disservice by claiming she'd approve. She openly hated Reagan, and I can promise you she'd have vomited when Trump claimed she was his favourite author.

Should you, if you're economically left of Milton Friedman, read this book for a laugh? No. It's a thousand pages of synthetic strawmen tosh and I am a masochist. If you're genuinely interested about Rand but want to keep your sanity, then watch her movie adaption of her other book  The Fountainhead instead. It sums up her views found in Atlas Shrugged as well, and it's only two hours of adorably dumb melodrama and phallic metaphors, which is still an hour shorter than that bloody John Galt speech.